a.d.d.

via directorblue, obama's had a whole lot of distrac... oh look, pirates!

So many distractions, aren’t there? Only a week ago, the North Korean missile test was an “annoying distraction” from Barack Obama’s call for a world without nuclear weapons and his pledge that America would lead the way in disarming. And only a couple of days earlier the president insisted Iraq was a “distraction” — from what, I forget: The cooing press coverage of Michelle’s wardrobe? No doubt when the Iranians nuke Israel, that, too, will be an unwelcome distraction from the administration’s plans for federally subsidized daycare, just as Pearl Harbor was an annoying distraction from the New Deal, and the First World War was an annoying distraction from the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s dinner plans.

Tom Blumer of Newsbusters notes that in the last 30 days there have been some 2,500 stories featuring Obama and “distractions,” as opposed to about 800 “distractions” for Bush in his entire second term. The sub-headline of the Reuters story suggests the unprecedented pace at which the mountain of distractions is piling up: “First North Korea, Iran — now Somali pirates.”

Er, okay. So the North Korean test is a “distraction,” the Iranian nuclear program is a “distraction,” and the seizure of a U.S.-flagged vessel in international waters is a “distraction.” Maybe it would be easier just to have the official State Department maps reprinted with the Rest of the World relabeled “Distractions.”

read the rest

p.s. maybe these "distractions" are a good thing - as long as they keep obama from implementing his destructive socialist power grab.

taxing

although eliminating the i.r.s. would affect one family member's livelihood, using the fair tax or the flat tax would benefit us all greatly.

one question

"How is it that Barney Frank - who appears to be at the intersection of every legislative and regulatory failing of the mortgage system - isn't being investigated by every agency in the country?"

good start

The Texas Rangers are currently the only undefeated team in the American League.

the big picture

update: he also understands what the obama administration is all about:

In speech and deed the Obama faction has displayed its intention to overthrow the Constitution of the United States. The faction's claim to presidential power rests on an overt act of contempt for the authority of the U.S. Constitution...

The destruction of the private sector economy is well under way; along with denial of the effective basis for anything like private property...

The Obama faction's majority in the Congress has asserted a patently unconstitutional power to dole out voting privileges in the legislative branch of the U.S. government without regard to the Constitution's language restricting such voting privileges to states...

They aim to take steps that infringe the right to keep and bear arms explicitly protected by the Constitution's second amendment...

Obama apparently has no problem with legal appointees who advocate the absurd view that Islamic sharia law can be implemented in the United States despite its grotesque inconsistency with Constitutional provisions that forbid cruel and unusual punishment...

Faced with all this evidence that regime change is the goal of the Obama faction, conservatives whose understanding of the term includes support for our constitutional republic have been bucking the tide of slack-jawed adulation promoted by the Obama faction's media claque. We have been hard at work trying to awaken people to the fact that there's nothing "business as usual" about Obama faction's challenge to American freedom. It is nothing short of a politically implemented insurgency. Here and there it's meeting pockets of resistance on particular issues, with words and arguments mostly oblivious to its general significance. Not much further down the road (after the Census has been rigged and enough illegals added to the voters' rolls to swing any election), the political liberty for which so many Americans risked and gave their lives will be gone. I live in hope that as the true nature of their goal becomes obvious to more and more people, even some of those gulled by phony charisma and false claims of historic significance will realize that the loss of their participation in America's historically unique exercise of democratic, republican self-government is too much of a price to pay for guilt about racism. I live in hope that they didn't mean for their votes to end government of, by and for the people.

---

this time it's not king's x or kevin bacon, but alan keyes, writing about fair banking and fair elections.

the introduction to fair banking:

The first economic question therefore is not about the distribution of money (the false pretense of socialist and communist thinking) but about the mechanism for gathering it. Just as the income tax gathers money for government without regard to the choice of the people making it, the centralized banking system absorbs money from people that is then used (circulated in channels) without regard for choices they should make based on the actual circumstances of their lives. By disconnecting bankers' choices from the real life conditions of the people whose money they employ, the centralized banking system encourages the existence of the seemingly lucrative, but illusory assets whose corrupting weaknesses have caused its present crisis.

We're told that some banks and other financial institutions are too big to fail. But like a mass of cells growing in a way that burdens and harms the body (we call it a cancer), the question is, what allows the existence of something that continues to grow without regard for any contribution it makes to the real health and strength of the body (in this case the community or society in which it exists)? When the body must tax itself to exhaustion to maintain a tumor, we don't generally rush to rescue the tumor, or re-enforce the processes that encourage its growth.

the introduction to fair elections:

Though for the time being we still maintain the institutional semblance of constitutional self-government, the United States no longer has a political process consistent with its survival. This isn't a matter of structural features (two-party vs. multiparty, proportional vs. winner-take-all representation, regional vs. group representation and so forth.) Rather it has to do with what we understand to be the purpose of politics; the nature of citizenship in light of that purpose; and the means and methods most likely to produce actions consonant with good citizenship.

As things stand today, the only purpose of politics is to get elected. In order to get elected, you must get more votes than your opponents. The most efficient way to achieve this result is to find out what people want to see and hear, then fabricate and project an image that corresponds to their desire. The electoral process has become an information exchange between self-centered hedonists and self-promoting liars: people willing to expose their selfish desires choose from a menu of fictional satisfactions offered by candidates pursuing their own selfish ambitions. On Election Day the electorate selects the candidate whose fabricated image most effectively seduced their self-serving judgment.

it continues:

At the moment, this imaginary political process appears to serve the goal of establishing a system of global governance that will ultimately eliminate the need for the charade of representative institutions (or at least make it entirely optional.) From the oligarchic point of view, the advantage of such a global system lies in the concentration of sufficient power in the hands of a global elite to deter, co-opt or suppress opposition. This requires that a background network of globally minded elites becomes, in effect, the last remaining superpower, with no lesser power capable of standing alone against it. The American union has the wherewithal to be a lasting superpower, but on a national basis incompatible with the globalist principle of the New World Order...

Whatever his rhetoric, the policies being pursued by Barack Obama are intended to achieve this deflation of the relative power and cohesion of the United States.

His critics have been quick to see the destructive implications of his agenda, especially in the economic realm. But few if any have seen, or at any rate been willing to articulate, the purposeful intention behind it. The two party system effectually dampens any inclination toward such candor, since it represents an imaginary (or virtual) opposition of elements with no more real difference between them than two heads on the same body, or two eyes in the same head. However different they look, they move together and in the same direction. Though Democrats pretend to care deeply about the welfare of the people, Democrat policies increase the power of controlling elites with little net benefit for the people at large. Though Republicans pretend to care deeply about the liberty and opportunity available to individuals, their policies tend to increase the freedom of controlling elites, with little net benefit for individual liberty on the whole. The telltale sign of the agenda common to both parties is their actual indifference or hostility to the effects of programs and policies on the characteristics that are the essential bases of the people's ability to think and act for themselves: self-discipline, self-sufficiency and self-government.

Self-discipline clearly depends on the formation and encouragement of certain moral characteristics. Self-sufficiency requires economic approaches that preserve and enhance opportunities for individual income and wealth creation. Self-government demands political processes that depend on, and respond to individual initiative in the development and mobilization of representative political networks...

In their different ways, both the Democrat and Republican parties advance policies that promote mentalities and ways of life that directly attack or persistently erode one or another of these components of republican citizenship. The Democrats consistently champion undisciplined sexual lust. The Republicans routinely cater to the lust for money and material goods. Both alike agree to serve as masks for the unbridled lust for power. In the more general sense of the term, therefore, lust is the whole purpose of the political system they comprise. It represents the implementation of an Hobbesian vision of human nature as an endless effort to satisfy unquenchable desire, a tyranny of domineering passions, in which the appearance of choice simply registers the prevalent passion of the moment. But Thomas Hobbes reasoned logically to the conclusion that absolute despotism is the political system that corresponds to this vision. He would not be at all surprised to see that both major Parties to the politics of lust tacitly agree on a path that leads humanity under the yoke of global tyranny.

The American republic was not founded upon a simply Hobbesian concept of human nature. The American founders acted on an understanding (profoundly influenced by Christian and Biblical precepts) that saw natural right, rather than passion, as the ruler or measuring rod of choice. This different conception of nature leads to a different conception of choice. Rather than arising from the welter of competing passions, it reflects the possibility of deliberation, the process whereby one consciously chooses which passions shall be constrained, and to what degree. But such deliberation assumes a standpoint not subject to passionate forces, an eye in the storm of passion, free in some sense from its prevailing winds because it represents the point of origin from which passion itself derives substance, force and meaning. In the understanding articulated in the American Declaration of Independence, this is the standpoint of the Creator. The concept of right arising from the authority of the Creator assumes that this original position represents more than the sheer force of real existence. It represents an intention, an inwardly formed purpose that foresees, and at every moment constitutes, the destination of existing things. The assertion of right represents the presence of this intention in action, along with just the force needed to carry it out.

read all of both posts

i love lectures

Years ago,
I was lectured
by a supervisor
about the benefits
of positive thinking.
That person had
obsessive-compulsive disorder
and was addicted
to pornography.

Months ago,
I was lectured
by a supervisor
about proper computer
file naming and organization.
That person took
three years to learn
where files were
supposed to be saved
on the network,
and still often needs reminders.

Weeks ago,
I was lectured
by a policeman
to drive safer.
That person
drove over a
hundred miles per hour,
swerving between traffic,
to tell me this.

Days ago,
I was lectured
by a supervisor
about simplifying our files
for the end-user.
That person
never names
these files properly,
routinely changes them
to nonstandard settings,
and "organizes" them into
far too many subfolders.

I would wish that
people would think
before they speak,
but somebody would
probably lecture me about
how unreasonable that wish is.

coincidence?

fraters libertas notices:

Last week, it is announced that Notre Dame has invited President Obama to speak at their commencement and receive (an) honorary degree. Last night, the Fighting Irish hockey team--ranked #2 among sixteen teams in the NCAA tourney--gets shellacked by the sixteenth seed Bemidji State in a game where BSU reportedly "got all the bounces" (giving the Beavers their first even NCAA tourney win--one more than St. Cloud State). Just sayin'.

details here

let's postpone this ending

a scary story, via instapundit

pull over

swerving left

speaking truth to power

there's nothing i could add to the title or the article

poor decisions

Wearing sackcloth and ashes, Obama chastised himself and everyone who voted for him by saying “we cannot continue to excuse poor decisions”.

update: He also returned the $600 million he used to purchase the presidency, saying "We cannot give the appearance of using tax dollars to reward leaders who have done a poor job."

the alarm

keeps ringing

never forget

sorry, i just couldn't help contradicting my previous post.

forget globally

act locally

understand?

a random quote, out of the past, and out of context. dad recently found a little note in a little gideon's new testament in his book collection. it's handwritten, but we can't tell whose handwriting it is. it says:

"I know you believe you
understand what you think
I said, but I'm not sure
you realize that what you
heard is not what I meant."

Beck, Rush*, Thinking

*not the great rock band, that other guy.

There's an old pop-culture question that goes "are you an Elvis guy or a Beatles guy?" When conservatives eventually win the culture war, do you suppose people will start asking "are you a Rush guy or a Beck guy?"?

My answer would be "neither", leaning slightly towards Beck. While I agree with a lot of what both men have to say, it's because I have reached those conclusions for myself, and I dislike the "dittohead" bandwagon phenomenon, no matter which part of the political spectrum it's in.

VDH: pleas for sanity

go read them all:

Do No Harm
Turmoil
Flip Flops
Suggestion Box
Mad Men

power grab

dude, stop insulting orcs like that

;)

profiles in cowardice

"It is time to re-evaluate the words and actions of the war's opponents in the stark light of a history that proved them wrong."

On this sixth anniversary of America's invasion of Iraq, there is finally a consensus among supporters and opponents that we've won the war. The surge that Bush launched and Democrats opposed has been successful and, as a result, Iraq has become a Middle Eastern democracy, an anti-terrorist regime, and an American ally.

It would be hard to imagine a more remarkable turnabout or a more comprehensive repudiation of conventional political wisdom. Yet this has not led to a comparable reappraisal by critics of the war of their previous attacks, or to any mea culpas by Democrats who launched a scorched earth campaign against the president who led it, and continued it for five years while the war dragged on.

The Democratic attacks on the war described America's commander-in-chief as a liar who misled his country and sent American soldiers to die in a conflict that was unnecessary, illegal and unjust. This made prosecution of the war incalculably harder while strengthening the resolve of our enemies to defeat us.

(T)he Democrats' modus operandi seems to be to approve something and then, when it becomes politically expedient, to act as if they were opposed and outraged all along. This is what they did with corporate bonuses, for example, and its what they did with Bush and the Iraq war. No one will ever mistake these guys for profiles in political courage.

It's also interesting to me that ever since it became clear that the war was essentially over, that we had won, and that Bush had largely been vindicated, we've heard next to nothing about Iraq in our media. They don't want to remind people, I guess, how terribly wrong they were about it.

read the rest of both links

T38

Much has been said of the long service life of the B52, but there's another pentagenarian aircraft still in service. This month marks the 50th anniversary of the first flight of the T38 Talon, the world's first and most produced supersonic trainer.

I remember watching T38s and T37s flying around our town on training flights out of the (now closed) Reese AFB. Some of those planes might have been piloted by the last Crown Prince of Iran.

bloodbath

unfortunately, algor is less easily sated than the mayan deities:

Back in 1500... the Aztecs figured the climate debate was over, and that if you wanted rain and sunshine and other such blessings, it was simple enough what you had to do – sacrifice 20,000 lives a year to the right gods.

In the year 2009, it's an equally sure thing in the minds of some that carbon in the atmosphere is going to fry us unless we put the welfare of millions on the line, and here is the latest on President Obama's plan – it could cost industry almost $2 trillion over an eight-year period.

That hefty sum to be paid out to a cap-and-trade carbon tax would snatch money from the pockets of consumers far more than rising oil prices did, hinder economic growth and instill other ways generate human misery, and all in the name of what?...

...carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, that it is crucial to life and that it is a "bit player" in the atmosphere... at least "90 percent of greenhouse warming is due to water vapor," and that the issue is whether the carbon dioxide will "substantially increase water's contribution" to causing something awful.

The evidence from measurements of all kinds is that it won't, said Happer, pointing out that "the current warming period began about 1800, at the end of the little ice age," when there wasn't a big increase in carbon dioxide.

It wasn't fossil fuels that did the warming deed – a good deed, by the way – and a war against these energy-producing, societal benefactors would therefore be as futile in controlling climate as slicing open bodies with a ceremonial knife and ripping out hearts.

revolting!

here's a much better way to spend april 15th

TOTUS

uhh got a pic 4 d http://michellemalkin.com/2009/03/23/fun-with-totus-teleprompter-of-the-united-states/ n like d malocaltent gimme wurdz 2 tipe on d blog makurz

sellers' remorse

when will it set in?

shocking!

Another great Michael Ramirez IBD cartoon

quote of the week?

quote of the year! via dustbury:

How come when I put my AmEx bill on my Visa, it’s stupid, but when the government does it, it’s stimulus?

insensitive remarks

who slipped this one in the teleprompter?

Leno asked Obama if the White House bowling alley had been replaced yet with a basketball court. Obama, who scored a 37 while bowling on the campaign trail and whose bowling skills became the butt of jokes, said that he had been practicing and recently bowled a game of 129.

“No, that’s very good, Mr. President,” Leno said mockingly.

“It was like Special Olympics, or something,” Obama replied.

a better punchline would have been "it was like the kos kidz or something".

"Right"ing Wrongs

AP: US endorses UN gay rights text

"The United States supports the U.N.'s statement on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity and is pleased to join the other 66 U.N. member states who have declared their support of the statement," said State Department spokesman Robert Wood.

"The United States is an outspoken defender of human rights and critic of human rights abuses around the world," Wood told reporters. "As such, we join with other supporters of this statement, and we will continue to remind countries of the importance of respecting the human rights of all people in all appropriate international fora."

...and I will continue to remind the UN of the importance of respecting the human rights of Israel in all appropriate international fora.

Unpopular At Any Speed

Those wimpy hybrids don't survive market crashes well either.

...automakers believe they have little choice but to make more hybrids. Though car buyers are losing interest, politicians are pushing them as key to reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil and limiting the global-warming gases that cars emit into the atmosphere.

In January, President Obama called on the industry to "thrive by building the cars of tomorrow" and prepare for federal and state regulations that could push average fuel economy above 40 miles per gallon by 2020.

"The automakers are in the situation of needing to pacify politicians that are in the position to bail them out with expensive fuel-efficient cars," said Rebecca Lindland, auto analyst with IHS Global Insight. "But shouldn't it be more about satisfying the needs of the American consumer?"

Silly Rebecca. The American consumer has no idea about what is really in his best interest. Only our overlords in Washington DC truly understand the complex issues of mass transportation, personal safety, economics, and environmental sustainability necessary to produce an automobile that perfectly satisfies the needs of the American consumer while simultaneously freeing us from dependence on foreign oil and saving the planet.

For years, liberals and environmentalists have been peddling conspiracy theories about "big" industry working to keep innovative, fuel-efficient automobiles off the market. But as this story clearly illustrates, the truth is that Americans prefer dependable, well-understood technology in their cars. They want cars that are not overly expensive to repair or maintain. They also prefer them to be big enough for comfort and to provide a reasonable amount of protection in a crash. Tiny exotic cars simply fail to live up to these basic requirements.

In other words, it will take nothing short of a catastrophe to force Americans to drive hybrid or electric automobiles in large numbers. And it seems most likely at this time that such a catastrophe will be the direct result of government planning, combined with good old government mismanagement and inefficiency.

If Americans don't buy these cars voluntarily, then how will American automakers recoup the billions of dollars that they have been forced to spend on their design, manufacture, and marketing? You guessed it -- more government bailouts and subsidies -- and government contracts to purchase the vehicles, since no one else wants them. It's not a stretch to imagine Ford and GM in five years, stuck on permanent Federal government life support, shackled by the regulations and restrictions attached to the money, building eco-weenie cars that only hippies, cheap Europeans, and government agencies will buy; while foreign automakers like Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Isuzu, BMW, and Daimler take over the larger American consumer car market with dependable, safe, and efficient gasoline-powered automobiles.

All that being said, I'd consider buying an Aptera if and when its hybrid system proves itself... for fun, and in addition to a real car.

change!

hope it continues? yes we can!

JList?

JHivemind.

have some sense of perspective

Have you ever seen one of those charts that progressively compares the relative sizes of the planets to the sun to other stars, or the animation that zooms out from an atom to the known universe? These are even scarier.

outrage

every time you hear "outrage", "bonus", "aig", "madoff" in the news, remember where the outrage should really be directed:

We should be outraged that congress irresponsibly wrote the TARP legislation in such a way as to put no restrictions on how the money would be spent.

We should be outraged that congress irresponsibly pressured financial institutions to make loans to people who had no way to pay them back, thus precipitating the mess we're in.

We should be outraged that congress votes themselves outstanding health insurance, retirement benefits (they're vested after only five years of service at age 62), and a hefty salary ($174,000 for rank and file members) with automatic pay raises, all from the public purse.

We should be outraged that congress puts hundreds of millions of dollars of wasteful earmarks in appropriations bills that are often little more than ways to reward supporters back home.

It's certainly arrogant and disgraceful that AIG executives accepted those bonuses (The company was apparently required by contract to give them), but no more disgraceful than the behavior of our political leadership in Washington who abuse their power everyday by taking money from taxpayers and using it, either directly or indirectly, for their own personal gain.

Barack Obama promised he would end this sort of politics, but so far from ending it he's simply turned out to be an enabler of it. That should outrage us, too.

back to the future?

it's hip to be square!

mental illness in the real world

some causes
some symptoms
some recoveries

to boldly spend

...what nobody has spent before!

today's ant and grasshopper

A brilliant retelling, sad but true.

I never liked that movie

The Manchurian Candidate

O, now he tells us

Now that the big 0 has ramrodded his socialist spending plan through Congress without allowing questions about the pork-bloating attached to it, now he says "the national crisis is not as bad as we think"?!?

Challenged to provide encouragement as the nation's "confidence builder in chief," Obama said Americans shouldn't be whipsawed by bursts of either bad or good news and he was "highly optimistic" about the long term.

The president's proposals for major health care, energy and education changes in the midst of economic hard times faced skepticism from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, as senators questioned his budget outlook and the deficits it envisions in the middle of the next decade.

The plan must positively reek if even beltway Democrats complain about the pork.

But Obama, speaking to top executives of the Business Roundtable, expressed an optimistic vision and called for patience.

This sounds like a line common to bank heist movies - "This will all be over soon. Everybody stay quiet and nobody will get hurt."

Richard Parsons, chairman of beleaguered Citigroup Inc., asked if Obama could offer some help in a national battle "between confidence and fear."

"A smidgen of good news and suddenly everything is doing great. A little bit of bad news and ooohh , we're down on the dumps," Obama said. "And I am obviously an object of this constantly varying assessment. I am the object in chief of this varying assessment."

No sir, Mr President, you are the SUBJECT. You are the fearmonger, and your policies are exacerbating the problems you claim to be solving. The best thing you could do for our country would be to resign now, and take your crooked cronies somewhere they might be appreciated. I hear Mugabe's hiring...

"I don't think things are ever as good as they say, or ever as bad as they say," Obama added. "Things two years ago were not as good as we thought because there were a lot of underlying weaknesses in the economy. They're not as bad as we think they are now."

Translation: "Give my socialist agenda time to work, and in a couple of years these will seem like the good old days. You haven't seen anything yet."

update: even Das People's Democratic Republic of Europe balks at the big 0's spending ideas!

we of little faith, O

via C.S.M., we can hope, can't we?

My President should fail when he tries to mirror the actions of Hugo Chavez. He should fail when he tries to implement the policies of anti-Semitic, anti-Christian bigots at the New York Times. He should fail when he seeks to negotiate with “moderate” terrorists (AKA - murderers, thugs and enemies of America that have killed many of our men women and children). He should fail when he plans to use tax payer money to bail out corporate entities that stand no chance of success because their business models suck. He should fail when he initiates a cap and trade system that will raise taxes on all Americans based on the false claims of idiot Global Warming activists. I don’t want my President to succeed when he declares that the war on terror is a failure when it isn’t. My President should fail when he cancels voucher programs that allows kids to seek better schools because the ones their government set up are failing them. My President should fail when he passes executive orders based on lies about Stem Cell research, lumping embryonic stem cell research into an exclusive category as if adult stem cell research isn’t every bit as promising, if not more promising, less risky and a perfectly viable moral alternative. These are all fail worthy offenses.

Americans should tell their President no, not in my name, when he acts like a dictator instead of a leader. We should hope for failure on each of these radical agenda items and every radical one that precedes or follows them. We are not obligated to stand by silently. We should do just the opposite. This is why we have the right to free speech.

I have little faith or hope for the kind of change being ushered in by a man whose administration spends its time plotting ways to attack private citizens for having different views. I have little hope that a man that appoints a tax cheat to run the treasury can be trusted to do the right thing on any other front. I have little faith or hope in a man that would use the power afforded him by the American people to steal money from successful people and redistribute it like candy to his next generation of voters. I want him to fail because he is failing us by acting like the ultimate weasel that we all knew he was.

States' Rights

Eleven of the states remind the Big O of the Tenth Amendment:

(The 10th Amendment) is as valid today as it was when it was first made in the 1780s. The poor 10th. With the exception of the 3rd - quartering troops - all the other amendments are part of our everyday life, granting us freedom of speech, the right to keep guns, the expectation of due process and trials by jury, but the 10th stands out there at the end, largely unthought about... until events happen like President Obama’s efforts to force the federal government down the throats of the states.

In response to the stimulus bill’s federal demands on states receiving stimulus money, 11 states have applied the 10th amendment and stood up to Obama: Washington, New Hampshire, Arizona, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas. All 11 have have introduced bills and resolutions schooling the prez on the 10th Amendment, telling him it protects their rights and the peoples’ rights by limiting his power.

...not that states are always right, but it is easier to restrain individual state corruption than distant and unresponsive federal corruption.

let's hope for change

The results of affirmative action are even more dangerous in the Formerly Caucasian House than they are in the business world.:

President Obama likes to compare himself to Presidents Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, but both of these men struggled with much worse than Mr. Obama is facing, and FDR was further handicapped with the after-effects of polio. If it is true that President Obama feels overwhelmed now what will he feel like if a terrorist attack is thrown into the mix or if the media should turn on him and subject him to the same relentless daily criticism to which George W. Bush was treated. It'll doubtless be enough to drive him back to the cigarettes.

The nation's voters took an accomplished high school quarterback and put him directly into the Super Bowl. The results have so far been predictably unpretty. The White House is no place for on-the-job training - not even for a candidate who can seduce a nation with mellifluous promises of Hope and Change. Nevertheless, we're still only in the opening minutes of the game. Things might get much better for Barack Obama just as they did for Bill Clinton after a shaky start. Or, it may be that the President is indeed out of his depth, in which case we're in for a turbulent four years.

to abortionists, on choice

Surely Catholic hospitals should be free to choose whether or not to keep their doors open?

party like it's 2009

Quoth Obama "Let them eat cake" - or perhaps more accurately "Let's have their cake and eat it too"...?

another meme

...except i don't have 25 albums to list. these are my five "blockbusters":

Audion by Synergy
A Passage In Time by Dead Can Dance
Faith Hope Love by King's X
Mark II by Sorten Muld
Fearful Symmetry by DA

Non-Galt

As much as "going John Galt" might appeal to me, I found some higher reasons not to do so:

Caesar's taxation policies weren't fair either.

Our current hardships are relatively light.

Wage and tax slavery are not nearly as bad as actual slavery.

Doing good will silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.

And while I struggle against slandering our recently-elected Communist-in-Chief, I will still speak out against his foolish and destructive policies, and know that the solution to our problems cannot be solved with mere politics.

p.s. if you want this condensed to a bumper-sticker-sized phrase, how about "shrug the socialists, not your morals."?

p.p.s. there's some advice for "the bad guys" too ;)

Demopathy

Go read every word of this article:

The America that defeated Nazi Germany, fascist Japan and finally the Soviet Union, giving in to a pack of provincial chicken thieves?!

You have let your own good be turned against you. What the Schmeissers and Mousers and Arisakas and Kalashnikovs couldn’t do, a few socialist clowns and liars got away with, without a scratch.

Do you think that’s democracy? That’s demopathy, a disease of democracy that allows parasitic entities to take democracy over and turn all that makes democracy good into bad, all that makes democracy sane into crazy, Freedom into slavery, pride into shame, truth into lie, the good into the bad, and, perversely, the bad into the good. The rats have taken over the ship and strut their stuff around like the ship belongs to them and even more, like they have built it and nobody ever helped...

perspective on poverty

Viewpoint:

I don't know how the disparity between today's rich and poor is relevant or meaningful or particularly disturbing. Wealth and poverty are relative. What difference does it make if one person has enough income to be comfortable, but someone else has a hundred times as much? What difference does it make if that gap widens every year as long as the "poorer" person is not regressing in absolute terms. The inequality that Dionne and Wallis should be talking about, and rejoicing in, is the inequality between our contemporary poor and those who were wealthy in almost every other period of human history.

I say they should rejoice because our poor are astonishingly wealthy, at least in material goods, compared to almost everyone else who has ever lived, even the wealthiest people.

A multi-millionaire from a hundred and fifty years ago actually had a lot less and in many ways had it a lot harder than most Americans living below the poverty line have today...

read the rest.

deliberate destruction?

yes, obviously

update: need a picture?

it is a cult

just like "dissent is patriotic", "separation of church and state" seems to have disappeared from the left's lexicon.

what's a picture worth?

let's see: 1000 words into eleventeen-gazillions equals...

A vast _____-wing conspiracy?

Conference calls + marketing machines + deep-pocketed anti-Americans + chicago corruption + gullible voters = obama presidency

Words Mean Things

from House of Eratosthenes (edited):

The paradox is this: The electorate wants to make the final decision. But they need to be led like a child. If they aren’t led like a child, they end up picking whoever is taller. Or whoever they’d most like to see on American Idol. These are symptoms not quite so much of a dissolving society (although it is that), as a lack of leadership.

Look at Ronald Reagan. Yes, he was more "fun" than Jimmy Carter, and he was more fun than Walter Mondale. But he didn’t win those elections because he was a fun guy; we didn’t talk that much about hopey-changey charismatic goodness in 1980 and 1984. He won them because we had spirited debates about policies. We had spirited debates about policies because Reagan took control of the debates and made sure that’s what they were about. And then it became blindingly obvious that his opponents’ policies were just-plain-bad.

(Elections have) descended into a high-school popularity contest, and it’s done that because of a lack of leadership from all of the candidates...

---

Things that we should be hearing about all the time, not just during election campaigns... but during election campaigns especially. The air should be thick with these words.

• Liberty.
• Freedom.
• Opportunities.
• Individual Ambition.
• The chance to make yourself all you can be.
• Higher standard of living.
• Defense.
• Victory.
• Limited government.
• States’ rights.
• Sovereignty.

Those will fit on bumper stickers... although, by themselves, they do not quite make the point. The point is that, as Americans, whether we lean right or lean left, we all should be living and breathing these things, every waking moment of every day — and then dreaming about them as we sleep. Something is viciously wrong with our country if & when that is not the case.

update re "they need to be led like a child": I think a better way of stating this would be that, as Thomas Jefferson said, the electorate needs to be well-informed.

"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government;... whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."

Hence the leftists' perpetual push to take over schools and the media, and silence all opposition.

To obama supporters

I ask a question usually asked during campaign season: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"

Theft by Government

a must-read

book meme

i'm not big on memes, but i don't have anything else to post at the moment. via jungle hut

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (for school)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (started, haven't finished)
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (for school)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert (first three)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (for school)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (for school)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (for school)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Odd list. "Lolita" and "Bridget Jones’s Diary" made it, but not "Tom Sawyer" or "The Fountainhead"? And phphphffft to "The Da Vinci Crock"...

Living Free, pt. 2

The Tenth Amendment - It's not just for New Hampshire. At least 8, or as many as 22 states are starting to resist Obama's power grab.

what if they gave a tea party

...and everybody came? i hope to attend my local one, and behave in a manner worthy of the original.

bumped: here's a list of other gatherings

now that's saying something

Even Reuters is stunned how "Obama brings back era of big government":

"This is nothing short of a sober, honest assessment of where our country stands and a tough, realistic plan to get our budget in line with our priorities," said Senator John Kerry, the Democrats' 2004 candidate for president.

Another quote was somehow missing from the story:

"Sober?!? Honest?!? REALISTIC?!?!? HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA!!!!!" said every sane person within earshot.

Powerline responds

Obama expects a deficit for the current year of $1.75 trillion. By way of context, that is around three times the largest deficit the country has ever experienced with a Republican Congress. Obama says it is a budget that reflects "hard choices," but of course that is silly. The administration has made no hard choices at all; it has simply opened the floodgates and spent money in nearly every possible way, to the tune of $3.7 trillion, an amount that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

sowing, reaping, chickens roosting...

via dustbury:

For the children of the Baby Boomers, there is a special delight in watching the world economy shake itself to pieces like a two-dollar pram at this particular moment. Our elders, who bought prosperity and nice pensions at our expense and pulled the ripcords on their "Freedom 55" parachutes without leaving any behind in the passenger cabin, are getting it in the neck just when they thought a secure old age, with money for travel and expensive pastimes, was a safe bet. I'm willing to watch my meagre savings suffer from market turmoil in exchange for contemplating the dilemma of those who are now between 55 and 65.

These are people who started their working lives at a time when labour unions were strong, taxpayers outnumbered retirees nearly 10 to one, housing was as cheap as borscht and the basic personal exemption covered most of a living wage. They congratulated themselves on building an elaborate "social safety net" at the expense of their children. Their great numbers have allowed their preferences and superstitions to dominate culture and media. They're the ones who burned through tonnes of pot and then launched a War on Drugs when they grew bored with it; they drove mighty-bowelled (Camaros and BelAires) in their youth, and only started worrying about the environment when they no longer needed a capacious backseat to fornicate in; they espoused and took full advantage of sexual liberation, but were safely hors de combat by the time AIDS reared its head. The first time I see one shopping for dog food, I doubt I'll be able to suppress a laugh.

As for the younger crowd, it is a quite distinct pleasure to watch their panic and uncertainty. The actually existing danger is not too great, but no one born after about 1980 has much practical experience of severe recession, any more than a 40-year-old knows what a depression looks like. The worst economic event within the memory of the '80s-born will have been the popping of the tech bubble -- a trivial speed bump compared to the conditions of stagflation and wretchedness that became accepted as the norm in the '70s. There is a certain cohort there whose defining traumas are personal, not economic; they're children of the age of divorce and the double-income household. If you're my age, you might know what it was like to go to school in worn-out, humiliatingly generic shoes. If you were born just a bit later you probably had new Nikes every six months -- but you also may have only seen your father every six months.

I don't wish these younger people ill, and I don't believe that the suffering which lies ahead for some of them is character-building. From what I've seen of folks who remember the Depression -- lest they be left out of this salvo of rude intergenerational abuse -- privation mostly breeds bitterness and fear. But the lesson that economic growth is a contingent accomplishment is one that every generation must learn. Why are young people so vulnerable to preposterous political ideas? Why is it the young, most egregiously, who romanticize poverty, cultural backwardness and unspoiled nature?

It's because they regard sound money, good jobs and the benefits of the consumer society as unstated axioms; they have no sense that these things must be perpetually fought for, and can be lost in the blink of an eye. Well, they'll know now. And the knowledge will serve them.

The bad part of this "turmoil" is that many honorable people, both inside and outside the boomer demographic, will suffer in the whirlwind sown by others.

in response to obama's speech,

atlas keeps shrugging

update: do you notice any patterns?

Live Free Or Die

New Hampshire: leading by example. Let us pray that the second option named in their motto does not become necessary.

HCR 6 – AS INTRODUCED

2009 SESSION

09-0274

09/01

HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 6

A RESOLUTION affirming States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.

SPONSORS: Rep. Itse, Rock 9; Rep. Ingbretson, Graf 5; Rep. Comerford, Rock 9; Sen. Denley, Dist 3

COMMITTEE: State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs

ANALYSIS

This house concurrent resolution affirms States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.

09-0274

09/01

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Nine

A RESOLUTION affirming States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles.

Whereas the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, Part 1, Article 7 declares that the people of this State have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right, pertaining thereto, which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them expressly delegated to the United States of America in congress assembled; and

Whereas the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, Part 2, Article 1 declares that the people inhabiting the territory formerly called the province of New Hampshire, do hereby solemnly and mutually agree with each other, to form themselves into a free, sovereign and independent body-politic, or State, by the name of The State of New Hampshire; and

Whereas the State of New Hampshire when ratifying the Constitution for the United States of America recommended as a change, “First That it be Explicitly declared that all Powers not expressly & particularly Delegated by the aforesaid are reserved to the several States to be, by them Exercised;” and

Whereas the other States that included recommendations, to wit Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Virginia, included an identical or similar recommended change; and

Whereas these recommended changes were incorporated as the ninth amendment, the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, and the tenth amendment, the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, to the Constitution for the United States of America; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate concurring:

That the several States composing the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their General Government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a General Government for special purposes, -- delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress; and

That the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations, slavery, and no other crimes whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” therefore all acts of Congress which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory; and

That it is true as a general principle, and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the Constitution, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people;” and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, and were reserved to the States or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated, rather than the use be destroyed. And thus also they guarded against all abridgment by the United States of the freedom of religious opinions and exercises, and retained to themselves the right of protecting the same. And that in addition to this general principle and express declaration, another and more special provision has been made by one of the amendments to the Constitution, which expressly declares, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press:” thereby guarding in the same sentence, and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press: insomuch, that whatever violated either, throws down the sanctuary which covers the others, and that libels, falsehood, and defamation, equally with heresy and false religion, are withheld from the cognizance of federal tribunals. That, therefore, all acts of Congress of the United States which do abridge the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, are not law, but are altogether void, and of no force; and

That the construction applied by the General Government (as is evidenced by sundry of their proceedings) to those parts of the Constitution of the United States which delegate to Congress a power “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” and “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof,” goes to the destruction of all limits prescribed to their power by the Constitution: that words meant by the instrument to be subsidiary only to the execution of limited powers, ought not to be so construed as themselves to give unlimited powers, nor a part to be so taken as to destroy the whole residue of that instrument: that the proceedings of the General Government under color of these articles, will be a fit and necessary subject of revisal and correction; and

That a committee of conference and correspondence be appointed, which shall have as its charge to communicate the preceding resolutions to the Legislatures of the several States; to assure them that this State continues in the same esteem of their friendship and union which it has manifested from that moment at which a common danger first suggested a common union: that it considers union, for specified national purposes, and particularly to those specified in their federal compact, to be friendly to the peace, happiness and prosperity of all the States: that faithful to that compact, according to the plain intent and meaning in which it was understood and acceded to by the several parties, it is sincerely anxious for its preservation: that it does also believe, that to take from the States all the powers of self-government and transfer them to a general and consolidated government, without regard to the special delegations and reservations solemnly agreed to in that compact, is not for the peace, happiness or prosperity of these States; and that therefore this State is determined, as it doubts not its co-States are, to submit to undelegated, and consequently unlimited powers in no man, or body of men on earth: that in cases of an abuse of the delegated powers, the members of the General Government, being chosen by the people, a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy; but, where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, (casus non foederis), to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them: that nevertheless, this State, from motives of regard and respect for its co-States, has wished to communicate with them on the subject: that with them alone it is proper to communicate, they alone being parties to the compact, and solely authorized to judge in the last resort of the powers exercised under it, Congress being not a party, but merely the creature of the compact, and subject as to its assumptions of power to the final judgment of those by whom, and for whose use itself and its powers were all created and modified: that if the acts before specified should stand, these conclusions would flow from them: that it would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism -- free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power: that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go. In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. That this State does therefore call on its co-States for an expression of their sentiments on acts not authorized by the federal compact. And it doubts not that their sense will be so announced as to prove their attachment unaltered to limited government, whether general or particular. And that the rights and liberties of their co-States will be exposed to no dangers by remaining embarked in a common bottom with their own. That they will concur with this State in considering acts as so palpably against the Constitution as to amount to an undisguised declaration that that compact is not meant to be the measure of the powers of the General Government, but that it will proceed in the exercise over these States, of all powers whatsoever: that they will view this as seizing the rights of the States, and consolidating them in the hands of the General Government, with a power assumed to bind the States, not merely as the cases made federal, (casus foederis,) but in all cases whatsoever, by laws made, not with their consent, but by others against their consent: that this would be to surrender the form of government we have chosen, and live under one deriving its powers from its own will, and not from our authority; and that the co-States, recurring to their natural right in cases not made federal, will concur in declaring these acts void, and of no force, and will each take measures of its own for providing that neither these acts, nor any others of the General Government not plainly and intentionally authorized by the Constitution, shall be exercised within their respective territories; and

That the said committee be authorized to communicate by writing or personal conferences, at any times or places whatever, with any person or person who may be appointed by any one or more co-States to correspond or confer with them; and that they lay their proceedings before the next session of the General Court; and

That any Act by the Congress of the United States, Executive Order of the President of the United States of America or Judicial Order by the Judicatories of the United States of America which assumes a power not delegated to the government of United States of America by the Constitution for the United States of America and which serves to diminish the liberty of the any of the several States or their citizens shall constitute a nullification of the Constitution for the United States of America by the government of the United States of America. Acts which would cause such a nullification include, but are not limited to:

I. Establishing martial law or a state of emergency within one of the States comprising the United States of America without the consent of the legislature of that State.

II. Requiring involuntary servitude, or governmental service other than a draft during a declared war, or pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law.

III. Requiring involuntary servitude or governmental service of persons under the age of 18 other than pursuant to, or as an alternative to, incarceration after due process of law.

IV. Surrendering any power delegated or not delegated to any corporation or foreign government.

V. Any act regarding religion; further limitations on freedom of political speech; or further limitations on freedom of the press.

VI. Further infringements on the right to keep and bear arms including prohibitions of type or quantity of arms or ammunition; and

That should any such act of Congress become law or Executive Order or Judicial Order be put into force, all powers previously delegated to the United States of America by the Constitution for the United States shall revert to the several States individually. Any future government of the United States of America shall require ratification of three quarters of the States seeking to form a government of the United States of America and shall not be binding upon any State not seeking to form such a government; and

That copies of this resolution be transmitted by the house clerk to the President of the United States, each member of the United States Congress, and the presiding officers of each State’s legislature.

(bolds original, italics mine)

p.s. Implied in Section 2 of the Texas Constitution, "Don't Mess With Texas" applies to more than just litter.

All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit. The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient.

p.p.s. speaking of delegating powers to foreigners...

p.p.p.s. and abuse of delegated powers...

mortgage crisis

inherited = helped create

MBVD

I like these quotes in this site's headlines, for "foreign and domestic policy":

"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property‹either as a child, a wife, or a concubine‹must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science‹the science against which it had vainly struggled‹the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome." ~~ Sir Winston Churchill

and

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could, and should, do for themselves. ~~ Abraham Lincoln

Dire Warning

update: Welcome readers from Local Malcontent, Jungle Hut, Jawa Report, and Director Blue!

---

A case of the pot telling the kettle to be careful...

"Obama warns mayors not to waste stimulus money"

Here's my attempt at a scrapplefacing of the linked article:

WASHINGTON – Invoking his own shameful name, President Hussein warned the nation's mayors on Friday that he will "call them out" if they waste the money from his pork-bloated stimulus plan as much as he has.

"Big Brother is watching," Hussein told a gathering of mayors at the Formerly Caucasian House. "They need this pork to work. They know they will see the money that they've stolen from honest workers flushed down a socialist sinkhole of government waste, bureaucratic inefficiency, and Democratic fraud."

In the days since the Formerly Caucasian House and the Anti-progress came to terms on the $787 billion economic package, the political focus has shifted to pretending that it will work. Hussein has staked his reputation not just on the promise of 500 million jobs created, but also on a pledge to never let the public see where the money actually went.

His budget shaman this week released a 25,000-word document that hides completely how Hussein's Credenza, quangos, crooks and local mafiosos will squander spending. It is a system meant to obfuscate reports so they can safely be displayed on the administration's new propaganda site, poverty-is-recovery.gov.

Using his imperial pulpit, Hussein demanded servility, from his cronies in local government as well as his own secret police. He said the new legislation gives him unlimited power to "waste the taxpayers' money with more capriciousness and impunity than ever," and that he will use them.

"If a federal agency proposes a project that will waste that money, I will not hesitate to endorse it, and crush any opposition to it," he said. "I want everyone here to be on notice that if a local government does the same, I will crush those enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentation of their women!!!"

Okseekleen Mayor Danny Maize, who leads the U.S. Conclave of Mayors, said he welcomed Hussein's warning. Sweating profusely on the Formerly Caucasian House driveway, Maize said "We have plenty of constituents who will be weeping long before the president's reign of terror ends".

Mayors of both parties said they appreciated the subpoena to meet with Hussein, Vice President Time Bidin, and a handful of Credenza minions. They cautioned, though, not to speak, or even think, wrong thoughts against President Hussein. When the President arrived at their meeting, the mayors greeted him in unison, saying "It's a good stimulus, Barry. That was some tasty pork that you made there."

The economic plan will inject a sudden boost of cash into unnecessary bridges, reeducation camps, utopian pipe-dreams, and suicide-assistance programs. Beyond new spending, it aims to depress taxpayers through a package of bloodletting, extended unemployment, and euthanasia. The cost will be added to a growing budget deficit, as usual.

Hussein said "Our glorious leaders have been making a victorious advance under the banner of Hussein. Thanks to the Stalin-based politics pursued by our Party, the revolutionary Democratic forces have been incomparably strengthened, the defence line of the homeland consolidated and a great change effected in the revolution and construction. By dint of Party politics we have smashed the anti-PORK, anti-socialist machinations of the old republic step by step, defended the country and the revolution and exalted the dignity and prestige of socialist Amerika in the eyes of the world."

The president did not specify how he would call out one of his own agencies or a local government about efficiency or usefulness, but tar and feather stocks jumped 2619% on speculation immediately after the announcement.

where are they now,

those who howled against the privacy invasion of the patriot act?

a frank discussion about race

the other reason that "we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race" is that some of us know that:

1. all men are created equal,
2. race should no longer be an issue to anyone, and
3. the only people who keep "playing the race card" are racists trying to score political points.

i have a dream that someday the word "race" will be as obsolete as "nihilarian" and "snollygoster".

p.s. and "reparations"

bust the trust

monopolies, including those in health care, are bad for everyone

history repe.. history repe.. history repe..

yoda via eratosthenes: "Told you I did. Reckless is he. Now, matters are worse."

Things went bad under Hoover, then FDR took over and made them much worse, while blaming things on his predecessor…

Things went bad under Nixon/Ford, then Carter took over and made them much worse, while blaming things on his predecessor…

Things went bad under George W. Bush, then Obama took over. He’s blaming anything & everything bad, on FaPoBuAd, the Failed Policies of the Bush Administration.

The collection of outspoken folks who think things are about to get better — or will simply stay the same, not getting any worse — is limited to paid spokesmen, punch-drunk newspaper editors, democrat-party hucksters, drunks and druggies who haven’t woken up from January 20 just yet, and nameless-faceless speechwriters. Everyone else is in agreement with Yoda…including history herself.

Not always so difficult to see, the future is.

Things got bad under Hindenburg, too...

new link

dustbury linked to a post at director blue, and reading that and other posts there inspired me to add the site to my blogroll.

holes
obamanopoly
scary trek
foreign history
domestic history

and many more

she should'a been president

oops... i meant vice-president... right...

"The governor recognizes that some form of economic stimulus is necessary, but not the bill that passed the Congress Friday. She has advocated for a package that includes federal spending for infrastructure, tax breaks for individuals and small businesses, and measures to address the housing situation. The governor believes the current legislation is too large and is not sufficiently focused on these objectives.

While the congressional majority rejected their efforts, Gov. Palin appreciates Murkowski’s and Young’s attempt to jump-start the American economy without saddling states with operating budget expenditures that can’t be sustained or increasing the national debt to an alarming degree."

totally unimportant

my criteria for a good nascar race, including today's daytona 500, are:

1) everybody in attendance is safe and uninjured,

2) ford wins,

3) hendrick drivers, primarily jeff gordon, do not win.

i care more about point one and less about the other two every year...

sick again

not strep this time, nausea and headaches

:P$$$

overheard from the future

"...and that, kids, is how earth got its ring."

dateline palo alto

iowahawk: scientists discover world's largest number

An international mathematics research team announced today that they had discovered a new integer that surpasses any previously known value "by a totally mindblowing ****load." Project director Yujin Xiao of Stanford University said the theoretical number, dubbed a "stimulus," could lead to breakthroughs in fields as diverse as astrophysics, quantum mechanics, and Chicago asphalt contracting.

"Unlike previous large numbers like the Googleplex or the Bazillionty, the Stimulus has no static numerical definition," said Xiao. "It keeps growing and growing, compounding factorially, eating up all zeros in its path. It moves freely across Cartesian dimensions and has the power to make any other number irrational."

Jean-Luc Brossard, a researcher with the European consortium CERN, said the number is so staggeringly large that it is difficult for even mathematicians to grasp, let alone lay people.

"The number itself is incomprehensible by human minds, and can only be theoretically understood in a fractional parallel universe which we refer to as the DC dimension," said Brossard. "The best way to understand a stimulus is to imagine a dollar sign followed by a packed string of hexidecimal nanodigits, wound into a triple helix, woven into a dodecahedron, and stacked on top of one another...

"The exciting news is that with more powerful computers and drugs, we believe we are on the verge of discovering an even larger number, which we refer to as a 'stimulusconferencebill,'" said Xiao. "Speaker Pelosi has already promised us the funding."

here are a couple more of iowahawk's hilarious but profane posts.

teh pledj!

teh idiossey!

teh hobos!

back from the memory hole

who was it that caused this financial crisis?

lolbama

stimyaluss: ur doin it rong

--------------------------------

update 1: when i wrote this, i had no knowledge of the imao series of the same name.

update 2: a related quote via house of eratosthenes: "There are two kinds of people in the electorate: 1. People who remember how horrible the Jimmy Carter years were. 2. People who are about to find out."

war is peace, freedom is slavery,...

neglect is care.

...it's a real orwell-shrugged world these days :P

the beards are back in town

or, i was bearded* when bearded wasn't cool.

* and/or lazy 8^)>

go read

updated:

three
from
varifrank,

two from
viewpoint,

and one via jawa report

news summary

in one sentence

baconbaconbaconbacon I SMELL BACON!!

two summaries of obama's "lipsticked pig":

The stimulus bill was a bridge too far, an overplayed hand, ten pounds of manure in a five-pound bag. The legislation’s primary duty was never to stimulate the economy, but to stimulate the growth of government, the scope of the state.

By spending hundreds of billions on things that have absolutely nothing to do with providing an immediate stimulus for the economy, Democrats hoped to make a down payment on their dream government. The billions for student aid, expanded welfare and health-care benefits, and bailouts for profligate state governments; the hundreds of millions for better museums and prettier government buildings; and the millions for smoking-cessation programs and bee insurance aren't just items on crapulent Democrats’ wish list. The budget bloating was deliberate.

and

It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama (claimed he) came to Washington to abolish.

read the rest

hope for change?

yes we can!

words mean things

but in some cases, we just have no idea what they mean...

see also, numbers

my pet hope

obama reads to kids in the middle of a crisis, too.

heh, indeed

two good ones in a murky pond:

"lipstick on a pig"

"you might be a taliban"

the inaugural address

in

parallel

and

perpendicular