Memo to the Occupy protesters: Ten things we evil capitalists really think

Memo to the Occupy protesters: Ten things we evil capitalists really think.

I especially like #8:

8. Capitalism, with all its imperfections, is the fairest scheme yet tried. In a system based on property rights and free contract, people succeed by providing an honest service to others. Bill Gates became rich by enriching hundreds of millions of us: I am typing these words using one of his programmes. He gained from the exchange (adding fractionally to his net worth), and so did I (adding to my convenience). In a state-run system, by contrast, third parties get to hand out the goodies.

Another way to say this is to call it freedom.

Read the whole thing.

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Gingrich’s presidential campaign has gotten him no endorsements from Republican lawmakers

Gingrich’s presidential campaign has gotten him no endorsements from Republican lawmakers.

Considering how incompetent these Republicans have been in getting the federal budget under control, and considering that the last time the budget was balanced was during Gingrich’s reign as speaker in the 1990s, I would consider their lack of support as the best endorsement Gingrich could get. We need real change in DC. The status quo has left us on the verge of economic collapse and bankruptcy.

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Violence and oppression from the left

Two stories today clearly illustrate the oppressive nature of the left. They don’t wish to debate and persuade. They want to impose their will on the rest of us, by force if necessary.

First there’s this: Occupy Wall Street has paid the bail for the OWS demonstrator who threatened to burn down New York and throw Molotov cocktails into the windows at Macy’s.

A week ago he wanted to toss Molotov cocktails at Macy’s, but Tuesday he was back at it, mixing it up in Zuccotti Park. The Daily News snapped photos of Occupy Wall Street nut case Nkrumah Tinsley, 29, prancing around after the movement coughed up $7,500 for his bail, his lawyer, Pierre Sussman said.

One of their demonstrators publicly admits he wants to destroy property and commit violence, and the OWS movement backs him to the hilt.

Then there’s this story:
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India pushes for a sharing of intellectual property rights at Durban climate talks

India pushes for a sharing of intellectual property rights at Durban climate talks.

If you ever had any doubts about the political goals behind the global warming movement, this headline and story should put those forever to rest. The advocates of climate change really don’t care about climate change. What they really want is to get their hands on other people’s success. Failing to get a deal that would limit the activities of the developed countries so that the developing countries would have an advantage in the free market, the effort is now aimed at attacking and even eliminating the property rights of private technology companies. What this has to do with climate change is beyond me.

That India is leading the way here is puzzling, however, as that country’s economic success in the past decade is solely due to its abandonment of communist ideals in favor of capitalism and the free market. You would think, with that experience, that India’s government would thus understand the importance of protecting property rights, not violating them.

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An especially dark and pessimistic interpretation of Obama

An especially dark and pessimistic interpretation of Obama.

This dark reality that confronts us is prefigured in our Declaration of Independence which alludes to the causes of the first American Revolution when it notes, in passing, “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design.”

To break this down I note that the recent abuses of power and the usurpations of governing traditions must now be seen as a “long train.” Surely in the last two years we have seen many such abuses and usurpations from the appointment of czars and the subsequent stacking of the employee decks at all government departments, the endless acts of stealth reparations, the budgeting and legislation that continually increases indebtedness and hence the bonded servitude of present and future generations of productive citizens, the twisted department of selective justice that is wholly devoted to the protection and enhancement of the rights of the “government-driven classes” at the expense of a color-blind enforcement of the law. All of these, and many others, can be seen to pursue “invariably the same Object;” the wholesale destruction of the United States to such a degree that a few more years of the same will make a recovery exceedingly difficult even as it it opens the country to further attacks from within and without. Taken all in all, it amounts to something that, arising not from an “administration” but from the ego of one man, “evinces a design.”

The recent adventure into Libya, or shall I say ‘above Libya,’ is the first time in living memory we’ve seen the will of one man, even an American president, order and carry out an American military mission without even bothering to ask the American congress if it minds his messing about in a foreign country. In essence, one man in one day set in motion the power of the American military without any of the barest of rituals that normally come before. For conservatives to say that he is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief is to miss the point that he is much more a commander now than he was a week ago.

And though I pray this is wrong, honesty requires that we consider it possible. Read the whole thing.

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Climategate 2

Having failed to clean up its act after the release of the climategate emails two years ago, the field of climate science is about to turned upside down all over again. Today there was another release of hacked emails, written by the same collection of global warming scientists. Once again, these emails show that these scientists are anything but scientists. Instead, they seem far more interested in campaigning for a certain result, regardless of the science. A few quotes:
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Supercommittee gives up

The day of reckoning looms: The Congressional supercommittee has given up. The perspective of one member of the committee can be read here. Key quote:

The Congressional Budget Office, the Medicare trustees, and the Government Accountability Office have each repeatedly said that our health-care entitlements are unsustainable. Committee Democrats offered modest adjustments to these programs, but they were far from sufficient to meet the challenge. And even their modest changes were made contingent upon a minimum of $1 trillion in higher taxes—a move sure to stifle job creation during the worst economy in recent memory.

Even if Republicans agreed to every tax increase desired by the president, our national debt would continue to grow uncontrollably. Controlling spending is therefore a crucial challenge. The other is economic growth and job creation, which would produce the necessary revenue to fund our priorities. [emphasis mine]

This needs repeating: regardless of whether you think we should raise taxes in this situation, no tax increase can eliminate the deficit. The problem is out-of-control spending that needs to be seriously curbed.

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Uncertainty rules the day

The press reports have been unanimous:

Unfortunately, if you read the actual IPCC panel summary report, you find that, though the majority of the press stories accurately describe the report’s worst scenarios and predictions, all of them downplay the most important point of the report, that the uncertainties are gigantic and that the influence of human activity on the increase or decrease of extreme weather for the next few decades will be inconsequential. To quote the report:
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