Out of Town - Blogging May Be Limited All Week

I am working in Millbrae, a pretty little town near San Francisco, and spending the nights in a cheap motel in San Bruno.  The motel has internet access but the signal is weak.

The pay isn't great, but it's a lot better than the tax agency.  I have moved up from being paid peanuts to being paid walnuts.  Still, I am helping a good friend and we are enjoying each other's company and the work.  It's really nice to be productive.

I miss my wife, my dog and my cat.

Barack Obama's Brazen Dishonesty on What Caused the Recession

In Barack Obama's recent "State of the Union" speech, he ruminated on what caused the mortgage crisis and the resulting recession.  He knows what caused it:  the Democratic Party and its support for subprime mortgages for poor people, mainly blacks.  The federal government forced banks and mortgage companies to make very risky loans to people who had no income or low income and no way to repay the loans.  This was the Democrats' cure for mortgage loan "red lining," the alleged practice in which blacks and other minorities were denied real estate loans based simply on their race.

However, "red-lining" was a myth.  The people who were being denied loans were those with no credit and no way to repay.  Nonetheless, what a wonderful opportunity for the Democrat Party to press its creds as the party who protects minorities from alleged "racism"!

Christopher Booker of the U.K. Telegraph summarizes Obama's conceit on the matter, quoting from his State of the Union speech:

“The house of cards collapsed,” he recalled. “We learned that mortgages had been sold to people who couldn’t afford or understand them.” He excoriated the banks which had “made huge bets and bonuses with other people’s money”, while “regulators looked the other way and didn’t have the authority to stop the bad behaviour”. This, said Obama, “was wrong. It was irresponsible. And it plunged our economy into a crisis that put millions out of work.”

Obama is the personification of Democrat dishonesty.  They create a major recession through governmental malfeasance, then blame it on the victims of their own bad behavior, i.e. the banks and mortgage companies.  Hence we have Obama promising to create a governmental "mortgage fraud" unit to investigate such matters.  They ought to start with Obama himself.  As Booker writes:

I recalled a piece I wrote in this column on January 29, 2009, just after Obama took office. It was headlined: “This is the sub-prime house that Barack Obama built”. As a rising young Chicago politician in 1995, no one campaigned more actively than Mr Obama for an amendment to the US Community Reinvestment Act, legally requiring banks to lend huge sums to millions of poor, mainly black Americans, guaranteed by the two giant mortgage associations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It was this Act, above all, which let the US housing bubble blow up, far beyond the point where it was obvious that hundreds of thousands of homeowners would be likely to default. Yet, in 2005, no one more actively opposed moves to halt these reckless guarantees than Senator Obama, who received more donations from Fannie Mae than any other US politician (although Senator Hillary Clinton ran him close).

 The recent outrage against Bank of America underscores the cynicism of the Democrats.  Bank of America was forced to pay $335 million to settle the government's charges that its Countrywide lending unit engaged in "predatory lending" practices, i.e. convincing black borrowers to enter into real estate loans that they couldn't afford to repay.  So Countrywide was forced to make bad loans to blacks by the federal government, and now is excoriated by that same federal government for doing what they were told.  The Democrats create a mess, then require their victims to pay for it and take the blame.  Disgusting.

Read Christopher Booker's article today, "How I Woke Up to the Untruths of Barack Obama."

My Favor Shifts to Gingrich Over Romney

Neither Mitt Romney nor Newt Gingrich is the perfect candidate.  The fight between the two has become vicious, self-destructive, personal and bitter.  I have criticized Gingrich for attacking capitalism and distorting Romney's role at Bain Capital, and for making the campaign too personal.

However, Romney himself has a history of personal attacks and distortions against other Republican candidates.  Lately, his attacks on Gingrich have become hysterical.  This is a turn-off for sure, however, it was something one of Romney's aids said that really bothered me.  The aid said that if Romney is elected, not all of Obamacare will be repealed.  Put this together with past Romney public utterances (attacking conservatives, supporting liberals, proclaiming himself "progressive," supporting leftist policies, etc), and the inescapable conclusion is that Romney is far too liberal for me.  Between him and Gingrich, my favor now returns to Gingrich.

Rick Santorum, my favorite of the three, did well in yesterday's Florida debates, and some say he was the winner of the debate.  I hope Santorum is the nominee when all the primaries are finished.  If not, then I will choose Gingrich over Romney.

Work Cures My Depression

I have been working for a well-known, nationwide tax company (yes, that one).  This is my second tax season with them.  The pay is terrible -- minimum wage -- but I am not working there for the money.  I am working there to increase my knowledge of individual income taxes and for the pleasure of doing something productive.

I like working with the clients, meeting the people, helping them to solve tax problems and to minimize their taxes and take advantage of deductions and credits that may be available to them.  However, this week I was hired for the busy season by another CPA, a good friend with whom I worked as a corporate consultant for several years (making a bundle in the process).  I will be working out of town on weekdays, but working at the tax agency on weekends.  I will be quite busy through April of this year, and making some decent (though not great) money for a change.  My friend, the other CPA, without an income for many months due to the recession, bought an audit practice near San Francisco so he would have an income again.  He asked me to work for him through the busy season, and I agreed.  The pay is a lot better than at the tax agency.

I have been largely without work for three years, all the years of the Obama Administration.  Now Obama didn't cause this horrible recession, but his party did -- and Obama has done everything possible to prolong and deepen the recession, whether intentional or not.  For three years my only activities have been blogging and band practice.  The band practice came to an end in August when I told the band leader that his singing was simply awful.  (This, only after months of subtle hints and tactful suggestions on singing lessons.) He did not appreciate my honesty at finally saying what everyone else knew.

In any case, I have been depressed since Obama came to power.  Now I know what old people in old folks' homes feel like, unproductive, unneeded, unchallenged, with no purpose in life and nothing but death to look forward to.  I spent a lot of the day feeling sleepy and took marathon naps throughout the week.  No energy, no ambition.  For some time, I have wished that the dark angel would tap me on the shoulder and get me out of a useless existence.  This isn't surprising.  I read that the suicide rate in places like Greece is soaring since the economy there crashed.

This past week, though, my friend asked me to work for him and I have been very popular with clients at the tax agency.  Suddenly I am busy, needed, productive, and challenged.  My sleepiness has disappeared and my depression is 90% gone.  I have energy and, holy mackerel, my libido isn't as dead as I thought.  It too is showing signs of life.  I wouldn't have thought this turn-around in my mental attitude was possible.  Work does this for a man.  Work is life, purpose and meaning.  It is, for me anyway, the greatest cure for depression.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Slaps Obama on Tarmac! (Photoshop)

There's a recent photo of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer confronting President Obama on an airport tarmac in Phoenix. The photo shows Brewer pointing a finger at Obama's face. Her mouth is open, suggesting she is really giving him a piece of her mind. I did a Photoshop, using the new Puppet Warp tool in Photoshop CS5, to make Brewer slap Obama right in the chops.

It's only a Photoshop, but I'd love to see her actually do it.

Nancy Pelosi Threatens to Unveil New Scandal for Newt Gingrich (Photoshop)

Nancy Pelosi has stated that "Newt Gingrich will never be President -- there is something I know."  What hidden scandal does Pelosi refer to?  What horrible skeleton still hides in Newt's closet?  The mind can't help but conjure up nightmares (like the one pictured below) as to what this new revelation will be.  Was Newt in bed with the Democrats again?  Say it ain't so, Newt, say it ain't so!

Hat tip:  American Power

Ethics Charges Against Gingrich Were a Democrat Sham

Back in 1994, the Democrats were very angry at Newt Gingrich for engineering the Republican take-down that year, resulting in large Republican majorities for the first time in many years.  The Dems do what Dems do best, namely, dirty politics.  A phone ethics charge was lodged against Gingrich, for which Gingrich was ultimately exonerated...but not before the Democrat media machine has broadcast the phony charges far and wide.   The facts of Newt's exoneration were not so enthusiastically reported, often buried in the back pages of major newspapers.

Verum Serum has the story in detail here.

William L Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" Reissued

William L. Shirer was an American journalist in Berlin from 1933 to 1941.  He witnessed first hand the arise of Nazism in Germany and reported on it.  The website Traces describes him this way:

One of the most recognized U.S. Americans to visit Nazi Germany, William Shirer perhaps shed more light on the events that led to Hitler’s ascendancy and German involvement in World War II than anyone else from the United States. Although closely watched in Germany, Shirer managed to convey much in his reporting by using subtle phrasing, suggestive tones of voice or U.S. slang unfamiliar to German censors trained only in formal British English. Having lived in Paris and familiar with Central Europe from his days with the Chicago Tribune, Shirer became one of the most respected U.S. journalists in wartime Europe.

Shirer later wrote a book, "Berlin Diary" in which he described prewar events in Germany and his visceral reactions to them.  Attending the Nuremberg rally (see above photo), Shirer described it this way:

Hitler shouted at them through the microphone, his words echoing across the hushed field from the loud-speakers. And there, in the flood-lit night, jammed together like sardines, in one mass formation, the little men of Germany who have made Nazism possible achieved the highest state of being the Germanic man knows: the shedding of their individual souls and minds—with the personal responsibilities and doubts and problems—until under the mystic lights and at the sound of the magic words of the Austrian they were merged completely in the Germanic herd.

Later, in 1960, he wrote his life's work, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich."  This latter book is considered one of the most important histories of Nazi Germany, of what happened there and why.   Smithsonian Magazine sets the stage:

Why had Germany, long one of the most ostensibly civilized, highly educated societies on earth, transformed itself into an instrument that turned a continent into a charnel house? Why had Germany delivered itself over to the raving exterminationist dictates of one man, the man Shirer refers to disdainfully as a “vagabond”? Why did the world allow a “tramp,” a Chaplinesque figure whose 1923 beer hall putsch was a comic fiasco, to become a genocidal Führer whose rule spanned a continent and threatened to last a thousand years?

Why? William Shirer offered a 1,250-page answer.

When I was a freshman in college in the early 1960's, "Rise and Fall" was highly touted by scholars and college professors, and was recommended reading.  I took a look at it, decided it was way too thick to hold my attention, and quickly returned it to its shelf in the bookstore of San Jose City College.

Now, years later, I get to rectify my mistake.  The book has been reissued, and I have purchased the Kindle edition of both "Rise and Fall" and "Berlin  Diary" from Amazon.com, and plan to read both books, beginning with the latter.  Why these books are important in the 21st century is explained in Smithsonian Magazine:

In Shirer one can see an evolution: If in Berlin Diary his emphasis on the Germanic character is visceral, in The Rise and Fall his critique is ideological. Other authors have sought to chronicle the war or to explain Hitler, but Shirer made it his mission to take on the entire might and scope of the Reich, the fusion of people and state that Hitler forged. In The Rise and Fall he searches for a deeper “why”: Was the Third Reich a unique, one-time phenomenon, or do humans possess some ever-present receptivity to the appeal of primal, herd-like hatred?

The herd-like instinct was clearly not a one-time phenomenon.  We have seen it before Hitler (the Jacobins of the French Revolution) and we have seen it afterwards (in Mao's Red Guards of the Cultural Revolution, and even the current "Occupy Wall Street" goons who seem incapable of rational thought).

Group-think almost always leads to disaster, particularly in politics.

Barack Obama's New Job at Disneyworld (Photoshop)

January 2013:  Barack Obama finally gets a job he can handle.

Whatever Happened to "Little Green Footballs"? (Photoshop)

Some say it has gone to the dogs.