Boker tov, Boulder!

Happy Days Are Here Again?

 

If you thought perhaps that the good guys had taken back the White House, no, it's a little too soon for that. But today was the unveiling of the official White House portraits of George and Laura Bush, and the good guys were out in force.

 

I watched it from start to finish, and it was comforting to see the former President and First Lady again. They were lovely, gracious and good-humored as usual, but more light-hearted than when we last saw them together in the White House three and a half long years ago. 

RealClearPolitics has video and there are some great photos at the Denver Post. It was a much welcome cheer-me-up.

 

 

The present occupier of the Oval Office reminded the largely Republican audience of his lousy "inheritance" and who killed bin Laden, but otherwise behaved more or less appropriately. At times he even bordered on mildly genial. And I think his wife was trying hard. Good for them.

 

Tell me it's not true

Ostensibly at his own expense, but still.... omigosh.

Report: Obama Flies Special Barber To WH Every Two Weeks

 .... The President has been using the same Chicago based barber, who goes by the name Zariff, for the past 17 years.   According to German Public Radio, the President flies Zariff from Chicago to DC for a trim every two weeks.

Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/barack-obama/2012/05/30/report-obama-flies-special-barber-wh-every-two-weeks#ixzz1wT4MePuY

"At the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth, the earth was astonishing with emptiness, and darkness..."

( Bereshis/Genesis 1:1 )

 

The Daily Galaxy, Dec. 23, 2011:

Supercomputer Predicts Universe Had 10 Dimensions at Big Bang

A group of three researchers from the High-Energy Accelorator Research Organization (KEK), Shizuoka University and Osaka University has for the first time revealed the way our universe was born with 3 spatial dimensions from 10-dimensional superstring theory in which spacetime has 9 spatial directions and 1 temporal direction, obtained by numerical simulation on a supercomputer.  

According to "Standard Model" cosmology, the universe originated in an explosion from an invisibly tiny point. This theory is strongly supported by observation of the cosmic microwave background and the relative abundance of elements. However, a situation in which the whole universe is a tiny point exceeds the reach of Einstein's general theory of relativity, and for that reason it has not been possible to confirm how the universe actually originated....

 

Huh. What a "coincidence."

Judaism's ancient mystical teachings, collectively known as the Kabbalah, include a fundamental concept of the true essence of Gd as infinite and unknowable, or Ein Sof (literally, without end), which interacts with the universe not directly, but through ten "attributes," "manifestations," "emanations" [ or dimensions? ] of this essence.

These are known as the Ten Sefirot, customarily represented in a diagram such as this.

 

"At their fundamental level, the Ten Sefirot are a step-by-step process illuminating the Divine plan as it unfolds ... in our world."

 

 

I don't profess to know even a thimbleful of the complex cosmology delineated in Kabbalah, but I can comfortably offer you this "unequivocal statement" by way of Dr. Gerald Schroeder:

 

.... Nachmanides ... explains that the Hebrew letters Ayin, Resh, Bet ― the root of "erev" ― is chaos. Mixture, disorder. That's why evening is called "erev", because when the sun goes down, vision becomes blurry. The literal meaning [of "there was evening"] is "there was disorder."

The Torah's word for "morning" ― "boker" ― is the absolute opposite. When the sun rises, the world becomes "bikoret", orderly, able to be discerned. That's why the sun needn't be mentioned until Day Four. Because from erev to boker is a flow from disorder to order, from chaos to cosmos.

That's something any scientist will testify never happens in an unguided system. Order never arises from disorder spontaneously and remains orderly. Order always degrades to chaos unless the environment recognizes the order and locks it in to preserve it. There must be a guide to the system. That's an unequivocal statement.

 

You may also want to see "The Prophetic Confluence Between Science and Kabbalah" by Joel David Bakst.

 

.... According to the teachings of esoteric Judaism all knowledge, both spiritual and material wisdom, originally coexisted in a seamless unity within a higher dimension. Together these two modes of wisdom compromised a larger, all encompassing Universal Torah (Torah meaning "Teachings"). A collapse, however, ensued in which the database of all knowledge split itself into "spiritual" and "material" planes of existence. Thus, we have the basis for the historical conflict between "religion" and "science". 

Yet, any given mystical or technological truth can only be one of two sides of the same piece of puzzle. Thus, the material world is also a mode of spirituality, only externalized and concretized. The ultimate truth is not revealed through the supra-natural alone nor is it only discovered through scientific development -- it is more than both. 

Both forms of wisdom are destined to reunite with each other. Perforce this is stimulating a worldwide paradigm shift in consciousness. This stage of global evolution is the messianic age that is central to the teachings of esoteric as well as to traditional Judaism.

 

 

Who's Counting?

 

WSJ: Fed Board Reflects Obama's Influence

With the swearing in of a seventh Federal Reserve board member, the panel is operating at full strength for the first time since 2006, amplifying the activist stamp of President Barack Obama.

Mr. Obama appointed six of the seven, including naming Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to his second term....

 

159 days until the Presidential Election

 

It's a Tie?

 

I don't understand why this is still so close. The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows

• Mitt Romney with 46% of the vote to Obama's 45%

• 49% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's job performance. Forty-nine percent (49%) at least somewhat disapprove

 

Gallup: "Americans prefer President Obama over Mitt Romney for handling healthcare, while Romney is favored on the deficit and the two are about tied on unemployment."

 

Ace of Spades:

Obama's New Attack on Romney: Romney's Policies Were An Economic Failure Because Massachusetts' Unemployment Rate Was 4.7% —Ace

4.7%.

Romney's policies did not produce enough jobs.

Merely full employment (5% is usually considered full employment).

Don't vote for the guy whose unemployment rate, while Governor, was 4.7%.

Vote for the guy who's had a 8+% unemployment record for three and a half years.The guy with the worst 30 months of employment in 25 years.

See, that's the guy you should trust on job creation.

The 8+% guy.

And, by the way, the unemployment rate is not 8%.It's really 11%.

So vote for 11% unemployment guy. This 4.7% unemployment guy is obviously some kind of incompetent parvenu.

 

Bloomberg, this morning:

The number of American applying for unemployment insurance payment rose to a five-week high, a sign progress in reducing joblessness may be stalling.

First-time claims for jobless benefits increased by 10,000 to 383,000 last week, Labor Department figures showed today.

 

BUT But but... just four years ago March, when the economy shed 80,000 jobs and the unemployment rate "SURGED" from 4.8 to 5.1 percent, dhimmedia said it was "dismal ... about as bad as one could expect." 

Tomorrow we'll see the report everyone's been waiting for, the unemployment rate for May. Can you wait?

 

One-Liners of the Day

Not to be missed, at Ace of Spades:

 

• Elizabeth "Fauxcahontas" Warren: Yeah, I lied When I Said I Didn't Tell Harvard I Was A High-Cheekboned American — DrewM.

She's not an honest injun.

 

• Red-Faced Sack of Stupid Ed Schultz Panics: If Romney is Elected, There Will Never Again Be Another Democratic President In Our Lifetimes — Ace

Your offer is accepted.

 

 

Does Leftist Arrogance Know No Bounds? (I guess... not)

Simulating the Universe (apod.nasa.gov)

What Geraghty said about Obama in today's Morning Jolt -- 

"It must be nice -- or blinding -- to walk through life constantly telling yourself and others -- and hearing others say -- that you're the best at everything. All the time." 

 

-- seems to hold for the entirety of the Left, as far as the eye can see. 

Over at Acculturated, they're contemplating the question, "Are conservatives bad at popular culture?"

 

You can guess, or you can go read it. Up to you.

Obama on "Polish" death camps and Judaism

I suppose I have to post something about the Jew-News out of the White House yesterday, even though I'd prefer to ignore such gross indignities altogether. 

For posterity, then, here's Adam Kredo at the Washington Free Beacon:

President Barack Obama’s inaccurate assertion that Nazi extermination camps in occupied Poland were in fact “Polish” has led to concern among historians and foreign policy that the president’s knowledge of Jewish history and Israel is lacking.

During a ceremony honoring a Polish resistance fighter who told the world about Nazi atrocities, Obama referred to a “Polish death camp,” a term that incorrectly blames Poland for operating Adolf Hitler’s extermination camps.

Obama’s flub came just hours after the president informed a group of Jewish leaders that he “probably knows about Judaism more than any other president because he read about it.”

However, over the course of his presidency, Obama has repeatedly promulgated erroneous notions about the Jewish state and made policy declarations that experts deem either patently false or grossly misleading...

 

What follows is an extensive list, in case anyone wants to mosey on down Memory Lane with Kredo. For me, it's altogether too dark. And the sooner we can put it well behind us, the better.

 

"A little awkward" ~ Bush Family to visit the White House

In the heart of a re-election year, Obama will get to rise above the fray for a day and play statesman.

 

-- Nameless, at Associated Press/WashPo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ben Feller writes for the Associated Press:

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — This is a little awkward.

President Barack Obama can't seem to stop bad-mouthing the record of former President George W. Bush. But on Thursday, Obama is going to welcome his predecessor and proudly preside as Bush's image and legacy are enshrined at the White House forever.

Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will join Bush and his wife, Laura, as their official portraits are unveiled. The incumbent is keeping up a presidential tradition typically defined by cheer and graciousness, but not without some uneasiness.

Hardly a day goes by without Obama or his aides talking about the mess they inherited — meaning, from Bush.

It was just one week ago that Obama, revving up campaign donors, turned Bush into a punch line. Obama depicted Republican rival Mitt Romney as a peddler of bad economic ideas, helping the rich at the expense of the middle class, and then added to laughs: "That was tried, remember? The last guy did all this."

Now the last guy is coming back.

So, too, will his father, former President George H.W. Bush and the former first lady Barbara Bush. The Obamas will hold forth in the ornate East Room as George and Laura Bush are honored for their service before an invited audience of Bush friends and former staff members.

"President Bush has been around politics a long time. He's been around how presidents deal with each other for a long time," said Tony Fratto, one of his former spokesmen at the White House. "He has an understanding for separating the necessities of political rhetoric from the job itself."

Bush showed that all through 2008, when Obama assailed his record on war and the economy en route to the White House. It was hard to remember at times that Obama was running not against Bush, who was finishing the last year of a tumultuous eight-year term, but rather Arizona Sen. John McCain.

 

Is anyone buying the notion that Obama's treatment of Bush has been a necessity?  Or that the "community" of people who work and have worked in the White House "transcends political... differences."  That last invention was Jay Carney's -- "in the same briefing Wednesday in which he reminded everyone that Obama inherited a huge budget deficit (from Bush.)"

 

.... Jenna Bush Hager, one of the George W. Bush's daughters, said she was invited for the ceremony and that the day will include a private lunch for the Bushes with the Obamas.

She told "Fox & Friends" the day will be a chance to "celebrate his work, 'cause he worked pretty hard so I think he deserves at least a painting."

As to where it will go, she said: "Probably in the very back somewhere. I'm just kidding."

The painting will actually hang prominently in the formal entrance hall to the White House...

 

White House Dossier has Obama's schedule for the day.

9:30 am || Receives the Presidential Daily Briefing
12:10 pm || Lunch with Mrs. Obama, George W. Bush and Laura Bush; Red Room
1:25 pm || Attends official unveiling of portraits of George W. Bush and Laura Bush; East Room
5:00 pm || Meets with Treasury Secretary Geithner

Live stream of Carney briefing at 11:30 am

 

$831 Billion Stimulus Per Job Created: $540,000 - $4.1 Million

James Pethokoukis at The Enterprise Blog --

 

The Congressional Budget Office in a new report:

When [the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] was being considered, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that it would increase budget deficits by $787 billion between fiscal years 2009 and 2019. 

CBO now estimates that the total impact over the 2009–2019 period will amount to about $831 billion.

By CBO’s estimate, close to half of that impact occurred in fiscal year 2010, and more than 90 percent of ARRA’s budgetary impact was realized by the end of March 2012. CBO has estimated the law’s impact on employment and economic output using evidence about the effects of previous similar policies and drawing on various mathematical models that represent the workings of the economy. …

On that basis CBO estimates that ARRA’s policies had the following effects in the first quarter of calendar year 2012 compared with what would have occurred otherwise:

– They raised real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 0.1 percent and 1.0 percent,

– They lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.1 percentage points and 0.8 percentage points,

– They increased the number of people employed by between 0.2 million and 1.5 million,

– They increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 0.3 million to 1.9 million. (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers.)

OK, so without the stimulus, there would be anywhere from 200,000 to 1.5 million fewer people employed right now? That means the current cost-per-job created is somewhere between $4.1 million and $540,000.

 

Sounds about right to me. Not long ago, I checked out the stimulus money received in West Virginia (two-tenths of one percent of the total), where it created just over a thousand jobs -- at a cost of $1.35 million per job.

 

 

You can check your own state at Recovery.Gov

 

And another bit Pethokoukis quoted -- from the CBO:

... CBO expects that the legislation will have no long-term effects on employment because the U.S. economy will have a high rate of use of its labor resources in the long run.

ARRA’s long-run impact on the economy will stem primarily from the resulting increase in government debt.

To the extent that people hold their wealth in government securities rather than in a form that can be used to finance private investment, the increased debt tends to reduce the stock of productive private capital.

In the long run, each dollar of additional debt crowds out about a third of a dollar’s worth of private domestic capital, CBO estimates.