Everything Is Backwards

I'm Back, Tanned, Rested, and Ready...

2011-10-24T07:27:00.000-04:00

...to take another blog-cation. My birthday was nice, had many well-wishes from friends, played a good gig that evening and it took three whole days to recover.

My liver is glad it's over.

Anywho, my posts will be a bit less frequent, as I have a lot to do around the hacienda cleaning up for the holidays. I know I've said that before, but this time I mean it. Familial duties and all that.

So, here's a few tidbits until I can find my muse once more. I know I put it somewhere...

I was watching the ESPN talking heads yesterday before Tim Tebow's first NFL start as quarterback for the Denver Broncos against the Miami Dolphins and the hostility towards him was palpable for reasons I've yet to fathom. Petty and nitpicking is what it really was. There was even a segue from a commercial that went, "Tim Tebow, love him or hate him..."

That got me thinking: exactly what did Tebow do to cause anyone to hate him? Did he beat up his wife? Did he get in a fight in a bar? Has he shot anyone in a fight in a bar? Caused any dogs to die?

Did I miss something? Or are the sportsheads just a wee bit jealous and maybe scared that Tebow's a better man than they are?

RIP Dan Wheldon. Prayers go out to your wife, children, and family.

The OWSers are getting more and more repugnant as time goes by. Arrests, garbage everywhere, no sanitary facilities, no permits. And they compare themselves to Tea Partiers? I want the GOP to hang these infantile protesters around the neck of every Democrat who embraces them, just to provide a real contrast with the rest of America.

Dumb, stupid and ignorant is no way to go through life. They know less than nothing about how the world works, how capitalism should work, nor how much of anything works. I'm reminded of the scene in Talladega Nights where Texas Ranger points a gushing garden hose inside the neighbors' open window while yelling, "Anarchy, anarchy! I don't know what it means, but I like it!"

Oh, I guess I should put a link to something in here somewhere. This is encouraging, World Power Swings Back to America. They need to give us another year before that happens in earnest, so we can rid ourselves of the Socialists, Marxists and Progressives that have infested the left and Washington. Many politicians have to be defeated in November of 2012, like Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Dianne Fienstein, Olympia Snowe, and their RINO squish enablers like Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell. Even then, we'll need some time to repeal everything that Obama has done. That'll take a while, but do it we much.

I've laid out my plan, albeit in bits and pieces here over the years, but it's imperative that we undo everything that the left has instituted in Washington before we can start to think about leading the world again. And by leading, I mean by example. We should retrench and rebuild our nation, which has been gradually destroyed from within by our enemies, and let the rest of the world do as it pleases. We have enough natural resources to become truly self-sufficient.

We should do it as soon as possible. Our very survival may depend on it,

I'm Taking a Blog-cation Until Monday

2011-10-12T06:44:00.000-04:00

I haven't done this in a while, but I'll be taking the rest of the week off. I'm following in the footsteps of my reluctant mentor, Ace, who just returned from his vacation. Besides, tomorrow is my birthday, so if past celebrations are any indicator, I'll need all that time to ~~sober up~~, ~~raise bail money~~, ~~begin rehab~~, recharge my batteries, so to speak.

So, in my absence, please feel free to poke around in the archives. Or submit ideas for a post in the comments. Or, as some of you geeks have done, post some more info on LightSquared's Grand Debacle. Either way, I want all 11 of you to hang out and enjoy yourselves.

Try not to trash the place, 'k?

In the mean time, I'll leave y'all with one link that comes courtesy of one of the Moron Horde, Vic, who's battling cancer as we speak. As you guys know, I recently lost one of my bestest musician buddies to liver cancer, so my thoughts and prayers are with him, even though we only know each other through our keyboards.

Here's the link: Primary Sources. It's from the Heritage Foundation to some of the Founding Fathers' original writings on government. It should be required reading in schools, but we all know that our precious little ones really only need to know why Heather has two Mommies instead, don't we?

Snark I much.

Anyway, y'all have fun and hoist one for me this fine weekend. In fact, I have a gig tomorrow at a local bedroom community down here that throws a street party on the second Thursday of the month, every month. How nice of them to shut down the town and have a party for my birthday. They really shouldn't have.

Y'all be good and I'll see you on Monday.

A Couple of Radical, Far-Right Protest Songs

2011-10-11T07:19:00.000-04:00

...and by "radical, far-right," I mean average Americans as seen through the lens of the decidedly leftist media and their Washington enablers.

I suppose if the "Teat Party" can do it, so can we.

These protests are becoming rather tedious. I suppose there will always be a certain sector of America that just doesn't have a clue about how the real world works. Having been indoctrinated throughout their lives to leftist thought in schools and being forced to watch such drivel as AlGore's An Inconvenient Truth and the Story of Stuff in class, they can no longer think for themselves. It sure doesn't help when their parents don't have critical thinking skills, either.

I'll carbon-date myself once again to say that there was once a time when one outgrew such infantilities. Things like having a job and raising a family did much to teach a young adult the way of the world. But since we've entered The Fallacious Period of man, this seems lost.

I am most definitely in the wrong line of work. I should become a Professional Protester. It pays much more than I'm making now, but from what I've read, the working conditions are somewhat less than ideal. (h/t to Ace) Whoa, maybe that's not such a good idea after all. It seems that the Axelturfers call for a "living wage," but won't pay their stooges that much? (h/t Insty) It seems like there's an Alinsky Rule for that. Number 4, I believe.

OK, time's getting short, so here are the songs I promised.

Hank Williams Jr. tells ESPN and Fox and Friends to take this job and shove it, kinda sorta.

And this would be a great counter-protest song, too. Ignore the video part, as it seems to have nothing at all to do with the song itself, plus it's NSFW.

Do the protesters get a bonus for crapping on a police car? If not, why not?

The Fallacious Period of Man

2011-10-10T07:16:00.000-04:00

If you or I were anthropologists, we might be tempted to look at this particular age with a jaundiced eye. Everywhere there are false claims, exaggerations, wild theories, misinformation and other evidence that something is missing. While that’s certainly nothing new, technology is enabling bullshit to be more widespread than ever.

I call this Man’s Fallacious Period. I’ve mentioned it before.

It’s not like we’re stupid or anything. Certainly there are and always have been intelligent people. The American Twentieth Century is an example of the world’s best and brightest people doing what they did best: dreaming of a better world and then bringing those dreams to fruition, thus raising the living standard of not only America but the world to levels never before thought possible, creating wealth for themselves and others in the process.

The most recent example of this was the late Steve Jobs.

But intermingled with all this was fallacy. In a way, Mr. Jobs helped to promote this, which is not to diminish his considerable contributions. He could be likened to the first person who harnessed fire. What you do with it after that is up to you.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the political arena. As candidates jockey for power, they say a great many things, some true, some not.

It’s along about here that I draw the analogy between facts and fire, and present, in no particular order, a few of these fallacies.

1. Capitalism is unfair.

2. Mankind is killing the planet.

3. The Tea Party is racist.

4. President Obama knows what he’s doing.

5. America is the world’s Bad Guy.

6. Lady Gaga is a shy, retiring, fashion maven.

I may have made that last one up.

Anyway, you get my point. We’re presented with a great many ideas, some good, some not so good. The question then becomes, “How do I tell the difference?”

In my experience, you need some sort of inner GPS system in order to navigate the seas of fallacies that crash across your bow and threaten to wash you overboard. It’s essential that you remove your emotional reaction from any decision. To quote that great philosopher/warrior Obi Wan Kenobi, your thoughts can deceive you, being as they are so closely linked to emotion. That’s the first thing.

Once free from the ravages of emotion, you can remain calm and take your time exploring as many sides of an issue as possible, testing them against your own experience and those of others. As I used to tell BackwardsBoy’sBoy, some mistakes are so big, you don’t need to make them yourself, you can watch what happens when someone else screws up to see the results. Sometimes, all you need to do is wait for the correct answer to come to you, as it inevitably will. Patience really is a virtue.

We’re currently having our beliefs tested against reality. What works? What fails? Even more importantly, am I seeing things accurately and truthfully?

I sure hope so.

And I hope the same thing for you.

Friday Bits of Tid - Occupation Edition

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

"What do we want?"

"A Friday Bits of Tid post!"

"When do we want it?"

"Now!"

Do you feel all occupied? I know I do.

It's good to know that all the protesters in the Occupy Wall Street demonstration have completely shunned any and all contact with the corporate world they claim to despise. I'm certain that they won't be using their iPhones or iPods or iPads, or using the greedy, corporate bathrooms at places like McDonalds. Or wearing any of those hip clothes, or shoes, or hoodies decorated with greedy, corporate logos made with slave child labor in China.

And they certainly wouldn't try anything as nefarious as Photoshopping Google pictures to make the protest crowd appear to be much larger than it is. They would never do that.

OK, let's occupy this blog, shall we?

At least our protests haven't gone to the dogs, like they have in Greece.

Fido has his own bed, food dish and now, his very own commercial, complete with a high-frequency sound that we humans can't hear.

Capitalism is alive and well, thank you, as evidenced by this new line of Hallmark layoff greeting cards. "Welcome to Funemployment!"

Remember Russian premier Vladimir Putin's scuba dive where he discovered some ancient Greek artifacts? It was faked. Color me surprised.

If they had brains, they wouldn't be thieves. This guy and this guy miraculously managed to snap their own mug shot with smartphones they stole. Now, if they turned on the GPS location feature, it'd be a simple matter for the police to find them.

Being a "double threat" in football usually means playing on both offense and defense. Here's a new wrinkle: place kicker and homecoming queen.

And finally, I can understand having a stereo on a motorcycle, but this takes it to a whole 'nother level.

~~Ride~~ Rock on, dudes.

RIP, Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T06:06:00.000-04:00

Apple Computer founder Steve Jobs, passed away from cancer yesterday.

His bio is here, and pretty much everywhere else you care to click. Even if you're not a Mac user, you can't deny his impact on the personal computer industry.

He was an innovator, businessman, geek, visionary, and American.

Rest in Peace, Steve. You will be missed.

We're Already Losing the Trade War Unecessarily

2011-10-05T07:08:00.000-04:00

Short post today. I'm still reeling over this LightSquared story. Maybe I can find a tie-in, who knows?

I find it interesting that we're in a grand and glorious new age of global commerce. It could be a time of economic renewal for us as a nation, but there are a couple of things that are missing. Like the spirit of competition and a willingness not only to keep up with your competitition, but to do better and excel.

We're being told that we must be a player in this new world order. But, how can we compete if our own government is determined to tie our hands with regulations that are designed to make sure we can't?

All eleven of you know that I'm a firm believer in capitalism and the unfettered free market. But what we have today is anything but. I've outlined the tsunami of regulations that spewed from the 111th Pelosi- and Reid-led Congress. It may be gone, but the damage remains. In fact, we don't have a handle on the actual amount of economic havoc wreaked by this administration, as the regulations are still being written. It's the main driver behind the uncertainty that bedevils our economy.

Now, there's a bill winding its way through the current Congress that aims to put some pressure on China to allow their currency value to float like every other country. Needless to say, the Chineses aren't very happy with this, as they're now threatening a trade war with us.

How nice.

The fact is that we're already losing the trade war, as evidenced by our global trade imbalance. Billions and billions of our dollars are going out of the country and into the coffers of our trade enemies. All this is perfectly justifiable to this administration who sees the US as the bad guy who, because of our success, needs to pay reparations to the rest of the world.

In a sane world where everything wasn't backwards, other countries would be imitating our success instead of robbing us. They'd be reforming themselves instead of us. They would be upping their game, not tearing ours down.

Another thing that I've proposed is to withdraw from this whole idea of a global economy and concentrate on ourselves first. We have the natural resources and the business saavy to do it, just not the political will.

We could drill for our own oil, which we have in abundance, curiously, thanks to the Big Green Movement that has made it essentially forbidden to use. We could be constructing new nuclear plants and oil refineries today. We could stop using food for fuel, ending this outrageously idiotic notion of "American Ethanol" as the cure for our energy woes.

We could regain our manufacturing ability, which we destroyed through NAFTA and GATT. We could reduce the role of government in our economy. We could stop companies from interfering with our own technology, as in LightSquared, where we're shooting ourselves in the foot with a plan to seriously hamper our GPS system (see, I knew I'd find a tie-in).

In short, there's so much we could be doing for ourselves, but aren't.

It's all about the numbers, which so many in Washington either cannot or will not understand. We have met the enemy, and it is us.

One last thingy. I posted a chart by the Moron John E on Monday about numbers. Thanks to LauraW's hump, there's a better version making the rounds of teh Interwebs. This one features dancing girls with fans, champagne bubbles and a big band.

Well, not really.

You may now return to your life.

How Did LightSquared Get This Far Despite Bad Test Results?

2011-10-04T06:57:00.000-04:00

I've been doing some of that exhaustive Interwebs research into LightSquared and the results are, well, I'll let you decide. I already made up my mind.

The original idea for LS is a good one, namely to provide broadband service without cables. As many in the wireless world will attest, it's far easier and cheaper to construct a cellular tower than to run cables to individual homes. But, in execution, the radio frequency that LS will use to bypass those cables gets perilously close to the band that our Global Positioning System uses, interfering in what has been called a "quiet neighborhood." This interference has some pretty nasty side effects.

LightSquared's plan would have the necessary towers located on the ground, and testing proved that these towers would prevent GPS signals from reaching users. While that might sound like a minor inconvenience, I doubt if you would think it was very minor if you called 911 in the middle of a heart attack and the first responders suddenly lost their ability to find you. Or if the airplane you were flying in was on approach to the runway and discovered it didn't know where it was.

And this administration thinks that won't be a problem.

In fact, the Federal Communications Commission issued a special waiver for just for LS so it could operate even after it was pretty much proven that their towers would interfere with ground reception of the GPS signal.

This is beyond incompetence and enters the realm I consider to be dangerous.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted this link to an FAA paper (thanks to a fellow Moron over at Ace's Place) that outlines the negative effect of LightSquared's interference with ground reception. It wasn't the only test.

Here's an overview of their plan from Computerworld.com.

The LightSquared interference debate is among the most heated in recent years in the U.S., pitting the critical and widely used GPS service against a new mobile data entrant with a new technology and business model.

Here's what Congress was told.

LightSquared’s intended deployment of their high-power terrestrial broadband system should not be allowed to commence commercial operations until the identified problems are resolved,” said Anthony Russo, director of the federal National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing.

The FCC was informed.

The document describing the testing states that the Lightsquared initiative “will have a severe impact on the GPS band” and “will create a disastrous interference problem for GPS receiver operation to the point where GPS receivers will cease to operate (complete loss of fix) when in the vicinity of these transmitters.”

The Aircraft Owners and Pilot's Association had this to say...

Subsequent testing confirmed concerns of aviation and other GPS users that low-powered GPS signals are overwhelmed by the strong signals from LightSquared’s ground transmitters.

Feel safe yet? Feel like the federal government is acting in your best interests and that of the public?

Michelle Malkin digs a bit deeper.

Despite industry-wide protests, the firm somehow received fast-track approval for a special FCC waiver that grants LightSquared the right to use wireless spectrum to build out a national 4G wireless network on the cheap. Ken Boehm, of the conservative watchdog National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC) in Washington, D.C., summed up the deal earlier this year: “LightSquared will get the spectrum for a song, while its competitors (e.g., AT&T and Verizon) have to spend billions.”

The current “fix” LightSquared proposes to address the interference problems is a costly, conceptual pipe dream that could require massive retrofitting of millions of handheld GPS devices. GPS expert Eric Gakstatter scoffs: “I’ve been pretty open-minded about LightSquared proposing a solution, but this really insults our intelligence. (A)s we’ve seen previously with LightSquared, it’s not about finding a practical solution for the GPS user community; it’s all about selling an idea to the FCC. The problem is that the FCC doesn’t have to live with LightSquared’s half-baked ‘solution’; we do.”

So, how did this happen? President Obama was an early investor.

And you'll never guess in a million years who else is involved in this danger to the public safety. None other than your fiend and mine, the anti-Christ, George Soros.

As Republican lawmakers begin to dig into the White House's cozy relationship with a startup wireless company and the wealthy Democratic donor who owns it, a new character has appeared on the story's edges: liberal superdonor, conservative bete noire and controversial investor George Soros.

Soros reportedly invested in the telecom company LightSquared through a hedge fund, and many of the nonprofits he finances have backed LightSquared in regulatory and policy disputes.

I propose one more test for LightSquared and it's a very simple one: how long will it take for everyone responsible for this to rot in a jail cell?

Shouldn’t We Fear Global Cooling More Than Warming?

2011-10-03T06:35:00.000-04:00

This Monday, I thought I’d spare you the economic gloom and doom that I normally bestow upon you on this first day of the workweek.

Well, not really, here’s a chart you should see: The Obama Presidency by the Numbers.

No, today I want to explore a point that one of my fellow Morons made a couple of weeks ago in a thread over at Ace’s Place and mentioned in the title. Maybe we’re being told the wrong thing in this whole “global warming” debate.

Snark I much.

There’s no doubt in my mind, and in the minds of others who doubt the entire notion of mankind’s ability to change the global climate, that we’re being lied to in order to be manipulated politically and to act against our own best interests. You need not be a climate scientist to understand what’s going on, all you need is a healthy dose of skepticism and your own common sense.

Let’s set aside the fact that some in government are relying on a group of people who haven’t the slightest idea what the weather will be one month from today to tell us what the climate will be in one hundred years, like a certain governor from a state whose name rhymes with New Jersey, one Chris Christie. He seems perfectly content to abdicate his personal responsibility to question this subject. If he were the kind of politician we need, he’d be reaching his own conclusions based on his own knowledge and intuition.

We’re being preached at, normally on a beautiful, picture-postcard, Chamber of Commerce endorsed day that the Earth is in “crisis” and we’re to blame. Every action we innocently take as we go about our daily life is causing irreparable harm to the planet and we need to revert to some past technological time and forego our modern lives in order to stop it.

But what if “global warming” actually served to work in favor of mankind? Bear with me for a moment.

Wouldn’t a warmer global temperature be better suited for growing crops? Wouldn’t that help us feed a growing world population by increasing the amount of productive land?

I’m just asking here.

What are we so scared of? Al Gore seems to be the political equivalent of Chicken Little, upon whose head an acorn fell, causing said youthful chick to fear something for no reason. Except in Gore’s case, he wanted to make a lot of money from it through his very dubious carbon exchange program, which has since proven (thankfully) to be a bust.

Another thing that these global scaremongers seem to forget is man’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances. While we could adapt to cold, we’d still find ourselves at the mercy of the elements whichever way the climate went, warmer or colder. But wouldn’t we be better off if the Earth did get just a little bit warmer? Personally, I think more farmland and more favorable growing conditions would be a good thing for everybody.

It’s rather difficult to plow frozen land from what I understand.

Friday Bits of Tid - USS Nautilus Edition

2011-09-30T12:18:00.000-04:00

You're probably wondering why I called you all here. It's Friday, that's reason enough.

On this day in 1954, the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was commissioned. This was a technological and tactical triumph for America that greatly enhanced our national security. In addition, it was a slap in the face to Russia, our Cold War adversary, as it was designed by U. S. Navy Captain Hyman Rickover, a Russian. This machine was the state of the maritime art and was celebrated as such in the media, much like the Space Shuttle.

It's worth noting that today's nuclear submarines are more technologically advanced than the Shuttle, which was, at the time of its launch, the most complex machine ever designed and constructed. One can only speculate how many future geeks and geekettes were inspired to join the Navy by the simple existence of the Nautilus.

OK, boys and girls, let's get to tidding.

Yesterday was National Coffee Day, which I missed because I hadn't had enough coffee yet.

And nothing would go better with a cup of the Elixir of Life than a $16 muffin. Did I hear someone ask for a recipe? Here you go.

Out here in the real world, this statement would be called the truth. Inside the DC Beltway, it's considered a gaffe. Since it came from Vice President Biden, it's a big, effin' gaffe...

"Right now, understandably — totally legitimate — this is a referendum on Obama and Biden and the nature of the state of the economy,”

You don't say...

Life imitates art, or more specifically a Pink Floyd album cover. A pig flies over London. I'll wait while you explain to your kids what an album is.

If you only watch one French Star Wars disco ballet today, make it this one. I coulda swore I saw a very young Jodi Foster at the end, for a femtosecond or two.

And finally, there's a stunning revelation from the good people over at the CERN supercollider. It seems that there just may be a subatomic particle that can travel faster than the speed of light. If true, it pokes a black hole in Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

And, seemingly on cue, comes this joke: And the bartender says, "You'll have to leave. We don't allow faster-than-light particles in here." A neutrino walks into a bar. (h/t to the Moron Horde over at Ace's Place)

Also on cue in a cosmic way, since this song from Klaatu was recorded back in the '70's, Little Neutrino. If you have some good ear buds, or even those antique headphone thingys, plug 'em in for this one.

That's it for now. I'll be back yesterday.

Suspend Elections? Pardon Me, Democrats, but Your Mask is Slipping

2011-09-29T06:59:00.000-04:00

Well, this is interesting.

Not one but two relatively prominent Democrats have come out in the past few days to suggest that we should violate our own Constitutional law by suspending elections the name of "progress," North Carolina's Governor Bev Perdue and Peter Orszag, President Obama's first Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

To them, government is the wise arbiter of modern American life, always there with a rule or regulation that you must obey for your own good. You're just a bit too stupid to make your own decisions.

As I've mentioned before, there is a psychological flaw in humans that makes them want to control each other, and this is merely the latest example of it. This flaw is the foundation of the political left in America. When you take a look around, you won't find very much of modern American life that doesn't fall under some law or another.

As Andy over at Ace's place succinctly observes, there is a massive push from Washington and this administration to control virtually everything you do.

This control fetish comes through in almost everything they support. Take, for example, mass transit, which involves moving herds of people from point A to point B on a fixed schedule. Meanwhile, with a car I'm free to go where I want when I want. Mass transit = control; automobiles = freedom.

The left has gone so far as to subvert the scientific method to try to scare you into believing your car is destroying the planet to get you to commit untold billions of dollars to mass transit schemes (among other stupidity). It's not about the planet; it's about control.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. In fact, if you looked at it that way, the whole of human history is a battle between those who want to control others and those who simply wish to be left alone to live their lives peacefully as they see fit.

These control freaks cannot grasp the simple concept that there are people who have their own, built-in self-control. These increasingly rare people don't need laws to tell them what's right and what's wrong. They just know it instinctively and live it every day. The thought of killing, or robbing, or doing anything to anyone else they wouldn't want done to themselves is abhorrent to them.

To the radical left (which is all that remains of the Democrat party these days), these intelligent, self-reliant, morally centered people just don't exist. Everyone is a savage-in-waiting.

Everyone except them, of course.

These control freaks seem like good people. They all hide behind a mask of respectability. From a distance, they look normal enough. But, give them just a whiff of power, and the mask comes off.

At least, now we know who two of them are.

Was Herman Cain's Straw Poll Victory in Florida a "Protest Vote?"

2011-09-28T06:47:00.000-04:00

There's a new leader of the pack in the Republican Presidential race: Herman Cain.

As you may know, he won the straw vote held in Florida over the weekend and then came in first in a national Zogby poll. There has been some speculation by political pundits as to how and why he emerged as the front-runner, with many saying it is a result of Texas Governor Rick Perry's poor performance in the most recent debate.

The Fox News All Star Panel had this to say,

In my humble opinion, Cain's rise to the top is a bit more than a reaction to Perry, it's a warning shot across the bow of the entire field that real, live conservatism is what will win this election.

As the country struggles under the Obama administrations' boot of higher taxes, a tsunami of new and crushing regulation, class warfare that upends the American Dream and pits citizens against each other (commonly known as "organizing"), the country is ready for some relief. It's my hope that those who voted for Obama so they could assuage some artificially created white guilt will begin to realize that they've been set up. As I've pointed out in this space before, race was part and parcel of the foundation of radicalism that began back in the '60's, and it continues to be a cudgel with which to beat anyone who dares to criticize this administration.

Cain's rise is a testament to the Tea Party and its increasing influence on the Republican Party, something that scares the GOP establishment. Rush Limbaugh pointed out the main difference between the Tea Party and the Republican establishment the other day when he said the GOP has little interest in reducing the size of government, it merely wants to run it.

That's an important distinction.

Cain's rise is a signal that the GOP establishment would do well to fully embrace conservatism if it wants to win the White House in 2012. That's something that they've proven unwilling to do, as evidenced by John McCain's selection in '08. He was supposed to be the great compromiser, the guy who reaches across the aisle to Democrats. Instead, he folded in the presidential debates and famously said that the country need not fear Barack Obama in the Oval Office.

Do you still think that today, Mr. McCain?

Many of you will recall that Cain was my early pick. His message of solutions and recognition of the importance of principle when it comes to governing is what got my attention. As Stephen Hayes points out in the video above, Cain doesn't speak pol. He talks like everyone else outside of Washington does. I suppose his straw poll win could be interpreted as a "protest vote" against Perry and particularly Romney, but I think it's a bit more than that. It's a message to the entire field to stop sniping at each other and focus on the policies of the Obama administration that are wreaking much havoc on the country, by design.

The GOP establishment still has a lot to learn, something that it can't quite seem to grasp: Americans are seeing, first-hand, up close and personally, the damage that big government can do. It's everywhere you look. The solution is not to merely slow it down, but reverse it. Everything the Obama administration has done needs to be undone for the sake of the nation. This "fundamental transformation" has gone on long enough for us to see where it's heading now, and the destination is incompatible with the vision of the Founders. It's the corrupt Chicago way writ large in Washington.

I sincerely hope Cain remains the front runner for a while. He has a good message, one that deserves to be heard, particularly by the rest of the field: Embrace conservatism and win.

Now is the time.

Things President Obama Should Worry About, But Strangely Doesn't

2011-09-27T07:01:00.000-04:00

"May you live in interesting times."

I'm sure you've heard that toast before. I've heard that it's a subtle curse.

Doubtless we live in interesting times, times we have inflicted upon ourselves. We wanted to be cool, hip, cosmopolitan, equal to the rest of the world who looks down on America, if you believe the press. So we hired an inexperienced freshman senator who had never held a private sector postition of any kind to the highest office in the land, the Leader of the Free World.

Do we still feel hip? Cosmopolitan? Cool? You tell me.

I'm fairly certain the President feels all cool and hip. He sure struts his way to the teleprompter like he feels that way. I guess it's a power thing, I wouldn't know.

Amidst the greatest downturn in our economic history, our president seems far more focused on his reelection. It's almost like the worse things get, the more he starts blaming others. His latest foil is Congress. They're now the bad guys for not passing his latest "jobs bill." They're more concerned, he says, with rigid ideology than doing what's good for the country. Talk about psychological projection, that right there's a real doozy.

Naturally, he's referring to the Republican controlled House of Representatives. He wants to paint them as the villain, as the ones who are blocking any real progress, namely his bills. Let's forget for a moment that you can't sign a piece of legislation and create jobs in the private sector. That has been tried before with the Stimulus Bill. If I remember correctly, it didn't do a whole lot to help.

So, according to our esteemed President, it's Congress that's standing in the way of prosperity. But is it really the "do nothing," partisan-driven body he says it is? A look at the statistics shows otherwise. In a post over at NRO, Deroy Murdock gives us a peek at what's really going on in Congress. It seems that the evil Republicans in the House have voted a mere 711 times, while the Democrat-controlled Senate has voted, hold onto your hats, a whopping 137 times.

So, um, who's stalling here, really? In a sane world where everything wasn't backwards, who would be called the real obstructionists? It surely looks like it would be Harry Reid and his Senate.

This has some consequences, believe it or not. There are two polls that show Americans are pretty fed up with Obama's shenanigans. One from Gallup shows an historic low of people who are satisfied with the government. But that's not the most important question that was asked. The real kicker is this: "Do think the federal government poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens, or not." Take a guess at how many Americans think so. Go on, take a guess. Nope, it's higher than that. Try again. If you said half the country, you'd be right.

Let that sink in for a moment. Half the country thinks its own government is a threat to freedom.

And it gets even worse. Another poll from Rasmussen shows that only 17% of Americans think that the current government has the consent of the governed.

This is in addition to the 9.1% unemployment rate, the 10% inflation rate, the record number of Americans living in poverty and on food stamps, the record number of people who aren't in the workforce, the record high national deficit, the unrest in the Middle East that threatens Israel, the economic implosion of Europe, the recent revelation of new evidence that the Fast and Furious plan to supply guns to Mexican drug cartels was not only known, but paid for with your tax dollars, the list goes on.

We're sinking as a direct result of the policies of Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi's 111th Congress. It's as plain as daylight.

Mr. President, how do you sleep at night?

One Christian Value I’d Like to See in Government

2011-09-26T07:13:00.000-04:00

If you frequent political sites on these here Interwebs as I do, you read a lot of comments from others. Some of them make sense, some don’t.

If you try to be an informed voter, you occasionally venture into hostile territory to read what’s going on. If you’re a conservative, this means bravely venturing to sites like Daily Kos and Huffington Post to find out what the extreme left wing pundits have to say about political life in these United States.

It’s also an intellectual exercise to compare your beliefs against others. A testing, if you will, between what you know is right in your heart and the latest in leftist ideology.

I try to be as objective as possible, as I’m sure you do. I like being accurate in any personal assessment of an issue. Truth is what I’m looking for.

That’s why one comment I ran across the other day tends to stick with me. Since I do read quite a bit, I can’t remember where it was that I saw this comment. They all become one big blur after a few hours.

Anyway, that comment went something like this: “Republicans are evil because they want to impose a Christian theocracy on America. They want a preacher or a policeman on permanent duty in your bedroom to make sure you only do sex their way. They want America to become some Puritanical Utopia with them in charge, all the laws would be thrown out and replaced with Biblical law, women would all be barefooted, pregnant slaves of their husbands and children would all be mind-numbed robots lumbering in a trance to the Christian school/gulag where they would receive the latest lesson in how to hate everyone who’s not exactly like them, just like it says in the Bible.”

Really?

It’s a sad day when anyone in America thinks that way about their fellow countrymen and neighbors. I’d like to think that the commenter was merely using high snark, but I’m afraid I know better. I’ve seen far too many comments of this nature to think that’s the case.

The biggest problem with that isn’t the commenter’s apparent lack of knowledge of the Faith. It’s the fact that, like many Americans, they’ve been bamboozled into believing what someone else has told them instead of using their own experience. They’ve bought into a false image that someone else has concocted in order to elicit that exact response.

It’s the same thing that the leftist-controlled media has done with Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney and the Tea Party. We had a name for this tactic of making people believe things that aren’t true back when we had a common, identifiable, very real and present enemy named Russia: propaganda.

Propaganda was something we considered ourselves incapable of here in America. “That can’t happen here,” was the common belief thanks to our sense of national unity. However, that was then, this is now. As the line between opinion and reportage has been blurred over the past twenty years or so, it’s become more difficult to separate fact from fiction.

You really need to examine the validity of anything you read or hear for yourself. This requires an inner foundation of Truth, a standard separate from your emotions, that tells you the difference between bullshit and not-bullshit.

But, I’m digressing. Sorry.

You see where I’m going with this. You’re expected to swallow everything your betters in Washington and their lapdog media tell you without examining the truth of what they say. And if you disbelieve them, well, then there must be something wrong with you. After all, who doesn’t want to fit in with all the really cool people?

So, where was I? Oh yeah, Christian values in government.

There is one Christian tenet I would like to see those in Washington use: The Golden Rule. You know, the one that says to treat others the way you want to be treated.

I’d really like to see our elected officials use this just a bit more than they do, especially when it comes to my tax dollars. I don’t like to see my money wasted on things that have already proven to fail, like “green energy.” Or societal engineering. Or fundamentally transforming the country. Thanks, but I liked it just the way it was, especially when we had a good economy, full employment, cheap energy and groceries, sorta like we had just a few years ago.

I’d like to know how Warren Buffett would feel if I were to take a percentage of his money from him and use it in a way I knew he wouldn’t like, wastefully.

Simply because I could.

Friday Bits of Tid - Satellite Catching Edition

2011-09-23T11:45:00.000-04:00

Good Morning! It's another Friday, and if you watched the Republican Presidential Candidate Debate properly last night, you doubtless have a severe hangover from the drinking games.

To you I say, GOOD MORNING!

Who's up for some exercise today? We could all go outside and try to catch the satellite that's due to enter the atmosphere sometime today. Whoever catches it will win the Grand Prize: a free, one-year subscription to Everything is Backwards. (Pictures will be required for verification purposes.)

I missed the debate last night, as I had some musical-type business to attend to. BackwardsGirl was kind enough to record it, though. As a result, I couldn't tell you who the winner was, but as usual, you can leave your impressions in the comments.

I noticed that Gary Johnson was present for this one. I really would've liked to have heard Thad McCotter, but he dropped out of the race a few days too soon. With his poll numbers (or lack thereof), I kinda doubt he would've been invited anyway.

With an eye toward the sky, let's get to it. The bitting, that is.

Hey, I have an idea to reduce government spending. Howzabout we set a strict limit on the amount of money anyone in Washington can spend on muffins? $16 apiece sounds just a little high to me. But then again, we're dealing with a class of people who have no problem spending other peoples' money. I'd mention that it would really be nice if these folks would follow the Golden Rule, but that would probably just make me a racist or something...

Supporters of Gibson Guitars are holding a ~~rally~~ concert. Details at the link. If you're in the area and can attend, please do so. If I was, I would.

On a related subject, here are 40 Noises that Built Pop.

The growing problem of Amish militancy.

What do German men do between Oktoberfests? Why, grow beards, of course. And then enter them into competitions. (Spoiler Alert: the guy with the reindeer beard wins.)

Um, Mr. President, this isn't the kind of American exceptionalism we're talking about.

Governor Gary Johnsons' neighbors' dogs, doing the job Obama won't do.

When fabric softener is outlawed, only outlaws will have fabric softener. Man breaks into house to do laundry.

NY assistant prosecutor moonlights as dominatrix. Talk about taking your work home with you...

And finally, I was reminded of something during the Rams/Giants game the other night. Watch at the 0:37 point...

It was this...

Y'all have a good weekend, y'all.

LightSquared is a National Defense Disaster for the US

2011-09-22T07:12:00.000-04:00

If you havent gotten up to speed on this issue yet, I have some very disturbing news for you. I really don't know any other way to put it: if LightSquared is allowed to implement its plans for wireless broadband service, it will disrupt our GPS system.

Disruption of our GPS system of navigation would be very bad for our country.

I'm not going to get into the political implications of this issue, there are other folks who can cover that aspect, probably better than I can. It appears this issue, at first glance, has much in common with Solyndra.

Where it differs is the technological damage it would cause to the nation. There would be an awful lot of it.

While I was over at Ace's place yesterday (my favorite Interwebs hangout, as you all know), one of the commenters posted this link to a PDF from the Federal Aviation Authority entitled LightSquared Aviation Impacts. The document is a reply to a body of GPS experts that helps coordinate the nations GPS system. I only had time to read the first few pages, but what it contains should concern you greatly.

I'll spare you a lot of geek-speak and just say that this plan, while it may sound good, would be devastating to commercial and military aviation that depends on our GPS system for safe navigation.

The effects of LightSquared deployment would be far-reaching and potentially devastating to aviation. Proposed LightSquared operations would severely impact the efficiency and modernization of the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world. LightSquared operations would bring numerous curent and planned safety, efficiency, environmental improvements to a halt- jeopardizing U.S. leadership in the modemization of the global airspace system.

Our current GPS system is to be the foundation for an upgrade in navigation technology, something that the LightSquared plan would jeopardize in a big way.

I strongly recommend you pour yourself a shot of something very strong before you read the FAA letter. The ramifications of this plan would have a devastating effect on our GPS capabilities while costing us billions in unnecessary expense. Even worse, it would put the traveling public in real danger from crashes.

There's much more research to do. Here's the Wikipedia link, which is where I'll be spending my weekend reading.

It appears that the White House is supporting this project. I find it unusual that there would be the highest support for a plan that would harm the nation in so many ways. It's expensive, it's dangerous, and it never should have been considered unless there was another way to implement it in another frequency range that was safely away from the frequency range where GPS operates. This is beyond incompetance, this is a blatant disregard for the safety and security not only of the flying public, but the military too. It will make us very vulnerable to attack and greatly reduce our military advantage in that event. It is a national security issue of the highest order.

I'm still struggling to find the words to describe my feelings about that. The one word that keeps coming to mind, I'm rather reluctant to type, as you might understand.

Treason.

The Solyndra Slip - Kaiser Admits His Greed

2011-09-21T07:09:00.000-04:00

Well, things are certainly beginning to heat up in the "green energy" sector of our economy.

If you've been keeping track of this glorious experiment in command and control economics, certainly you're aware of the story of Solyndra, the solar-panel manufacturer that recently became financially insolvent after squandering over $500 Billion of your tax dollars. Now that there is a Congressional investigation, the facts behind this debacle are emerging at a furious pace, and none of them look very good for the Obama administration.

What we have here is a failure to understand how our free market is supposed to work, among other things, like political corruption in the White House, crony capitalism, favoritism, and a whole bunch of other things that the government shouldn't be doing.

Again.

In case you didn't already know, this administration, through the failed Stimulus Act, has funnelled billions of your tax dollars into companies that wouldn't normally have received startup capital through traditional means, namely presenting a viable business plan to investors. They're lining up at the door to the White House for a handout from Uncle Sam.

What has occurred in reality is that an awful lot of your money has gone to Obama's political cronies and money bundlers. What it adds up to is theft. Hope and Change indeed.

Without going too deeply into the sordid details, the government has decided that it will attempt to create a whole new sector of our economy. The only problem with that is, this sector has existed for over a generation and has yet to prove itself in the free market.

Normally, any sector must be able to sustain itself by generating wealth. The fact that this isn't happening in the green energy sector hasn't stopped many well-intentioned people in Washington from pumping money into it. The problem is that it isn't their money, it's yours, and mine. Funny, but I don't remember telling anyone I voted for to do this. How about you?

Ever since this whole "mankind is killing the earth" hoax began, a few brave souls have tried, with the best of intentions, to make some money from it. Nothing wrong with that, but ask yourself if, after more than thirty years of failure, it deserves to be propped up with your money instead of doing what other businesses do, namely, sustain themselves or go out of business, all on their own, without government subsidies. All the time.

It's a good thing that there are folks in Washington who now want to take a closer look at the distorted way this sector is being funded. To my knowledge, there is no other segment of the economy that "works" the way green energy works. What we're discovering, as the curtain gets pulled back on the process, is the Chicago Way of Corrupt Politics, transplanted to Washington by the current inhabitant of the White House.

There's only one thing to remember in all of this: if these "green energy" companies had a really good idea, it would have already worked in the free market. The simple fact that these companies depend upon government subsidies to start up and operate is evidence that they aren't viable.

It's along about this time that bring in somebody named Bill Clinton to share with us his expert economic analysis of the burgeoning green energy sector.

"This has to work economically," he said. "You have to come up with the money on the front end."

Um, Bill, that's not how it works, not out here in the real world, anyway. If it was a good idea, it wouldn't need tax monies. It would create its own.

Just so you know there, Bill.

I ran across this little video of one of Solyndra's principles, George Kaiser, openly boasting of his goal to secure as much of our money as possible from the Stimulus. (h/t Weasel Zippers and Ace)

Verun Serum, who posted this story initially, has this to say:

Frankly I can think of no better condemnation of the corruption and utter futility of the Obama stimulus then the fact that here you have one of the wealthiest philanthropists in America, a man with nearly $10 billion in personal assets, openly stating his intention to grab as much stimulus money as he possibly could, like every other pig at the trough. Is this the proper role of government, to take hard-earned dollars from tax payers (and their children and grandchildren) to fund the vanity projects of multi-billionaires, well-intentioned or not, who just so happen to have the right political connections? The $500 million to Solyndra is only the tip of the iceberg, I’d bet. How many other stimulus deals were greased by Kaiser and others like him?

I’m not the first to notice, but Obama is a bit of a fraud. Not exactly sure how he reconciles his tax the rich rhetoric with his Administration’s track record of deals like this. If you really believe the rich aren’t paying their fair share you might start by not forking over taxpayer dollars to your billionaire donors.

It gets better, much better. NRO points out this little nugget of legal information -

While Solyndra’s failure is an embarrassment for both parties, Kaiser’s foundation still stands to recoup a large chunk of its investment in the company, whereas taxpayers will recoup very little, if any, of the $535 million investment the White House made on our behalf. That’s because once Solyndra’s financial troubles became too obvious to ignore, the DOE negotiated a loan restructuring that gave priority status to private investors over taxpayers with respect to the first $75 million recovered in the event of Solyndra’s collapse. As Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations pointed out last week, this appears to be a blatant violation of federal law.

Toilet, meet my money. Money, toilet.

Land for Peace? What Happened to Being "Citizens of the World?"

2011-09-20T06:47:00.000-04:00

I don't often delve into foreign affairs, seeing as how we have enough problems here at home to solve. But something dawned on me yesterday.

The Palestinians will go before that august body of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism, the United Nations, to ~~declare war on Israel~~ demand statehood. Their claim is over land.

I find it curious that, in this era of non-citizenship, we're all supposed to be good global citizens, think globally and act locally and all that. It's the reason why those on the left believe that the idea of being a patriotic American is an archaic, outdated one.

In order to be terminally hip, you're not supposed to be nationalistic in any way, shape, or form. The land upon which you live isn't supposed to be any better or any worse than where anyone else lives. All cultures are equal and all are equally good, isn't that the basic premise of multiculturalism? Aren't we supposed to be one, big, happy, global family?

Why, then, are one select group exempted from this New World Order? Why do the Palestinians get to demand that their land is superior to the land of the Israelis? Shouldn't that notion be, you know, outdated?

American schoolchildren aren't exposed to anything that resembles accurate American history, as far as I can see. One child was prohibited recently from bringing an American flag to his school in the name of safety. That dangerous stick thingy that holds the flag could be used as a weapon, donchaknow. It's not like a pencil, whose sharp, pointy end could be (and has been) used as a real weapon (on me). Any excuse will do, as long as it works to foster the notion of America as the world's bad guy.

But the Palestinians can demand that they live in Israel? Let's forget for a moment that their governing body is aligned with a terrorist organization that has pledged to wipe Israel off the map. Let's also forget that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and has the booming economy to prove it. Do you think there would be more prosperity in the Mideast if the surrounding countries were truly free?

Can you say, "double standard?" I knew that you could.

Economics ala Obama - What Private Sector?

2011-09-19T07:06:00.000-04:00

Good Monday mornin', y'all.

Economics has been referred to as "the dismal art." As it's being practiced by the Obama administration these days, that description hardly begins to describe it. Dismal is what we're seeing, hearing and feeling with every new economic report.

Every economic indicator that should be up is down, and vice-versa. There are record numbers of Americans living in poverty and on food stamps, record numbers of Americans out of work or working in jobs outside their chosen field for far less money than a few years ago. Inflation is way up, led by energy prices. One big reason for the high cost of groceries has to do with energy: we're using foodstuffs, primarily corn, for fuel.

The Obama administration concocted the Cash for Clunkers program that, while nice in theory, was a disaster in practice. Recently constructed vehicles were destroyed by the program, skewing the price of used vehicles and putting a reasonably priced used car out of reach for many Americans.

These are but two examples of the many wrong economic notions that this administration has glommed onto. It seems that Obama and his economic team have a penchant for pursuing all the wrong policies in trying to control our economy and get it back on its feet.

In short, Mr. President, you're doing it wrong.

It's not just the practices and false theories. There are plenty of those to go around. We're getting many lessons in what not to do. Destroying perfectly good vehicles isn't a good idea in any economy. Neither is using food for fuel, especially when we have vast reserves of oil and natural gas that we aren't allowed to harvest.

I fear is that, as we watch more and more questionable economic policies and theories being employed by Obama, we're in danger of forgetting how it's really done. We have some recent history to guide us in making sound economic decisions, but no one inside the Beltway seems to understand it.

This administration is teaching a valuable lesson to the nation. It's doing everything in its considerable power to alter our traditionally free market. These economic gurus and guru-ettes have studied every sort of cockamamie economic theory except the one that works. And the one thing that would work would be removing the shackles of government from the market.

Capitalism is being strangled to death. And the very same ones doing the strangling are more than happy to say that capitalism doesn't work. Indeed, how can it when the Obama administration is busy churning out more and more regulations by the day? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I get queasy when I see what the White House is doing. I'm past the idea that this is the cause of incompetence. After nearly three years, these people know what they're doing. They're trying to permanently alter our economic system so it will never again function as intended. "Fundamental transformation" is the term they use, if I remember correctly.

I'm not alone in my assessment. This link from Hot Air says it all: The vast majority of Americans believe business and consumers are over-regulated. And this post from Fox News.com puts it into perspective...

From financial services to farming, plumbing to computer repair, business owners say new regulations have them so bogged down in compliance that it is hindering their ability to plan and expand for the coming years.

Even though President Obama recently acknowledged the need to minimize regulations, the number appears to be growing. Obama administration regulations on new business rose to 3,573 final rules in 2010, up from 3,503 in 2009 -- the equivalent of about 10 per week.

Indeed, the 2010 volume of the Federal Register, the "newspaper" of regulatory agencies, stands at an all-time record-high 81,405 pages composed of final rules, proposed rules, meeting notices and regulatory studies.

"There is something like 180 million words of binding federal law and regulation. It would take a lifetime just to read it," said Philip K Howard, founder of Common Good.

But this is only one mistake this administration is making. Of course, I'm assuming they really want the economy to perk up. It would seem that after nearly three years of wrong decisions and using flawed and erroneous economic theories, they would change course and embrace the free market.

Instead, they act as though the private sector doesn't even exist when it comes to creating jobs.

I just hope we don't forget completely how it's done, reviving the economy, that is. Ace had this story from NRO in the sidebar the other day. It's long, but well worth your time to read - Houston, we have a solution. It's an economic Tale of Two Cities. And speaking of Michigan, here's a stat I've never seen before, the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index. (Warning: the comments are NSFW, being as how they're Morons and all.)

And if you don't read anything else today, read this, also from Ace's sidebar - The Progressive and the Pencil.

At least there are a few people who remember how free market capitalistic economics is supposed to work.

We need to remind ourselves that what's currently happening to our economy need not happen. If we had the right people in the right places in Washington, we wouldn't be in the mess we find ourselves in today.

There is a right way to get our economy going again, to create jobs and wealth and tax revenue and everything else we need.

This administration refuses to do it.

Friday Bits of Tid - The Mayflower Edition

2011-09-16T11:05:00.000-04:00

Yo, yo, yo, y'all. It's Friday again!

Yay?

On this day in 1620, The Mayflower departed England and set sail for the New World. 66 days later and 500 miles off course, she landed at present-day Provincetown, Massachusetts. The Mayflower Compact was drawn up and ratified en route, paving the way for the first ever lawsuit in New England.

Even the Pilgrims had priorities.

If you watched the Republican Presidential Candidate Debate last Monday, you know that Texas Governor Rick Perry caught a lot of flack from the other candidates for his attempt to require teenaged girls to get vaccinations against cervical cancer. Some of that criticism was deserved, that's part of the reason why the debates are held, to more fully explore the candidates' records.

It was Michelle Bachmann who led the most damaging attack Monday. The subject came up early, and Perry admitted to his mistake. Immediately after Perry's apology, Bachmann tore into him in what I considered a tasteless attempt to salvage her campaign. She later recounted to Greta Van Susteren the story of a tearful woman who had approached her afterwards, claiming her daughter had suffered mental retardation as a result of the vaccination, something that has yet to be verified.

Perry remained tight-lipped, and took his criticism like a man, but there's more to this story. It seems that the governor made a friend during that time, a young woman named Heather Burcham who was dying of cervical cancer.

Perry never mentioned this story during the debate. The fact that he didn't speaks volumes about his character, all of it good. By not playing this up, we got a good lesson in personal politics and insight into the man whom I'd like to see elected as President.

Let us tid.

This is encouraging. A Nobel Prize winning physicist has resigned from the American Physical Society over its' official position that man is causing "climate change," or whatever they're calling it this week.
There seems to be a large and growing rift between "climate scientists" and physicists over the issue. Hey, AlGore, is that science really settled, as you continue to claim? Doesn't appear so, does it? To quote the BlogFather, I'll start believing all these warmists dire prediction when they start acting like like their predictions are dire.

Is that a snake in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me? No, it's a snake.

"Hello, 911? There's a drunk moose in my tree."

Road ~~dog~~ cat.

Presisent Obama's very most favorite bazillionaire, Warren Buffett, you know, they guy who wants us all to pay more taxes, despite not setting the example by writing his own check to Washington to set an example, owes over $1Billion in back taxes himself.

Harry Reid take on the the great issue of our day: bike paths. The country's in the very best of hands.

And finally, the Obama reelection campaign's new site, Attack Watch.com, has become an overnight sensation. What you're supposed to do is go there to report any "distortions" published anywhere about our Dear Leader. What happened instead is the stuff of Internet legend. In less that 48 hours, it became a laughingstock, generating more jokes and snark than in any prior period in history. Here's a small sample:

...Both were met with comment after comment from readers offering the type of "attacks" they were going to report to the Obama re-election site. The #attackwatch Twitter page was immediately spammed with tweet after tweet heavy on sarcasm regarding the president's stimulus and jobs creation plans.

"hey #AttackWatch I heard the only good 'Cash For Clunkers' did was get all the obama stickers off the roads, thank you," tweeted @speedyjerry.

"Hey #attackwatch, I saw 6 ATM's in an alley, killing a Job. It looked like a hate crime!" wrote @thorninaz.

And this video parody...

I save the best for last. Hitler discovers the grim truth...

What, you haven't reported this site yet? What are you waiting for?

Y'all have a good weekend.

What's Love Got to Do With It?

2011-09-15T06:52:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, President Obama gave a speech. Someone in the crowd shouted, "We love you." Obama's response was this.

Love? I don't think that word applies here.

You have tried this before. The Stimulus Bill didn't work. In fact, it worked in reverse. We're much worse off as a result of it. And now you want to try it again?

Mr. President, you can't wave your sceptre and create jobs. Jobs are the natural result of a free market economy. You seem insistent upon remaking our economy into something that's not an economy. You contend that the Republican controlled Congress wants to deny you a political victory.

Here's the truth: A victory for you is a loss for the nation. You got virtually everything you wanted with the willing help of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for the first two years of your presidency. And the nation is suffering mightily as a result.

It's not that we don't love you as a person: we don't love what you're doing. That is the important difference.

You have criticized the overwhelming majority of the country. You have criticized conservatives, Tea Partiers, Republicans, doctors, corporate jet owners, businesspeople, and average Americans, whom you called "bitter clingers." You have called us "the enemy" more than once. And your actions have proven it more than once. Every action, every regulation, every mandate you have approved is doing nothing but crippling our country in every way imaginable.

And now you want us to love you, when you clearly don't love us? You should understand that this "love" thingy works both ways.

Mr. President, it appears that, judging by your words and actions, you don't love America.

Some Good News and Some Bad News

2011-09-14T07:09:00.000-04:00

Good mornin', y'all.

OK, I'll get the bad news out of the way first. There are more Americans living in poverty than ever.

The ranks of America's poor swelled to almost 1 in 6 people last year, reaching a new high as long-term unemployment left millions of Americans struggling and out of work. The number of uninsured edged up to 49.9 million, the biggest in more than two decades.

More bad news: this was from last year. 2010. Is there any doubt that it's gotten worse since then?

Obama's jobs bill is just more of the same old failed Keynesian bullshit belief that the government can create jobs. It can, but only for the government. I'm hopeful that the country is about to discover that it's really the private sector that is the generator of jobs. As we all should know by now, as exemplified by the Solyndra debacle, that any direct stimulus of jobs is temporary, and that the jobs disappear when the subsidies dry up.

And speaking of Solyndra, Obama is under the microscope, as more details come out about this failed attempt to construct our economy around another failed idea. (Via Drudge.)

You'd think that after some thirty years of trying to compete in the free market, and meeting with, shall we say, something less than success, somebody in Washington would've figured out that there are better places to put the peoples' money. But when your a Crony Capitalist like Obama, what's a few hundred million between political friends and bundlers? It's not like it's their own money or anything.

Now the good news. The special election for disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner's seat in New York has a winner, Republican Bob Turner. That seat hasn't been in Republican hands since the 1920's.

Talk about a sea change, this is going to leave a mark for sure. It's as much a rebuke of Obama and the Democrats as anything we've seen so far. Oh, the White House will try to spin this, but there's no escaping the fact that the country is awake to the damaging horrors of leftism and is ready to change course dramatically. We're getting a big lesson in what not to do when it comes to politicians and their governing philosophies. We got dragged way to the left, and we're just now finding out how and why big government cannot work.

When we get a larger government, we get more restrictions placed on our economy. How's that working out? It's a simple rule, almost too simple for anyone inside the Beltway to comprehend. What we need (and I firmly believe we'll demand in 2012) is for government to be drastically reduced in size and influence. We've progressed to the point where something that was seemingly unthinkable only a few years ago is gaining widespread acceptance, namely the elimination of entire sectors of the federal government. I doubt seriously if anyone would miss the EPA, or the Department of Education, or the National Endowment for the Arts.

If this notion is fully embraced, it signals a bright future for the nation. There is so much pent up demand in the private sector, when it's unleashed, the world will see just how well capitalism can work for the people. We truly have an opportunity to lift ourselves and the rest of the world out of the economic mess we've inflicted upon ourselves by electing the wrong people into power.

I can't wait.

It's coming, this American Renewal. The spirit is there, patiently waiting to be rediscovered.

We truly are different than the rest of the world, and we're about to prove it in a good way.

Some Impressions from the Second GOP Candidate Debate

2011-09-13T06:50:00.000-04:00

CNN and the Tea Party, together at last? Shirley, it's a sign of the apocalypse.

Perry got pounded on his cancer-virus immunization program, even after he admitted he made a mistake. Bachmann's continued attacks just made her look petty. Perry appeared unfazed, but there was more criticism to come for his promotion of in-state college tuitions for illegals. That's two strikes against him.

Newt continues to surprise me. He did very well in the first debate, especially when he confronted the bias of the moderators. He appeared to be the peacemaker then, last night, not quite so much. After his early self-inflicted wounds, he's rebounding nicely. He still has a way to go to get my vote, though.

Herman Cain is impressive as well. He is more focused on specifics such as his 9-9-9 plan to revamp our tax code. He's upbeat, intelligent, informed and would make a great Commerce Secretary.

Bachmann got some applause early, especially every time she mentioned the Constitution. As I mentioned earlier, her continued attacks on Perry were petty, considering the timing. She would make a good VP though, with her experience in Congress.

Romney tried, but continues to appear to flail about, trying to keep up with the pace of the moderation. One minute replies don't seem to work well for him, but even if you give him more time, he doesn't elaborate very much. This is a detail-oriented time for the country, vague platitudes and overall statements aren't going to suffice. Voters want specifics, and Mitt seems reluctant to be forthcoming with his. He continues to tout RomneyCare, the biggest strike against him.

Santorum appears out of his league, struggling to keep up as well. He's not very good at tooting his own horn, which he did a lot of last night.

To Huntsman I say, dude, just give up. You aren't doing yourself or the country any favors by continuing your quest. If he's in the next debate, I'll be surprised, although the thought of Harley 1 being in the Secret Service's garage is nice.

And now to Paul, the GOP's crazy uncle. On domestic issues, he's not terrible. But when it comes to foreign policy, he's absolutely batshit crazy, as the country found out last night. He would have us abandon Israel and withdraw all our troops from everywhere in the world. Although there is a strong undercurrent in the nation that wants us to no longer be the world's policeman, he's doing it wrong. And his irresponsible, immature statement that the US is "occupying" other countries should pretty much disqualify him from serious consideration for president. Ronnie, we aren't "occupying" any country, as we are there with the full cooperation of their governments. What was amazing to me is how no one else called him out on that. But, I guess that's what crazy uncles are supposed to do, while everyone else rolls their eyes. At least they make Thanksgiving dinner, shall we say, interesting?

Overall, in my opinion, Perry lost just a bit of luster, Romney sorta held his ground in second place, Newt's making his way forward, Cain continues to say a lot of what needs saying, Bachmann's losing ground, and the rest should just go ahead and withdraw.

At least Wolf Blitzer tried to contain his bias more so than Brian Williams did last week. The Fox-sponsored debate is on the 22nd, if I recall. Hopefully, they'll be a bit better and show the other sponsors how to do it correctly.

What say you?

Krugman Kraps on 9/11

2011-09-12T07:01:00.000-04:00

Good Monday morning, y'all.

Maybe you read this yesterday, but the New York Times "economist" Paul Krugman, former Enron financial advisor, was nice enough to get up early on the tenth anniversary of the worst attack on American soil to type this little screed: The Years of Shame. Click at your peril, as it contains the very worst of Krugman's leftie pomposity.

Here's a taste...

Te 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.

Needless to say, Krugman's vile little piece of red journalism wasn't well received by about, oh, 98% of the public who were busy yesterday recalling the senseless murder of nearly 3000 innocent Americans and the countless acts of bravery by first responders and ordinary people who found themselves in the most extraordinary circumstance we've ever seen.

Um, Pauline, just what would you have had us do in response? Issue a sternly worded letter of condemnation, ala some weak, European, socialist country?

My boy, you're forgetting where you live.

Here's another little turd of "thought" from the link...

A lot of other people behaved badly.

Like the terrorists? How about them, Pauline? Did they not go out of their way to draw up their elaborate plans to kill as many Americans as possible, cripple both our economy and government, only to have their well-thought-out (to them) plans foiled by the passengers on Flight 93?

Oh, no, Pauline couldn't blame the actual perpetrators of the crimes that day. Tell me, you simpering little self-important idiot, how GW Bush, Mayor Guliani and Police Chief Kerik "cash in" on the tragedy? By penning a best-selling book six months later while the ruins of the World Trade buildings were still smoldering?

The little lefty ended with this...

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.

Maybe to you the memory of 9/11 has been poisioned. The rest of the country, the patriotic 98%, the ones you look down your little nose at, certainly doesn't think that. No, Pauline, we are able to see the truth of that day.

Your cowardice is evidence of your intellectual and moral vapidity, which is foisted upon the nation weekly along with your failed economic theories. You are a despicable excuse for a man and undeserving of the title of American. You should be fired and shunned by the rest of the country. Your outdated, radically leftist opinions are the stuff of insanity.

I'd really like to hear you say the words you bravely typed to me in person, you little socialist wimp.

This is what you'd get, and would rightly deserve.

Have a nice day.

September 11, 2011

2011-09-11T11:13:00.000-04:00

That we may never forget that infamous day...

(many thanks to The Jawa Report)

This is Really Thursday. Oh, and You're Getting Sleepy, Very Sleepy

2011-09-10T14:02:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the absence. I haven't forgotten about you guys, I really haven't.

Bill Gates is nice enough to automatically update my computer every few weeks or so. Most of the time, I don't even notice them, but occasionally, I'll have some sort of trouble following an install. That's what happened this time.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Anywho, here's what I was going to post last Thursday.

When Did Making Money Become Wrong?

I’ve been wondering a few things lately, so today, I’ll be Mister Question Boy. Not to be confused with Dave Barry, who frequently becomes his alter ego, Mr. Answer Man.

The main question on my mind this morning is this: When did making money become wrong?

Granted, there have been some folks whose love for money has caused them to make it any way they could, without regard to how they would feel if they were on the receiving end of their own actions. That’s why we have laws, to *ahem* remind these unscrupulous people that we, as a society, don’t take kindly to their tactics.

No, that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about the current social undercurrent being promoted by, well, pretty much the entire political leftosphere. Every time I hear someone like Nancy Pelosi criticize “the rich,” I wonder who she means. After all, isn’t she worth several million dollars herself? What sense does it make for her to rail against rich people, the overwhelming majority of whom worked their tails off to get that way.

A casual observer would think that something was amiss. That’s a pretty big psychological inconsistency. Here’s this rich person constantly saying how bad rich people are for being rich.

If anyone can explain this, I’d be interested to hear it.

I’ll carbon-date myself again and say that I can remember a time when this wasn’t so. Making money the old-fashioned way (earning it) was a point of pride. It used to be that the business of America was business. Every American pretty much wanted to be successful, to have more money and the affluence that came along with it. There was nothing wrong with it as long as you did it legally. It was even better if you did it with good cheer and a recognition that you were helping your neighbor to have a better life.

But somewhere along the way, this notion has been turned around until today, even our own President goes against traditional American social convention to ridicule “corporate jet owners,” “fat-cat bankers,” and a few others that I haven’t heard of.

It’s unfortunate, but it doesn’t take much of this type of official rhetoric before the weak-minded begin to parrot it too. Without realizing it, they have allowed themselves to become psychologically and emotionally manipulated through an authority figure.

But, if you point this out, you’ll likely be told that “society has changed.” Which brings up another question: How and why did it change? OK, that’s really two questions, I know, but you get my drift.

Here’s one more: Has society changed for the better? Are we any better off as a result of this new and decidedly leftist passion to “punish the rich?” I heard Rush ask this question the other day while citing the statistic that American is losing millionaires at a rapid pace. Did anyone magically receive any of the hated rich’s money?

No?

I know I certainly didn’t. I bet you didn’t either.

An hour spent researching some world history will reveal that this idea of class warfare isn’t American. Not by any means. The entire philosophy of Marx, Engels, and many other “revolutionaries” was based on economics. They wanted to upend the free market system and create a workers utopia where everyone was "equal," with them overseeing the great new society they had created.

How did that work out? Did Mother Russia become a superpower as a result? Yes, for a time. Were their people happy? Was there plenty of food on the shelves in their grocery stores? Were their automobiles the worlds’ fastest or best?

Were their people more free or less free to innovate and bring new and exciting products to market to make our lives easier or give us more time to spend with our families?

Did it work?

No?

Hmmm…

Why Doesn't Anyone Understand the Free Market?

2011-09-07T07:06:00.000-04:00

Whilst scouring the Interwebs this fine morning for grist for the blog, I noticed something, something rather disquieting.

It seems that no one understands how a free market economy works.

I noticed this primarily from the comments sections on a couple of news posts. Assuming that the Axeltrolls weren't out in force (something which can never be dismissed), a large part of our current problems are the result of a basic lack of knowledge about how things should be done economically.

When it comes to economics, we're dumber than a box of rocks.

We're doing it wrong.

I'll carbon-date myself once again and say I can remember when basic economics was taught in schools. Home economics was once a part of every school's curriculum, although it was concentrated mostly in the kitchen. But reading the comments in a few of the articles this morning really drove the point home. namely that we've a nation of economic morons.

We can't even look back at history and see what worked to boost our economy and duplicate it.

I'm still trying to figure out how people came to think that the federal government can directly create jobs. This is the primary fallacy that too many Americans are laboring under. All the government can do is create government and government jobs.

Once upon a time, the public knew the difference between the roles of the public and private sectors and the twain rarely, if ever, met in the free market. One sector created wealth and jobs, the other diverted those financial resources away from the market towards government. That's still true today, yet most folks don't understand it. If they did, perhaps they'd be a bit more discerning about who they elected to public office and would seek out people with a firm understanding of market forces and how government can only restrict them, not create them.

When the two started to merge is when we started our economic decline. The last time we had anything close to a free market was Reaganomics, which was strangely called "voodoo" by some at the time, despite the results. And the results were the largest peacetime expansion of the Americans economy ever.

We can't even recognize the benefits or results of sound economic policy anymore. At least, a lot of people can't. Most of them are politicians. Funny, that.

The problems with current economic theory (at least as it's practiced in Washington today) have nothing to do with economics. The biggest one is the concept of "fairness," whatever that means. Whoever proposes an economic playing field that's "fair," wasn't told one of life's largest truths: It Isn't Fair.

Life never was, it is not now, nor will it ever be fair.

That's just the way it is, and you can either accept that and work within that basic understanding, or you can try to make things fair. On a national level, this equates to a distortion of economics and an increase in regulations in order to "level the playing field." Ask yourself if, after a couple of generations of this kind of faulty thinking, the playing field is level today.

An outgrowth of this false theory of life is the misguided effort on the part of politicians to assure equality. A noble pursuit in one's personal life, but a disaster when it's part of an attempt to engineer a free society. This type of feel-good-ism is particularly evident today in children's organized sports, where everyone is a winner whether they are or not, all kids receive a trophy whether they excelled or not, and the score isn't even kept.

So, how's that working out? Is everyone happy yet?

That's what I thought.

I'd like to spend a bit more time exploring this subject, but work beckons. I think you all understand where I'm heading with this, though. It's not rocket science.

But then again, maybe it is. If a rocket is constructed the right way, in accordance with all the known laws of physics by folks with the proper knowledge, filled with fuel and pointed in the right direction, it will get to wherever it is that's it's pointed.

Is that what you see today?

If the fundamentals aren't sound, the rocket will never get off the ground.

I'm Honored, Once Again, to be an SOB.

2011-09-06T07:03:00.000-04:00

Yesterday's speech by President Obama in Detroit in front of a large union crowd was, um, interesting, to say the least. Teamster Union President Jimmy Hoffa Jr. had high praise for the Tea Party...

"We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They've got a war, they got a war with us and there's only going to be one winner. It's going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We're going to win that war," Jimmy Hoffa said to a heavily union crowd.

"President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. Let's take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong," Hoffa added.

That last sentence served to highlight Mr. Hoffa's command of language and his stellar communication skills, something I'm sure he advocates to all of his union members.

The Teamsters must be so proud of their leader.

We know President Obama is, he said so immediately afterwards in his speech.

So, I'm a son-of-a-bitch now? Gee, it was just a couple of weeks ago, I was told by a Congresscritter that I could go to hell. If that's not the best reason to pay taxes, I don't know what is.

Is this a great country or what?

Even Old Slow Joe Biden took a swipe at me in another speech yesterday. He called me a barbarian. And this was after he called me a terrorist a few weeks earlier.

Was it something I said? Was it my vote for Marco Rubio that did it? You never talk to me anymore, you just lash out and call me names. You've changed. You're always so angry.

Do you really think all of your hateful rhetoric will cause me to change my mind?

I have no hate in my heart for you. You, on the other hand, seem filled with hatred towards me. If you want to start a war, I'll be more than happy to oblige you, but we'll both know who started it.

So will everyone else.

And you will not win.

Your Labor Day Economic Report, 2011

2011-09-05T09:39:00.006-04:00

It sucks, go back to bed.

Well, I suppose I could elaborate just a wee bit more on that statement. It is Monday after all, and what’s a Monday without some hemlock in your coffee? I hear it has a lot of fiber…

Our economy came screaming out of the gate on Friday. And when I say, “screaming out of the gate,” I really mean “in terror” and “in the wrong direction.” No jobs were created in the private sector. None, zero, zilch, nada, nyet.

I’m sure y’all know that we’ve been technically out of the last recession for some two years now. I say technically because that means that our GDP was not negative for two consecutive quarters, but the numbers we’ve seen indicate a very weak recovery, the weakest in recent record-keeping.

But no jobs added is a new benchmark, one that I’m sure this administration would be nervous about if it were really interested in getting the economy going again, which by all appearances, it isn’t.

In fact, the Obama War Against Economic Prosperity continues apace, as exemplified by the ongoing assault against Gibson Guitars. Their CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, is getting his message out, and it doesn’t look good for the Obama Regime. This situation gets stranger by the day, what with the Justice Department stonewalling, obfuscating, and telling Gibson that the Indian rosewood it (and every other manufacturer uses for their fretboards due to its superior tonal qualities) used is illegal, despite Gibson being assured by the Indian government that it is, in fact, perfectly legal.

This has cost the company some $3M dollars, not to mention the amount the government pays their armed agents, lawyers and administrators. That’s money that Gibson could be using to expand and hire, but won’t be, as a direct result of the action of the Obama administration.

And, yes, I’ll keep up with this, because you guys need to be aware of Obama’s efforts to curtail economic activity in the name of radical environmentalism, cronyism, union demands and a general confusion about how the economy functions. You expected better from a former community organizer whose main resume qualification is, um, organizing a few communites, to do, uh, something?

For something that was so important it couldn’t wait (until after his Martha’s Vineyard vacation), we’ll finally get to hear his ~~campaign kickoff~~ speech next Thursday, just in time for the start of the NFL regular season.

At least there is some recognition, however gauzy, that Obama realizes that he’s regulating capitalism away. Last week, he ordered the EPA to hold off on its new, highly restrictive ozone regulations. But don’t let that fool you; there are plenty of other regulations waiting for implementation to destroy American jobs and productivity.

As I’ve mentioned previously, our economy has reached the tipping point: Washington regulations have become so prevalent and costly that American businesses can’t keep up with them all. They can’t comply with the tsunami of regulations coming from this administration and they absolutely cannot contain the costs of compliance, which often make themselves known in unexpected ways. Workers must be fired and the resultant drag on productivity hurts everyone who’s left, particularly in raises that won’t come.

Here’s a quote from the previous link that attempts to justify the increased ozone emission standards. Read it carefully…

The EPA’s own analysis found that imposing a standard of 0.70 parts per million would have a net positive impact on the economy, as health benefits outweighed the costs to industry.

And what would these health benefits be, one is tempted to ask? How does the alleged decrease in health care costs find its way back to the company that has spent hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars to comply with the new EPA rule? Will they get that money back next quarter, next year, or sometime in the next few decades?

When was the last time any companies’ health care costs declined?

These are good questions that absolutely no one inside the EPA is asking. The link points out that the far-left, radical Progressive organization Center for American Progress cited evidence of businesses that weren’t negatively affected by EPA regulations.

It was only one page long.

Here’s another quote for you to dissect…

The resulting pollution can contribute to breathing difficulties, lung damage and reduced cardiovascular function, according to the EPA’s website.

It “can?” If I remember correctly, out here in the real world, either something occurs or it doesn’t. Words like “can,” or “might,” or “may” are considered vagaries, indefinites, things that could possibly happen, but don’t normally. These are not the words from which to craft government policy, and the uncertainty they naturally imply speaks volumes about the quality of the research that went into them.

Please come back with something a bit more definite and provable before you require businesses to spend vast amounts of money, energy and time chasing some environmental wet dream of a pristine planet.

While I’m not for industries spilling out their toxic byproducts into the ecosystem, our air and water is the cleanest it’s been in generations. We could just stop now with all the new regulations and we’d still be just fine. In fact, a moratorium on any new regs wouldn’t hurt a thing.

But that’s not the goal of the Big Green Watermelon Movement (green on the outside, red on the inside, as in Socialist). It’s goal is to regulate capitalism out of existence, and this administration seems more than willing to help it along.

So, are you ready for some football?

Update! Before you take that first drink of hemlock coffee, listen to this most excellent video from Bill Whittle. (~~Shamelessly stolen from~~ contributed by Ace)

As you were.

Friday Bits of Tid - Birth of the Ford Falcon Edition

2011-09-02T12:12:00.000-04:00

On today's date in 1789, Congress founded the U.S. Treasury.

Today also marks a milestone in American automotive history. On this day in 1959, Ford Motor Company introduced the Falcon, America's answer to imported cars. I have some hood time with this model, it was solid, well built, and easy to work on. Those that came with the 289 c.i. engine were particularly peppy. IMO, the Falcon pre-filled the niche that the venerable Mustang would later occupy.

And speaking of Mustangs, Dear Santa Claus, I've been a very good Boy this year...

Which reminds me. If you're of a certain age and worked on cars, you can remember when most engines were designed with the distributor at the rear of the block. When you did a tune-up, you spent some time in the uncomfortable position of leaning into the engine compartment installing and adjusting the points.

It's some sort of cruel engineering joke that most modern cars have the distributor on the front of the engine in a very accessible position from which to perform maintenance. There's just one thing: no maintenance is required. Go figure.

Anywho, it's been a wild week. They're still cleaning up after Irene, which thankfully fizzled out and wasn't too big. The biggest political news was Obama scheduling his speech to a joint session of Congress on the night of a Republican presidential candidate debate that had been planned for months.

The British would call that "bad form."

Heh. The twelve NASCAR Chase drivers from last year have been invited to the White House to be honored. Five have scheduling conflicts and won't make it. BackwardsGal is tickled that her favorite driver, Carl Edwards, is among them.

Man steals tractor and drives it drunk. The next day, the tractor was unavailable for comments, as it was nursing a hangover. I'm here all week, try the veal.

Alcohol and politics rarely mix. Pennsylvania's wine kiosks have lost over $1 million taxpayer dollars. "It has shown that, with the aid of modern technology, the government can lose money while selling a highly popular product over which it has a monopoly."

Aging superheroes. (h/t to David Thompson)

Some good news about our current situation. It's in response to Mark Steyn's new book, After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, which Steyn notes as a caution, not a certainty, America is not the Titanic.

And finally, laser pointers aren't just for kittehs anymore...

Y'all have a good Labor Day weekend, y'all.

I Guess I Should Feel Honored...

2011-09-01T07:14:00.000-04:00

The Great Gibson Guitar Raid keeps getting curiouser still. Gibson CEO: Obama Administration Told Us Our Problems Would Go Away If We Used Madagascar Labor (Audio).

Well, it's about time somebody else recognized it, too. The best way for us to solve our myriad economic problems is simple: Manufacturing a Recovery. The surprise is that this article is from the NY Times. I didn't know anyone up there knew what manufacturing was, much less that we once had an entire sector of the economy devoted to it.
Somebody named Jonathan Alter wants to know why Obama is a failure (or a SCoaMF, see Ace for the definition). Wish, command, some assembly required.

I'm growing tired of the attacks from the left leveled at the Tea Party. You should be too. In one way, it shows who and what they're scared of. We in the Tea Party have been called many false names such as "racists", "terrorists." (which is strange, considering that this administration refuses to call real terrorists terrorists) and now we're being cussed out by Maxine Waters.

Ms. Waters, I have a question: What did I do to you to make you mad at me? What personal affront was it that compels you to curse me, a fellow American citizen whose best interests you are supposed to be advancing in Washington? Why do you seem to hate me? Sure, I've disagreed with a great many things that you have approved of and made into law, but I distinctly remember hearing from another one of your Democrat friends a few years ago that dissent was patriotic.

Pardon me if I'm a bit confused.

I guess I should feel honored that you think it necessary to curse me, my family, and my political beliefs.

How nice of you to show your respect for a fellow citizen. This is truly the stuff of democracy and proves what an excellent legislator you are and that you are able to bring all sides together in order to insure that America remains a great country.

Having Fun with Political Prognosticators and More

2011-08-31T07:00:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, a certain Boy had a lot of commenting fun over at Ace's place, stay tuned for the details.

The Great Gibson Guitar Grab gets curiouser and curiouser. It seems that somebody named Michelle Obama gave somebody else named Carla Bruni-Sarkozy a gift: a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar. And you'll never guess what the fretboard is made from. Go on, guess. OK, it's made from rosewood, the same wood that the Gibson company thinks is responsible for the armed raid by federal agents last week. They think that's why the company was raided, but they really don't know since all the feds' paperwork has been sealed and details are not forthcoming from the administration.

And another thing, the Lacey Act is a violation of something called the Constitution. It stipulates that you are guilty unless you can prove your innocence. Read the whole thing.

It seems that there's a new, warm and fuzzy name for the federales in Washington, the "Federal Family." Doubtless it includes Big Brother. Someone should tell Obama that Orwell's book 1984 wasn't supposed to be a documentary or an instruction manual.

Now, this is the type of mash-up I like, Hayek and Julianne Hough. Pulchritude and economics, together at last.

And now for the main event. Ace posted this yesterday in which a dude outlines 13 keys to a presidential victory and then claims that Obama will win because he has 9 of them.

Here's the list of the alleged winning keys...

1. No contested primary

2. Incumbency

3. No third-party candidate

4. Major domestic-policy changes in his first term

5. No social unrest

6. No major scandals

7. No major foreign-policy failures

8. Major foreign-policy achievements in his first term (killing Bin Laden)

9. Little charisma by his likely opponent

We Morons couldn't help but notice that the author left out a few key decisors that the present president has such as,

10. Mastery of helicopter doors.

11. Proven expertise in the operation of umbrellas.

12. Mad baseball pitching skillz.

13. Astronomically high bowling average.

14. A superior command of English.

There are more, many more, but don't click the link if you're easily offended by language that would make a sailor blush. Also, make sure that you don't have any liquids of any kind in your mouth, as they will follow the path of least resistance when expelled, which is out through your nose.

You've been warned.

Green News and a Couple of Observations

2011-08-30T07:02:00.000-04:00

Here's one jobs plan that definitely hasn't worked: "green jobs."

Here's why. They'll make you crazy.

Plus, it's old, too. They were discussing this back in Jefferson's day.

There might be something affecting our climate besides man. Imagine, if you will, a giant star in close proximity to Earth, that could generate a great amount of heat, and the amount of heat it generated varied...

All seriousness aside, here's something I've been wondering about for quite some time. As I understand it, man-made climate change theory depends upon a layer of gas called the Ozone Layer. When I remember back to physics class, I vaguely remember being told that the only way gasses could stratify was if they were completely still.

Since the atmosphere is in constant motion, I can't see how they could separate into layers. Since the atmosphere is constantly being disturbed by meteorites before they can burn up, that equates to a continuous stirring of the atmosphere, something that, to me at least, that prevents gasses from settling into a layer.

I could be wrong, but if anyone else knows more, I'd appreciate a link to in the comments.

The bottom line is that the actions of man only contribute to change in a small way, locally and only temporarily. There's still a lot left to learn about the planet and we haven't even gotten close to exploring the entire thing, nor documenting all of the critters here.

We would do well to heed some sage advice, "Don't panic."

While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Obama Raids Gibson Guitars

2011-08-28T13:48:00.000-04:00

There’s a word for this, if I can just think of it…

On August 24, 2011, around 8:45 a.m. CDT, agents for the federal government executed four search warrants on Gibson’s facilities in Nashville and Memphis and seized several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. Gibson had to cease its manufacturing operations and send workers home for the day, while armed agents executed the search warrants. Gibson has fully cooperated with the execution of the search warrants.

The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.

Sooooo, let me see if I have this straight: Eric Holder’s Justice Department is upholding Indian law here in America while refusing to enforce America’s own immigration law at the Mexican border?

And this makes sense on which planet, again?

And it gets worse: this isn’t the first time Gibson Guitars has been the subject of a federal raid. It also happened way back in 2009. As the above quote states, this isn’t about the illegal use of an exotic, protected wood -

The wood the Government seized on August 24 is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier and is FSC Controlled, meaning that the wood complies with the standards of the Forest Stewardship Council, which is an industry-recognized and independent, not-for-profit organization established to promote responsible management of the world’s forests. FSC Controlled Wood standards require, among other things, that the wood not be illegally harvested and not be harvested in violation of traditional and civil rights. See www.fsc.org for more information. Gibson has a long history of supporting sustainable and responsible sources of wood and has worked diligently with entities such as the Rainforest Alliance and Greenpeace to secure FSC certified supplies. The wood seized on August 24 satisfied FSC standards.

OK, no issue there. It’s readily apparent that Gibson is an environmentally responsible company, so why the raid?

Well, when you look at some other American guitar companies, the answer becomes a bit more clear…

Putting aside the presumably misguided motivation to enforce another sovereign nation’s laws, why would a homegrown American company be the target of the Department of Justice in the first place?

It’s worth pointing out that Henry E. Juszkiewicz, Gibson’s Chief Executive Officer, is a donor to a couple of Republican politicians. According to the Open Secrets database, Juszkiewicz donated $2000 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN07) last year, as well as $1500 each to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). Juszkiewicz also has donated $10,000 to the Consumer Electronics Association, a PAC that contributed $92.5k to Republican candidates last year, as opposed to $72k to Democrats. (The CEA did, however, contribute more to Democrats in the 2008 election cycle.)

Hmm, this sounds rather Nixonian in tone and appears to be politically motivated, but that's perfectly fine as long as a Democrat is President. As usual, there’s more to this story.

One of Gibson’s leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Company. The C.E.O., Chris Martin IV, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the DNC over the past couple of election cycles. According to C.F. Martin’s catalog, several of their guitars contain “East Indian Rosewood.” In case you were wondering, that is the exact same wood in at least ten of Gibson’s guitars.

The Gibson facility wasn’t raided over allegations of tax evasion, charges of embezzlement, or even something as drab as child labor. Not even close. It was raided over what the DOJ deems an inability to follow a vague domestic trade law in India (one that apparently the Indian government didn’t seem too concerned about enforcing) regarding a specific type of wood. Not illegal wood, just wood with obscenely specific procedural guidelines.

Stand with Gibson: They have the Law on their side, just not the government.

Here’s one last thing you should know. If you have an antique guitar and are thinking of traveling abroad or even to Canada with it, you could be a criminal if you can’t verify, in writing, where every piece of it came from.

Why would the government use armed agents to attack one of the few major manufacturers of anything remaining in the United States? The political motivations for such an action are outside the scope of this article, but the justification for the action is the Lacey Act, which regulates the importation of plants, animals, and products thereof into the United States. The Lacey Act effectively permits wooden musical instruments to be seized indefinitely, without compensation, and places the burden of proof on the owner, not the government. Do you own an $11,000 2011 Gibson Eric Clapton Edition Les Paul? Want to take it to Canada and back? You’d better be prepared to document the source of all materials to the government’s satisfaction upon your return, or you could lose it indefinitely. If you thinking documenting that is tough, what if you’re ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons returning from an overseas tour with your real 1959 sunburst Les Paul, for which you’ve already turned down at least one $5,000,000 offer? Good luck documenting the wood from a fifty-two-year-old guitar.

…Simply possessing the timber product can make you a felon, regardless of whether or not you were involved in the harvesting, were the original importer, or had received any information regarding the source of the timber product. Here’s an example. Let’s say you are driving a Bentley Flying Spur with a rosewood interior. Importation of Brazilian rosewood is a felony under the Lacey Act. Do you know where the rosewood in your Spur came from? Can you prove it? In Gibson’s case, it was Indian rosewood that supposedly caused the bust; although the importation of Indian rosewood is legal, it has to be finished and prepared to certain standards in India. If raw Indian rosewood is sent to Bentley for finishing into dashboards — and make no mistake, that is how it is done — it may not break any British laws, but it breaks an American one, and you are now a convicted felon for visiting the Canadian side of Niagara Falls and coming back.

Again, on which planet does any of this make any sense?

Not one American law was broken. And that word I’m searching for? Well, you can listen to this in the meantime…

*sigh* I miss freedom.

The Reply from Steven Denning

2011-08-27T11:11:00.000-04:00

I almost forgot to tell you guys, but the author of the Forbes article I posted last Tuesday for your reading assignment, Steven Denning, graciously responded to my email. I had asked him if he knew whether or not foreign governments were actively subsidising industries in order to give an unfair advantage to our competitors.

The short answer is, while not ruling out the possibility, he couldn't be sure whether that had happened or not. Perfectly understandable, since many of those countries are pretty hush-hush about their policies and practices anyway. I had hoped that as a writer for Forbes, he would have access to a larger database of information than I do here.

Anyway, I wanted to thank Steve for his reply and also his great series about a subject that is near and dear to my heart, the manufacturing sector of our economy, the resurgence of which I firmly and passionately believe is in our best interest to nurture and promote.

Friday Bits of Tid - Whiskey Rebellion Edition

2011-08-26T07:25:00.001-04:00

Mornin', y'all.

How about a shot for breakfast? This shot has something to do with the Whiskey Rebellion.

On this day in 1794, President George Washington writes to Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, Virginia's governor and a former general, regarding the Whiskey Rebellion, an insurrection that was the first great test of Washington's authority as president of the United States. In the letter, Washington declared that he had no choice but to act to subdue the "insurgents," fearing they would otherwise "shake the government to its foundation."

Astute readers have noticed that I haven't had any pulchritudinous posts in a while.

And, yeah, that's a firesuit she has on. She's a budding NASCAR driver who competed in the Canadian Nationwide series race a couple of weeks ago, Maryeve Dufault. Baby, you can drive my car.

In flight movie explains mystery of female pleasure. Hmm, it's about a dump-truck full of chocolate covered money?

This is how we'll win the war in Afghanistan: we just won't fart. I know we're trying to win hearts and minds in these days of politically correct warfare, but it appears the effort doesn't stop there.

Oh, and to every body in the way of Hurricane Irene this weekend, y'all be careful up there. This might be a big, bad storm.

From the Ace of Spades HQ Department of Snark: It's Totally Not Symbolic And Totally Not God Trying To Tell Us Something: Washington Monument Cracks

And finally, this.

Have a good 'un, y'all.

"It's unpatriotic!"

2011-08-25T07:07:00.000-04:00

A few quick things, I'm running late as usual this morning. Is there a way I can hook up a coffee IV and have it start about a half-hour before I get up? Submit your design in the comments.

Taking the President's Advice

Remember President Obama's Magical Misery Tour last week? He was asked by a farmer about the new avalanche of regulations about to come from on high. In a moment of high snark, the President advised the farmer to call the Agriculture Department about his concerns.

Well, somebody did, the results are here. Hilarity ensued.

Green Jobs? Shirley, you jest.

So, how's that "Green Economy" thingy working out for us? Not very well. But we knew that already. Why do otherwise intelligent lawmakers tend to believe what they're told by special interest groups instead of their own experience? We truly have the government we deserve.

Why we can't deal with criminals the good, old-fashioned way.

I always wondered when conventional wisdom concerning criminal activity changed from it being their fault to the fault of society. Now I know, and after you read it, you will too. How does such blatant bullshit become policy?

Robert A. Heinlein, man of vision.

Professor Glenn Reynolds runs this link all the time at Instapundit. I had never clicked on it until a few days ago. I highly recommend it.

And finally, intellectual and moral consistency are not President Obama's strong suits.

Presented without comment, but with a great deal of snark.

Enjoy this day, and be glad.

Earthquake in DC, and Deficit News.

2011-08-24T06:48:00.000-04:00

So, did anybody feel the earthquake yesterday in DC? Actually, it was centered in Virginia, but that's close enough for government work. Here's a photo of just some of the devastation.

The horror.

Here's a surprise: our current budget deficit isn't the result of large numbers of baby boomers hitting retirement age and drawing Social Security all at once. You knew that already. Not that that's not a problem, but it's not the main driver of the debt.

Spending is, as Byron York reminds us. And it's all Obama's. Here's a tidbit...

There's no doubt federal spending has exploded in recent years. In fiscal 2007, the last year before things went haywire, the government took in $2.568 trillion in revenues and spent $2.728 trillion, for a deficit of $160 billion. In 2011, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, the government will take in $2.230 trillion and spend $3.629 trillion, for a deficit of $1.399 trillion.

That's an increase of $901 billion in spending and a decrease of $338 billion in revenue in a very short time. Put them together, and that's how you go from a $160 billion deficit to a $1.399 trillion deficit.

This isn't hard for anybody to understand, if you can balance your own checkbook, that is. And that's not hard, either. Ace has more here.

Want some more good news?

Swallow all liquids in your mouth before reading any further.

Updated numbers for the national debt are just out: It's now $14,639,000,000,000.

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.

You're welcome.

So, let me see if I have this right: Democrats (Progressives, actually, which are just the American version of Communists) take power, go on a wild spending spree under the illusion that massive government spending will pull the economy out of the doldrums, and discover that they did more harm than good. The populace begins to insist that Washington tighten its belt like everyone else and start to reduce spending in a modest way. A movement rises from the heartland called the Tea Party, which stands for Taxed Enough Already, makes huge gains in a short length of time, elects its own politicians who proceed to actually do the will of the people (what a concept!) and said Progressives call it the enemy, and tell it to "go straight to hell" ?

Alllll righty, then.

Maybe someone should say this out loud, but it's clear to a large and growing number of Americans who the real enemy is, and it ain't the Tea Party. It's the Progressives who have spent an awful lot of money that doesn't belong to them to fix a problem that they themselves created through an ever-larger and more intrusive government. As the Blogfather is fond of saying, if it can't last, it won't.

Well, that's your daily dose of good cheer. As of this writing, I still haven't heard back from the author of that Forbes link from yesterday about my question of foreign governments subsidising their takeovers of American manufacturing. Confidence remains high, however.

Y'all have a good day.

A Reading Assignment

2011-08-23T07:21:00.000-04:00

Um, no post today. I was too busy reading this piece from Forbes.com, Why Amazon Can't Make a Kindle in the USA.

I strongly suggest this as your reading assignment today. Click every link in every part and read those too.

I sent a question to the author, Steve Denning, it went like this: How many of those companies were subsidized by their respective government? That seems to be an issue I remember hearing when this whole outsourcing mess began. That might be a rather unfair advantage, but then again, they're not strict capitalists.

Come to think of it, since the Federal Government has its greasy little fingers in nearly every market here, neither are we.

I'm very interested in hearing what he has to say. I'll let you know what he says.

Get cracking, y'all. There will be a test later

A Monday Reminder of What We Could Be Doing

2011-08-22T07:02:00.000-04:00

Here are a few musings left over from the weekend.

Remember this statement from candidate Obama?

It appears Obama is making this happen. Texas is looking at rolling blackouts. All of it due to a government directive based on an unproven theory that mankind is responsible for the planet’s climate. How better to apply a boot to the neck of a nation than to reduce its energy supply.

I like to think about what we could be doing for ourselves, if we had the type of government we actually want instead of the government we deserve.

We could be bringing new power plants on line in an environmentally responsible way. We could be drilling for our own oil and natural gas. We could be building new nuclear plants. We could be constructing new oil refineries.

We could have a balanced budget. It would probably take a Constitutional Amendment, but then again, wouldn’t it be nice if we had politicians who wouldn’t spend other peoples’ money like it was other peoples’ money?

We could be making products for Americans right here in America.

We could have a secure border with Mexico, thereby stopping the flow of illegals into the country. We could stop all public benefits to illegals (I can’t understand how they are able to qualify for them in the first place). We could be prosecuting the mayors of “sanctuary cities” for violating the law.

We could have politicians who actually thought of themselves as fellow citizens, and would act accordingly. They would carefully deliberate the merits of a proposal or an idea (like man-made climate change) and be able to determine for themselves whether an idea was valid in the real world.

These mythical creatures would make sure that we had a robust economy, low taxes, and a small, weak central government that was dedicated to protecting our country from enemies instead of cutting off the power for no good reason.

They would also be loath to enact any new laws unless there was a damned good reason to do so, understanding that every new law reduces the freedom of the citizenry, something they swore to uphold.

This could begin in 2012 with the installation of a fiscally conservative White House and Congress.

Friday Bits of Tid - Birth of Brickyard Edition

2011-08-19T11:50:00.000-04:00

The planet has ceased to warm, the seas have receded and balance has been restored to the universe. In other words, Friday Bits of Tid is back! I just hope I can remember how to do this...

On this day in 1909, automotive engineer Louis Schwitzer won the two-lap, five-mile inaugural race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The rest, as they say, is history, a long and prestigious one.

As you may recall, I have cited one piece of awful legislation as the root cause of the housing market meltdown. I'm not the only one who noticed, Ed Driscoll of PJ Media has too.

Since it worked so well the last time, President Obama blames ATM's for the economic downturn again.

Remember when you took that European vacation a few years ago? When you got to rub elbows with some of the world's richest people and dated that supermodel during the best two months of your life? Um, that was a commercial: Ads implant fake memories in your head.

Dogs of Math.

German boy complains to police about doing housework. Methinks the police would have been justified if they had spanked him.

Motorized beer cooler lands driver in court for, well, you'll never guess in a million, zillion years.

Digital nipples.

Man steals, then returns children. I see one of two possible scenarios: either the kids were such a pain that he wanted to return them, or they just kept asking, "Are we there yet?" incessantly until the thief finally gave up.

What happens to butter before it gets fried at a state fair.

I've long suspected that progressives were bred in a secure facility in order to protect the general population from infestation. Now I have proof: Doctors grow replacement sphincters.

Here's a screamer from just a few months ago, How can we not love Obama? Let me count the ways...

And finally, Ace contributed this video, he just doesn't know it...

...yet.

Have a good weekend, y'all.

Inflation Rears Its Ugly Head and Other Stuff

2011-08-18T07:09:00.000-04:00

Obamanomics is a wonderful thing. It is all and nothing at the same time. It is sometimes downgrading, frequently unexpected and always someone else's fault in the eyes of this administration.

For the rest of us out here in the real world, it just plain sucks.

It should be clear by now that Obama is flailing in his attempts to get the economy going. His Sidam Touch (and yeah, that's Midas backwards, how did you guess?) is working its magic in every metric known to modern man. There are certain inviolable laws of economics, and Obama knows none of them.

Take this example, please: core wholesale inflation is up, way up. This number includes groceries and gasoline, as opposed to the statistic that we normally hear which doesn't include it, naturally to make the number appear far less than it really is. If you've been to the grocery store recently, you've no doubt noticed. The core figure is up .4%, the most since last January according to the government. Food prices are leading the way.

What this administration has yet to discover is the principle of cause and effect. Let's look at another seemingly unrelated (to this administration) factoid: for the first time in history, more corn is being made into fuel than it is for food. From the link:

For forever,” Plain said, “ feed was the largest single use of corn.”

The news comes as criticism that pro-ethanol subsidies and policies are raising food prices globally seems to be reaching a crescendo. Critics didn’t seem to latch onto the USDA’s market prediction, however.

A spokesman for Iowa’s ethanol industry termed the USDA’s market prediction “a footnote.”

“Every credible study has clearly found the effects of ethanol policies is negligible on the price of corn,” remarked Monte Shaw, president of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association.

Um, that's bullshit, y'all, plain and simple. Who are you going to believe, someone who is paid to make fuel out of food, or your lying eyes? If only we had something else to make fuel from, something that wasn't edible and could be made into other things, too. Something that was a more like a raw, natural resource that could be found nearly everywhere. Something that had more potential energy in it and seemed perfectly suited for use as a fuel. Something that didn't get worse mileage than before. Something that wasn't edible.

Wait! I've got it! I heard of something just like that! Oil, I think it's called. Oh, that's right, we can't use that because we have a President who wants us to move to something called a "green economy" that ignores the laws of physics, economics, and common sense all at the same time!

We're saved!

But wait! There's more!

The recent placing of three Colorado wildflowers on the federal endangered and threatened species lists will make it harder to exploit untapped fuel resources in the Rocky Mountain State, a group representing the energy industry tells Fox News, an assertion the government denies.

“By 2020 we could produce as much oil and natural gas in the West as we currently import from Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Algeria and Nigeria combined,” she said, but “we’re adding more regulation and slowing the development of American energy, preventing us from reaching our full potential and creating jobs and economic development across the West.”

Wildflowers, huh? Two words: Hot House.

I think the nation has had about enough of this and is ready for some real change, this time the good kind. Obama's poll numbers on his handling of the economy is at a new low of 26%.

Then there's this...

During a town hall meeting at Wyffels Hybrids in Atkinson, Illinois, a farmer expressed concern to President Obama about forthcoming regulations. The man stated that people would rather be farming than "filling out forms and permits to do what we like to do." President Obama told the farmer "don't always believe what you hear" and blamed Washington for ginning up speculation. Obama added that, "Nobody is more interested in seeing our agricultural sector successful than I am, partly because I come from a farm state."

Strangely, I'm not comforted. I've already taken the President's advice, especially when he speaks.

Now, if this isn't what we need right about now, I don't know what we do need. Rick Perry responds to Obama's remark that he "watch what he says" with this: "You're killing jobs." Heh.

Perry is a breath of fresh air. Bold, accurate and unafraid of the current administration. How bold? you ask. He said in his speech last weekend he wanted to make Washington as inconsequential to the lives of Americans as possible. I think this is what he means. Well, to be fair, we've tried it the other way for two and a half years. How's that working out?

And finally, somebody named Gene Simmons knows how to pick 'em. He has a good track record, having picked the last three presidents, and he predicts Perry will be the next one.

My fingers are crossed.

Stay thirsty, my friends.

The Perry Smears Begin plus Tids

2011-08-17T06:54:00.000-04:00

Well, we knew this was coming. No sooner did Texas governor Rick Perry announce his candidacy for president and his detractors (which would be everyone in the Make Believe Media) started coming out of the woodwork.

Here's Bloombergs hit piece.

Here's President Obama telling Perry to watch what he says. And what high ground does he have from which to criticize, especially after he called patriotic Americans "bitter clingers?"

But this one takes the cake. Special Ed Shultz gets caught red-handed editing Perry's words. At the very least, he should be fired for his blatant attempt at the sleaziest type of yellow journalism, then tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.

You need to bookmark this link so you can have some ammunition when the lefties start in on their inane babbling talking points about Perry: Seventeen (17) things that critics are saying about Rick Perry. If you like Perry, as I do, you owe it to him, you, and whichever fool you're talking to defend his record. Heaven knows the MBM won't be doing it.

Did I mention that I like Rick Perry? So do a lot of other people, according to this poll.

In other news and stuff, Obama's Magical Misery Tour continues.

“Don’t buy into this whole notion that somehow government doesn’t do us any good,” Obama said. “Government protects us. Government is what built the interstate highway system. Government is what put a man on the moon.”

No, Mr. President, that's not what anyone on the right is saying. What we are saying is that your brand of government doesn't do us any good. Notice that every example he gives of government is from the past, when we had at least a semblance of control over Washington. Contrast that to today, where government regulations are strangling our markets, government tells us which light bulbs we can buy, we'll be jailed if we don't purchase ObamaCare, and large parts of formerly lush farmland lies fallow because of some insignificant little fish. That was then, Mr. President, this is now.

It wasn't that long ago that politicians viewed dependency on the government as a failure, unlike our current Agriculture Secretary. I miss the good old days...

I found this over at Ace's place. It's a hilarious time sink, as Monty puts it. Click at your peril...

Lastly, life explained by scientific graphs.

Oh, and send out some good vibrations for my computer, which mysteriously died yesterday morning. It's running OK now. The ways of Bill Gates are wondrous indeed.

Have a good day, y'all.

Surprise! Obama's Popularity Dips Below 40%

2011-08-15T07:02:00.000-04:00

It's 0:6.30. What does the 0 stand for? Oh, my goodness, it's early (with apologies to Good Morning Viet Nam).

Instead of bringing the DOOM! on the economy on this Monday morning, I thought I'd let you guys know something that's becoming glaringly obvious to the nation: President Obama's popularity has officially sunk below 40%.

And while America's economy burns, he fiddles. Actually, Obama is trying to devise a strategy for him to pin the blame on Republicans in general and the Tea Party in specific. And he has help from Time magazine (h/t Ace). Recall, a certain Boy predicted this earlier, although it wasn't that hard to do. Scapegoating, it's not just for breakfast anymore.

The Blogfather, Glenn Reynolds, brings up another point I made recently about psychological inconsistency. I'll let him 'splain it to you, Lucy:

SO THE OTHER DAY I HAD A STORY ABOUT THE FBI TREATING “PREPPERS” AS POTENTIAL TERRORISTS, and then when I was in the car yesterday I heard a PSA from the Department of Homeland Security pitching . . . disaster preparedness via its Ready.gov site. So if you do what Homeland Security recommends, the FBI will wonder if you’re a terrorist. Sweet.

This isn’t really that surprising — one part of the government telling you to do things that another part of the government regards with suspicion. Each department has its own agenda, and its connection to any sort of overall strategy is largely coincidental. Treat them with the deference that this fact deserves . . . .

It's bad enough when individuals can't cope, but it's a bit more when that malady becomes typical of an entire government. You're damned if you do, well, pretty much either one.

OK, Backwardians, enjoy your day.

Sunday Bits of Tid

2011-08-14T08:36:00.000-04:00

Howay’all? I hope everybody’s doing well. I’m still getting settled in my new job. As you may have noticed, posting has slowed to a crawl here in Backwards Land. My schedule hasn’t allowed as much time as I’d like, but I’m still here.

Also, I noticed I picked up two more followers once I started slowing down on the posting. How that happened, I may never know. But anyway, welcome, you guys and/or gals, as the case may be. I’m gonna guess you’ve been poking around in the archives, a pastime I always recommend when I’m not here.

Today’s post will be a sort of review of the Republican presidential race that I’ve noticed from the corner of my eye.

The Iowa Straw Poll results from yesterday are in: Michelle Bachmann won, with Ron Paul coming in a strong second. Tim Pawlenty came in a distant third, which naturally raises more than a few questions about the future of his campaign. Not that Iowa is any kind of bellwether for the campaign, at least in recent years. If I remember correctly, Mike Huckabee won the last one in ’07 and went exactly nowhere after that. It’s still early.

But Bachmann’s strong showing is somewhat encouraging. How long she’ll remain the front-runner is open to speculation, which I'll explain in a minute. The reason I find her encouraging is more about her message of conservatism and fiscal restraint. Despite what we’re hearing from the White House, most Americans are weary of the spending going on in Washington these days. If you’ll recall, our credit rating was downgraded not because of political gridlock, but because of the unusually high amount of peacetime debt this administration has caused.

But the big news from yesterday was Rick Perry’s announcement to run for president. Personally, I’m pretty excited. The last time I surveyed the field, I had the feeling that there was no one who could generate any kind of energy for a strong Republican run. That changed yesterday with Perry’s speech.

He has the message along with a strong record of success in Texas. During this Obama Depression, Texas has added a lot of jobs. He’s passed something I’d like to see enacted nationwide, a “loser pays” bill that has stopped many frivolous lawsuits. His campaign ad touts the fact that doctors are coming to Texas as a result. Here's the link to his site.

Overall, I believe he’s now the front-runner. Avoiding Iowa was a shrewd move that sucked all the oxygen from the other Republican candidates.

On a side note, I was over at the Fox News site shortly after his speech and boy, were the Axel-trolls out in force in the comment section. There were some real doozies in there, accusing him of being everything he’s not and trying to dredge up anything that might be considered a smear against him. It was like throwing something up against a wall, hoping it would stick.

I have no doubt that we’re going to see and hear the Chicago Corrupt-o-crat Election Machine cranked up to the redline in the ugliest and nastiest presidential race we’ve seen. Ever since I was a kid, Chicago politics has been a well-known joke, like “I see dead voters.” Nepotism and favoritism is the norm there, along with the liberal Democrat mindset that has reduced that once-great city to a modern ghost town. Those who can leave are doing so rapidly. Corruption is rampant. If something can’t last, it won’t.

Here’s what you, gentle reader, can expect from the race between Obama and Perry: the MBM will be out to destroy Perry with vim and vigor. Everything Obama has done will be wonderful and good. The seas will have receded, the world will love us and there are two unicorns in every driveway.

Perry, by contrast, will be a kitten-killer dressed in a skin-suit made from dead children. And that will just be tomorrow. It’ll get nastier with each progressing day.

And. It. Will. Not. Work. Perry will be compared to GW Bush in as negative a way as possible. It won’t work because things have gotten much worse under this president than they ever were under Bush. Right about now, everyone would love to have full employment, cheaper food prices and $1.75/gal gasoline.

Anyone with two functioning neurons to rub together can see what a disaster this administration is for the country. Everything that should be going up is going down and everything that should be going down is going up. But you knew that already, didn’t you?

I’ll carbon-date myself and say I’ve seen this before. If you’re of a certain age, you remember it too. I have to keep reminding myself that there’s a whole new generation of Americans who haven’t. Progressivism (the American version of communism) grows in power and influence, cutting a swath of economic destruction until the nation comes to its senses and stops it. That’s what happened in the late ‘70’s with Jimmy Carter. Thankfully, the country had Ronaldus Magnus ride in on his white horse to save us.

It’s being repeated today.

I think the country will repudiate Obama and Progressivism in general in a way we haven’t seen since 1980. I look for Perry to take the presidency in a landslide that will make Reagan’s look tame by comparison. And thanks to the influence of the Tea Party, Republicans will take Congress.

That’s what it’s going to take to get us back on track. The sudden and well-planned expansion of Washington’s negative influence on the economy has to be stopped and reversed. The only way to do that is to dismantle everything that has been done by the Pelosi- and Reid-led 111th Congress. And I do mean everything: ObamaCare has to be repealed, along with the Frank-Dodd Wall Street takeover, the student loan takeover, and any other bill that got passed by that wretched hive of scum and villainy.

As I’ve noted before, every law that’s passed reduces our freedom, because that’s the way our form of government operates. And each new law generates scores of regulation for the various agencies in charge of enforcing the law, thus acting as a multiplier. One new law leads to many new regulations, a larger bureaucracy, more taxes, and a greater restriction on the economy and freedom, rinse and repeat.

But this is a good thing to Progressives. They call it “being productive,” but the effects wind up being anything but. It’s like they went to all the best schools, but somehow missed one teeny, tiny detail about our system of government.

And that’s why I’m here, to remind them.

OK, I vaguely remember saying something about some tids. Let’s…

Dogs of War.

Toys of War.

Assault with a Deadly Bratwurst.

A Kraut, a Brazilian guitar player and a guy from Jersey walk into a recording studio…

15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist.

And finally, I’d like to introduce the official theme song of this here blog. You might remember a band from the ‘70’s called Klaatu. When they first came on the musical scene, it was suggested that they were the Beatles in disguise, a great compliment that came back to haunt them when they refused to identify themselves until their third album. This Toronto band considered the recording studio to be another member of the group, which is why they didn’t tour until the very end of their run, around 1981.

I’ve rediscovered this outstanding band and want you guys to hear one of their songs, Silly Boys. And yes, some of the lyrics are backwards…

There are lots more of their tunes on YouTube. This song, Sub Rosa Subway, is about a fellow named Alfred Beach and his surreptitious effort to build a subway under New York City. He was the founder of Scientific American Magazine and his grandson was a big Klaatu fan until his death in 1997.

Karen and Richard Carpenter covered their first release, Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft.

I’m going to try to post more often, so be sure to check back in.

Y’all have a good’un.

Tea Party Vindication from Across the Pond

2011-08-08T10:34:00.000-04:00

Well, what a weekend on the economic front. S&P downgraded our credit rating, as I post this, the DJIA is down over 200 points, and the uber-lefties in Washington are in high dudgeon, feebly trying to blame the Tea Party members in Congress for the downgrade.

It won’t work.

Watch and listen for the next few days, as a Dem talking point is mindlessly repeated by the usual cast of characters. I fully expect Rush Limbaugh to have a montage of it by tomorrow. If you’re unfamiliar with how he does those, he takes sound bites of liberals saying the exact same phrase and compiles them into a handy reference.

You’ll hear this phrase repeated: “Tea Party Downgrade,”

Senator John F. Kerry and David Axelrod began the meme on yesterday’s political talk shows. It’s a shameless and false attack on the only group of people in Washington who truly recognize the trouble we’re in as a result of the wild Obama, Reid and Pelosi spending spree of the past two years.

And word travels quickly. Just prior to writing this piece, one of my best friends called me and started to rant about throwing all the bums out in Washington and starting over. When I suggested that we keep the Tea Partiers, he became particularly animated, and repeated the false talking point that TP’ers were the cause of all this economic chaos. I reminded him who controlled Congress for the last four years.

He finally gave up and said not to get him started.

My friend, you should be riled up, but you need to direct your anger towards the ones who are directly responsible for this mess, and it ain’t the Tea Party.

I’ll wade into the shallows of psychology for a moment to explain why this is so.

There are people in Washington who have egos so large that the Grand Canyon couldn’t begin to hold them. For years, they’ve bamboozled the public into keeping them in office through various types of deceit. These people love power and will do anything to keep it.

Which reminds me of a saying I heard: “Those who love power do not crave freedom. Those who love freedom do not crave power.” After some exhaustive Internet research, consisting of thirty seconds on Bing, I can’t find the proper attribution for that quote, else I’d credit the proper person for that little bit of wisdom. It’s very true.

The aforementioned “people” have also succumbed to the corrupting power of power. They have a fatal flaw in that they want to tell other people what to do, how to live and what to think. Instead of treating everyone the same way, they play favorites with their contributors and grant them special favors in return for their support. This is how our tax system grew into the monster it is today. And that’s not the only manifestation of corruption and favoritism to be found in Washington.

The Tea Party members of Congress threaten to take away the power of the People of Large Egos by removing them from office. Much like a mama bear seeking to protect her cub, these PoLE’s will attack anything or anyone that threatens their power baby.

It is a pitiful thing to watch, really. Our government was never designed to be inhabited by career politicians. Our Founders envisioned citizen legislators who served a term or two and then returned to their home to live under the laws they created.

This is what the Tea Party represents, a return to our political roots. And those in power will do everything they can to squash anyone who keeps them from their “right to rule.”

OK, digression over. There’s a title up there somewhere that I should talk about.

I found this little tidbit over at Ace’s place this weekend. It’s a good read and a welcome breath of fresh air from one Janet Daley entitled, “If we are to survive the looming catastrophe, we need to face the truth.” It’s a wonderful article that says virtually everything that the PoLE’s in Washington won’t.

I’ll give you a few morsels until you can read the whole thing.

Which of these is the most important question to ask in the present economic crisis: how can we promote growth? Should we pay off government debt more or less quickly? Is the US in worse trouble than Europe? Answer: none of the above.

The truly fundamental question that is at the heart of the disaster toward which we are racing is being debated only in America: is it possible for a free market economy to support a democratic socialist society? On this side of the Atlantic, the model of a national welfare system with comprehensive entitlements, which is paid for by the wealth created through capitalist endeavour, has been accepted (even by parties of the centre-Right) as the essence of post-war political enlightenment.

That right there is some good stuff, but wait, there’s more…

This is a political as much as an economic crisis, but not for the reasons that Mr Obama believes. The ruckus that nearly paralysed the US economy last week, and led to the loss of its AAA rating from Standard & Poor’s, arose from a confrontation over the most basic principles of American life.

Contrary to what the Obama Democrats claimed, the face-off in Congress did not mean that the nation’s politics were “dysfunctional”. The politics of the US were functioning precisely as the Founding Fathers intended: the legislature was acting as a check on the power of the executive.

Thank you, thank you, and thank you for pointing that out, Ms. Daley.

The Tea Party faction within the Republican party was demanding that, before any further steps were taken, there must be a debate about where all this was going. They had seen the future toward which they were being pushed, and it didn’t work. They were convinced that the entitlement culture and benefits programmes which the Democrats were determined to preserve and extend with tax rises could only lead to the diminution of that robust economic freedom that had created the American historical miracle.

And, again contrary to prevailing wisdom, their view is not naive and parochial: it is corroborated by the European experience.

In other words, we have reached the tipping point where our federal government is about to tip our economy over into a full-blown depression thanks to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama. And this is being done on purpose, ironically by folks who took an oath to uphold the Constitution and defend the country from enemies both foreign and domestic.

We have met the enemy, and it is Progressivism.

These next few months up until 2012 will decide which path our nation is to tread for the foreseeable future and what we will embrace as national policy. We have only two choices before us, one that served us well until around fifty years ago, where Americans were upwardly mobile, creative and free. The alternative, which has proven itself to be a failure of Biblical proportions in only two years, is one of redistribution, control, poverty, and a massive and unnecessary waste of human capital and potential.

You are the government. Your votes determine this.

How will you choose?

Funny, I Don’t Feel Like a Terrorist.

2011-08-04T11:07:00.000-04:00

Well, the Great Debt Deal is over. As usual, the Dems are claiming victory, as are Republicans. And the Dems are also screaming that they got screwed and so are the Republicans. In other words, we’re back to traditional Washington politics: Situation Normal, All Fouled Up. (Insert your own favorite word where appropriate)

In breaking news (courtesy of Drudge this morning), there’s this report that the Obama administration’s spending spree has now exceeded 100% of GDP. Obama borrowed $239B on Tuesday, the largest one-day total in our history, and will borrow another $72B next week. And still, the economy is struggling to gain a toehold on any kind of improvement.

SNAFU.

But I’m digressing. I’m doing it now so I can get it out of the way early.

The big story for me is the all-out attack coming from the lefty news outlets against those who would dare to suggest that Washington live within its means like a normal American household. These people have been referred to as “terrorists” by no less than the Vice President, Joe Biden. They’ve “held a gun” to the nations’ head and “strapped on their suicide belts” in an attempt to keep this administration from bankrupting the country in what appears to be Obama’s own Cloward-Piven Strategy: spend, spend and then spend some more. Overload the System, drain and destroy the private sector, spread the wealth around until no one's wealthy any more, all in the spirit of "fairness."

It’s the “Tea Partiers as Terrorists” Campaign.

It’s the best example of Backwardsness that I’ve ever seen, in addition to being the most pathetic. Advocate something as innocuous and common-sensical as balancing the nation’s books, and all of a sudden, you’re smeared and derided as a lunatic.

Is this a great country or what?

I’m going to carbon-date myself and say that I can remember when this kind of rhetoric was off limits in American media. I also remember when a certain large Communist country employed this same tactic against its dissidents. They were characterized as somehow lacking a certain psychological quality that others (who just happened to be in the ruling party) possessed. There must be something wrong with the way they think, perhaps they were the victim of some sort of, well, a disease, for thinking that the all-powerful State could somehow not be acting in their best interests at all times and in everything they did.

How dare they?

Oh, did you feel that cold chill run up your spine? I certainly hope so. And, you’re welcome.

Now, you could be seeing this and wondering just what the hell is going on. I sure am. It was subtle towards the beginning of the Tea Party movement, but after a few rallies around the country, it wasn’t long before the Make Believe Media started to cherry-pick isolated incidents and selectively edit photos and quips to paint a very false picture of the entire movement.

Then the image concocted by the left-wing media began to form: we were racists for opposing our historic first black President, then we were all homophobic, and now we’ve graduated all the way up to terrorists.

All this has happened while at the same time, traditional lefty news outlets were shedding their audience in record numbers. Newspapers were losing readers and the once-vaunted CNN became an afterthought for most new-seekers. Now, they’re just after the decidedly niche market of extreme lefty fanatics. All you need to is compare the viewership ratings of Fox News Network to see how far they’ve fallen from favor.

And yet they persist. Their screeching grows ever louder and more incoherent with each passing day.

Looking at it from a psychological perspective, what we have here is a classic case of projection. If you’re unfamiliar with the term and what it means, its rather simple: someone who is in denial of their own faults will find someone else to blame for their troubles (and make no mistake, they’ll have lots of troubles). Once this psychological boogie-person is found, the denier will then project their own faults upon them, and assign to them the problems that they themselves have in processing the real world.

For a more complete overview of various defense mechanism that people regularly use to cope when they can’t really, click here for Dr. Sanity’s excellent post on the subject.

Now, if you’re grounded in reality, understand that there are a lot of very powerful people who aren’t. Challenge their followers and their mistaken political beliefs and you’ll find out pretty quick. It only takes a few minutes of debate with a lefty to discover more than you ever wanted to know about the myriad methods some folk use to sidestep reality. Rage, projection, denial, it’s all there for you to pick apart, should you care to do so.

You might wake them up, or you might drive them deeper into their fantasy world. I’m going to repeat this saying, because it bears repeating: You can deny reality, but you can’t deny the consequences of denying reality.

And those in the left-wing media are doing a hell of a lot of denying these days. They’re seeing their vision of a Marxist Utopia crumble before their very eyes and, to put it bluntly, they can’t handle the truth. So they lash out at the nearest convenient person in order to affix the blame for the problems that arise from the crumbling, like a horrible economy, rising inflation and rampant joblessness. Notice that all that is being blamed on the Tea Party in Congress for their refusal to increase the nations’ debt limit, even when a certain freshman Senator from Illinois opposed it in 2006. That’s one little factoid that you won’t hear from them.

As a side note, one of the first things to look for in someone who can’t cope is inconsistency. A normal human will have the same beliefs, grounded in reality, at all times. This translates to a consistent stance on the issues.

If you’re someone who understands the clear language of the Constitution and the intent of the Founders to limit the power of government and maximize the freedom of the individual, that’s a pretty consistent position. But, curiously, you’ll be criticized roundly for it. It’s like standing on shore while someone is rowing a boat away from you. The American Left is doing the rowing, putting more and more distance between themselves and you (politically speaking), so who’s doing the moving? Take a simple, common sense, principled stand and you suddenly become the enemy.

Do you feel like a terrorist yet?

Did the Tea Party Score a Victory in the Budget Battle?

2011-08-01T11:04:00.000-04:00

It appears as though there’s finally a debt deal in Washington, although I can’t say for sure at this point. There’s only one way to tell, given the sclerotic nature of rhetoric that spills forth from career politicians: if both sides are grumbling, that means we have a deal.

Yay! I think.

What is clear is that the issue of an ever-growing federal government is finally being brought to the nations’ attention. Maybe some of our friends who don’t normally pay attention to these things will start to notice that Washington long ago outgrew its britches and now plays a much larger part in our economy than it was ever intended to by the Founders. And for those that don’t, when they suddenly discover they can’t buy such innocuous items as 100-watt light bulbs in the stores starting next year, that might help them understand this whole government-has-become-way-too-big thingy.

Or so I hope.

Anyway, it appears as though the Tea Party made its presence felt on Capitol Hill and embarked on its quest to reduce the size and intrusion of the federal government. And no one felt it more than Speaker of the House, John Boehner. He submitted plan after plan and members of the Tea Party refused to back his capitulation to the big spenders up there.

Understand what the word “compromise” means in today’s political environment: radical, far-left Progressives (but I repeat myself) propose ever-increasing ways for the government to control our lives through legislation, and Republicans just try to slow it down with counter-proposals that still increase the size, scope and intrusion of Washington. That’s some compromise, huh?

For a quick review on how the right and the left view this deal, here are a couple of links. First, there’s this from Mark Thiessen at the Washington Post, “How the Tea Party “hobbits” won the debt fight.” And here’s the leftist view from Yahoo News, "How the Tea Party won the Deal.” Note that you will be dumber for having read that one, filled as it is with such stupidity as this,

Given how much the Bush tax cuts have contributed to the deficit (and how little they’ve spurred economic growth), it’s mind-boggling that they’ve apparently escaped this deficit-reduction deal unscathed.

And this nonsense,

Obama, like FDR, had a reasonably successful first two years: a stimulus package that while too small for the circumstances was still large by historical standards and a health care bill that while subpar in myriad ways still far exceeded the efforts of other recent Democratic presidents.

If by successful, you mean strangling the economy by growing government by over 30% and passing laws at a pace not seen since the Great Society days of the Johnson administration, then by all means Obama has been a success for big government advocates. For the rest of us, not so much.

I’m proud of the Tea Partiers for standing on principle. The midterms elections last November were just the start of what I hope will be a conservative revolution in Washington. I’d like to see such careerists as Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and others of their ilk removed from office. Along with them, I’d also like to see Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, and John McCain primaried and replaced with true fiscal conservatives who will actually think about the effects of their actions upon their fellow citizens.

That’s a lot, I know, but I think it can be done. After all, who had even heard of Marco Rubio and Col. Alan West two years ago? I keep up with these things and I had never heard of them.

Hope springs eternal. And this budget battle only serves to make it bubble even more.

And while I’m on the subject, I’d like to put to rest those of us on the right who think that we need a third party in the 2012 Presidential election. This is a supremely bad idea, one that saddled us with somebody named Bill Clinton thanks to Ross Perot’s third party candidacy. Although he didn’t wreak havoc on our economy, he would have had he been elected at any point in time other than right after the Great Ronaldus Magnus. There’s no doubt that he benefitted more from the policies and subsequent economic boom of the Reagan years more than any other leftist president.

And make sure, Bill Clinton was, and is, a radical leftist. Remember the photo of him signing a bill while both Cloward and Piven looked on? If that doesn’t give you pause, knowing today their strategy for collapsing our government and economy through wildly irresponsible spending is in full, I don’t know what would.

This fight over the budget is a small victory to be sure, but it has established a precedent in Washington. We’re no longer talking about how much government will grow, we’re not talking about cuts in the rate of increase of government (which is how those on the left define the word). We’re talking about real live cuts, cuts that you and I have made in our family’s budget, where there is a real reduction in spending.

Naturally we want more. I look forward to the day when we hear politicians start speaking of something called “baseline budgeting.” This radical concept (or radical in Washington, at least) starts the budget from zero, not last year’s budget. This small change is grand in scope. What it means is that each department is examined for what it really needs, not what is has received in the past.

We’ll know we’ve made the kind of true progress towards sanity in government when that day arrives. It’s coming, and it’s coming because no one is able to escape the results of not doing it.

It’s like that old saying, “You can ignore reality, but you can’t ignore the results of ignoring reality.” And career politicians have been ignoring reality for way too long.

Budget Battle BS

2011-07-28T11:28:00.000-04:00

After watching and hearing the wrangling over the budget battle from afar, I’m not optimistic that conservatism will win this round. What I’ve heard and seen has been so far removed from reality that it’s starting to resemble a circus. Not that Washington politics has ever been rooted in reality, but this is getting ridiculous.

As a bullshitter par excellence myself, I must say I’ve never heard so many lies of commission and omission in my life.

Never.

Let’s start with a few facts, shall we? Our esteemed President’s favorite sport, right after golf, is blaming his predecessor George Bush for each and every little thing that’s currently wrong with our economy, from the debt, to inflation, skyrocketing gasoline prices, to post-nasal drip and painful rectal itch. It’s what he does.

Well, that may have worked for a while, but two and a half years into his term, that just doesn’t cut it anymore. One thing is very clear: Obama owns this economy, lock, stock, and rotting barrel.

I’ve been wanting to run this graph for a while, since everyone else in the blogosphere has. I know, me, Alabama, slow, etc.

We Who Follow These Things So You Don’t Have To know that Congress was taken over by the Democrats following the little fit the American voters had in 2006 when they tossed Republicans out in a grand display of displeasure with their spendthrift ways. They had controlled Congress and the White House and yet had failed to rein in spending.

Granted, we were in two wars, which always tend to be rather expensive affairs, but the economy was still roaring along. If you remember, the Mainstream Media looked upon any downturn in what we’d all gladly return to today as signs of the Coming Apocalypse. I’m sure y’all remember when the talking heads claimed DOOM! (Hi, Monty!) when the unemployment number figure rose a mortifying two tenths of one percentage point.

President Bush was an economic terrorist! Soon, dogs and cats would be sleeping together, there would be a river of evil slime running through New York sewers, oh, wait, that was a movie, never mind.

Still, I think today, everyone in the country would gladly go back in time to the days of essentially full employment and nonexistent inflation.

And just so everyone remembers, here are a few numbers from those days that the MSM said were so horrible: Unemployment was dreadfully high at 4.6% Gasoline was an unthinkable $2.25/gal. (Click on the History tab)

The horror.

As the chart above clearly shows, this debt crisis didn’t start until the Dems controlled Congress and Obama became President. Bush’s TARP was just the beginning of federal spending, soon to be followed by the Stimulus, a debacle of near-Biblical proportion that did a great deal to add to the deficit and nothing to solve our economic problems. Next up was ObamaCare, then the Dodd-Frank takeover of Wall Street, the bailouts of GM and Chrysler, Cash 4 Clunkers, the student loan takeover, an avalanche of new environmental regulations, Obama’s illegal oil drilling moratoriums in the Gulf, the list goes on. At the same time that the Pelosi-Reid Congress was spending the country into ruin, President Obama was busy putting the clamps on the private sector, resulting in the lowest amount of federal revenue since 1950.

My point is that the very same Democrats who got us into this mess are the ones currently striving with all their might to keep us in it.

One would think that Republicans would have a large cache of rhetorical ammunition in the way of facts to launch against the Dems in this battle, and one would be quite correct. But have they used any of it? No. They. Haven't.

Why this is is a wonderment to me, as I’m sure it is to you. Obama, Reid, and Pelosi clearly started this mess and are now blaming the Republicans for it. But, hey, it’s what they do. If you want just a taste of what the Dems are saying, you need look no further than this quote by DNC ChairThing, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz:

“Aren’t we at the point where the closer we get to chaos, the more concern that there should be about coming to the table and compromising with Democrats?” Wasserman Schultz asked. “This is not leadership. This is almost like dictatorship. I know they want to force the outcome that … their extremists would like to impose. But they are getting ready to spark panic and chaos, and they seem to be OK with that. And it’s just really disappointing, and potentially devastating.”

So, let me see if I have this straight: We’re the extremists for wanting Washington to act in a fiscally responsible way, just like we do in our lives? WTF? On what planet do you live, darlin’, where this makes any kind of sense?

Another thing, Debbie, your psychological projection is showing: it was President Obama who recently stated that he finds the idea of being a dictator “tempting” in a speech last week before the radical racist Mexican supremacist group La Raza.

I have a few questions for the GOP: why haven’t you called the Dems’ bluff yet? Why haven’t you guys used the word “obstructionist” to characterize the Senate Democrats repeated threats to squash any bill that comes out of the House? Or even used that term for the Presidents’ same threats? That’s a game anyone can play.

Why haven’t you pointed out that all this wild spending started when the Dems took over congress in 2007? And that Obama said it was only temporary? And that he also said he wanted to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term in office? You could even use a little bit of snark by saying you only want to help him fulfill his promise.

What are you guys waiting for? You’re clearly losing the public relations battle and yet you seem stricken by Bush’s Disease: you refuse to defend yourself with even a few simple facts that a lot of Americans already know. Facts that would work in your favor if only you'd say them out loud. Facts that would expose the Dems for the tax-and-spend radicals that they are.

You guys could be winning this and enjoying a much-needed boost in your popularity, and yet you seem reluctant to do so. I mean, hell, if I can do it, certainly you can too. It’s not rocket surgery.

You guys can’t even defend the concept of a free market economy nor point out how this administration is twisting it into something unrecognizable. All you’re doing is giving ammunition to those who wildly claim that capitalism doesn’t work. How can it, under these circumstances, when those we’ve elected to act in our place don’t understand even the basics of how our economy is supposed to work and pat themselves on the back for placing mountains of restrictions on it?

Mr. Boehner, why don’t you realize that you will be attacked for anything you do or say? You might as well be criticized for stating the truth. Doing that will strike a chord with the nation. You could step up to the podium armed with facts, yet you refuse to do so.

You can be cordial and biting at the same time without appearing to be whatever it is that you’re trying to avoid. We know you’re trying to be the adult in the room and you’re almost there. Almost.

If you were to try to appeal to the vast majority of hard working Americans who understand what it will take to get the country out of the Obama Depression, you’d find your own and congressional Republicans’ poll numbers would start climbing, thereby preparing the ground for the 2012 elections, which the GOP stands poised to win.

Your reluctance to embrace a truly smaller government makes the rest of us who are rooting for you question whether you really want that or if you are just another big government bureaucrat in disguise. Please stop acting as if last November’s elections didn’t mean anything and that Congressional Republicans don’t have a clear mandate to stop this Marxist/Socialist administration from further crippling our country’s economy.

It’s up to you, Mr. Speaker. An anxious country is waiting for you to tell us the truth and counter the lies and propaganda coming from the radical, leftist Alinskyites who have infested Washington.

It’s time to get your own ass in line.

Our Current Economic Crisis and How to Solve it

2011-07-25T10:29:00.000-04:00

It’s Monday and time to get out the razor blades and draw a warm bath.

Good Morning!

I was looking forward to a relaxing weekend free from the political shenanigans going on in Washington over the debt crisis, I really was. But Friday nights’ dueling press conferences between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner was too good to miss.

The contrast was glaring. President Obama held his presser first. Thanks to NiceDeb, here is the video.

What we saw was a president who is clearly aware he’s losing the battle of the budget. He was petulant and impatient; it was all over his face. His demeanor was unseemly for the Leader of the Free World. There was very little in the way of facts. All he did was try to shift the blame for the budget crisis onto the Republicans.

By comparison, Speaker Boehner was calm and collected, one could almost say defiant. Again, from NiceDeb, Boehner’s press conference.

Overall, I get the impression that Boehner is the adult in the room, not Obama, despite the presidents’ attempt to appear that way, aided and abetted by a compliant (and lying) media.

At some point, reality will intrude. I don’t think it will happen all at once, but there are growing signs that President Obama and the Senate Democrats, led by Harry Reid, are losing the public debate over the debt and the deficit.

If it weren’t so serious, it would be comical. On the one hand, there is Obama desperately trying to bankrupt the country and using every rhetorical trick in the Progressive playbook to make it appear as though it’s the Republicans who got us into this mess. Obama seems to be saying, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”

On the other hand is Boehner, whose exasperation level seems to be rising exponentially with every passing day. He truly does realize that something has to be done to cut spending and that right soon.

And so do the American people. Polls are showing the President losing support, even among Democrats. That’s a bit misleading, though, as the Dems are unhappy that he appears to be waffling in his insistence upon a larger and more intrusive federal government than the country has ever seen before.

Someone needs to explain that to me. How can anyone look around today and say that anything this president and the last Congress has done has worked to America’s benefit?

Unemployment stands at 9.2%. It was 7.8% at the beginning of Obama’s term. Real inflation is around 10%, not the miniscule number of around 1.5% that Washington uses. Gasoline prices are nearly double what they were in January of ’09. And I don’t have to tell you that the price of groceries has nearly doubled in four years.

Gentle reader, none of this is happening by accident. None of it.

It’s the direct result of a command-and-control economy that is being commanded and controlled by people who want us to suffer.

I hate to sound so pessimistic about that, but there’s no other explanation. We’re being screwed on purpose. And make no mistake, there are people who are profiting quite nicely, thank you, from our travails.

One of the most prominent beneficiaries just so happens to be one of the architects of this crisis, Nancy Pelosi. Her net worth increased, and you’d better sit down for this one, a whopping 62% last year. I’ll bet y’all know of at least one friend whose worth decreased that much over the last few years.

Harry Reid’s personal worth increased also, and to be fair, so did John Boehner’s. So it would seem everyone in Washington is on the gravy train.

Too bad we’re not on it too.

Now, there is a very popular misconception amongst radical leftists and Progressives (but I repeat myself) that capitalism is a zero-sum game. To decode this for you, that means that in order for one person to gain, that gain must come from someone else’s loss.

I’m sorry, but if you really believe that, you need a constant reminder to breathe. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If that were true, then no economy would experience any growth, period. Think about it and you’ll come to the inevitable conclusion that those who think that way have been conditioned, which is merely a polite word for brainwashed.

For the longest time, I, and probably you too, gave this administration the benefit of the doubt when it came to their economic policies. However, that was then and this is now. After two years of declining economic numbers, we are coming to the sad conclusion that what’s happening to our economy is being done on purpose.

I’ve outlined one possible cause, that of outside pressures being brought on our economy for the expressed reason of bringing us down. I’m not alone in considering that possibility. Here’s a link to an interview that you should hear. Yeah, it’s dull and dry, since it’s about economics, but it’s well worth listening to. It’s from an economist named Catherine Austin Fitts and its entitled “Now That We Got Your Money, We’re Going to Change the Deal.” Once more, thanks to NiceDeb, who’s proving to be a valuable source of the obscure, and a good blog buddy, too.

Of course, no discussion on economics would be complete without me doing my Ron White imitation and dancing on my soapbox. So, for your consideration, I’d like to propose a solution to our problem. I’m generous that way.

We need to retreat from this whole idea of a global economy. I know, we’re being told it’s the wave of the future and everybody’s doing it and there will be rainbows, unicorns and skittles for everyone if we do.

Much like global warming or climate change or whatever that’s being called this week, this whole notion of a global economy is based on the false premise of multiculturalism. As you know, that’s the idea that all cultures are equal and therefore equally good. We all share the same values and ideals and we will all work together in glorious harmony for the greater good of mankind.

Kinda sounds like a workers’ paradise, doesn’t it? Now, where have I heard that before? Hmmm...

It’s worth noting that environmentalism is part and parcel of the New World Order of things. Check any study on it, particularly from that august body of internationalism, the United Nations, and you’ll see the environmental buzzword “sustainability.”

Let me get my decoder ring out again for you. That word doesn’t mean what you think it means. It’s another false premise, that there are too many people in the world consuming too much of its natural resources and that the industrial economic model cannot support this growing population.

That’s just a lie, plain and simple. The only thing restricting the exploration and harvesting of our natural resources is government. Capitalism and freedom have done more to elevate the condition of man than any other form of economy.

And that’s a fact.

Why are third-world countries third-world countries? You need look no further than their governments, the overwhelming majority of which are dictatorships. The people aren’t free, nor will their strongman governments permit such freedom. Such is power.

Here’s my solution. I know that I’ll be called all sorts of names for even suggesting this like xenophobic and nationalist and all that, but I really don’t care.

A global economy cannot work. What we need to do is concentrate our efforts on America first. This means that we should be enacting new laws to spur investment by American companies here at home. We should also repeal laws that have been shown to be detrimental to our economy, like NAFTA and GATT. A robust and diverse economy at home should be the policy of our government along with a dedication for us to have the highest standard of living in the world.

We are still the world’s largest economy. We should be taking advantage of that market by making our own products here while producing enough extra for export and trade with other countries. We can compete in a global market, but it must be favorable to us first. And as this effort towards a global economy is currently being implemented, the goal is not for other countries to move to more freedom for their people, the goal is to dismantle our freedoms and our economy for redistribution to the rest of the enslaved world.

This is the wrong way to go and we know it.

The world isn’t fair or equal, despite the intentions of many powerful people to make it that way. They see our success as something to be plundered. This is nothing but envy on their part.

If we keep on electing politicians who think of themselves as ”citizens of the world” instead of Americans, we are doomed for no good reason.

It’s time for America to rediscover and reinvent herself.

Friday Bits of Tid - End of Funemployment Edition

2011-07-22T08:22:00.000-04:00

A big, ol' hound dog howdy to y'all.

Well, this has to be a sign of the Apocalypse: I have a day job. It's part-time, which allows me flexibility to keep playing music, but the downside is I won't have as much time to blog. Not to worry, I'll still be here to weigh in on the political news and offer up the biting insight all nine of you have grown to know and love. I just won't be doing it on my former regular schedule.

So, the quanitity may go down, but the quality will increase. Or that's the theory at least.

It's a major career change for me, but, hey, life is nothing but a series of changes anyway. Adapt or die is the phrase, I think. And who knows, I still might have time to blog every day, we'll see. Anyway, I'll be playing it by ear for a while, to coin a musical phrase, and see what I can do.

I really do enjoy blogging. It's educational for me, doing all that exhaustive Internet reasearch, which usually consists of about five minutes on Bing. I hope you find it rewarding and interesting as well. You guys are a small but dedicated audience, for which I am Thankful.

Onwards, toward the bits...

Remember Steve Wynn's rant against President Obama's weird philosophy from the Smackdown post the other day? He wasn't the only one. And someone really should tell Wynn that Obama's weird philosophy has a name: it's called Socialism, and it has failed spectacularly every time it's been tried.

Just a reminder. None of the Senate Democrats voted to raise the debt ceiling in 2006. This is another one of those little talking points Republicans fail to mention, along with the bazillions of other things they don't say. No wonder they're losing the public in this debate over the debt.

From WSJOnline, via Ace, comes this astute political observation from one of the nations' most well-respected left wing dingbats, Deepak Chopra. It seems he's worried that Obama might not be reelected. He offers up his reasons why Democrats are just oh-so-much-better than you or I. They're listed here with this warning: Do Not Drink Anything While You Read This, as whatever you have in your mouth will be forcibly expelled through your nose. It's a reflex, trust me.

1. Liberals are freethinkers who wisely question their own assumptions. "One of the virtues of being on the liberal side of politics is that total obedience isn't required. There are no hidden agendas. Ideology doesn't lead to unreason. . . . Liberal politics is based on a non-regimented, all-inclusive approach to democracy. Freedom of thought is paramount."

2. Conservatives, by contrast, are sheep who blindly adhere to crazy dogmas. "It feels as if the inmates are running the asylum--as in the current Republican threat to default on America's debt. . . . If you suppose that the average citizen remembers that the right wing are the very ones who got us into this forlorn tangle of wars abroad, financial collapse, out-of-control spending, and massive bonuses for the rich, you have not felt the power that fear exerts."

3. It is crucial to keep Obama in office lest the crazy, stupid conservatives take over. "The prevailing sanity of President Obama is something that others and I have taken for granted. . . . It was such a relief to return to humane, non-ideological governance when President Obama won in 2008."

4. Therefore, liberals should stop questioning him and give him their blind support. "All of us who have taken advantage of our liberal heritage to question and criticize President Obama need to step back and consider the radical nature of the opposition. . . . If ever there was a time to stand behind the captain, this is it."

Please to meet your drug dealer?

Chase Bank is expanding and diversifying and evidently, taking over the duties of coroner. Chase Bank declares woman dead. You're not fooling anyone, you know.

The World's Fastest ~~Indian~~ Suzuki. 311 mph.

Behold the wonder that is bacon.

(h/t CBS News.com/strange although I wonder what's strange about a cooking video, especially one with bacon, oh well...)

Here's a political trend that needs more, um, exposure here in the States - Women urged to strip to support Putin. Subtitle: Putie's Cuties.

And finally, if this dog ever has puppies, I want one.

Y'all have a good weekend, y'all.

Recollections from a Child of the Space Program

2011-07-21T07:26:00.000-04:00

The Space Shuttle Atlantis has just landed as I type this, the twin sonic booms announcing her arrival. It’s the end of an era, a sad end that came too soon, thanks to politicians who have no imagination, no vision, and no commitment to the betterment of mankind, despite their meddlesome efforts to engineer society into their idea of Utopia.

As is typical with the Obama administration, we’re wasting an incalculable fortune in lost opportunities and human capital. There’s just no reason for us not to continue being the world’s leading space power. The Shuttles still have many flights left on their airframes and many Americans want us to maintain our lead in spaceflight. But do our politicians reflect our will and do as we the people wish?

Sorry if I’m bitter, but I grew up in the shadow of the space program.

I’m going to see how much I can remember of my experiences growing up in Huntsville, Alabama. I’m sure some of you also have ties to the space program and have your own memories. I’d like to hear about them in the comments, if you’re so inclined. Ima, that’s your cue…

The private military school I attended in Mobile gathered the student body in the gym in front of a TV so we could all see Alan Shepard’s first flight, as it did also for John Glenn’s flight. That was the time when I started dreaming of exploring space. I didn’t think, however, that we’d get to the moon in my lifetime.

I’m glad I was wrong. Of course, I was a young’un and didn’t read the newspapers except for the comics, so I was surprised to learn that we were indeed, going to the moon. President Kennedy’s announcement woke me right up. I started finding out anything and everything I could about the Mercury and Gemini programs. I remember having a favorite astronaut, Wally Schirra, for reasons that had nothing at all to do with my real name, really (wink).

I remember crying when Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died aboard Apollo 1 in the tragic launch pad fire. The city of Huntsville named the next three schools after them, so their noble sacrifice could be an inspiration to future generations. That was when reality set in, sobering but not diminishing our national mission to reach the Moon before the end of the decade of the ‘60’s.

One day, not long after Mom and I had moved to Huntsville, I was in our apartment when I heard something that sounded like a tornado. Since it was a nice day outside with no storms, I couldn’t figure out what that sound was. Soon, the walls began to shake, and the pictures with them. The phone rang. It was one of my buddies who was hollering, “Hey, do you hear that? That’s one of the Saturn V engines they’re testing down by the river!” Whew. For many of the later tests, a few of us would gather in the front yard of a friends’ house on a hill where we had a good view of the exhaust plume which would hang in the Alabama air for what seemed like hours. We’d try to see shapes in it like a cloud. Good times.

Did I mention that somebody named Werner von Braun was a local hero?

On the night of the Moon landing, a bunch of us junior high schoolers gathered at a friends’ house to watch it on TV. As I walked home afterwards, I remember looking up at the Moon and thinking, “We did it, we finally did it. Dreams really can come true.”

My introduction to politics came when I heard that we were cancelling Moon missions. Why? Wasn’t there so much more to do? We were just getting started, and I wanted to go, too. Who are these people who would prevent us from reaching for the stars?

The next year, in my first year of Machine Shop school, we took a field trip to Marshall Space Flight Center where I saw my first computer controlled milling machine, which a buddy’s dad operated. That’s when I knew I could still contribute in some way to our space effort. Thus began my career in manufacturing.

I remember seeing the Shuttle Enterprise flying around Huntsville on the back of the jumbo jet, and later took a picture of BackwardsBoyBoy under her wing in a stroller at the public event.

I would later work at Marshall for a fellow named Charlie Yeager, Chuck’s second cousin, in the old Gemini vehicle assembly building. He was one of the nicest guys you’d ever want to meet, and I was honored to work with him and get to know him. Charlie, if you’re still here, I think about you, Cecil, Mike, and all the other guys with great fondness. And I still remember our flights to Talladega to watch the NASCAR race and qualifying. More good times.

Charlie had “NASA in his pocket.” He had done just about every little behind-the-scenes job that you could imagine at Marshall. One day, I was looking for some special screws, 100-degree pan-heads, stainless steel, one and a half inches long, not your standard shop item. I’d looked everywhere in the shop, and when I couldn’t find any, I finally asked Charlie if we had any. He looked at me while he dug in his pocket. “How many do you need?” he asked. I said six, and he pulled six of them out of his pants pocket.

That was Charlie.

The building itself was a museum of space. There were old spacesuits just lying around, along with a section of the first Space Station, wrapped up in a corner. While I was there, we built a full-scale mock-up of the laboratory module of the new Space Station, as did every other NASA facility. The design team then toured and viewed all the mock-ups and finalized their design from our ideas. That module is on the NASA tour, so you can see some of my work. So, yeah, there’s a little bit of me flying in low Earth orbit right now.

Challenger, and later, Columbia. We don’t often witness noble death. For those of us who Believe, they’re still flying, only with different and better wings.

So, I’m sad today. I can only hope that the pause will be as short as possible while we work on new and exciting missions once again and regain our lead in space.

We still have the Right Stuff. I wish our politicians did.

Live from Washington – It’s Conservative Smackdown Wednesday Night Wrestling

2011-07-20T10:25:00.000-04:00

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Conservative Smackdown Wednesday. I think you’ll enjoy tonight’s matchups as we have some of your favorite veterans and a stable of first time contenders coming your way. You won’t want to miss a single second of the action.

Tonight, Charles “Killer” Krauthammer takes on Nina “The NPR Ninja” Totenberg. Killer K is looking to add another win to his record of 143 and 7 with a victory over Totenberg. Don’t let this guy’s size fool you, folks, he’s packed full of dynamite, that‘s why he has the reputation he does.

Next up is Allen “Colonel” West against Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, “The DNC Destroyer” in a much-anticipated grudge match. These two have quite the history, going all the way back to the campaign of 2010 when Debbie the Destroyer issued her challenge to The Colonel at his event down in Florida. Something tells me neither one of them will back down tonight.

After that classic, we have Rick Santorum, the “Pennsylvania Pontificator” battling another newcomer, Dan “Rough Me Up, Big Boy” Savage in a match that I’m sure you’ll enjoy. This won’t be for the squeamish, so if you have small children, we suggest sending them to another room, this one might get ugly.

Following that, I’m told that Steve Wynn, “The Last Resort” will issue a challenge to one of the most famous stars in Washington today, “The Transformer,” Barack Obama. These two have been engaged in a war of words for weeks now, so stay tuned for that one.

And for our main event, we have rising star Joe Walsh, “The Illinois Illuminator” against the man the crowd loves to hate, Chris “The Tingler” Matthews. These two will square off in a cage match that promises to be the most exciting battle so far this season. Only one of them will walk out of the cage, the other one will be carried out. Who will it be in the best two out of three?

Llllllet’s get rrrrrready to rrruuuummmmblllll!

Here’s our first card, Killer K and the NPR Ninja…

Wow, what a performance by the wily veteran. The NPR Ninja was outmaneuvered from the start. He sure silenced that panel quick and in a hurry, didn’t he?

OK, let’s move on to our second match between The Colonel and the DNC Destroyer.

Hey, it almost looks like Debbie the Destroyer has the better of the Colonel. But wait, he’s coming back with a vengeance. He really aims to mop up the ring with her.

From: Z112 West, Allen

Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 04:48 PM

To: Wasserman Schultz, Debbie

Cc: McCarthy, Kevin; Blyth, Jonathan; Pelosi, Nancy; Cantor, Eric

Subject: Unprofessional and Inappropriate Sophomoric Behavior from Wasserman-Schultz

Look, Debbie, I understand that after I departed the House floor you directed your floor speech comments directly towards me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige. You are the most vile, unprofessional ,and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up. Focus on your own congressional district.

I am bringing your actions today to our Majority Leader and Majority Whip and from this time forward, understand that I shall defend myself forthright against your heinous characterless behavior……which dates back to the disgusting protest you ordered at my campaign hqs, October 2010 in Deerfield Beach.

You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!

Steadfast and Loyal

Congressman Allen B West (R-FL)

Ouch, that’s gonna leave Debbie confined to a whirlpool bath for a couple of days at least. What a pummeling!

Let’s pause for a word from our sponsors.

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. This next match pits favorite Rick Santorum against a newcomer, Dan Savage. I get the feeling Santorum is none too happy with Savage after last week’s insulting tirade on the Bill Maher show. He’ll be looking to settle this score quickly.

Yes, that’s a veteran in action right there. Kids, if you want to learn from someone, he should be at the top of your list.

And now, we welcome Las Vegas heavyweight Steve Wynn to our microphone. Steve, we understand you have something to say to The Transformer?

And now to respond, we have The Transformer himself, Barack Obama live via satellite.

OK Steve, I think you were heard loud and clear.

After the commercial break, we have the match everyone’s been waiting for, The Illinois Illuminator taking on Tingler in our main cage match. We’ll be right back.

All right everyone, here’s our main card. These two need no introduction to followers of the great sport of political wrestling. We know there are some of you out there who say this sport isn’t real. Well, we’re about to show you just how brutal it can actually be. So without further delay, let’s get this match started.

Wow, I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years as an announcer, ladies and gentlemen. The Tingler was certainly no match for The Illuminator. I almost couldn’t look, and you probably couldn’t look away. What a terrific beating. We hope The Tingler will be OK. As soon as we have word on his condition from our on-the-scene reporter at the hospital where he’s currently being transported, we’ll pass that information along to you.

We want to thank you for letting us into your home tonight and hope you’ve enjoyed all the action from here in our nations’ capitol. Please join us again next week for Conservative Smackdown Wrestling.

Another One Bites the Dust – Electric Car Maker Folds, Costing Salinas, CA $500K

2011-07-19T09:39:00.000-04:00

Here’s a story that should come as a surprise to absolutely no one.

From KSBW.com,

A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before almost any vehicles could run off the assembly line.

The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company.

All of that money is now gone, according to Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan.

Van Jones hardest hit.

Here we have another story about a heavily subsidized company that promised grand and glorious things, only to fail in spectacular fashion at a great cost to innocent taxpayers. It’s far from the first and it certainly won’t be the last if we don’t come to our senses soon. One is left to wonder just how many more of these stories we’ll see before we finally realize the truth about President Obama’s dream of a “green economy.”

It. Will. Not. Work.

There are so many things wrong with the whole idea of a “green economy” that’s it’s difficult to know just where to begin. I suppose I could start with the idea behind the environmental movement itself.

Yes, for a while we did have an environmental problem. Rivers were on fire from the waste that was being emptied into them, the smog in some cities was chokingly bad and there were all sorts of nasty things in your drinking water that you really didn’t want to know about. So, from a sense of cleanliness if nothing else, the environmental movement was born.

Success came early to groups like the Sierra Club and others. They were able to have legislation introduced that forced companies to become more aware of their impact on the environment. The public was firmly behind their efforts, as no thinking person would be able to think for long if they were being slowly poisoned by modern life.

However, I can find nothing wrong with the idea behind the birth of the movement. What I am able to find great fault with is what is has devolved into, namely a large and way-too-powerful government agency that is now a destroyer of jobs, capital, and potential instead of a responsible steward, as the movement was in its infancy. The Environmental Protection Agency and the various private groups with whom it deals has become a haven for the Anti-Human League.

As fantastical as it sounds, there are actually some folk who think that mankind is a pox on the planet, just like Agent Smith in The Matrix,

And they live to control you: what you eat, what you drive, what kind of light bulbs you can use, even how you think.

The modern environmental movement has all the hallmarks of a religion, except backwards. In fact, you could look upon environmentalism as devil worship. You wouldn’t be far off the mark. The Earth is it’s god. It even has a name, Gaia. To many, it’s a deity to be worshipped and, on occasion, to be offered sacrifice. Instead of elevating mankind, environmentalism seeks to degrade it. Its adherents are constantly finding fault with even the slightest thing you do as you go about your daily life.

You use too much water to take a shower. When you use the bathroom, you use too much toilet paper. You wash your clothes with the wrong detergent. You drive the wrong car to work. In fact, you shouldn’t even drive at all, use public transit instead. Your job is killing the planet. Your television and computer consume too much electricity. You eat the wrong food. The earth is in peril because of you and needs to be saved, and environmentalists are the only ones who care enough to do it, you filthy human.

So pervasive is modern environmentalism that you can barely watch TV, go to a movie or turn on the radio without hearing the message. Think “Big Yellow Taxi.”

While being aware of how the world works isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it was carried to the absurd extreme long ago. Today, it’s just bitchiness and control. Enviro-nagging, if you will. And you must admit, it's the perfect bitch. Who could possibly want dirty air and water?

And it needs to stop.

I’m not suggesting that I don’t want clean air and water. But with our air and water cleaner today than ever before, I think the job is done. However, to those who populate the green movement, nothing is ever enough. New and more stringent regulations are issued daily from the EPA that are threatening our ability to produce energy in a cost effective way. These new regulations are currently fulfilling President Obama’s dream of shutting down the coal-powered electricity industry.

Now, common sense would dictate that the movement would embrace cleaner technology like hydroelectric dams and nuclear power. But even those technologies are frowned upon. We haven’t built a new nuclear plant in the US in over thirty years, and efforts are underway to reroute rivers away from their controlled route (and coincidentally, away from power producing dams) and back to their more “natural” state. This is a primary component in the recent flooding in the Midwest.

Common sense would also dictate that certain realities be recognized. However, neither common sense nor the laws of physics enter into the mind of the environmentalist. And forget about economic laws. To them, money is evil, too.

Look at what the movement has done to our gasoline. In the name of “saving the planet,” we’re now forced to use a mixture of gas and ethanol. Ethanol is made from corn, a food. Ethanol is also far less efficient than pure gasoline, resulting in poorer mileage and the deterioration of components in your car, causing your fuel system to wear out ahead of its time. Does that sound like an environmentally smart thing to do?

Now, much of the corn that was used for food for our livestock and us now goes to make fuel, resulting in higher prices for consumers and food shortages. Again, does that make any sense?

You can see where this is going, and it’s no place good. And this is only one example. Add to this the very false argument that we’re addicted to oil and you can see environmentalism laid bare in all its contradiction and self-loathing.

I’ve mentioned before that oil is the common sense substance to use. It contains the most potential energy of any naturally occurring resource. It’s portable and can be made into a wide variety of useful products, one of which greased your bottom as an infant.

But to the average environmentalist, it’s the source of all of our problems and must be eliminated entirely.

But I’m digressing all over my own post. Sorry.

The simple truth remains concerning a “green economy”: if it made sense to do so, we’d already be doing it. We already use energy-dense methods of production, but they are under attack from a group of people who don’t understand the laws of physics or economics.

The Salinas story is yet another failure in an industry that is the very definition of unsustainable. In order to survive, it must depend on taxpayer dollars. It cannot create wealth, if it did, it wouldn’t need subsidies.

The technology upon which a green economy depends has yet to mature. It makes no sense to waste tax dollars on windmills when a nuclear plant is much more efficient. It makes no sense to “invest” in solar power when a hydroelectric dam is nearby that produces electricity constantly. All of the so-called "solutions" forwarded by the green movement are far less efficient than what we’re currently using. And they all require a backup source of power.

Which is why it is designed to fail.

But, after a few generations are born into the culture of falsehood that is the environmental movement, the more people will cease to question it. For them, it will have always been that way. The lie of man-caused climate change will become the truth for too many.

Is that really the way we want to go? Or will we start to teach our children and grandchildren the truth about the movement that seeks to enslave them with their own guilt?

Economy Monday – Obama Demands Concessions While Offering None

2011-07-18T08:28:00.000-04:00

It’s Monday, boys and girls, and you know what that means when it comes to the wrangling over the Federal budget: not a lot got done over the weekend.

Oh, words were tossed about. President Obama continues to try to cast himself as the adult in the room, an image that the public is finding increasingly transparent. And by transparent, I mean that we can see right through it. Keith Henessey has a good post on the weekends’ lack of progress to solve our current fiscal crisis.

If you listened to the Sunday talk shows, particularly the ones on the so-called Mainstream Media channels, you’d just hear a recitation of all the White House talking points and very little in the way of real information. Personally, I can’t flagellate myself that way, especially when I know what needs to be done, as does everyone else.

I was reminded this weekend of a famous quote by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who once said that any British housewife could balance the budget. In that same spirit, any American could balance our budget. As I’ve stated before, Washington’s budget is no different from the budget of most American households, except there are a lot more decimal places and zeroes.

But you’d never know that if all you listened to were the MSM Sunday shows. Those alleged purveyors of knowledge leave out much more than they include when it comes to their reporting and their opinions on the budget battle. Bob Shieffer on CBS’ Face the Nation tried to corner Senator Marco Rubio on the issue yesterday. Rubio responded by saying this,

"The way the deal is currently structured right now, it gives the President the ability to raise the debt limit. But as I've said already on the problem; The debt limit is not really the problem here, the problem here is the debt.

"The debt limit is actually the easiest part of the problem. It's one vote away from being solved. But, if all we do is raise the debt limit and it's not accompanied by a credible solution to America's debt problem, we're in big trouble."

What you won’t hear from the MSM is the simple fact that the Democrat-controlled 111th Congress, led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, is directly responsible for this crisis, along with President Obama. With Democrats in full control of the White House and Congress, they ran up our debt to stratospheric heights. We were told at the time that these increases were temporary. Now, President Obama is trying to make them permanent, all the while still managing to blame his predecessor for a problem that he created.

Not only that, his recent citing that some 80% of Americans favor tax increases has been proven false. In fact, Ace points this out rather adroitly in his dissection of an NPR poll where they gather one set of opinion statistics and report something completely misleading. Nice work, there.

Another voice of reason in this debate is Charles Krauthammer. He’s been making the rounds of the political talk shows with one question. When confronted with the false MSM talking point that it’s the Republicans who are blocking the path to negotiation of a budget solution, he now asks the liberals, “Where is Obama’s plan?”

(h/t to Newsbusters.com)

That’s the best way to shut up liberals: confront them with facts. Works every time.

What’s needed is what I call The Neo Plan to reduce the budget. “Cuts, lots of cuts.”

There are plans out there. Curiously, President Obama chooses to ignore the recommendations of his own Simpson-Bowles Commission while he criticizes the Ryan plan. If you want to see a credible plan that imitates what you or I would do with our own budget mirrored at the federal level, be sure to check out this link from Financial Times, Lawrence Solomon: A Tea Party Budget.

I shall tease you with this,

First, scrap government departments that overlap with functions traditionally and primarily met at the state level, and that often do more harm than good. The country’s educational performance declined after the federal government imposed its educational priorities on the states, which have the prime responsibility for education. Scrap the Department of Education, a failed Carter-era experiment that had its roots in president Dwight Eisenhower’s desire to imbue the education system with Cold War thinking, and out goes a US$77-billion annual expense. Likewise, scrap all or parts of the Department of Energy, the Small Business Administration, the Federal Transit Authority, Federal Highway Administration, Housing and Urban Development and other federal areas that intrude on state and local responsibilities. Apart from the dollar savings from eliminating duplication and cancelling perverse projects, the quality of public services is likely to rise when the former federal functions move closer to home in state or local government, or become privatized and are delivered in the private sector.

It should be noted that the Department of Energy has one useful function: there’s a lot of military research and development that goes on there that shouldn’t be cut. That’s the part we need to keep.

One important thing to remember in any budget talks is this: when liberals and even so-called moderate politicians speak of cuts to federal programs, what they call a cut is actually a cut in the rate of increase of funding. That’s built in to the budget, sometimes to allow for inflation, sometimes for population increases. It doesn’t take much to see that an ever-growing federal budget is a given, and is a big part of why it’s out of control.

What’s needed are drastic cuts, meaning real, live reductions in staff, salaries, and benefits for these bloated bureaucracies and, at a minimum, a moratorium on any new regulations combined with a thorough review of the effectiveness of those regulations. Just like President Obama promised, but hasn’t done. It's almost like he has no idea how the economy works.

Also, note that President Obama has not offered up one single concession of his own. At no time has he suggested even one of his signature programs for cuts. Not the Stimulus, not ObamaCare, not the bailouts of the auto companies, not the student loan takeovers, nothing. All of his programs must remain in place unaltered.
Who’s being the rigid ideologue now?

Friday Bits of Tid - Die Hard Edition

2011-07-15T11:00:00.000-04:00

Greetings and salutations, y'all. We've made it to the end of another week, disappointing our ex-spouses once again.

All together now, "Neener, neener, neener."

On this day in 1988, the movie Die Hard debuts, moving somebody named Bruce Willis from the small screen to the big one. Yippie ki-yay.

If this was my son, I'd just go ahead and send him to Nick Saban today. 16 pound baby born in Texas. Before BackwardsBoyBoy was born, I'd go to the hospital where the then-wife worked and rock newborns whose parents, for whatever reason, couldn't be there. I had a great time in the process. Anyway, there was one young'un in there that weighed 13 pounds, "Fat Albert." You could pick out his cry above the others. Basso profondo I believe is the term.

From the "you can't make this stuff up" department: an Austrian wins the right to wear a spaghetti strainer on his head for his drivers' license picture. The article says he's an atheist and then says that he adheres to a religion known as "Pastafarianism." Pick one, mon.

Why catching Derek Jeter's 3000th hit ball may not be a good thing. And here's a high school pitcher who has been clocked at 90mph with both hands. I used to do that on my intramural college slow pitch softball team. Carried two gloves to the mound. It was great fun until I struck out my history professor one day. I did not get a good grade in that class, for some strange reason.

County eliminates ban on forest juggling. Well, it's about damned time.

Captain America motorcycle on display at the Harley-Davidson museum. From the new movie, not to be confused with Peter Fonda's bike from Easy Rider.

iChurchKey.

Paul, the clairvoyant octopus has gone to that great calamari plate in the sky, Not to worry, though, here's his replacement, Nelly the elephant.

Heh. A mysterious "W" appears on Obama's head. Well, he does seem obsessed with him...

From David Thompson, how to deactivate a cat.

And finally, I'll leave you with this little ditty.

Y'all have a good'un, y'all.

Mr. President, It’s Time for You to Surrender

2011-07-14T09:27:00.000-04:00

Budget talks between Obama and Congressional Republicans have broken down again. According to reports, this time it is President Obama who abruptly walked out of negotiations after telling Eric Cantor, “Don’t call my bluff.”

Mr. President, this is no bluff. This is serious. And you, sir, are not acting in a serious manner.

Americans are growing tired of your insistence on an ever-larger government, even in the face of history making debt. Your efforts to fundamentally transform America are to blame for our anemic recovery, the worst in several generations. You have run up more debt than all your predecessors combined.

And yet you press on, seemingly oblivious to the destruction you, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have caused in your crusade to make Washington the decider of all things American.

You demand that Congress continue to implement your misguided policies. That is not what the American people want. We displayed our discontent with your policies last November. You said it was a shellacking. America gave a clear mandate to those whom we elected to stop your policies. Now, when you are confronted with two choices for our nations’ future, you continue to choose your path instead of the clear will of America.

We want your irresponsible spending stopped immediately.

You do not seem to be aware of what you have done, Mr. President. You bear a great duty to the country, a duty that you have ignored. You are directly responsible for the greatest waste of human capital America has ever seen. Millions are out of work, many after decades with the same company. Many of us have been forced to settle for jobs outside of their chosen fields. Computer Programmers are forced to work as receiving clerks, machinists are forced to work at grocery stores, all trying to get by until our economy returns to normal.

And we hear from your administration that we are in the “new normal.”

Seniors who must live on fixed incomes are seeing their limited funds squeezed further by the inflation that you have caused in your mistaken quest to stimulate the economy by printing more paper dollars. Gasoline prices are approaching record highs thanks to your unwillingness to make our country truly energy independent. Your unofficial and illegal moratoriums on oil drilling have forced many workers onto welfare rolls as they watch once-productive oil rigs leave the Gulf of Mexico for more profitable waters.

Time and again, we have watched as the programs you championed have done the opposite of what you told us they would do. Your Cash for Clunkers program that destroyed perfectly good vehicles only served to make the price of all used vehicles rise, putting them out of reach for those who can’t afford a new one. Your takeovers of GM and Chrysler only benefitted your union cronies, as stockholders were sent to the back of the line in defiance of the law. Your Stimulus did nothing of the sort. Unemployment rates are higher now than when you signed the bill.

Your takeover of Wall Street, which should have ended your attacks on them, has resulted in a slowdown of economic activity while nervous investors await the avalanche of new regulations on an already overregulated sector. The same is true of your Health Care bill. Employers are so unsure of the costs of your new regulations that they cannot hire new employees.

You pit the rich against the poor, as if no one in America aspires to richness. You divide us when you were supposed to unite us.

And now you want to raise the debt ceiling so you can continue to borrow more money from unfriendly governments to fund your extravagant spending after you criticized your predecessor for doing the same. You refuse to offer up any cuts of your own, and attempt to portray responsible attempts at spending reductions as somehow evil.

No more, Mr. President.

Now is the time for you to realize, as the rest of the country has realized, that you have failed the American people. You have failed in spectacular fashion and you seem intent upon continuing your failed policies.

You must surrender your assault on the country, Mr. President.

Obama Threatens Social Security Checks if Budget Deal Not Reached

2011-07-13T11:08:00.000-04:00

Wow. I mean, just, wow.

Remember that ad that Democrats ran a few weeks back accusing Paul Ryan (through his budget plan) of pushing Granny off a cliff in her wheelchair?

This one?

How prescient. Except for one thing: it’s not Ryan who wants to push Granny off the cliff, it’s President Obama. He said yesterday that he couldn’t guarantee that the August Social Security checks could be mailed out if Congressional Republicans didn’t give him the massive tax increases he is demanding.

So, who wants to remake that ad now?

This is beyond the pale. Obama has pulled back the curtain on his true nature, that being a Chicago henchman who’s willing to hurt anyone, and I mean anyone, to get his way. Do I need to explain just how despicable this is to anyone?

You should be ashamed of yourself, Mr. President.

As I’ve covered earlier, should a debt deal not be reached, we would not default. In that case, the Constitution requires that foreign debt be paid first, with the remaining funds to be allocated by the Treasury Department. But, the demagogues on the left would have us believe that the world would end in a just a few hours, and it would all be the fault of the Republicans in Congress.

Don’t be fooled.

Mark Levin lays out the situation well. Take a listen to better understand just what it is that Obama’s doing with regard to our debt crisis. (h/t The Right Scoop)

American Thinker blog also has a good post on the debt. Worth a read to get up to speed, too.

Naturally, if you receive Social Security, this sent a chill up your spine. It was designed to do that, and by inference, indict John Boehner, Ryan, Mitch McConnell and anyone else who dares to resist Obama’s efforts to bankrupt our nation and to make them look like the bad guys in this situation.

However, it won’t work. It can’t work.

Obama just insured his defeat in the 2012 presidential election. What? Somebody had to say it. Do you honestly think that Obama won’t be blamed for his decision to stop those checks?

This is the thing that Obama owns now. No one else brought it up. It would be within his power to tell Tim “Turbo Tax” Geithner how to prioritize the payments. If he feels that Social Security recipients shouldn’t get their checks, but that the EPA, the NEA, Planned Parenthood and PBS keep their offices open, there is no one else to blame.

And believe me, there would be political hell to pay if he does, both for him and the corrupt Progressives in Washington that got us into this mess through their irresponsible spending spree that began in 2007 with Nancy Pelosi’s takeover of the House.

Good.

Many seniors I know, since they’re retired, follow politics. It’s a fun hobby (in a masochistic way, to be sure) and it keeps their intellectual muscles toned. And I’m certain that once word of this reprehensible possibility gets around, Obama’s image will suffer a huge downward spike, as it should.

So long, Barry.

While others in the blogosphere aren’t quite as optimistic as I am about the negative political fallout from Obama’ statement yesterday, there are still quite a few who can see through this blatant effort by Obama to scare seniors. Here’s a roundup.

Michelle Malkin, Obama: If We Don’t Get a Deal, I Can’t Guarantee We’ll Be Sending Out Social Security Checks on August 3rd.

NewsMax, Obama Threatens August Social Security Checks in Debt Ceiling Gamble.

The Wall Street Journal Online, Raise Taxes or Granny Gets It.

NiceDeb, Debt Ceiling News Round-Up: “In The End, All This Is About Who Gets The Blame”

And over at Ace of Spades HQ, you think I’m bad about peeing in your economic Wheaties on Mondays, Monty brings the DOOM! every morning, complete with kitteh.

I guess this stuff is finally getting serious.

Another Real, Live, Blog Post

2011-07-12T11:39:00.000-04:00

I'm starting to notice that I can't keep up with all the stuff going on, at least on the opinion side of it. Me, Alabama, slow, you know the drill.

And since variety is the spice of life, (and here I always thought it was Tiger Sauce, which is great on eggs, with a beer, which is the official after-gig breakfast) I thought all eight of you might enjoy another post that looks more like a real, live, blog. I kinda enjoy them too.

I watched Obama's presser yesterday about the budget negotiations. Several things struck me, chief among them is the very casual attitude of this President in general. The second thing I noticed was his overall demeanor, that of someone who suddenly discovers he's losing a very expensive hand of poker. I coulda swore I saw some genuine fear in his eyes there a few times. It was subtle to be sure, but still, I've learned to trust these little flashes of insight, however small they may be.

Another thing I've noticed about Obama is his intellectual inconsistency. He will literally say anything at any time on any subject to advance his power and his own sense of self. Here he is in 2009, saying that raising taxes in the middle of a recession is a bad idea. And here he is yesterday digging in his rhetorical heels about the need for a "balanced" approach to the debt problem, which means he wants to raise taxes dramatically to fund what we were told was a temporary increase in spending.

This lack of a consistent stance is indicative of a larger problem. Living in a swirl of thought like a fart in a hurricane is no way for President to be. However, he did once mention that he was a blank screen upon which the nation could project any political impression of him it wished. Um, maybe we thought we were looking in a mirror...

Obama speaks, the Dow drops. There's a bumper sticker in there somewhere.

My Senator, Marco Rubio, knocks it out of the park with this statement, "Everything is worse under Obama." Video at the link.

What President Obama Doesn't Understand About Americans and the Debt Ceiling Debate, from Fox News online. This is not an all-inclusive list, by the way.

Today is the day the bill to repeal the incandescent light bulb ban goes to a vote in Congress. You might want to give your legislator a call and recommend that he/she/it vote in favor. Also, George Bush, what in the hell were you thinking when you signed this bill?

Also, there's an important local vote out in Los Angeles today. Janice Hahn, who has been funneling money to local gang members, among other nefarious acts, must be defeated in her bid for the 36th California Congressional seat. All the sordid details are here. If you know anyone out there who lives in that district, please let them know about this and the importance of keeping her out of office. It's all of our civic duty.

OK, that about wraps it up for this edition of BlogBoy.

Unless, of course, you'd like a little space rock with some politics mixed in. If you've never heard of the band Klaatu, you are in for a real treat, especially if you like progressive music. This is one case in which the word "progressive" actually means something good. If you have a good sound system or headphones, crank it up.

To set this song up for you, it's about some space farers who travel around the universe in eighty days and happen upon the ruins of an ancient civilization about which next to nothing is known, except that they aren't around anymore.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Politzania.

Or, the Obama National Anthem.

America Knows How To Fix the Budget – Why Doesn’t Washington?

2011-07-11T07:51:00.000-04:00

It’s Monday morning and time for some arsenic in your coffee. You’re welcome.

As of this writing, the budget talks between Congress and the White House have collapsed. Thankfully, the Republicans stood their ground for a semi-sane solution to the impending deadline of August 2nd. This is the date that the Obama administration has deemed the point past which the oceans will stop receding, or something.

Oh wait, that’s when we’ll default on our massive debt obligations to our most favored trading nation, Communist China. But from what I can gather, this date is merely the one on which Obama can start his newest assault on House Republican for failing to approve his budget with $2T, yes, that’s a T, of tax increases.

We have plenty of revenue coming in to service these payments to our fine financial friends, but you’d never know it, especially if you relied on the Mainstream Media to keep you informed. Timmy “Turbo Tax” Geithner was interviewed on two MSM political talk shows yesterday, yet was never asked the one very simple question that might have calmed concerns in the markets: Do we have enough money coming in to pay our obligations? Click here to hear Geithner’s prefabricated, blame-the-Republicans interviews.

If that date passes without a budget, there will be repercussions, but if they are handled properly, this could force the bloated Obama administration to finally start living within its means, as the overwhelming majority of Americans want them to. We don’t want the debt ceiling raised, especially when there are cuts that can keep us under the present one.

Here’s the deal: we are constitutionally bound to pay these debts, as we should be. You may have seen this story on the Drudge Report where some Progressives, in a staggering reversal of their traditional ignorance of our Constitution, recently found within it an “obscure” provision that permits President Obama to sidestep Congress and proceed with his budget. Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which states that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law . . . shall not be questioned,” is cited as their justification for usurping what has been for the past oh, 235 years or so, the sole power of Congress to control America’s purse strings.

As you may have guessed, that’s not exactly true. Or close to true. Or even in the same room with the truth. Or the same building. I could keep going, but you get the idea.

Only by the most tortured of definitions could this even be considered as an excuse by Obama to increase our already staggering debt. It’s that pesky “authorized by law” thingy. Only Congress can generate the law, since that’s where all laws originate according to the Constitution. See, that was easy.

Apparently, it’s so simple, that the Soros-funded, radical, far-left Obama think tank Center for American Progress can’t understand it. But then again, we’re dealing pretty much in plain English here, so their apparent confusion is to be expected.

But I’m digressing all over the place.

What this means is that our debt obligations will take priority over other expenditures. We’ll pay our good buddies, the ChiComs, first. After that money is spent, then the rest of Washington’s vast richness of departments, like the Department of Showing African Men How to Clean Their Genitals After Sex, might just be forced to get by with a little less money for a while.

If, and that’s a big if, House Republicans do it just right, they can start to reduce the drastic amount of spending that Obama said was only temporary. After all, that’s what we sent them there to do in the Great Shellacking of 2010. They have a clear mandate, one of the clearest in a generation. What this administration is doing with regard to the budget is bordering on can abuse.
They could claim that all these cuts were the direct result of Obama’s refusal to recognize fiscal reality, because they’d be right. They could just say that they’re helping Obama do what he said he’d do, namely cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term.
Remember that?

They’d just be doing it in a slightly different way, the way you and I would do it with our household budgets, by cutting unnecessary spending. You know, the right way, with no smoke or mirrors and no class warfare.

Cut the EPA’s budget? Done. Ditto with the Departments of Energy, Education, Agriculture, and all the other departments that are duplicated by the states.

And here’s the biggie: Defense. I’m not really sure we should be cutting the Pentagon’s budget, what with Obama’s habit of engaging us in a new kinetic military action against regimes that don’t pose an imminent threat to us every six months or so.

Wouldn’t be prudent. If you want to cut defense, make damn sure it’s the waste that we’ve all heard so much about, not body armor for our troops.

Rick Santelli, the CNBC correspondent who is largely responsible for the current Tea Party movement, puts it best:

The answer is easy: spend less. . . .

Stop spending. Live within your means. I think what we need to do is live within the revenue intake, . . . end of story and do not ask taxpayers for more money or increase the debt ceiling until you give us a budget. . . .

There’s a right way and a wrong way to do just about everything, especially in Washington. We’re seeing the dismal results of doing it wrong for two and a half years now.

It’s time to start doing something right for a change.

Oh, and remember that chart I was going to create that showed the correlation between increased spending and the increase in unemployment? Someone beat me to it. It also shows the dropoff of the rate at the end of 99 weeks, just as it should.

Friday Bits of Tid - End of the Shuttle Era Edition

2011-07-08T09:34:00.000-04:00

It's about three hours until liftoff as I type this and I have the NASA channel on in the background. Shuttle launches are always interesting for a space geek like me, but this one is sad as it's the last Shuttle flight ever. Living where I do, I can walk out the front door and see it live. But it's really cloudy, so I might not be able to see today's launch.

It's unfortunate that what was once a vital area of federally funded research and development has been fundamentally transformed into something far less than it was originally intended. It's one of the few government programs that has earned its keep, so to speak, as the tax money that was generated from the spinoffs paid for the costs many times over. Also sad is that the agency which once pursued the best and brightest engineers and technicians in America has been reduced to a muslim outreach agency by this most anti-American administration.

So much for dancing on my soapbox this morning. I wish the crew Godspeed and His Protection.

Someone remind me to recall for you my adolescence spent in Huntsville, AL and later working at Marshall Space Flight Center. Good geeky times.

Oh, well, it's time for some Low Earth Orbit tidding.

While we're on the subject of flight, this is a welcome development. It's about time we finally got our flying car after all these years. Dear Santa, I've been a really good Boy this year...

And on the other end of the technological spectrum, there's this: Mother Nature's lawnmowers.

Halt! Or I'll shoot a fade shot over these trees and onto the fairway.

A boob on wheels. And, no, it's not the guy behind you in traffic.

Duckling tape.

From David Thompson comes this fascinating video. I hope your computer has the display capacity to enjoy all the high definition goodness. The music is also pretty cool.

Team Ghost - High Hopes from 16ar on Vimeo.

David's Friday Ephemera is full of interesting links, from which I filched these also...

Who knew Marlon Brando was a conga player and also worked on a unique way to tune the head?

So this is what happens when I hit my cymbals, huh?

And this is what happens when I play my bass...

And finally, here's Halo, the pool playing dog.

Now go fetch me a beer. Good dog!

Y'all have a good weekend, y'all.

A Pre-Friday Post Wherein This Looks Like a Real Blog

2011-07-07T07:29:00.000-04:00

Another short post as I must lay my good friend to rest today. So instead of the usual biting insights into the state of American politics, I'll do my best Instapundit imitation for you. Kinda sorta.

First on the list is my favorite hangout, Ace of Spades HQ. Rumor has it that somebody named Andrew Breitbart likes the commenters there. That place is like mental Wheaties. Or going to a biker bar where all the patrons are Mensa members.

One of our own, The Wordy Bitch. Ima, you do realize we're probably related, since we're both from Alabama, don't you?

I know I'm in the minority as a conservative musician. Here's another one, Right Wing Rocker.

Here's a new site from the Cato Institute, Downsizing the Federal Government. And similar site, Dirty Spending Secrets.

When I get enough energy and time, I'll put these links in the sidebar.

Here's a few things I've been thinking about posting about. So much malfeasance, so little time...

Victor Davis Hanson's Fourth of July treatise, Liberal Frankensteins. Not Fronkenshteens?

Enemies. Here's a snippet...

These so-called “progressives” or “liberals” are not advocates of progress or liberty: they are enemies of them, and the sooner champions of liberty acknowledge what they are, the better our slim chances for defeating them will be.

I'm looking forward to more of this sentiment inside the hallowed halls of Congress.

What if the conventional wisdom about the energy future of America and the world has been completely wrong? This, however, sounds about right - the cost to transition to the so-called "green economy" is around $76T, with a "T", dollars.

Nancy Pelosi is still the least popular House leader. In other news, water is wet.

Yet another reason to fight Net Neutrality: Documents show the FCC coordinated with a far left-wing organization (is there any other kind?) on the rules. Gee, it's almost like the average American doesn't have a voice in Washington. And another thing, embedding YouTube videos may soon become a felony.

OK, gentle readers (of which one more is added to the roll this week, thanks), click and enjoy while I attend to familial duties here.

My friends are my family.

The 112th Congress is the Least Productive in Years – Thank Goodness!

2011-07-06T09:11:00.001-04:00

Kathleen Hennessey, reporterette for the LA Times, penned this little piece over the weekend. She thinks that Congress is falling down on the job by not being “productive.”

She actually tries to makes it sound like a bad thing…

The 112th Congress is on pace to be one of the least productive in recent memory — as measured by votes taken, bills made into laws, nominees approved. By most of those metrics, this crowd is underperforming even the "do-nothing Congress" of 1948, as Harry Truman dubbed it. The hot-temper era of Clinton impeachment in the 1990s saw more bills become law.

She goes on to say this –

Experts cite the rise of a brand of conservatism that aims for a government that governs least.

Um, Katy, that’s not “a brand of conservatism,” that is conservatism in its purest form.

It’s clear from her article that Hennessey, like many others, doesn’t understand the very simple founding principle of our government: we are free unless there is a law that specifically prevents a certain action. This is what our current Commander-in-Chief meant when he called our Constitution a document of “negative liberties.”

From the American Thinker link,

…Government does some things which reduce our private rights and yet which increase the common good. Politics is all about where the boundary between broad notions of promoting the general welfare by state coercion and preserving liberty should be. Politicians on the Left have often argued that liberty should be reined in more tightly so that "the people" can live better. But implying that more state power somehow increases liberty is beyond mere Leftism. It is entry into that dead realm of [Orwellian] Newspeak in which language is pureed into nonsense, and then nonsense is presented as argument.

Now this may not seem very important on the surface, but it’s the main reason why we’re staggering under the weight of unprecedented intrusion into our daily lives from the federal government. Soon, we won’t be able to purchase 100-watt incandescent light bulbs. Traditional propellants used in aerosol cans have been outlawed, forcing much more expensive alternatives to be used. Asthma inhalers have more than doubled in price as a result, making formerly affordable relief difficult or even impossible for many. Gasoline is now blended with ethanol, which is less efficient and results in poorer gas mileage and damage to older fuel systems, again the product of legislation from Capitol Hill. Additionally, the seasonal formulations required for gas adds to the price we pay at the pump.

There are many more examples, but the trend is alarmingly clear: we are allowing those we send to Washington to legislate our freedom away at a frightening pace. Much of the reason for the increased price of consumer goods today is the direct result of misguided laws enacted by zealous representatives in Washington who think they are doing the people’s will by enacting as many laws as possible.

This is the primary reason why Obama and the Left received such a “shellacking” in the 2010 midterm elections. It signaled an awakening of we the people to the dangers of a far-too-large federal government and the desire to stop the rampant trampling of our freedom by Progressives in Congress.

So, what the Left sees as a failure, conservatives rightly see as a victory. Slowing the rate at which we’re losing our freedom should be cause for celebration, not derision.

Hennessey’s article reveals quite a bit about the Leftist mindset, that government should be the sole dispenser of the rights of a people in direct contradiction to the intent of our Founders, namely that our freedom is inherent in our existence, given from God at birth, intended to be preserved by representatives who refrain from enacting laws which, under our form of government, rob us of that freedom.

This is the revolution that our forebears fought and died for. A new way of living, a first for mankind, beginning with the idea that man was naturally free, that freedom was no longer the benevolent allowance of an all-powerful monarch, to be dispensed as a reward for fealty to the king.

In other words, less is indeed more when it comes to our form of government. Less laws equal more freedom.

The Fresh New Hell of Obamanomics

2011-07-05T11:03:00.000-04:00

Here’s a little news to begin your workweek: President Obama’s own Council of Economic Advisors released its Seventh Quarterly Report on the impact of the Stimulus last Friday just as the long holiday weekend was beginning.
There was a reason for the timing of the report’s release: it’s pretty damning for the Obama administration. A quick perusal of the numbers combined with some simple math shows the Stimulus has resulted in the saving or creation of 2.4 million jobs at the cost of a mere $666 Billion dollars so far. Nice number, that last one.

OK, let’s see here, $666 Billion spent, divided by 2.4 Million jobs created equals, hmm, carry the two, divide by the square root of infinity, multiply by the number of Nancy Pelosi’s Botox injections and you get the answer: each job added only cost you $278,000!

Isn’t this math thingy fun?

Oh, wait, my calculator is starting to smoke and there are sparks coming from it. I coulda swore it just said, “Danger, danger Will Robinson!” I swear didn’t know calculators could talk.

Of course, any numbers that come from this administration will be revised soon, and those revisions will be “unexpectedly” worse. It’s almost like they can’t count, or something.

If you are fortunate enough to still have a job, then these numbers may not mean much to you. Perhaps the only thing you’ve noticed is that your paycheck doesn’t go quite as far as it did last year. Gasoline prices have only doubled on Obama’s watch. And actual inflation, measured the old way, has removed about ten percent of your buying power, not the “official” number of 1.5%.

“These things happen” may be your reaction. And you would be right, almost. In the past, our economy has had its ups and downs, as do all economies. But a curious thing has started to happen in the last, oh, twenty years or so. As we’ve seen a reduction in the stable base of our economy, more and more of our economy has become dependent upon disposable income.

Now you may remember what disposable income is, or at least was. It’s that part of your money that’s left over after you pay for the things you have to have in order to live: your mortgage or rent, groceries, clothes, gas, the car payment. Overhead, it’s commonly called. Now these expenses are pretty much fixed, unless you need a home or car repair of some sort. What remains is your “disposable income.” Most families spend that money on things that aren’t essential, like IPods or going out to the movies, or a vacation.

So when your overhead increases, say, it costs more for groceries and gas, it means you have less money left over for the “nice to have” items. So, a larger part of our economy has become dependent on disposable income, which tends to fluctuate a pretty good bit. This is a big reason for the bubbles that have occurred in our economy. Instead of showing gradual and steady growth over the long term, we now see sharp spikes and deep drops as bubbles form and are eventually deflated. And when they do deflate, the results are becoming more destructive.

Those of you who were around at the time might remember the “dot-com” bubble of the ‘90’s. More recently, we’ve seen the “housing bubble” where home prices started to rise well above the four or five percent annual appreciation that we once counted on. New home prices began their sharp upward climb and when that bubble burst, it sent the entire economy into a tailspin that we’re still struggling to pull out of.

Now, what separates the housing bubble from previous downturns is the direct role of Washington and its meddling in the economy. It was a direct result of a little known piece of legislation passed during the Jimmy Carter administration called the Community Reinvestment Act. I’ve touched on this before.

While the basic idea of this act was commendable, its execution was, and is, deeply flawed. Basically, it forced banks to change the formula they previously used to qualify folks seeking home loans. You may remember how easy it was to get a home loan a few years ago. The requirements were relaxed to the point that you didn’t even need to prove you had income, a marked departure from the previous standard that normally required a sample of your blood and some sort of claim by the bank on your firstborn child.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with encouraging Americans to own a home. It’s the bedrock of our economy and way of life. But instead of measures that insure a strong economy with a diversity of job opportunities for everyone, this law forced banks to lower their lending standards to include folks who previously wouldn’t have qualified for a home loan.

But that isn’t what you’ve heard as the reason for the housing market crash. What you’ve heard from Democrats is the myth that deregulation and Wall Street greed is what caused it.

Don’t be fooled. Banks and major lending institutions knew they were now subject to new regulations that defied the laws of economics. So they devised some rather ingenious ways to package these worthless loans in an attempt to recoup some of the money they were forced to lose as a result of the CRA.

So, what we have here is a failure to communicate the truth in order to gain a political advantage over Republicans.

Not content with that, the Obama administration has tried to fix one problem caused by government interference in the economy with even more interference in the form of the failed Stimulus and the Frank-Dodd financial takeover of Wall Street.

The evidence of this failure is all around us. Although we’ve been told that the recession ended some time ago, job creation has been painfully slow to rebound. While our economy is indeed growing, it has yet to reach the level needed to keep up with population growth, around 2.6%. It may be technically correct that we’re no longer in recession, the efforts of this administration have proven to be insufficient to match the normal levels of growth that we’ve seen in previous recoveries.

It’s pretty clear that Obama’s approach to fixing our economy isn’t working as advertised. New laws and the regulations that flow from them are having the opposite effect as companies sit on money that would normally be invested in expansion. One business leader after another says essentially the same thing, “There’s far too much government meddling in our economy for us to expand and hire. We’re waiting for a more stable environment before we start to invest in America again.”

One of these days, when I can find all the information, I intend to present my Backwards Economic chart that shows the clear connection between the rise of government regulations and the fall of economic activity. It’s one of those things I know to be true, and you probably do, too, it just needs some numbers in order to be credible. There’s just no way Washington can create jobs except in Washington. Each new law and regulation that comes from there only serves one purpose: to restrict our economy.

The solution is simple. In order to get our economy back on track, there must be a drastic and immediate reduction in federal interference in the economy. That won’t be easy to do, especially with the prevailing attitude of this administration, summed up recently by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is that taxes cannot be cut because then “you have to shrink the overall size of government programs.”

Um, Timmy, that’s exactly what needs to be done.

Maybe it’s time to redefine the real difference between the public and private sector. We could do this by calling them the “productive” and “non-productive” sectors, since this is a much more accurate description of their economic roles.

Or maybe “normal people” and “government leeches.”

Happy Fourth of July!

2011-07-04T12:11:00.000-04:00

Short post today. Just a couple of things for your consideration and hopefully your enjoyment as you grill, watch fireworks and enjoy time with family and friends.

There is a nobility in fighting for good that few understand. And it does require fighting. The forces of evil are never far away and are relentless in their desire to destroy the good. We must fight back with resolve in order to preserve the goodness of mankind, secure in the knowledge that we are fighting the good fight.

Here's to you America. Happy 235th Birthday from Michelle Malkin. May you have many more.

And this comes courtesy of The Jawa Report.

And here are some recipes from the WSJ Online.

And finally, I'd like to plug my secret for great grilling, Dale's Seasoning. Naturally, it's from Alabama and the only thing I ever put on any meat on my grill. You will never taste a better burger in your life. The trick is not to use too much, I only brush the patties twice, and for some reason that I've yet to figure out, you also need to paint the sides of them too, again, only twice. You can use it on beef and chicken.
And definitely don't use it as a marinade. It's meant only for grilling, as part of the delicious flavor comes from the smoke created as it drips on the charcoal (no gas for me).

I take credit for introducing this wonderful stuff to Publix supermarkets, as they didn't stock it when I first moved down here. You're welcome.

Have a great Fourth, y'all.

Friday Bits of Tid - Fourth of July Edition

2011-07-01T09:50:00.000-04:00

Whee! It's Friday and time to gear up for the biggest right-wing, conservative, Democrats-not-allowed celebration of the year, according to this study by Harvard University.

"The political right has been more successful in appropriating American patriotism and its symbols during the 20th century. Survey evidence also confirms that Republicans consider themselves more patriotic than Democrats. According to this interpretation, there is a political congruence between the patriotism promoted on Fourth of July and the values associated with the Republican party. Fourth of July celebrations in Republican dominated counties may thus be more politically biased events that socialize children into Republicans," write Harvard Kennedy School Assistant Professor David Yanagizawa-Drott and Bocconi University Assistant Professor Andreas Madestam."

And their point would be, what, exactly? Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't find anything wrong with friends and family, hotdogs and hamburgers, cold beer, American history, music, and fireworks. Oh, and a NASCAR race.

If it's good enough for John Lennon, it's good enough for me. He grew into a Republican in his later years.

Red tids, white bits, and blue Fridays all around!

While you're grilling this weekend, try some bacon jam. (h/t to David Thompson)

This sounds like fun. A sleepover inside a zoo. In a treehouse. Count me in.

Leather and Harleys just go together, but a leather Harley? I guess that couldn't be any stranger than what I've seen at Bike Week.

"May the fleas be with you," said Yoda, the World's Ugliest Dog. Love her, you will.

Iran plans to send a monkey into space. What will they do without Ahmadinejad?

Curveball.

"The Oxford comma is what separates us from the animals." Damn. I always thought it was a bent-up coathanger.

I'm sorry to end on a sad note, but I lost one of my best friends on Wednesday. Ronnie "Byrd" Foster was a fantastic musician, a mentor, and a wonderful guy. All of his friends held a fund raiser last Sunday for him, and it was truly a magical event. The love for him was felt by everyone on stage and in the crowd. He played drums for blues guitarist Roy Buchanan during the '70's and was a local legend in his hometown of Pittsburgh and here.

The best night I ever had onstage was with him. He will be missed.

Embedding has been disabled, but he can be seen and heard here and here.

Godspeed, my brother. We will meet again.

Our Confused President’s Press Conference

2011-06-30T08:42:00.000-04:00

I admit I missed President Obama’s press conference yesterday: I was in enough pain already. My back is acting up again, and I didn’t want to add insult to injury. But I did make up for it by waking up at 3 this morning, so there's that.

I’ve watched replays of it and read the official transcript of it to know that all I missed was an exercise in confusion, class warfare, and demagoguery.

In other words, it was a typical Obama press conference.

It goes without saying that Obama, away from his teleprompter, is a national embarrassment. He cannot think on his feet and cannot make coherent arguments without resorting to needless finger pointing and blame-laying. His grasp of our current economic crisis is tenuous at best, and he seems to have great difficulty in understanding his role in it. He has no difficulty, however, in dodging responsibility for his mistakes.

Take his remarks on the deficit for instance. In his response to a question about the various dates that have come and gone without a vote to raise the debt ceiling, he laid the blame on Congress for the unprecedented and unsustainable amount of debt that’s currently threatening our economy, saying this:

And [the] last point I want to make about this. These are bills that Congress ran up.

It’s clear that he was trying to blame the deficit on the current congress when in fact these bills were the result of the previous Reid and Pelosi-led 111th Congress. He sounds as though he had nothing at all to do with it, when it was he who signed those bills into law, giving them his final approval.

He’d have you think that the failed $878B Stimulus was none of his doing.

I don’t care who you are, that right there’s just an attempt to confuse you.

And here’s another confusing point. In his opening statement, the President had this to say concerning the things that could be done to help our economy out of the ditch:

Right now, Congress could send me a bill that puts construction workers back on the job rebuilding roads and bridges…

Excuse me, but didn’t we just spend $28B on roads and bridges in the Porkulus Bill? And another thing, didn’t our local taxes go towards those needed repairs at one time? I mean, before public sector union pensions started eating up all that money?

Just checking.

But wait! There’s more! President Obama also continued his War on Prosperity by opening up a new front: Class Warfare. Again, from his opening remarks…

There’s been a lot of discussion about revenues and raising taxes in recent weeks, so I want to be clear about what we’re proposing here. I spent the last two years cutting taxes for ordinary Americans, and I want to extend those middle-class tax cuts. The tax cuts I’m proposing we get rid of are tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires; tax breaks for oil companies and hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners.

It would be nice if we could keep every tax break there is, but we’ve got to make some tough choices here if we want to reduce our deficit. And if we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, if we choose to keep a tax break for corporate jet owners, if we choose to keep tax breaks for oil and gas companies that are making hundreds of billions of dollars, then that means we’ve got to cut some kids off from getting a college scholarship. That means we’ve got to stop funding certain grants for medical research. That means that food safety may be compromised. That means that Medicare has to bear a greater part of the burden. Those are the choices we have to make.

So the bottom line is this: Any agreement to reduce our deficit is going to require tough decisions and balanced solutions. And before we ask our seniors to pay more for health care, before we cut our children’s education, before we sacrifice our commitment to the research and innovation that will help create more jobs in the economy, I think it’s only fair to ask an oil company or a corporate jet owner that has done so well to give up a tax break that no other business enjoys. I don’t think that’s real radical. I think the majority of Americans agree with that.

Hoo boy, George Soros won’t like that, not one bit. Do you think that he’ll enjoy Obama biting the hand that feeds him? I mean, he’s one of the world’s richest men, isn’t he? And doesn’t he have his own corporate jet? And isn’t he a hedge fund manager?

And speaking of corporate jets, wasn’t there a tax break for them in the Stimulus Bill, written in there by Reid and Pelosi? Ace points this out...

Just a few months after lawmakers scolded auto executives for flying to Washington in private jets, Congress approved a tax break in the stimulus package to help businesses buy their own planes.

The incentive -- first used to help plane makers recover from the 2001 terror attacks -- sharply reduces the up front tax bill for companies who buy assets like business planes.

The aviation industry, which is cutting jobs as it suffers from declining shipments and canceled orders, hopes the tax break in the economic-stimulus bill just signed by President Barack Obama will persuade more companies to buy planes and snap a slump in general aviation that began last year.

I just want to make sure I’m not confused on that.

The rest of that quote tends to reinforce Obama’s mistaken idea that all things come from the government, that if Washington doesn’t provide funding for it, it doesn’t happen. In Obama’s world, the private sector doesn’t exist, except as the enemy. Never mind that those evil oil companies are publicly held, and their stock is part of a lot of Americans’ retirement portfolios. And, oh no, the private sector never invests its money into research and development. Nope. Not at all.

It’s almost like we managed to elect the worst president in our history. One with no experience in the real world and who has never held a job in the private sector where he had other people depending on him for their livelihoods.

Or something.

I’m glad I missed it. Sufficient unto the day is the bullshit contained therein.

What You Should Know About the UN’s Agenda 21

2011-06-28T11:51:00.000-04:00

I consider myself fairly well informed. I like to read and the advent of the Intertubes has been a Gore-send. I thought I was up to speed on a lot of interesting things, with politics being at the top of the list.

Imagine my surprise when a couple of my fellow Morons over at Ace of Spades HQ mentioned something called Agenda 21 this past weekend. Shirley, someone such as I would have already heard about this, the Boy thought to himself. Come to find out, I’m not as well informed as I thought I was.

Me, born in Alabama, slow, some assembly required. You know the drill.

After some exhaustive research, consisting of five minutes online, I discovered some things about this Agenda 21 that I found disconcerting. Being the good writer I aspire to be, I thought I’d pass along one of the things I discovered, and let your natural curiosity take over.

Here’s a primer…

If that doesn’t grab your attention, nothing will.

What I find most appalling about this is the complete lack of inquisitiveness on the part of politicians about this whole thing. It seems that they are more than willing to implement this agenda with no thought given to it. It’s as if they blindly trust the United Nations, when there is ample evidence that they don’t like America very much.

Another thing that concerns me is that the idea of surrendering our sovereignty never seems to occur to them. It doesn’t take much in the way of research to know that this agenda violates just about every principle that America was founded upon. Property rights, self-determination, local governance, accountability and many other principles would be abolished under this plan.

And the fact that it came about under Bush the Elder makes it even more concerning. At the time, when he introduced the phrase “New World Order,” stupid me thought nothing of it. At the time, America was the leader of the free world, so I thought the phrase naturally had a positive connotation. After all, hadn’t we shown the rest of the world how well freedom works? Weren’t we the envy of the planet for our freedoms and the opportunities that logically sprang from them to be welcome the world over? Wasn’t that why people were literally standing in line to become Americans?

I can sure be thick at times.

In light of what I’ve discovered since Sunday, this should be something that all seven of you should investigate for yourself. It’s not a good thing, for us, for our country or for our way of life.

I’ll even get you started here. I’m a giver that way.

I mean, when even Democrats don’t like it, you know that there’s something pretty wrong with it. Oh, and did I mention that the anti-Christ George Soros likes it as well?

So, whenever you hear the word “sustainable,” or one of the word's derivatives uttered by a politician, know that they’re really talking about a plan for world governance using the cover of environmentalism.

Also, know that they are unfit for office.

Why Are the Corps of Engineers Intentionally Allowing the Midwest Floods?

2011-06-27T10:26:00.000-04:00

This is one of those days when I’m just full of questions.

Take the flooding in the Midwest along the Missouri river. I ran across this item over at Ace of Spades HQ this weekend entitled Corps of Engineers Mobilize to Protect Random Critters and Bogs: American Men, Women and Children Hardest Hit. All snark aside, it got me wondering about a few things.

Like, is the Missouri river system of dams being intentionally mismanaged so as to cause the flooding of millions of acres by radical environmental policies that put animals above the needs of people?

It would appear so, especially after reading this link from Ace’s post (actually, it’s Dave in Texas’ post) The Purposeful Flooding of America's Heartland from the American Thinker blog.

Some sixty years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) began the process of taming the Missouri by constructing a series of six dams. The idea was simple: massive dams at the top moderating flow to the smaller dams below, generating electricity while providing desperately needed control of the river's devastating floods.

The stable flow of water allowed for the construction of the concrete and earthen levees that protect more than 10 million people who reside and work within the river's reach. It allowed millions of acres of floodplain to become useful for farming and development. In fact, these uses were encouraged by our government, which took credit for the resulting economic boom. By nearly all measures, the project was a great success.

But after about thirty years of operation, as the environmentalist movement gained strength throughout the seventies and eighties, the Corps received a great deal of pressure to include some specific environmental concerns into their MWCM (Master Water Control Manual, the "bible" for the operation of the dam system). Preservation of habitat for at-risk bird and fish populations soon became a hot issue among the burgeoning environmental lobby. The pressure to satisfy the demands of these groups grew exponentially as politicians eagerly traded their common sense for "green" political support.

Things turned absurd from there. An idea to restore the nation's rivers to a natural (pre-dam) state swept through the environmental movement and their allies. Adherents enlisted the aid of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), asking for an updated "Biological Opinion" from the FWS that would make ecosystem restoration an "authorized purpose" of the dam system. The Clinton administration threw its support behind the change, officially shifting the priorities of the Missouri River dam system from flood control, facilitation of commercial traffic, and recreation to habitat restoration, wetlands preservation, and culturally sensitive and sustainable biodiversity.

Granted, I never thought about it until then. I mean, I knew that radical, far-left, anti-human environmentalists have found a home in our government, but I hadn’t considered that their infiltration would be so serious as to willfully cause the death of Americans and the destruction of so much land.

Although I did know it had been done before. In California’s Central Valley, what was once rich farmland has been turned into a dustbowl after our very own EPA shut off the water supply they say threatens some useless fish. And when I say useless, I mean we can’t eat them. And I’m still wondering why the good people of California are putting up with this blatant violation of our Constitution. After all, our government is supposed to promote the general welfare of the populace, and this action certainly doesn’t qualify.

In fact, I’m frankly surprised that the California governor hasn’t sent in Guard troops to turn the irrigation pumps back on. If I were Gerry Brown, or even Arnold Schwarzenegger, I would have already done so, and dared anyone in Washington to do anything about it. I would have stood up for the people I was elected to represent and would’ve fought any effort by the federal government to prohibit our basic right to feed ourselves.

But that’s just me.

I also wonder why this issue hasn’t been brought before the Supreme Court. I can’t think of a more egregious violation of our constitution than this, but I think the Missouri basin flooding may even be worse.

Another question is, and I’m really getting tired of asking this one, is noted America-hater George Soros involved in this?

Well, what do you know? It seems he is. This post from Radio Patriot entitled Who's Buying Up Flood Ravaged Farmland cites none other than cattle trader Ann Barnhardt. If her name sounds familiar, it’s because I posted the videos of her burning a koran several weeks ago. She’s somewhat of a firebrand.

1. File this one under “Now It All Makes Sense”. A Missouri farming and ranching contact just got off a conference call wherein he was informed that the federal government is sending out letters to all of the flooded out farmers in the Missouri River flood plain and bottoms notifying them that the Army Corps of Engineers will offer to BUY THEIR LAND.

Intentionally flood massive acreage of highly productive farmground. Destroy people’s communities and homes. Catch them while they are desperate and afraid and then swoop in and buy the ground cheap. Those evil sons of bitches.

2. Speaking of evil sons of bitches, George Soros appears to be “investing” in farmground through the same puppet company that he used to get into the grain elevator and fertilizer business. The company is called Ospraie Capital Management and is buying up farmground in a joint venture with Teays River Investments as a partner.

If any of you gentle readers know anyone in the Midwest that has been affected by this apparently intentional flooding, you should inform them of these links.

I have more questions: Why isn’t Darryl Issa investigating this?

And more importantly, why are we allowing our government to do this to us?

Friday Bits of Tid - Musical Edition

2011-06-24T11:46:00.055-04:00

'Tis Friday once again. We made it to the weekend despite the best efforts of the world to prevent it.

Yippee!

Try to contain your enthusiasm.

This week brings some disheartenibg news from the entertainment world. Glen Campbell has been diagnosed with Alzheimers's Disease. He's planning a farewell tour. He's a great guitar player, composer, and star of country music and television. Here he is with Ray Charles.

It's time to tid.

Need rain? Try Craigslist.

Setting an example for today's kids - Children's author ejected from plane for bad language.

So you think you're hearing the word "unexpectedly" every time the Obama administration releases the inevitablely bad economic numbers? You're not alone. Pundit Press has this compilation of headlines with that word. As you might guess, it's a rather long post.

Perfectly timed photographs.

Really sharp knives.

I found this little video over at The Jawa Report. Enjoy.

Now for the music-type stuff.

Welcome to the Jungle.

DJ Didgeridoo. And yep, it's what you think it is.

And finally, the latest in oomphalapompatronium music. I'm glad I'm not this guy's roadie.

Have a good 'un, y'all.

How Wonderful! You Are Subsidizing George Soros’ Propaganda Machine

2011-06-23T11:40:00.000-04:00

Genius.

That’s what it is.

Pure Evil Genius.

I posted this a while back, warning you about the George Soros Propaganda Machine.

Imagine for a moment that you’re bombarded with information.

Now imagine all that information is incorrect.

Imagine further that it’s all designed to make you think a certain way, and therefore, vote a certain way. It’s possible for you to cast a vote for a candidate who, once in office, would begin to work against your best interests and those of the country.

I can now add one more item to that “imaginary” list.

Imagine that you’re helping to subsidize it with your own money.

Imagine no more, gentle reader. You really are paying your own money to be misinformed and propagandized.

Where else could a Nazi sympathizer and rabid anti-American billionaire like George Soros erect a media empire aided by the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance bill and Hillary Clinton to get Americans to pay for their own downfall?

Is this a great country or what?

I’m not the only one to notice this. The Washington Post has this article about Soros’s Media Matters “war on Fox.”

David Brock, the conservative turned liberal advocate, has recently garnered a considerable amount of press coverage for his attacks on Fox News for, among many other things, allegedly taking over leadership of the Republican Party. What the news coverage has ignored is his use of tax-free funds for his organization, Media Matters for America (MMA), for these attacks — a form of government support for activities that clearly do not merit tax-exempt status and that as a result infringe on Fox News’ First Amendment rights.

MMA was originally established as an Internal Revenue Service Section 501(c)(3) organization, that is, an organization that can receive tax-deductible contributions to engage in educational activities. The more precise purpose was to counter alleged media bias and so to “identify occurrences of excessive bias in the American media, educate the public as to their existence, and to work with members of the media to reduce them.”

MMA’s activities should disallow its tax-exempt status in two fundamental ways. First, IRS rulings make clear that attacks on individuals, statement of positions that are unsupported by facts and use of inflammatory language and other distortions will cost an organization its tax-free status. Second, in declaring “guerrilla warfare” on Fox as the “leader” and “mouthpiece” of the Republican Party and in developing a sophisticated Democratic-leaning media training boot camp, MMA has transformed itself into an aggressive advocate for Democratic and progressive causes and thus produced a second deviation from exempt educational activities.

Oh, and about that “bias” thingy…

MMA’s role as a Democratic training camp parallels exactly the operations of the American Campaign Academy (ACA), which was denied tax-exempt status by the IRS in 1989. ACA operated a school of intensive training for people planning to be campaign professionals. The facts showed, however, that most of the program’s graduates were Republicans, as were the officials who ran it and the funders who donated to it, and it was based on materials developed by the Republican National Committee.

Hmm, I wonder if this will get the scrutiny it deserves in front of a Congressional investigative committee?

Don’t you?

Our Economic Choice is Clear – US or the World

2011-06-22T11:20:00.000-04:00

We’ve reached an economic crossroads: there are two paths we can take. One, the path we’re on now, the one endorsed by well meaning but economically ignorant globalists, is doomed to fail. We’ve gone down this path far enough to see what it holds for us: a drastic reduction in our standard of living and the surrender of our values.

The other path is one that has been tried, proven to work, and is currently being dismantled by Progressives from both parties.

America, we have a choice to make. We can either go where the rest of the world wants us to go, or we can strike out on our own. We must choose wisely, for our future is at stake as never before.

There can be no doubt that the path we’re currently on cannot be sustained. The last four years of Progressive control of Washington have given us historic levels of national debt, rising prices for everything through careless manipulation of our money supply, and needless restrictions on capitalism that have resulted in the largest peacetime downturn in our economy in almost one hundred years.

America is just starting to awaken to the dangers of Progressivism. Their agenda is one of stagnation and decline, crafted to exact revenge on the most productive country in the world, all in the name of “fairness.”

And we brought this misfortune upon ourselves. Even when Barack Obama outlined his vision for America, we elected him anyway, despite statements such as this:

We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine. Don't worry about us. That's not leadership.

Answer this simple question, Mr. President: why not? Why shouldn’t we set our thermostats at a comfortable temperature? Why can’t we drive what we want? And why shouldn’t we be able to eat as much as we want?

Why do you want Americans to have less of anything, Mr. President?

I know I’ll be waiting a long time, because there is no good answer. There is no reason for us to have to do any of those things. Yet this is what passes for progress to Progressives.

And this is what the rest of the world wants for us also. Less.

Less freedom. Less control. Less money.

Is that what you want?

Or would you rather have more? More freedom, control and money? We can have it, but we must start now. We start by informing our representatives in Washington that we will no longer go down the path that the rest of the world wants for us. We will go our own way. We will turn inwards and begin to renew the American values of creativity, merit, reward, and excellence.

We will start to provide for ourselves and, in the process, show the rest of the world how it’s done.

We’ll unlock the rich natural bounty that our Creator has given us. We will use the land as we were intended to do. We will grow our own food, and trade the surplus. We’ll make our own vehicles, our own computers, our own dishwashers and everything else we need.

America can become self-sufficient first, and then produce more for trade with other countries. We must not become dependent upon any other country for our needs.

This global economy has already shown how vulnerable we are to natural disasters in faraway countries. The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan idled assembly lines here at home. There is no reason to expose us to that kind of disruption. If we were making our parts here, there would be far less chance that we would experience disruptions in our supply chain. Transportation costs would be lower due to the reduced distance parts must travel. The quality of our products would increase as well.

There are many advantages to becoming self-sufficient. As we are seeing, the rest of the world has a long way to go to catch up with us. We cannot wait for them. To do so would be to stifle our economy for no reason. We can and should be providing for our own needs and creating our own wealth.

If we choose to continue down our current path, we will diminish our nation.

That should be enough reason to choose our own way.