Mark Horne

"Mr. Branchflower described what he considered another inconsistency: If Trooper Wooten was inclined to harm any of the Palins, then having him terminated could lead to an act of retaliation. Forcing him out of his job, the report stated, “would not have de-escalated the situation or provided” Ms. Palin or her family with “greater security.”" -- What total crap. Having a state trooper with badge and government-sanctioned gun after you, with the union protecting him from actual criminal behavior as it had in the past, is a thousand times more threatening. Having a state trooper get away with making threats with impunity is a way to train him that he can get away with anything. Palin did what she was legally allowed to do because she thought she needed to . End of story - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

I don't watch this. - Mark Horne

You totally do. - Steven W

"Several years ago, there was always an option - in nearly every 401k plan - to invest in a safe haven. That is quickly disappearing since the emergence of the perpetual bull market created by the Feds. They force our hands to play the riskiest moves, and the bias of Wall Street - which works to separate you from your money - is overwhelmingly working against regular folks who don't want to ride the bull train to hell. So they manage to shut down your options and force you into roller-coaster funds." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

This is a good diagnosis, but bailing out bankrupt institutions rewards bad behavior and punishes good behavior. - Mark Horne

Banana Republicization of the US proceeds at a breakneck pace. - Mark Horne

"I was very struck, as the liquefaction of a fantasy-based system proceeded, to read an observation by Professor Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, of the Yale School of Management. Referring to those who had demanded—successfully—to be indemnified by the customers and clients whose trust they had betrayed, the professor phrased it like this: These are people who want to be rewarded as if they were entrepreneurs. But they aren’t. They didn’t have anything at risk. That’s almost exactly right, except that they did have something at risk. What they put at risk, though, was other people’s money and other people’s property. How very agreeable it must be to sit at a table in a casino where nobody seems to lose, and to play with a big stack of chips furnished to you by other people, and to have the further assurance that, if anything should ever chance to go wrong, you yourself are guaranteed by the tax dollars of those whose money you are throwing about in the first place! It’s enough to make a cat laugh. These members o" - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"In the history of our Republic, the military never imprisoned any man so harshly, and for so long, let alone men who are not the enemy. We have broken faith with the rule of law, and been untrue to the generosity of spirit that is our national character." --Is there any more dangerous threat to the Constitutional government of the US than the Bush Administration? - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into the D.C. "think tanks" over the past 30 years under the theory that if the Washington establishment and its media megaphones are bombarded with conservative or libertrian studies, papers, books, and speeches, they will become less socialistic. The experiment has failed. The Washington establishment proceeds on the ruinous route to socialism as though Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, F.A, Hayak, Murray Rothbard, and other classical liberal giants never existed. It's time for all of them to pack up and go home." --Maybe. On the other hand, this may be the time they get heard. Never despair. - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

Nice summary of the Sith take-over - Mark Horne

"Sarah Palin is a phenomenon. She is plucky and, in a winsome way, in your face. Referring to middle class America as "Joe Sixpack" and to herself as a hockey mom, she debated last week with veteran Sen. Joe Biden, who has served in the Senate for 36 years and knows his way around Washington. I have never met Gov. Palin. I have known Joe Biden for many years, and I really like and share his positions on most issues. I admire Pain’s spunkiness and feel she has not been treated fairly by the media, which has tried to make her look foolish and provincial. When she was interviewed by Charles Gibson and asked the question, “Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?” I thought it unfair. Why? I consider myself to be knowledgeable on foreign affairs and I did not know what the Bush doctrine referred to until later when it was described as support for pre-emptive military action. However, that term — Bush doctrine — has also been applied to other policies of the administration. I certainly do believe in the right to" - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"To hear these spokesmen tell the story, you’d think that the world will soon go to hell in a hand basket, if it hasn’t gone there already. Yet every time I look for data to check these claims, I find nothing solid to back them up." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"We really do get the government we deserve. In less than a month, virtually every elected lunatic that I have seen on the tube during this silly season will be returned to Congress, with loud shouts of triumph. If people were to ask me what we can do to survive the nine miles of bad road that appears to be just ahead of us, my advice would be this: cultivate, really cultivate, a deep and robust sense of humor. And that is not possible unless God is in His heaven." - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"In a robust performance in front of the committee, Mr Fuld said that he would wonder "until they put me in the ground" why the US government had not rescued the 158-year-old firm. He said that regulators were fully aware of its plight well before its collapse. Mr Fuld said: "I want to be very clear. I take full responsibility for the decisions that I made and for the actions that I took based on the information that we had at the time."" - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

"John Allison, president of BB&T — with $136 billion in assets and 1500 branches — sent an open letter to Congress protesting the bad economics behind the bailout. He notes that his own company, though affected by the downturn, is in a much stronger position than many of BB&T’s competitors. Why? Well, his bank did not join the orgy of bad lending, despite the enticement of the Federal Reserve’s easy credit policies and government pressure to give loans to bad-risk borrowers. So why should the government reward the bad economic conduct of institutions that played along with the bad government policies? Why make it harder for the economy to recover by punishing sound and productive economic conduct with burdensome new government taxes?" - Mark Horne via Bookmarklet

About the only thing worth saying. - Mark Horne