Jeffrey Carter has been a commodities trader since 1992. He has been on the board of directors of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Today he wrote this:
“Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is a schmuck. He is a career bureaucrat and there is nothing we can do to get him out of there until November of 2012. To add insult to injury we will owe him a pension. The President is incommunicado since last Thursday. He is not deft when it comes to economics. He can get shown the door in November of …

Congratulations from all of us to any of you who have had a hand in making policy in Washington over the past 20 years! At a time when some doubt the impact a single person can have on the world, each and every one of you can claim partial responsibility for Standard and Poor’s downgrade of the once-world’s greatest economy to an AA+ long term rating.
I know some of you may be coy and say we citizens had something to with this. But let’s look at what kind of stuff …

Isn’t it frustrating that we never get to see the idiotic decisions made by congress shoved back into their faces? We talk about them over the water cooler and listen to others talk about them on the radio, but we never hear the other shoe drop. We never get the Hollywood finish in which the big spending politician realizes with horror what suffering he has brought into the world because of his fiscal irresponsibility.
There are occasional hopeful moments: we hear some particularly galling bit of rascality described by Mark Steyn, …

Once a joy to children of all ages, video games manuals
are being killed by the NAFTA three-language rule.
Here is a discussion of the newly released video game, Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon.
bossk5 posted…
Why does the PS3 version come with a physical manual but the 360 version is without? Just curious.
I believe Sony still requires a physical manual otherwise it too wouldn’t have one. I believe once the North American market required

President Barack Obama on Tuesday May 10th joked that those who favor enforcing border security by physical means such as fences and barriers “will never be satisfied” and may at some point demand “alligators in the moat.” A Russian newscast, apparently chiding the absence of a serious discussion of border security, provided its viewers with the embarrassing context to the president’s remarks.

Foreign newscast provides context US broadcasters don’t.

Seemingly at random but plainly with a critical purpose in mind, the report mentions embarrassing points of American history as well as President …

Rep. George Miller (Second Life avatar in inset) bemoans security that wealth brings.
California Democrat George Miller, who in 2007 demonstrated his keen grasp of the concerns of the electorate by appearing in a live Second Life news conference, is quoted today in Politico bemoaning the advantages that being wealthy has over being poor.
Poor and middle-class families have already received more than their fair share of pain in this economy, while the wealthy and special interests have paid no price.

If you thought Vivian Schiller, the President of NPR, had used up her store of cluelessness when she joked that Juan Williams might need a psychologist for his misgivings about flying with Muslims, you’d be wrong. She put out a press release on February 14th that thanked the President for remembering NPR in his proposed 2012 budget.
It was not a day the President’s budget got much praise. The same Washington Post editorial staff that was able to find much to praise in his candidacy and first two years in office …

The AP reports that last Thursday President Obama reminded the mostly Republican freshman governors of the value of government standards.
There are going to be times where we do believe that having basic national standards are going to be important… There are certain things that we as a country, we as a people, aspire to, and that we need to maintain some consistency across the states.
The President may want to start this noble march toward consistency by asking the Department of Education (DoED) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC)  to talk to …

Esquire’s Tom Junod wrote this about President Obama’s early eloquence?
President Obama, after all, was elected by virtue of his personality, which provided not only contrast but novelty, and was grounded in his near-perfect pitch when addressing audiences large and small… Though many Americans didn’t know very much about him, there was one thing that was never in doubt when we saw and heard Obama on the stump: his ownership of his gift… How could we resist a man who simply by opening his mouth …

Was Williams fired for not following the rules or not toeing the party line?
Who would have thought that progressive godhead Noam Chomsky is such a strong critic of NPR? The original clip used in the video above is old (2003) and his experience with NPR is likely to predate Ms. Schiller’s time as president, but his observation that “they won’t allow a millimeter of deviation from the party line” still rings true to me. As recently as 2006 Chomsky described (video) the “very exhuberant” NPR report on candidate Obama …

When the Obama administration decided that what you see in the video below is NOT voter intimidation, there is a lesson to be learned.

I’m  confused and angry about the Department of Justice decision in the New Black Panther case. This inside baseball analysis by Civil Rights Commissioner Abigail Thernstrom inspires no confidence that the situation will improve. In the transcripts of the Civil Rights Commission hearings the poorly thought out reasons for dropping the case come fast and thick. Here are some examples.

When you juxtapose Eric Holder’s reasons for fighting Arizona’s SB 1070 with the realities that Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Arizona deals with to protect the public, Holders answers become insufficient. Is Holder an aloof legal strategist whose concern for long-term issues of society makes him hesitate to protect those citizens whose welfare is ultimately his responsibility?  Time will tell.

Paul Babeu’s Knowledge on the Topic Makes Holder’s Answers Ring Hollow
Paul Babeu is Sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona. With the help of the Pinal County Justice Foundation he is …

Here is a YouTube video that Organizing for America has put out to rally supporters for the midterms.

One message here seems to be “you older white guys with jobs, mortgages, and families, we’ve just given up trying to sell you on our policies. ” I mean look at this video. In 90 seconds of showing grinning hopeful faces not a single one of them is an older white male.
Obama supporters: you should be asking yourself what does your Dad know about the world and the president’s policies that you don’t. …

“Glome was a web–I the swollen spider, squat at its center, gorged with men’s stolen lives.” C.S. Lewis.
Walter Stabosz caught this amazing video with a perfect storm of spider, firefly, lighting, and, yes, storm. When BoingBoing.com linked to it, the video got 40,000 views in one day. But what fascinates more than this compelling video is its reception by commenters.  It’s like a Rorschach test. And of course I saw an apt analogy to the looters in DC.

In Lewis’ Till We Have Faces tragic figure Oruel realizes that far from …

Census Bureau to parents: please poison the well of your child’s self-image.
The issue of race on question 9 in the 2010 Census causes a great deal of discussion and anger among many Americans. See this discussion at the web site of New York radio talk show Brian Lehrer for polite and intelligent discussion from people who have, as they say, skin in the game.
This issue is complicated further when reporting the race of minor children. The U.S. Census Bureau explains race as a matter of self-identification. Instructions [.pdf file] …