Negative Railroad A Collection of Breaks in the Line

The ongoing Obama spectacle is a party to which I was not invited. Thus, I’m trying to keep low profile. There are battles to be fought, but I will gain nothing by interrupting the march to communal O-gasm.

Roissy in DC, as a devout hedonist, sees an opportunity:

A liberal will cut off your leg so he can hand you a crutch.

Quoted from: Jim Brown

Via: Newmark’s Door

Even after landing his powerless jetliner on the Hudson River, pilot Sullenberger maintained his cool:

One of the first rescuers on the scene said Sullenberger seemed impervious to the chaos around him.

"He looked absolutely immaculate," the rescuer said. "He looked like David Niven in an airplane uniform. He looked unruffled. His uniform was sharp. You could see him walking down the aisles making sure everybody got out."

In this week’s column, Walter Williams poses a question:

The Federal Register, which lists new regulations, annually averaged 72,844 pages between 1977 and 1980. During the Reagan years, the average fell to 54,335. During the Bush I years, they rose to 59,527, to 71,590 during the Clinton years and rose to a record of 75,526 during the Bush II years.

It’s nearly impossible to follow all the laws. Our society’s rulebooks have grown too large. Federal and state laws, local ordinances, and the procedural pronouncements of regulatory bodies at every level are beyond the comprehension of even the government bodies who write them. That a nominee for a high-profile public office might be in violation of a couple of laws is probably not a big deal.

The latest research implicates Google as a cause for globalistical warmening:

While millions of people tap into Google without considering the environment, a typical search generates about 7 grams of CO2. Boiling a kettle generates about 15 grams.

Economic heavyweight John Maynard Keynes is often quoted for his observation, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” Keynes’s ‘long run’ arrived long ago, but his disproven theories march on. For our current rash of bailouts or spend-and-tax “stimulus programs”, blame Keynes.

Harvard economist Greg Mankiw directs a shotgun blast at Keynesian thinking:

A trio of of our Councilmembers—perhaps the three goofiest—have been caught selling out their principles:

A preemptive effort by several Minneapolis City Council members to state a preferred route for a new Xcel high-voltage power line through south Minneapolis blew up Friday when their colleagues cried foul.

The allergy epidemic in American kids cannot have a biological origin, argues Joel Stein:

Yes, a tiny number of kids have severe peanut allergies that cause anaphylactic shock, and all their teachers should be warned, handed EpiPens and given a really expensive gift at Christmas. But unless you're a character on "Heroes," genes don't mutate fast enough to have caused an 18% increase in childhood food allergies between 1997 and 2007.

Our nation’s President-elect is learning that community organizing really is not sufficient experience to manage the world’s most powerful bureaucracy. Campaiging on platitudes learned during his adventures in the Chicago ghetto was much easier. The complexities a serious Presidential candidate should have grasped are leading Barry to forsake his glorious promises.

I heard it from Anderson Cooper, in full sneer, on CNN. I join Michelle Malkin’s opinion:

If a community organizer can be president and a Saturday Night Live comedian can be a U.S. senator, why can’t a plumber be a reporter?

Today the US Department of Labor released December’s unemployment statistics. Everyone was expecting bad news. Well, there was news. But “bad” is a judgement, not a fact, and the headlines reflect those Chicken Little expectations.

Carnage continues with 524,000 jobs lost in Dec.
Unemployment rate rises to 7.2%, the highest in 16 years

Some of the folks who doubt Obama’s eligibility to serve as President have made a commercial:

Investment vs. Expense:

An investment is a use of money or wealth with an expectation of income or profit. The investor expects to get his initial outlay back, with something extra, a profit. An expense is a use of money with the expectation of gaining some benefit or beneficial outcome. The wealth expended is lost, in trade for something else.

Lower gasoline prices are saving American consumers a billion dollars every day:

Last week's $1.59 - the average for a gallon of regular on Dec. 29, according to the Energy Information Administration - works out to $1.33 in 2001 dollars, or 9 percent less than it was the day Mr. Bush took office. The tumble in prices, from a high of more than $4.05 in early July, has meant incredible savings.

Would covering our roofs with solar panels save us money? MaxedOutMama runs the numbers:

The result, according to the figures of the organization selling the equipment, would be to reduce the annual utility bill to $0.00. In other words, I'd spend $16,500 to save $780 annually, so it would take about the life of the equipment to break even.

But actually, I'd be costing myself money. The next "Alternative" block figures the return of taking that $16,500, investing it, and using the proceeds to pay the utility bill. At 5% return, I'd be doing better on my utility bill than with the solar power. At 3% return (3.22% is the last reported yield on 20-year Treasury bills), I'd be paying less than $25 a month for power. Plus, at the end of the 20 years, I'd still have my $16,500.

Even a child could spot the silliness in current economic thinking:

“Mrs. Adams talks about fairness a lot in school,” Junior said. “She says it’s not fair for some people to be very rich and others to be very poor, that the government should do something about it.”

“That’s right, son,” Dad said. “The rich should pay more in taxes to reduce the gap between rich and poor, something they call income inequality.”

Prominent in today’s headlines is Obama’s proposal for tax cuts. Some commenters are optimistic that Barry is not really as much of a Marxist goon as his history and campaign rhetoric suggested. I disagree.

The lede to a weekend story on Marketwatch.com (an investing news site):

While most investors panicked or were forced to sell, Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett put more than $20 billion to work last year, positioning his insurance-focused conglomerate to profit if the economy and markets recover in coming years.
[emphasis added]

If?

As the Minnesota Senate race is moving from the recount phase to the lawsuit phase, hearts are bleeding:

After the counting, Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said he was satisfied that the recount results were as accurate as they could be, given human limitations, the scope of state law and Supreme Court directives.