Done and Gone

I left Japan in December 2010, so I will not be writing anything here for the foreseeable future. Japan was a wonderful experience, much better than the unfolding predictable decay of Obamanation.

Testing

Still on?

President Awesome

I just wanted to say how awesome President Awesome is. Moreover, I wish it be known that I made that statement without a teleprompter or even lines written on my palm.

Barack's Teleprompter

Did you know President Obama's TelePrompter has its own blog? If you really want to get to know The Big Guy better—to get behind his face, if you will—it's the place to go.

Oh President Obama

Honestly, I wish the guy well, but he's doing a poor job with vetting (I've lost track of the nominated withdrawals and resignations). Then there's the scary use the crisis! talk from two bigwigs:
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has said. "Never waste a good crisis" is how Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it before a European audience last week.”
But Obama is supporting vouchers, if tepidly. Yay! American schools need innovation, not preservation.
He also seems to function by gut instinct, not logic, which makes him similar to George Bush.

Iraqi Election, Frozen Bluegrass, and Reverting to Nature

Ann Althouse has it on the recent Iraqi election. You know, the one you didn't hear about. Why is this not big news? Perhaps because it might indicate success?

Yes, I purloined this, but it's classic: Obama dozed, people froze, stolen from here. That would be people in Kentucky: gun-clutching, Bible-thumping, xenophobic, bitter white people.

Rainforests are returning in some places (with skeptics, of course, who are probably on the Big Green or Federal grant payroll), just like nature is taking back parts of Detroit.

Debt Fret

1) Looking bad for Greece, in particular, in Euroland:

The omnipotent hand of the Greek state produced a public debt of more than 90 percent of Greece’s total economic output. The relentlessly rising demand of its consumers, who were able to put off the day of reckoning because they enjoyed the shelter of the low-inflation euro, has created a current-account deficit of 14 percent of its gross domestic product — estimated to be the highest in Europe.

2) There's also California's Tipping Point:

I think a threshold or tipping point exists in the ratio between the political power of those who pay taxes and those who consume taxes directly. After that tipping point is reached, those who pay taxes become the economic slaves of those who consume taxes.

I think California has passed that point

. [h/t

Instapundit

] Tax consumers now control the state government and can vote themselves almost any level of personal income and benefits they wish while taxpayers cannot muster the political capital to defend themselves. 

3) Maybe personal debt and sanity will reign in higher education costs, pricking that bubble. It might even force some universities to consider real diversity: of thought.

4) I didn't live the Bush years in the US, but The Atlantic posits they weren't so bad. The article tosses in words refreshingly true but rarely spoken:

No doubt the new guy, just like the old guy, will require unprecedented new powers to deal with the unprecedented threat to our well being. Obama is already asking for an unprecedented increase in the size of the national debt. Before we go back down that road, maybe we should stop and ask: "What crisis?''

5) President Obama has already ordered an airstrike on Pakitstani militants but the anti-war crowd's silence is deafening (but of course: our violence is OK, it's the others' whose is wrong).