Tuesday, May 05, 2009

“STIFF” OPPOSITION

Jim Moran’s Stiff Opposition to Sexual Innuendo Hard to Understand. Moran apparently wants Viagra and other erectile dysfunction ads banned from prime-time TV. Instapundit appears to disagree.

On this one, I’m with Moran. It’s not the ads themselves, it’s that they’re so damned ubiquitous. After the umpteenth ad in 30 minutes I want to throw anything handy through the TV screen.

I’d also forever ban the Sedation Dental Clinic’s, “wake up to a bright new smile with all your teeth removed, polished, and rearranged on only one visit and your world will be full of tulips, daisies, and sunflowers” ad as well as the David Drew Clinic’s “you’re gonna die if you don’t come in for our comprehensive full-body physical exam” ads on WTOP radio.

I’d rather trim my fingernails with a hammer and cold chisel than listen to those ads.

AIR FORCE ONE

Videos are classified?

-- 3-hour trip on Air Force One: $300,000
-- Military jet escort: $30,000
-- Pictures generated: Classified.
Probably exactly because the videos show the panic in the streets below.

CINCO DE CUATRO?

It must have been TOTUS’ fault.

On the eve of the Mexican holiday, Obama on Monday had an event in the East Room of the White House with Mexico's Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan.

Obama joked that it was "Cinco de Cuatro," botching a play on the Spanish word for "four" when he meant to say "Cuatro de Mayo," or the Fourth of May.
This from a unilingual man who's embarrassed that more of us can't speak French.

Oh, and as a reminder, former President Bush speaks Spanish.

ANYTHING BUT VISTA

Microsoft hopes Windows 7 will help customers forget the problems with its last operating system.


My Vista laptop has already been in the computer hospital twice ... recovery is problematic.

OBAMACARE?

Chinese Government Ordering Officials to Smoke: "The regulation will boost the local economy via the cigarette tax."

We should consider that here, and use the tax receipts to pay for Obamacare.

New Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter would appreciate that, I’m sure, since Specter told Face the Nation that had the GOP listened to him and spent billions more dollars in the “war on cancer,” Jack Kemp would still be alive:

It would have the added benefit of decreasing the longevity of our political class ....

A POLITICAL CROSSROADS?

From Pajamas Media:

Investors sense that the economy is at a crossroads. A political crossroads.

The headwinds that remain have less to do with bank stress tests, and more to do with CEO sentiment. The Business Roundtable reports “record low” CEO confidence as of early April.

Why are CEOs in such a low mood? Answer: If you are a CEO in financial services, manufacturing, energy production, [or] health care, you are going to be more regulated. Period, end of story. Your response to forthcoming regulation of yet-to-be-determined complexity will be to hunker down.

One example does not data make, but “I am a hospital CEO and I am doing exactly what he says here – hunkering down before the government take over of health care hits.”

And yet .... my own sense that the market has bottomed out and investors are cautiously testing the waters (I am).

And yet ... General Motors appears to be resigned to bankruptcy. As I’ve commented before, my sense is that business is (albeit slowly) deciding to swallow hard, face up to the taxpayer wrath, and go for a well-ordered court dissolution rather than face the “fickle finger” of government.

Maybe the Tea Parties are having an effect, strengthening private enterprise resolve to fight back.