the TOWN HALL weblog

I kept hearing this phrase on the radio and seeing it in headlines “despite Government action economy still collapsing.”  Uh, guys let me make this clear to you it is BECAUSE of Government action that the economy is collapsing!   Now we are going to give Congress and the White House to the guys who thought [...]

Hey I had very important skatie girls to cheer on and while I am gone you guys are suppossed to pick up the slack around here.  I come back and there is only one post here.  As Miss Ann Throphe said to me repeatedly this weekend “work harder, do more.” 

I won’t be around for a few days because as I am sure you all already know today is the start of the Southwest Pacific Regional Figure Skating Championships.  There are a lot of young skaters eagerly awaiting to hear me cheer myself hoarse for them.  I feel so sad for these kids.  They have [...]

Okay as I said a few days ago http://marlettsmith.com/blog/index.php/2008/09/26/two-wrongs/   I really didn’t know if the bailout was right or wrong.  What I suspected was that it was wrong but needed to fix a bunch of other wrongs the government had inflicted on the market.  But in just a few paragraphs Mark Steyn has brought me [...]

Okay McCain takes time off from campaigning to try and seriously address the financial situation; Obama’s poll numbers go up.  McCain and Bush tried hard to get more oversight of Fannie Mae; Obama’s poll numbers go up.  Obama has managed in only three years to receive more money from Fannie Mae than any other Senator [...]

At NRO there is an amusing look at the financial crisis through the lens of one who has recently passed a kidney stone. http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YWE1YTg0N2I5OTQ1ZWNkYjFmYTNjZjQ2ZmMzYmM5ZjA= The article is fun and ends with this sentence which is the funniest ever written:
Is that too much to ask of this mess? That from whatever pain we have to endure, we [...]

Powerline has linked to this great video explaining the housing mess: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/09/021622.php
I gotta tell you I understand things so much better after watching this I feel like an idiot for what I missed before.  I really didn’t understand that the CRA and the sub-prime mess was linked to why it was so darn hard for [...]

Classical Values and Instapundit are discussing the need to listen to economists.  This leads to the question which economists?  Wasn’t Keynsian economics responsible for the failures of the 70s?  Wasn’t JK Galbraith an actual moron?   Doesn’t it matter which economists you listen to?   Classical Values compares economics with brain surgery and that is an excellent [...]

I understand the conservative case against the Wall St. bailout.  I understand that government interfering in the Free Market will just do more damage to the Market.  But isn’t the ugly truth of this bailout that the government is meddling to fix what the government broke?  The mortgage business didn’t go down a rat hole on [...]

Gateway Pundit has the story up that one of the Marines slandered by Rep. Murtha is fighting back. 
A Marine Corps lance corporal from Pennsylvania has sued U.S. Rep. John Murtha, saying the Democrat lawmaker slandered him by saying he and other marines killed 24 Iraqis in Haditha in “cold blood.” Justin Sharratt has filed the [...]

The MSM is only happy talking about the military when they can create a controversy.  Sgt. Peralta’s amazing courage in Iraq would go unnoticed if he hadn’t been denied a Medal of Honor and therefore giving the media a chance to stir up a storm of outrage.  http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20080918-9999-1n18peralta.html
Whichever medal he receives Sgt. Peralta gave his [...]

Okay today this election finally became too much for me.  I was listening to Ella this morning, trying to find succor in that voice as rich as dark chocolate cheesecake.  She started singing “That Old Black Magic” and I thought “oh no Ella is singing a song that can be construed as a coded message accusing [...]

As always Thomas Sowell keeps his eyes clearly focused on matters of true importance.  And as usual he does not suffer fools gladly: 
When terrorists get nuclear weapons, there will be no way to deter suicide bombers. We and our children will be permanently at the mercy of the merciless.
Yet what are we talking about? Taxing [...]

So there is a lot of speculating in the right wing blogs that Obama is going to dump Biden and bring HIlary on the ticket.  Before the stock market went into free fall I would have said that was a sure thing.  Now we will wait and see if the bad news gives Obama a [...]

Instapundit had this quote on his site a couple of days ago:
UPDATE: Barry Dauphin thinks it’s psychological: “One thing I have noticed. No matter who McCain is up against (be it Republicans or Democrats), he has an uncanny ability to get under the skin of his opponents. Most of his opponents become virtually apoplectic at [...]