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February 13, 2008 |
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Story #1: Parents Protest Test; Need Mosquito Device
RUSH: By the way, this from the Chicago Sun-Times: "Angry Chicago Latino parents threatened Tuesday to keep their kids home on test day next month if state education officials insist on giving students who are still learning English an achievement test in English." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, parents protest a test in English. They are threatening to keep their kids home rather than take the new state exam. You heard right. They're going to keep the kids home. Reminds me of this Mosquito device. We talked about this yesterday. Have you heard about this Krehley? Well, they're using it over in Britain. Apparently these teenagers over there got nothing to do, and they loiter. They hang around wearing these stupid long shorts, the tattoos everywhere, these 16-year-olds trying to grow goatees and stuff, looking grotesque, and they're loitering in these places of business and causing big problems. People don't want to go there. It's sort of like my famous commentary on ban the ugly from the streets in daytime if you want to promote economic recovery. These people are loitering around, so they've invented this device that emits an irritating sound, irritating frequency noise that only young ears can hear. Once you get past your teenaged years and into your adult years apparently you lose sensitivity to this. It's called a Mosquito. You lose sensitivity to this frequency. So only kids can hear it, and it's working. The shop owners have these things and they're turning them on, and kids don't know where it's coming from. They just scatter. The first thing that I thought when I saw that was, "Where do I get one?" So here we have a modified version of the Mosquito. The school is apparently not going to have these kids come in, if they can't take the test in English. The kids parents, "Well, we're still learning it. We don't know it."
 Story #2: "Fired Up" McCain Targets Obama in Speech
RUSH: Now, Alex Koppelman at Salon.com, headline: "'McCain targets Obama.' -- John McCain doesn't seem to be betting very heavily on a Hillary Clinton comeback. After McCain swept the D.C., Maryland and Virginia primaries tonight he focused all his rhetorical fire on Barack Obama, ignoring Clinton completely in his remarks. 'Hope, my friends, is a powerful thing,' McCain said. 'I can attest to that better than many, for I have seen men's hopes tested in hard and cruel ways that few will ever experience. To encourage a country with only rhetoric rather than sound and proven ideas that trust in the strength and courage of free people is not a promise of hope. It is a platitude.' The crowd -- apparently also ready to look ahead to the general election -- roared" its approval at McCain's attack, which it will be characterized, attack on Obama. And then he said something curious at the end. "My friends, I promise you, I am fired up and ready to go." Now, he's either stealing that from Obama or me, because you might recall that yesterday I said, "Listen to Obama. He tells his crowds, 'It's time to get fired up.' McCain told his crowds, 'Calm down.'" That was what I said yesterday. McCain campaign last night, "It's time to get fired up. I'm ready to go. Full speed, 360."
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Story #3: President Signs Politics-As-Usual Stimulus Deal
RUSH: Well, they just had their big ceremony up there at the White House. The president and members of Congress signed the economic stimulus package. Such a shame. It's politics as usual, during the election year: The government gives away money. I had a story in the stack yesterday about this, and I can't find where I put it. Well, the stack's over there on the round table and I can't get to it. Don't sweat it. I don't have time to go through the stack now. It's fine. My memory will be sufficient here. It was a story out of Missouri about how the people at state governments have read the fine print in the stimulus package, and it's going to cost 'em hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid, and they're going to have to cut back on some of their own services, and they're fuming about it.
Now, Arthur Laffer today, in a commentary in the Wall Street Journal called, "That 'Stimulus' Nonsense.
"Bipartisanship, a notion that stands as anathema to our basic political premise of checks and balances, has resulted in a stimulus package that will do enormous damage to the U.S. economy. The idea is simple enough -- just have the government write everyone a rebate check, and these rebate recipients will spend most of the money and create enough demand to pull the economy out of its slowdown. With a little luck, the people who supply the rebate recipients with their newly demanded products will also spend part of their added income on yet more products, and so on and so forth until the full effect of the rebate is multiplied manifold and provides a much greater and much needed boost to the US economy. This logic is totally correct as far as it goes. Unfortunately it doesn't go far enough. The proposed rebate..." and, by the way, none of us here at the EIB Network are going to get one. As I said last week, ladies and gentlemen: Those of you who are going to get rebate checks, the least you could do... Well, I don't expect a thank you. I really don't. The government could issue these checks in the name of those of you paying for them, so Joe and Mary Six-Pack who receive their rebate know.
When the check comes, it should have a little card, "Courtesy of Rush Limbaugh, EIB Network," and "Courtesy of H.R. Kit Carson, EIB Network," and everybody else that's not getting one. But no, that's not what they do. The politicians, both parties, want credit for this. Here's what Laffer says: "The proposed rebate of about $600 per man, woman and child is transferred to people based upon some characteristic other than work effort." This, ladies and gentlemen, is key to understand. "In fact, if you've worked too hard and earned too much, you won't get a rebate. So in some instances the rebate actually requires the absence of work effort. Now it's true that some of the people receiving the rebate may also be workers, but working is not the reason each person receives the rebate; it's simply because he or she is a human being. Thus rebate recipients are given command over real resources for doing something other than working. ... Milton Friedman liked to say, 'There's no such thing as a free lunch,' and this rebate is exactly what he meant. The net effect is that the reduction in demand from those who pay the real resources will be exactly the same size as the increase in demand from the rebate recipients. It's sad but true. Income effects always net to zero in a closed system."
But here's the real bottom line of this: "There's also collateral damage," to this, and "Few in Congress understand or care. They think their actions either don't matter, or that they would see a positive impact from their actions if only they did more. If the economy worsens and when their political sensors become alarmed, they'll up the dose, and goodness knows just how far this vicious cycle will take us. A quick glance back at the 16 years of presidencies of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter should give you pause. Whenever you observe bipartisan cooperation, hold on to your wallet and run to the basement." Now, this, of course, is Mr. Laffer echoing previously expressed sentiments by me. In fact, during this entire presidential campaign, one of the controversial points is: "Rush! Rush! Don't you understand that Senator McCain can work with the Democrats?" In fact, Senator McCain himself has said, "I can work with them! That's it, Limbaugh! You don't understand. I can work with them. I can reach out." He doesn't just "reach out." He walks across the aisle and sits down with them! But that gives us bipartisanship -- and, sadly, bipartisanship today means Republicans and conservatives cave and the Democrats get what they want.
"But, Rush! But, Rush! The stimulus idea was George Bush's."
Yes, I understand that. Point proven. The Democrats tried to up it. Some people held their ground on getting checks to illegal immigrants and so forth, but the bottom line is: Partisanship is fabulous! Partisanship is driven by principle, devotion to principle and ideals. And when you start compromising those in order to get along, where are you? You know, people sometimes recoil when I say, "I don't want to get along with the liberals; I want to defeat them."
"But, Rush! But, Rush! They're people."
I know they're people. There have been a lot of people in the world who have been bad people, a lot of people good intentioned. Look at the people who gave us the Great Society, the war on poverty, all these other magnificent programs. They're demonstrable failures, but we're not supposed to examine the results! We're supposed to acknowledge the good intentions and the big-heartedness behind the attempt. Fine. Okay. Intentions are fine, but I'd rather look at results. When bipartisanship occurs, the odds are that it's us that are going to be giving up on things we believe in -- and that's why bipartisanship is heralded as something wonderful because liberals win when there's bipartisanship. "Partisanship," on the other hand, is decried and condemned because it's mean, extremist, rotten to-the-core conservatives being who they are: mean, extremist, and rotten -- and that's not the case at all. So Laffer's point is exactly mine. These guys couldn't wait to "get along," couldn't wait to cross the aisle.
Both parties shake hands because it's election year, and give money away in Washington. This is all about votes. There's nobody with... Economics 101 will tell you this is not going to stimulate the economy, but the interesting thing about this is what the Democrats are admitting by going along with this. They are admitting what? They are admitting that additional money in the back pockets of -- who? -- citizens, can stimulate the economy." Meaning it's the people who make the country work. It's the people -- anonymous, laboring away in anonymity, just ordinary people -- trying to do extraordinary things. They're the ones that make the country work. And if you let 'em have more money, bammo! The economy jumps. So you say, "Why can't we get to them on tax cuts then?" Ah. Big difference. Tax cuts, that doesn't play well with Democrats because Democrats and liberals want to be viewed by as many citizens as possible as "giving" the money.
They want the government to be seen as the source of the money. In this case, as in all cases, it isn't. This money was never the government's until it was taxed. This money used to be all of ours that now got taxed. We got taxed, and so now they're just sending it back. They love the psychology of as many people as possible thinking, "Oh, my government cares! My government cares! Look, it's giving me money, and it's not giving money to the rich. Good! They've got enough." Yet there are stories even in the Drive-Bys, in the Associated Press. The rich have bought into this economic-recession-down-the-road business. They're cutting back and their spending, and so the limo drivers are not getting as much work and the boutique hair salon. Well, the boutique hair salons, I think, are surviving; as are the spas. But as they stop spending there's a little trickle-down effect throughout the rest of the economy. Those who benefit from their spending are not benefiting. So you say to the Democrats, "Look, if you acknowledge that more money in people's back pockets stimulates the economy, why don't you make these tax cuts permanent? Why don't you stop talking about raising taxes?"
"No, no, no, no! No, no. We can't have the notion in people's minds that the money is theirs and that they're keeping more of it because we're lowering their taxes. No, no, no. We want them to think money is Washington's. It starts in Washington, and it goes to the people, and comes back." That's what liberals are trying to create with this big Nanny State syndrome, and of course bipartisanship has given us this perception. So as far as people are concerned, they are going to go to the mailbox... When do these checks start arriving? May? May through August. So they're sending people a double whammy. They've let the government keep all of their money from taxes, overpayment taxes during the year to get this big refund, and think they're screwing government. Then they get the refund check, and then they're going to get the rebate check and it'll say "US Treasury" on it. It's not going to say, "Courtesy of Rush Limbaugh and your fellow citizens." It's going to say, I don't know, maybe a little note in there from Bush. Who knows where it will be from?
And they're going to say, "Wow! Look what the government is doing for me," when it was their money to begin with or other people's money.
So anyway, it is what it is, but this is an example of how bipartisanship is celebrated and everybody goes bonkers over it, but it leads to a result which is decidedly not conservative and in this case is not going to be productive, it was not going to stimulate the economy in any noticeable way. Because there's no new money being generated or created here, and it's not being created by productivity and work, which is Laffer's point.
Story #4: Spinning Beach Ball: Still Waiting for Steve Jobs
RUSH: Did Steve Jobs call, Snerdley? Well, I didn't expect Jobs to call. I thought maybe somebody from his office would. Look, I own a lot of Macs. I love them. I knew this was going to happen. The blogs... There's all kinds of Apple-Mac blogs, and they hate the fact that I'm a Mac guy. They do. They despise it, because Macs are associated with the left. So whenever I talk about my Macs, you can go to some of these blogs and they're gnashing their teeth and banging the keyboards, and when I yesterday expressed that I was having just a couple problems with 10.5.2, the new OS update, one guy wrote in a blog, "May you see the spinning beach ball of death for the rest of your life!" Now, the spinning beach ball in a Mac is when the processor gets clogged and slowed down and your task is not completed. This guy wished for a spinning beach ball for eternity for me. He hoped that my Mac would freeze. Ha! Well, I haven't checked them all, but I figure that somebody will call. I own enough these things. Our office here is equipped with them. Sigh... I know if I call I won't get through, because it just won't happen.
Anyway, I just checked a Mac website, MacDailyNews.com, and they've got the transcript from my program yesterday posted with some comments. Some of them were okay. Some of the other comments, "I hope he never gets the problem fixed." But one of the guys says -- I didn't identify the two problems -- "Why don't you identify the problems? Maybe we could do a work-around. Maybe we could help you, Rush, why don't you tell us what the problem is?" "I think Rush is smart enough to fix his own problems." I'll tell you what the problems are. But it's going to be Greek to those of you who don't use Macs and I don't want to spend a whole lot of time with this. But here we go. Two things. Back to my Mac, screen sharing, doesn't work. It's intermittent on occasion. Now, I got six computers on the network, maybe it's only meant to go back and forth one computer to the next. And the second thing, and this is the biggie, because I have found a work-around to screen sharing back to my Mac not working, direct access to my IP address I can do it without going back to my Mac, but they've got this great new backup program called Time Machine.
I primarily live in my mail application. I use it for my word processing. The only time I open word processing is when somebody sends me something in a Word document or whatever. I don't use the phone because of my hearing. E-mail is everything, and Time Machine will not restore e-mail mailboxes. Restores everything else but that, and ought to restore either a single message or a whole mailbox, and it won't. On one machine, this one here in New York, I have found a way to restore a single message or a multiple list of messages from wherever the Time Machine archive is, but on none of my other five machines does that work. They're identical. So, Mr. Jobs, there's got to be somebody who can -- this is major. I'm not calling it a bug. They just left it out of the operating system. To not back up -- and, by the way, when you open Time Machine in your mail program, it says, "click restore" to back up your in-box or to back up the message you had selected. So it was supposed to, it just doesn't do it. And there's a whole thread at the Apple site of people having the same problem. But posting the problem on the website is not going to solve anything. It's like filing a bug report, goes out to the ether, nobody ever sees it, you never hear.
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