Tag: Blithe Spirit

The good and the bad, emphasis on Trib and Sun-Times

Bernanke Stutters?

I know stutters and this ain’t it.  It’s the second item I’ve seen in last two days about Bernanke looking bad on this point — the other was being questioned by a Congressman — and each time he doesn’t.

Heat’s on him and Fed because it’s lending (creating) money and not just setting rates, and rightly so,  And bigger q. is what about the Fed in the first place?  But that’s a minority view, to be sure.

As for his argument about letting Congress decide monetary matters — rates — if we need a wizard, those bozos can’t be the one, but more to point, that’s not the law, he argues.

Mad Barney Frank at the monetary helm?  Hollywood Waxman?  God save us.

Bernanke Stutters, Stammers And Shakes His Way Through Questions On Audit The Fed Bill

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Four in an hour

These burglaries are on the north end of town, not northeast, where houses are especially nice and residents are generally more affluent.

Oak Park police have issued a neighborhood alert following four residential burglaries within a four hour period early Wednesday morning. The burglaries occurred within a roughly four square block area bounded by Division on the north, Chicago on the south, Oak Park to the west and Ridgeland to the east

Details:

Three of the homes were entered through unlocked rear doors, and one through an open window. Numerous valuables were stolen while homeowners slept inside.

Oh boy.  While they slept. 

Cops are on it.  Indeed, they have been getting results.  But those unlocked back doors bespeak a confidence in one’s safety that is proving unrealistic.

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Orwellian science adviser

This was above Obama’s pay grade as a candidate, but as president he found a guy for whom it wasn’t:

President Obama’s top science adviser [John P. Holdren] said in a book he co-authored in 1973 that a newborn child “will ultimately develop into a human being” if he or she is properly fed and socialized.

That was his studied opinion.  His co-authors were uber population panic-peddler Paul Ehrlich, of Population Bomb fame, and Anne Ehrlich.

In the 1970s and 1980s . . . hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now,

Ehrlich wrote, in a prediction that bombed.

As for the newborn,

“The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being,” John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in “Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions.”

He’s Obama’s kind of guy, apparently.

He also

advocated the “de-development” of the United States in books he published in the 1970s.

It would work this way:

“A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States,” Holdren wrote in [another] 1973 book he co-authored with Paul R. Ehrlch and Anne H. Ehrlich.

De-development?

“De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation.”

Back we would go to our golden age of primitivism, including radical wealth redistribution.

“The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge,” they wrote. “They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided to every human being.”

Fascism, I called it in a Wed. Journal column last October.  How else but by such control of people’s lives can this be achieved?

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Later: True, the wild scenario urged on us by the science advisor in 1973 is fascistic.  But from there to say O. is equally fascistic is a stretch, it occurs to me.  One thing at a time, in other words.  At issue here is the kind of adviser O. picks.  He’s at least comfortable with this kind of thinking.  At least.

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Keep those rules and regs coming . . .

New Jersey is surpassing Illinois as a citadel of corruption, and this woman knows why:

Sandy McClure, co-author of the book “The Soprano State: New Jersey’s Culture of Corruption,” agrees that big government is a big reason behind the state’s corruption problem.

“You have all these little authorities that everyone has to go to for permission,” she says. “Too much government means too many opportunities for officials looking to cash in. And there’s no way that the press can keep track of it all.”  [Italics added]

Every new ordinance means a new chance to bribe and be bribed, does it not?

 

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We like to be in charge, you see . . .

It’s suspicion-of-profit time at the U.S. government:

The chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Tuesday he believes the agency must “seriously consider” setting “strict” new limits on traders who place bets on energy contracts.

The standard arguments prevail, the same chutzpah:

“The CFTC is in the best position to apply limits across different exchanges, and we are most able to strike a balance between competing interests and the responsibility to protect the American public,” Mr. [Gary] Gensler said.

He’s the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s new commissioner, “pledged to look into setting aggregate limits across commodities of finite supply to make the rules more consistent.”

Now “certain agricultural markets” feel CFTC’s strong, visible hand — “hard limits” — soon oil, currently under such limits only in the last three days of a contract.  Speculation jacked up prices last time around, not heightened demand for shrinking supply, as some old-timers continue to insist on, say these wizards.

No nature-of-the-beast thinking here, no nature of anything, just stuff to be manipulated.

One of the big guys, CME Group, is on board with this stuff. Stands for Chicago Mercantile Exchange, owner of Merc and Board of Trade — among whose directors has been the astute and readable Sun-Times columnist Terry Savage, age 64 (!), since July 2007, for what that’s worth.

Ramifications of what CFTC does exceed the scope of my pay level, as do many other ramifications, but we do spy a, ah, philosophical difference here between standard Republican and standard Democrat approaches to business, do we not?  Not to mention when the Democrat hails from the party’s radical wing.

Gensler has blamed “speculation by index investors” for last year’s price run-up,” in the face of CFTC economists’ holding for “supply and demand  fundamentals, not speculation, [as] to blame.”

Yes.

As for CME support for this, it’s the sort of thing that the big guys have always liked, they being very conservative with their bundles.  (CME trailing only Amex, ING, the NY exchange, and Citigroup.)  At least since FDR, the biggies have lived nicely with controls and regulations — hey, hire a new compliance officer, set up a new department, we can afford it.

While not so big guys moan in the spirit of this fellow, reacting on Market Watch to the July 7 news of these very coming CFTC regulations: “Watch them help Goldman [Sachs] and JPM[organ] steal more.”

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Andrew Greeley on the mend

The latest on Rev. Andrew Greeley, injured in a taxi-related accident in November of ’08, update as of 3/17/10:

Father Andrew Greeley and family wish to express their profound gratitude to all who have kept him in their prayers. On his behalf, we ask for your continued prayers for him and for all victims of traumatic brain injury and their families.

We express our thanks to the skilled medical personnel, caregivers, and rehabilitation therapists who have cared for and encouraged him during this difficult time.  We will continue to work so that, in spite of his injury, he can enjoy a quality of life in keeping with his imagination, intelligence, and service to his Church and community.

Through the years, we have observed first hand his deep commitment to his friends, academic colleagues, readers, fellow priests, and parishioners. We know that Fr. Greeley blesses you for your concern.  Happy Easter to all!

Earlier:

Health update 05/15/09 from downtown Chicago

Father Greeley still has therapy three mornings a week. He continues to make good
progress in physical, speech, and occupational therapy, and his family and friends are
hopeful he will continue his recovery.

On May 5 he celebrated his 55th anniversary as
a priest.

Yet earlier, the first such update:

Health update 04/05/09 from downtown Chicago

Father Greeley is home where he continues intensive therapy. He has been making some excellent progress. The sessions are hard, but Fr. Greeley is tenacious. He and his family continue to appreciate your kind messages. Thanks to all.

More to come, when available, says the site.

No-news Sunday

Both major all-metro dailies looked tired today — a beautiful Sunday morning, yes, when people, or “folks” as Obama always says, are out and about early, with little time for Chi Trib and Sun-Times. But how boring and inconsequential can you be, even on a late-July Sunday, and still lay claim to excellence, not to mention stay afloat financially?

So: weak outing for the two major metros today.

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* But first, not part of their weak outing, Obama is widely quoted saying he “gave the impression [he] was maligning” the Cambridge MA cop and department, a day after telling a prime-time national audience that the cop acted “stupidly.” Q: How does O. sound when he really does malign someone?

Plus: To say you give “the impression” of doing something implies you did it inadvertently. He makes inadvertent statement on prime-time national TV? Does he do that often? Also when he negotiates without preconditions with the Iran president et al.? Q: Is he ready for prime time?

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Getting back to the two majors, Sun-Times got to p. 5A (Sneed item) with first news of the day, after:

* Pure puffery for the Urban League’s president who is candidate for governor, with flattering head shot (“Convention a boost for Senate bid?”),

* Report of hackneyed advice in a “Latina” adress to grads of an online “university” (!), namely, guess what?, don’t drop out.

* Health story, on 5A, recounting a (self-promoting) Chi doc (who supplied his nicest head shot), disputing a “nationally known” doc about letting babies cry.

Finally the Sneed column, with its usual heard-on-the-Rialto stuff, including birthday hellos to Sandra Bullock and Mick Jagger (permitting an editor to run head shots of those consummate newsmakers), but — and this the news — a not-bad item about Michelle O’s wearing a $2G (!)sweater made in France, which I take as nouveau riche extravagance. Maybe it’s not such a bad country after all, eh Michelle?

And at least Sneed keeps it short and more or less newsy, something worth the 90 seconds needed to read it.

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As for Chi Trib, it was time to take dry cleaners to the cleaners again with an old pollution story, “Cleaners leave toxic legacy,” a longtime staple of ecology crusading — DRY CLEANERS SAY NEW EPA RULES ARE LEAVING THEM OUT TO DRY, July 4, 1993; A DRY RUN – CLEANER PRESSES CASE FOR NON-CHEMICAL METHOD, June 9, 1993; DRY CLEANER LOSES BID TO ADD MACHINE – ARLINGTON BOARD SHIFTS ON VARIANCE, May 24, 1991 to name a few stories — and just the thing for Sunday morning breakfast, when we all want to get mad as hell at Koreans.

More:

* “Human cost of budget crisis” on page one has same old artsy (mournfully gazing into distance) shots of Suffering People — black male schozophrenic looking like a youthful Paul
Robeson doing “Old Man River,” a mentally handicated adult woman, an autistic girl with Afro features. Read it and weep.

* John Kass on page 2 with expose of yet another state boondoggle, with graduitous reference to Bad Bill Cellini, super-connected and under indictment.

* Michelle again! In major headshot-decorated story about how she bobs her curls, etc. on p. 3. (Axelrod, stop them; she’s overexposed.)

* On p. 4 the polluted dry cleaner sites, listed and mapped and bemoaned.

* Story of hotel strikers now six years on the line — included here because they were happily ignored a few weeks ago by Society of Midland Authors on their way to their annual dinner, as they were by thousands of others before them who continue to use the worn-looking, even seedy Congress Hotel.

* On p. 6 at the bottom a many-paragraphed (one per sentence) Mary Schmich column sucking her thumb — “We talk a lot about untangling the mess of race in this country” — giving us an over-back-fence chat available in any neighborhood. She has words meant to sooth a savage breast. (But for police union waiting presidential apology for “stupidly,” go to Trib’s web site, we are told in a bottom right column inch.

* On p. 8 Annie Sweeney, late of Sun-Times, has story with a head for the ages, “Few surprises in state traffic study.” [I give up, Trib online ed., where is it?]  Thanks of course to a copy editor with a grudge against Annie, for all we know. Q: If there are few surprises, why bother? This is a news-paper, not one that announces no news today.

Sometimes I think they are just all tired out at these papers, undermanned (womanned) and overworked and suffering a malaise . . . .

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Multifaceted messiah

He wines and dines, we know that, hopping the nearest jet plane to New York for a night on the town, grinning like that renowned cat.  But did we know he also whines?

“Let’s just lay everything on the table,” [Sen. Charles] Grassley said. “A Democrat congressman last week told me after a conversation with the president that the president had trouble in the House of Representatives, and [Obamacare] wasn’t going to pass if there weren’t some changes made … and the president says, ‘You’re going to destroy my presidency.’ “

Illustrations:

Cheshire_Cat_Tenniel

Dat’s de cat.

Obama in NY

Dat’s de grin.

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Safe hands

More on governmental fiscal reliability, albeit as part of a gruesome overall situation.  How many billion?  (At least they are keeping track.)  How many did Enron lose?

The Taxinator may be breathing a sigh of relief over “fixing” California’s budget problems.

But darker clouds loom.

Case in point:

California’s huge government pension fund is expected to report today a whopping annual loss of an estimated $56.8 billion, almost a quarter of its investment portfolio. [Italics added]

That’s from the irreplaceable Michelle Malkin, thanks to link from the irreplaceable Instapundit.  Instant is right.  It’s how the b’sphere works — hand in hand with the main stream, in this case LA Times.  Malkin reads the paper for us, Insta’s Glenn Reynolds reads Malkin, etc., creating an epidemic of information disseminated by trustworthy sources.

Michelle’s closing comment is as scary as a Terminator left hook:

And as California goes, so goes the nation.

Or worse, one of his super-pistol blasts.

Terminator w-gun

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