Chef Mojo

$9.8 Trillion: A Perspective

As regards the unimaginable debt that the US is about to pile up, I found a comment in this post that sort of puts 9.8 trillion dollars into perspective:

There are 3600 seconds in an hour, 86,400 seconds in a 24-hour day, and 31,536,000 seconds in a 365-day year. 

 In the last 2000 years of human history, only 63,072,000,000 (63 billion) seconds have passed. 

For 9.8 trillion seconds to pass, it would take 310,756 years. 9.8 trillion days would take 26,849,315,068 years. 

The earth and the sun are estimated to be only about 4.5 billion years old. 

And the entire universe is estimated to be about 13 billion years since the Big Bang. 

 So 9.8 trillion days is twice as long as the beginning of time.

Dreams Of Ashes

Via Althouse comes a parable of class warfare.

Legend has it that during a brutal contract bargaining session, Harry Bennett, Henry Ford's enforcer, attempted to break the tension by passing around snapshots taken during a visit to Maxon Lodge, a gorgeous hideaway in the woods of northern Michigan.

Walter Reuther, architect of the United Auto Workers' rise, looked over the photographs, tossed them on the table and said to Bennett: "Come the revolution, we'll own that place."

It was no idle threat. In 1967, flush with cash from a bulging membership, the UAW purchased the lodge and 1,000 acres on Black Lake.

And, as often happens with revolutionaries, the temptations of power were too strong to resist.

I've never quite understood why people differentiate between corporate fat cats and union fat cats. They're the same animal. They've clawed their way to the top of their respective institutions and share in the wealth and wallow in the resulting corruption of their symbiotic relationship. 

The unions, however, did it on the backs of their membership, much in the way the government does; through taxation. Union dues, within in an effectively closed shop, are simply a form of taxation. For awhile, it was a sweet deal. The union bosses got rich. The workers were effectively rich. In getting there, however, they sucked the blood from the ever weakening corporations. 

Michigan is now a basket case and Detroit is a wasteland. Corporate ossification certainly played a role, but it was in lockstep with the unions in a long march to the cliff. When the lightning struck, they were perfectly situated stampede over the edge, never quite figuring out why as they hit the bottom.

Notes From The Time Of 'Hope & Change'

That was then:

Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter. 

Sen. Tom Daschle

Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507.

This is now:

The New York Times 

Daschle Knew of Tax Issues Over Car Use Last June

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and ROBERT PEAR

Published: January 31, 2009

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s choice for health secretary, Tom Daschle, was aware as early as last June that he might have to pay back taxes for the use of a car and driver provided by a private equity firm, but did not inform the Obama transition team until weeks after Mr. Obama named him to the health secretary’s post, senior administration officials said Saturday.

(…)

“It’s totally shocking,” an aide to a Democratic senator said Saturday. “Why do we have to continue to have the same story over and over again with these nominees?” 

(emphasis mine)

Mr. Daschle, who has paid the back taxes with interest, is the latest of Mr. Obama’s cabinet choices who have run into trouble, and the revelations about his finances — which include more than $300,000 in income from health-related companies that he might regulate as secretary — raise questions about the presidential vetting process, as well as Mr. Obama’s ability to keep his pledge to run an administration free of outside influence.

This is the reality:

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

Johnny Rotten
January 14, 1978
Winterland, San Fransisco

(via NRO)

I Am So Down With This...

From NRO:

All U.S. taxpayers would enjoy the same immunity from IRS penalties and interest as House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) and Obama Administration Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, if a bill introduced today by Congressman John Carter (R-TX) becomes law.

Carter, a former longtime Texas judge, today introduced the Rangel Rule Act of 2009, HR 735, which would prohibit the Internal Revenue Service from charging penalties and interest on back taxes against U.S. citizens. Under the proposed law, any taxpayer who wrote “Rangel Rule” on their return when paying back taxes would be immune from penalties and interest.

And why not? Why shouldn't we be able to follow the example of our esteemed public servants?

The More Things Change...

...The more they stay the same.

Victor Davis Hanson:

The Year 1 AB (After Bush) 

If one were to have gone into deep sleep in late October during the Dark Ages, and woken up in late January in the AB (after Bush) era of Hope and Change and an end to all evil, would the world seem different? No, it looks pretty much the same. Same old Predator strikes on terrorists in Pakistan. Same old DC and NY grandees caught fudging on taxes and giving complex explanations of hiring less than legal nannies and maids, same old Guantanamo open with the same old pledges to, "Close it now! Or at least soon!" Same old Chris Dodd and Charlie Rangel planning to outlast the fading media scrutiny of their ethical lapses. Same old Joe Biden caught on camera in more embarrassing gaffes. And same old media trying to explain why the world has forever changed.

And that's putting it nicely.

Touchy

From Politico:

Obama flashes irritation in press room

By JONATHAN MARTIN & CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN | 1/22/09 6:43 PM EST  Updated: 1/23/09 7:20 AM EST           

 President Obama made a surprise visit to the White House press corps Thursday night, but got agitated when he was faced with a substantive question.

 Asked how he could reconcile a strict ban on lobbyists in his administration with a Deputy Defense Secretary nominee who lobbied for Raytheon, Obama interrupted with a knowing smile on his face.

"Ahh, see," he said, "I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can't end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I'm going to get grilled every time I come down here." 

Amazing. A member of the White House Press Corps actually attempts to do his job in the presence of the anointed One, and this is what emerges. 

Does Obama really think that a simple, single question constitutes, "grilling?" Well, I guess we better get the lawyers at Justice to send down a ruling and figure out if the press now fits the legal definition of torture. Oooh, harsh interrogations! 

What the hell does he think the press room is for? Just hanging out with the buds, joking and giving out fist bumps?

Oh. Yeah. Right. How silly of me.

The president was quickly saved by a cameraman in the room who called out: “I’d like to say it one more time: ‘Mr. President.’ ”

The press is in such a state of post-coital bliss that all it can do is roll over towards the One - enjoyin' his cigarette - snuggle up and whisper in his ear, "Mr. President," with such sycophantic adoration as to put Marilyn Monroe's singing of Happy Birthday to JFK to utter shame.

Garrison Keillor Is An Ass

From the Chicago Tribune

A day to remember
Garrison Keillor
January 21, 2009
One simply wanted to be present. Freezing cold or not, a crowd of 2 million, whatever—solemn warnings about tight security, long lines, traffic jams, cell phones not working. In the end, one wanted to be there on the Mall before the Capitol on Tuesday at noon amid the jubilant throng and see the man take the oath of office—our first genuine author-president.

(Emphasis mine)

Hold on there, cowboy. Not by a long shot.

Hey moron, let's try Thomas Jefferson, to begin with. 1782. Notes On The State Of Virginia, one of the great observational histories written up to that time. Sounds like an author to me.

Or, how about Theodore Roosevelt? He managed to publish The Naval War of 1812 upon his graduation from Harvard in 1880. Of course, Harvard wasn't dumbed down then like it is now. He wrote it as an undergrad. It's still the definitive book on the subject. Yeah. He was an author.

Woodrow Wilson. Congressional Government and Constitutional Government. And numerous other books. Yep. You guessed it. Author.

Kennedy's Profiles In Courage doesn't count. He didn't write it.

Those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head. 

Garrison Keillor is a bloviating fool, skating on the ever thinning ice of past, questionable talent. He wouldn't know real authorship if it crawled up his ass sideways.

I mean, really. Obama's pieces of masturbatory fluff are going to stand up to serious histories and analytics from people far more talented and intelligent than he could ever dream of being?

(Via Ace)

Still Rings True

Of all kinds of credulity, the most obstinate and wonderful is that of political zealots; of men, who being numbered, they know not how or why, in any of the parties that divide a state, resign the use of their own eyes and ears, and resolve to believe nothing that does not favor those whom they profess to follow.

Samuel Johnson

Haiku

Look out the window
Red Dawn rising to the east
Honey, get my gun

Hover Through The Fog And Filthy Air

The Menomini called them pikwute sikakushia (skunk plant), and they referred to an area near the southern shore of Lake Michigan, where ramps grew abundantly, as CicagaWuni or shikako (skunk place). The term was later applied to a white settlement now known as Chicago.

Here's the thing; I've said all along to folks on the left that one of the primary reasons I don't trust Obama is that he's a product of Chicago politics. Now, there's really nothing more corrupt than Chicago politics. It's the pure distillation of American political corruption confined to a relatively small corner on the shores of Lake Michigan. 

I met Dan Rostenkowski once, back in the day. Actually had dinner with him. Nice guy. Treated me with respect. Great tipper. Long story involving a steak house where table 50 had a brass plaque engraved "Rosty's Rotunda," and doing the Chairman a favor.  

The man oozed power and corruption from his pores. He was akin to a Medieval noble holding court, nourished by prime Chicago beef and the flattery of his sycophants. Occasionally, he would stoop to acknowledge the plebeians in his midst, before moving on to his next scheme.

His political life was Shakespeare writ large upon the stage of reality, where the naked ambition of princes unfolds like a switchblade whose edge is all too real. It is a dirty world of thrust and parry, and finally the killing stroke.

We all joke about the "Chicago Way." It doesn't seem all that funny today.

Remember: Barack Obama is the legacy - the fulfillment - of the "Chicago Way."