Alien In More Than One Way (Part II)

Ann Coulter, Barack Obama, Conspiracy, Constitution, Media, Propaganda, Reason

In Part I of this post, I ventured that the president was an alien on so many levels, and that I failed to see why the formality of his birth was more central than the insanity and un-American nature of his thinking.
The saga continued today, with Orly Taitz, leader and lead attorney for the “Birthers,” being “grilled”—or shall I say shouted down—by David Shyster and the brassy, breast-bearing Tamron Hall—two dye-hard, MSNBC Obama heads.

Taitz tried to state her case, but was bellowed at by these blowhards. Now, as I stated, I am uninterested in this initiative. However, two issues caught my attention:

With my knack for detecting bogus arguments, it appeared to me that Taitz—who for all I know may well be lying—did at least present arguments. An argument can be logically sound while being untrue. Her attack dogs did not; they just shouted and offered arguments from authority. This raises alarm bells for me; tweaks my interest.

The Birthers’ lawyer claimed that the Obama birth certificate was a culmination of a report to the press by parents or relatives, and was not stamped by a hospital. If this is true, then Taitz is correct: it is possible that the certificate was a misrepresentation of Obama’s place of birth. Of course, her contention may be untrue. But she presents a case that could be investigated.

Her other, perfectly coherent, contention can easily be verified by a constitutional scholar. Taitz claims that to confer presidential eligibility on their child, both Obama’s parents would have to be American. Obama’s father was neither a citizen nor was he born in the US.

And who would object to a request for the release of the following heavily guarded documents, unless Obama’s scholarly articles were devoted to an application of Critical Race Theory?:

Obama’s Columbia University records, his Columbia thesis, his Harvard Law School records, his Harvard Law Review articles, his scholarly articles from the University of Chicago.

I’d sure like to read his legal articles, if any.

Tamron and Shyster offered Ann Coulter in defense of their positions: the Queen Bee had called Birthers “crackpots.” Argument from authority is no argument at all. See what I’m saying?

To their taunts to Taitz that Coulter was surely not a member of “mainstream media,” Dr. Taitz ought to have replied: “Oh yes she is.” Whatever one thinks of the “Birthers,” and I don’t think about them much at all, one thing is indisputable: Ann Coulter is a mainstream Republican.

“The secret to becoming a successful right-wing columnist,” quipped Canadian conservative Kevin Michael Grace, “is to echo the mob while complimenting yourself on your daring. That’s all there is to Ann Coulter’s craft, the rest is exploitation of the sexual masochism of the American male—he just can’t get enough of the kitten with claws.”

Updated: Israel Is Doing Just Fine Financially (& On Illegal Immigration)

Business, Israel, Technology

“The Med’s Best Kept Secret”: “Israel today has become a vibrant, functioning jewel of a nation tucked into the eastern flank of the Mediterranean. Tel Aviv looks more like San Diego or Barcelona than Baghdad or Kabul.” … it maintains “a stable macroeconomic structure and a strong high-tech sector.” …

“What’s the secret? Ayelet Nir, chief economist at IBI, an Israeli investment firm, lists six major reasons Israel’s economy has done well of late:

A very conservative banking system–without most of the complex and problematic financial instruments found in the United States.

No mortgage crisis in a country where putting 50 percent down isn’t unusual, and banks often ask for guarantors.

A current account surplus since 2003.

Negligible inflation.

Prudent governmental fiscal policy.

Healthy integration into the world economy.

“Israeli technology has certainly been a big part of the Internet age. The cell phone? Developed in Israel. Ditto for most of the Windows NT operating system and for voice mail technology. Pentium MMX Chip technology? Designed in Israel. AOL Instant Messenger? Developed in Israel. The list goes on. Firewall security software originated in Israel. The latest breakthrough is the “PillCam,” a video camera that can be swallowed and aids physicians in diagnosing intestinal cancer.”…

How has Israel managed to do so well in high-tech? Every Israeli high-tech player can recite the national data like a bleacher bum spitting out baseball statistics:

Israel produces more science papers per capita than any other country.

Israel lags behind only the United States in number of companies listed on NASDAQ.

Twenty-four percent of Israel’s workforce has a university degree; only the United States and Holland have a higher number.

Israel leads the world in scientists and technicians per capita.”

Read the complete article.

Update: Israel is doing something else right: deporting illegal immigrants without much fuss.

Updated: Israel Is Doing Just Fine Financially (& On Illegal Immigration)

Business, Economy, Israel, Technology

“What’s the secret? Ayelet Nir, chief economist at IBI, an Israeli investment firm, lists six major reasons Israel’s economy has done well of late:

A very conservative banking system–without most of the complex and problematic financial instruments found in the United States.

No mortgage crisis in a country where putting 50 percent down isn’t unusual, and banks often ask for guarantors.

A current account surplus since 2003.

Negligible inflation.

Prudent governmental fiscal policy.

Healthy integration into the world economy.

How has Israel managed to do so well in high-tech? Every Israeli high-tech player can recite the national data like a bleacher bum spitting out baseball statistics:

Israel produces more science papers per capita than any other country.

Israel lags behind only the United States in number of companies listed on NASDAQ.

Twenty-four percent of Israel’s workforce has a university degree; only the United States and Holland have a higher number.

Israel leads the world in scientists and technicians per capita.”

Read the complete article.

Update: Israel is doing something else right: deporting illegal immigrants without much fuss.

"In The Eye Of The [Economic] Storm"

Debt, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation

The Wall Street Journal has a dilemma. How does an anti-Obama, Keynesian outfit treat the putative economic recovery. Here’s the compromise: “We’re not going to have a strong recovery … It’s likely going to be a pretty sluggish affair.”

The truth is much worse. But you already knew it. A couple of weeks back I warned against accepting the media-congressional-presidential complex’s contention that slight upticks in the GDP were indicators of a recovery. In “…Like A Housewarming For The Homeless” I explained that,

the GDP statistic is consumption-driven: it measures the kind of economic Brownian motion of which less is required. ‘This statistic is constructed in accordance with the view that what drives an economy is not the production of wealth but rather its consumption,’ confirms (Austrian) economist Frank Shostak. ‘What matters here is demand for final goods and services. Since consumer outlays are the largest part of overall demand, it is commonly held that consumer demand sets in motion economic growth.’

The temporary bump in the economy is due to the halcyon stimulative high—the effects of all the fiat funny-money floating around and further distorting production patterns.

Says Peter Schiff, the Austrian economics wizard who has yet to be wrong: We are now in an even deeper hole than when the crisis began. Rather than wrapping up a recession, we are actually sinking into a depression. If things look better now, it’s just because we are in the eye of the storm“:

By interfering with the unpleasant forces of the recession, we simply trade short-term gain for long-term pain. By propping up inefficient companies that should fail, we deprive more effective companies of the capital they need to grow. By holding up over-valued asset prices, we prevent the prudent or less well-off from snatching them up and, in doing so, creating a new price equilibrium based upon reality. By maintaining artificially low interest rates, we discourage the very savings that are so critical to capital formation and future economic growth. In addition, the false economic signals the Fed sends the market prevent a more efficient re-allocation of resources from taking place and leads to even more bad economic decision being made. By running such huge deficits, we further crowd-out private enterprise by making it harder for businesses to invest or hire

The verbose Donny Deutsch, a lefty business-cum-mediaman, who’s proving too much of a rightist for the front fems who anchor MSNBC programs, declared the “Clunkers for Cash” give-away, wealth-distribution initiative an example of economic innovation. Inoculate yourselves:

The recently passed “cash for clunkers” program (currently on-hold, as it ran out of funding in one week) is a perfect example of how government policy can make the economy worse. By incentivizing Americans to destroy fully paid-for cars so they can go deeper into debt buying brand new ones, the government weakens an already crippled economy. The last thing we want to do is subsidize Americans to go deeper into debt by buying more stuff. Don’t they realize that is precisely the behavior that got us into this mess?

Think about it this way. If your friend were in trouble because he had too much debt, would you encourage him to take on even more? Wouldn’t a real sign of progress be a reduction of debt, even if he had to cut back on his everyday expenses? What is true for an individual is also true for a collection of individuals, even if they call themselves a ‘government.’ If, as a country, we are even deeper into debt now than we were before, we are worse off. Period. The fact that the additional debt enabled better short-term GDP numbers is a long-term negative.