What the...?!

Warren on the Troubles of the Republican Primary Process

2012-02-01T21:36:00.000-08:00

David Warren has been harder for me to follow as of late, largely because he does not release his articles to his website as he writes them, but releases a whole gaggle of them together. His latest string contain several interesting pieces, not the least of which were these observations on our own Republican primary process:

The conventional view, from inside such media centres as New York and Washington, is that Romney must win for the good of the Republican party, because he is the "moderate" who can appeal to "independents." His very lack of deep conviction on anything at all - even his Mormonism, which he shrugs off - makes him the most reliable politician. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and Romney swings left or right, as required.

Indeed, "they" - the seaboard Republican managerial class - take the need for this kind of "moderation" to be so self-evident, that disagreement must expose some mental deficiency.

I disagree.

Read the whole thing here.

A&E's 'Pride and Prejudice' Open Thread

2012-01-31T11:51:00.000-08:00

Come join us for a full discussion over at the Movie Club!

School Officials Look To Expel Good Samaritan

2012-01-31T09:47:00.000-08:00

I thought lack of judgment was largely the purview of the Transportation Safety Administration, but no, there is another contender jealous for the top prize:

Alyssa McKinney thought her friend, Breana Crites, was having an asthma attack during gym class. It happened at Lewis-Palmer Middle School. Both Eighth-graders were suspended for 10 days. The principal told CBS4 he couldn’t talk about the case but said it comes down to two students sharing prescription drugs, which is against school policy.

Is Tweedle Dee against using an AED if someone collapses on campus?

“I thought I was having and asthma attack and she’s seen people have asthma attacks,” Crites said. “So she thought I was having one too and she was worried. She’s like, ‘Just use this, it will help you.’"

According to school officials Crites suffered an allergic reaction to the inhaler and had to visit the school nurse, but the incidence of allergic reactions to your standard beta-agonist inhaler are just about nil.

The girl was already having trouble breathing prior to the inhaler being used and the child was not sent on to the hospital, so its a pretty safe bet no true allergic reaction occurred as a result of her friend trying to help her breath. In fact, the medication itself is used to reverse allergic reactions, so the administrator's story doesn't quite wash.

The principal found out what happened and suspended both girls. “I’m extending the suspension for five more days … and recommending expulsion from the Lewis-Palmer School District.

Now there's a command decision for you. Where's your buddy, Tweedle Dum?

The inhaler is actually a prescription drug,” the Lewis-Palmer School District superintendent said.

Yeah... and?

The superintendent wants the students to learn from the incident. “They could have an adverse side-effect that they’ve never thought about."

Rapid heart rate - I think the hearts of most 13 year olds can handle that. Tremor to the hands - that will go away. Nausea - not a life threatening problem. Basically I don't really care. Not in the face of a life threatening breathing problem.

"I think, absolutely, the suspension is appropriate.”

I think you're a moron.

“I would never give someone a medication and risk them dying,” McKinney said. Crites doesn’t have asthma.

She didn't die, and there was no risk that she was going to die. Not from the inhaler anyway. Not treating her on the other hand, that could result in her death. In fact, asthmatic deaths happen all the time.

The girl who couldn't breath thought she was having an asthma attack and said so to her friend. Any trained medical professional would consider that she was having a reactive airway issue, for whatever reason, and that her life might be in jeopardy. First action would be to try to open the airways. Airway - Breathing - Circulation. ABC, Mr. Principal. It not only is not unreasonable to give a 13 yo who is complaining she couldn't breath a beta-agonist inhaler, it would be unreasonable not to. If it's anxiety or whatever you can sort it out later, but if it's asthma and you didn't act you would be as big a moron as that dunce that was given the job of school principle.

Students and parents believe McKinney did the right thing by trying to help her classmate. They don’t think the punishment is fair. “It’s not like they were maliciously doing it. She was in a panic, her friend thought that it was an asthmatic attack, and so they did it,” Crites’ mother said.

Sounds good to me. Life threatening event. Life saving measures are taken. Eight grade students can figure that one out. But school administrators? Apparently not.

“I missed high school registration. I’m missing out on all of this because I tried to help someone,” McKinney said.

Yeah, the principal and the superintendent want you to learn some lessons from this.

The superintendent said the expulsion will be determined when school officials get all the details.

Waiting to see how warm the water gets.

What about the use of judgement? No, I don't mean the eight grade girls, their judgement appears sound. No, I am speaking of the judgment of the principle, and now it would seem the dullness extends upward to include the superintendent. Sounds about right...

The dolts.

The Age of Brass

2012-01-27T11:48:00.000-08:00

Irked at the prevalence of unqualified opinion, Thomas Sowell points out the president is a prince in a brass kingdom:

No one has more brass than the President of the United States, though his brass may be more polished than that of the Occupy Wall Street mobs. When Barack Obama speaks loftily about "investing in the industries of the future," does anyone ask: What in the world would qualify him to know what are the industries of the future? Why would people who have spent their careers in politics know more about investing than people who have spent their careers as investors?

Why indeed.

He goes on to point out the general wool pulling that politicians do as a matter of routine:

Politicians may be crooks but they are not fools. Easily observed direct subsidies can create a political problem. Far better to set up an arrangement that will allow government-sponsored enterprises — whether the Postal Service, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the Tennessee Valley Authority — to operate in such a way that they can claim to be self-supporting and not costing the taxpayers anything, no matter how much indirect subsidy they get.

As just one example, the Postal Service has a multi-billion dollar line of credit at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Hey, we could all use a few billions, every now and then, to get us over the rough spots. But we are not the Postal Service. Theoretically, the Postal Service is going to pay it all back some day, and that theoretical possibility keeps it from being called a direct subsidy.

No doubt about it, we have been failed by our politicians, who think nothing of lying to us and robbing the treasury.

The upcoming elections are of truly historic import. We live our lives on the brink, with our children's posterity in the balance. I would that they would grow up free. If won, the electoral battles of the 2012 elections will not mean the country is saved, but failing to win them in all likelihood will mean the country is lost.

Obama Administration Thumbs Nose at Religious Freedom

2012-01-25T14:07:00.001-08:00

In a decision that was consistent with their disdain for the US Constitution, the Obama administration has refused to change an Obamacare rule that will require religious universities and hospitals to pay for abortifactants and birth control. The fact that such actions were in stark conflict with the fundamental religious beliefs of these institutions was brushed aside as being inconsequential. In rejecting the appeals, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius camouflaged her position in words meant to convey respect and consideration:

“This decision was made after very careful consideration, including the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty. This proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.”

Bullocks.

Who is Kathleen Sebelius to say what is appropriate and what is not? Certainly those people that believe abortion is the taking of a life will find the ruling does not reflect consideration, careful or otherwise. Were the rights of these individuals considered? Was the Constitution... by which the Federal government is constrained from abusing the people... was the Constitution considered? It would seem not, except to brush it aside. Despicable behavior, underscored by her disingenuous wording.

The rule is currently being contended by a pair of lawsuits, one filed on behalf of Belmont Abbey College and the second filed by Colorado Christian University of Denver Colorado. Both suits claim a violation of the freedom of religion.

“This is a shameless attempt to kick the can down the road in an election year,” says Hannah Smith, senior legal counsel for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing both colleges. “Religious colleges, universities, and hospitals will never pay for abortion drugs in violation of their religious beliefs -- this year or any other year.”

The announcement is in direct opposition to the recent Supreme Court decision in which the court upheld the rights of churches to consider the religious beliefs of individuals when selecting their religious leaders. In EEOC v. Hosanna-Tabor the Obama administration’s had argued to the court that the government had the right to to decide whom churches could employ as a minister. The Administrations argument was rejected by the Court... unanimously. Said Smith:

“The administration has seen the writing on the wall. They know that this mandate cannot survive constitutional scrutiny any more than their ‘extreme’ position in Hosanna-Tabor did. So the administration is trying to delay the inevitable judgment day.”

Force it upon the American people is more their style.

Levin Fans Brave Snows to Meet Famous Radio Host and Dog Lover

2012-01-24T20:32:00.000-08:00

Mark Levin attended the first of three book signings for his latest work, Ameritopia. The cantankerous constitutional lawyer left the comfortable confines of "the bunker" to meet with admirers and sign their books.

"I signed a boatload of books for people who were just wonderful," Levin said. "You should have seen the group, a diverse group, no matter how you look at the group. Tall people, short people. Women, men. Straight people, gay people. Black, brown, red, yellow, white, polka-dot--everybody."

Ameritopia is Levin's look at the ideological clash between those that would look to accept man's nature and set up systems of government conducive for man to excel, and those that would strive to create paradise here on earth, complete with the necessary coeresion and control that such people would need to force the rest of us to live as they prescribe. He explains our current political struggles in terms of the underlying differences in world view the two groups hold. With Levin stand John Locke, Charles Montesquieu and Alexis de Tocqueville. On the utopian side of the ledger are Plato, Thomas Hobbes, and Karl Marx.

The ideas of natural law and individual liberty as advanced by Locke were embraced by the Founding Fathers of the United States, and they are the underpinning principles which guide the Constitution.

Those that embrace the Utopian vision seek sweeping government control over people's lives, and there number would include today's modern Liberals... and the current sitting president.

The book is dedicated to Levin's three rescue dogs, now deceased, Pepsi, Griffin and Sprite.

Levin thanked everyone who turned out.

Update January 26th

Mark Levin's Ameritopia will debut as number one on the New York Times Best Seller List in four different nonfiction categories: hardcovers only, hardcovers and paperbacks combined, E-books, and E-books and print books combined.

Bingo - Bango - Bongo!!

'Justice Must Be Blind'

2012-01-23T00:22:00.000-08:00

Reading the Venerable Bede is good for the soul. A recent post of his has haunted me now for several days. In it he comments on the tragic deaths of two young men, different circumstances, same decayed culture. One young man was Stephen Lawrence, and his death some ten years ago has finally resulted in two convictions, but it is the manner in which the government seeks justice in these cases that so underscore the decline in culture. Like England, our system of justice is based on the notion that there is an inherent rightness that every man can find access to justice, that the system of justice is not a respecter of persons, and that all men stand equal before it:

"There are at least two books about Lawrence written for use by children in primary schools. Whatever spirit is animating that, it is not healthy opposition to the crime of murder. Yet this is a point one is almost incapable of making without incurring the insanest slurs. When Princess Diana's death led to that extraordinary and shameful mass-psychosis characterised by Kim Jong-il-style incontinent public grieving, and the mass assembly of thousands of people all individually cocooned in self-obsession, it was permitted to say that we were witnessing something dark and shameful and unprecedentedly vulgar, without implying the least disrespect to those who actually knew her and whose grief was genuine.

So it should be possible here to say that by fixating on Lawrence's murder above and beyond those of the thousands of others killed in like fashion every year on Britain's streets, we not only create the illusion that it was in some way exceptional, we further enable the cultural climate in which the true scale of the problem is not confronted by those we have elected to keep us safe. And the fact that we do so not accidentally, not because Lawrence has been arbitrarily adopted as a symbol of that wider malaise, but rather because our rulers have consciously borrowed his tragedy to serve as symbolic of something else entirely, should give all of us pause."

The value of a blind system of justice is all but lost upon today's society. With a Supreme Court justice unashamedly proclaiming her belief in the inherent superiority of a wise Latina, it is clear that we are not far behind our friends from across the sea. Sad to see such feeble thinking taking hold of the culture and country we have lived in and loved.

Bedes has written another great piece. Read the whole thing here.

Conservative Rick Santorum Declared Iowa Winner

2012-01-19T22:03:00.000-08:00

Who knows, Virgina, there may be hope for us yet. Rick Santorum has won in Iowa:

“There’ve been two primaries held now and we’ve won one--with a big win in Iowa that’s finally been certified. I think it’s important to understand that not only did we win the certified vote--but if you add all the other votes, we won by even more. So this is a solid win.”

The Iowa caucus were the first major test, and far more indicative than the open primary in New Hampshire. I believe we conservatives can feel very good about this. How about you, senator?

"We feel very, very good about what this win will mean."

Well, there you go. So, what does this say?

“It says that we can win elections, we can organize, we can put together an effort to pull the resources together to be able to be successful in being the person that can defeat Mitt Romney because, guess what, we defeated Mitt Romney in Iowa.”

Yeowza!

American Citizen Victimized at Ground Zero

2012-01-17T11:48:00.000-08:00

Following in the steps of those that ended the lives of nearly three thousand helpless American citizens, Mayor Bloomberg's New York City finest carried on the tradition of victimizing the innocent when they took advantage of a naive nurse from Kentucky and arrested her.

Meredith Graves, a fourth year medical student was in town interviewing for a position when she decided to visit the 911 memorial. The Tennessee native is the possessor of a conceal carry permit for the handgun she carries for her personal protection. The married 39 year old observed a sign reading "No guns allowed," and dutifully approached a police officer to ask where she could check her handgun. To protect and serve, isn't it? She was told she was in luck, it was police day at the memorial. She was arrested on a gun-possession charge, handcuffed and led away.

Meredith Graves is looking at 3 1/2 years of prison.

Afterwards New York mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to defend the actions of his city's police force by alleging Ms. Graves was carrying cocaine, but this was baseless, as were the New York Posts efforts to equate the arrest as coming from the city's efforts to stop the smuggling of illegal weapons into the city. It soon becomes tiresome arguing with these mopes. Ms. Graves has a legal permit to carry her handgun in Tennessee. She was not carrying an illegal weapon, nor was she attempting to smuggle it into the city.

She was released on $2,000 bail, and must return in March for her arraignment hearing. The arrest and potential felony conviction puts into serious question whether she will be able to further pursue a career in medicine.... and to what purpose?

Obama Equates EPA Restrictions And Compliance Costs as being "Good" for the Economy

2012-01-11T20:30:00.000-08:00

Nasty... don't mean a thing.

What?!

Oh yeah, he said it.

The counterintuitive comments came tumbling out of his mouth as he introduced EPA chief Ms. Lisa Jackson:

President Barack Obama said that EPA regulations are good for the economy and create jobs and that the agency "touches" the lives of every American every day.

Touches the lives of every American? Well, yeah, yeah... what a minute! What a minute!! Those regulations are forcing people to comply. Forcing, Mr. President. Thus, the EPA is costing businesses to spend their resources, not on producing their product and being competitive, but on complying with Lisa Jackson's EPA.

"I don't like no nasty girl.
I don't like no nasty food.
The only nasty thing I like
Is a nasty groove.

Nasty... don't mean a thing.

Cause privacy is my middle name.
My last name is control.
No, my first name ain't baby.
It's Lisa... Ms. Jackson if you're nasty."

And now... back to our president:

“We can make sure that we are doing right by our environment and, in fact, putting people back to work all across America. When we put in place new common-sense rules to reduce air pollution, we create new jobs building and installing all sorts of pollution-control technology,” Obama said.

What a moron.

OMG!

2012-01-08T22:20:00.000-08:00

Tim Tebow, the athletic Florida grade who shocks the sporting world with his mere presence on the field, has done it again!

Just as it appeared all was lost, as it seemed the Broncos would blow a 14-point halftime lead, Tebow delivered.

The lefty winged a game-winning, 80-yard touchdown pass to the remarkably gifted Demaryius Thomas on the first play of overtime to give the Broncos a stunning, 29-23 AFC playoff win against the heavily favored Pittsburgh Steelers.

TebowMania is once again fully inflated.

They were playing one of the top defenses in the league in a big time game, and he passed for two touch downs, with no interceptions. My favorite was his scramble from the twenty into the end zone. The guy doesn't shy away from a pile-up at the goal line. In the overtime it is no longer sudden death due to the wealth of kickers that can hit a field goal from 50, so each side gets a possession as long as the teams are scoring field goals. However, if one side were to score a touchdown, then that's the ball game.

Steelers called the flip, Broncos won the toss and took the ball. First play from scrimmage the Broncos motion the right wideout into the formation for a typical run shift, ball is snapped, Demaryius Thomas runs a slant and ... bang ... the ball is delivered on a line. DT runs it to the end zone. Game over.

And 316 yards?! What was that?!! Didn't he have some verse he kept noting on his eye black? Something from the Book of John, was it? Oh yes, what a shocking thing to do.

I'll tell you what amazes me about Tim Tebow, is that it still doesn't seem to phase him. God bless him, but it is a tough environment he is living in. The guy is one tough hombre. Nice guy, but don't doubt me. The guy is tough.

And how does he end it? Bill Maher little buddy, you better turn away your itty bitty eyes:

Nice.

For more of the phenom, check out the rest!

Also, check out my other posts on Tim:

Tebow Drafted out of Florida

Tebow's Reception by Writers of the NFL

Lawlessness Central Feature of Obama Watch

2012-01-05T21:14:00.000-08:00

It would seem the Obama Administration is once again flouting congressional oversight:

President Obama used his recess appointment powers Wednesday to name a head for the controversial Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three new members to the National Labor Relations Board — moves Republican lawmakers said amounted to an unconstitutional power grab.

The president acted just a day after the Senate held a session — breaking with at least three different precedents that said the Senate must be in recess for at least three days for the president to exercise his appointment power.

Basically, he is seizing power, and he is using the excuse of the economy he ruined as the justification for the lawlessness he's practicing on us. Barry's not big on the Constitution, even though he would have us know he was a "Constitutional scholar". When he can take his chance he just flips the constitution the proverbial bird. He cares more about his power than he does the nation he is charged with protecting. Miserable little squint of a man.

And what do our congressional leaders have to say? Well, Mitch isn't happy:

“Although the Senate is not in recess, President Obama, in an unprecedented move, has arrogantly circumvented the American people," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican.

And Johnny?

GOP House Speaker John A. Boehner called the move "an extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab by President Obama that defies centuries of practice and the legal advice of his own Justice Department. The precedent that would be set by this cavalier action would have a devastating effect on the checks and balances that are enshrined in our Constitution.

The three-day rule was the precedent Senate Democrats including Mr. Obama followed in 2007 and 2008 when they were trying to block then-President George W. Bush from making recess appointments. Said Lighthorse Harry

"I am keeping the Senate in pro forma to prevent recess appointments until we get this process back on track,"

Yes, the constitution was all the rage then. Sure, sure, but that was then, and this is now:

"I support President Obama’s decision to make sure that in these tough economic times, middle-class families in Nevada and across the country will have the advocate they deserve to fight on their behalf against the reckless practices that denied so many their economic security,"

What are you carrying on about? My god, man, is it that hard for you to see how ridiculous you look? Let me tell you something, Harry. The US Constitution is bigger than you. The US Constitution is bigger than the party you're schilling for. And neither of you are worth two cents.

"I refuse to take 'No’ for an answer. I’ve said before that I will continue to look for every opportunity to work with Congress to move this country forward. But when Congress refuses to act in a way that hurts our economy and puts people at risk, I have an obligation as president to do what I can without them," Mr. Obama said.

Hey, Chumley, your first obligation as president is to uphold the Constitution.

Good grief.

2011 Goes Out With Huge Tax Hike for Pittsburgh Man

2011-12-31T10:25:00.000-08:00

Okay, we could not close out 2011 without some outrageous story of government excess. This one from downtown Pittsburgh caught my eye:

The value of a 18-by-10-foot parking space on Mt. Washington jumped from $5,000 to more than $287,000. That’s even more than his condo. Richard Milesky, Jr., the proud owner of the underground parking space, says that until this week, the space was valued at $5,000.

“I think its prima fascia evidence that there’s been no attention to detail,” he said.

Sounds like the words of an anti-government extremist, hey Mr. Obama?

“Well, you had to laugh a little bit because I thought it was a mistake, but then I realized how serious it was.”

Yeah, it is. These boys aren't joking. They expect you to pay a percentage of what they say it is worth. If you could sell it to the government for $287,000 it might not be bad, but they aren't buying. They're just telling you the value they are going to base your tax bill on. And by the way, if you show that the space next to yours sold for $3,000, that won't necessarily oblige them to change their assessment.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T14:39:00.000-08:00

Here's hoping all my friends here have a wonderful holiday season!

'It's A Wonderful Life' Open Thread

2011-12-24T09:13:00.000-08:00

What did you think?

Obama "Green Carrier Strike Group" Struggles To Stay Above Water

2011-12-23T17:57:00.000-08:00

In another example of inappropriate government ventures, the Federal Times reports that the US Navy has bet heavily on the future of biofuels:

The Defense Department has signed a contract to buy 450,000 gallons of biofuel — the largest purchase ever by the federal government — to power the Navy's "green" carrier strike group.

The blend of used cooking oil and algae will be mixed with traditional fuels to help power the carrier strike group during military exercises next summer in the Pacific Ocean.

It is all a part of the Obama fan dance of energy independence. The notion of gaining some degree of separation from foreign oil producers has broad appeal to many Americans, but in the mind of Obama, energy independence can only come by means of alternative energy. On a cost basis analysis, none of these schemes have proven to be in the least bit attractive in the free market.

Shrugging off such small minded concerns, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus channeled Admiral Farragut and issued his orders: "Damn the costs, FULL SPEED AHEAD"

“It accelerates the development and demonstration of a homegrown fuel source that can reduce America’s, and our military’s, dependence on foreign oil. The Navy has always led the nation in transforming the way we use energy, not because it is popular, but because it makes us better war fighters. This unprecedented fuel purchase demonstrates the Obama administration’s commitment to seeking energy security and energy independence by diversifying our energy supply.”

It doesn't hurt that the companies supplying this oil are tied to the administration.

The Navy entered the contract with Louisiana-based Dynamic Fuels for $12 million for aviation fuel. Dynamic Fuels is a partnership of three firms, Solazyme, Syntroleum and Tyson Foods.

Solazyme previously received $21.7 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus, to build a “biorefinery.” T.J. Glauthier is listed on the Solazyme website as a strategic advisor for the company. Glauthier served on President Obama’s White House transition team, where he focused on energy issues for the recovery act, according to the Solazyme website.

Government dalliance has wandered near and far. Payouts made by the Federal government under this administration range from the aptly named Cash for Clunkers program, to bankrolling failed solar power cell manufacturers like Solyndra.

These governmental expenditures run far afield from those concerns that the Federal government is constitutionally authorized to be involved in. Interestingly, of the few powers specifically enumerated to the Federal government in the US Constitution is the management of the national defense. Thus, it does cause one pause when this central mission is so blatantly politicized, as it has been with this biofuels fiasco.

In August, the administration announced their intentions to spend $510 million during the next three years to buy advanced drop-in biofuel for military transportation. In lieu of congressional authorization to spend that much, the administration used existing authority for this initiative without congressional authorization.

Sounds about right. This president acting without congressional authority is so common it hardly rates a nod in passing.

Meanwhile, Senator James Inhofe, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who has supported biofuel projects in the past, was forced to clear his throat when the ruinous costs of this project became too great to escape notice. Jared Young, spokesman for Senator Inhofe offered:

“The Department of Defense should not purchase alternative fuels that are priced 9 time higher than conventional fuels."

You would think that would go without saying.

According to the federal government’s own estimates, the United States has 1.4 trillion barrels of oil waiting to be explored. It is not dependency on foreign oil that is the problem. Rather it is a rather pigheaded unwillingness to expand our nation's own energy production.

The purchase is part of the Obama administration’s “We Can’t Wait,” initiative, which involves bypassing Congress when possible.

What cannot wait is getting this clown out of power.

As to the overall goal of reducing the carbon footprint of a carrier strike group, according to a 2011 report from the National Academy of Sciences:

"The impact of biofuel production on those emissions depends on a wide range of land-use and other management factors. The production of biofuels could result in an increase in greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional petroleum because manufacturing and transporting the biofuel burns additional fossil fuels."

To sum up, the administration has ordered the Navy to purchase "biofuels" at ten times the cost, from company's that the administration has friends in and given "stimulus" funds to, and the end result is no gain in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

And these are the guys that are going to reduce the costs of healthcare?!

Unbelievable

2011-12-21T19:26:00.000-08:00

What kind of stones would it take for a guy to come up with this:

“I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president -- with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln -- just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history.”

Let's see... you've collapsed the economy, spiked unemployment to over 9 percent and sustained it there, added a staggering 4.2 tillion dollars to the national debt, forced the government takeover of the health care industry, placed the Federal government at odds with the various states, suing them to force them to accept your unwillingness to secure our borders, undermined our friends, courted our enemies, and divided the nation along political and racial lines. That is impressive.

“But, you know, when it comes to the economy, we've got a lot more work to do.”

Ya think?!

Sympathy Seeking

2011-12-21T15:51:00.000-08:00

The Venerable Bede

Ever in a haste to capture the political advantage of victim status in the Western culture to which they have chosen to immigrate, those of the Islamic persuasion have risen to new heights of hyperbole. The latest is to characterize themselves as the world's new "Jews".

Tis odd, one might think, for a group that so utterly despises those of the Hebrew faith to point them out as their moral equivalents. Why would they aspire to such an association? The answer lies in history.

The Jews have a long history of persecution and subjugation, the most ghastly example of which in recent memory would be the Holocaust. Thus, to claim equivalence in the mind of the West is to assume the ultimate mantle of victim hood, prime real estate for a minority group in the West. Blog fav The Venerable Bede comments on the goings on:

... over in Switzerland in October, 2000 protesters organised by the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland paraded the streets wearing yellow stars. Nicolas Blancho, head of the Islamic Central Council, explained the symbolism: "Muslims are treated as second-class citizens and are discriminated against, for example because they wear a headscarf or because of their name when they look for an apprenticeship or are looking for an apartment." Justifying the analogy still further, Tony Blair's nutjob sister-in-law Lauren Booth, speaking at the event, explained that people often glared at her in the street.

You'll notice that there seems to be some disagreement here as to exactly what did happen to the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust, perhaps attributable to the patchiness of the historical record.

Yessiree, it is a curiosity, but as Bedes well knows the record is far from patchy. Few events in history are better documented than the atrocities that Nazi Germany inflicted upon the Jews in the lands they ruled or occupied. Differences in opinion on the historical facts depend entirely upon the individuals retelling the events. In Western culture, the event is well known and well documented. Amongst the Muslims the world over however, one can't be too sure. It may very well be that the whole idea of a Holocaust was merely a grand fable made up to justify the stealing of land from the Bedouins that lived in the Middle East. The fact that they would delight in repeating the adventure in the current day in no way lessons their vehemence in denying it ever occurred in the first place.

It's a mind bender, but the Venerable Bede will straighten it out for you. Gain his insights on the world's "newest" Jews here.

Sowell on Where We Stand

2011-12-20T11:20:00.000-08:00

Against the backdrop of the recent NRO take down attempt of Newt Gingrich, ably commented upon by our own Terrance D., Thomas Sowell has spoken out to place into perspective the stakes we face as a nation:

This is not just another election and Barack Obama is not just another president whose policies we may not like. With all of President Obama's broken promises, glib demagoguery and cynical political moves, one promise he has kept all too well. That was his boast on the eve of the 2008 election: "We are going to change the United States of America."

Many Americans are already saying that they can hardly recognize the country they grew up in. We have already started down the path that has led Western European nations to the brink of financial disaster.

Internationally, it is worse. A president who has pulled the rug out from under our allies, whether in Eastern Europe or the Middle East, tried to cozy up to our enemies, and has bowed low from the waist to foreign leaders certainly has not represented either the values or the interests of America.

Indeed.

NRO is not the conservative beacon of light it was under the audacious William F. Buckley. Still, it is one of the few prominent conservative news and commentary sources. Their effort to denigrate a prominent Republican candidate through a unsigned editorial on the eve of the first actual primary does our nation no favor.

Finding One's Way through the Forest

2011-12-17T15:48:00.000-08:00

Roxeanne de Luca is a gem of a gal. Prone to perusing Dear Abbey and offering her own common sense commentary, her recent post on The Sad Thing About Waxing drew a flurry of back and forth between Bobby B, Joy McCann and one Robert Stacy McCain, with the bulk of the discussion directed to the debasement of our culture.

All this to direct your attention to Roxeanne's answer in Belvedere's comment section:

"In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis said that Satan’s goal is to take normal, healthy pleasures and pervert them, so that we need ever more for ever less enjoyment in return. When you decouple sex from love, you end up working incredibly hard to replace the love component with physical pleasure and excitement, which must necessarily result in ever-increasing disordered activity. “Normal” sex becomes boring, not because it is so, but because it is so without love, without the underlying connection that constantly strengthens as the couple goes through married life."

Yes, yes indeed. Beautifully said.

Pelosi Still Smoking Something

2011-12-15T20:01:00.000-08:00

Somebody get a grip on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. Always pitching stuff that would give one pause, her latest pronouncements are just bat-shit crazy:

Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that extending unemployment benefits would add “600,000 jobs to our economy.”

She also said that the money from unemployment benefits creates a “safety net” for the U.S. economy because it “injects demand into the economy -- creating jobs.”

What the...?! I mean, I'm aghast! Is this woman completely off her rocker?

In short... yes, yes she is.

Mark Levin Proves to be a Pain In Obama's... Plans

2011-12-13T23:50:00.000-08:00

That Mark Levin character has been a real problem for the Obama White House. His Landmark Legal Foundation have been pressing the White House to reveal what involvement Justice Kagan had with the White House preparations for a challenge to their Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Justice Department emails obtained through Freedom of Information Act petitions show that then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan was brought into the loop as Justice Department prepared to respond to an anticipated legal complaint that Mark Levin and the Landmark Legal Foundation were planning to file against the act if the House used a procedural rule to “deem” the bill passed even if members never directly voted on it.

In another internal DOJ email communication that same week, Kagan alerted the chief of DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel to the constitutional argument that a former U.S. Appeals Court judge was making against the use of this rule.

28 U.S. Code Section 455 stipulates that a justice must recuse from “any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The law also says a justice must recuse anytime he has “expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy” while he “served in governmental employment.”

Kagan's top deputy in the Office of Solicitor General was Neal Katyal. In an e-mail response to Kagan, Katyal had wrote:

“Fyi, Also AG just told me that he expects a big story out shortly about whether you are recused in health care litigation. I went over the timing and that you have been walled off from Day One.”

Speaking to CNS News, Mark Levin responded:

“I served in the Justice Department, including as chief of staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese. It simply is not credible to argue that Kagan, as the top litigator at Justice and for the nation, would not have been informed about and commented on the legal strategies involving the most important constitutional and policy issue not only in the Obama administration, but in several decades of American history. If she had been ‘walled off’ from the matter, where is the evidence for that? Who was the gatekeeper? In fact, the emails demonstrate that her subordinates were ensuring that she was kept informed about events and potential legal issues, including Landmark's draft complaint, which was prepared to challenge the Slaughter rule and then-Speaker Pelosi's attempt (albeit abandoned) to bypass the Constitution's law-making requirements. At a minimum, it does not appear that Kagan was forthright during her confirmation testimony about the extent to which she was kept apprised of Obamacare.”

Fudging of Unemployment Numbers More than a Counting Game

2011-12-12T18:35:00.000-08:00

With the announcement last month that the unemployment rate had finally dipped below 9%, there was much excitement that the glad news could spell victory. No, not for the nation over the economic morass we are in, but for the Obama administration and their hopes for a win in the next presidential campaign. Now this is all very nice in its own way I'm sure, but we have to face the hard truth.

As Washington commentator Ed Luce writes in the London Financial Times, "According to government statistics, if the same number of people were seeking work today as in 2007, the jobless rate would be 11 percent."

As we currently measure it, the unemployment rate is not how many people don't have jobs, but how many people don't have jobs who are actively looking for them. Much of the drop we experienced was caused by people just giving up and dropping out of the labor force. As the Obama Administration measures it, those people don't count anymore.

Since 2007, the percent of the population that either has a job or is actively looking for one has fallen from 62.7 percent to 58.5 percent. That's millions of workers leaving the workforce, and it's not because they've become sick or old or infirm. It's because they can't find a job, and so they've stopped trying. That's where Luce's calculation comes from. If 62.7 percent of the country was still counted as in the workforce, unemployment would be 11 percent. In that sense, the real unemployment rate -- the apples-to-apples unemployment rate -- is probably 11 percent. And the real un- and underemployed rate -- the so-called "U6" -- is near 20 percent.

Those numbers are a much closer match to the reality most of us are experiencing. Look around you: large numbers of people unemployed, and likely to remain so.

For that I say give credit where credit is due.

Students Face Freezing Temps While School Master Endeavors to "Save Planet"

2011-12-09T10:35:00.000-08:00

In an effort to lead the way and teach by example, headmaster Rob Benzie of Ansford Academy in Castle Cary, Somerset switched off the radiators to show how the secondary school could reduce its energy consumption. The result: pupils huddled and shivering, bracing from the cold as classroom temperatures dropped to just 1°C (34°F).

"We cut the heat to see if we can lower our carbon footprint. We let pupils wear as many jumpers as they liked. Everyone seemed happy enough, although it did get pretty chilly. We sent letters to parents telling them of the plan. We had only one complaint and that was from a member of staff. But in the end they just got on with it. We have too much heating."

Whether the heating they have is "too much" seems subjective. Clearly, Mr. Benzie is not as aware of the effects of his program as he gives himself credit for:

One teacher called it "beyond stupid" and added: "I've never worked in such cold. I'm all for saving the planet, but this was barbaric. It was absolutely ridiculous.

Barbaric? No, I don't think so. Asinine... now there's a word for you.

"Nobody could work properly and kids could not even grip a pen through their gloves" said the mum of a 12-year-old. "She was shaking when she came home. I was absolutely furious."

A dad added: "Turning the heating off in December is just mental. I can't believe the kids learnt anything. I'm very angry with the school."

Mr. Benzie, however, defended the experiment, vowing to stage further such "eco-days" on a regular basis. The first eco-day turned out to register as the coldest day of the winter so far. The school's actions effected no change upon the global climate. However, the school kids did gain an appreciation for the achievements of one Ernest Shackleton.

'While You Were Sleeping' Open Thread

2011-12-08T10:23:00.000-08:00

What did you think?

What?!

2011-12-07T10:26:00.000-08:00

Bradley Cooper, star of the movie The Hangover (?), was selected by PEOPLE Magazine as their 2011 Sexiest Man Alive. Though devilishly handsome, extremely intelligent, wildly talented and down right charming, the author of What the...?! missed the cut.

Said nicholas: "I don't get it. Two years ago it was that waif Johnny Depp. Last year Reynolds walked away with the brass ring. I'm thinking, 'Sandra Bullock's guy pal?!' I mean, c'mon, what gives? It's a travesty. Well, we must all learn to live with life's small injustices. I wish all the best for Bradley."

The 36-year-old Cooper was selected to join the list of elite men, including last year's winner Ryan Reynolds and two-time winners Ilion and Darrell.

Though "The Hangover" star was spotted with Jennifer Lopez a few weeks ago, the blue-eyed babe told PEOPLE he was still very single. He doesn't quite see himself as the serial-dating sex symbol that most people do. "If you're a single man and you happen to be in this business, you're deemed a player. But I don't see myself as a ladies' man."

Give it a rest, Coop.

Climate Change Tax to Curtail Travel, Increase Costs of Trade

2011-12-06T14:48:00.000-08:00

President Obama, always striving to help the economy and never one to trouble himself with constitutional limits on his authority, apparently has a team of negotiators at the United Nations Climate Change Conference looking to create a new tax on foreign travel and foreign currency transactions. The taxes, purposed to pay for a so-called "Green Climate Fund," were cleverly designed to fall disproportionately hard on American travellers and businesses.

The information comes from the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a group known to be skeptical of the UN position on global warming which has been observing the goings on at the latest UN meeting.

Negotiators at the conference are considering "a new tax on every foreign currency transaction in the world. Every time you travel abroad, you'll have to pay a climate tax," explains CFACT, the group that released the "Climategate" emails. "More importantly, every time we import goods, every time we export our fine products (think jobs) we will do so with a climate tax skimming off the top."

Conveniently European countries would escape much of the tax burden, as "transactions within the Eurozone won't have to pay this new tax."

Obama is disposed to implementing this kind of tax in lieu of a full climate treaty, which would require congressional approval.

"We have learned that while many have discounted this conference, knowing that a full climate treaty is difficult to achieve especially with a U.S. Senate that will not vote to ratify. Obama and his fellow climate travelers are working around the Senate and planning to stick America with the bill."

Perfect.

Shields Offers More Gibberish on PBS

2011-12-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

Gordon Peterson, host of the "mesmerizing" PBS news show Inside Washington, led the ever energetic debate on the left over the prospects of Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich:

MARK SHIELDS: The Republican field - Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman - stand between a landslide reelection victory of Barack Obama if Newt Gingrich is the nominee. If Newt Gingrich is the nominee, it will not be a competitive race. It will be a landslide. It will be a walk to reelection at a time when the nation needs a major debate.

GORDON PETERSON: Nina?

NINA TOTENBERG: Well, I don’t think that Barack Obama has led such a good life that he deserves or will get Newt Gingrich as an opponent, but it is possible, and it’s possible at the moment because of the time. I mean, we’re very close to the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary now. It feels like this has been going on forever, and will go on forever, but it’s about a month or less. And so the time to pierce that balloon and watch it fizzle is evaporating, and he may beat the time, may beat the clock.

As usual, it's a deluge of diversity in opinion over there at PBS. Shields - what a joke. John Huntsman stands between the American people and a landslide re-election of Barrack Obama? John Huntsman?! What crack pipe has Mr. Shields been smoking out of?

Here we have the president presiding over an absolutely horrific economy, he has encumbered the American people with health care legislation that they don't want, he has buried them under trillions of dollars of debt, and you tell us that it is Newt Gingrich who doesn't have a prayer?

I'll grant you this much, Mr. Shields: the two men have a strange commonality. Newt Gingrich was the architect of the 1994 Republican landslide victory. For his part, Barack Obama was the architect of the even greater 2010 Republican landslide victory. If Newt is able to secure the Republican nomination, I guarantee he will be able to articulate conservative ideas in a manner that will make for a clear choice for the American people.

The nation needs a major debate, Mr. Shields?

"I'm your huckleberry."

'The Family Man' Open Thread

2011-12-04T16:27:00.000-08:00

What did you think?

TSA's "Proper Procedures" Cause Only Minor Injury

2011-12-03T21:27:00.000-08:00

TSA agents found no explosives or weapons on the elderly disabled woman, and correctly concluded she posed no serious risk to the lives of her fellow passengers. Furthermore, it goes without saying that if she had not been taking blood thinners, the leg wound suffered by Lenore Zimmerman would not have bled so profusely. These are the conclusions one can safely arrive at as our TSA continues to exert its coercive powers.

Spinal compression fractures have reduced her frame to 4-foot-11, but one can never be too sure. Once stripped and searched, the TSA agents allowed Ms. Zimmerman to proceed to her flight. Unfortunately the walker Ms. Zimmerman uses was banged against her right leg, and the resultant gash required airport paramedics to control the bleeding.

Wound dressed and her tetanus updated, she was all right to proceed with her travel plans. Of course, by than she had missed her flight.

TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said a review of closed circuit TV footage from the airport shows “proper procedures were followed.”

I can't tell you how very reassuring it is to know that proper TSA procedures were followed.

As Ms. Zimmerman has an implanted internal defibrilator, she had asked to forego the body scanner at JFK Airport in favor of a light pat down. Instead she was led off to a surprise strip search by two TSA employees. Alarmed at the "thoroughness" of the TSA investigation, Ms Zimmerman asked the TSA agents

"Proper procedures were followed."

“Why are you doing this?”, but the agents did not respond.

I believe that was proper TSA procedure as well.

“Our screening procedures are conducted in a manner designed to treat all passengers with dignity, respect and courtesy.” Farbstein added.

What could be more dignified than a two agent strip search?

Zimmerman's son was surprised to learn of the strip search.

“She looks like a sweet, little old lady. She’s not a disruptive person or uncooperative.”

All the more reason to get underneath the very deep game she obviously was playing. Just look at those eyes.

I would dearly love to go to Bath

2011-12-02T12:04:00.000-08:00

One of the plus sides of our internet age is that we can come to have friends in far away places. For me, one would be Matthew Coniam, whose love of the cinema has caused him to create a most entertaining blog.

Here is a slice from one of his recent posts where he was pondering the qualities that make a screen presence endure in our social consciousness:

"So will our children know much about Jennifer Aniston? Not sure. Here she is in a film I only watched last night, but try as I might, I just can't remember the title of. I had to go to the shelf to remind myself in order to Google for this photo, and I'm now going to have to go to the shelf again - and we're talking less than ten minutes later - to remind myself again in order to write the title here.

Ah, yes. It's called 'Just Go With It'. Ask me to remind you at the end of this post and I'll doubtless have to go and check a third time. A suicidally unmemorable title, I'd say. Originally sat to Jen's right in the picture is Adam Sandler, a light comic actor whose true level of popularity I've never quite been certain of, but who also keeps working away, in films that seem to do consistently well-ish but rarely smash (or bomb). I've only seen him in 'The Wedding Singer' and 'Fifty First Dates'. He gatecrashes when we invite Drew around. (Even Winona couldn't hold my attention too long into Mr Deeds.) He's showing his age in this one; getting a bit stocky, and it looks like he's dyeing his hair now. Comes to us all, I suppose. Quite a nice little actor, albeit not one I would have picked from the chorus line personally.

A few good laughs here. Not too bad. It's not really a pure pink film, but a kind of couples movie that strives to appeal to both sexes equally, and full of references to contemporary popular culture, of which I understood just enough to realise how much of the rest of it went careening over my head. And even when they're not punchlining about tv shows and pop groups I've never heard of, they're talking very quickly, often at the same time, and with a lot of ambient noise. And I know this is supposed to be a golden age of sound recording, but to me at least a lot of the dialogue reached my ears like this:

Adam: Dgfgf rhrhhr jjytuwpq shdh?
Jennifer: Kf Lotrgfcd ghtyr!
Adam (unimpressed): Thf hghr jkupzcmght agde.
The blonde cutie Adam's trying to pull: Wqryr hghfde slpu.
Adam's dorky brother: Aw, come on! Retss fgfhr hjyt!
Jennifer (in comic triumph): Ghjfkjtye puytrew!!!"

Keira Knightly, patron saint of Movietone News

This guy cracks me up!

A very fine writer and a lover of the theater, his blog is a delight. Read the whole post here.

Ceasar Undecided Whether Rome Should Burn

2011-12-01T12:22:00.000-08:00

Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in August proposed a regulation that would require all health care plans to cover sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including abortifacients. Forcing people to purchase services they do not want, that's one thing, but to force them to do things they find morally repugnant, now that would be something again.

It is over this proposed expansion of governmental authority that we find the president pondering:

President Barack Obama has not yet decided whether to go forward with a proposed regulation under the health care law he signed last year that would force Catholic individuals and institutions to act against the teachings of the Catholic church.

NARAL Pro Choice America issued a statement urging Obama to “stand firm against anti-birth control organizations.”

O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
With blood and sword and fire to win your right!
In aid whereof we of the spiritualty
Will raise your Highness such a mighty sum
As never did the clergy at one time
Bring in to any of your ancestors.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops responded:

"Such nationwide government coercion of religious people and groups to sell, broker, or purchase 'services' to which they have a moral or religious objection represents an unprecedented attack on religious liberty."

White House Press Secretary Jay "Chili-con" Carney said the president seeks to strike a balance on the matter.

"You can be sure that we want to strike the right balance between expanding coverage of preventive services and respecting religious beliefs. And that’s the balance that will be sought as this decision is made."

Put in another way: 'We are weighing the politics of it and are considering if we can get away with another infringement on individual liberty and religious freedom. If we can take this away from people, we will for all intents and purposes have succeeded in bringing down the greatest free people the world had ever seen.'

Krugman's Conundrum

2011-11-30T10:06:00.000-08:00

Dr. Walter E. Williams

Muddying the waters in his November 3rd New York Times column Oligarchy, American Style, Paul Krugman lamented our state of affairs, worrying: "We have a society in which money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few people, and in which that concentration of income and wealth threatens to make us a democracy in name only."

To which Walter Williams answers:

Joanne Rowling was a welfare mother in Edinburgh, Scotland. All that has changed. As the writer of the "Harry Potter" novels, having a net worth of $1 billion, she is the world's wealthiest author. More importantly, she's one of those dastardly 1-percenters condemned by the Occupy Wall Streeters and other leftists.

How did Rowling become so wealthy and unequal to the rest of us? The entire blame for this social injustice lies at the feet of the world's children and their enabling parents. Rowling's wealth is a direct result of more than 500 million "Harry Potter" book sales and movie receipts grossing more than $5 billion.

In other words, the millions of "99-percenters" who individually plunk down $8 or $9 to attend a "Harry Potter" movie, $15 to buy a "Harry Potter" novel or $30 to buy a "Harry Potter" Blu-ray Disc are directly responsible for contributing to income inequality and wealth concentration that economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman says "is incompatible with real democracy." In other words, Rowling is not responsible for income inequality; it's the people who purchase her works.

Krugman's notion that "income inequality" is incompatible with Democracy begs the question "who shall enforce the 'equality'". The job must fall to the government. The resultant loss of freedom would of course ensure that individuals would lose their ability to freely make their neighbors wealthy, but who would the real losers be?

It is not freedom that is the problem, Mr. Krugman. It is your pinheaded ideas about a 'perfect world' that are incompatible with Democracy.

She's Too Funny!

2011-11-29T11:22:00.000-08:00

Ever catch April Gavaza at inveterate scars?

A Warning

I feel bad for the husband. He patiently sits through every one of my first person POV rants, waiting until the end to politely nod in agreement as if I haven't given him the same speech at least once a week. The rambling diatribe is usually preceded by the unceremonious dumping of some unfortunate scifi tome into the trash bin and the statement, "It's harder than it looks, people!"

She's telling this to the collective authors of the various books she's reading!

Because not just anyone can craft a lush narrative out of what is actually a very myopic view of the tale. Not everyone can weave depth and clarity into one person's version of events. Very few writers remember that just because you are writing "I" does not mean that you are telling the story. The narrator is not necessarily the person with their name on the front cover. If you must write yourself into the story, give yourself a cameo.

Charlie Huston, Chuck Palahniuk, Tom Piccirilli and a few others are good at first person. Many others sound like bad detective noir, and not in the fun, campy way.

Don't make me throw your book in the trash, people. Think before you start down that road.

I love the way she orders these guys around. "Think! Think!!!" Geez!

And on the more personal side:

Tragic

My hair is tragic. Never go to SuperCuts on a whim, clutching a picture of Jean Seberg. As alluring as the $20 price tag may be, it is not worth it. Not. Worth. It. Needless to say, no new pictures until it grows out a bit. I try not to regret going short, but a bad haircut is a bad haircut.

I'm sorry, this stuff just cracks me up. It's pretty fun.

Obama Team Befuddled On Kagan Controversy

2011-11-29T10:41:00.000-08:00

In a bid to become the most uncredible spokesman in White House history, Obama Administration Press Secretary Jay "Chili-con" Carney states he sees no reason for United States Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan to recuse herself in the upcoming Supreme Court challenge on the constitutionality of the Obamacare legislation.

“These issues were raised, just a year ago, in an expansive confirmation hearing. And those questions were questions were asked and answered both in the hearing itself and in written questions that were responded to in writing. It’s a mystery to me how this can suddenly be an issue a year later and they want to revisit what they just visited not that long ago.”

Kagan is known to have exchanged e-mails with Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, including one that said:

“I hear they have the votes, Larry!! Simply amazing.”

Carney isn't arguing that Kagan has no opinion on the legislation. He is saying that the topic was thoroughly discussed at her confirmation hearings. Of course the truth lives far from Jay Carney, and all the e-mail exchanges between then Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Tribe, who is a well-known Supreme Court litigator and was then serving in the Justice Department, were blocked from view until a Freedom of Information Act filing pried them loose.

Well Jay, here is what Democrat Senator Arlen Specter had to say at the time of her confirmation hearing:

"It would be my hope that we could find some place between voting no and having some sort of substantive answers, but I don't know that it would be useful to pursue these questions any further."

It was so difficult for Senator Specter to get a straight answer from Ms. Kagan that he thought there would be no use in further questioning her. Nice.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Senate Republicans have said:

“Neil Katyal, Ms. Kagan's principal deputy, stated he would ‘speak with Elena’ about her office participating in a Department working group that would plan the Administration's litigation strategy, exclaiming that he wanted the Administration to ‘crush’ those challenging the [health care law].”

When pressed about the e-mails, Carney moved to a different topic.

Yeah, move along, Jay. It's no fun arguing when the facts indicate you're either an idiot or a liar, and as unbelievable as some of the things you have to go out and say for this White House are, you're no idiot.

'A Christmas Story' Open Thread

2011-11-28T11:09:00.001-08:00

What did you think?

What is this guy doing?

2011-11-27T11:59:00.000-08:00

Again?!

I don't know. I have a hard time listening to President Obama talk about how hard he's working to create jobs, get the economy going, how really bad it was when he came in to office, the problems he inherited, how really tough it's been on him, and how we need to toughen up ourselves, learn to sacrifice, and take on our fair share of the burdens. Meanwhile once he gets off the golf course (and mind you he's had thirty trips to the links so far this year) he's out trying to inflict another economy crushing tax bill, or looking to pass another spendapalooza.

If the president wants to play golf, shoot some hoops, travel off to the islands or watch some basketball, whatever... that's fine with me. Just get your boot off the throat of America.

The rest of us need to work.

Tommy Takes a Look at Liberal Land

2011-11-26T12:13:00.000-08:00

Discussions held with proponents of liberalism can leave one wondering 'what on earth are these people are thinking?' A simple, common sense statement like 'we cannot go on spending money we do not have' is utterly lost upon them. We have had a wealth of practical experience allowing liberal ideology to be implemented into public policy, with disastrous results. And yet, not in the least bit deterred, they cry out to us all:

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead!"

That might be the perfect phrase if you are laying siege to a fortressed city, not so good if you are tossing limited resources into the bottomless money pit that is our Federal government.

Thomas Sowell is not pre-disposed to such tomfoolery. Growing up in Harlem, his optimistic notions of the benefits of government interventions were rudely shattered when he spent a year working as an economist with the Department of Labor. It is with this eye of experience that he views statements of our Treasury Secretary:

Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner says, "We're facing a very consequential debate about some fundamental choices as a country." People talk that way in Liberal Land. Moreover, such statements pass muster with those who simply take in the words, decide whether they sound nice to them, and then move on.

But, if you take words seriously, the more fundamental question is whether individuals are to remain free to make their own choices, as distinguished from having collectivized choices, "as a country" — which is to say, having choices made by government officials and imposed on the rest of us.

The history of the 20th century is a painful lesson on what happens when collective choices replace individual choices. Even leaving aside the chilling history of totalitarianism in the 20th century, the history of economic central planning shows it to have been such a widely recognized disaster that even communist and socialist governments were abandoning it as the century ended.

And still we hear our problems will all be solved if we just spend ... more. A trillion dollars were spent to 'stimulate' the economy, and the result is unemployment near 10%, 20% if you count all those who gave up looking. Despite this the solution tossed our way is to blow another 500 billion... 500 billion that we do not have.

The world of reality is not nearly as lovely as the world of Liberal Land. No wonder so many people want to go there.

Yes, but you and I get to live here, in reality.

No NBA, No Problem.

2011-11-24T13:35:00.000-08:00

The big time ball players that make up the NBA have had a slow fall. Training camp, the pre-season and the fall schedule of games have all gone by the wayside, and with nary a notice. Now I love basketball as much as the next fellow, but with all the goings on in the fall, do we really miss the NBA? No, we did not get to ponder roster cuts, we did not read about the meaningless pre-season games as teams tried out twenty players in hopes of finding... one, maybe two. The first quarter of the season has disappeared, and... ? Tall men running around in pajamas, tossing around a big orange ball?

Who was the NBA champion two years ago?

Okay then.

Glasnost

2011-11-23T23:05:00.000-08:00

A top female Russian news anchor has caused a stir after appearing to offensively show US President Barack Obama her middle finger during a live newscast. In what has become a shocking online sensation, the reporter appears to be making the allegedly offensive gesture while reporting on the Asia Pacific Corporation. Footage of the incident has been widely viewed in both Russia and the United States.

In the footage, Tatyana Limanova can be seen briskly reading through a news brief on how Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had assumed chairmanship of the Asia Pacific Cooperation organization. She is then heard to say that the post "had previously been held by American president Barack Obama" before mechanically saluting the political leader who has done so much to improve US international relations.

The raised middle finger is often interpreted as an offensive gesture and is sometimes referred to as "flipping the bird."

The station's ownership claims that the newsreader believed she was off camera at the time and merely providing a voice-over for a report. They further reported that the gesture was intended for studio technicians only, who had been teasing her and trying to put her off her game. The footage has been viewed thousands and thousands of times. Most viewers concede Tatyana had the upper hand.

Super-committee Stumble

2011-11-23T20:09:00.000-08:00

Mark Steyn, ever chipper in his predictions of Western societal collapse, views the recent political posturing of Super-Committee members as a harbinger of an economic melt down:

... the “automatic” sequestration cuts would over the course of ten years reduce US public debt by only $153 billion. Which boils down to about a month’s worth of the current federal deficit.

Yet even slashing a pimple’s worth of borrowing out of the great oozing mountain of pustules will prove too much for Washington.

Another downgrade is now inevitable. After that, all that’s holding the joint up is the dollar’s status as global currency. If the world were looking around for a reserve currency today, I doubt it would pick that of a $15 trillion sinkhole. This week’s failure will hasten the urge of the Chinese and others to arrange a post-dollar order. I wrote earlier this year about America’s inclination to do everything big. And so it goes even with imperial eclipse: We are inviting nothing so genteel as “decline” but rather a sudden convulsive collapse.

Not good.

'The Apartment' Open Thread

2011-11-23T10:04:00.000-08:00

What did you think?

Terrance Takes Ms. Parker to Task

2011-11-22T14:50:00.001-08:00

Pundit and part time TV personality Kathleen Parker has offered some commentary on the changing face of the Republican party:

"Republicans aren’t really stupid, of course, and Begala acknowledges this. But, as he also pointed out, the conservative brain trust once led by William F. Buckley has been supplanted by talk radio hosts who love to quote Buckley (and boast of his friendship) but who do not share the man’s pedigree or his nimble mind."

To which Terrance observes:

The intimation is that people who "boast" of being Buckley's friends couldn't really have been such because they don't have the same sparkling wit and intellectual class as Buckley himself. Of course, that would mean that Buckley had almost no friends, since few were his intellectual equals.

And hoisting Ms. Parker on her own petard

To imply that someone else's talk about a personal friendship is meaningless with no evidence other than that the friends have differences is not only anti-intellectual because no proof is given, it also betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of friendship.

Nice.

Read the whole thing here.

These Aren't the Droids You're Looking For...

2011-11-21T00:49:00.000-08:00

With a pronouncement of such hyperbole that it bordered on the absurd, Democrat Henry Waxman professed to Obama Administration Energy Secretary Steven Chu that the Administration's failed investment in Solyndra saved the world from fires, droughts and floods.

“I want to put this in perspective Dr. Chu,” Waxman told Energy Secretary Steven Chu on Thursday at a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on the Solyndra failure. “You’ve been trying to move our nation toward a clean energy economy. And that’s essential to protect American families from fires and droughts and floods and other extreme weather that climate change will bring.”

What?!

The curious comments came during Dr. Chu's halting testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. That's half a billion tax payer dollars that went down the tubes, but according to Waxman's way of thinking, who really cares? In fact, to decry the waste of the $535-million loan is a trick of party politics.

“My Republican colleagues on this committee have been trying to block these efforts [green subsidies] every step of the way. Republicans in Congress and their allies in the coal and oil industry oppose efforts to put a price on carbon pollution. They oppose funding research into new clean energy technologies. They oppose investment in clean energy companies which – like Solyndra – would produce new technologies. I think you’re on the right side of history. The Republicans are on the wrong side and I think what they’re doing is leading us astray”

Oh, so the guys that are blowing billions of dollars on failed start-ups in a technology industry with a strikingly limited market are the guys on the right side of history? The guys pulling out with millions of dollars while the US tax payers are on the hook for billions, these are the guys on the right side of history? No Mr. Waxman, they are not on the right side of history, and you sir, are no on the right side of history.

“What Congress should be doing on energy policy is to encourage development of new energy sources so that we don’t have to rely on oil and coal and nuclear,” he said.

Nope. What congress should be doing on energy policy is take steps to increase the production of energy here in the United States, not blow soap bubbles or use tax payer funds to dream up pie in the sky solutions.

"We've lost the money. There’s nothing there. Move along.”

“We have lost the money, it’s unfortunate, but there’s no scandal there,” said Waxman. “There’s nothing there.”

Who does this guy think he is?!

A Chequer-board of Nights and Days Shines Light on the Solyndra Scandal

2011-11-17T16:43:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman, the 'brilliant' New York Times columnist never troubled himself very much over the Solyndra scandal, as his brush off back in September showed:

The Solyndra Scandal

Haven’t written about this. But it is indeed a terrible scandal, because the private sector never ever puts money into ventures that end up failing.

Totally missing the point. But it did give occasion for one of our fav writers, Pejman Yousefzadeh of A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days to have at it time and time again:

I guess this means that the people who repeatedly told us during the debt ceiling crisis that it would be terrible for the U.S. to default (a position I agreed with then, and agree with now), are presently telling us that it isn’t newsworthy that a government-backed business defaulted on loans that it had to pay back to the United States government.

Yes, default is unthinkable for the US government, that would be irresponsible, but for companies the government loans its money to, why they can default all week long, and twice on Sundays, and we're not in the least bit troubled by it.

And now The Washington Post reports:

The Obama administration, which gave the solar company Solyndra a half-billion-dollar loan to help create jobs, asked the company to delay announcing it would lay off workers until after the hotly contested November 2010 midterm elections that imperiled Democratic control of Congress, newly released e-mails show.

To sum up the Obama administration, the government's got tons of money to throw around, sure. That's not the problem. The problem is you and I aren't putting out our fair share to pay on the debt they've been piling up.

Sheesh.

Everyone knows the nominee is going to be Romney

2011-11-16T17:05:00.000-08:00

The sensible and acerbic Ann Coulter has issued an affectionate slap across the face of the conservative faithful:

"The mainstream media keep pushing alternatives to Mitt Romney not only because they are terrified of running against him, but also because they want to keep Republicans fighting, allowing Democrats to get a four-month jump on us.

Meanwhile, everyone knows the nominee is going to be Romney."

I'm not so sure, Annie.

First off, no one's voted yet. Second, Romney puts our collective feet to sleep. I'm sure he will make a fine president, but let's not bear down just yet for the Romnification of America. Any one of those candidates running for president would be a much better choice than the one we have now. You know it, and I know it. Let the big dogs run awhile. No need to rush forward into what you may live to regret, and for the rest of your life.

Loretta: "Twice I took the name of the Lord in vain, once I slept with the brother of my fiancee, and once I bounced a check at the liquor store, but that was really an accident."

Priest: "Then it's not a sin. But... what was that second thing you said, Loretta?"

Kagan Country

2011-11-16T11:40:00.000-08:00

We all wondered about the remarkable mind numbing silence Elena Kagan offered on most any probative question during her confirmation hearings, but this latest offered by the CNS News Service makes you wonder what she could possibly be thinking:

"On Sunday, March 21, 2010, the day the House of Representatives passed President Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan and famed Supreme Court litigator and Harvard Law Prof. Laurence Tribe, who was then serving in the Justice Department, had an email exchange in which they discussed the pending health-care vote, according to documents the Department of Justice released late Wednesday to the Media Research Center, CNSNews.com's parent organization, and to Judicial Watch.

“I hear they have the votes, Larry!! Simply amazing,” Kagan said to Tribe in one of the emails."

Boy, that must have been really exciting news for the Supreme Court Justice, who next year will be asked to rule on the constitutionality of that very same piece of exciting legislation.

28 U.S. Code Section 455 stipulates that a justice must recuse from “any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” The law also says a justice must recuse anytime he has “expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy” while he “served in governmental employment.”

"The Justice Department released a new batch of emails on Wednesday evening as its latest response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by CNSNews.com and Judicial Watch. Both organizations filed federal lawsuits against DOJ after the department did not initially respond to the requests. CNSNews.com originally filed its FOIA request on May 25, 2010--before Elena Kagan's June 2010 Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

The March 2010 email exchange between Kagan and Tribe raises new questions about whether Kagan must recuse herself from judging cases involving the health-care law that Obama signed--and which became the target of legal challenges--while Kagan was serving as Obama's solicitor general and was responsible for defending his administration’s positions in court disputes."

So, she is a partisan, and she lacks the judgment to make simple decisions like recognizing when she is no longer impartial on an issue. And this person we confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice.

Unbelievable.

- 'Dr. Zhivago' Open Thread

2011-11-15T12:29:00.000-08:00

What did you think?

Is This Guy Completely Nuts?!

2011-11-13T19:16:00.000-08:00

President Barack Hussein Obama ventured into the topic of our international competitiveness over the weekend, this time speaking in Kapolei, Hawaii at the APEC CEO Summit, and asserting:

“We’ve been a little bit lazy over the last couple of decades. We’ve kind of taken for granted — ‘Well, people would want to come here’ — and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new businesses into America."

Lazy? The problem is we've become lazy?!

Here is the architect of our ruination, whose party presided over driving the nation over the cliff, and after finishing the job by sinking nearly a trillion dollars into worthless pension bailouts for Federal and State employee unions and throwing all kinds of money at so called "green energy" firms that went under before they could even produce a product, we have this guy saying the problem is we've become lazy?!!

What is the current business climate here in America, Mr. President? What about the United States makes it attractive for business? Say oil exploration and development - that's an excellent international business. What did we do to BP? Or, how about the oil industry in general in the gulf? No, huh? Well, how about aircraft manufacturing? What become of Boeing's efforts to open the plant they built in South Carolina? What about corporate tax policy? Environmental regulations? Drug research and development? Auto industry? Banking? Is the Untied States of America a place where people would want to come to do business?

It's not laziness, Mr. President. People here in the United States are as keen to succeed as they have ever been. But when you make a point of putting your boot on our necks while you spend the nation into oblivion, word gets around.

Christmas Festival!

2011-11-13T17:55:00.000-08:00

Tis the season once more to sit by the fire, get a warm blanket and watch our favorite Christmas shows!

See if you can identify the movies from which the photos below are from, and put in your pick for this season's Chrsitmas spectacular!

And now the answers to our Christmas movie quiz:

The Magnificent Ambersons

It's A Wonderful Life

The Bishop's Wife

A Charlie Brown Christmas

The Family Man

A Christmas Story

Love Actually

Little Women

While You Were Sleeping

Get out a warm blanket, pull up the big sofa chair, and come share with us in our holiday cheer!

With A Smear Campaign Here Today, Can David Axelrod Be Far Behind?

2011-11-09T18:20:00.000-08:00

Ann Coulter is not one to be taken for a ride. Wise to the ways of Chicago politics, she finds one too many coincidences in the Cain Conundrum:

After a week of conservative eye-rolling over unspecified, anonymous accusations against Cain, we've suddenly got very specific sexual assault allegations from an all-new accuser out of ... Chicago.

Herman Cain has never lived in Chicago. But you know who has? David Axelrod! And guess who lived in Axelrod's very building? Right again: Cain's latest accuser, Sharon Bialek.

Bialek's accusations were certainly specific. But they also demonstrated why anonymous accusations are worthless. Within 24 hours of Bialek's press conference, friends and acquaintances of hers stepped forward to say that she's a "gold-digger," that she was constantly in financial trouble -- having filed for personal bankruptcy twice -- and, of course, that she had lived in Axelrod's apartment building at 505 North Lake Shore Drive, where, she admits, she knew the man The New York Times calls Obama's "hired muscle."

Throw in some federal tax evasion, and she's Obama's next Cabinet pick.

Excellent. Perhaps a position of czar might be better for Ms. Bialek... a presidential appointment as Czar of Nontraditional Revenue Streams or some such. Spares us all that unnecessary trouble with congressional oversight. Coulter goes on to recount the various miraculously fortuitous Obama campaigns, from primary obscurity to national front runner, and all from a guy with no real life experience.

That's one lucky guy.

Accuser #4 Tearfully Comes Forward With Her 'Story'

2011-11-08T18:50:00.000-08:00

Gloria Allred's latest political client has come forth for her tearful (?!) press conference in which she accused Herman Cain of having an untoward interest in her. However, the UK Daily Mail has probed a tad deeper, and curiously the woman that Allred painted as having a solid education and respectable employment history has not actually held a job for over two years and twice has filed for bankruptcy.

The Cain campaign responded immediately, releasing a statement stating unequivocally that the allegations were untrue. The nominee went on to appear on the Jimmy Kimmel show late last night:

'This is a lady who lives off the system. She is hellbent on finding a way of never having to work and living the lifestyle she wants to live, a very affluent lifestyle'
'I was listening very closely and then when it was all over with, I said, well I know what we got to do because there's not an ounce of truth in all of these accusations and my team is putting this stuff together. That is why I'm willing to do a press conference tomorrow to set the record straight. I'm in it to win it and I'm not going to be discouraged.'

Those are mean things to say, Mr. Cain. How could you say that?

Meanwhile, a friend of Ms Bialek, from Chicago, told the New York Post: 'She has a very infectious personality. It’s easy to see how she won [Cain] over. But the reality of her situation is -- she’s a complete gold digger. It’s all about the money.'
Adding that she was from a middle-income family but lives in a posh house while running from bill collectors, the source said: 'Most of her jobs ended in termination. It’s always the employer’s fault, not hers. 'This is a lady who lives off the system. She is hellbent on finding a way of never having to work and living the lifestyle she wants to live, a very affluent lifestyle.'

What?!

A fifth woman has come out to talk about some suspect activity at the hands of Cain. Former employee of the United States Agency for International Development Donna Donella, 40, from Arlington, said the Republican presidential candidate asked her to help arrange a dinner date for him with a female audience member following a speech he delivered nine years ago. She told the Washington Examiner: 'After the seminar was over. Cain came over to me and a colleague and said, "Could you put me in touch with that lovely young lady who asked the question, so I can give her a more thorough answer over dinner?"' When she declined to, saying she didn't feel comfortable doing it, he then invited her to dinner. She accepted and brought two colleagues with her. Though she said Cain exhibited no inappropriate sexual behavior during the dinner, he did order two $400 bottles of wine and left the women with the bill.

Good heaven's! He left them with the bill?! Oh, this is too much. He has gone too far!!

Details of a number of legal and financial difficulties belonging to Ms Bialek also emerged today, with the Chicago Tribune listing a long history with tax evasion and late or missed credit card payments. The paper reported that Ms Bialek has filed for personal bankruptcy twice, first in 1991 and then again in 2001. In 2001, she claimed $5,700 in assets and more than $36,000 in liabilities. Among the creditors seeking payment was a management firm demanding back rent of $4,500, four credit card companies and a lawyer asking for his legal fees. She is also said to have accused a former boyfriend of harassing her for money he had loaned her after she borrowed $4,500 from him.

Her boyfriend hasseled her over the $4,500 she borrowed but didn't pay back? What a jerk!

The IRS filed a tax lien against her in 2009 for nearly $5,200. In August, the Illinois Department of Revenue claimed Ms Bialek owed the state more than $4,300, including penalties and interest, relating to income taxes from 2004, according to county records. Court records also show creditors took legal action against her during the past decade, including at least one lawsuit filed in Cook County.

She is also said to have spent two-and-a-half years at CBS radio as managing director for nontraditional revenue.

I'll say.

The single mother, who worked for the National Restaurant Association under Cain from 1996 to 1997, made an appeal to the embattled nominee saying: 'I really didn't want to be here today, but I want you, Mr Cain, to come clean. Just admit what you did. Admit you were inappropriate to people...and then move forward. Mr Cain, I implore you, Make this right.'

And how is he going to do that, exactly. Even if we were to concede what you say happened did happen, which we do not, what do you expect will make it right? Make it right and move forward? Where? How? The plea in and of itself makes no sense.

And the Cain campaign?

'All allegations of harassment against Mr Cain are completely false. Mr Cain has never harassed anyone.'

Clear enough.

Written, sworn statements were later read out by Ms Allred from Ms Bialek's former boyfriend, a pediatrician, and a businessman friend and mentor whom she also confided in at the time. The business card the alleged victim held when she was employed by the NRA was also shown at the conference.

Wow, they have her old business card. Now that's news. That is news indeed!

Meanwhile, I think I've gotten to the point where I can't stand Romney, who after saying the allegations were "particularly disturbing" had to add this useless bit of nonsense

"These are serious allegations and they're going to have to be addressed."

The allegations are particularly disturbing, Mit? You're gonna be next, bonehead. Sheesh!

'Possession' Open Thread

2011-11-06T09:09:00.000-08:00

What did you think?

Politico Features Cain Campaign

2011-11-04T14:49:00.000-07:00

The Politico has taken a decided interest in anything having to do with Herman Cain. Well, actually, they're not so keen on the candidate so much as they are the vague ineundos and thus far empty allegations of wrong doing. It's all Cain all the time. Ninety two articles have been generated by the Politico on Mr. Cain over the past six days, but they're aren't geared toward Cain's 9-9-9 plan or his other thoughts on addressing the nations stagnate economy. Instead, it is all about whispers and shadows of things unproven.

The reasons someone would allege wrong doing by another are myriad, and the mere allegation proves nothing. Thus it is curious the intensity of interest on the part of the Politico for what otherwise would be the stuff of tabloid journalism. In their latest piece they confirm the following:

“Based upon the information currently available, we can confirm that more than a decade ago, in July 1999, Mr. Bennett’s client filed a formal internal complaint, in accordance with the Association’s existing policies prohibiting discrimination and harassment,” the group said in a statement.

The group said that Cain disputed the allegations and that the settlement did not include “any admission of liability.”

“Mr. Cain was not a party to that agreement,” the association’s statement reads.

For my part, I'm with Ari Fleischer:

If Cain was the same type of skilled politician who has made Washington what it is has largely become -- an assemblage of smooth-talking, gifted experts in creating a massive debt that risks our future, while being seemingly incapable of doing anything about it other than blaming the other guy -- he might have acted differently.

But he's not an insider. He said what came naturally. He remembered more facts -- a very human development -- and said them. Scandal experts will tell you not to remember more information. Stick to your denial and say nothing else, they would advise. Cain didn't do that because he's not like that. He genuinely is different. And because he's different, he's being pilloried for how he has handled the allegations.

Exactly. Time will sort this little drama out, and if my hunch is right, we will end up discovering there is no 'there' there. Regardless, as a nation we still are in a huge amount of hurt. Let's see if we can't all try to focus on things a little more pressing.

Pippa Middleton

2011-11-02T20:38:00.000-07:00

Blog fav Roxeanne de Luca has drawn our attention to CafeMom writer (don't ask - look, I would know nothing of the the UK Daily Mail's gossip columns if it weren't for being a devoted Hyacinth Girl reader) Maressa Brown, who is irked that the fashion police have drawn out the long knives for Queen Kate's little sister, Pippa Middleton:

But the initial "hey shiny object!" reaction seems to be wearing off, and people are getting a bit testy about her every little misstep. Like, okay, she had what could barely be classified as an almost-"wardrobe malfunction" last month at London Fashion Week. Tongues clucked. Now, she's getting grief for a gorgeous red satin Temperley gown she rocked this past weekend at the Boodles Boxing Ball charity event (I'm not sure what that is, but it sounds like a load of Brit fun!).

Why yes, Maressa, it does sound like a lot of fun, and I'm glad you're game. As to the fashion police, I am with you on that score as well. Pippa looks like a nice girl to me. She wants to go off for the boxing ball or what have you, why say no? And the dress, well look, these famous people trapped in the public eye are expected to wear sensational clothes, and always a different gown, and never something anyone else has ever worn, ever.

Right.

Look, who cares? She has a nice smile, she seems like a supportive sister, it's not her job to be royal. She has her own life to live... let her just get on with it. And if you fashion wonks want to follow her around and photograph her, spare me the fashion critique. I don't care.

A Trip to the Circus

2011-10-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

Back from wherever he keeps himself, the Venerable Bede has been writing a string of posts all of which deserve a read, but the one on the Occupy Wall Street crowd, or whatever they call it over in London, was just too fun to pass by:

But there is a far from negligible selection of normal people too, all displaying a bizarre sense of entitlement that would have simply baffled their grandparents.

There's "Lili Wallace, 23, a business student at Greenwich College", who asks us to share her sense of outrage over the fact that “I’ve applied for a million and one jobs, and I can’t get access to funding for the business I want to set up.”

A full 23 years old, and she can't get funding to start her own business? What is happening to the world! Take to the streets!

Then there is "Floella, 35, who has friends in work who can’t even pay their gas bill", a tellingly silly and impossible claim, and "a security officer from Somerset who has three children to feed and “has to count the beans out one by one”."

Whatever you think of these stories, and I have to say they shock me personally in a rather different sense to the one intended, you still have to ponder both the automatic assumption that, as if by algebraic inevitability, one man's misfortune must be another man's fault, and the certainty with which they have chosen their childishly symbolic villains. The deeply arguable assumption that the existence of very rich people hinders, rather than has no effect upon, or perhaps even promotes, the improvement of conditions for those less fortunate is, it seems, an argument long-settled, resentment always being more comforting to the ego than reason.

“I’m no ideologue,” says "Mina Naguib, a 25-year-old medical student at Nottingham". “I have friends in the City. But just because Marx’s solutions were wrong doesn’t necessarily mean that his analysis was also wrong.”

No, it just makes it incredibly likely.

I'm sorry, but I can't read that without cracking up and feeling good all over. Nicely done.

Where Would We Be?

2011-10-27T15:02:00.000-07:00

"People before Profits"

Sounds nice enough. Who wouldn't want to put the idea of people before the idea of profits? Avarice is never in vogue. But do those that cry for such inhabit a false reality? With the president himself sympathetic both to this idea and to the "people" who've planted themselves in the middle of our centers of commerce, it is easy to be discouraged. Most of us would give anything to hear a few words of clarity in this din of nonsense. With that I say where would we be, where would we be, if it wasn't for folks like Walter E. Williams?

After pointing out the false choice in the aforementioned slogan, he comments on the inadequate grasp of economics in the mind of the common Wall Street Occupier:

When's the last time we've heard widespread complaints about our clothing stores, supermarkets, computer stores or appliance stores? We are far likelier to hear people complaining about services they receive from the post office, motor vehicle and police departments, boards of education and other government agencies. The fundamental difference between the areas of general satisfaction and dissatisfaction is the pursuit of profits is present in one and not the other.

The pursuit of profits forces producers to be attentive to the will of their customers, simply because the customer of, say, a supermarket can fire it on the spot by taking his business elsewhere. If a state motor vehicle department or post office provides unsatisfactory services, it's not so easy for dissatisfied customers to take action against it. If a private business had as many dissatisfied customers as our government schools have, it would have long ago been out of business.

Free market capitalism is unforgiving. Producers please customers, in a cost-minimizing fashion, and make a profit, or they face losses or go bankrupt. It's this market discipline that some businesses seek to avoid. That's why they descend upon Washington calling for crony capitalism -- government bailouts, subsidies and special privileges. They wish to reduce the power of consumers and stockholders, who hold little sympathy for blunders and will give them the ax on a moment's notice.

Consumers and stockholders - that would be you and me - the common people. The profit motive in the mind of the business person ends up empowering the very people the president and his 'friends' camped out in the middle of our cities claim they are for. And who then would be empowered if those profits are taken away? Why, the government that does the taking.

He's a no nonsense kind of guy. Read the whole thing here, and thank you professor Williams.

'Wait Until Dark' Open Thread

2011-10-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

What did you think?

It Ain't Cool When Joe's In School

2011-10-25T14:09:00.000-07:00

Neither one knows the answer, but how you play it counts.

Vice President Joe Biden is back in the classroom, sadly not receiving education, but instead dishing it out, offering his own little diddy on affairs in the country today:

"Here in this school, your school, you've had a lot of teachers who used to work here, but because there's no money for them in the city, they're not working. And so what happens is, when that occurs, each of the teachers that stays have more kids to teach. And they don't get to spend as much time with you as they did when your classes were smaller. We think the federal government in Washington, D.C., should say to the cities and states, look, we're going to give you some money so that you can hire back all those people. And the way we're going to do it, we're going to ask people who have a lot of money to pay just a little bit more in taxes."

To which Mark Steyn points to the the obvious inconsistency:

Who knew it was that easy? So let's see if I follow the vice president's thinking: The school laid off these teachers because "there's no money for them in the city." That's true. York City School District is broke. It has a $14 million budget deficit.
So instead Washington, D.C., is going to "give you some money" to hire these teachers back.

So, unlike York, Pennsylvania, presumably Washington, D.C., has "money for them"? No, not technically. Washington, D.C., is also broke – way broker than York City School District. In fact, the government of the United States is broker than any entity has ever been in the history of the planet. Officially, Washington has to return 15,000,000,000,000 dollars just to get back to having nothing at all. And that 15,000,000,000,000 dollars is a very lowball figure that conveniently ignores another $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities that the government, unlike private businesses, is able to keep off the books.

So how come the Brokest Jurisdiction in History is able to "give you some money" to hire back those teachers that had to be laid off? No problem, says the vice president. We're going to "ask" people who have "a lot of money" to "pay just a little bit more" in taxes.

The government doesn't ask you to pay a little more, it tells you. But no matter how much we make and how much we pay in, we can't keep up with the rate these guys can spend it. 4.2 trillion dollars in a little over two years? And what's to show for it? The job market has contracted, losing 2.4 million jobs in that same period of time.

We don't have a taxing problem, we have a spending problem, and only people like Obama and Biden would come up with a solution that proposes to spend even more money that we don't have. How much longer can we abide these clowns?

I Did That

2011-10-23T22:32:00.000-07:00

The president is out once again fishing for praise, bestowing upon himself a larger share of the credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, this time claiming it was due, no, not to jobs he 'saved or created' with that bogus trillion dollar jobs bill/payoff in 2009, but to his pull down of troops deployed to Iraq.

In statements delivered Friday and Saturday, President Barack Obama said it was his drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq that allowed the U.S. to "refocus" on al Qaeda and get Osama bin Laden.

"The drawdown in Iraq allowed us to refocus our fight against al Qaeda and achieve major victories against its leadership--including Osama bin Laden," Obama said in a speech at the White House on Friday announcing that all U.S. troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year. In his weekly address released Saturday, Obama repeated the assertion.

This guy. What a national embarrassment.

However, according to a report published by the New York Times on May 3, crucial intelligence that allowed the U.S. to locate Bin Laden came from an al Qaeda operative who had been captured by U.S. forces in 2004 in Iraq.

A SEAL team killed Osama bin Laden, Mr. President, and though the national media was fawning all over you for the "gutsy" call you made, none of them were in the chopper when the engine failed, none of them stormed the building when shots were flying around, and none of them had to high tail it out of there, so their perspective on what's gutsy and what isn't is a tad skewed.

Meanwhile, the Times is out of sorts, as its earlier article on May 3rd had gone to great pains to downplay the value of the information gained waterboarding Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and attributing the valuable information as having come from Hassan Ghul, an al Qaeda operative captured in Iraq.

On May 3, the New York Times published a story headlined, "Bin Laden Raid Revives Debate on Value of Torture." The story downplayed the significance of the intelligence gained from 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in helping the U.S. figure out who al-Kuwaiti was.

"In 2004, however, a Qaeda operative named Hassan Ghul, captured in Iraq, gave a different account of Mr. Kuwaiti, according to the American official," the Times reported. "Mr. Ghul told interrogators that Mr. Kuwaiti was a trusted courier who was close to Bin Laden as well as to Mr. Mohammed and to Abu Faraj al-Libi, who had become the operational chief of Al Qaeda.

Well, well, well. Tell you what, Mr. President, why don't you focus your efforts on lowering the sea level. When you get that one done, come on back and tell us what brave feats you've performed.

In his speech announcing that he would remove all U.S. troops from Iraq before the end of this year, President Obama did not mention President George W. Bush.

Figures. What else would you expect from Fearless Leader.

Of course, when it comes to the Fast and Furious Mexican gun running program, he gives us an entirely different t.v. personality.

Good grief.

Tarawa

2011-10-21T15:58:00.000-07:00

I have been away working on the Wikipedia article on the Battle of Tarawa, and hopefully have improved it some. Tarawa is a story of uncommon courage, perseverance and commitment in the face of unbelievable danger, hardship and loss.

Among the many men that were involved there was a naval officer known as Lt.(j.g.) Edward Heimberger. Today he is more commonly known as Eddie Albert, the actor you may remember from Roman Holiday, Green Acres, or my personal Eddie Albert favorite, You Gotta Stay Happy.

In his report he speaks of himself in the third person, as 'the Salvage Officer', 'this officer' or simply 'the writer'. Here are some excerpts from his after action report written nine days after the first landings:

U.S.S. SHERIDAN
29 November 1943.
Activity of Salvage Boat No. 13.

Boat No. 13, Salvage, went into the water at dawn on D-Day, and worked as assistant control boat to the Boat Group Commander (Lieutenant FLETCHER), until mid-afternoon at which time orders were received to report to the U.S.S. PURSUIT in company with the rest of the boats from the U.S.S. SHERIDAN. She continued assistant control boat work under Lieutenant FLETCHER in the vicinity of the PURSUIT until dawn the following morning (D plus 1 day) at which time orders were received to land the waves on Beach Red 2. Two disabled LCVPs claimed her attention and she arrived at the Line of Departure reporting to Lieutenant FLETCHER as the LCVPs were returning.

The troops had suffered many casualties on landing and the beach was covered with dead and wounded. About 150 Marines, 100 of which were wounded, remained waist deep in the water, suffering rapidly mounting casualties from strafing by several machine gun nests on the end of the pier, in the sunken ship, and by numerous snipers in abandoned AmTracs and LCVPs. There were few boats about so Lieutenant FLETCHER and the writer took it upon themselves to aid the men. Boat No. 14, under lieutenant FLETCHER, and Salvage Boat No. 13, made three or four trips each picking up wounded men and carrying them out to LCMs from which they were transferred to ships.

On the third or fourth trip, Boat No. 13 suffered a damaged propeller and the Salvage Officer ordered her to return to the SHERIDAN with her wounded. Boat No. 14 had already left the scene carrying a heavy load of badly wounded men directly to the SHERIDAN, so it was necessary for the Salvage Officer to take over another LCVP for the next trip. For the first time the boat was strafed while picking up the wounded. There were no casualties. By this time the incoming tide was giving the wounded men a bad time of it and increased strafing was adding rapidly to the list of casualties.

Stepped up measures were considered necessary. The Salvage Officer therefore decided to take in several LCVPs in an attempt to pick up all the remaining men in the water at once. Accordingly, on that return trip, he directed the coxswain to drop him at the nearest LCVP and continue on with his wounded to the nearest ship. The writer boarded LCVP PA3-9 (uncertain about boat number) and took over four LCVPs nearby, ordering them to transfer their extra passengers to LCMs, retaining only the boat crews and to follow him to the beach.

Halfway to the beach (2,000 yards out), bullets were dropping around the boats with increasing force. This development suggested that the enemy might have added to their fire-power so some approached the area more slowly in an effort to locate the enemy's gun positions and the extent of the added fire-power. It was found to be coming from the sunken hull (thought to have been knocked out by dive-bombers an hour or two earlier) and also from a machine-gun nest at the end of the pier. Miscellaneous snipers and island-based guns were also present. All LCVPs were ordered to fire on these positions and this seemed to silence the enemy temporarily.

Because of the lay of the coral, the position of the men in the water, the tide, and the hazards of a concentration of boats, this officer decided that taking off the men with one boat at a time would be the best plan. The other boats were to lay to a few hundred yards off and attempt to keep the machine-gun nests quiet with their thirty calibers. The lead boat, LCVP PA3-9 (question), went in first and began taking on the wounded. A sniper in a wrecked LCVP about 40 feet away became a problem and work was halted a moment while the boats two 30 caliber guns worked him over. He was killed and work was resumed.

The skill and coolness of the coxswain of this boat must be noted here. He kept perfect control of his boat against a strong current, holding her off of the wounded men and yet close enough to make possible the lifting of the men from the water and yet not ground the boat on the coral. An additional mental hazard was the fact that the boat contained about eight large drums of gasoline that were in danger of being set off by incendiaries that were penetrating the hull and ricocheting around the interior of the boat. 60 caliber, armor-piercing bullets were also found in the boat afterward. Against these difficulties the coxswain and his crew responded to orders quickly and efficiently without regard for their personal safety, and in all ways conducted themselves in a manner befitting men of the United States Navy.

Finally the last of the wounded men, thirteen in all, were lifted into the boat, leaving about thirty-five men in the water, unharmed as yet, but without rifles. They refused to come into the boat and asked this officer to bring them back something to fight with. They wanted to make another try at getting ashore. At this point the strafing became quite intense, and, there being nothing left to do, the coxswain was ordered to back off, which he did with his usual business-like precision, in spite of bullets singing around his head and crashing through the boat.

The men, meanwhile, were stamping out the incendiaries before they could do any damage. The wounded were fairly safe lying in the bottom of the boat their weight and the weight of the gasoline drums brought the deck a foot or two below the waterline. The other boats were ordered to lay to out of danger and await further orders. On the return trip, the free boat containing Colonel HALL and other officers, was observed speeding toward the beach in company with several boats. It was thought advisable to inform Colonel HALL of this added fire-power and their positions. Colonel HALL noted this information, transferred a medical officer from his boat to LCVP PA3-9 to administer to the wounded men, and ordered the writer to report to Commodore McGovern on the U.S.S. PURSUIT. This was done and Commodore McGovern ordered this officer to take the wounded to the nearest ship and report back to him.

By this time the Marines had secured the pier so the writer reported to the Chief Beach-master for orders, and then relieved Lieutenant FLETCHER in the control boat, but only for a few moments, as Lieutenant FLETCHER, although he had been going without relief or rest for three days, refused to leave his job. The writer then worked on the pier for the balance of the day for Colonel SALAZAR, and Captain FARKAS, expediting the movement of supplies wherever he was able. Snipers slowed movement of material along pier and CBM FABIAN directed the writer to report to Major COOPER and Captain WALTERS in an effort to expedite movement of certain much needed ammunition by following the order up personally from requisition to delivery. This was done, utilizing men, hand trucks, and motor trucks wherever necessary. Another sniper was killed by the writer during these movements. The following day the writer was directed to do reconnaissance on Beach Green with Major SHARPENBURG, and Lieutenant DORRANCE. Survey was made, but damaged propeller caused the boat to be hoisted aboard the U.S.S. MONROVIA for repairs. Major SHARPENBURG reported to Major ATKINSON, then to Commodore KNOWLES who directed party to report to Admiral HILL on the U.S.S. MARYLAND. This was done. Returned to pier, made report to Colonel SALAZAR. At this point orders came for the writer to return to the U.S.S. SHERIDAN. He obtained a boat and complied with the orders.

Edward A. HEIMBERGER,
Lieutenant (junior grade), USNR.
Salvage Boat Commander.

No one wanted to drive those boats in. The Japanese were tying their best to kill them as fast as they could, and if they failed to hit them with the big guns they riddled them with 13 mm (heavy caliber) machine gun fire, the power of which the sides of the boats could not stop. Eddie Albert went back time and time again, risking his life each time.

I loved the care free characters Eddie Albert would play in his films after the war, all the more so for knowing the things he did, and did without question, for the Marines he fought alongside during the war.

Liberals Send Cain to Back of the Bus

2011-10-12T10:25:00.000-07:00

Early this week Lawrence O'Donnell thought nothing of taking GOP Presidential candidate and black man Herman Cain to task for allegedly not showing proper commitment as a pre-teen during the Montgomery Alabama bus boycott of 1955, and for his lack of participation in the Birmingham campaign in the spring of 1963 when Cain was a high school senior. I have no idea where Lawrence O'Donnell was in the late fifties and early sixties, and I don't care. It irritates me to no end that this man thinks it is his place to challenge Cain on these grounds, as if he isn't black enough for Mr. O'Donnell's approval.

Though O'Donnell later claimed he was just trying to understand Cain as a candidate, it is clear to anyone watching the interview that he meant to demean Mr. Cain. As William Jacobsen points out at Legal Insurrection, such partisan actions on the part of a journalist are disgustingly inappropriate.

Now other prominent tools of the left such as singer-actor Harry Belafonte have joined in on the beat down.

It amazes me that people like these cannot understand that being equal in society means he is free to have his own opinions. It is people like O'Donnell and Belafonte that are the face of a the strange new racism that marks the liberals of today.

- 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' Open Thread

2011-10-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

What did you think?

What's up with that?

2011-10-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

A recent donnybrook that managed to get all the way over onto a post at The Other McCain had Roxeanna de Luca pointing out how other people's poor choices end up having negative repercussions upon her life. And while the discussion itself was good, I found her answer to commentor Matt to be golden:

"While I still cringe (a lot…) at some of those memories, there is also a deep sense of contentment and joy in having lived my life a certain way. That joy is there, even though I’m over 30 and single. (No, the TV shows, movies, books, and chastity speakers who tell you that you will be rewarded for your patience with a super-awesome husband are not telling the truth; you may get that “reward”, you may not, but there is a different type of reward that you simply can’t imagine at age 16 or 20 or even 25.)

Bringing this back to whence the conversation came: what irks me to no end is that we, as a culture, don’t even begin to show young people how to live that life."

Very true. Wouldn't you want someone with that kind of grounding to be a person of influence for your own girls? For me, no question about it.

Fighter Pilot

2011-10-07T14:29:00.000-07:00

Robin Olds was a fighter pilot whose career spanned three wars, from flying P-38s and P-51s over France, Holland and Germany, to F-4 Phantoms over Vietnam. The biography written by his daughter and fellow fighter pilot Ed Rasimus was largely taken from extensive notes that Robin had kept.

The story that unfolds gives a clear insight into the aggressive, rough and ready persona so common in fighter pilots.

It's a good story and well worth the read.

Left's Bullying of Producers Impressive Only To Themselves

2011-10-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

David Warren has led a life of service. Thus the recent protests of the unemployed and overpaid (city college grads and union types) has left him to wonder at what he has been hearing:

The rewards for doing something, where it counts, are different in kind; and they do not come easily.

I look at all the faces of the young, made up as zombies, clutching that fake dollar-store money, and strutting down Wall Street. Most, obviously, college-educated: the final products of an educational system that imparts little knowledge but a lot of self-esteem. I look at the sheer smugness in those faces, of people who have never experienced real hardship. All demanding that someone else do something.

For that is the nature of street demonstrations: a form of coercion, of public bullying. Getting yourself arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, by gratuitously blocking the traffic of the working stiffs, does not help anyone. It is a form of personal display, an act of whining self-righteousness that is intrinsic to the psychology of the bully.

The attraction, to the copy-cat demonstrators across the continent, is "me too." This is the Left's answer to the Tea Party in the U.S. - a point made repeatedly through the liberal media, which themselves take pleasure in the analogy.

Read the rest here.

Give It A Rest

2011-10-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

The Hyacinth Girl is sideways with the Wall Street protesters and that big bag of wind Michael Moore:

More than anything else, I think this “Occupy Wall Street” circus sideshow is having the opposite effect of what its organizers intended. People, normal people with jobs and lives, look at this dog and pony show and see a bunch of overeducated, spoiled, intentionally unemployed perpetual adolescents so divorced from reality that they genuinely think someone other than Barack Obama and his policies are responsible for this pathetic economy.

Loved the post title, by the way.

To add to our reading pleasure, The Venerable Bede, our friend from across the sea, has hit upon the same subject, commenting on the questionable value our society places upon the youth culture:

"Of course, to the political classes the greatest thing about the young's uncorrupted integrity is how easy it is to corrupt. No voice sounds more ringingly the tones of fierce independence than the one that has been told exactly what to say by someone else. The manipulation of youth movements is one of the most instant giveaway signifiers of Fascism, that is to say of political systems that seek to divide and conquer through the hypnosis of sloganeering, hatemongering and the rigid control of public expression.

The extreme malleability of youth, coupled with its outward show of brash individualism, makes for a uniquely useful tool in the hands of the disreputable, which when allied to the popular trends within the youth culture itself is rendered almost unstoppable."

They are both well worth the full read.

Holder Caught Holding Out

2011-10-04T11:42:00.000-07:00

It was all just a misunderstanding, Holder Claims

President Obama's chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Eric Holder, misrepresented his knowledge of operation 'Fast and Furious' when he testified before a senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Holder had testified that he had first heard about Fast and Furious in April of 2011.

On May 3, 2011, Holder told a Judiciary Committee hearing, "I'm not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks."

Probably not.

New documents obtained by CBS News show Attorney General Eric Holder was sent briefings on the controversial Fast and Furious operation as far back as July 2010.

In Fast and Furious, thousands of guns were purchased from US gun shops and then allowed to cross the border and fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. The gun shops had notified the ATF of the suspicious large purchases of weapons, but the ATF was under orders to let the purchases and transport proceed. Those guns were used in numerous crimes, including the killing of hundreds of Mexican citizens, and at least two US Federal employees.

It's called letting guns "walk," and it remained secret to the public until Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered last December. Two guns from Fast and Furious were found at the scene, and ATF agent John Dodson blew the whistle on the operation.

This is so incredibly callous, so calculating and so utterly devoid of concern for the many Mexican lives placed in jeopardy, and for what?!

The Justice Department told CBS News that the officials in those emails were talking about a different case started before Eric Holder became Attorney General. And tonight they tell CBS News, Holder misunderstood that question from the committee - he did know about Fast and Furious - just not the details.

Oh, he did know, just not the details. I'm glad we got that cleared up.

Sheesh.

'North By Northwest' Open Thread

2011-09-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

What did you think?

Terrance This Is Stupid Stuff

2011-09-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

Terrance D., a frequent commentor whose thought provoking blog has recently been added to our Fun Reads list, has a good piece that points out the inconsistencies in the arguments of one Mara Hvistendahl, whose new book Unnatural Selection decries the practice of sex selective abortions performed at an alarming rate, usually to eliminate female offspring.

Here he points out one of the many problems of Mara's recommendations to combat sex selective abortion now so common place in China and India:

"Second, make sex selective abortion criminal activity for the doctor and health professionals involved in it (5 year prison sentence) and any helpers who know what is going on (1 year prison sentence). (p. 244)"

Wow! Remember when an argument for legalizing abortion was that if you kept it criminalized women would just continue to get dangerous back alley abortions? And now here are pro-choice people suggesting that criminalizing sex selective abortion is the way to go. Who cares about back alley abortions any more?

Hmmm.

The title of Terrance's blog plays off one of A.E. Houseman's poems as found in his A Shropshire Lad. In "Terence this is stupid stuff", the poet and classical scholar refers to himself as Terence and jokingly sets about critiquing not only the gloomy nature of many of the poems of A Shropshire Lad, but even the poetic devices used in their writing. One should not take oneself too seriously, and our Terrance certainly does not. It's good stuff!

A Good Man is Hard to Come By

2011-09-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

After the most recent Republican debate in Florida, the wisdom was that Perry had slipped and Romney had surged ahead. Cain won the Florida Straw poll, but that was the by-story from the header, Perry Slips, as Cain garnered 37% of the Straw Poll voters, while the "top tier twosome" republican candidates ended up with Perry at 15% and Romney a happy 14%. The smartest of the smart may have been a tad quick in defining the frame of the future, as Monday's Zogby Poll showed what in fact happened was Herman Cain, the darkest of dark horses, surging ahead at 28%, while the bobbsy twins trail at 18 and 17 percent respectively.

After the debate, Chris Moody interviewed Mr. Cain, and learned his views on Preisdent Obama's class warfare rhetoric:

"After a few caffeine-heavy refills at our corner table, I asked him about President Obama's new effort to raise taxes on the wealthy, and Cain just about blew a blood vessel--especially when I mentioned the part where Obama says it's about "math" not "class warfare."

"Can I be blunt? That's a lie," Cain said, before the sound of his voice began to rise noticeably higher. "You're not supposed to call the president a liar. Well if you're not supposed to call the president a liar, he shouldn't tell a lie. If it's not class warfare, it's highway robbery. He wants us to believe it's not class warfare, oh okay, it's not class warfare. Pick my pockets, because that's what he's doing!"

Cain paused, took a breath and looked at me.

"I'm not mad at you, I just get passionate about this stuff," he said. "I have to tell people because I get so worked up . . . . I'm listening to all this bullshit that he's talking about, 'fairness' and 'balanced approach' to get this economy going."

Yes, it is tiresome... tiresome to the extreme. And here is one of the few candidates with the hutzpah to lay it out for us.

Now that's a good man.

Peggy Noonan Comes To Her Senses?

2011-09-26T20:39:00.000-07:00

Two and a half years of utter Tom Foolery has brought even the likes of Peggy Noonan into a finer appreciation of President Obama. In commenting on Ron Suskind's "Confidence Men", Noonan offers:

An unnamed adviser says the 2009 stimulus legislation was the result of "poor conceptualizing." Another: "We should have spent more time thinking about where the money was being spent, rather than simply that there was this hole of a certain size in the economy that needed to be filled, so fill it."

Well.. yes.

Yes indeed. My word, what a bunch of bozos. We should have thought more about where the money was being spent? Sheesh.

"The White House says Mr. Suskind talked to too many disgruntled former staffers. But he seems to have talked to a lot of gruntled ones, too. The overarching portrait of chaos, lack of intellectual depth and absence of political wisdom, from a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter at this paper, rings true."

Yep.

We all feel a bit jilted over Noonan being seduced by the dark side, and I'll allow she seems rather fickle at times, but you've got to admit, she's into the good stuff here.

Wouldn't you know, it wouldn't last. She is hardly through her piece before she starts into how Republicans are well within their capabilities to fail to take advantage of the nation's unrest with this president. Here she takes aim at Rick Perry, and though he has made some gaffes, would this qualify as one of them?

Contrast it with the words of Rick Perry, who zoomed into New York to make his own Mideast statement the day before the president's speech. The Obama administration's policy, the Texas governor said, amounts to "appeasement." It has encouraged "an ominous act of bad faith." We are "at the precipice of such a dangerous move" because the Obama administration is "arrogant, misguided and dangerous." "Moral equivalency" is "a dangerous insult."

This was meant not to defuse but to inflame.

Maybe it was meant to call it like it is.

Everything Perry said there is exactly on the money, and he is not in New York to cover for this clown president. Do you recall Obama trying to cover for President Bush? Me thinks... no.

Sheesh, Peggy. Caddyshack couldn't have said it better:

"Noonan."

"NOONAN!"

With a major hat tip to the always interesting Roxeanne de Luca.

Casey at the Plate

2011-09-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

Casey Neistat, a New York City native and cyclist, was cited by New York's finest for not riding his bicycle in the bike lane. When he told the officer that sometimes the bicycle lane was not always the safest place to be, the officer told him it didn't matter.

He always needed to be in the bike lane.

Casey paid his fifty dollar ticket, and then he and a buddy took a little spin.

Love and Loss

2011-09-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

George Jonas has a fine piece on the recent loss of his long time love, Sylvia:

The vivacious persona she liked to project was far removed from her sober, steady, even puritanical self. She was vivacious, all right, but with a penchant for archeology and a taste for penniless scribblers. She had been married to a Manhattan gynecologist before me. When we eventually separated in the late 1960s, she gave a newspaper interview. "Marry a doctor," she explained to the reporter, "and you'll appreciate poetry. Marry a poet, and you'll appreciate money."

Read the whole thing here.

Too Funny

2011-09-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

Every now and again we are treated to our betters on the left totally stepping in it. Case in point is The Hill's Bernie Quigley (down under?) as he criticised Mark Steyn's After America. He first lists a number of other books with "After America" as a part of their title (You've seen one, you've seen 'em all), and then he wades into the deep end of the pool:

"These books see America as an idea rather than a place because the authors don’t understand place and have probably never been to an American place they were inclined to stay in. They would get a rash in real places like Tobaccoville, N.C., Haverhill, N.H. or Luckenbach, Texas, where Waylon, Willie and the boys hang."

Unfortunately for Bernie, Mr. Steyn actually works in Haverhill, New Hampshire. In fact, it's where he and his family live.

Oops.

The comments are just as rich, one of which points out that Mr. Quigley's referral to Luckenbach, Texas as real America can only result from his having no experience with Luckenbach. It seems Luchanbach is a ghost town, the Waylon Jennings song being the only reason it still exists as a tourist attraction.

Yoikes!

Up From The Projects

2011-09-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

"Williams, you're a rascal."

So said UCLA Economics professor Dr. Armen Alchian. I think the good professor was much in the right of it.

I first became aware of Walter Williams from his many guest appearances on the Rush Limbaugh radio program, where he would argue the moral superiority of liberty, and its chief precondition, limited government. Williams seems to delight in asking awkward questions, and never seems troubled by the challenges he is offered. Of course, by the time he appeared on the Limbaugh show, he had already testified before the US Congress many times, and had been attacked repeatedly for his libertarian viewpoints. Not easily cowed, Williams was more contemptuous than troubled by his many critics from the left.

He disdained the ever changing terminology being demanded by various grievance groups. "I have been called negro, black, and african-american. I'm tired of constantly putting up with changing how I am referred to. You all can change terms as much as you like, I'm through with this nonsense. I'm going to stay black." 'Black.. by popular demand' is a frequent by-line used to introduce professor Williams on the Limbaugh show. Thomas Sowell writes a fine review here.

'Up From The Projects' was a fun read, and I highly recommend it.

Looking Good in Navy

2011-09-19T23:13:00.000-07:00

Steven Long was a speedy player when he burst onto the scene two years ago as a sophomore running back at Sherwood High School. Last year he helped the Bowman through their playoff run, culminating in a 217 yard, two touchdown performance in their State Championship Game against Marist. Coming into his senior year the young man moved up, transferring to perennial 6A power Lake Oswego High.

Year in and year out the Lakers have a depth of talented players, and it initially was unclear how Long would fit in with his new teammates, how and if he would be used, and whether or not he had the strength to repeatedly carry the ball for the Lakers. Week two saw a solid 19 carry, 119 yard performance against a capable West View team marred by two uncharacteristic fumbles, and the question remained as to whether or not Long could hold up against the larger, faster athletes more frequently seen in the rugged schedule Lake Oswego typically plays. That question was answered emphatically last Friday night when the Lakers played host to the Skyline Spartans of Washington.

Skyline may be the toughest team on the Laker's schedule. State champions at the 3A level in Washington in 2005 and 2007, in 2008 they moved up to 4A, Washington's highest level, and kept handing out the hurt, winning 4A titles in 2008 and 2009 and reaching the championship final in 2010 before falling to Spokane's Ferris High School. Last year's team handed a very good Lake Oswego squad a 38 to 14 loss, and with 6'5" super soph quarterback Max Browne returning for his junior year, it looked to be more of the same. Friday night Browne's quick delivery and rifle arm amassed over four hundred yards for an offense that proved exceedingly difficult to stop. All that was nullified by a nightmarish Laker ground game that featured one Steven Long at the tip of the spear.

Running backs are considered to have a good game if they break 100 yards, an excellent game if they manage to break 200. Against the Spartans, Steven Long carried the ball 28 times for a staggering 428 yards. He scored seven times, ripping off long run after long run. Initially in the spread single back, then in the second half more commonly out of the two back power formation, Long carried over and over again. He broke one play for a 36 yard touchdown, then another for a 72 yard touchdown, and by that point the defense knew it had a problem. Then came a touchdown run of 48 yards and the man had 220 yards at the half! With the Spartans staying close for 28 - 24 half time score, it appeared they had weathered the storm and would put it to the Lakers in the second half, but in the second half each time the Spartans would draw near with a score it was answered by a blur of Navy and White. Long would find a crease at the line of scrimmage, flash into the secondary, and bang.. we were off to the races. A 75 yard run for a score. A 1 yard plunge for a score. A 73 yard run for a score. Long was a one man buzz saw. I've watched a lot of football, but I've never seen a running game strike as quickly and as devastatingly as Long and his Laker teammates. Good use of blocking, good vision, surprising endurance... and jaw dropping speed. By the end of it the Lakers walked away with a 56 - 46 win.

Four hundred yards is a lot of yards, but against one of the best teams in Washington? That's unheard of. It was a game for the record books for Long. I doubt there will be another like it for him... it was beautiful.

The rest of the Laker crew looked solid as well. Alex Matthews is a steady performer at quarterback with quick feet and good judgment. I'm thinking we'll continue to see a lot of receiver Stevie Coury, who is a deceptively fast player and has a great pair of hands. Mitch Lomax loves to cause problems for quarterbacks and leads a good group of aggressive Laker linebackers. Zach Walen, who knows what the heck that guy's thinking, but he's a gamer on both sides of the ball. It's a solid, confident bunch of young men.

This Friday the Lakers move on to an always tough Jesuit squad. Jesuit bounced back from being steam rolled by Dillon Miller and Sheldon two weeks ago to edge Central Catholic 14 - 12 in the Holy War. You can bet they'll be strapping up their helmets tight for Friday's clash with the Lakers. Should be a good one.

Woah Ho! Weiner Seat Flips Right

2011-09-14T16:25:00.000-07:00

House District 9 in New York City, held by Democrats for the past eighty-eight years, was won in a special election by Republican Bob Turner. The district, which is populated 3 to 1 by Democrats, had gone to President Obama in the 2008 election by eleven percentage points. The loss is indicative that Democrat's faith in the nations figurative leader is shaky at best.

Democratic party leaders insisted the loss wasn’t a harbinger of things to come. “It’s a very difficult district for Democrats,” said Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Yeah, its gotta be tough to be a Democrat in New York.

Andrea Tantaros at the New York Daily News offers the following:

In a crushing blow to the White House and the Democratic Party, the seat once held by notorious sexter Anthony Weiner switched hands yesterday, with a longshot Republican now heading to the House of Representatives.

By linking the economic ennui of New York's ninth district (which spans parts of Brooklyn and Queens) to the President, and by making the administration's Middle East policy (specifically, the treatment of Israel) a hallmark of his campaign, former TV executive Bob Turner defeated state Assemblyman David Weprin by a stunning margin of 54% to 46% (with 84% of districts reporting as of late last night). Even 11th hour visits to the district to rally support by Democratic darlings Bill Clinton and Governor Patrick Cuomo could not save the hapless Weprin.

But it's more than New York Democrats who are saying oy vey. The surprising loss of the Weiner seat is an indication of what's to come on the national stage, and why it's looking more likely that Republicans will retain control of the House, with the possibility of the Senate switching back to GOP hands also within reach (Republicans need to win a net of four seats in the Senate to gain a majority).

Despite big celebrations after the passage of Obamacare, the stimulus and financial reform legislation, Obama has given his party little to campaign on with his largely unpopular record, specifically when it comes to jobs. Republicans will spend millions of dollars linking their opponents to Obama and his record, and Democrats who run for office in 2012 will have no choice but to run away from the toxic President, even in what they may once have considered safely Democratic districts. They will exhaust their coffers either painting themselves as "independent" or ignoring Obama's agenda altogether, with incumbents doing everything they can to highlight key differences between their record and Obama's.

Having to spend so much money on defense will spread Democratic funds dangerously thin. In New York's ninth, national Democrats spent more than a half a million defending the Weiner seat, which they never suspected was vulnerable. Getting Democrats to blow critical campaign cash to protect even deeply blue districts is a Republican strategist's dream because it hinders their ability to be competitive elsewhere.

Think about it: If Obama is radioactive in New York City, imagine how his abysmal economic record will play in swing states like Missouri, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, where he is already suffering.

I can imagine it all right, and it's about time too. November 2012 is still a long way off, but the odds that something good is going to happen in our economy between now and then is just about zero.

Perry Gives It To Us Straight

2011-09-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

The flap over presidential candidate Rick Perry's recent comments tell us much about the political realities of our day.

Speaking of Social Security in Iowa, Rick Perry commented:

"It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people. The idea that they're working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie. It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can't do that to them."

His words voice concern for our young people and the future of our nation. An elderly lady in the clip was seen to be nodding in agreement, aware of the financial problems that out of control spending has placed upon her grandchildren, and the truth if what Perry was saying.

Nevertheless much bally-hoo was made of his comment, mostly from the left as can be seen as posted at TPM (Talking Points Memo). The left is gleeful that Republican frontrunner Perry may have exposed himself to being lied about and pilloried before one of the most steady voting groups in the nation: America's senior citizens. The general assault against Perry runs either he doesn't have a clue what he was talking about, or he intends to dismantle Social Security. The left takes such glee in scaring senior citizens.

A typical leftoid comment was this from a commentor that goes by the label latichever:

It's amazing to me how emboldened they have become, from believing that Social Security is the third rail of American politics, to Bush's partial privatization, to calling it a Ponzi scheme. Does this mean that the discussion has shifted that far to the right? Or does it mean we're in Goldwater 1964 territory?

I hope the latter.

Wrong-o latichever. Stanley Kurtz, of National Review On Line offers a tad more light on the topic:

"Perry’s Ponzi-scheme claim is in no way unprecedented. On the contrary, the Ponzi comparison has been a staple of conservative warnings about Social Security’s financial soundness for decades. More intriguing, the Ponzi scheme analogy was popularized by a liberal Nobel Laureate economist, who initially offered it as a defense of the system, acknowledging only later that his defense was at least partially flawed. In the decades that followed, many honest liberals have made the Ponzi scheme comparison in the course of calling for systemic reform. Those liberals have bemoaned bipartisan deception and timidity on the Social Security issue, and praised those rare and courageous political souls, such as Alan Simpson, who were willing and able to call a Ponzi scheme by its real name."

The truth is most all of us in our early fifties and younger realize that there is no way this program can be sustained to provide retirement funds as we live on into our seventies and eighties.

Rick Perry was gutsy to even broach the issue. This is not a topic his primary competitors should take issue over. We should support him in this.

Update: September 13th

Well, Mitt Romney managed to step in it at last night's Republican Presidential debate. Mark Steyn commments on it here.

Paul Krugman is a Horse's Ass

2011-09-11T18:05:00.000-07:00

Paul Krugman, self-proclaimed conscience of the liberal establishment, beared down on his pent up resentments, and out squeezed this little gem of a piece for 9/11:

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.

Well, the most obvious reason is that there is almost nothing to comment on. It's as devoid of detail as a piece could be.

Listen, Paul, next time you feel the urge to impugn the character of others, send a note to your mother, but don't print the damn thing in the New York Times. It's embarrassingly empty of substance, though I do appreciate it's brevity. I wish all your articles were so brief. Sadly, that's not the case. Just a couple of days before the economics professor and New York Times columnist wrote how pleased he was with the president's new jobs proposals as voiced in his recent speech to the combined houses of congress.

What a ding-bat.

Update:

I see The Hyacinth Girl noticed Krugman pissing off in the corner and had a few choice words for him. She's a good one.

Three Bozos

2011-09-09T14:14:00.000-07:00

Herman Cain followed the Republican debate with a quick tour of the MSNBC Roundtable of Fools, and they each took their shot at the guy.

Sharpton, O'Donnell, Schultz
Three up, three down.

I know they say he can't win the primary, but man do I love the forthrightness of this guy and his willingness to cut through the B.S.

Go Cain!

With a hat tip to Robert Stacy McCain.

Message From the Mountain Top

2011-09-08T22:56:00.000-07:00

Guess what? The president has a plan.

He wants to spend another 457 billion.

This year.

I know, I know, we're already 1.6 trillion over budget, but what's 457 billion between friends?

Oh, and how is he going to pay for all the expenditures? It went something like:

"I will gladly pay you on Tuesday..."

Pundit and Pundette has the skinny on the jobs speech. The video cracked me up, but I couldn't figure out how to kipe it, so you'll have to pay Jill a visit directly. It's well worth it.

She's great! I steal a lot of good stuff from her!! (With proper credit and linkage, of course).

Obama to Address the Nation

2011-09-08T12:13:00.000-07:00

The nation awaits with baited breath as the president prepares to give yet another speech. Meanwhile, more useful information promises to be offered on NBC, which is carrying the Packers-Saints pre-game show.

The president is famous for making a show of bi-partisan outreach while dismissing conservative ideas on removing governmental cost burdens and regulatory restraints as "the same old ideas that got us where we are". The empty support he offers to the private sector comes from a man who has essentially isolated himself in a sea of Ivy league academics.

The lack of real world experience was never more painfully obvious than after two and a half years of presidential spending paloozas that have exhausted the financial reserves of the planet and buried the nation in debt.

Meanwhile, last year's Super Bowl Champions, the Green Bay Packers, are taking on the New Orleans Saints, the Super Bowl Champion team from 2009.

Predictions from What the...?! are for tonight's speech to be yet another yawner...

... while the Packers edge the Saints in a highly entertaining contest.

Update: September 8th, 11:00 pm.

The Packers edged the Saints 42 - 34, with Aaron Rodgers throwing for three touchdowns and over three hundred yards. Drew Brees was extremely good as well, with over 400 yards passing in an excellent Saints effort, but the Packers were just a tad bit better. The Saints got all the way down to the 1 yard line with time running out when Clay Matthews stopped Mark Ingram short of the goal as time expired. Excellent opening game for the NFL.

And the speech? The president appeared defiantly angry, daring the nation and the republicans to oppose "his plan". And his plan? Same - blow another 457 bil .. bridges, schools and the like, you know, same as last time, except this time...this time.. its gonna work! Kept repeating himself. Pretty much a snoozer.

Gitmo Detainee Breaks Bad With Barack

2011-09-03T12:41:00.000-07:00

As if to highlight Barack Obama's campaign rhetoric (era 2007), another Gitmo detainee has met his end. Mr. Obama led the criticism of President Bush's policies in fighting the war on terror, chief of which was the detention center at the Navy base at Guantanimo, Cuba. As his first act as president, Obama signed an executive order to close the detention center within one year's time. However, two and a half years into his presidency the center remains open, and those prisoners previously released have a nasty habit of turning up planting bombs, firing RGGs and shooting at US forces, resulting in a number of Gitmo Graduates getting themselves gunned down, one way or another.

The latest is Saber Lal Melma, whose 'long suffering' and 'unlawful detention' was fully championed by the McClatchy News Service. Mr. Saber Lal Melma did in fact manage to end his long suffering. The method he choose, however was to be on the recieving end of a round to the head.

NATO and Afghan forces have killed a former Guantanamo detainee who returned to Afghanistan to become a key al-Qaida ally, international officials said Saturday.

Saber Lal Melma, who was released from Guantanamo in 2007, had been organizing attacks in eastern Kunar province and funding insurgent operations, NATO spokesman Capt. Justin Brockhoff said.

A NATO statement described Melma as a "key affiliate of the al-Qaida network" who was in contact with senior al-Qaida members in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I guess the McClatchy news reporters were taken for a ride.

Troops surrounded Melma's house in Jalalabad city on Friday night and shot him dead when he emerged from the building holding an AK-47 assault rifle.

A guard at the house, Mohammad Gul, said a group of American soldiers scaled the walls of the compound around 11 p.m. and stormed the house, shooting Melma in the assault. Three others were detained, Gul said.

Melma joined a long list of detainees believed to have reconnected with al-Qaida.

Saber Lal Melma can no longer be found on the McClatchy News Service site.

Warren on Economic Double Talk

2011-09-01T18:37:00.000-07:00

With President Obama preparing the nation for another stirring speech on his "economic plans", it is well time to take a look at some of the Keynesian ideas that inform the President's world view. Who better to give us a brief than Canadian David Warren, who not only is conversant in the history, but can write of it in an interesting manner:

John Maynard Keynes, a truly brilliant man, and an entertaining one with wide cultural interests, made wonderfully entertaining arguments for doing the wrong thing, many of them ingeniously counter-intuitive. "Public economists" (on the analogy of "public intellectuals") such as John Kenneth Galbraith in the last generation, and Paul Krugman in this, stand in direct succession to him: same attitudes, same habits.

Lord Keynes' great rival, Friedrich Hayek, exploded many of the economic fallacies upon which Keynes depended, along with many of the facts which Keynes massaged to fit his own passing needs. But Hayek's strongest criticism is too lightly passed over. He said that Keynes was interested in economic theory only as a means to influence current policy.

If an economic theory is designed merely as a means to support policy decisions, there is sure to be hell to pay when the implications of those decisions are played out.

Read Warren's whole piece here.

Pundette Ponders Perry Problem

2011-08-31T18:37:00.000-07:00

With Texas Governor Rick Perry entering the presidential race, we all knew the 'serious thinkers' of the main stream media would soon set about their predictable 'analysis' of whether or not Perry had the smarts to get the job done. Their conclusion was rather doubtful, which drew a bit of blow back from Michelle Malkin and fellow right thinking bloggers.

I loved the take Jill took over at Pundit and Pundette:

Which brings us to that other Perry resume item, Governor of Texas. Who's smarter, the guy who has effectively run one of the US's largest states for ten years (though he's "not a thinker"), or the credentialed empty suit who is running the US economy over a cliff?

I'll stick with the "dumb" guy.

Sounds good to me. Read the whole thing.

Colin Powell's Head Explodes ... and no one cares.

2011-08-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

Colin Powell may be a bright enough fellow, but straight and reliable? Not so much. Certainly not as classy as many of those he worked with in government. I have read much of John Bolton's book, and his enthusiasm for Powell is guarded to say the least. Powell has been no friend to those from the republican party that supported his career. An opportunist more than a loyalist. The point of discussion today falls upon former Vice President Richard Cheney's new book, In My Time, to which Mr. Powell took exception:

Mr. Cheney may forget that I'm the one who said to President Bush if you break it, you own it. And you've got to understand that if we have to go to war in Iraq, we've got to be prepared for the whole war, not just the first phase. . . and he also says that, you know that I was not supportive of the President's position. Well, who went to the United Nations and regrettably with a lot of false information? It was me. It wasn't Mr. Cheney.

Yeah..and? You went up there with the best information you had available. You believed that Saddam Hussein had a WMD program, that he had made weapons, that he had used those weapons, and that he was likely to do so again in the future. All of that is true, Mr. Powell. Whether large stock piles of those weapons were found on hand or not is irrelevant. It is only played to be significant by those that are seeking political gain out of a rather empty point. Such protestations does little good for the Kurds who died from poison gas, and for the many thousands who may have died had Saddam used those weapons again.

On the Valerie Plame leak:

Then he goes on to talk about the Valerie Plame affair, and tries to lay it all off on Mr. Rich Armitage in the State Department and me. . . if the White House and the operatives in the White House and Mister Cheney's staff and elsewhere in the White House had been as forthcoming with the FBI as Mr. Armitage was, this problem would not have reached the dimensions that it reached.

Powell says “White House operatives,” especially those “on Mr. Cheney’s staff,” did not fully cooperate in the FBI’s investigation and were not “forthcoming.”

This is where Colin Powell's stock hits bottom as far as I'm concerned. Robert Novak remained silent throughout the entire Pat Fitzgerald Valerie Plame leak investigative hullapaloozaa, as he was ordered to do by Mr. Fitzgerald. This "crime" was played by Joe Wilson (and Sean Penn in the Hollywood replay of non-historical events) as a White House effort to injure Wilson and punish him for "telling the truth to power." In reality, Wilson lied when he claimed Iraq had made no effort to obtain yellow cake uranium from Nigeria. He lied again when he claimed the White House was attempting to punish him. The White House had nothing to do with naming his wife as the person that recommended old Joe for the job. The name of Valerie Plame was given to Novak through Richard Armitage from the Colin Powell led Department of State.

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the source who revealed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in 2003, touching off a federal investigation, two sources familiar with Armitage's role tell CNN.

Armitage was not indicted by the federal grand jury that investigated the disclosure of Plame's name to Novak and other journalists.

Later, when Armitage claimed the leak was an innocent mistake, Novak clarified that was not the case:

An accurate depiction of what Armitage actually said deepens the irony of his being my source. He was a foremost internal skeptic of the administration's war policy, and had long opposed military intervention in Iraq.

Further, Novak went on to say:

For nearly the entire time of his investigation, Fitzgerald knew -- independent of me -- the identity of the sources I used in my column of July 14, 2003.

Scooter Libby, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, went to jail because his recollection of a minor event (speaking with a reporter) from six months earlier was slightly different from one deposition to the next, thus he "misled" the investigation... a Federal offense.

The whole thing was politically motivated and had nothing to do with the carriage of justice. Powell and Armitage let it play out, to the ruin of an essentially innocent man. Colin Powell... what a clown.

Steyn Boldly Entertains Muddled Thinking at BBC Newsnight

2011-08-30T13:29:00.000-07:00

Speaking of BBC newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis, Jill over at Pundit and Pundette wonders:

"I'm not sure whether to file that under 'deliberately obtuse' or 'invincibly ignorant.'"

I'm going for deliberately obtuse.

Never fear though, it doesn't throw our hero off.

'Sherlock' Open Thread

2011-08-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

Twenty-two

2011-08-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

Really?

2011-08-26T12:12:00.000-07:00

Wisconsisn's Governor Scott Walker visited a local Catholic grade school Friday to read to children. In response, someone vandalized the school in the early morning hours by supergluing the doors and the parking gate shut. Protesters then crowded the street outside the Messmer Preparatory School in Milwaukee's Riverwest neighborhood for the Governor's visit.

"Some of these folks super glued our front doors at the prep school," said Brother Bob Smith, OFM, the president of Messmer Catholic Schools, about the grade school. One protester said " 'Get ready for a riot,' because they were going to disrupt the visit."

Liberals and the Union usual suspects just exercising their right to free speech. God love 'em.

Brother Smith said that, in his opinion, the Republican governor's visit to read to students there on Friday was not about political overtones connected to protests that have been happening all year in the state regarding the rollback of collective bargaining rights for many public workers.

Reasonable.

"People ought to start acting like adults. You've got little kids who have no clue what you're even talking about, and you make something political when it isn't, that's just flat-out wrong."

I agree with the good brother.

I'm not happy with President Obama and the many things he has done to this country. I know I'm not alone in that opinion, but would any one of us do something like this if he came to visit one of our local grade schools?

Didn't think so.

Stace Puts the East Coast Earthquake Into Perspective

2011-08-26T08:38:00.001-07:00

With his usual shoe leather tenacity, Robert Stacy McCain has brought the East Coast earthquake into perspective:

That Reagan McCain is tough to take.

As dark as these days sometimes seem, that Other McCain guy can really crack me up! We've got to go over there and hit the tip jar! Says McCain:

"It's for the children!"

Sad. This is just so sad...

2011-08-26T00:02:00.000-07:00

If Jim Carey were the appropriate age, he would marry Emma Stone, and they would have chubby freckled face kids, go camping, tell ghost stories by the fire, and sex .... .... ... Jim can't even say how amazing that would be, but with a roll of his eyes and a boyish smirk, he thinks Emma will be able to get an idea of what kind of fun that might be. At least Jim is hoping it conveys interest in a playful and non-threatening way. Yeah, the world would pretty much be his oyster, er, her oyster, her oyster, if only he were the "appropriate" age.

Yep, that's a sad one all right. Jimmy almost gets a little misty eyed thinking of his cruel fate. Oh, and by the way, Jim has done a careful search, and all he can find in terms of signs of aging are a few lines on his face, some gray in his beard, and a longer time required for him to pee (in case, Emma, you really wanted to know).

Well, there are a few more signs, the most obvious being that the women you find yourself attracted to keep getting younger, and your pitch seems more and more bizarre and inappropriate. Can you imagine, Jim, a twenty-five year old guy making a pitch for Emma Stone by video like this? How about if you were twenty-five, would you try a video pitch about freckle faced children and roasting marsh-mellows by the fire? No, huh? Well, take that as a clue. You ain't twenty-five.

Look, Jim, you don't know this girl. Despite leaving the cut-off point vague and possibly open to correction, you're right in the first place, you are not the appropriate age for this young girl, and if you had any real care for her you would hope that she would work those issues out in her own good time, and with someone other than you.

Oh and Jim, Emma Stone will be getting older with each passing day as well. She's not always going to look so fresh and innocent. She will look more mature, and hopefully, she will be. Can we say the same for you? If not, then what? Another video play for some other twenty year old? Please. Leave that crap to Bill Maher. It's pathetic.

Update

"I was just joking!"

"People often ask me if i'm being funny or serious. The answer is 'YES'"

We know that. Hardee har.

Look Jim, to summarize for you, you're really not that good of an actor, Bill Maher trolling down at the Playboy mansion is pathetic, and your video offering is creepy no matter how you go about looking at it, because as we all know, for something to be funny, there has to be a bit of truth behind it.

What, Me Worry?

2011-08-24T09:19:00.001-07:00

Alfred E. Neuman award nominee.

The LA Times is reporting that the national debt under Barrack Obama has increased at a rate that astonishes, placing into question the nation's future:

When Barack Obama took the oath of office twice on Jan. 20, 2009, CBS' amazing number cruncher Mark Knoller reports, the national debt was $10,626,000,000,000.

That means the debt that our federal government owes a whole lot of somebodies including China has increased $4,247,000,000,000 in just 945 days. That's the fastest increase under any president ever

The LA Times is reporting this?

Now, how much is a trillion?

One trillion seconds ago much of North America was still covered by ice sheets hundreds of feet thick.

Wow.

$500,000 Federal Grant Yields 1.72 Jobs

2011-08-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

Plenty of trees. No shovels.

What?! Oh yeah.

Growing jobs. Growing our economy.

"A federal stimulus grant of nearly $500,000 to grow trees and stimulate the economy in Nevada yielded a whopping 1.72 jobs.."

Nice.

Right Between the Eyes

2011-08-23T17:48:00.000-07:00

Don't start with April Gavaza. 'Norwegian Wood' on a summer reading list? Please. Too racey? No. Too boring! Way too boring.

The New Jersey Superintendent of schools weighs in:

"The board of education ultimately approved the list. They read the books. They didn’t feel it was inappropriate based on the language that’s used, common language used on the street.” The superintendent said students have seen more graphic things on television..."

Now April:

Okay, so let me get this straight: It’s okay to assign books that include graphic depictions of orgies, sexual abuse (what else would you call sex between a 31 year old and a 13 year old?) and the glorification of meth because the teachers think the language has street cred or that kids see worse things on tv? That is pretty faulty logic. Must suck to be that stupid.

Bam.

She's not much for pulling punches, is she? I gotta tell ya, I like that. Go read the whole thing, hang out a while there, maybe venture into the deep end of the pool, wander back and drop a few bills in the tip jar.

She's great.

Perry Picking Up Steam on Leftoid Insanity Meter

2011-08-22T21:16:00.000-07:00

Texas Governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry shot way up in the standings of potentially threatening GOP candidates based on recent results from the Logarithmic Leftoid Insanity Meter. The polling instrument now made famous by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is nearly infallible in detecting the republican candidate most feared by the left. Case in point was Perry's recent appearance in Portsmouth New Hampshire, where beside the ranting and sign waving twits the left usually sends down to disrupt a simple meet and greet event, they threw children at the governor in an attempt embarrass him.

More than a dozen protesters, many of them mobilized by the New Hampshire Alliance for Retired Americans, welcomed Mr. Perry with signs — “My financial security is not a Ponzi scheme”

What a bunch of clowns. First off, Social Security is your financial plan for the future? Wow. Well pal, the sad truth is, if any company were operating an investment scheme that ran the way that Social Security is run, the people in charge would be thrown in jail. Not a ponzi scheme? It's the mother of all ponzi schemes! No one, not billionaire investment scammer Bernie Madoff, no one, has riped off more people than the Federal government has in their ponzi scheme Social Security program. And the killer punch, as always in ponzi schemes, will fall on the last ones in. Our kids.

Kristin Bunce, 43, helped ease her 9-year-old son, Sam Beane, into Mr. Perry’s path. Sam, wide-eyed and looking up at the governor, asked Mr. Perry a question. The governor crouched down so he was just inches from Sam’s face, and in a soft, calm voice began to answer. “How old do I think the earth is?” Mr. Perry said. “You know what? I don’t have any idea. I know it’s pretty old, so it goes back a long, long way. I’m not sure anybody actually knows completely and absolutely how long, how old the earth is.”

Good answer. Apparently Ms. Bunce wasn't satisfied, and pressed Sam to keep after the governor.

Ms. Bunce urged Sam to ask the governor about his views on evolution, and Mr. Perry began to answer her question, still talking to Sam. “And here your mom was asking about evolution, and you know, it’s a theory that’s out there and it’s got some gaps in it,” Mr. Perry continued. “In Texas, we teach both creationism and evolution in our public schools. I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.”

Damn straight.

“I asked him how old he thought the earth was,” said Sam, a rising fourth grader, recounting the exchange. “He said he didn’t know.” Ms. Bunce expressed frustration that Mr. Perry believed in teaching creationism, a theory that is not accepted by mainstream scientists. “Evolution, I think, is correct,” Sam said, looking up at his mother.

Is that right, Mom? No, buddy. First off, what difference will it ever make how old the earth is? If he said it was a million years old, or a billion years old, how will that effect your life? No effect whatsoever. So ask yourself this son, why in the world would your mom keep whispering in your ear to ask the governor that question? And while you're at it, ask yourself what kind of a man will you grow up to be if you learn to simply let people use you for their own ends, even your mother? Does she pull that with your dad? Perhaps you should ask the governor for some advice on that one. He's the kinda man that could set you straight.

State Representative Robin Read, a Democrat who sits on the New Hampshire’s Science, Technology and Energy Committee, asked Mr. Perry if he thought global warming was a man-made phenomenon.

“No, I don’t,” the governor replied. “I think the record is still out on whether global warming is man-made or not. I’m a skeptic.”

As Mr. Perry pressed on, his wife thanked Mr. Read for coming out, but Mr. Read later said he was disturbed by the governor’s response.

“To be a global warming skeptic in this day and age is stunning in its ignorance,” Mr. Read said.

What a dunce. Just ignoring for a moment the outrageously abusive distortion of the facts and the outcome pre-determined research work that has become the legacy of the AGW proponents, we are living in a nation that is in serious trouble. Huge financial uncertainty, a government of runaway spending, disastrous inflation looming around the corner, enemies abroad that are ever more threatening to our way of life, and the most important thing on the mind of this ass-clown democrat house member is Perry's opinion on Global Warming? Who the hell cares?! It doesn't matter a twit.

A few tables over, a man had sidled up to Mr. Perry with a solution to the country’s economic troubles. “I know what’s wrong with our economy,” the man said. “We’re looking up the wrong end of the horse!”

A grin spread across Mr. Perry’s face as he turned and, without saying a word, headed for the door. A few moments later, he was still chuckling quietly to himself.

“Man, that’s funny,” he said.

I like this guy, Rick Perry...

.. and the governor is rocketing off the charts!

Brothers At War

2011-08-21T15:09:00.000-07:00

Growing up, Jake Rademacher had dreams of going to West Point and serving in the military. Unable to gain an appointment, his life followed a different direction. Two years later it was rough and tumble Isaac that gained an appointment to West Point. Now a captain, he has gone on these past ten years to serve in four deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile baby brother Joe Rademacher enlisted in the army. A veteran of the battles in and around Fallujah, he has become a graduate of Ranger school, Reconnaissance and Surveillance Leaders Course and the US Army Sniper School. His last posting he served performing long range reconnasiance duties. The time in the military and service in Iraq created a gulf between Jake and his two younger brothers. In 2005 he went on a mission to produce a film that would help people understand the lives and world that his brothers live in. He sought to understand for himself as well. Brothers at War is that movie.

It is Joe that is the brother that's a little scary. The dark, brooding loner who suffered the loss of his older brother here stateside, then his brothers in arms over seas. It is the hardness and distance in Joe that is so difficult for Jake to get a grip on. Jake goes off to try to understand the world his brothers live in, but it isn't until Jake's second trip that he fully invests himself into living the life of a U.S. servicemen. Jake goes from newbie unfamiliar with how life is lived and afraid of every encounter, to a man who is largely silent about the things he has done and seen.

In the last scene young Joe is shipping off for his third deployment. Jake stands by to see him off, and reaching out to Jake, Joe gives him a brotherly hug, which Jake accepts. As he begins to break off, Joe is still holding on, which takes Jake aback a little, and it is there that you realize that Jake has crossed the bridge and come to share in the world of Isaac and Joe. Jake states "I don't know if I earned the right to sit at the table with Joe, but I have come to understand him better." As a soldier, no, perhaps not, but as a man, as a brother, the answer for Jake is 'Yes.'

It was an excellent show. Hats off to Jake Rademacher, executive producer Gary Sinise, Isaac Radaemacher, Joe Rademacher and all their family.

Steyn Steyn Steyn

2011-08-20T17:55:00.000-07:00

Mark Steyn comments in his latest piece on how out of place and imperial the current resident of the White House appears to be:

"If Bill Clinton wants to make the increasingly and revoltingly unrepublican lifestyle of the American president a campaign issue, Gov. Perry should call his bluff. If I understand correctly the justification advanced by spokesgropers for the Transportation Security Administration, the reason they poke around the genitalia of 3-year-old girls and make wheelchair-bound nonagenarians in the final stages of multiple sclerosis remove their diapers in public is that, by doing so, they have made commercial air travel the most secure environment in the United States. In that case, why can't the president fly commercial?"

Not likely. Not when the Obama's can't even get along with just one jet, but need to take two separate presidential jets to get themselves over to Martha's Vineyard.

Also get over to April's and check the great 1980 RNC convention Ronald Reagan speech that Darrell linked to. That will cheer and inspire you!

And don't forget to catch Mark Steyn live on the radio Monday morning as he subs for the vacationing Rush Limbaugh!

Obamarama

2011-08-17T00:08:00.000-07:00

On the road again! Barack's magical mystery tour has hit the highway, first stop... Iowa. And no, it was not a Field of Dreams moment where Barry suddenly heard a voice out in an Iowa cornfield. More like he was pitching his usual knuckle balls and killing worms with his delivery.

"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months we've had a run of bad luck."

What the...?! A run of bad luck?!! Oh yeah, Obama had it all going his way, and then, whoopsie, things went a little caca. But he doesn't cite the things that you or I or any reasonable thinking person would ascribe as impactful on the American economy. Nope, it was that darn tsunami in Japan, some trouble in the Middle East and then that crazy European debt crisis. We'd just be going like gang busters if it weren't for the hand of fate. Sheesh.

"All those things have been headwinds for our economy," Obama said. "Now, those are things that we can't completely control. The question is, how do we manage these challenging times and do the right things when it comes to those things that we can control?"

Oh, well simple. Step one would be get your god damn boot off our necks. Stop threatening to raise taxes, quit spending everything in sight, stop bullying businesses like BP and Boeing, and quit being such a jerk.

"The problem," Obama continued, "is that we've got the kind of partisan brinksmanship that is willing to put party ahead of country, that is more interested in seeing their political opponents lose than seeing the country win. Nowhere was that more evident than in this recent debt ceiling debacle."

Yeah, and the first name on the list of offenders is Barack Hussein Obama. Good grief, can this huckster actually believe he can get away with this nonsense? It's hard to imagine, but he keeps saying it.

This is a little closer look at what he's really trying to drive over the country:

All just part of another trip the White House claims is non-political. Yes, you see, the President's men explain the armoured bus tour as part of the president's official duties to discuss economic issues with the public.

Right.

With a hat tip to Jill over at Pundit and Pundette.