First Thoughts on The Force Unleashed

The tutorial is a lot of fun. I could toss that droid around forever :)

Obama Camp "Denies" Tahiri's Accusations

Well, sorta.

Obama camp hits back at Iraq double-talk claim

But Obama's national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Taheri's article bore "as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial."

In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a "Strategic Framework Agreement" governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said.

In the face of resistance from Bush, the Democrat has long said that any such agreement must be reviewed by the US Congress as it would tie a future administration's hands on Iraq.

"Barack Obama has never urged a delay in negotiations, nor has he urged a delay in immediately beginning a responsible drawdown of our combat brigades," Morigi said.

"These outright distortions will not changes the facts -- Senator Obama is the only candidate who will safely and responsibly end the war in Iraq and refocus our attention on the real threat: a resurgent Al-Qaeda and Taliban along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border."

In other words, that's no duck!

Tomorrow, Dudes!

If I'm not here, you know where I'll be.

IBD Confirms -- Blame Clinton

Here is a bit more evidence that the sub-prime mess, and the current meltdown of the financials, started with the Clinton administration's policies. Don't be fooled by Obama's lies.

The Real Culprits In This Meltdown

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, September 15, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Big Government: Barack Obama and Democrats blame the historic financial turmoil on the market. But if it's dysfunctional, Democrats during the Clinton years are a prime reason for it.

Obama in a statement yesterday blamed the shocking new round of subprime-related bankruptcies on the free-market system, and specifically the "trickle-down" economics of the Bush administration, which he tried to gig opponent John McCain for wanting to extend.

But it was the Clinton administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions.

Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties.

The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but "predatory."

Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the '90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck.

Additionally,

There's a political root cause to this mess that we ignore at our peril. If we blame the wrong culprits, we'll learn the wrong lessons. And taxpayers will be on the hook for even larger bailouts down the road.

But the government-can-do-no-wrong crowd just doesn't get it. They won't acknowledge the law of unintended consequences from well-meaning, if misguided, acts.

Obama and Democrats on the Hill think even more regulation and more interference in the market will solve the problem their policies helped cause. For now, unarmed by the historic record, conventional wisdom is buying into their blame-business-first rhetoric and bigger-government solutions.

While government arguably has a role in helping low-income folks buy a home, Clinton went overboard by strong-arming lenders with tougher and tougher regulations, which only led to lenders taking on hundreds of billions in subprime bilge.

Market failure? Hardly. Once again, this crisis has government's fingerprints all over it.

Once more, Obama's ignorance of economics shows that he is a threat to our nation's future. McCain may not consider economics his strong area, and truth be told he TOO is calling for greater regulation, but Obama is utterly clueless in this area. Worse, he is on the wrong side of history.

Hopefully, Sarah Palin can teach McCain a few Econ courses. She seems to have more understanding and experience in this area than any of the four.

"Fundamentals Of the Economy"

McCain has been saying that the fundamentals of the economy are strong, and they are, depending on what you mean when you say "fundamentals."

Unemployment is historically low, as is inflation. The GDP is growing, albeit more slowly than in recent quarters.

Even if we were in a recession, and all those numbers where lower or negative, our fundamentals (capitalism) are the strongest fundamentals on earth.

But Obama-Biden are attacking John McCain for saying that the "fundamentals are strong." One can only assume that they mean, since the numbers are pretty good, that capitalism is fundamentally flawed, and we need a new system, socialism.

One more reason to hold your nose and vote McCain, even if he is wrong on so many things -- he doesn't want to destroy this country and change it into something it was never meant to be.

Dow Down 504.48

Yuck.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Obama

While he claimed he wanted an end to the Iraq war and to bring the troops home, he quietly worked to keep them there just long enough for him to take credit for it, as detailed in this piece by Amir Tehiri (not the best source in the universe, but it sounds legit):

OBAMA TRIED TO STALL GIS' IRAQ WITHDRAWAL

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.

The more one learns about this man, the worse it gets. I used to think he was just not very bright, but I am beginning to think he is a truly bad man.

A Decent Analysis

A decent, if incomplete, Analysis can be found here in the NY Times:

FAIR GAME; Home Loans: A Nightmare Grows Darker

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: April 8, 2007

SNAZZY and newfangled mortgage loans, like those with low initial rates of interest or extended terms of 40 or 50 years, helped to drive homeownership rates in the United States from around 64 percent two decades ago to a peak of almost 70 percent in recent years. Called ''affordability loans,'' these new kinds of mortgages have gone mostly to first-time home buyers and borrowers with tarnished credit or spotty employment histories.

Now, however, with home foreclosures and mortgage delinquencies soaring, it is becoming clear that the innovative loans that lenders championed -- in what the industry called the ''democratization of credit'' -- are turning the American dream of homeownership into a nightmare for many borrowers.

For those who wish to blame the "failed policies of the Bush administration," then make some weird leap to "tax cuts for the rich," there is some sobering history here:

For years, the homeownership rate in the United States ranged from 60 to 65 percent of the total population. But in 1995, President Bill Clinton directed Henry G. Cisneros, then the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to work with the housing industry, nonprofit groups and other government officials to develop the National Homeownership Strategy, ''an unprecedented public-private partnership to increase homeownership to a record-high level over the next six years,'' as described in an Urban Policy Brief in August of that year.

This did have some "positive effects" for some folks:

Lenders were off to the races. They created slick new mortgage products with low ''teaser'' interest rates that ratcheted up significantly after two years or so. They devised loans that required only the payment of interest, not principal as well. They extended mortgages to 50-year terms to reduce monthly payments.

The partnership succeeded. In 2004, the homeownership rate reached 69.2 percent, a record.

But, it had a dark downside:

But according to experts on lending practices, the products devised to propel homeownership did so only as long as housing prices kept rising. Now that prices have started to fall, these products look instead like a transfer of wealth to mortgage lenders from those who can least afford it: subprime borrowers.

''It's not good to put somebody into a home if they can only afford it when home prices go up,'' said Thomas A. Lawler, founder of Lawler Economic and Housing Consulting Daily, a newsletter. ''Now that prices are falling, the folks who made enormous amounts of money lending in 2003, 2004 and 2005 are giving some of it back. But they aren't giving it back to the poor borrowers.'

'

This whole system, created by government, has backfired. Once again, government, with good intentions in mind, has made matters worse.

This whole thing has nothing to do with "tax cuts for the rich," or the failed policies of George Bush (although he is rightly blamed for not stopping it, big government Republican that he is); but with bad risks brought about by the failed policies of Bill Clinton.

The Ickiest Thing About The Economic Situation

Without a doubt the most disgusting factor in all this economic woe, all the doom being preached from the mainstream media, is that it is quite obvious that they and the Democrats WANT people to do badly, just so they can use it as a political talking point and get elected. Just as they wanted us to lose in Iraq, which just might lead to us losing the world to the Jihad; they don't care as long as it gets them elected.

How can people live their lives like this? To want people to lose their homes, to want American soldiers to die, to want the body count to rise, just so your guys MIGHT gain power. Ewwwww.

Good Seeing They Won't Bail Everyone Out

Crisis on Wall Street as Lehman Totters,
Merrill Is Sold, AIG Seeks to Raise Cash

Fed Will Expand Its Lending Arsenal in a Bid to Calm Markets;
Moves Cap a Momentous Weekend for American Finance
By CARRICK MOLLENKAMP, SUSANNE CRAIG, SERENA NG and AARON LUCCHETTI
September 15, 2008; Page A1
[graphic]

The American financial system was shaken to its core on Sunday. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. faced the prospect of liquidation, and Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed to be sold to Bank of America Corp.

The U.S. government, which bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a week ago and orchestrated the sale of Bear Stearns Cos. to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. in March, played much tougher with Lehman. It refused to provide a financial backstop to potential buyers.

people must understand this "crisis" was not brought on by free markets this "crisis" was brought on by big government. There are no free markets or real capitalism in these or really any markets any longer.

These failed policies are the failed policies of over twenty years, NOT Bush's measly eight. This whole philosophy must be changed, and sadly, from Obama and McCain, we'll probably just get more of the same.

The Obama campaign continues to blame the "failed policies of the Bush Administration" for this (partially true), but no one in the press is asking them HOW those "failed policies" did this. They usually follow with the usual class envy crap and leave it at that.

Government must be drastically reduced; they must get out of the way of that which must come to pass and stop being an indulgent mommy and daddy. Thankfully, they are going to let this one fail, as they SHOULD have done with the failed government programs known as Fannie and Freddie.

Markets are above all, communications systems. Too much government muddies those communications systems, and leads to what we are dealing with now. It also creates false "bubbles" which eventually burst, and cause more damage than if the natural business cycle were allowed to run its course. Both big government Democrats and big government Republicans are out of touch with this.

Only Ron Paul on the Republican side, and Bob Barr from the Libertarian Party, seem to understand this (See America Needs “Surge” in Fiscal Responsibility, Says Bob Barr)