Happy Fourth of July!

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

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

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

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?

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

'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

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

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.

John McCain’s Shameful Embrace of the Latest Lefty Smear Against Conservatives – Isolationist!

In the never-ending quest to paint anyone who doesn’t adhere to the big-government, globalist political movement that is embraced by the New American Communists (known popularly as Progressives), they’ve come up with a new word with which to smear anyone who is opposed to their agenda.

Actually, the word itself isn’t new, but the negative connotation that the left is attempting to attach to it is. Like the word “racist,” it’s being bandied about with enthusiasm to smear, denigrate and deride anyone who dares to oppose this administrations’ involvement in Libya, and the three other conflicts we’re currently engaged in.

And, right on cue, John McCain was out in front of this effort, again turning his back on the Republican Party in general and conservatives in specific in helping progressives attack conservatives who don’t like the idea of entering a conflict without a clear mandate to win and to defeat the enemy.

Thanks a lot, Mr. Maverick, fine job you’re doing there.

It’s interesting that such groups as Code Pink, who were on the evening news nearly every night opposing President Bush’s War on Terror, are strangely silent now that their boy Obama is in the White House. Had Bush engaged us in the conflicts in Libya and Yemen, no doubt we’d be seeing much more of them, hands dripping with red paint, interrupting Congressional hearings, screaming about how illegal it all is and how he’s a war criminal and should be impeached.

Where are they now? And why aren’t they counted as knuckle-dragging isolationists as conservatives are?

The inconsistency, it burns.

But this double standard pales in comparison to McCain’s leftist stance on this issue.

McCain, speaking Monday at an event sponsored by the Foreign Policy Initiative in Washington, D.C., was asked whether he thought that support for the war on terrorism might be eroding within the GOP.


“I worry about it, and I worry a lot,” McCain said. “Because throughout the history of the Republican Party in modern times there’s two wings: the isolationist wing manifested before World War II and at other times; and the internationalist side.


“So I think there are going to be some tensions within our party,” he said.

Americans overwhelmingly support the War on Terror, but are greatly disappointed when they see our fighting men and women in uniform forced to abide by outrageous rules of engagement that give a clear advantage to our enemies. We understand the need to fight, but how can we win with one arm tied behind our back by misguided politicians who seem to think that winning the “hearts and minds” of 7th century barbarians is more important than defeating them?

The only tension that exists within the party is between an appeaser like McCain and Americans who wish to win this war by defeating the enemy by any means.

I have never understood the mysterious position taken by those on the left who oppose any and all wars. In theory, it sounds nice. “Who doesn’t want a world free of hostility and anger? Don’t we all want peace?” they say. I can’t argue with that.

But the problem doesn’t lie with us here in America. The tragic attacks of 9/11 should have proven to the world that radical islamists had escalated their war against the US and the Western way of life. Our response was justified. We wanted to destroy the infrastructure of support for Al Qaida, which was provided by Saddam’s Iraqi regime, along with Iran and Afghanistan. President Bush rightly attacked the source of their support and postponed the establishment of an islamic caliphate by invading Iraq. It had been clear to those who were paying attention that radical islamism was increasingly being supported by whole nations.

But today, ten years removed from 9/11, we still find our military attempting to win against an enemy that willfully ignores the Geneva Convention rules concerning non-uniformed fighters. This is another little detail that’s ignored by the left and various human rights organizations (but I repeat myself). If we were to truly abide by the Conventions ourselves, there would be no prisoners in this war. Illegal enemy combatants would be executed on the spot. We have the legal right to do this, why we aren’t is a mystery.

So we’re left with the impossible task of trying to win a politically correct war, fighting a war on our enemies’ terms instead of our own. And if this is the way McCain and the other appeasers in Washington want to fight this war, then there will be some blowback from those of us who remember how Americans once fought wars: to win them. If they want to call us isolationists, then so be it.

It makes no sense for us to be constantly engaged in hostilities without the clear goal of winning.

The Obama Economy and the Dunning-Kruger Effect

While over at my favorite online hangout, Ace of Spades HQ this weekend, I discovered something new called the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It’s new to me at least, although this concept has been around for over ten years.

Did I mention I’m from Alabama, and that I can be a little slow on the uptake as a result?

Oh, well.

Anywho, I was pleasantly surprised to see something I’ve known all of my adult life recognized as the psychological malady it is. For those of you haven’t yet heard of this phenomenon, here it is in a nutshell: a person’s incompetence inhibits his or her ability to recognize his or her incompetence.

And nowhere is this more readily apparent than in the Obama administrations' flailing about on the economy. We who understand a free market economy see one disastrous decision followed by another equally disastrous decision. TARP, Cash for Clunkers, the bailouts of GM and Chrysler, the Dodd-Frank bill, the refusal of the administration to proceed on previous trade agreements, the NLRB’s interference in Boeing’s new South Carolina Dreamliner plant are all part and parcel of this administrations’ War on American Prosperity.

And they are winning.

It’s clear that Obama hasn’t a clue when it comes to economic matters. And none of the academics he tapped to help him with them know either, which explains why none of them are around anymore. Having done so much damage, they’ve fled Washington for the safety of their tenured teaching jobs, much like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

They literally don’t know what they don’t know, and what’s worse, they refuse to recognize they don’t know.

We’re seeing more attempts by this administration to reach out to private sector business leaders. Here’s the latest proposal according to Newsmax.com…

Buffeted by glum economic news and frustrated by chronic joblessness despite $1 trillion in stimulus spending, the Obama administration has begun exploring a plethora of new proposals aimed at jump-starting the economy.

Cuts in payroll taxes, reductions in the corporate tax rate, opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to reduce gas prices, and persuading Republicans to buy into more stimulus programs are just a few of the concepts reportedly being discussed.

The operative word above is “discussed.” Whether or not any of these ideas will result in concrete action to remove government restrictions on the economy remains to be seen. One would think that after two years of increasingly dismal stats, someone in the White House would start to think that maybe they’re doing it wrong.

That’s where the Dunning-Kruger effect comes in. This administration is so inept that their ineptness prevents them from seeing their ineptness.

The Obama administration just can’t seem to realize that they’re the primary cause of our current economic doldrums. Of course, that’s giving them the benefit of the doubt and hoping that their hearts are in the right place.

There’s also another thing that must be recognized, namely that they know full well what they’re doing and are doing it on purpose. If they were trying to destroy our economy and move us toward socialism, what would they be doing any differently? After two years of stifling government intervention resulting in a New Great Depression, could they finally be able to figure out that what they’re doing isn’t working?

This is becoming increasing doubtful, especially when we see this administration giving $2B to Brazil to increase their oil drilling capacity while at the same time restricting new American drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico.

It kinda makes you wonder whose side they’re on, doesn’t it?

It also doesn’t help when our Manufacturing Czar, Ron Bloom, is a union lawyer and not someone with actual manufacturing experience. It also doesn’t help when says that the free market is a joke and that he agrees with Mao that political power comes from the barrel of a gun.

I’m not encouraged.

Even White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley said at last week’s meeting with the manufacturing community that didn’t have any good answers to the regulatory nightmare that businesses are experiencing thanks to the Obama administration and the 111th Pelosi-Reid Congress.

Daley said he did not have many good answers, appearing to throw up his hands in frustration at what he called “bureaucratic stuff that’s hard to defend.”

“Sometimes you can’t defend the indefensible,” he said.

That sounds like the beginning of a clue. Almost.

The proof of this administrations’ clue-getting will be real steps to reduce the crushing burden of government red tape that’s currently estimated to cost us $1.7Trillion each year.

Talk is nice, but it won’t get us out of this economic ditch that Obama slid into.

Action will.