Stimulating Our Way Right Into Serfdom

Mark Steyn on what’s wrong with the “stimulus” plan passed by House Democrats – and only by House Democrats. Which is only fair since Republicans were completely shut out of anything to do with crafting the pork-fest of leftist spending. Take for instance the vital importance of STDs to stimulating the economy:

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, is on TV explaining the (at this point the congregation shall fall to its knees and prostrate itself) “stimulus.” “How,” asks the lady from CBS, “does $335 million in STD prevention stimulate the economy?”

“I’ll tell you how,” says Speaker Pelosi. “I’m a big believer in prevention. And we have, er… there is a part of the bill on the House side that is about prevention. It’s about it being less expensive to the states to do these measures.”

Makes a lot of sense. If we have more STD prevention, it will be safer for loose women to go into bars and pick up feckless men, thus stimulating the critical beer and nuts and jukebox industries. To do this, we need trillion-dollar deficits, which our children and grandchildren will have to pay off, but, with sufficient investment in prevention measures, there won’t be any children or grandchildren, so there’s that problem solved.

Steyn only opens with that bit of madness. There is ever so much more. The US is firmly on the trail that Europe has blazed to out-of-control statism. The spendthrift Democrats are seeing to that.

Worst of all, the “stimulus” will do nothing to help the economy and stands to do massive harm. If Europe and the rest of the world retaliate for the blatant protectionism the Democrats have inserted into their wholly-owned plan, the economy will take a massive hit. The economies of many countries will tank, and the recession will go on for a long time.

More Democrat Tax Antics

Funny how the Democrats are so very much in favor of tax increases as a party, isn’t it? When they can’t even seem to pay their current taxes, I mean. The latest Obama administration appointee to run afoul of taxes is none other than Tom Daschle. To the tune of $140,167 in unpaid taxes.

With the unreported income from the use of a car service in the amounts of $73,031 in 2005, $89,129 in 2006 and $93,096 in 2007; the unreported consulting income of $83,333 in 2007; and the adjusted reductions in charitable contributions, Daschle adds a total of $353,552 in additional income and reduced donations, meaning an additional tax payment of $128,203, in addition to $11,964 in interest.

As is the usual behavior in these matters of late, Daschle has paid the back taxes and penalties only when he was caught.

Americans once rose up against taxation without representation. What are we to do when we have representation without taxation?

You or I would be in serious trouble if we failed to pay our taxes – tax dodging among elected and appointed officials isn’t even a rough spot in the road for the Democratic elite these days.

Riding The Rails

Rich asked earlier today if everyone had their hobo outfit picked out yet. That post was in response to the insane provisions in the “stimulus” bill that would throw protectionist “buy American” legislation on all government projects. Europe is vowing retaliation for that. Well, there’s even more – and bigger – nuggets in the bill. This one will stun you. The Democrats are reversing welfare reform.

Buried deep inside the massive spending orgy that Democrats jammed through the House this week lie five words that could drastically undo two decades of welfare reforms.

The very heart of the widely applauded Welfare Reform Act of 1996 is a cap on the amount of federal cash that can be sent to states each year for welfare payments.

But, thanks to the simple phrase slipped into the legislation, the new “stimulus” bill abolishes the limits on the amount of federal money for the so-called Emergency Fund, which ships welfare cash to states.

“Out of any money in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise appropriated, there are appropriated such sums as are necessary for payment to the Emergency Fund,” Democrats wrote in Section 2101 on Page 354 of the $819 billion bill. In other words, the only limit on welfare payments would be the Treasury itself.

“This re-establishes the welfare state and creates dependency all over the place,” said one startled budget analyst after reading the line.

In addition to reopening the floodgates of dependency on federal welfare programs, the change once again deepens the dependency of state governments on the federal government.

There’s some change we can all believe in. We’re going forward into the past led by a spendaholic Congress controlled by Democrats. Between the new Smoot-Hawley tariff provisions and the return to the welfare state, the Democrats seem intent on destroying American prosperity.

This ill-considered stimulus plan will devaste this country. Far from helping, there is a lot of genuine harm here. At this rate, we’ll all be begging for change soon.

With a tin cup.

Via Memeorandum

Yet Again More Further Additional Proof Of Global “Warming”

From Watts Up With That? Mature Arctic Ivory Gull Seen in Massachusetts – first time in over a century

One of the claims about “global climate change” is that it will affect the normal ranges of flora and fauna of our planet. Well, with a very cold northern hemisphere this winter, that seems to happening. A bird not seen (as a mature adult) in Massachusetts since the 1800’s , an Ivory Gull, normally an inhabitant of arctic areas, has been spotted.

How weird could that be, really? Maybe the normal range for the bird includes Maine?

Boy, you sure can’t get more “consistent with global warming” then that, right?

Do You Have Your Hobo Outfit Picked Out Yet?

Over at my home blog the other day I made a comment about the “economic stimulus” package to the effect that it will be remembered as the 21st Century version of the Smoot-Hawley tariff. I meant it figuratively.

Unfortunately, there is good reason to believe my statement can be taken literally. From the Telegraph UK:

The EU trade commissioner vowed to fight back after the bill passed in the House of Representatives late on Wednesday included a ban on most purchases of foreign steel and iron used in infrastructure projects.

The Senate’s version of the legislation, which will be debated early next week, goes even further, requiring that any projects related to the stimulus use only American-made equipment and goods.

The inclusion of protectionist measures has quickly raised hackles in Europe.

Catherine Ashton, the EU trade commissioner, said: “We are looking at the situation. The one thing we can be absolutely certain about, is if a bill is passed which prohibits the sale or purchase of European goods on American territory, that is something we will not stand idly by and ignore.”

Despite the parlous state of the US economy, some major American firms, including General Electric, are also opposed to the Buy American stipulations, fearing reprisals from overseas and further damage to the global economy.

Bill Lane, government affairs director for Caterpillar, which has just laid off nearly a fifth of its 112,000 work force and is the tenth largest US investor in Britain, warned it was a dangerous step.

He said: “We are the first to recognise that if the US embraces Buy American then the whole notion of buying national will mestastasize and limit our ability to take part in overseas projects.

“We are students of history. A major reason a very deep recession turned into the Great Depression was the fact that countries turned inward.”

Its true. The Democrats seem to either be that stupid, if they are harming the country accidently, or that evil, if they are doing it on purpose.

It is hard not to lean towards evil here. After all, who could be so stupid that they do not see the parallels with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and the Great Depression?

From Wikipedia:

A petition was signed by 1028 economists in the United States asking President Hoover to veto the legislation, organized by Paul Douglas, Irving Fisher, James TFG Wood, Frank Graham, Ernest Patterson, Henry Seager, Frank Taussig, and Clair Wilcox. Automobile executive Henry Ford spent an evening at the White House trying to convince Hoover to veto the bill, calling it “an economic stupidity”. J. P. Morgan’s chief executive Thomas W. Lamont said he “almost went down on my knees to beg Herbert Hoover to veto the asinine Hawley-Smoot tariff.”

President Hoover didn’t get it. Obama obviously doesn’t get it.

We, the people, are going it get it…and hard.

(H/T to PowerLine)

Bailout? Or Rip Off?

This one should make taxpayers very, very, very angry. The New York Times is reporting that despite 2008 being a disaster for the US financial sector, despite huge infusions of cash to banks and other Wall Street firms, those financial institutions paid out some $18.4 BILLION in bonuses to Wall Street workers. This is shameless – and shameful. Even institutions that got absolutely creamed last year paid out bonuses even while their balance sheets pulled a Titanic.

By almost any measure, 2008 was a complete disaster for Wall Street — except, that is, when the bonuses arrived.

Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York, the now-diminished world capital of capital, collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year.

That was the sixth-largest haul on record, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York State comptroller.

While the payouts paled next to the riches of recent years, Wall Street workers still took home about as much as they did in 2004, when the Dow Jones industrial average was flying above 10,000, on its way to a record high.

Some bankers took home millions last year even as their employers lost billions.

While regulators say it is unclear if taxpayer money went to these folks, it is quite clear that taxpayer money certainly helped make sure these payments got made.

This is sickening.

Tell me what great performance warranted this kind of bonus money? The fabulous condition of Wall Street? The outstanding profitability? The huge boost to the American economy?

Or did they get bonuses for successfully milking the American taxpayer?

Now you know why financial types were the largest, single group of contributors to the Obama inauguration festivities.

Now you know why you should be suspicious of the passage of the “stimulus” bill last night by the Democrats in the House. (And only by the Democrats). I suspect you also know why the Republicans – and 11 Democrats – managed to have enough gumption to refuse to vote for that pork-laden bill.

Get mad, folks. We’re being screwed.

Shovel Ready – To Dig The Hole Ever Deeper

I’m really late to this party, but this needs to be spread far and wide – free of the usual media filters. The Wall Street Journal lifts the rock covering the “stimulus plan” being pushed through Congress by the Democrats. What they find under that rock is not pretty. A god-awful amount of our tax money – and our children’s and grandchildren’s – is being spent on things that have no chance of stimulating anything but bigger government, even more spendaholic behavior by Congressional Democrats and, inevitably, higher taxes for everyone. This bill is a disaster.

We’ve looked it over, and even we can’t quite believe it. There’s $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn’t turned a profit in 40 years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects. There’s even $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.

In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make “dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy.” Well, you be the judge. Some $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects. There’s another $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.

Add the roughly $20 billion for business tax cuts, and by our estimate only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus. And even many of these projects aren’t likely to help the economy immediately. As Peter Orszag, the President’s new budget director, told Congress a year ago, “even those [public works] that are ‘on the shelf’ generally cannot be undertaken quickly enough to provide timely stimulus to the economy.”

Go read where the bulk – by far – of the money is going and try to figure out what that money is stimulating – other than left wing wet dreams. More than one quarter of this bloated monstrosity is going to wealth transfer. Pure, simple glad-handing of cash payments. Little more than vote buying.

Not only is this bill not going to help the economy, it is going to end up skewing upwards the Federal budgets for years – or decades – to come. The Republicans who are standing against this are right to do so. The Blue Dogs who vote for it reveal themselves as hacks.

People need to know how much waste is in this bill – and how little it is going to help do anything but line the pockets of interest groups. Spread the word.

Via Memeorandum

More Proof Of Global “Warming”?

Isn’t this exactly what Algore would predict? Snowy owls swoop southward

Biologists say an increase in snowy owl sightings in the South suggests that the arctic species did so well in its northern breeding grounds last year that competition is driving the young ones to warmer climates.

The showy white owls of “Harry Potter” fame are spotted in small numbers in upstate New York and other northern states, including Ohio, every winter. This year, they’ve also been spotted farther south, in states where they’re rarely seen.

In Tennessee, birders armed with spotting scopes and telephoto lenses scrambled from as far away as Georgia and Alabama to see the first snowy owl reported in that state in 22 years….

Rarely seen south of northern Ohio, snowy owls have also been reported this year in Kansas and Missouri, according to the eBird.org national bird reporting website.

Snowy owls nest on the ground in the Arctic tundra and many of them stay there year-round, while some winter in Canada and the northern United States.

Hmm…an arctic species now being found further and further south. Yeah, that fits with AGW just fine.

After all we have had all those reports of polar bears on the Rio Grande, or am I misremembering that?

Embarrassing NASA

A man who once supervised James Hansen at NASA says that Hansen “embarrassed” NASA with his strident claims about man-made global warming. That is about the most complimentary thing that Dr. John S. Theon had to say about Hansen in his interview.

“Hansen was never muzzled even though he violated NASA’s official agency position on climate forecasting (i.e., we did not know enough to forecast climate change or mankind’s effect on it). Hansen thus embarrassed NASA by coming out with his claims of global warming in 1988 in his testimony before Congress,” Theon wrote. [Note: NASA scientist James Hansen has created worldwide media frenzy with his dire climate warning, his call for trials against those who dissent against man-made global warming fear, and his claims that he was allegedly muzzled by the Bush administration despite doing 1,400 on-the-job media interviews! - See: Don't Panic Over Predictions of Climate Doom - Get the Facts on James Hansen - UK Register: Veteran climate scientist says 'lock up the oil men' - June 23, 2008 & UK Guardian: NASA scientist calls for putting oil firm chiefs on trial for 'high crimes against humanity' for spreading doubt about man-made global warming - June 23, 2008 ]

Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.

One has to love (not) the left’s regular claims about having been “silenced” – made on national television and in many global platforms. Hansen is almost a poster child for that particular bit of nonsense.

Via Memeorandum

Do The Right Thing

Some folks simply do not get it, particularly if those folks are academics: Why GOP can’t say ‘whatever it is, we’re against it’

One of the best Marx Brothers movies, “Horse Feathers,” played in movie theaters at the height of the Great Depression in 1932.

In the film, the comedian Groucho Marx played the new president of Huxley College, Quincy Adams Wagstaff.

During one of the most memorable scenes, Groucho introduces himself to faculty and students by singing about his philosophy of governance: “Your proposition may be good/But let’s have one thing understood/ Whatever it is, I’m against it!/And even when you’ve changed it or condensed it, I’m against it/ I’m opposed to it/On general principle. I’m opposed to it.”

If Republicans want to rebuild their party after the calamity of 2008, the party leadership needs to avoid the Quincy Adams Wagstaff approach to politics.

When Obama proposed his economic recovery bill last week, the first words to come out of House Minority Leader’s John Boehner’s mouth sounded a bit like Wagstaff.

With the economy imploding and the international economic crisis worsening, Boehner said: “Right now, given the concerns that we have over the size of the package and all of the spending in this package, we don’t think it’s going to work. And so if it’s the plan that I see today, put me down in the ‘no’ column.”

How exactly does that sound like Wagstaff? Boehner had a very concrete objection; the damn thing is just too expensive. (It continually amazes me that liberals believe we cannot “afford” a $10 billion dollar tax cut, for example, but in the next breath announce that we CAN afford $1.3 trillion in new spending. Yeah, that makes sense.) Besides, are the American people really going to care if Obama’s programs pass in congress unanimously or not? Of course they won’t. In reality the GOP has everything to gain by developing a backbone on such matters, and not only because it allows Republicans to say “I told you so” when the Obama plan goes “ass over tea kettle” as it inevitably will given the fact that Keynesian economics never work. The GOP may just be able to moderate the worst excesses of the Democratic penchant for “handout liberalism,” especially if they are able to remove their own failures in that regard.

[I]f Boehner’s plan is for his party to act as an oppositional force — trying to block, delay and prevent legislative action — then the GOP could find itself in big trouble.

If the Republicans don’t agree with Obama’s approach, given the severity of the crisis, they need to offer an alternative rather than just sitting still.

To be sure, there is the possibility that if the economy continues to deteriorate after a bill has passed and the public loses faith in Obama, the House GOP could reap the benefit from their opposition. They could say “we told you so.” But even that would be a high-risk maneuver, particularly given the state of public opinion about the Republican Party.

The idea that Republicans should meekly knuckle under to Democratic aspirations because of opinion polls of the moment is simply dumb. Every historical example speaks against such a notion. Did Democrats knuckle under when the first George Bush was riding high in the polls in 1991 after the first Gulf War? No they didn’t and as a direct result they won the Presidency and retained control of Congress in 1992 (the last time they would enjoy that distinction until 2006.) It is foolish and shortsighted to base a party’s political approach simply on the current moment. The Democrats did exactly that from 1994-2004 and look where it got them.

Even if a bill passes and the economy continues to struggle, voters would be looking at a Republican Party that didn’t have anything better to offer. The public likes hard-working politicians.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal ideas didn’t always work — some like the National Recovery Act were downright failures — but voters valued a president who tried to offer arguments about how to end the crisis and who rolled up his sleeves to make the nation better.

Nonsense. The National Recovery Act made the nation worse in and of itself. Why should anyone have to sit back, watch a politician harm our country and do nothing? Sounds like base cowardice to me. The idea that the American people are too stupid to understand such concepts is simply wrong. The Republicans just have to keep hammering on the point over and over again. When some hare-brained Democratic idea causes real human misery hammer them; when some foolish economic decision delays the onset of an economic recovery hammer them again; and so on; and so on; and so on.

To do so is not “obstructionist.” It is simply the right thing to do.

Odd Odds & Ends

Just a couple links.

See what made the Right Wing Prof exclaim: “…free-range chickens are penis-waving, serial-raping, patriarchal psychopaths!”

And from the “insert your own joke here” file: Nasty odor plagues St. Louis area

The money quote: “”I don’t want to blame it on Illinois, but…”

Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Idiot Alert

(Note: Apologies to one and all…but sometimes I read something so stupid I cannot help myself.)

Jeezus H. Christ. What exactly does it take to write for Slate? Charles Pierce (who is NOT, I repeat NOT to be confused with Charles Peirce) single handed proves it doesn’t take a whole hell of a lot. The Cardinals’ presence in the Super Bowl is fluky and disgraceful.

[W]e are going to be inundated with mendacious swill over the next two weeks on the subject of what a great story the Arizona Cardinals are….

We’re going to hear about how they magically transformed themselves at the end of the season. We’re going to hear about the remarkable comeback of Kurt Warner. We’re going to hear about how marvelous it is for the National Football League that a Super Bowl championship is within the grasp of a team so thickly dripping with obvious mediocrity that it’s a wonder Charlie Sheen isn’t playing left guard. We are going to hear all of this because the NFL and its broadcast partners operate on the very simple premise that everybody who reports—or follows—their sport on television is a paste-eating moron.

This simple fact is that the very presence of the Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl is at best a fluke and, at worst, a disgrace.

Tough words from a writer based in a city that produced, by far, the worst team to ever make a Super Bowl. The 1985 edition of the New England Patriots was a joke of a team that got utterly embarrassed in Super Bowl XX, which they lost 46-10. The Patriots managed a robust -19 yards of offense in the first half. Only the Bears showing some mercy when the game was out of hand in the second half allowed New England to finish with more than 100 yards of offense for the game. That vaunted New England rushing attack amassed 7 yards in 11 attempts for the entire game.

Granted, this was in the middle of an era of NFC dominance where the AFC lost 15 of 16 Super Bowls between 1981 and 1996. (Only the Raider’s win in Super Bowl XVIII kept the AFC from complete futility.) But even in this age of relative AFC ineptitude the feebleness of the Patriots stands out. (Yes, the Broncos were creamed worse in Super Bowl XXIV, but Denver had the best record in the entire AFC that season, so just imagine how much worse the loss could have been had Cleveland or Buffalo made it that season.)

So could the Cards stink up the joint on Sunday? Sure they could, but they have high standards of sucking to meet before we starting making noises about “all-time worst” whatevers.

Hey, but maybe Pierce can back his contentions up with facts and stats. Let us read on:

They played in a landfill of a division. They won their two playoff games because Jake Delhomme of Carolina turned the ball over six times and because the Philadelphia Eagles all looked at the newspapers last Sunday and discovered they were in the NFC championship game again.

Actually, the Cards have won three playoff games this year, not two. But beyond that mistake lets check the logic here. “The Cards suck because the rest of the NFC West sucks.” I guess the 2006 Colts, the 1999 Rams and the 1998 Broncos sucked as well since they also won divisions that featured no other plus .500 teams. Oh, wait a sec….all of those teams won the Super Bowl those years? Hmm…that must mean the quality of the division doesn’t necessarily reflect on all the teams. Who knew?

Oh, and Carolina and Philadelphia, who collectively turned the ball over 9 times against the Cards, did so completely without defensive pressure from Arizona. Funny, I watched those games and I don’t seem to remember it that way, but my eyes must be lying.

Cardinals are a glorified Arena Football League team with a soft defense and a running game unworthy of the name.

Yes, they don’t have the high powered running offense of the Steelers, right? Well, let us see…the Cards racked up 3.5 yards a carry this season which ranked them 31st in the league. Pittsburgh is much better than that, right? Well, the Steelers averaged 3.7 yards a carry ranking them 29th in the league. Oh yeah, that’s impressive. So according to Pierce averaging 3.5 yards a carry makes you a “glorified Arena Football League team” while 3.7 yards makes you an NFL juggernaut. Gee, thanks for the tip Chuck.

They are in the position that they’re in because the NFL rigs its season worse than any carny rigs his wheel. For all the macho posturing of its principal propagandists, between the jiggering of the schedule and the conniving of the draft and the socialistic revenue schemes, and the desperate grab for any mechanism that will flatten out the differences between really good teams and really bad ones, the NFL is the league that comes closest to the biddy soccer league philosophy of making sure that everyone gets a trophy.

Yeah, I mean the Cards must have won only 2 or 3 games last year. The fact they went 9-7 this year must be some sort of conspiracy!! What is that? The Cards went 8-8 last year? Oh….never mind.

But wait…didn’t the Cards face a much easier schedule when compared to the worthy Steelers? Well, let us compare Pittsburgh’s non-division schedule to Arizona’s. The Steelers non-divisional foes went a combined 95-64-1 this season with five of those teams making the playoffs. Take that you Arizona bastards!!

What is that? The Cards non-divisional opponents went 98-61-1 (three games better than the Steelers schedule can boast) AND five of those teams made the playoffs as well? But, that’s not the same! Arizona only went 1-4 against those playoff bound teams! See they are undeserving!!!! What?? Pittsburgh also went 1-4 against their non-divisional playoff bound opponents? Well….crap!

The only proof anyone should need came in the 15th game of the season, when Arizona visited New England. It already was clear this year that the Cardinals were even money to finish in the middle of the pack of any league that played in the upper latitudes, with the possible exception of the Ivies. Send them north out of the pleasure dome that the Bidwills blackjacked out of the state of Arizona, and the team did things like give up 56 points to the New York Jets, playing such shoddy defense that Brett Favre threw for six touchdowns. This, of course, ignited another outbreak of hot and steamy Favre love from the easily smitten television press corps, so we have the Cardinals to blame even for that. In Foxborough, however, in December, they simply quit.

The Patriots scored on nine of their first 10 possessions. The score was 31-0 at halftime.

My God!! That is the sort of thing that only happens when one team has nothing to play for and the other is fighting for its playoff life. You know what I mean, when one side has already won their division and are no longer in the running for home field advantage…you know, like the situation Arizona was in this year. Oh wait a sec….

Maybe that isn’t the point. Maybe the point is Pittsburgh didn’t go on the road for the second to last game of the season and stink up the joint! What is that? They went on the road to Tennessee and lost 31-14? Well, that’s is totally different because, um…well…because Arizona sucks!!!!

Bear in mind over the next week that this game will be cited as the “pivotal” moment in the Cardinals’ miracle run to the Super Bowl. Ken Whisenhunt—who sat most of his offensive weapons in that game—and his staff will be the subject of gooey encomiums for cracking the whip after the loss to New England. There will be loose talk about professionalism, and about how pride was appealed to at a critical moment. And since snow is a long shot in Tampa, they might even win the game, and then there will be more of it. And it will all be nonsense.

Yeah, Whisenhunt rested his key players for a play-off run. See how that worked for him? They are only in the Super Bowl. What an idiot Whisenhunt is! Oh yeah, and even if this team wins the Super Bowl that only proves they are no good.

Who can argue with “logic” like that?

(Cross Posted at The Iconic Midwest)

Wounded Giant

The New York Times weighs in on the problems Microsoft is having right now. Layoffs and fallinf revenues are only the tip of the iceberg. It looks like Redmond is looking at a bleak future, at least for several years.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — With sales of computers deteriorating by the day, the PC industry’s dominant players — Microsoft and Intel — have arrived at the stark realization that the slump in sales could last a long time, perhaps years.

“We are certainly in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime set of economic conditions,” Microsoft’s chief executive, Steven A. Ballmer, told investors Thursday in a conference call to discuss the company’s dismal second-quarter financial results. “Our model is not for a quick rebound. Our model is things go down, and then they reset. The economy shrinks.”

To help it cope with that lower base of demand, Microsoft said that it would lay off up to 5,000 employees, or about 5 percent of its work force — the first significant cuts in the company’s 34-year history. The layoffs follow a rare decline in sales of Microsoft’s Windows operating system for personal and business computers in the second fiscal quarter. Net income for the period, which ended Dec. 31, fell 11 percent to $4.17 billion.

Sales of personal computers are dropping with the exception of the new “netbook” category. But those tiny, little machines can’t run the big, powerful operating systems like Windows Vista or Windows 7. Microsoft is having to sell XP to manufacturers of those devices.

Frankly, my own opinion is that Microsoft did severe damage to itself with Vista. People with what had been a powerful PC only a year or two old were shut out of using Vista. That cranked off a large number of folks. People who bought “Vista-Ready” computers only to find out the machines barely ran the system at all were even worse hit. They were livid. That’s two groups of people who could be counted on at one time to upgrade to newer machines. But they were burned by Redmond and they are now very gun shy about buying new PCs.

I suspect, without any proof, that this is why Windows 7 appears to be engineered to run much better on older platforms than Vista was. I also suspect this is why drivers for some older hardware are suddenly available – and are being upgraded regularly. I just got an updated driver for a tablet I have that runs like a top on Windows 7. Seriously, it runs better on Windows 7 than it did on XP.

I suspect that Microsoft is right – it will take a few years to recover from this. People are likely to run their existing computers until they simply won’t work any longer. They won’t replace the PC unless they have to. (And, for now, they are likely to replace them with the tiny netbooks. Heck, my non-geek wife wants a netbook, even though she is currently using my Dell D400, which is pretty much the prototype for the netbook model.)

If Microsoft is smart, they will continue to hone Windows 7 to run even better on older machines for the short term. If not, they will continue to bleed for a longer period of time. If they don’t try to redeem themselves with those burned PC consumers, they stand to lose market share to Linux on the older machines. Ubuntu runs great on the older PCs I have, even the ones that will never be able to run Windows 7.

Windows 7 – Some Problems

Biggest problem so far: antivirus programs. They simply do not play well with Windows 7 – or at least the two I tested so far. TrendMicro was really bad – it locked me out of making changes to my computer. I could not even uninstall it. That one made me have to zero the drive and start over. I wasn’t happy. Then I tried the Norton 360 3 beta. I have had problems with Norton in the past, including the time it began erasing my hard disk (that was the GoBack program). But I figured I’d try it out. The beta is only good for 15 days. It lasted on my system for about an hour. Boot time increased by 100% or better, then I started having crashes. I have not had those before. The crashes and the slow boots stopped the minute I uninstalled the program. I’m going to try Kaspersky next.

Programs: Some older programs appear to run well, others are a no go. Games appear to be able to run very well, even some that are several years old now. (My son was playing Halo 2 with no problems and rather good performance.) I had to get a new version of Palm Desktop, and had to spend a goodly amount of time getting the Bluetooth connection set up. (That wasn’t all Windows fault – I had to relearn the Palm’s quirks as I went along.) But Bluetooth headphones linked right up and have great sound. My Motorola telephone will not link correctly at all, however. W7 reports that the driver won’t load.

Speaking of drivers: Drivers have been updated for several things on the system via Windows Update. So there appears to be interest by some manufacturers to make newer drivers available for older hardware. That’s a good thing. My new sound driver works like a champ – really, really nice sound. Better than I remember this particular computer sounding with XP.

Internet Explorer 8: Frankly, I am having issues with this program. It crashes at odd intervals. I cannot add my own site to the trusted zone because IE8 demands an https connection to do so. I suspect IE* has issues with scripts running, but doesn’t report this – it merely crashes and then sulks. FireFox is running rock-solid without any of that behavior.

Incidentally, I threw a spare drive into my “work” laptop, a Dell D800 and am running W7 on that, too. I’ll do another post about that adventure soon.

Hi Yo Silver! Get Away!

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when horses did not get venereal diseases!

The California Department of Food and Agriculture says veterinarians have 14 horses in quarantine as they work with federal officials to control a highly contagious venereal disease.

California now is among 39 states testing horses that might have been exposed to contagious equine metritis.

While the contagious equine metritis (CEM) is contagious, it does not appear to affect humans. But it can ruin a horse’s day. Here’s a fact sheet.

Horses got STDs? Who Knew?

While the abbreviation CEM may be descriptive, we here at Blue Crab Boulevard propose a more catchy name for this scourge: CCC.

That would be Clip Clop Clap.