Nicky Cheese

I’ve rediscovered the Crash Test Dummies. Totally not kidding. I absolutely love this song:

Puts a smile on my face every time. Every time!

Not tomorrow, but the Friday thereafter, An American Carol opens, a film satirizing Michael Moore with a clear conservative lens. From the looks of the trailer, it appears more neo-con than liberty-oriented but, hey, I’ll give it a shot. David Zucker (Airplane, Police Academy, Naked Gun) is the director so it should be good for laughs.

We’ll see.

In any case, Eric Odom has a good point.

In short, I want to help the folks behind the movie as much as possible. Unlike most liberal-directed movies coming out of Hollywood, An American Carol is sort of the first of its kind. Sure, there have been other center-right films hit the market, but most did not have quite the opportunity this one has.

What I mean is, if An American Carol does well on opening weekend, it’s safe to say that other films with a center-right flavor will follow. This movie, with an all star cast and powerful set of directors/producers/writers, can score HUGE box office points and send a message to the Hollywood elites.

The problem is that it can’t do this without our help. While the film isn’t really a low budget film, it certainly needs the help of the grassroots movement to give it a kick start next week. The movie will open in more than 2,000 theaters on October 3rd, and we need to get anyone and everyone we know to go see it.

Expect a review late next week.

September 30, 1999. Steven Holmes of the New York Times. Talk about prophetic:

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets — including the New York metropolitan region — will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

In addition, banks, thrift institutions and mortgage companies have been pressing Fannie Mae to help them make more loans to so-called subprime borrowers. These borrowers whose incomes, credit ratings and savings are not good enough to qualify for conventional loans, can only get loans from finance companies that charge much higher interest rates — anywhere from three to four percentage points higher than conventional loans.

”Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990’s by reducing down payment requirements,” said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae’s chairman and chief executive officer. ”Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.”

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980’s.

”From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,” said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ”If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.”

Under Fannie Mae’s pilot program, consumers who qualify can secure a mortgage with an interest rate one percentage point above that of a conventional, 30-year fixed rate mortgage of less than $240,000 — a rate that currently averages about 7.76 per cent. If the borrower makes his or her monthly payments on time for two years, the one percentage point premium is dropped.

Fannie Mae, the nation’s biggest underwriter of home mortgages, does not lend money directly to consumers. Instead, it purchases loans that banks make on what is called the secondary market. By expanding the type of loans that it will buy, Fannie Mae is hoping to spur banks to make more loans to people with less-than-stellar credit ratings.

Fannie Mae officials stress that the new mortgages will be extended to all potential borrowers who can qualify for a mortgage. But they add that the move is intended in part to increase the number of minority and low income home owners who tend to have worse credit ratings than non-Hispanic whites.

Home ownership has, in fact, exploded among minorities during the economic boom of the 1990’s. The number of mortgages extended to Hispanic applicants jumped by 87.2 per cent from 1993 to 1998, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. During that same period the number of African Americans who got mortgages to buy a home increased by 71.9 per cent and the number of Asian Americans by 46.3 per cent.

In contrast, the number of non-Hispanic whites who received loans for homes increased by 31.2 per cent.

Despite these gains, home ownership rates for minorities continue to lag behind non-Hispanic whites, in part because blacks and Hispanics in particular tend to have on average worse credit ratings.

In July, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed that by the year 2001, 50 percent of Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s portfolio be made up of loans to low and moderate-income borrowers. Last year, 44 percent of the loans Fannie Mae purchased were from these groups.

The change in policy also comes at the same time that HUD is investigating allegations of racial discrimination in the automated underwriting systems used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to determine the credit-worthiness of credit applicants.

If you weren’t already aware, I’m a twin. Fraternal. And that’s his artwork to the left.

As you can tell, the twin’s quite the artist…and, yes, quite the lib. But - admit it - for an Obama shirt, it’s pretty badass. I mean, an AC/DC reference? Genius!

Moreover, it lacks the nauseating messianic dimension that everything else Obama-branded has.

Anyways, for the last few years, I’ve been pushing my libertarianism on him pretty solid - and, for the last year, my active disinterest/dismissal of Obama - so it was only inevitable he’d try to shut me up with something convincing.

Last week, he shot me an email with a link to Wick Allison’s - ex-publisher for National Review and current editor in chief for D Magazine - A Conservative for Obama.

I read it. Yeah, not convinced.

The editorial actually starts off quite strong, describing the abstract difference between conservatism and liberalism and then going on to show how Bush’s tax cuts (without subsequent spending cuts) and foreign policy are unsound political moves. Totally agree.

But then, after associating these unsound policies with McCain (a move I more or less agree with), Allison immediately shifts to an empty endorsement of Obama, citing his intellect, strong rhetoric/speaking skills, and pragmatism as reasons for doing so. Nothing else. Obama was, apparently, that easy of a decision for Wick. After all, it’s him or McCain!

To which I have to respond with a big ole’ bullshit! These are not the only options and, Wick, you know it.

What about Bob Barr? I lament: WHAT ABOUT BOB BARR!?!

This Wick Allison guy is ex-National Review. How can he not mention, not even in passing, Bob Barr?

Bob Barr’s foreign policy? Arguably isolationist. Spending? He’ll veto everything and anything! And questions regarding how Barr thinks it is “America’s job is to ‘defeat evil,’ a theological expansion of the nation’s mission”? I don’t think so. Bob cites my girl Ayn Rand all the time!

This is your man, Wick. Unless you address the issue, I am left to assume that your editorial is just a pathetic attempt to get some traffic to an online news source that no one’s every heard of.

This video is hilarious. Witness Obama’s “Plan for Change”, stripped of the vague and purposely incomplete rhetoric.

I’ve written on the protectionist credo before.

The Onion does a better job.

An excerpt from George Will’s latest Newsweek article, entitled Pencils and Politics:

Capitalism…is a profit and loss system. Corfam—Du Pont’s fake leather that made awful shoes in the 1960s—and the Edsel quickly vanished. “[T]he post office and ethanol subsidies and agricultural price supports and mediocre public schools live forever.” They are insulated from market forces; they are created, in defiance of those forces, by government, which can disregard prices, which means disregarding the rational allocation of resources. To disrupt markets is to tamper with the unseen source of the harmony that is all around us.

The spontaneous emergence of social cooperation—the emergence of a system vastly more complex, responsive and efficient than any government could organize—is not universally acknowledged or appreciated. It discomforts a certain political sensibility, the one that exaggerates the importance of government and the competence of the political class.

All this week I’ve been in Scottsdale, Arizona at SPN’s 16th Annual Meeting. I met a lot of great people, experienced some quality speakers and panels, and, as is typical of these events, had too much fun and not enough sleep.

Thursday’s keynote speaker was U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, one of the few and rare success stories of the Bush administration. She spoke of the need to stay economically competitive, the pitfalls of “strong” labor (i.e. Europe), and - my favorite piece of legislation… - the Employee Free Choice Act. Hearing her speak on EFCA reminded me of a short piece I wrote on the subject earlier this year that never came to light, neither on this blog or any other (more reputable) place. Thus…

Union membership has been decreasing for years. In 2006, it dropped to just 12% with numbers in 2007 at similarly low rates.

To combat this trend, union officials have recently made the Employee Free Choice Act (S.1041) their top political-lobbying priority. A misnomer of monumental proportions, the bill replaces a worker’s right to cast a private, and thereby, anonymous ballot when voting for or against workplace unionization with, instead, a questionable and often coercive organizing method known as “card check”.

“Card check” produces anything but a “free choice”. Neither private nor government-supervised, it functions more like an ongoing petition drive than a democratic election. While union organizers are still required to collect a majority of signatures, this bare and open practice invites pressure, intimidation, and corruption on the part of union supporters. There are even documented cases where the lives of resisting employees have been physically threatened.

Can such a public process give an accurate reflection of employees’ desires, especially compared to that of private ballot elections?

The answer, I think, is blatantly obvious. But, since unions claim to speak for “the people”, I’ll reference a public poll for confirmation. According to a 2006 national survey by the Opinion Research Corporation, 75% of Americans felt that secret ballot elections were the most democratic method of choosing unionization. By contrast, only 12% believed that “card check” provided the fairest method, with another 13% answering that they “don’t know”.

By vote and by common sense, the answer is clear: only private elections safeguard individual intent, and thereby, free choice.

And yet, Senator Barack Obama not only voted for EFCA, he co-sponsored it, quite triumphantly I might add. Speaking in the tone of historical inevitability, Obama stated: “We will pass the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when”. (Chicago Tribune, 3/4/07).

Given his outspoken reputation for supporting civil liberties, it is curious - if not daringly hypocritical - that Mr. Obama would actively oppose free and democratic elections for workers within the context of unionization.

In reality though, neither Obama - nor the unions for that matter - are concerned with principles, with the way the act would affect employee privacy one way or another. Unions look to the additional 1.5 million members a year (for the next ten to fifteen years!) the legislation would bring and, of course, the hundreds of millions of additional dollars in forced union dues. And Senator Obama, in turn, understands that much of this money will be sent right back into the election campaigns of he, and his ideological allies, in order to perpetuate and expand the current system of big government, big labor and, yes, less choice.

Steve Chapman has an excellent - EXCELLENT! - editorial in today’s Trib. I’m copying it in full below:

When did the idea of freedom become a political orphan?

Steve Chapman

September 7, 2008

This year’s Republican National Convention had a different theme for each day. Monday was “Serving a Cause Greater than Self.” Tuesday was “Service,” Wednesday was “Reform” and Thursday was “Peace.”

“We must, and we shall, set the tide running again in the cause of freedom. And this party, with its every action, every word, every breath, and every heartbeat, has but a single resolve, and that is freedom. “

—Barry Goldwater, accepting the 1964 Republican presidential nomination

So what was missing? Only what used to be held up as the central ideal of the party. The heirs of Goldwater couldn’t spare a day for freedom.

Neither could the Democrats. Their daily topics this year were “One Nation,” “Renewing America’s Promise” and “Securing America’s Future.” The party proclaimed “an agenda that emphasizes the security of our nation, strong economic growth, affordable health care for all Americans, retirement security, honest government, and civil rights.” Expanding and upholding individual liberty? Not so much.

Forty-four years after Goldwater’s declaration, it’s clear that collectivism, not individualism, is the reigning creed of Republicans as well as Democrats. Individuals are not valuable and precious in their own right but as a means for those in power to achieve their grand ambitions.

You will scour the presidential nominees’ acceptance speeches in vain for any hint that your life is rightfully your own, to be lived in accordance with your beliefs and desires and no one else’s. The Founding Fathers set out to protect “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” but Barack Obama has a different idea.

The “essence of America’s promise,” he declared in Denver, is “individual responsibility and mutual responsibility”—rather than, say, individual freedom and mutual respect for rights. The “promise of America,” he said, is “the fundamental belief that I am my brother’s keeper; I am my sister’s keeper.”

In reality, that fundamental belief is what you might call the promise of socialism. What has set this country apart since its inception is not the notion of obligations but the notion of rights.

“All previous systems had regarded man as a sacrificial means to the ends of others, and society as an end in itself,” wrote the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand. “The United States regarded man as an end in himself, and society as a means to the peaceful, orderly, voluntary co-existence of individuals.”

That idea got lost somewhere between Thomas Jefferson and John McCain. What do Republicans believe in? McCain told us Thursday: “We believe in a strong defense, work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of law . . . We believe in the values of families, neighborhoods and communities.”

Would it be too much to mention that what sustains the American vision of those things is freedom? That without it, personal responsibility becomes hollow and service is servitude?

Apparently it would. Republicans are big on promoting freedom abroad, but in this country, the term encompasses a lot of things they don’t like—the right to a “homosexual lifestyle,” the right to protest the Iraq war, the right to privacy, the right not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and more. Conservatives who once thought Americans had too little freedom now sometimes think they have too much.

Liberals, on the other hand, are wary of embracing freedom precisely because of its historic importance to the right. They fear it means curbing the power of a government whose reach they want to expand.

While they value many personal liberties, they have no great attachment to forms of freedom that involve buying, selling, trading and accumulating. Those, after all, can involve selfishness, and Democrats, like Republicans, don’t want to protect selfishness.

But freedom isn’t freedom without the right to pursue what you value—money or knowledge, pleasure or sacrifice, God or atheism, community or misanthropic solitude—rather than what others think you should value. It includes the right to go to hell, and the right to tell others to do the same.

The latter is a valuable prerogative that we have not yet lost. After watching the conventions, if you have the urge to use it on either of the two major parties, feel free. If he were alive, Barry Goldwater might join you.

Steve Chapman is a member of the Tribune’s editorial board. He blogs at chicagotribune.com/chapman and his e-mail address is schapman@tribune.com

Digg it!

…is clearly one of delusion.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

How do you communicate with individuals that out of touch with scientific reality? How do you respond to such an irrational, hyper-emotional pysche?

Call it for what is it, I guess. Patrick Moore - Canadian ecologist and founding member of Greenpeace International - says it better than I ever could (0:18 in 2nd video):

To talk about how the tree is alive and has feelings and it hurts it when you cut it down and that sort of stuff - that’s pretty well kindergarten talk. I mean, it’s not true. Trees are plants, like carrots and cabbages.