Big Number Problem
The Corner on National Review Online — Monday, April 27, 2009 [image] Big Number Problem [ Jonah Goldberg ] Another perspective on Obama's $100 million dollar cut in the budget: 04/27 11:22 AM [image] Share

H&I* Fires 27 April 2009
Argghhh! The Home Of Two Of Jonah's Military Guys.. — Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite. ******************************* Heh.  'Nuff said. ************************************ It's a video Daily Double at Castle Argghhh!....   for those who missed the Milblog Conference, if you'd like to catch MG Oates' call in from in-theater in Iraq, here it is. Video embed courtesy the Greyhawks at Mudville Gazette.  -the Armorer **************************************** Scientific consensus, under attack.  What killed the ...

A Visual Representation Of Obama’s Spending Cuts
Say Anything — Prepare to be underhwelmed.

Shaving $100 Million of the Federal Budget, in Proper Perspective
The Agitator — So yeah, color me unimpressed.

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish
Megan McArdle — It's hard to think about the Federal Budget in terms we can understand.  A moderately successful American will, over the course of a forty year career, earn several million dollars.  But we don't even see all that money all at once.  Numbers a million times bigger than our total lifetime earnings literally boggle the imagination. ...

How Much Is $100 Million?
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan — A visualization:

A Penny for the Old Guy
COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us — Via Megan McArdle comes this illustration of Obama's 100 Million Dollar Joke.

Illlustrating Obama's 'Massive' Budget Cuts
JammieWearingFool — This more than says it all. Remember this tonight if you have the stomach to watch his self-congratulatory press conference. H/T AP on Twitter . Labels: Barack Obama

“Pennies”
Pat Dollard | Young Americans —

Visualizing Obama's Budget Cuts
The Hope For America — This video puts everything in perspective

It’s on: Obama takes shot at tea parties
Hot Air » Top Picks — It’s on: Obama takes shot at tea parties posted at 1:11 pm on April 29, 2009 by Allahpundit Send to a Friend | Share on Facebook | printer-friendly If, as ABC claimed, he was “unaware” of the parties before, he’s not anymore . Asked about fiscal discipline and entitlements reform, Obama seemed to be repressing a smile as he jabbed critics of his spending plans.“Those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I’m not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, Obama said, “let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down ...

Obama's 0.0025% "Spending Cut" Illustrated
The Jawa Report — April 29, 2009 Obama's 0.0025% "Spending Cut" Illustrated How Reaganesque. See, Republicans? He's not a leftwinger. He's a conservative. The funniest part is reading the comments of this video and watching the O-bots try to spin this into a positive for Obama. Summed up: "Yeah...um...taxes are necessary for a civilized society or something!" and "Bush sucks!" By Good Lt. at April 29, 2009 12:33 PM | | l digg this ...

100 days means 1360 to go
Pundit Review — 100 days means 1360 to go The New York Post has their own retrospective on Obama’s 100 days. They say 100 Days, 100 Mistakes . This is just over the top Obama bashing if you ask me. I read their list and there are no more than 87 legitimate mistakes. My favorite review of this meaningless, media contrived number is from Reason , Obama’s Vision Deficit After 100 days, the new president has revealed himself as an effective salesman of exhausted ideas. Far from sketching out a truly forward-looking set of policies for the 21st century, as his supporters had hoped, Obama is instead serving up cryogenically tasteless and headache-inducing ...

Visualizing Obama's budget cuts
TigerHawk — In case you were wondering how big President Obama's promised $100 million in budget cuts looks compared to the total federal budget or even the deficit, this video ought to help: Wow, there's some tough managerial discipline. I'm sure Ford and Toyota are hoping he brings the same budgetary scalpal to General Motors' bloated overhead. My only objection, since I am a numismatist, is that the narrator refers to one cent pieces as "pennies." Please. Pennies are an English thing, and we do not have them here. What are we, self-hating Americans? 'Course, he redeems himself by pulling out the "wheaties," which I would do, too, but still. CWCID: Megan McArdle ...

Obama Budget for Dummies
Politics Daily — Filed under: Economy, Obama AdministrationI don't know about most of you, but my eyes tend to glaze over and my brain strains to understand the sheer magnitude of dollars that is the US economy and our budget. Try as I might, I can't help but saying out loud, "how many zeros is that?" I can barely manage my personal budget much less comprehend dollars of the gigantitude that are bandied about on my news stations. For those of you who are like me and would like to understand what President Obama's recent request to his cabinet to reduce department spending by one hundred million really means, the video below might ...

D-Day for the Boston Globe
Pundit Review — D-Day for the Boston Globe So, today is D-Day for the Boston Globe. They need to find $20 million in cost cuts by midnight tonight. I was recently joined in-studio by Jay Fitzgerald of Boston’s most financially stable daily paper, the Boston Herald and the outstanding Hub Blog as well as Todd Hyten, aka Armchair General Savin Hill, for a discussion about the sudden, near-death experience of the Boston Globe specifically, and newspapers in general. Here is my position on the demise of the Globe : Beleive me, I understand the schadenfreude. However, despite their arrogance, liberal leanings and biases, we still need to the Globe to do the ...

Will Obama take Deval off our hands? Would that be a good thing?
Pundit Review — Will Obama take Deval off our hands? Would that be a good thing? As far back as July 12, 2007 , I did a post noting that Gov. Deval Patrick was on the Obama short list for the Supreme Court should he win the election. Well, the time for serious speculation is upon us because Justice David Souter is retiring. Allahpundit said it well , Farewell at last to Bush I’s worst mistake. At first glance, the idea of Obama taking Deval Patrick off our hands is an appealing one. I would caution those who think it is a good thing. Which would you prefer, two listless, ineffectual terms in the corner office, or this guy making critical decisions about ...

Tuition Well Spent
The Corner on National Review Online — Friday, May 01, 2009 [image] Tuition Well Spent [ Jonah Goldberg ] They came to play: By the way, when I posted this video the other day, it had 17 views. Now it's just under 175,000. The above video has 780 views. Let's see what it has after the weekend. Update: Sorry, posted the wrong video at first. 05/01 01:04 PM [image] Share

Is there anything better than Yankee schadenfreude?
Pundit Review — Is there anything better than Yankee schadenfreude? What an enjoyable read the Sunday New York Post was this morning. It was worth $10 bucks instead of two. Let’s review the various levels of misery in the Bronx surrounding the Yankees, all from today’s paper. EXCLUSIVE: A-HOLE: YANKEES’ HOLE OF FAME ; SITE OF ‘CURSE’ DIG UNFILLED A YEAR LATER Hex still marks the spot at the new Yankee Stadium. It has been more than a year since the team extricated a Red Sox jersey maliciously entombed in the new stadium’s concrete by a Boston-loving hardhat — yet the hole remains unfilled, and officials have no clue what to do with it, The Post has learned. ...

"One hundred million there"
small dead animals — "One hundred million there" " ... $100 million here, pretty soon, even in Washington, it adds up to real money ..." Via Megan McCardle Posted by Kate at May 3, 2009 10:46 AM

The White House on the Boston Globe
The Caucus — At his news briefing on Monday afternoon, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, was fairly noncommittal when he was asked whether federal bailouts should be considered for newspapers like The Boston Globe, which is in a very precarious financial position right now, and other major papers that are in bankruptcy or have been shrunk drastically. It may have been one of the first times the White House has been asked about the sorry state of the industry. The Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Company, received a slight reprieve ...

How to Picture $100 Million out of $3.5 Trillion:
The Volokh Conspiracy — [ Randy Barnett , May 4, 2009 at 8:56pm ] Trackbacks How to Picture $100 Million out of $3.5 Trillion: This is cute (Hat Tip Tom Smith ):

Just how tiny is $100 million?
Althouse — (Via Randy Barnett.) blog advertising blog advertising

A Dime Saved Out of $3500
Chicago Boyz — Via Randy Barnet at The Volokh Conspiracy. People do have a great deal of trouble with scale, especially exponential scale.  Developing an intuition of scale is one of the most important lessons when training in technical fields.  When talking about big spending, I like to cut every number down by a single factor that will put the numbers in a range that people deal with on a day-to-day basis. In this case, let’s cut everything down by a factor of a billion (10^9), so that a trillion (10^12) dollars becomes a thousand (10^3) dollars ...

A Lesson in Scale
Moonbattery — Obamanomics illustrated with pennies: On tips from Burning Hot and J.

Obama's Budget Cuts
blonde sagacity — You MUST watch this...

Budget Visualizations:
The Volokh Conspiracy — Two YouTube videos help put proposed budget cuts and our growing debt into perspective. Bush's fiscal irresponsibility was quite bad and conservatives were too complacent about the growth in federal spending on Bush's watch but things are getting much, much worse.

Big number problem
Stubborn Facts — That's one of two videos that Jon Adler posted at this link, and the other one is just as worth watching.

Texas Rep. Accuses Dems of Closing GOP-Donating Chrysler Dealerships (Video)
Gateway Pundit — Texas Representative Ted Poe Accuses Democrats of Shady Dealings-- Using the list of all 789 dealerships to be closed, WND found that owners contributed $450,000 to GOP presidential candidates; $7,970 to Sen. Hillary Clinton; $2,200 to John Edwards and $450 to Barack Obama. Hat Tip to Gwynne from Texas Rep. Poe asks the tough questions about the Chrysler dealership closings: It's not surprising that now that the cat is out of the bag democrats are expressing concern over the closing of dealerships. No wonder these democratic dealerships on ...

Dealergate 9: Questioning the ‘auto task force tyrants’
RedState: Conservative News and Community — As we reported yesterday, even some Democrats are beginning to question President Obama and auto his task force. They can’t understand why profitable, top-performing Chrysler dealerships are being forced to close their doors. We’ve been asking this and other questions about the Dealergate scandal for weeks, and we’re encouraged to see some House Democrats finally getting curious about how the decisions were made regarding which dealerships would stay and which would go. Any number of factors could have contributed to open these Democrat’s eyes. For one, this dealer closing business doesn’t pass the smell test, ...

Texas Rep. Accuses Dems of Closing GOP-Donating Chrysler Dealerships (Video)
Pat Dollard | Young Americans — Map of Chrylser closings Gateway Pundit Texas Representative Ted Poe Accuses Democrats of Shady Dealings– Using the list of all 789 dealerships to be closed, WND found that owners contributed $450,000 to GOP presidential candidates; $7,970 to Sen. Hillary Clinton; $2,200 to John Edwards and $450 to Barack Obama. . . Read the rest HERE .

Texas Representative Accuses Democrats Of Shutting Down Republican-Owned Chrysler Dealerships
Say Anything — The issue is getting traction. Whether you believe that the Obama administration chose the Chrysler dealerships to shut down based on political contributiosn or not - the jury is still out for me - at the very least the Obama administration should release the criteria they used in picking the dealerships to be shutdown. Because outside of the political contributions, there really seems to be no guiding logic to how these dealerships were shut down.  It doesn’t seem to have been based on performance or geography or anything else. Meanwhile Democrats like Barney Frank are ...

what he said
Knowledge is Power — Chicago Rules ~vid~ Even some congressional Democrats are gettin’ a mite suspicious via RedState.

Visual aid: Just how miserably has the stimulus failed?
Hot Air » Top Picks — Visual aid: Just how miserably has the stimulus failed? posted at 8:27 pm on June 9, 2009 by Allahpundit Send to a Friend | Share on Facebook | printer-friendly Remember this guy? He did a nifty vid a month ago along these same lines to demonstrate just how minuscule The One’s budget cuts were. (I linked it at the time but it’s lost somewhere in the HA archives.) I’m not sure his math’s right on this one, though. Granted, even by the moronic “created or saved” standard, the stimulus is a giant bust so far, having “saved” in three months just 150,000 jobs — less than half the amount that were lost in May alone. But count along with ...

Transcript: Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) on Dealergate
Doug Ross @ Journal — This is the transcript of Rep. Poe's speech on the House floor ( courtesy of XBMT, Channel 12 ). Mr. Speaker, just south of Houston, there is a town called Alvin, Texas, where a Chrysler dealership called Rogers Dodge is making a lot of money selling Chryslers; but on June 9, they are going to close down because the auto task force gang has notified them that they have to close. [image] Rogers Dodge is on the list of 789 Chrysler dealerships around the country that are being closed down under questionable circumstances. There are five in the Houston area alone. The question remains: What are the criteria for closing down these dealerships? The auto task force gang picks ...

Obama’s Budget Cuts… Michael Steele
Pat Dollard | Young Americans — H/T Kurt(the infidel) .

Where Did The Money Go? We Don’t Know…….
Dr. Melissa Clouthier — Even the AMA thinks the Obama health plan stinks. Not that they have much leverage. With government run health care, they’ll be forced to participate or else. And if you haven’t seen this video yet, you need to watch it. Why should we trust the government to run health care? In the video you’ll a bureaucrat at the Federal Reserve not able to answer one question by the good Congressman about where 9 TRILLION off balance sheet dollars have gone. Hmmmm….I dunno, didn’t read the Bloomberg article. Oy vey. Okay, now, with the ...

Where Did The Money Go? We Don't Know.......
Right Wing News — Even the AMA thinks the Obama health plan stinks . Not that they have much leverage. With government run health care, they'll be forced to participate or else . And if you haven't seen this video yet, you need to watch it. Why should we trust the government to run health care? In the video you'll a bureaucrat at the Federal Reserve not able to answer one question by the good Congressman about where 9 TRILLION off balance sheet dollars have gone. Hmmmm....I dunno, didn't read the Bloomberg article. Oy vey. Okay, now, with the current spending, the Fed has no idea where it's going. It's time to consider Congress itself. I always get a little amused watching ...

When a Hundred Million Dollars Doesn’t Amount to Much
Gates of Vienna — Our President has vowed to “find” a hundred million dollars to eliminate from the federal budget. Here’s some perspective on that vow: Big whoop. Hat tip: Donald Luskin’s The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid [post ends here] ...

Meet Matthias Shapiro, Penny Aficionado
RedState: Conservative News and Community — All it took was a video camera, 10,000 pennies and a little creativity. The result was a viral video that earned 28-year-old Matthias Shapiro of Utah the first-ever “Grassroots Logic Award” from the Republican National Committee. Shapiro’s videos, which use pennies to put into context President Obama’s spending, earned him a trip to Washington, D.C., today. His most popular video, which is nearing 1 million views on YouTube, was released April 24 and mocked Obama’s measly $100 million budget cuts in comparison to the $3.5 trillion budget. A link from National Review’s Jonah Goldberg helped ...

The Missing $100 Million
The Corner on National Review Online — Tuesday, July 21, 2009 [image] The Missing $100 Million [ John J. Miller ] You've probably heard the old line attributed to the late Everett Dirksen: A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money. One of the big Senate office buildings in DC is named after the guy. Well, the Obama administration can't find a small fraction of this amount i.e., $100 million, which doesn't qualify as "real money" in the Dirksenian sense to cut from the federal budget, even in the wake of this year's spending splurge: WASHINGTON (CNN) On April 20, President Obama challenged his Cabinet to cut $100 million in spending over the next ...

Today’s the day for the budget reduction report!
RedState: Conservative News and Community — You remember: back in April the President called on the Cabinet to reduce the budget by 100 million. True, it was immediately pointed out that this would be roughly equivalent to… well, we’ll let Political Math explain it*: …still, every little - every very, very, very little - bit helps, right? So, today’s the day that we hear about those cuts! White House misses deadline on spending cuts report Asked about the spending cuts, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that information still was being ...