Unemployment is officially at 10.0 percent, a ridiculous and absurdly high number that should hardly be surprising given the additional burdens that the government and particularly this administration has foisted on the private sector. First off, the magnitude of the problem was recognized early on with dire predictions thrown out should the so called stimulus bill not get passed. I cannot even pretend to call what came out of Congress and was signed into law anything approaching a “stimulus” bill. It was simply a tally of what projects each Democratic congressman wanted done in their district, and once these were bundled into a large enough mass it had the balance sheet look of a stimulus package but no other tangible and beneficial aspects. The fact that the Obama administration tried to sell it as such demonstrates a lack of seriousness on their part when dealing with the economic crisis. That lack of seriousness is what we are all paying for now. The spoils of the 2008 election rained out of the treasury like the culmination of a barbarian attack. The fact that our economy has not magically recovered simply on the command of Obama himself has led to the comical defenses of the “stimulus” spending and a falsification of jobs created or saved while this listing Titanic of an economy sinks lower in the water.

The burdens on the private sector are more onerous than ever, and this is how the recovery is to take hold? Snuffed out in the bud is more like it. Twelve to eighteen months ago I argued the policies that I thought were necessary to forestall the pain we are enduring now. I linked the economic recovery to policies that encourage the marketplace to do what it does best and work out any imbalances without a huge bump in unemployment rocking the system. Later, as the situation became more dire, I argued for across the board tax cuts to encourage private employment and an expanding economy. My thoughts of the right size of tax cuts were boldly in the 25% range. Now the economy appears in even worse shape, perhaps mortally wounded and revenues on all levels of government have fallen precipitously. The problem is not too much spending or too little spending, but a moribund economy with no reason or mechanism to start growing again. Believe me when I say that this can occur.

A truly healthy and growing (private sector) economy would cure so many ills. With that as a goal I do not think that any idea should be off the table. In that vein I propose the only policy that I believe will quickly restore the economic engine of the world that this country has been for going on a century. I propose a corporate and income tax holiday for a year followed by a gradual reimplementation of the taxes back to where they need to be to sustain this nation, its goals, and its citizen safety net. Imagine the boon and subsequent boom that would occur should the consumers and the companies that serve them receive a year off from the taxes. The results would be stunning. The surging economy that this would provide could then be properly harnessed for clearing up the budgetary imbalances, even better should some restraint in the rate of government growth manifest itself.

The price tag for such a scheme would be about a trillion dollars a year prorated down annually as the taxes are gradually restored. I say a trillion since I believe that such a steep revenue drop underway will actually have the federal government pull in less money from taxes than they have in many years. On the scale of a 14 trillion dollar debt another 1 to 2 trillion would not be too much to add for the expected benefits. Like a venture capital driven startup, this deficit would set the foundation for explosive growth and a broad base for restoring the revenue to the government. A small price to pay that could be repaid in a handful of years with a more sensibly run and no longer overpromising federal bureaucracy and a strongly growing economy. The lesson of the surplus years following the Republican revolution shows what can be done without hardly even trying thanks to a robust economy. However, anything less at this point would likely amount to good money chasing after bad, particularly as proposed by such a market-phobic group as those in power now.

President Obama, for whatever his proclivities, is content to let the far left Democratic leaders in the House and Senate dictate his agenda guided only loosely by his abstract platitudes and a wish list apropos a kindergartner: “the world should live in peace”, “everyone should have health care”, “if only we got rid of our nuclear weapons…”, etc. This sheltered economic, political, and historical view comes not from an abundance of yet to be connected synapses nor from the realm of naps, milk and cookies. No, Obama-tics come from the logical extension of living in the charmed sounding board of unrestrained and unchallenged liberalism. The dominant culture, as reflective of, or created by, the naturally Utopian liberal leanings of the mainstream media and Hollywood has been taken as normal long enough to be seen, ala a new emperor’s suit, as a righteous fact of modern life. However, like Plato’s cave, the gooey stream of pop culture and lockstep, reflexive, thinking is a mere echo of the elites’ own yearnings for a world remade “right”. Any infant or politician that slips out of that cave is ill prepared to face the raw reality of what exists outside of such a comfy cocoon. This is the state of existence that the Obama-ites, new to the real world inhabited by people descended from, and reared amidst, a different set of grounded principles, are astounded to find so unbending. Obama-ites, from that condescending simpleton Robert Gibbs to the bevy of “czars” resigning for behaving as one would in an unmolested cocoon, are shaken. In there formerly sheltered environment there is nothing wrong with believing that the Bush administration was complicit in 9/11, that all white police officers are racists, that elections in Venezuela and Iran are as free as those in the United States, or that one entity can tear down and remake, through  the magic of bureaucracy, a huge chunk of the American economy, and one of the fountains of global vitality, in a vain sacrifice to the banally surmountable problem of the unintentionally uninsured. The administration and their cohorts in Congress have wandered bewildered into the maelstrom of an American reality governed by rationality and devoid of unhinged, wishful thinking. This reality demands coherence and common sense. Lacking that, it balks; and woe to whoever ignores its humble concerns. I hope the hands that hold the reigns of power keep mocking the true American spirit of sensibility, assured moment by moment as they are by the sycophants with the bull horns that attempt to shape the daily news in a bygone manner. The resulting reverberation will pave the way for a complete break between the governing class and the citizenry who like to think that they have a representative form of governance. This break will set the stage for a reexamining of the wants and goals for government from every clear thinking voter and mark the advent of a new type of politician, or more precisely a reincarnation of the political ideology that knows precisely when to leave things well enough alone. At a minimum we shouldn’t ever again have to entertain the whines from the elites that their plans were never given a chance. The destruction that such a chance had wrought will be reminder, like the A-bomb dome at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, enough. Bring on this new revival of the true American spirit and may it start to bear fruit come fall 2010.

The world, once cringing under American dominance, is now enjoying the results of our abdication. While America shrugs, the world get to see the unvarnished outcome, ala George Bailey, but this time without Clarence to make it all right again. With America now not inclined to say “boo” the dictators are having their way from Kim Jong-il to Chavez to Putin and now to the semi-deposed Honduran leader – Zelaya. To call the Honduran crisis a coup is an abuse of the English language as not many coups are endorsed by the Congress and Supreme Court of the country in which they occur. For the administration to come down on the side of a meglomanic president trying to unconstitutionally extend his hold on power is mind boggling. Their lack of respect to the rule of law in Honduras, instead favoring of the powers residing and embodied in the sitting president, is a scary indication of what they think of American laws and historical precedence. This could have been foretold by their insane suggestion of prosecuting members of a former administration for making political decisions with which they simply disagreed. So, now throughout the world, might will make right and personal power, be it represented by a council of elders, a rent-a-mob of rioters, some form of shadow governance based in the neo-KGB, or a creepy hereditary-based military junta, will be the only “democratic” credentials that matter. Again, what exactly was so wrong with Musharraf ? We knew what the Bush Doctrine was, but what will be the Obama Doctrine? Perhaps, like the 21st amendment, it shall simply repeal all other “Doctrines”.

I can hardly describe the blind side that struck me with the announcement by the Obama administration that they would ignore all convention and open up the legal decisions of the previous administration to prosecution. I had not heard of this happening in any other past transfers of power in this country or in any other country with a stable democratic tradition. This was unprecedented and represented something akin to what happens in banana republics and following military coups.

This threat directly assaults the political stability of the country and the much admired smooth transitions of power that take place here following our elections. A weakening of this tenant, particularly in these hyper-partisan times, is quite dangerous and the administration is playing with revolutionary fire. Just to hear their representatives talk about the possibility, and to not automatically dismiss it with a laugh at the insane concept, send shivers down my spine. This is the absolute worst thing I see going on at the moment in the midst of a plethora of worst things. For stability and crucial civil transitions of power these actions cannot be contemplated by any administration. The precedent that these decisions could set would be quite destructive and represent a slippery slope to French Revolution style anarchy.  

Should this become the norm or acceptable behavior only the dishonorable and corrupt will be interested in serving a new administration and even then, they would be constantly fearful of any decision that they are called upon to render. In the not so distant future this precedent could be used to go after judges that upheld Roe vs. Wade, for instance, should a sufficiently emboldened right wing administration attain the Executive Branch.

The insidiousness of this potential action is compounded by the targeting of unsettled legal opinion which a sufficiently large portion of the American public is far from being in lock-step agreement with Obama on, Nancy Pelosi style revisionist history notwithstanding. The culpability of the media in this situation, just the latest example of abdication from our “fourth branch of government”, would leave little non-violent recourse left for the substantial number of countrymen that hold opposing beliefs and a stark sense of injustice. Simply claiming something is something else, loudly and often enough with a large enough chorus, is not enough to make it so.  

There must be a general consensus before any thoughts of retribution can be even entertained. By muffling the opposing opinion the media and majority politicians do not allow this debate to take place and further disconnects a significant portion of the governed from the governing authority. This is not a good thing in any society and the Obama Jacobins are threatening to take us too far down that wretched road. For this specific issue, the idea that water boarding is unequivocally torture remains a matter of much debate and, as the Speaker of the House is coming to realize, the political dance is hard to sustain when the tune of the country changes, or appears to change. To attempt to prosecute good-willed members of a previous administration in the service of their government, for their honest and thought out legal opinions on a murky topic is the height of political arrogance and a tyrannical abuse of power.

This treachery of the current majority over the past majority sullies America’s sterling political tradition for no good reason other than to yield to rabid partisans. The global economy may be in shambles, nuclear Pakistan basically in the midst of a civil war, and deadly transnational viruses are running amok, but I am most fearful for the future of our nation from these prosecutorial threats. This would be like Thomas Jefferson arresting and executing, as criminals of the state, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton for any perceived excesses from their suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion. Potical retribution in this manner is a path that should never be contemplated if we value at all our stability and tradition.

From 10:45 PM .5 degree radar slice.

The latest from the Storm Prediction Center (SPC):

VERY UNSTABLE AIRMASS /AOA 2500 J/KG MLCAPE/...SIZEABLE CLOCKWISE
CURVED LOW LEVEL HODOGRAPHS /PER DYX VWP/ BENEATH MORE THAN ADEQUATE
DEEP FLOW ALOFT WILL PROMOTE RAPID SUPERCELL DEVELOPMENT IF A STORM
INITIATES.  VERY LARGE HAIL WILL BE A DISTINCT POSSIBILITY...INCLUDING
THE POTENTIAL FOR TORNADO/S...ALONG WITH DMGG WIND GUSTS.

From SPC Mesoscale Discussion:

...ALTHOUGH DEEP LAYER SHEAR IS SOMEWHAT MARGINAL...SFC-6KM
VALUES ON THE ORDER OF 30KT...INSTABILITY IS BECOMING QUITE
IMPRESSIVE AS LAPSE RATES STEEPEN IN EXCESS OF 8 C/KM...YIELDING
MLCAPE VALUES ON THE ORDER OF 4500 J/KG.  IT APPEARS THUNDERSTORMS
WILL EVOLVE IN THE NEXT FEW HOURS ALONG ADVANCING COLD FRONT/DRYLINE...
WITH DEW POINTS NOW WELL INTO THE UPPER 60S IT APPEARS THERMODYNAMIC
PROFILES WILL COMPENSATE FOR WEAKER SHEAR AND SUPPORT AT LEAST A
RISK FOR TORNADOES WITH SLOW-MOVING HP SUPERCELLS.

From Day 1 Convective Outlook denoting Moderate Risk for DFW:

DISCRETE INITIAL STORM DEVELOPMENT PROBABLY WILL GROW UPSCALE INTO
A SIZABLE STORM CLUSTER PRIOR TO NIGHTFALL.

Go see the latest radar.

According to this page from pegasusnews.com out of Dallas, TX:

Richard Zavala, Director of Parks and Community Department is quoted as saying, “The Tarrant County Health Department, in the interest of public health and safety, has declared that all outdoor public gatherings must be cancelled.”

Outdoor activities? Not indoor shoulder-to-coughing-shoulder events? Etc. Etc.?

I think a certain Director of Parks and Community Department missed Flu 101.

“Frooti Tootis”.

Candy from the movie theatre. Little, gummy, fruit-flavored candy.

Is there a missing “e”?

Maybe it’s Latin?

The world may never know.

In either case, none of this stopped me from eating them.