WUI (Writing under the influence)

I can't wait to play poker in my new poker room. But I've been pretty slow finishing the house tree for my girls so the poker room (a.k.a. garage) is still full of lumber from the old deck that I'm using to build the house tree.

In any case, this is how both look like today. The poker room is painted and only needs a new floor before we can play. The ceiling needs some work but I can't decide how to finish it so I'm waiting for some inspiration. The house tree needs some trim, the door and glass in windows.

Some people still keep score. This is just one month. Remember Bushisms? This will be much, much longer in 4 years. Will it be called Obamaisms? Or just good public policy?

Top 10 Obama Blunders in Just One Month
1. Pelosi’s Stimulus Package:
2. Geithner’s Financial Bailout:
3. Census Grab:
4. Commerce Debacle:
5. Cabinet Tax Cheats:
6. Closing Gitmo:
7. Reversing Mexico City:
8. Talking Down the Economy:
9. Phony Bipartisanship:
10. Iran Dialogue:

It's called Top 10 for a reason. There are space limitations in opinion journalism so you have to choose your arguments carefully even if the material is so reach.

More data supporting my column:

First, I was wrong to say the US has the second highest corporate tax rate. Japan has just lowered its so ours is now the highest. Congratulations! (I still have to verify this; there are no stories online anywhere.)

Karl Rove burns the straw men set up by Obama but he also reminds us that Clinton and Summers who is now one of Obama's advisers contributed to today's crisis.

"Perhaps Mr. Obama was talking about George W. Bush. But Mr. Bush spent five years pushing to further regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He was blocked by Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank. Arriving in the Senate in 2005, Mr. Obama backed up Mr. Dodd's threat to filibuster Mr. Bush's needed reforms."

And this is just spot on:

"Continually characterizing those who disagree with you in a fundamentally dishonest way can be the sign of a person who lacks confidence in the merits of his ideas."

We can't think of the bottom 10%:

"Moving to housing, the Obama administration plans to spend $275 billion in order to aid homebuyers who borrowed irrationally in order to buy that which they couldn’t afford. Proponents of the plan suggest that this will be economy enhancing, but in truth, efforts meant to cushion the failures of the bottom 10 percent of homebuyers will be economically retarding for turning the above-mentioned business logic on its head."

[...]

"In the aftermath of the Korean War, North Korea imposed the notion of “songbun” on its citizenry. The poor and shiftless for being poor and shiftless had “good” songbun, and today they are the privileged class for having failed most impressively. The successful in North Korea were demonized for being that way, and today they are the bottom caste in a society that has committed economic suicide right before our eyes."

Rich already pay more than enough:

"Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income."

Well, that does it. I could probably get used to socialism; after all, I've experienced it once. But bad grammar is simply not acceptable. Impeach!!!

Even Kyoto now says global warming isn't caused by humans. But we all know they are wrong: there is no global warming anymore.

And Al Gore is retreating as well:

In forcing Gore to back down from his preposterous claims, Pielke did us all a favor by standing up for the integrity of science. He is not a denier of anything. He just wants to take politics out of science.

This guy will work for Obama:

On the massacre at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Mr. Freeman unabashedly sides with the Chinese government, a remarkable position for an appointee of an administration that has pledged to advance the cause of human rights. Mr. Freeman has been a participant in ChinaSec, a confidential Internet discussion group of China specialists. A copy of one of his postings was provided to me by a former member. "The truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities," he wrote there in 2006, "was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud." Moreover, "the Politburo's response to the mob scene at 'Tiananmen' stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action." Indeed, continued Mr. Freeman, "I do not believe it is acceptable for any country to allow the heart of its national capital to be occupied by dissidents intent on disrupting the normal functions of government, however appealing to foreigners their propaganda may be."

I'm seriously concerned for my safety if I, like hundreds of thousands liberals who protested Bush, decide to protest Obama. And he is already making sure I won't be able to defend myself.

While his daughters enjoy private education, Obama is killing choice for everybody else. When will he come for me?

Liberals are known for not giving money to charities. They hate it when we use this fact against them. So what's Obama doing? He thinks that we donate to charity because we can then take some deductions from our taxes. So he will lower those deductions. It is true that we take those deductions because they are there. That's the system we have. But if it were only about money, not giving is worth more than giving. So I think Obama will be disappointed when it turns out that most of us will continue or maybe, for spite, give even more. Of course, he will take care of it by simply raising our taxes so much that we won't afford to share our money with anybody. Welcome to People's Republic of America.

When I penned that column to answer Professor Dondero's plea for patience and self-censorship, I didn't know Obama would speak a day before my column would be printed in our local paper. So one column serves as a response to two liberals instead of just one.

BTW, just in case somebody doubts that Clinton probably is mostly to blame for the current crisis, the New York Times had this piece printed in 1999:

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

We all know that Democrats lie. We expected that Obama would lie. But his speech was a combination of 1984 and Animal Farm. And I'm afraid most people will not notice. He's a fake. But the media will sell him to the nation. Can he riun this country before 2010?

More scaremongering to fool us into believing that FDR had a right idea and that only Obama's socialist ideas can get us out of this mess. The author of this ridiculous piece of revisionist history is, surprise, surprise, university professor. And emeritus to boot. He asks us to be patient and keep any misgivings to ourselves.

The piece was published in our paper and this is my reply.

No, Professor Emeritus Dondero, we will not give President Obama enough time to repeat some of FDR’s worst mistakes that, according to all honest economists, and yes, even some university professors, only prolonged the recession of 1929 and turned it into the Great Depression.

We will indeed be critical of Obama and his Democratic minions as they attempt to turn this country into another socialist paradise. The country where I was born and raised, People's Republic of Poland , was ruled by leftists with the same good intentions now on display in the White House and in the U.S. Congress. For some reason, I and countless others left the moment we had a chance. I came to the US because of its founding ideals. For the sake of my children, and to preserve America 's orignal promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of hapiness (and not fairness or equal outcome), I’m staying and I’m ready to fight.

And please, as a so-called professor, at least pretend to be less biased. You say that Reagan didn’t face criticism from the press? On the contrary, the same vicious attacks by the deranged left we experienced for the last eight years were exactly what Reagan had to face throughout his presidency.

Also, you conveniently omit from your list of culprits the people most responsible for our current problems. Jimmy Carter, arguably, the worst American president, and Chicago community organizers (sounds familiar?) created the Community Reinvestment Act that over the years forced banks to loan money to people who couldn’t possible pay it back. The problem was compounded when Bill Clinton forced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy those risky loans so more banks could loan even more money to so called underrepresented classes. And even when it became apparent that the scheme was not sustainable and could cause an economic collapse, such Democrats as Barney Frank and Chris Dodd declined to even acknowledge there was a problem.

And if you resent the richest 10 percent and want them to pay even greater share of taxes, please know that some of us resent those who don’t pay anything. The richest 10 percent already pay 66 percent of federal income taxes while the bottom 40 percent pay nothing.

Our corporations have the second-highest tax rate in the world at 35 percent. But this apparently is not enough for you. We have the most expensive K-12 education in the world. But teachers unions are never satiated.

Yes, our health care is expensive but it is also overregulated by the government and overburdened with constant threats from predatory, ambulance-chasing lawyers. Call your dogs off, professor, before you start taxing and regulating more. What’s next? Carbon dioxide regulated as a pollutant?

All those programs, starting with the New Deal, continuing with the Great Society and the Community Reinvestment Act (and other so called "affordable" housing schemes) were supposed to improve the lives of the bottom 10 percent. It’s hard to say if they have, but it’s obvious that their ruinous cost far outweighs any benefits.

We’ve been worrying about the bottom 10 percent for the past 80 years and now 90 percent of us and our children will pay for it. But this is just the beginning. If not completely reformed, Social Security and Medicare will bankrupt this country unless, of course, Obama does it first by spending more on government pet projects, by taxing the most successful members of our society while rewarding the least productive and most irresponsible, and by killing private markets with strangulating over-regulation.

So no, professor, we will not sit idly while Democrats continue ruining this country with more taxes, more regulation and more class envy. And we will not listen to university professors whose understanding of economy is as inane as yours is, and whose attempts at revising history are simply shameless.

Lastly, I hope, professor, you will at least agree with another closet socialist named Howard Zinn who said in the height of his opposition to the Bush regime that dissent was the highest form of patriotism.

Or has this notion also undergone some revision after the last election? Or maybe this right is reserved for Democrats while Republicans can only show their patriotism by paying higher taxes and keeping their mouths shut.

Like many commenters point out, Democrats are either stupid or purposefully find offense where none can be found or both.


There is nothing wrong with race. However, I don't care for certain cultures. I don't like loud mariachi or rap music from rolled-down windows and cars with funny loud mufflers. I don't care for Mexican food, for example. Is that wrong? I don't like Polish food that much. There are a few good dishes but overall I'm not missing that type of cuisine that much. So I don't understand why it's wrong to look for friends among people with whom you share similar values and similar customs. Also, I wonder if it's really whites who segregate themselves today from other races. Of course, I don't want to live in a neighborhood with a lot of graffiti and cars on bricks. Is that wrong?

By "fixing" the mortgage problem Obama is doing exactly the same thing that got us here: over-regulating the mortgage market. Banks were forced by politicians and community organizer to loan money to people whi couldn't afford the loans/ To lower the exposure to the risk, the banks than put the bad and good loans together into security instruments. By selling too many houses too quickly a boom was created. When people couldn't pay their mortgages, their houses were foreclosed and the bust happened. Message to Obama and other statists: leave the markets alone or admit what you want to do. You know free markets work fine. But you can't control people when they don't need your help. So you screw up with free markets, get people laid off and now you pretend you want to help them. while the only thing you want is to create and maintain as many dependents as necessary to win elections.

Social security, medicare, unemployment insurance and others were invented to deal with calamities brought by the same people who came up with those programs. Yes, unemployment insurance is needed but if we were able to save more of our own money maybe it wouldn't.

So congratulations, George Bush! Whenever history professors rank you as one of the "worst" presidents, it's a good bet you were one of America's greatest

The same people who tell us we need affordable housing and that people who today can't afford a house will be responsible owners if we just subsidize their houses, also tell us that children must be provided breakfast and lunch at school because their irresponsible parents don't feed them. But these are the same people!!!! If they can't feed their own children, why would they pay their mortgage?

BTW, affordable housing ruined our economy. And houses would be less expensive in our area if there were more land to build them on. But the same people who advocate for affordable housing are probably also advocating for keeping farmers from selling some of their land for development and from making some money to send their children to college so they could one day find a job good enough to pay for their own house without the rest of the society having to subsidize it.

Democrats are confused by the word "principles." Yes, dear comrades, there is such a thing and that's why Gregg has resigned and that's why Frank and Dodd are still in office.

Some conflicting news from TriMet. More people riding but TriMed is more in the red? Of course, the truth is that this boondoggle will never be profitable. Also, compare bus rides to MAX rides. It's not even close. Why or why do we spend money on this stupid train tram?

We know how far metal thieves will go, right? I though I had heard everything until I read this story. And I'm one of them!!!

Even the few things Carter could be praised for are myths. He is indeed TWO (The Worthless One.)

Moving back east? I may just stay here so I could tease the morons who supported Obama and Democrats in general while they were ruing our country. But I would not punish my children. Poland had had a great heritage of free thinking but at some point one has to decide whether it's worth wasting one's life for an idea that is being destroyed by populism or fascism. So I've told my kids that they should feel free to leave the US if it becomes something like Poland ca. 1987. It would be ironic for my kids to become slaves in the country that abolished slavery.

Stupid Polak watch

The first Question Othority Award goes to Judd Gregg for standing up to Obama.

The only good thing about the stimulus is that when if fails, it will put to bed the idea that FDR's policies didn't work because he didn't spend enough. The current price of the bill is more then federal budgets were until 1983. Is that big enough? As WSJ notes today, "If nothing else good comes from this exercise, at least Senators Snowe, Susan Collins and Arlen Specter should be laughed out of town if they ever fret about a budget deficit again."

And just to make it clear. The wars and all other defense spending since 2001 is still below $1 trillion. And we can end future spending any time we want. Once many programs in the stimulus bill are in place, they will have to be founded or abolished. But we know how the latter works, don't we? Like once caller to Rush Limbaugh said today: "We've been protecting weak and stupid for so long that now everybody is weak and stupid." Of course, to be doomed we need 51% of weak and stupid. Are we there yet?

Lastly, it is now official: Obama lies. He said during his campaign and in his inauguration speech that he would look at every government program to see if it works and if it doesn't he would end it. 20% of the money in the bill goes to government-run education and most of it will pay for existing programs. Obama, which public schools are your daughters attending? Oh, right...

And this is just one example.

As much as it pains me to say it, here it goes: boycott UK.

Google changes its logo for Darvin but not for Lincoln. Both were born on the same day. BTW, Darvin thought that blacks were inferior to whites and all other races. So it's clear that Google doesn't celebrate Darvin as much as it wants to offend Muslims Christians. Darvin's ideas were also used by proponents of eugenics. He was against saving weak members of society because it went against his "evolutionary" ideas. Are Googlers supporting those ideas as well?

"Despite political rhetoric to the contrary, it's actually a perfect bill—if you're a leftist who's been howling at the moon in rage for 30 years."

Economy after Carter and before Obama


Liberalism kills.


An honest person in Portland? I hope so. However, the story has this clue: he couldn't cash the bonds himself. So, who knows?

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/US/story?id=6848670&page=1

I think Obama wants to pass this stimulus as is because he hopes for two things.

One, the economy will improve as soon as the media convince people that the stimulus has started to work and everything is getting better. People will again start spending money, employers will hire again, etc., etc.

Second, he will buy a lot of new constituency and reward the existing one to win future elections for at least one generation.

He knows that the latter alone worked for FDR but that by now people are beginning to understand that FDR's policies didn't do much to get country of out recession and in fact may have prolonged it and turn it into the bug depression. He hopes that what the media couldn't do for FDR will be possible now: the media will simply tell people that if they refuse to participate in the economy they are racists and that they want this wonderful president to fail.

It worked to elect him, why shouldn't it work to make people go into debt if necessary to make the economy recover for 2010 elections and keep it there until at least 2012?

The economy will tank later due to inflation but the history books about how successful Obama was will have been written by then.

Helpful advice for Obama:

"Reexamine what Jimmy Carter said from November 1976 to January 1977—and what he learned of the world by late 1979."

And

"Remember that the more you claim unprecedented morality [...], the easier it is for facts to belie the rhetoric. [...] For Bill Clinton to appoint a Daschle is a misdemeanor, for you it's a felony."

As a refugee in Italy, I also considered emigrating to New Zealand in case I wouldn't get my US visa. Will I regret not going? I hope not. But I'm telling my children that they shouldn't feel obligated to stay here when the taxes exceed 50% of what they make rendering them slaves of the state. How ironic that the country that abolished the slavery is now going back to its old ways.


Polish engineer is decapitated by Muslim animals in Pakistan and Poles finally realize that they are not fighting this war to get a visa-free access to the US but to fight the evil that plagued the west for centuries. Is it Vienna time for Poles again or do we need a bombing in Poland? On the other hand, what used to be a great western empire is crumbling under the Muslim threat. Polish people, make sure that your immigration laws prohibit Muslims.

I guess the consensus on man-made global warming is as universal as the one on Obama's stimulus package.

BTW, why is it called Obama's stimulus package? Pelosi and other liberals wrote it first in the house and it was adjusted in the Senate. There is nothing in it that looks like Obama's fingerprints. But then, that man doesn't leave his fingerprints on anything.

Taranto makes an excellent point. We are not supposed to know if somebody is looking for bomb building material in our local libraries but the same anti-Patriot-Act snobs released private information of that hero pilot. What if the book he had borrowed had been something he would be embarrassed to let others know about? I don't know, something like Treason by Ann Coulter, maybe?

Obama said "I screwed up" regarding his failed appointments who had to withdraw because they weren't patriotic enough (i.e., they didn't pay taxes.) I hope it doesn't mean we are screwed up. There are still 4 years to go. Oh, my God!

California is officially broke. While reading some op-eds in San Francisco Examiner I found out that California's constitution mandates that education and debt obligations be paid first. So, in theory, and apparently, in practice, the state may fire all police officers and firefighters before firing some school administrators. This is what passes as common sense in blue states now days.

Obama's (partial) watch list.

Tom Daschle is a closet Republican: he cuts his own taxes.

The tree house has its roof finished. These pictures were taken as I was hurrying before the next rain. I worked day and night. I had to use those two braces because as I was on the roof the tree house was swaying too much under my weight. When I built my shed, I had the same problem. But because the lumber was pine as opposed to cedar and I was only 8 feet of the ground, I took my chances. This time, it was too high to risk a fall.

I went to Bruce Starr's town meeting last night. It was rather depressing. It looked like there were only like-minded people who complained that the legislature is going the wrong way. The only answer Starr had was that he was in minority and there was nothing Republicans could do to block Democrats' inane ideas.

I have to write to him and remind him that Oregon has a very powerful initiative system and that it takes a true leader to take advantage of it. Just because people vote for Democrats doesn't mean they agree with them. The 2004 election proved it. Kerry got more votes than Bush but the original intent behind the marriage was upheld by the people. The same thing happened in Californian in the last election.

So Bruce would be wise to stop complaining, to stop being complacent and to start being a leader we need in these dark times. It wouldn't hurt to send a few letters to editor reminding people that our governor is trying to wreck (the rest of) the economy with his incredibly misguided policies on so called global warming climate change.

Some people had questions about the government-run education and why Kulongoski wants to cut it a month short this year. First, stop complaining and send your children to private schools. Second, since the hard subjects like math are not taught any more in government-run schools, the shorter the school year the better. That way, the kids may actually not be brain-washed into believing that humans cause global warming climate change.

Now I understand why Timothy Geithne's tax problems were considered minor... compared to those "honest mistakes" made by Tom Daschle. So this is my message to IRS: I'm very sorry, deeply embarrassed and disappointed for any mistakes I will have made on my return this year.

I promised after the inauguration I'd set up an Obama watch list but he has screwed up so many things so far that I've abandoned that idea. I will let others, with more time on their hands, keep compiling such lists. This sums it up pretty well:

"In the realm of foreign affairs, the first ten days of Barack Obama's administration were a disaster. It's hard to believe that even a foreign policy neophyte like Obama could blunder so badly, on so many fronts, in such a short time"

Apparently, the "stimulus" bill has in it the "Buy American" clause, which has caused Canadians and Europeans to start threatening the US with a trade war. Great! Obama loses the goodwill of the world in just 10 days. It took Bush 2 wars to do the same or less since there were a few important allies that still liked us.

Quote of the day.

Certain PU professors, editors of a certain local paper and some people I know, think about it:

"In fact, Bush hatred and Obama euphoria -- which tend to reveal more about those who feel them than the men at which they are directed -- are opposite sides of the same coin. Both represent the triumph of passion over reason. Both are intolerant of dissent. Those wallowing in Bush hatred and those reveling in Obama euphoria frequently regard those who do not share their passion as contemptible and beyond the reach of civilized discussion. Bush hatred and Obama euphoria typically coexist in the same soul. And it is disproportionately members of the intellectual and political class in whose souls they flourish."

Also, the same triumph of passion over reason is the debate about whether humans cause global warming climate change is not over yet and it should have been long time ago. The good thing is it's finally unraveling.