Negative Railroad A Collection of Breaks in the Line

Big Media doesn’t always lie. Despite the transformation from “reporting” to “journalism”, fabricating people and events is still frowned upon. More insidious that outright lies—which can be crushed by genuine reporting and investigation—are lazy half-truths.

Media faces seem to look only as far and as long as needed to satisfy their preconceptions. Hurricane Katrina was a Federal Government (Bush) failure. As long as you focus on the 50,000 safe-but-whining people at the Superdome while quickly skipping past the 7,000 people rescued from imminent death by the Coast Guard.

The People’s Daily, a newspaper published by the government of China, has printed a column warning the people against hating the rich:

If viewed through the prism of social development, one can easily understand why wealth used to be so despised in traditional Chinese society. China is typically an agricultural country, and in its time-honored history, the theory of  'attaching great importance to agriculture but restraining commerce' has been hammered into the people's mind, well and truly. With time, 'poverty mentality' would come into being, which encourages the thinking that if you have more, then I must have less. Even worse, now that many of the Chinese have grown up exposed to similar thinking and similar teachings, they tend to form an abnormal psyche of 'hating the rich.'

The unfathomable irresposibility of the US Federal budget is echoed in local government all across the land. Diminished economic activity had led to lower revenue for city and State governments. Since politicians are congenitally unable to recognize anything more than token waste in government operations, they can’t cut spending to keep budgets in balance. So they’re turning to myriad “revenue enhancements”:

The current President has changed his tune. He is not longer Tokyo Rose, threatening us with an economic catastrophe. Now, although it may get worse, Obama is confident that the US economy will recover. It’s almost like he took a trip on the Negative Railroad and noticed 140 million Americans still hard at work.

From what I’ve seen, Big Media has followed Barry’s lead. They’re now more apt to look past the still-rising unemployment rate and the 663,000 jobs lost in March. The figures are in scale with January and February, but apparently now it isn’t the end of the world.

It’s 1943, and this man from Chicago isn’t interested in “dialog” with European leaders. I imagine he doesn’t care much for high-minded lawyer types, either.

From the amazing collection at Shorpy.com. They’re not all railroad photos—take a look.

You may recall the Pickens Plan from last summer. Billionaire T. Boone Pickens ran saturation advertising for a scheme to build windmills and natural gas vehicles. It was good advertising, but a stupid idea founded on false assumptions. Well, it’s back.

The mechanics of the Pickens Plan are dependent on government subsidy. Essentially nobody wants windmills if they have to pay the cost themselves. So Pickens want the taxpayer to chip in.

The blogging opposition to the Newest World Order has found an apt description of the tactics used by the powerful: misdirection.

In the US, hatred for AIG employees dominated headlines for a couple weeks while trillion dollar takeovers and trillion-dollar deficits were treated as asides. The current President issues an endless parade of strawmen, “I reject the notion that blah blah blah.” That which he rejects is not embraced by anyone. It’s empty rhetoric. Vocal smoke to obscure the true implications of his policies.

In a fully capitalist system, there would be no guarantees.

Quoted from: Peter Gordon

To say that something is corrupt is redundant.

Quoted from: Danny Mac

First, a four-minute tour of the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, Germany. Billed as, “The world’s largest model railway,”  it’s more than just trains:

The current President and much of the Democrat leadership appear to have an affinity for Europe. For example, they insist European healthcare be a model and justification for their meddling in US medical markets. Generally, President Klink’s rhetoric about “what we owe to each other” is founded on the same principles as Europe’s various versions of social democracy.

Unfortunately, facts tarnish the Democrats’ hopey-changey dreams. Their new New Deal socialism is too progressive by European Union standards. Former Obama cabinet nominee Judd Gregg remarked this week:

Several hundred thousand of us who wonder why Barack Obama will not reveal his original long-form birth certificate are dismissed as wacko “nirthers”. I have posted on several lawsuits challenging Obama’s citizenship and qualifications ot hold the office of President. The suits were all filed in civil courts, where procedural disputes are settled. All have been disimissed before the process required any evaluation of facts or evidence.

Now a challenger is trying a new avenue:

China has suggested the development of a new world currency. I consider this the first ring on the gong of doom, as it would make everything sold in dollar terms worth significantly less in global markets.

The current President was asked about the issue during his prime-time press conference last Tuesday (snipped for relevance):

I first heard it from a landscape architect in a meeting about land use planning in the 55418. We were discussing the projected need for parking in commercial districts. The conclusion was that auto technology would evolve so that personal autos would always be a significant and vital means of transport, no matter the price of oil. As sort of an off-hand comment about electric cars, the architect said something like, “And I hear the cars will even sell power back to the electric company.”

Both Secretary of State Clinton and Attorney General Holder have argued that the US must further restrict guns to help Mexico’s fight against drug cartels. Here’s Holder:

"As President Obama indicated during the campaign, there are just a few gun-related changes that we would like to make, and among them would be to re-institute the ban on the sale of assault weapons," Holder said. "I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum."

Holder said reinstating the ban would decrease the flow of guns from the U.S. into Mexico.

And Hillary:

Supply and demand cannot be fooled.

Quoted from: Peter Gordon

I’ve dreamed of starting a car company. Around the turn of the millenium I needed a new ride, and wasn’t pleased with what my modest wealth would afford. For my budgeted $15K, I could choose something nicer than a pure econobox, but only the base model. Or I could pick the econobox in the highest trim level—chrome on a pig. I was looking for something in between. An efficient and reliable car, that could carry three friends around town, with a few luxury features like cruise control and a moon roof. Nobody offered one.

We’ve seen a couple of weeks of rising stock market indexes. Today the DJIA  was up over six percent. The President, the media, and many pundits are talking about having reached a market bottom. They all forget that this recent rise has only brought the indices back to the lows reached before Timmy and Barry made their first set of fumbles. We’ve made it back up to an ordinary recession. Woo hoo.

I suggest the rise is significantly attributable to the continuing value created in the US economy. As I have documented, 142 million people are still at work. No factories have been destroyed, and no skills have been wiped from workers’ memory. The sky was not falling. A dynamic economy was realigning itself, finding its new best allocations of resources.

The Keystone Kongress has sneaked another one past President Klink. Two days after Barry made headlines by reversing the previous administration’s restriction on embryonic stem cell funding, he unwittingly reversed himself:

Last night CBS aired an interview with the current President. I thought Barry looked he thought he actually understood the issues he was asked about. At least one of us is convinced President Klink can distinguish his ass from a hole in the ground.

And the interviewer seemed troubled, almost reluctant, to ask questions about difficult issues. That reluctance may have been out of sympathy for his President. Or, it may have been pity, as Barry continued to demonstrate he is overmatched by his job. This exchange is an example: