Outsourcing and offshoring

One of Obama's favorite attacks on Mitt Romney is that Romney "outsourced" jobs while he was in the private equity business at Bain Capital. That may be true, and in fact, it's pretty damned likely that it's true. But let's not confuse "outsourcing" with "offshoring".

If you decide to hire a plumber to fix your sink instead of fixing it yourself, you've outsourced that job. If a company reassigns a business function to an outside contractor, that's also outsourcing. It doesn't matter whether that outside contractor operates inside our outside the United States, it's outsourcing. If that contractor does operate outside the US, then it's offshoring, as well as outsourcing.

Let's take the example of two fictitious banks...Security First Trust, and Fred's Bank. Both banks have decided they can save money by focusing on their core competencies - banking - and letting someone else handle the IT business.

Fred's Bank is a regional bank headquartered in the Southeast United States. They own a single data center in Columbia, South Carolina supporting all of their operations but have entered into an agreement with Joe's Global Systems under which all of Fred's IT employees will transfer to Joe, and Joe will operate Fred's Columbia data center for a fee. Fred has outsourced his IT business.

Security First Trust is a global concern with subsidiaries all over the world, and they have a major data center in Mumbai, India. By consolidating all their IT functions in Mumbai, they can eliminate the bulk of their US-based IT staff and move all the US IT services to India. They've offshored their IT business, but because they own the Mumbai data center, they haven't really outsourced it.

There's a difference between "outsourcing" and "offshoring", and when Obama and his minions bring up the "outsourcing" charge, someone needs to make them explain exactly what they mean.

Credit where it's due

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The statement Obama will never make

If President Obama has any leadership qualities at all, he'd put a stop to the narrative currently running rampant that Tea Partiers, Sarah Palin and meaningless rhetoric caused Jared Lee Loughner to go on a rampage last Saturday. He might even come out with a statement something like this:

We were all shocked, horrified and deeply saddened by the events in Tucson over the weekend. In addition to the loss of six innocent lives, the life and future of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords hangs in the balance. We, as a nation, grieve for the lives lost last Saturday and offer our prayers for their families.

An attack on a member of Congress and a Federal judge is an attack on us all. It threatens the public's right to full and open access to their elected representatives, which is the lifeblood of our system of government. But just as damaging to our nation are those who would use such a tragedy to further their political ends and to silence the voices of their political opponents. That is not what we as Americans are all about and these actions only serve to divide us further.

We cannot know what drives a disturbed mind to such atrocities, but we can keep them from doing us further harm.

But Obama is first and foremost a politician and as long as the libel coming from the left serves his political purposes, he'll let it fester.

I'm not holding my breath.

Update: A version of this post was published in today's (1-11-2011) Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star editorial letters column.

Shiva Obama

According to a Foxnews.com piece, Americans of Indian descent are a bit rankled over a recent Newsweek cover depicting Barack Obama as the Hindu god Shiva. (Cue obligatory jokes about media deification of Obama!)

The article to which the cover refers, though, is more of an apologia for Obama, rationalizing his administration's utter ineptitude in terms of the job being too big for any one person - even a deity! - to handle:

Can any single person fully meet the demands of the 21st-century presidency? Obama has looked to many models of leadership, including FDR and Abraham Lincoln, two transformative presidents who governed during times of upheaval. But what’s lost in those historical comparisons is that both men ran slim bureaucracies rooted in relative simplicity. Neither had secretaries of education, transportation, health and human services, veterans’ affairs, energy, or homeland security, nor czars for pollution or drug abuse, nor televisions in the West Wing constantly tuned to yammering pundits. They had bigger issues to grapple with, but far less managing to do.

I guess I must have missed all the sudden changes that must have occurred during Obama's inauguration in January last year, because I don't recall a single Newsweek article laying blame for George W. Bush's supposed failures on the size of the presidency. So I guess Bush must have served during a completely different era when things were so much simpler.

Oh, and I'd be derelict in my duties if I didn't point out that Shiva is known in the Hindu religion as the "destroyer of worlds". Heh.

Jon Stewart and Glenn Beck: Beside the point

Comedy Central's "Rally For Sanity and/or Fear", billed as a (wink, nudge) non-partisan event, was obviously anything but. And as the putative response to Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally, that's perfectly OK since I don't think many attendees at Beck's rally will be pulling the "D" lever on Tuesday even though that, too, was billed as non-partisan.

I can't comment much on the rally since I didn't attend nor did I watch any of it on TV, but I did catch Jon Stewart's closing remarks here. If you didn't see it, it's worth following the link and watching all 13 minutes because Stewart's closing is actually pretty good. Mediaite's Frances Martel correctly points out:

Those who paid attention to Glenn Beck’s speech at “Restoring Honor” will be hard-pressed to find much of a difference at the core of both their speeches, that core being that Americans are truly good and care for one another, and that the only way to get through these difficult times is working together.

But neither Beck nor Stewart put their fingers on the real problem, which is not Stewart or Beck. The real problem is a ruling party with leaders who actively and routinely attack and disparage roughly half of all Americans. President Obama himself, when he's not telling half of all Americans they're fearful and ignorant, says they need to sit in back because they can't drive. More recently he's referred to that same 50% as "enemies".

Mr. President, dude (hey, if Jon Stewart can call him dude, so can I)...smearing half your constituents is not a good way to unite the country. And neither is ramrodding an agenda opposed by roughly 60% of Americans.

What a difference nine years makes

My memories of 9/11/2001 are as crystal-clear as the weather that day. I remember every detail of that morning. I remember my shock and horror, and the seething anger that came later.

I remember, too, the brief period of political unity that followed. With the horrors of that day so fresh in everyone's mind, there was little disagreement that we were, in fact, at war. We knew that this would be a war like no other, one without geo-political boundaries or even a clearly defined end.

But predictably, that didn't last long. As the Bush administration responded first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, the Left saw political opportunity in the president's handling of the ineptly-named "War on Terror". Outside of Afghanistan, everything Bush did was wrong in their eyes. Iraq? Wrong. Gitmo? Wrong. Intercepts of calls placed to terror suspects overseas? Wrong. Just two years after 9/11, Lefty icon Michael Moore told his fans "there is no terrorist threat". Everything was framed by the Left as an indictment of George W. Bush's evil intentions around the world.

So here we are, nine years later and 20 months into Barack Obama's presidency. The Obama administration is desperately trying to return to the pre-9/11 school of thought, treating global Islamist terrorism as a simple law enforcement matter. With each new attempt by radical Islamists to commit mass murder of Americans (last Christmas Day's attempted knickerbomber, the failed Times Square bombing, the too-successful Ft. Hood shootings), we're assured by our betters on the Left that these are just lone nutcases. They're not really representative of Islam. It's all cool now. As for Afghanistan - the theater of operations the Left considered far too important to divert resources to Iraq - well, never mind that now. Let's just leave Afghanistan to the tender mercies of the Taliban and al Qaeda.

A dark running joke following 9/11 went something like this: "Why did radical Muslims kill 3,000 Americans? Because they couldn't kill all 300 million of us." Never forget that if they could, they would.

Will he or won't he?

The burning question ahead of the President's address on Iraq tonight is whether he'll credit his predecessor George W. Bush with any of the undeniable success in Iraq. The word from Obama's spokescritter is that the President will phone Bush before the address, but there's no telling what that means.

Obama's in a real tough spot with this, one he enthusiastically made himself:

If he doesn't credit Bush at all, he implicitly takes credit for policies and strategies he previously (and repeatedly) said would not and did not work.

If he does give Bush any credit, it's an admission that if it had been up to him, Iraq would be in a complete shambles with the US watching helplessly from afar.

Either option provides ample fodder for his political opponents to pummel him.

Pictorial metaphor of the day

Twitter buddy @RickSheridan posted a link this morning to the above picture which first just made me chuckle, until I realized what a perfect metaphor it is...

Obama is, well, Obama. The umbrella represents the economy, and the far side of the gate is the recession. Since Obama hasn't the first clue about economics, he can't figure out how to bring the economy to recovery, represented by the near side of the gate. Michelle represents the drawing out of the recession, which will keep going while Obama fucks with an umbrella.

Three men, three pictures

Posted without further comment:

Via e-mail from my friend AB.

Green Lies And Ham

I got this via e-mail from my buddy AB (who furnishes me with an endless stream of blog fodder, if I only spent more time blogging). Author, unfortunately, unknown.

I do not like this Uncle Sam,

I do not like his health care scam.

I do not like these dirty crooks,

or how they lie and cook the books.

I do not like when Congress steals,

I do not like their secret deals.

I do not like this speaker, Nan ,

I do not like this 'YES WE CAN.'

I do not like this spending spree,

I'm smart, I know that nothing's free.

I do not like your smug replies,

when I complain about your lies.

I do not like this kind of hope.

I do not like it, nope, nope, nope!

Non sequitur

The headline on Andrew Malcolm's LA Times blog post on Obama's speech last night was pretty amusing: "There's a pipe spewing a gazillion globs of oil into the gulf, so let's build more windmills". As non sequiturs go, it brought to mind the kid who, when asked what he thought of the fair responded "I like turtles!":

As the more cynical among us have come to expect, the President used the crisis to push for green energy solutions which are not yet fully developed nor will produce sufficient energy at a reasonable cost. But last night was not the time for such a speech. As Malcolm points out:

Instead, Obama was like a Harvard-trained nurse talking vacation to a new patient bleeding all over the ER floor. Hello, could we please stop the blood flow here before we discuss the long-term recovery?

We know, Mr. President. You want to move the country to alternative energy sources...we get it already. But how about dealing with and actually resolving the crisis at hand? We'll be happy to hear your take on solar and wind energy after oil stops gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and the crap is mopped up.

New politics...yay!

Barack Obama campaigned on the idea of a "new" kind of politics, full of transparency and free of corruption and the old political hackery. But after months of stonewalling, the White House has finally admitted to trying to coerce Joe Sestak into dropping his primary bid against Arlen Specter by offering him alternative employment.

President Obama’s chief of staff used former President Bill Clinton as an intermediary to see if Representative Joe Sestak would drop out of a Senate primary if given a prominent, but unpaid, advisory position, people briefed on the matter said Friday.

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, asked Mr. Clinton to explore the possibilities last summer, according to the briefed individuals, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the politically charged situation. Mr. Sestak said no and went on to win last week’s Pennsylvania Democratic primary against Senator Arlen Specter.

The White House is trying to spin and mitigate the seriousness by (1) saying that someone not officially in their employ communicated the offer and that (2) the offer was for an unpaid position.

As for the first "mitigating" factor, the communications medium is irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether the offer was made via messenger, a phone call, an e-mail, or by Pony Express, the offer was still made by the White House to Joe Sestak.

As for the second, again, it makes no difference. They may be trying to get around the language of Title 18 of the US Code which refers to "anything of value" in such a quid pro quo, which brings to mind Whoopi Goldberg's defense of Roman Polanski (it wasn't rape rape!). In any event, I have serious doubts that this administration would be stupid enough to offer an unpaid position in exchange for giving up a chance at a Senate seat.

And this is just the corruption to which they're admitting. What other sleaze do we not know about?

New politics, indeed.

Update: Verdict, GUILTY.

Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment, position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit, provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party in connection with any general or special election to any political office, or in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any political office, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

Update 2: I think the "made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress" bit might be the out, IF in fact the position offered was an unpaid one, and not SecNav as has been speculated.

Smart power

These three images from this week's Nuclear Security Summit tell us all we need to know about Obama's foreign policy stance:

Here's Obama bowing before a Communist dictator:

And here's Obama embracing the Marxist president of Brazil:

And finally, here's Obama lecturing the Prime Minister of a close ally, Canada:

Thanks and a hat tip to my friend A.B. for e-mailing me these pics.

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama..."

A friend e-mailed this to me today, and it was tagged "Author Unknown":

The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency. It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to an electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.

If you know who wrote it, please leave something in the comments.

File under: "Told ya so"

Nearly four years ago, I wrote a post here in which I speculated on a "take no prisoners" policy forced upon us by the Left's (and the Democrats', but I repeat myself) position on Guantanamo Bay. Well, kiss my ass and call me Nostra-fucking-damus.

Without a location outside the United States for sending prisoners, the administration must resort to turning the suspects over to foreign governments, bringing them to the U.S. or even killing them.

In one case last year, U.S. special operations forces killed an Al Qaeda-linked suspect named Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in a helicopter attack in southern Somalia rather than trying to capture him, a U.S. official said. Officials had debated trying to take him alive but decided against doing so in part because of uncertainty over where to hold him, the official added.

It's not that I'm going to shed any tears over these guys, but it'd be nice to squeeze a little intel out of them.

Barack Obama campaigned on this issue, and one of his very first acts after taking office was to issue an executive order to close Gitmo. I can't believe 53% of American voters wanted this walking disaster as President.

File under: "What if Bush did it?"

Yet another entry in the WIBDI file, this one coming from Wired.

Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told [America's Most Wanted host John] Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18 states that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.

The American Civil Liberties Union claims DNA sampling is different from mandatory, upon-arrest fingerprinting that has been standard practice in the United States for decades.

A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.

Note that this is upon arrest, not upon conviction. Setting aside for a moment the question of civil liberties, this would be a hideously expensive proposition. As noted over at Ace's place, there are around 38,000 arrests per day nationwide not counting traffic violations, so this would require massive infrastructure.

The wrong way to eat an elephant

There's an old expression that goes something like this: "What's the best way to eat an elephant? One bite at a time." That, of course, would be as opposed to trying to swallow the whole thing at once, which is effectively what Obama and congressional Democrats are trying to do in their comprehensive health care reform efforts.

The problems with health care (and there are problems) are a collection of separate issues, each of which can be fixed independently of the others. So why not eat this elephant one bite at a time by crafting focused, targeted, separate pieces of legislation to address each one?

Over the course of a couple of years we'd see noticeable, incremental improvements for millions of Americans. Instead, Democrats want to make history by passing sweeping, pork-laden legislation and as a result, either nothing at all will get done, or all the wrong things will get done.

This is stupidity, narcissism and hubris on display on a grand scale.

Axelrod: Gee, wouldn't it be great if Obama was a dictator?

In this New York Times piece bemoaning Barack Obama's lack of forcefulness in pushing his agenda, White House senior advisor David Axelrod is caught wishing Obama was Commandante and Absolute Supreme Dictator...or something:

I would love to live in a world where the president could snap his fingers or even twist arms and make change happen, but in this great democracy of ours, that’s not the way it is.

One might almost think he uses the phrase "great democracy" derisively.

Words of caution

Scott Brown's win last night in the special election for the Massachusetts senate seat made vacant by Ted Kennedy's death was a game-changing event and warmed the cockles of my heart. If a Republican even came close in deep-blue Massachusetts, that would be a shot across the bow of the far-left Obama agenda. But let's be realistic on a couple of points:

1. A stronger candidate than Martha Coakley, running a better campaign, could have won
2. Many Baystaters are opposed to the current health care reform bill because they've already got a version of that plan statewide in Massachusetts and don't want to pay taxes for a federal one

Just the same, Massachusetts voters sent a clear message that party and incumbency matter less than the issues. The absolute worst thing Obama and the Democratic leadership can do now is stick to their guns and keep pushing their agenda. Clinton got the message loud and clear in 1994 and tacked right, ensuring his reelection in 1996. I'm not sure Obama has the humility to do the same.

Update: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has his own cautionary notes.

Reuters: Good thing for Haiti Bush no longer president

It amazes me how deep and enduring is the Bush hatred in the media. Since no amount of mental gymnastics can link George Bush to the earthquake in Haiti, Reuters has to content itself with singing hallelujahs that Bush isn't around to handle the American relief efforts.

The administration urgently sought to show it had learned from the mistakes of Obama's predecessor, who was criticized for the initial U.S. response to a tsunami disaster in south Asia in 2004 and for his handling of Hurricane Katrina's onslaught on the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005.

The White House also took pains to show Obama was staying on top of events, in contrast to Bush, widely seen as detached as Katrina battered New Orleans for days more than five years ago.

So on top is Obama that he spent the whole day yesterday talking health care reform with Democratic cronies.

Actually, I don't recall any real criticism over the US response to the tsunami in 2004. Sure, other countries will always bitch that we don't do enough while they themselves do nothing, but we're used to that.