[WSJ] The Obama spending blitz is over and the deficit is heading below 4% of GDP.
Sample paragraphs:
The biggest underreported story out of Washington this year is that the federal budget is shrinking and much more than anyone in either party expected.
Consider the numbers: According to the Congressional Budget Office, annual outlays peaked at $3.598 trillion in fiscal 2011. After President Obama's first two years in office, many in Washington expected that number to hit $4 trillion by 2014. Instead, spending fell to $3.537 trillion in fiscal 2012, and is on pace to fall below $3.45 trillion by the end of this fiscal year (Sept. 30). The $150 billion budget decline of 4% is the first time federal expenditures have fallen for two consecutive years since the end of the Korean War.
This reversal from the spending binge in 2009 and 2010 began with the debt-ceiling agreement between Mr. Obama and House Speaker John Boehner in 2011. The agreement set $2 trillion in tight caps on spending over a decade and created this year's budget sequester, which will save more than $50 billion in fiscal 2013.
As long as Republicans don't foolishly undo this amazing progress by agreeing to Mr. Obama's demands for a "balanced approach" to the 2014 budget in exchange for calling off the sequester, additional expenditure cuts will continue automatically. Those cuts are built into the current budget law.
#2
All the goals set in a five-year plan were surpassed?
Yes, Citizen. Unfortunately, in order to make the next five year plan, we have to cancel SSI in order to pay for EPA programs to save a small, obscure fish in an Oregon pond. Priorities, eggs/omelette, all that.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/13/2013 6:37 Comments ||
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#3
Clever, gentlemen. But one suspects you did not read the article before commenting.
#4
Here's the gist of the negatives and doubtfuls (the latter in bold type):
If the country sees any normal acceleration of economic growth (from the anemic 1.4% growth rate so far this year), the deficit is on a path to drop steadily at least through 2015...
But the fiscal story isn't all rosy. The major entitlements remain on autopilot and are roaring toward insolvency. Thanks in large part to Mr. Obama's aversion to practical fixes, the Congressional Budget Office calculates that through July of this year Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending are up $73 billion from just last year. This doesn't include ObamaCare, which is scheduled to add $1 trillion of new costs over the next decade...
All Republicans need to do is enforce the budget laws Mr. Obama has already agreed to. Entitlement reforms will come when liberals realize that the unhappy alternative is to allow every program they cherish to keep shrinking.
[Dawn] THERE is a businessman in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... who lives in one of those manors with barbed wires atop high walls.
He generates his own electricity through solar technology, as none is available from the state. He harvests rainwater for domestic use, as none is provided by the state. He has employed private guards, as the state is not even pretending to take responsibility for his life and security. What he says with a chuckle reflects the painful reality of Pakistain: all I need to do is design my own flag and I can declare myself a state.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2013 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] IT may not be the most edifying of spectacles, but it nevertheless tells an interesting tale: the war of words between the JUI-F and PTI over the character and alleged foreign associations of their respective chiefs is rooted in the most cynical of politics. Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree... and Fazlur Rehman are no shrinking violets when it comes to taking on political opponents, but the gloves-off, tawdry accusations and recriminations appear to be a continuation of the acrimonious electoral campaign in KP. Context is everything in politics and in the run-up to the May 11 general election, conventional political wisdom had it that Fazlur Rehman was poised to make sweeping gains in KP and a virtual shoe-in for the provincial chief ministership -- an ascendancy that had long been attributed to the PTI and Imran Khan in KP. With the stakes so high, a fierce war of words ensued in which Mr Khan and his party leaders tore relentlessly into the politics, reputation and governance record of the JUI-F and Fazlur Rehman.
Of course, as the votes were counted on May 11, it became obvious that the winner of that war was Mr Khan. And the JUI-F's problems were compounded when the JUI-F chief failed in his bid to convince the PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... to block the PTI's rise to power in the KP assembly. Now on the outside and confronted by a hugely popular new political force in KP, the JUI-F boss has struggled to find a line of attack that will gain traction with the public. After all, the PTI in KP has out-right-winged the right-wing in the province: on drones, on the US presence in Afghanistan and on a distinctly religiously conservative approach to politics. That has left the old and tired ammunition against Mr Khan: his colourful past and his ex-wife's Jewish connections. Ugly as those tactics are, it is not as if Mr Khan has pulled any punches when attacking the Maulana. Perhaps the best advice to both is to cease and desist.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/13/2013 00:00 ||
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"IQ is a metric of such dubiousness that almost no serious educational researcher uses it anymore," the Guardian's Ana Marie Cox wrote back in May. It was a breathtakingly ignorant statement.
Ana Marie Cox is a breathtakingly ignorant journalist...
Like the New York Times, The Guardian hires journalists who write well.
That's one of your best periwinkle snarks yet...
Psychologist Jelte Wicherts noted in response that a search for "IQ test" in Google's academic database yielded more than 10,000 hits -- just for the year 2013.
But Cox's assertion is all too common. There is a large discrepancy between what educated laypeople believe about cognitive science and what experts actually know. Journalists are steeped in the lay wisdom, so they are repeatedly surprised when someone forthrightly discusses the real science of mental ability.
If that science happens to deal with group differences in average IQ, the journalists' surprise turns into shock and disdain. Experts who speak publicly about IQ differences end up portrayed as weird contrarians at best, and peddlers of racist pseudoscience at worst.
Instapundit's comment: FUNNY HOW PEOPLE WHO LIVE AND DIE BY S.A.T. SCORES MAINTAIN THAT I.Q. SCORES MEAN NOTHING.
#1
SAT and IQ along with all the other paper tests only measure how well you can take a test. Without being able to measure and test creativity along with knowledge, these are just weak attempts at best.
And if you don't agree with me then you're a big poo-poo head.
#3
Where positive performance outcomes are prevalent, such as in Kenyan marathon running, the results are celebrated, scrutinized, but seldom challenged. Diet, work ethic, altitude, BMI, cattle herding, tribal heritages, attitude and motivation are all fair game for discussion. When negative performance results are identified either in sports or knowledge testing, they tend to be ignored or blamed on a lack of access to inner-city olympic swimming pools or failed educational systems.
I certainly can't explain or identify the scientific reasons for the phenomenon of Kenyan running prowess. I can however, identify hypocrisy.
#4
the accepted belief of of a professional leftist is that homosexuality is 100% inherited but IQ is 0% inherited
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/13/2013 6:29 Comments ||
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#5
besoeker.
Did the Bobby Crim Festival of Races--in Flint, MI--back in the day. It's been going on a long time and the signature run is a sanctioned 10-mile. There are others, 5k walks for kids and so forth, all in support of Special Olympics.
The Kenyan team is always there and they may as well have a two-mile head start.
Thing about East Africa is that it has altitude. Most Africans coming to the Americas were from the West Coast of Africa or the Congo basin. Once you pass the falls line, into the interior, the altitude is substantially higher. So the East Africans, trotting after cattle instead of doing bush farming, were doing so at a higher altitude than their lowland cousins.
Note that some endurance athletes train in Colorado Springs to get the same benefit, but they haven't been evolved for generations at that altitude. Still, it helps.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
08/13/2013 7:10 Comments ||
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#6
I ran from the car park to the 'Golden Bee' in the Springs once or twice Richard. Don't think it did a damn thing for me... long term. Yes, 'evolution' does take place, I believe both physical and mental. To deny the one and accept the other ?
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but rather the one most adaptable to change.
¯ Leon C. Megginson
#7
Yes, 'evolution' does take place, I believe both physical and mental.
Evolution is just another way of saying specimens with one type of characteristic outbreed other specimens with characteristics less suited to the environment in question. Brawn outbred brains in sub-Saharan Africa. Brains outbred brawn in Europe. If I had to guess, I'd say the early development of civilization in Europe, relative to sub-Saharan Africa, led to the gradual marginalization of violent but dumb specimens (via execution for murder, theft, robbery and so on), whereas anarchy in sub-Saharan Africa meant the smart guys were wiped out. And that initial setback in Africa was probably just the result of a bad roll of the dice, just as Mesopotamians came up with a written language thousands of years before the Celts in the British Isles adopted the Roman alphabet as their own.
#8
Thing about East Africa is that it has altitude.
Gee, wonder why the U.S. Olympic training complex is in Colorado Springs, CO? /rhet question
As for IQ - back as early in the 70s the military came to the determination that the 'professional' educators where handing out certificates of attendance rather than validation of ability. When you are dealing with a true 'life or death' test, you need a better determination of ability. That's when the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery superseded high school graduation certificates as the means of validation of ability. It validates the piece of paper the high school hands out. You don't need DoE to come up with a CYAWP test to protect their own, DoD already has one to give you a fair measure of ability. If you want to see dodo hit the fan, make every senior take it to see the 'curve' that the school is sending out its doors.
#10
Besoeker.
the Springs is where you go for serious endurance training because you have less oxygen there and the body adjusts accordingly, giving you an advantage against guys who haven't.
If you've had generations doing that, the stronger survive, passing on the distance-running capacities.
So the Kenyans have both evolution as a group and high-altitude training for the individual, without having to go anyplace.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
08/13/2013 9:19 Comments ||
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#11
If you want to see dodo hit the fan, make every senior take it to see the 'curve' that the school is sending out its doors.
How about making all the teachers and administrators take it every year? It would be a real RIOT!
#12
Who said it? "Live like your enemy trains."
The strategy in CO is to live (sleep, eat) in places like Leadville (14000), Idaho Springs(9000) or Steamboat Springs (9000) then go down to Denver (6000) or Colorado Springs to train.
Is a carry over from the draft army era. It was a tool for pro pay and promotion. I recall having to do enlisted evals for E2-E4 during that time too. Someone finally figured out that since most of those promotions were local, the people they worked for knew better in determining promotion based upon performance. It was a time [still locked in too many Donk minds] of less than the best and brightest filling the ranks. Your typical senior NCO had a high school degree. So the MOS testing acted as a motivator for a few extra dollars a month when a few extra (pre-inflation) dollars actually meant something.
Today your E6-7 pretty much has to have an associates degree and 7-9 a bachelors to be competitive for promotion.
The eval reports for those 5 and above should be the discriminator in whether the individual knows his/her MOS skills. If the rater isn't lying then it should work. If the rater is lying, he/she should be among those being given the 'pink slip' for lack of integrity. Given the era of force reductions, that should be enough to separate the wheat from the chaff.
#14
Re: #12 - Camp Hale (Pando, CO) was the training base for the Tenth Mountain Division in The Big War and it's right at 9,200' high.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/13/2013 12:09 Comments ||
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#15
Thanks for your perspective P2k. As for "separating wheat from chaff", AR 600-9 might be a good place to start. A few of these people would have to make multiple trips if told to haul arse.
#16
Two things: First, I think it's doodoo not dodo and second; I saw an IQ test on line that was reputed to be culturally neutral.. First question started out, ""Jefferson has two pounds of hash and four friends.....
Posted by: Total War ||
08/13/2013 15:58 Comments ||
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#17
I certainly can't explain or identify the scientific reasons for the phenomenon of Kenyan running prowess.
It has been a topic of intense study by exercise physiologists. Genetics (influenced by environmental and evolutionary pressures) has a lot to do with it. Kenyans are smaller, and have disproportionately more slow-twitch muscle fibers - optimal for endurance running. West Africans are bigger, and have disproportionately more fast-twitch muscle fibers - optimal for sprinting.
Similarly, blacks are prone to sickle-cell anemia due to a single-gene mutation which confers resistance to malaria (prevalent in Africa); and whites are prone to cystic fibrosis due to a genetic mutation which confers resistance to cholera (prevalent in Europe).
Those who are heterozygous for the gene (one mutated, one normal) are healthy and also resistant to infection. Those who are homozygous (both genes have the mutation) are afflicted with chronic illness. Good examples of why it's best to have children with someone who is not from the same gene pool. (Explains a lot about the Muslim world too.)
In sum: environment influences genetics, which determines the make-up and function of our bodies. Including our brains.
#19
#18 Not everybody gets to be an astronaut when they grow up.
Apparently anyone can be president.
Heh. Reminds me of a favorite cartoon from many years ago (if it wasn't a Far Side, it should've been): A gorilla teacher tells her classroom full of gorilla kids, "And the really great thing about this jungle of ours is that any one of you can grow up to be King!" And there in the midst of the class sits skinny little Tarzan in his leopardskin. No offense intended to anyone. I don't have a racist bone in my nosecauldron body. But that frame always cracked me up.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Of course, as the votes were counted on May 11, it became obvious that the winner of that war was Mr Khan. And the JUI-F's problems were compounded when the JUI-F chief failed in his bid to convince the PML-N supremo 
