Roland Burris and AIG to America: drop dead

Remember all the three-day outrage over Illinois Senator Roland Burris' admission that, yes, he had been solicited for campaign contributions from former governor Rod Blagojevich, despite previous denials?  Well, Burris ain't goin' anywhere and nobody is pushing him out.

Now - it seems to me - AIG is adopting the same "pound sand" attitude.  George Will said it best on Sunday's edition of "This Week": the federal government deemed AIG "too big to fail" so now what are we going to do?  Where's the government's leverage?  Instead, you're going to watch AIG grab their bonuses and, if you don't like it, go suck an egg.

More - From Polipundit.

Shocker: Massachusetts' health care system bankrupts state



From the Corner:

Having promised lavish subsidies for expansive health insurance, it seems state officials in Massachusetts have finally begun to admit that their health-care reform program, passed in 2006, is unaffordable for the state’s taxpayers.

The New York Times (!) suggests the plan took the path of good intentions by forcing health care coverage now and worrying about those pesky finances later:

To make it happen, Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, made an expedient choice, deferring until another day any serious effort to control the state’s runaway health costs.

The day of reckoning has arrived. Threatened first by rapid early enrollment in its new subsidized insurance program and now by a withering economy, the state’s pioneering overhaul has entered a second, more challenging phase.

Thanks to new taxes and fees imposed last year, the health plan’s jittery finances have stabilized for the moment. But government and industry officials agree that the plan will not be sustainable over the next 5 to 10 years if they do not take significant steps to arrest the growth of health spending.

Next stop: price controls, which have always been successful since the dawn of time.

Amazing Race update – Is it cold in here?

We're down to seven teams and everybody has to pile into the Trans-Siberian Railroad for a long ride further east through Russia. The train has sleeper cars so we see everybody sacked out in too-small bunks. The next morning, there's some banter and everybody's looking at deaf Luke in a new light since he U-Turned Amanda & Kris in last week's leg.

Once in Novosibirsk, teams take taxis to some school where it's the Detour: Russian Bride or Russian Snowplow. Teams may take a manual-transmission car to find a Russian bride and then drive her to the church across town; or they may learn how to drive a Russian snowplow successfully through a training course. The four-speed car, called a Lada, goes through fits and starts as everybody tries to get directions to their respective Detours. Most everybody takes the snowplow but Mel & Mike try to find a Russian bride in one of those Soviet-era apartment buildings a quarter-mile long; nevertheless, they seem to find her pretty quick.

Back at the snowplows, a frustrated Team Ginger can't seem to communicate with the snowplow trainers because they don't speak English. They speak Russian, imagine that. This Detour doesn't seem to require much skill since the trainer essentially tells the Racers how to drive. Team Esquire finishes first and head to the next stop: the Bibliotekah, which is the largest library in Siberia. Team Sistahs is bringing up the rear due to stick-shift problems.

At the library, it's the Roadblock: one team member must participate in a foot race while stripped down to "skivvies." It's a 1.4 mile run to the Pit Stop. The women get some whistles and honks from cars; the men not so much. Luke seems to enjoy himself jogging through the sub-freezing weather. He finishes first and Team Say What? takes first place.

Team Drinkcart and Team Sistahs are both bringing up the rear and they're having trouble getting around town. It looks like Kisha burnt out the clutch on their junker and they're stuck in the middle of the road. Meanwhile, the directionless Team Drinkcart charters a cab driver to go to the Roadblock and they'll follow behind. Nevermind: back from commercial, Team Sistahs is on the road again.

Kisha & Jen get to the Roadblock first and, since they're athletes, it looks like they're going to outpace Christie & Jodi to the mat. The Team Drinkcart runner Christie is wearing thong underwear which needs constant blurring by the TAR editors. She arrives last but this is the first non-elimination leg for this season. At some point in the next leg, Team Drinkcart will have to perform an additional task – a Speedbump – before they can continue the Race.

Team standings

#1 – Team Say What? – Margie & Luke
#2 – Team Esquire – Tammy & Victor
#3 – Team Ginger – Jaime & Cara
#4 – Team White Guys – Mel & Mike
#5 – Team Mighty Mites – Mark & Michael
#6 – Team Sistahs – Kisha & Jen
#7 – Team Drinkcart – Christie & Jodi – NON-ELIMINATION LEG

Next week: India again.

Taxpayer money, schmaxpayer money - WashPost: "Bailout king AIG still to pay millions in bonuses"

In AIG's defense, not one of those senior executives lit a big cigar with a $100 bill, drained a snifter of brandy, and then drove out to the Hamptons to open up the summer house.

OK, they all did.

Thank heaven those kids can't vote

Mark Steyn has today's must-read with "The Brokest Generation." Here are the choice excerpts:

Because, as politicians like to say, it’s about “the future of all our children.” And the future of all our children is that they’ll be paying off the past of all their grandparents. At 12 percent of GDP, this year’s deficit is the highest since the Second World War, and prioritizes not economic vitality but massive expansion of government. But hey, it’s not our problem. As Lord Keynes observed, “In the long run we’re all dead.” Well, most of us will be. But not you youngsters, not for a while. So we’ve figured it out: You’re the ultimate credit market, and the rest of us are all pre-approved!


This is the biggest generational transfer of wealth in the history of the world. If you’re an 18-year old middle-class hopeychanger, look at the way your parents and grandparents live: It’s not going to be like that for you. You’re going to have a smaller house, and a smaller car - if not a basement flat and a bus ticket.


I mentioned a few weeks ago the calamitous reality of the U.S. auto industry. General Motors has 96,000 employees but provides health benefits to over a million people. They can never sell enough cars to make that math add up. In fact, selling cars doesn’t help, as they lose money on each model. GM is a welfare project masquerading as economic activity. And, after the Obama transformation, America will be, too. The young need to recognize that this is their fight. They need to stop chanting along with the hopeychangey dirges and do something more effective, like form the anti-AARP: the association of Americans who’ll never be able to retire.

The federal government has been on auto-pilot for forty years as more and more of the federal budget moves from discretionary spending to entitlement spending. This has limited budgetary maneuverability so that when we have a recession – since we can't scale back on spending – we're forced to borrow more money. This level of borrowing wasn't insurmountable after World War II because America was still a relatively young country (median-age wise) with many workers, supporting a much-smaller federal government (e.g. before Medicare, fewer retirees on Social Security.) The problem with our debt now is that the situation is exactly reversed: America is an aging country with fewer young workers supporting a Brobdingnagian-sized government.

Maybe one silver lining in the past is that most of the federal debt was money we owed ourselves; that is, money borrowed from domestic banks. Now China holds $1 trillion of U.S. debt, meaning they can make demands we would have ignored in the past. Bit by bit, this is how American power and freedom is parceled away.

One of my favorite Futurama lines

"My ridiculously circuitous plan is one-quarter complete!"

The common thread from Red China's leader to Warren Buffett

Everybody's concerned about America's new heights (depths?) of debt. NYT: "China's leader says he's worried over U.S. treasuries"

The Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, spoke in unusually blunt terms on Friday about the “safety” of China’s $1 trillion investment in American government debt, the world’s largest such holding, and urged the Obama administration to offer assurances that the securities would maintain their value.

Speaking ahead of a meeting of finance ministers and bankers this weekend near London to lay the groundwork for next month’s Group of 20 summit meeting of the nations with the 20 largest economies, Mr. Wen said that he was “worried” about China’s holdings of United States Treasury bonds and other debt, and that China was watching economic developments in the United States closely.

Sounds like somebody's been hanging out with former Commerce secretary-designate, New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg:

In his opening statement, Gregg politely called the administration’s budget forecast a lie.

"The argument that it cuts the debt in half in four years is, ahh, is truly spurious," he told Geithner.

"The argument that this budget doesn’t have tax increases [on everyone] is, I think, an 'Alice in Wonderland' view of the budget," he said.

He challenged the budget's math on cutting the debt: "When you take the deficit and quadruple it and then you cut it and half, that’s like taking four steps back and two steps forward. That's not making any progress; you’re still going backwards."

And here's Warren Buffett on the plan to throw money everywhere:

I don't think anybody on December 7th would have said a `war is a terrible thing to waste, and therefore we're going to try and ram through a whole bunch of things and--but we expect to--expect the other party to unite behind us on the--on the big problem.' It's just a mistake, I think, when you've got one overriding objective, to try and muddle it up with a bunch of other things.

It's hard to believe I once flipped out over a half-trillion dollar deficit when deficits for the next decade will rarely fall below that level even if you accept Obama's delusional growth estimates.

Big Orange prevails at 1:12 a.m. after six overtimes - I'm not a big basketball fan, but this was an epic battle.  Syracuse beats UConn 127-117 after the second-longest game in March Madness history.

Ironically, Dutch terror suspects disrupt concert by The Killers - National Post "Seven arrested for Amsterdam bomb threats": "Dutch police arrested seven people on Thursday on suspicion of threatening to blow up several buildings in an Amsterdam suburb, including a furniture store and a concert hall, authorities said."

Two words: "no teleprompter" - Washington Whispers reports that Barack Obama may be the first President since Grover Cleveland to skip Washington's annual Gridiron Dinner.

Joe Biden, who never runs out of things to say, will attend in the President's place.

Extra - More from Wizbang.

Walking after midnight with dot-matrix printers

I have to work on my take-home exam so I'll leave you entertained by this 1997 commerical by AT&T, starring a young Larisa Oleynik cyber-flirting with her boyfriend.

Ah, only twelve years ago, when dial-up and clickety-clack keyboards were the norm.  And is that a Polaroid camera?  It's like ancient history.

Flicks with Micks - Boston Globe: "Irish film picks for St. Patrick's Day."

I'd have to say my favorite Irish film is "The Commitments" about a Dublin band singing American soul music.  Excellent soundtrack.

Et tu, Warren Buffett?

Reuters: "Vaunted Obama message machine is off-key" (HT: Wizbang)

When billionaire investor Warren Buffett says President Barack Obama's economic message is muddled and undermining public confidence, it's worth listening.

Buffett, an informal Obama adviser considered a financial seer on Wall Street, told CNBC on Monday the message has to be "very, very clear as to what government will be doing."

"And I think we've had, and it's the nature of the political process somewhat, but we've had muddled messages and the American public does not know. They feel they don't know what's going on, and their reaction then is to absolutely pull back," he said.

The markets rebounded today on news that Citigroup isn't broke yet.

Too big to fail - Pajamas Media: "The Idiot's guide to destroying the economy"

Instead of a laser beam of focus, a kaleidoscope of spending

Here's Jennifer Rubin with "Then how are we to recover?" (HT: RCP)

It is curious indeed to have a single crisis this enormous, one which was in large part responsible for the candidate's victory, and have such a lackadaisical attitude toward solving it. You would think every policy move, every "summit," and the budget itself - which is a blueprint for the administration’s agenda - would focus on that singular mission: economic recovery. The fact that the administration is running off in a dozen different directions suggests they have either not the inclination or the know-how to address the most critical issue of our time.

No wonder the markets are in a funk.

Last week it was snubbing the Brits. Today it was cloning. Wednesday is time for Happy Hour at the White House. Meanwhile, some are taking notice that the Obama administration seems to have no clue how to address the banking crisis:



The markets hate uncertainty and lately it's all the White House delivers.

But, hey, let's talk about Rush Limbaugh now!

Extra – Here's Robert Samuelson: "Confidence (too little) and uncertainty (too much) define this crisis. Obama's double talk reduces the first and raises the second. He says he's focused on reviving the economy, but he's also using the crisis to advance an ambitious long-term agenda."

Separating science from politics, starting....now! - The Minuteman beat me to this one: the science behind the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain has been "settled" for decades.  However, Obama pandered to Nevada voters during the presidential campaign and helped out his Senate buddy Harry Reid (D-NV) to essentially kill the nuclear industry in America.  Funny how that works.

He called it - Matt Hoy predicted a NY Times flip-flop on the correct use of the filibuster.

Take a wild guess - WSJ: "Who pays for cap and trade?"

Amazing Race update – Cold strategy in Siberia

So this past week I was in my dentist office and there was an article in Entertainment Weekly about The Amazing Race. For one of the "surprises" this season, host Phil Keoghan revealed that, after one leg, two teams "scream at each other for 45 minutes." In tonight's intro, there's a foreshadowing of a "Blind U-Turn" where one team can force another to do a task but – unlike Races in the past – the punishing team doesn't have to identify itself. Conflict dead ahead.

The eight remaining teams need to fly from Romania to Siberia, Russia. This is a super-long flight connecting through Moscow and heading straight east. Everybody's bunched up at a hydroelectric dam which opens the following morning. Once there, teams just go to the next clue at a church. There it's the Detour: Stack or Construct. Teams may either stack a pile of firewood (quite high) or build a set of wood shutters and then install them onto some Siberian homes. The "construct" seems the better choice (to me) but teams start stacking firewood and we learn that "haste makes waste" as stacks start collapsing. Team Mighty Mites immediately gives up on their stack and head to the other Detour; Team Sistahs finish first and head to the next stop.

Kisha & Jen head to the Blind U-Turn but choose not to U-turn any other team. They then go to the next stop which is an amusement park and the Roadblock. One team member must travel down a bobsled and complete a course in less than four minutes while remembering seven letters on the course. At the bottom, the bobsledding Racer must rearrange the letters to spell the name of a famous Russian playwright: CHEKHOV. Lots of teams have trouble with this.

At the blind U-Turn, Margie and Luke marked the team of Amanda & Kris. They are not amused and now they have to go back and stack the wood they abandoned at the Detour. Team America was already running in last place so this extra task puts them irredeemably behind and they are eliminated at the Pit Stop. No yelling this week.

Final standings:

#1 – Team Drinkcart – Christie & Jodi
#2 – Team Sistahs – Kisha & Jen
#3 – Team Esquire – Tammy & Victor
#4 – Team Say What? – Margie & Luke
#5 – Team Ginger – Jaime & Cara
#6 – Team White Guys – Mel & Mike
#7 – Team Mighty Mites – Mark & Michael
#8 – Team America – Amanda & Kris - PHILIMINATED

Next week – Lots of skin.

Wrong wrong wrong OK, kinda right

I looked under my Snapple cap today and there read Snapple Fact #147:

Panama is the only place in the world where you can see the sun rise on the Pacific and set on the Atlantic.

This makes absolutely no sense. I can't conceive any possible way in which the sun could rise in the west and set in the east, no matter where you're standing in Panama or Chile or anywhere.

Update: Dr. Weevil explains in comments: "Check the map: Panama is twisted, so part of the Pacific coast faces east, and part of the Atlantic coast faces west. I doubt there's one single point in Panama where you can see the sun rise from the Pacific and set in the Atlantic, but there should be points where you can see one or the other." Like KT Tunstall, suddenly I see.