Bad Lip Reading

Some comic relief is needed during this campaign season so I ripped off the idea of posting these videos from our friends over at The Humble Libertarian. If you rely on lip reading to understand what the candidates are saying, you end up with the same understanding that the rest of us have.

Let's start with Ron Paul since most people think (correctly) that I favor him for next President of the US.

Enjoy.








Newt was left out because his was as silly as, well, as silly as his campaign is.

The University of Michigan is a Good Place for a Pander Party

As President Obama attended his latest campaign pander party (thinly disguised as government business instead of the taxpayer supported campaign trip it actually was) the things he said in his speech reminded me of something Dr. Walter Williams has said; "Politicians exploit economic illiteracy.”

So as the professor also often says, "Let's look at it."

Putting aside the inane headline in the paper that read; "Obama Targets College Costs" (a supposition that getting the federal government involved in those costs is actually part of his job description), let's look at what causes costs to rise for higher education, or for that matter any commodity. As always it's the ratio between demand and supply. In this case, the government has caused the demand to rise by subsidizing the potential students and the colleges themselves. (As an aside, they did the same thing in causing the housing crisis.)

The story goes on to describe the "college affordability ideas" Obama is promoting. One is that he threatens that if the colleges and universities don't cut costs they risk losing some of the federal aid he is promising as part of the ideas. The law of carrots and sticks will never replace the law of supply and demand. And the law of supply and demand is one of only a few laws in existence that wasn't written by politicians. It has the added benefit that it enforces itself, so they are left out of the force equation as well, which drives them insane.

According to the newspaper article (Chicago Tribune) the President stated that "schools can't just jack up tuition every single year and simply expect people to pay it!" So, as usual, he said at least something that made sense. Unfortunately, after citing that basic tenet of economics 101, he screwed it up on the follow through (as he also usually does) by showing his utter illiteracy on the subject (or contempt, as the case may be) when he calls for the use of coercion to correct that condition instead of assuming the consumers of the product will make other arrangements. The truth is, the people he says can't be expected to just pay the "jacked up" tuition do not expect to pay it, they expect you to pay it. Because people like Obama keep promising them things, and delivering.

Republicans don't get a free pass on this one. They have had similar plans to jawbone prices down as well. If they think that it will work any better for them they are just as dumb or just as cynical as Obama is. They both would like to think that powerful people like them can just order education costs to go down.

The reason for the speech is not to "fix" the college affordability problem, it's to buy votes with taxpayer money and shore up his support. It's text book pandering, this time to university students who backed him last time but don't look like they will deliver in big numbers this time around. After all, they are in school to learn and at least some of them have learned a thing or two about hope and change in the last three years. Large numbers are rallying to the campaign of a seventy-six year old doctor who has great appeal to the Democrats among them.

So while most of us are planning our super bowl parties, Obama is in the Democrat stronghold of Michigan hosting a pander party. At halftime the meal they are serving up is pulled pork, but the pork will be pulled from the taxpayers pockets.

Why Write a New Speech When You Can Just Use the Old One?

I wouldn't usually regurgitate a GOP talking point, or for that matter one of their videos, but in the spirit of taking my cues from our esteemed President, I'm posting a video that compares last night's State of the Union address (really just a campaign speech on the taxpayers' dime) with the one he gave last year. And actually the year before that as well. The wording is almost the same in most of the cases, and in a few, it's exact. I hope he got a discount from his speech writer.

If it's good enough for the country to have regurgitated speeches, it's good enough for the readers of this blog to have regurgitated political gotchas.

To tell the truth, I didn't watch the speech because I knew it would be like all the rest. And the thought of it just made me want to regurgitate puke.

Shutdown Ends - WhatWeThinkAndWhy Reopens!

As hard as it is to imagine, some of you didn't know that this site was closed yesterday, all day long. Maybe you missed the post from the previous day which announced the shutdown (it didn't make the email notification that some of you receive), or maybe you had some huge personal issue that prevented you from performing your daily ritual of checking here for new content first thing after you pour your morning coffee, but either way, you didn't miss much.

Actually, the site could still be accessed and some content on the sidebar was edited, but it's the thought that counts when you're protesting. Like the OWS camp outs that protest "not getting enough of the loot", this site engaged in a protest without an expected result. It was a "Don Quixote" moment, but all it actually accomplished was giving me a day off from my unpaid gig as editor of this mostly quixotic blog. The truth is, other than just doing nothing, I wouldn't have a clue as to how to temporarily shut down the site.

Having said that, and acknowledging that the whole thing was tongue in cheek, the issue of the SOPA/PIPA law was/is more important than many think. It was defeated yesterday (maybe because of the uproar caused by internet users who actually knew what it meant for the future), but like most bad legislation, it was more like a time out for naughty legislators than an actual long term "this is never going to happen" defeat.

Many (maybe even most) people really don't understand what the hullabaloo was all about. Many even could be misled by the title of the legislation, which makes it seem like a reasonable idea. The Stop Online Piracy Act is (like a lot of purposely misnamed legislation) not really about that issue at all and wouldn't fix the problem if it was. And who actually has the time to dig in and learn about it in the midst of all the other things we are focusing on anyway?

In order to fix the time and distraction problem, it's WWTAW to the rescue!  The Khan Academy, which was highlighted here in a post a few days ago, has put out this short educational video which explains the situation in a way that anyone can understand.

We pride ourselves in making the obvious more understandable. We are, after all, simple minded. Don't you feel so much better now that this blog has reopened?



Hat tip to Leah for suggesting this video via Face-book, which could have been shut down by SOPA if it had passed.

This Site Will Be Shut Down For One Day

In a certainly meaningless gesture, this site will be closed tomorrow, 1/18/12,  in protest of the proposed SOPA Law - the “Stop Online Piracy Act.” Many large sites are doing it, so by golly, we are too.

As sad as I am to risk the great harm that will befall our republic because people will not be able to read any new and terribly important content here, we must send a message to law makers. So buck up and suffer with me.