Growing sense of unease

There is, says Republican pollster Whit Ayres, a deep sense of unease. "Two thirds of the people in the country think we are going in the wrong direction. "It is," he says, picking his words carefully, "a challenge for an incumbent president to get re-elected when two thirds of the people in the country think that we are going the wrong way, we are off on the wrong track and things are not going well."

Bad news for the European drug tourists...In an effort to stop drug tourism, the Dutch government on Friday decided to restrict access to cannabis coffee shops so that tourists will no longer be able to buy the drugs. Coffee shops are establishments in the Netherlands where the sale of cannabis for personal consumption by the public is tolerated by the local authorities. As this is illegal in most countries, many tourists from around the world travel to Amsterdam to use cannabis. Source

Are Leftists starting to worry?...Andrew Sullivan this weekend seemed to shock Chris Matthews when he said that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin could actually beat President Carter Obama in next year's elections running as the "principled candidate" representing "this grassroots movement of cutting government down to size." Maybe even more surprising, Time's Joe Klein seemed to agree telling the host of The Chris Matthews Show, "You were around in ’79 and ’80 as I was. Did you see many people in the Carter administration think that Ronald Reagan could beat Jimmy Carter?" Source

How the Leftists at OpEdNews.Com see Memorial Day..."If it's Memorial Day this is the day for all of the gutless right-wingers and teabagger Republicans to desecrate the flag by wrapping themselves in it while they pontificate about their fascist ideology and spit on the graves of those who died to at least in theory protect our freedoms. America's favorite parasite, Sarah Palin has never been accused of having dignity nor shame but this latest cynical re-launch represents a new low for the white trash diva from Wasilla."

The weenie Congressman from New York, Anthony Wiener, is in a little jam with his tweet account. Seems he may have sent a picture of his weenie to a young college girl in Washington state. He claims someone hijacked his tweet account and the girl in question is removing her presence on the internet. Mrs. Wiener will most likely have the final thing to say on this matter.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that...Germany intends to phase out nuclear power over the next decade, and immediately close eight of its oldest and most glitch-prone reactors. Few details were offered on how the government would fill any resulting electricity shortfall or meet its ambitious climate-protection targets. The proposals were met with criticism from opposition parties, and warnings of job losses and price increases from industry groups.

Debbie Schlussel is not a fan of PBS..."But when it comes to Muslims–especially Palestinians and those out to kill our soldiers – PBS is always the advocate, bending over backward, for example, to tell us, during Black History month, that Black slaves were Muslim princes. (Few, if any, Black slaves in America were actually Muslim, but almost all Black slaves were sold into slavery BY Muslims, a fact PBS will never tell you.)"

From Houston...Johoan Rodriguez, 26, the man accused of driving while intoxicated when he struck and killed Houston Police Officer Kevin Will is now reported to be an illegal immigrant. In addition to that he has a MySpace page in which he shows total disrespect for the law and America.

The EU is in hot contention with the United States as the Sick Man of the Great World Economic Powers, because less than 40% of Eurozone citizens work and over 60% are on benefits of some sort. Source

Here's a quote for the ages...Obama's Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, at the height of the Egyptian uprising, characterized the Muslim Brotherhood as "largely secular."

Targeting those who hire illegals

I have to agree with Obama on this subject. Targeting those who hire illegals is more efficient than building a 2000 mile fence. Make businesses pay for their cheap labor....

"After months of criticism from Republicans who said President Obama was relaxing immigration enforcement in workplaces, the scope of the administration’s strategy has become clear as long-running investigations of employers have culminated in indictments, convictions, exponentially increased fines and jail sentences. While conducting fewer headline-making factory raids, the immigration authorities have greatly expanded the number of businesses facing scrutiny and the cases where employers face severe sanctions."

Source

Raising Arizona

A 10,200-acre (4,100-hectare) desert site in Arizona sold for $32.5 million this week, five years after a group with investors including the California Public Employees' Retirement System paid $400 million for the land.

Arcus Property Solutions LLC, a private-equity fund with about $100 million under management, paid cash for the property in Goodyear, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southwest of Phoenix, said Kent Kleinman, a spokesman for the Gilbert, Arizona-based company. The site, now called Amaranth Land LLC, had been planned for a 42,000-home community by the Calpers-financed group when it was purchased in 2006.

More here

Failed state

The controversial US Supreme Court decision that could ultimately force California to release tens of thousands of prison inmates is more than a shockingly broad exercise of judicial power. It is also an official declaration by the highest constitutional authority in the land that California meets the strict test of state failure: it can no longer enforce the law within its frontiers.

Let there be no mistake: when you produce so many criminals that you can’t afford to lock them up, you are a failed state. Virtually every important civil institution in society has to fail to get you to this point. Your homes and houses of worship are failing to build law abiding citizens, much less responsible and informed voters. Your schools aren’t educating enough of your kids to make an honest living. Your taxes and policies are so bad that you are driving thousands of businesses away. Your management systems must be fouled and confused to the max for you to create something so dysfunctional, so wildly beyond your means, that the Supreme Court of the United States (wisely or foolishly is another question) starts to micromanage your jails.

More here

Manchurian president

Some critics have accused President Carter Obama of being a Manchurian Candidate. This quote by Mark Steyn *sort of* supports that view, "I think if you look at Obama, he was wafted upwards, basically, through Columbia, Harvard Law, the Harvard Law Journal, community organizing, the Illinois legislature, the United States Senate, without ever lingering in those jobs long enough to have to do anything. He basically was someone who was kind of just wafted upwards through the system until he became the beneficiary of the ultimate waft, into the Oval Office. And for the first time, for the first time in his life, the words he says, and the actions he takes have consequences. For the first time ever."

Meanwhile back in Florida...Debbie Wasserman-Schlutz just can't get a break lately. Story

Yes it is a joke but a good one...Bibi Netanyahu is alleged to have written Obama a letter..."I am writing today with a somewhat unusual request. I am asking that you return America to its August 20th, 1959 borders so that Hawaii is no longer a state and you are no longer a citizen."

Hmmm...Singapore, an island-nation of 5.1 million people, imposes the death penalty for crimes such as murder and has a mandatory death sentence for drug trafficking. It boasts of one of the lowest crime rates in the world.

Simmering frustration among Latino voters has prompted a tea party-style endeavor that’s intended to boost the political influence of America’s fastest-growing minority group. They're calling it the Tequila Party. The idea is to issue a wake-up call to both parties—Democrats for taking the Latino vote for granted and Republicans for pushing policies that adversely affect the Hispanic community (such as action on illegal immigration and special treatment like blacks). Wags are wondering if the Bamboo Party is coming next for asians. Fried Chicken Party for blacks. Spaghetti Party for Italians. Guinness Ale Party for the Irish. Bratwurst Party for the Germans. The possibilities are endless.

Laugh of the day...Joe Biden is letting it be known to Democrat big money doners that he'll be available to run for president in 2016. Dream on, Joe.

A new word has been making its way around the internet. SLAWBs. Stupid, Liberal, Anti-White Bigots.

If you listen to Democrats you would think they are nothing but reasonable, moderate centrists and could make America into a multicultural paradise if only those ignorant right wing kooks would get out of the way. Well, bologna isn't ribeye and democrats aren't centrist. They are Marxists of varying degrees and flavors. Castro sees himself as a moderate because he hasn't put every Cuban in jail. Obama sees himself as a moderate because he hasn't completely redistributed the wealth.

Holy moly, Obama has signed into law a four year extension of the Patriot Act. You remember the Patriot Act don't you? It's the one that Obama campaigned against back in 2007. The one that the war criminal Bush originally signed into law. I'm beginning to think Obama's middle initial is W not H.

Healthcare a right?...Senator Rand Paul says, "It's not. If it's a right, that means you have the right to come to my house at midnight and knock on my door and make me treat you! I am your slave, if this is a right. If this is something you can't be denied."

Fresh from the just-released update of the United Nations' population forecasts...At constant fertility, Israel will have more young people by the end of this century than either Turkey or Iran, and more than German, Italy or Spain...Israelis love children and have lots of them because they are happy, optimistic and prosperous. Most of Israel's population increase comes from so-called "secular" Israelis, who have 2.6 children on average, more than any other people in the industrial world. The ultra-Orthodox have seven or eight, bringing total fertility to three children. Europeans, Turks and Iranians, by contrast, have very few children because they are grumpy, alienated and pessimistic. Source  (Leftists in America, also)

Leftists are creative

You've got to admit that the Leftists are really creative when it comes to naming new programs that waste our tax dollars. Health and Human Services has created a "new $500 million early learning initiative that is designed to deal with children from birth onward to prevent such problems as 5-year olds who 'can't sit still' in a kindergarten classroom." The new program is named Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge. That's $500 million of your tax dollars that will do nothing but enrich leftist educators til the next great program comes around to fix all the previous failures. Suck it up, taxpayers.

Here's some more examples of how the government wastes your tax dollars on frivolous studies...$80,000 study on why the same teams always dominate March Madness...$315,000 study suggesting playing FarmVille on Facebook helps adults develop and maintain relationships...$1 million for an analysis of how quickly parents respond to trendy baby names...$50,000 to produce and publicize amateur songs about science, including a rap called "Money 4 Drugz," and a misleading song titled "Biogas is a Gas, Gas, Gas"...$2 million to figure out that people who often post pictures on the internet from the same location at the same time are usually friends...$581,000 on whether online dating site users are racist....

Suck it up, taxpayers.

Loser pays

On Tuesday the Texas Senate, under the leadership of Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and despite an aggressive lobbying effort by the Trial Lobby, voted unanimously in favor of "loser pays" tort reform legislation.

On Wednesday, the House, which had passed a similar bill and was awaiting the Senate’s version, concurred with the Senate bill and passed it through. Gov. Rick Perry has said he will enthusiastically sign the bill into law.

‘Loser pays’ will require plaintiff’s to foot the bill of the winning party’s legal costs if a judge finds the case to be groundless.

Source

Mitt

Clueless in Florida

The new chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee was criticizing Republicans who opposed President Obama's bailout of the American automakers union, oh, no, make that American automakers. "If it were up to the candidates for president on the Republican side," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, "we would be driving foreign cars. They would have let the auto industry in America go down the tubes." So Michael O'Brien of The Hill newspaper went and checked what kind of automobile loyal-American-car-supporter Debbie Wasserman Schultz owns. Yup, you guessed it -- Japanese. Source

Tweet wars...Presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty also took a swipe at President Carter Obama today with this tweet: "@barackobama sorry to interrupt the European pub crawl, but what was your Medicare plan?" Source

Meanwhile...The Democratic Senate has not come up with a budget in two years, thereby violating federal law. President Obama has not proposed a replacement for his laughable FY 2012 budget, which not a single member of Congress is willing to support. The Democrats have no budget; no plan; no path out of the fiscal disaster into which they have led the United States. They are bystanders and political opportunists, utterly unfit to govern. Source

This week, a 1979 Palm Beach Post article resurfaced in which Steven Schneider, who for the past 30 years was one of the most prominent global warming alarmists, claimed the west Antarctic ice sheet could melt before the year 2000 and inundate American coastlines with up to 25 feet of sea level rise. Obviously, the west Antarctic ice sheet was not raptured away last century, and New Yorkers can still drive rather than swim to work. Source

Headline..."Obama bungles toast to Queen." After his bungling of our economy, some of us wish he'd stay in Europe because he's more of a European social democrat than almost all Americans. He'd fit right in over there.

Now that Osama bin Laden is dead, we can turn our attention to another remorseless enemy who for years has sown death and destruction among blameless innocents. I refer, of course, to Ronald McDonald. Story

You will recall that Palin-hating blogger David Epstein was arrested in December and charged with felony incest for having sex with his adult daughter (now 24) from 2006 through 2009. One of our readers has obtained court documents (for Case #2010NY090162) indicating that Epstein copped a plea to a misdemeanor charge of attempted incest. Story

Toilet paper sold in the Carrefour supermarkets was withdrawn from shops in Belgium. The toilet paper is decorated with zodiac signs. Two of those signs, Virgo and Capricorn, resemble the Arabic words for Allah and Muhammad. Source

Brief intervention?...How long have we been bombing Libya? Wasn't it supposed to be brief? The war-monger, Obama, hasn't given us his exit strategy has he? Wasn't that the Leftist complaint about Bush...no exit strategy in Iraq or Afghanistan? Where's the demonstrations and the op-eds?

Well, gosh darned...Not all Texans are dumb, ignorant, racist hillbillies...A 13-year-old boy from Texas won the National Geographic Bee on Wednesday....Break out the corn squeezins, ye haw.

Back in 2007 President Carter Obama had this to say in a campaign speech in Richmond, Virginia, "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed." He was speaking of the tornado that hit Greensburg, Kansas. 10,000 people died? Actually it was only 12, but the city was devastated. The governor at the time, Kathleen Sebelius, told Obama that the state National Guard could not offer much assistance because of its commitment to the Iraq War. This turned out to be a lie when it was revealed that 80% of the Kansas National Guard was still in state.

Ed Schultz, the Olbermann clone at MSNBC, has been suspended for a week without pay for referring to conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham as a "right-wing slut" the other day on his show. Can't these liberals ever argue with facts rather than insults? He reminds me of Bill Maher who is a funny guy but can't say anything without trashing someone. Aren't these guys the ones who preach "tolerance" and "civility"?

McClatchy News reports that House Assistant Democratic Leader Jim Clyburn, the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, on Wednesday blamed most of President Barack Obama's political problems on racism. (Hey, Jimbo, maybe it's his policies, not his color)

A 91 year-old woman was arrested in California for selling suicide kits on the internet. One reader's comment to the story noted that we are more "humane" to animals than we are to other humans. The reader said when an animal is dying or suffering we put them to "sleep" so they can go out in peace. But humans aren't allowed to do the same until their savings are gone to the insurance companies, doctors, and hospitals.

FOIA alert...Court orders University of Virginia to produce documents of Dr. Michael Mann. Seminal among them include discussions about his now infamous and discredited 1,000-year temperature reconstruction known as the "hockey stick." Also of interest were emails that originated at the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University. Source

Lack of a budget

The last time the Senate passed a budget was April 29, 2009, which was, if you are counting — and Jeff Sessions is — 755 days ago.

Passing a yearly budget for the federal government is a fundamental responsibility of Congress. Lawmakers do not have to spend their time naming post offices or passing health care reform. But they do have to pass a budget. In 2010, neither the House nor the Senate did so. It’s not that members just didn’t get around to it, which would have been scandalous enough. No, Reid and then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi feared that passing a budget would hurt their chances in the November midterm elections. So they did nothing and took a beating at the polls anyway.

Now Pelosi is out of the picture. But Reid is still at it. The Republican-controlled House has passed a budget, but Reid will not produce a Democratic spending proposal. And if Reid doesn’t want to pass a budget, then a budget won’t be passed; the majority leader controls what is and what is not considered in the Senate.

More here

Goodbye, New York

For more than 15 years, New York State has led the country in domestic outmigration: for every American who comes to New York, roughly two depart for other states. This outmigration slowed briefly following the onset of the Great Recession. But a new Marist poll released last week suggests that the rate is likely to increase: 36 percent of New Yorkers under 30 are planning to leave over the next five years. Why are all these people fleeing?

For one thing, according to a recent survey in Chief Executive, New York State has the second-worst business climate in the country. (Only California ranks lower.) People go where the jobs are, so when a state repels businesses, it repels residents, too. It’s also telling that in the Marist poll, 62 percent of New Yorkers planning to leave cited economic factors—including cost of living (30 percent), taxes (19 percent), and the job environment (10 percent)—as the primary reason.

In upstate New York, a big part of the problem is extraordinarily high property taxes. New York has the 15 highest-taxed counties in the country, including Nassau and Westchester, which rank first and second nationwide. Most of the property tax goes toward paying the state’s Medicaid bill—which is unlikely to diminish, since the state’s most powerful lobby, the political cartel created by the alliance of the hospital workers’ union and hospital management, has gone unchallenged by new governor Andrew Cuomo.

More here

Sometimes he's right

I don't like President Carter Obama at all but sometimes he gets it right..."In the face of these challenges (in the Middle Eastern countries), too many leaders in the region tried to direct their people's grievances elsewhere. The West was blamed as the source of all ills, a half-century after the end of colonialism. Antagonism toward Israel became the only acceptable outlet for political expression. Divisions of tribe, ethnicity and religious sect were manipulated as a means of holding on to power, or taking it away from somebody else."

Meanwhile in Europe...Former President Bill Clinton recently became the butt of jokes in the Balkans after he referred to his host country as "Macedonia" when he was giving a speech in Montenegro. The gaffe caused numerous humorous comments in the local media, including speculation that Mr. Clinton may have been confused because he was preoccupied by his latest amorous escapade.

From the Weekly Standard...Eric Cantor, in a speech delivered at AIPAC yesterday, said the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians "is not about the '67 lines." Instead, Cantor argued, "it is a culture infused with resentment and hatred. It is this culture that underlies the Palestinians' and the broader Arab world's refusal to accept Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. This is the root of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians."

Rush Limbaugh on Arnold..."I don't know about you, I am getting tired of seeing stories about how Arnold Schwarzenegger's infidelities are proof that he's finally become a Kennedy. I mean I mentioned that as a joke last week but there are people out there actually trying to make this serious. If Arnold were a real Kennedy he would have drowned the maid."

The blogger, Gateway Pundit, posted a memorable lead to a story..."Last week Barack Obama pushed Israel to hand over half of Jerusalem, the Wailing Wall, The Temple Mount, Old Jerusalem, and the tomb of Jesus Christ to the Hamas-Fatah terrorist alliance."

In regards to the failed Rapture..."Something else bothers us about the media mockery of Harold Camping, as justifiable as it may be. Why are only religious doomsday cultists subjected to such ridicule? Reuters notes that "Camping previously made a failed prediction Jesus Christ would return to Earth in 1994." Ha ha, you can't believe anything this guy says! But who jeered at the U.N.'s false prediction that there would be 50 million "climate refugees" by 2010? We did, but not Reuters." Source

Just when you think the world is safe from more madness...Oh my God, now we have to beware June 5. The Mahdi is coming! Story

There is a town in Japan named Obama. When the future president applied for his famous community organizing job in Chicago he was almost not hired because the guy who looked at his resume thought a Japanese guy was applying.

Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu in his recent address to Congress,"You think things are tough here in Congress. Come spend a day in the Knesset! Be my guest!"

Obama visited Westminster Abbey and signed the distinguished visitor's book with the date May 24, 2008. Apparently the smartest guy in the world is still living in his presidential campaign year. Expect to see more stories about how stupid Sarah Palin is in the following days.

Jimmy Carter really likes Jimmy Carter..."I feel that my role as a former president is probably superior to that of other presidents. Primarily because of the activism and the — and the injection of working at the Carter Center and in international affairs, and to some degree, domestic affairs, on energy conservation, on — on environment, and things of that kind. We're right in the midst of the — of the constant daily debate."

Remember a few years ago when Mad Cow Disease was going to end life as we know it? Like the Swine Flu Epidemic that never happened, Mad Cow Disease was going to spread to human beings but fizzled out with less than 200 people dying. The hand-wringing leftists never sleep.

Dennis Prager, reflecting on last weekend’s "Prepare to Meet Thy Doom"-fest observes that secular apocalypses (that never really happen) have done our work for us...There is one major difference between leftist and religious doomsday scenarios. The religious readily acknowledge that their doomsday scenario is built entirely on faith. The left, on the other hand, claims that its doomsday scenarios are entirely built on science. Source

Knockout

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is now 70 years old. I first heard him on a cheap record player back in 1965. He seemed so radical back then. Now he's the establishment. Strange how that happens. His voice is not that great but his message is.

Happy birthday, Bob.

Chalaque

Scotland Yard has given the codename ‘Chalaque’ to refer to the U.S. president for security reasons during his upcoming state visit to the United Kingdom May 24-26. Indarjit Singh, a Punjabi speaker in the UK who is director of the Network of Sikh Organisations, told the Sunday Times the word ‘is sometimes used when we want to denigrate someone who we think is too clever for their own good’. Another Punjabi speaker told the paper the word Chalaque is ‘not considered rude’, but could be ‘mildly offensive’.

Elsewhere, former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was in Libya this past weekend and not only rapped U.S. policies but managed to bring up the race canard..."I want to say categorically and very clearly that these policies of war … are not what the people of the United States stand for and it’s not what African-Americans stand for."

The FBI is reporting that violent crime in the U.S. declined by 5.5 percent last year. The declines signify success for aggressive law enforcement and corrections programs and comprehensive crime prevention efforts. But most of all...violent criminals are being sent to prison in larger numbers and they remain behind bars for longer periods.

Mitch Daniels decided not to run for president. His wife and her history may have contributed to his decision. Story

A joke making the rounds in Pakistan says that Bin Laden revealed his location to the CIA because he was being driven mad cooped up for five years with three wives and all the kids.

The preacher who predicted the world would end last Saturday has now recalculated and says it will end in October instead. He's getting to be like the global warming crowd. He also needs to read the Bible a little closely because it says no man knows when the end will come. No one. "But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only."

Not in My Back Yard...Thousands and thousands of people work or have worked in the oil patch without any problems. NIMBY people are arrogant and smug and stupid. Story

The blogger, Spengler, sees the coming collapse of Egypt..."It will look like the Latin American banana republics, but without the bananas. That is not meant in jest: few people actually starved to death in the Latin inflations. Egypt, which imports half its wheat and a great deal of the rest of its food, will actually starve." Story

The Wall Street Journal says that many Arabs are going to have a hard time finding enough bread to eat over the coming months. Bad weather and lower-than-average crops — plus climbing fuel costs — have driven up the price of wheat by 91% in less than a year. Arabs eat a lot of bread; Tunisians, Algerians and Egyptians, for example, consume almost 3 times per capita than Americans. They account for 1/3 of all the world's traded wheat.

Tim Pawlenty is in the race for president..."In the third year of Barack Obama’s presidency, unemployment is at unbearable levels, gas and food prices are skyrocketing and federal government spending is out of control. "ObamaCare" is unconstitutional, and it is already driving up health costs — not reducing them. The president’s policies simply aren’t working. And more than that, he won’t even tell us the truth about the problems we’re facing and what it’s really going to take to get America back on the right track."

Renewables

Last week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a thousand-page report on the future of renewable energy, which it defined as solar, hydro, wind, tidal, wave, geothermal and biomass. These energy sources, said the IPCC, generate about 13.8% of our energy and, if encouraged to grow, could eventually displace most fossil fuel use.

It turns out that the great majority of this energy, 10.2% out of the 13.8% share, comes from biomass, mainly wood (often transformed into charcoal) and dung. Most of the rest is hydro; less than 0.5% of the world's energy comes from wind, tide, wave, solar and geothermal put together. Wood and dung are indeed renewable, in the sense that they reappear as fast as you use them. Or do they? It depends on how fast you use them.

One of the greatest threats to rain forests is the cutting of wood for fuel by impoverished people. Haiti meets about 60% of its energy needs with charcoal produced from forests. Even bakeries, laundries, sugar refineries and rum distilleries run on the stuff. Full marks to renewable Haiti, the harbinger of a sustainable future! Or maybe not: Haiti has felled 98% of its tree cover and counting; it's an ecological disaster compared with its fossil-fuel burning neighbor, the Dominican Republic, whose forest cover is 41% and stable. Haitians are now burning tree roots to make charcoal.

More here

drain the clouds of raindrops

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has accused Western countries of plotting to "cause drought" in Iran by using high tech equipment to drain the clouds of raindrops…"Western countries have designed plans to cause drought in certain areas of the world, including Iran. According to reports on climate, whose accuracy has been verified, European countries are using special equipment to force clouds to dump" their water on their continent, he said. By doing so, "they prevent rain clouds from reaching regional countries, including Iran," Mr Ahmadinejad charged. Iran has experienced several droughts in recent years. Source (remember when Leftists were claiming that Cheney used a hurricane steering machine to wipe out New Orleans because he hated blacks?)

Meanwhile, Oprah has ended her long running TV show. I watched it a time or two. Never understood the appeal. She really needs to do something different. You ever notice how women's butts get bigger when they spend a lot of time on the couch?

Out in California...Schwartzenegger's out-of-wedlock son is referred to as a "love child" but in reality should be called a "lust child" because there was probably more lust than love involved in the initial act. Been there, done that.

Gene Simmons, of KISS, has been quoted as saying, "Obama has no fucking idea what he's doing." I was never a fan of KISS but Simmons seems to be a smart cookie.

They mostly complain on the plains of Spain...Lots of protests...Youth unemployment is at 43%, and is even worse for those aged 16 to 19. One protester, called Maria..., said, "What do my two courses give me, a masters and perfect English and French, if nobody has offered me my first job in my life?" Source

The radicalized knucklehead convicted of threatening the lives of the "South Park" creators signed up as a volunteer for President Carter Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, but by the time Election Day arrived he had concluded it would be a violation of Islamic law to vote in the U.S. election, according to court records. Wannabe jihadi Zachary Chesser, 21, was sentenced earlier this year to 25 years in federal prison following his guilty plea to making the "South Park" threats as well as providing material support to terrorists (in this case the Somali guerilla group Al-Shabaab). Source, with photo

To retaliate for the killing of Bin Laden, a Taliban suicide bomber stuck it to the establishment by blowing himself up in a military hospital in Afghanistan, killing six people and wounding another twenty-six. Nothing like killing the wounded and other innocent bystanders to get a shot at 72 virgins.

Herman Cain has declared his candidacy for President..."Let us remind the world that our Rights do not come from a man, nor a Committee, nor a Czar. But, from our Creator. We will preserve and protect these Rights for our Children, and our Grandchildren. We will preserve and assure that these United States of America, the Greatest Nation the planet has ever seen, will not compromise her legacy. She will not accept death, nor a mantle of mediocrity. And, she will surely, never ever go quietly into the night. Not on my watch. This is my new American Dream."

Back in 1878 a British Parliamentary Committee studied Thomas Edison's new invention of the light bulb as "... good enough for our transatlantic friends ... but unworthy of the attention of practical or scientific men."

Ha

Scrap the Electoral College?

The Electoral College system never seemed fair to me. The possibility that someone other than the candidate with the most votes could end up president of the United States seemed undemocratic on its face - and all the more indefensible considering that one of the very reasons for its creation was the framers' wariness about delegating such a critical decision to the unwashed masses. Other rationales for this indirect election of the president included the protection of all states' active participation at a time when travel and communications restraints made a truly national campaign impractical.

The system was an anachronism even before the 2000 election. Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the presidency to George W. Bush after an excruciating recount battle for Florida's 25 electoral votes ended up in the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 in Bush's favor. Today, the Electoral College system has reduced our presidential elections to battles in a dozen or so states that get the lion's share of attention: the candidates' visits, the TV spots, the policy pledges that pander to provincial obsessions in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida.

More here

Rand and Jesus

When George W. Bush declared in a 1999 GOP debate that his favorite political philosopher was Jesus, pundits snickered and wondered whether he actually knew any political philosophers. But the answer was politically canny, establishing Bush's evangelical bona fides with social conservatives. In contrast, the philosopher GOP leaders quote most reverently these days was vehemently anti-religion, and referred to Christian teachings as "evil" and "monstrous." Awwwwkward. Fortunately for Republicans, most social conservatives haven't yet made the connection. Here's just a taste of the praise GOP and other conservative leaders have for Ayn Rand...

More here

drop Fox

The left wing Media Matters tried to get Orbitz travel company, among several others, to "drop Fox" from their advertising campaigns. But Orbitz shot back, describing Media Matters as "a political organization that has been funded pretty extensively to go after one network, and we aren’t going to engage in that fight. We have a strict policy of tolerance and non-discrimination, and that means we don’t favor one political side over another. Tolerance is a two-way street. We’re going to advertise on conservative TV stations, liberal TV stations and — if there are any out there — unbiased news broadcasts." Source

Meanwhile, some are trying to exonerate the IMF Rapist, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, by suggesting that he may have called for a call girl and mistook the maid for her. I suppose it's possible. Occam's Razor could be at play here. But then again, sometimes Occams's Razor is not in play at all, such as this unrelated story from WWII.

Elsewhere, in the book Remedy the Frauds in Hinduism, Indian historian Purushothoma Chon mentioned that the Nagas of Tibet had a similar bar and dot counting system to the Mayas of Mesoamerica, along with the same names for the place values. Source

Mark Steyn contrasts a difference of two years..."In 2008, which you’ll recall was the last year of the Bush, Texas cowboy terror, 83% of Arabs had a very or somewhat negative view of the United States. By 2010, which was the second year of the Obama broaden engagement approach, 85% had a very or somewhat negative view. So much for the outreach."

Secretary of Interior, KenSalazar, was denied a raise by the use of blocking tactics by Senator Vitter of Louisiana...."Every day, Interior’s policies are costing more Gulf energy workers their jobs. But the Interior secretary needs a raise? That’s ridiculous — it’s offensive. I’ll do everything I can to block his raise until Gulf energy workers are at least where they were in terms of work and job security pre-BP. I really want to see new deepwater exploratory permits being issued at pre-BP levels over a 3-month period."

Mitt Romney quotes...from May 2, 1994, "I was not planning on signing up for the military. It was not my desire to go off and serve in Vietnam." From June 24, 2007, "I longed in many respects to actually be in Vietnam and be representing our country there..."

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution..."Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States." (I like it)

They're back...Code Pink is demanding that "the U.S. terminate military aid to Israel. Not one nickel. Not one dime. We won’t pay for Israel’s crimes." Source The lovely ladies in pink apparently have no qualms about the billions of dollars in aid we give to the Palestinians nor did anyone address their crimes and misdemeanors.

He came to power by blaming his predecessor for sending troops to Iraq. The new leader promised comprehensive health care reform and to bring his country’s welfare safety net in line with Western Europe’s. But the global financial crisis came and denied him his chance of greatness. Compelled by circumstances, he began to belatedly imitate the policies of his predecessor simply in order to survive. We are of course talking about Spain's Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Story

To recent college graduates..."No one can start a company without capital. No one ever gets a job from a poor person - and when you have a government that is hellbent on stopping anyone from building personal wealth to be invested - then no one is going to hire you." Source

Making the rounds is a video of college students signing a petition to ban conservatives from the airwaves, even while mouthing platitudes about their support for freedom of speech. Here. It kind of makes one wonder if more money for education is the answer.

How vets are treated

Forty years ago, he attempted to pursue a law degree upon his return from Vietnam and rehabilitation in veterans' hospitals. He'd been through hell, and the last place he expected to face more of it was in academia. But the climate in the late 1960s and early '70s was often inhospitable to those who had served in Vietnam, even the most highly decorated.

The Bristol native first enlisted in the Army paratroopers at 17. He was the youngest second lieutenant in Army history (at 18), then the youngest first lieutenant and the youngest captain. His platoon earned a reputation as one of the Army's best reconnaissance units, nicknamed "Christian's Butchers."

Full story

Faith and reason

Few topics are as open to misunderstanding as the relationship between faith and reason. The ongoing clash of creationism with evolution obscures the fact that Christianity has actually had a far more positive role to play in the history of science than commonly believed. Indeed, many of the alleged examples of religion holding back scientific progress turn out to be bogus. For instance, the Church has never taught that the Earth is flat and, in the Middle Ages, no one thought so anyway. Popes haven't tried to ban zero, human dissection or lightening rods, let alone excommunicate Halley's Comet. No one, I am pleased to say, was ever burnt at the stake for scientific ideas. Yet, all these stories are still regularly trotted out as examples of clerical intransigence in the face of scientific progress.

Admittedly, Galileo was put on trial for claiming it is a fact that the Earth goes around the sun, rather than just a hypothesis as the Catholic Church demanded. Still, historians have found that even his trial was as much a case of papal egotism as scientific conservatism. It hardly deserves to overshadow all the support that the Church has given to scientific investigation over the centuries.

That support took several forms. One was simply financial. Until the French Revolution, the Catholic Church was the leading sponsor of scientific research. Starting in the Middle Ages, it paid for priests, monks and friars to study at the universities. The church even insisted that science and mathematics should be a compulsory part of the syllabus. And after some debate, it accepted that Greek and Arabic natural philosophy were essential tools for defending the faith. By the seventeenth century, the Jesuit order had become the leading scientific organisation in Europe, publishing thousands of papers and spreading new discoveries around the world. The cathedrals themselves were designed to double up as astronomical observatories to allow ever more accurate determination of the calendar. And of course, modern genetics was founded by a future abbot growing peas in the monastic garden.

More here

End of the world

It's supposed to happen today at 6 PM, I think. See you on the other side.

But in case it doesn't happen, remember that those loons who predicted the end of the world are no more idiotic than the the environmentalists with their global warming and nuclear winter ravings.

Back tomorrow if the creeks don't rise.

Mothers who honor kill

Two Muslim mothers, both widows, both living in Uttar Pradesh in India, helped each other murder their grown daughters, Zahida, 19, and Husna, 26, for having committed the crime of marrying Hindu men.

They held their daughters down and slowly strangled them to death. The poor dead darlings actually believed they were entitled to marry non-Muslim men and for "love," and that ultimately their mothers and Muslim community would accept them back. This is typical of many honor killing victims. While these two young women knew enough to contact the police for help—and the police actually got their mothers to sign an agreement that they would not "harm" their children—it was only a deceptive piece of paper. But the daughters’ longing for reconciliation and naive hopefulness was their undoing. Their mothers agreed not to hurt them and sweet-talked them into returning; once the girls were home, they became prey for the kill.

More here

Rapists, and other thugs

Dominique Strauss-Kahn has resigned as the head of the International Monetary Fund. He would like to spend more time with his family.

But that’s not why he resigned. He’d like to spend more time with his family, as opposed to potentially spending time with inmates, because he’s been charged with the sexual assault and attempted rape of an African-immigrant hotel maid.

...

If memory serves, Bill Clinton had to deal with a large number of "bimbo eruptions," as one of his aides put it. He was accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment. And the same feminists who once insisted that women never make such things up suddenly responded by calling the president’s accusers liars or by simply abandoning the very standards they had established.

Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon and founder of Ms. Magazine, took to the pages of the New York Times to establish what has become known as the "one free grope" rule. Susan Faludi, author of the feminist bible Backlash, suddenly took a more laissez-faire attitude toward sexual aggression, requiring "nuanced" responses "in scale to the offense." A reporter for Time magazine insisted she’d be happy to pleasure the president just for keeping abortion legal.

So yes, the French should be ashamed. But they’re not the only ones.

Source

Tempest in a teapot

The Navy recently announced that a support ship will be named the USNS Cesar Chavez in honor of the union activist from back in the 60's and 70's.

Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-El Cajon, accused the Navy of being more interested in making a political statement than upholding its history and tradition.

"If this decision were about recognizing the Hispanic community’s contribution to our nation, many other names come to mind, including Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peralta, who was nominated for the Medal of Honor for action in Iraq," Hunter said. "Peralta is one of many Hispanic war heroes—some of whom are worthy of the same recognition."

Peralta, from Escondido, was killed in action in Fallujah, Iraq, and was eventually awarded the Navy Cross.

Fail

President Carter Obama laid out his vision for Middle East peace and, as usual, it involves Israel giving up more than it receives. Obama wants Israel to return to its pre-1967 borders which at one point was only 8 miles wide. Previous givebacks by the Israelis have done nothing for the peace process. Think Sinai, Gaza, Oslo, and southern Lebanon.

Debbie Schlussel has a great quote by Congressman Allen West (R-FL) on her blog..."America should never negotiate with the Palestinian Authority- which has aligned itself with Hamas. Palestine is a region, not a people or a modern state. Based upon Roman Emperor Hadrian’s declaration in 73 AD, the original Palestinian people are the Jewish people."

I'm beginning to think Castro is smarter than Obama...at least he believes in drilling...Because of current U.S. policy, U.S. companies are prohibited from developing oil fields that lie in Cuban waters and come within 50 miles of Florida. However, Cuba is exploring and developing these oil fields, estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey to possess more oil than the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, and Cuba is partnering with China and other countries, such as Spain, France, and Canada. The Castro Regime will begin drilling off the coast of Florida this year and will go deeper than the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April. Source

Even muslims are starting to dislike President Carter Obama. Story

And Peter Fonda too?...Peter Fonda launched a four-letter attack on US President Barack Obama at the Cannes film festival on Wednesday, calling him a traitor over the handling of the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill. Source

Susan Daniels is a licensed private investigator who has researched the use of the social security number currently being used by Barack Hussein Obama which she has determined was issued in the state of Connecticut, where Obama has neither lived nor worked. Daniels has stated that the number had originally been assigned to a man from Connecticut born in 1890. Story

Jimmy Buffett, in one of his songs, says, "If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane." He must have been thinking of Leftists because we all know they don't have a sense of humor and they do seem to be insane much of the time. But don't believe me, go to any Leftist website and compare how little humor they have compared to the over-abundance of spiteful, insane hate-filled diatribes.

Malmo is a large city in southern Sweden. It is said that it will be the first major European city with a Muslim majority. Some say that a civil war-like situation is developing very fast. Malmo's firefighters are required to wear stone-proof masks and military grade bullet-proof vests when responding to emergencies because they are subjected to rock throwing and even occasional gunfire.

Four white teachers are suing a black school principal after being required to read an article stating white teachers are unfit to teach African-American students. The lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court also name the Philadelphia school district, which includes Thomas Mifflin Elementary School, and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. The lawsuits say Charles Ray III, who is black, was principal of Mifflin in 2008 and 2009 when he required the teachers to read an article about white teachers' inability to instruct black students. Various actions by Ray undermined the authority of white teachers, the lawsuits said. The lawsuits contend the teachers suffered mental anguish, anxiety, depression, humiliation, inaccurate employment history, reputation damage and fear of reprisal. Each teacher seeks damages of $150,000. Story

"Liberals think the rest of us are so stupid we can’t see how the game is played. And given the way Republicans waste their money on useless endeavors like Romney 2012, who can blame them for thinking we’re stupid?" Source (Note..I would add McCain 2008 also)

For decades elite liberals in the media and academia have been ignoring the enormous number of rapes of white women by blacks. Instead, they hoped for the Great White Rapist (or Rapists) of a woman of color. Their hopes came crashing down when the Tawana Brawley case and the Duke gang rape turned out to be hoaxes. Now they may finally have their rapist, but guess what? It's one of them! An arrogant, spoiled, wealthy, politically correct limousine liberal. The disappointment must be terrible. Source (the maid in question is from Ghana)

Selling gold

George Soros, the hedge fund investor who called gold "the ultimate bubble", has sold almost his entire holding of the precious metal, leading to fears that the price is about to fall.

The investor, famous for his £10bn bet against the Bank of England in 1992, made his "ultimate bubble" remark in January last year but acted to cut his holding only in the first quarter of this year.

Holding on has proved hugely profitable – in January 2010 gold was trading at about $1,100 an ounce, whereas the lowest price during the first three months of 2011 was more than $1,300. The highest was about $1,450.

It is not known exactly when Mr Soros sold his gold, which was held via the Soros Fund Management investment vehicle. Filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the American regulator, showed that he had sold 99pc of his holding in SPDR Gold Trust, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) backed by gold bullion, by the end of March.

More here

The blogger, Prairie Pundit, notes that Soros "has had pretty good market timing in the past, but he could just be trying to prop up the Obama economy. He did lose big time by selling dollars short after George Bush won the 2004 election."

Childless

Source

Open and transparent

The most open and transparent administration in the history of the galaxy "has refused to give the Boston Herald full access to President Obama's Boston fund-raiser, in e-mails objecting to the newspaper's front page placement of a Mitt Romney op-ed, saying pool reporters are chosen based on whether they cover the news 'fairly'." (I'm sure that an op-ed by Obama on the front page would be considered fair, wouldn't it?)

Abracadabra...President Carter Obama urged businesses to "step up" and hire workers, pressing banks and other corporations to do more to help an economy that he said would take "several years" to recover fully. Presto! Such an easy solution. Isn't he wonderful? Why doesn't he do something like...oh, I don't know...drill, baby, drill? Someone should tell him that job growth doesn't just happen like magic, and that a president's command doesn't drive an economy.

Elsewhere, in Wisconsin...Attorney General J. B. VanHollen released 100 pages of documented threats against lawmakers. The released documents include threats against both Republicans and democrats but, of course, the most vile and violent threats were sent to Republican officials. Source (only one person has been charged so far, a female teacher)

Meanwhile...We all know how terrible our schools have become. Maybe we should breathe some new air into the system. How about a company that is more successful than almost all others in the world? Should Wal-Mart take over the schools? Story

Ann Coulter's latest column, which discusses the rape by the French head of the IMF, has this little tidbit..."As (Phyllis) Schlafly says, no wonder liberal women think men are pigs: Their men are pigs."

The profoundly stupid Chris "tingling leg" Matthews says Sarah Palin is profoundly stupid. Does anyone still watch his show on MSNBC?

When Schwarzenegger was elected governor, California owed $36 billion dollars. Eight years later the state owes $92 billion.

Hugo Chavez, who smelled sulfur at the United Nations, is losing his battle to socialize the country. Capital is fleeing, oil revenues are dropping, and consumer spending is down. All his bloviating is coming to naught. Story (and he can't blame Bush anymore)

The revelations about Bin Laden's porn stash may in fact be "a CIA information operation". Story

MEMRI TV recently posted a video which included remarks by a cleric named Yunis Al-Astal (who is also a member of Parliament for Hamas), "The [Jews] are brought in droves to Palestine so that the Palestinians – and the Islamic nation behind them – will have the honor of annihilating the evil of this gang...All the predators, all the birds of prey, all the dangerous reptiles and insects, and all the lethal bacteria are far less dangerous than the Jews...In just a few years, all the Zionists and the settlers will realize that their arrival in Palestine was for the purpose of the great massacre, by means of which Allah wants to relieve humanity of their evil...." (can we scratch him off the list of moderate muslims?)

Now that Sarah Palin has been demonized enough to satisfy most Leftists they are setting their sights on the Koch brothers...because they are conservative and rich. And hardly anyone outside the energy industry has even heard of them. But since they donate large amounts of money to conservative causes they are now directly in the Democrat line of fire.

Victor Davis Hanson always has cuts to the chase..."No one has to this day quite ever answered the proverbial NBA question — why is it OK for professional sports teams to predicate selection entirely on merit when the ensuing result is often the opposite of 'diverse'? The L.A. Lakers governs the appointment of multimillion-dollar positions on proven ability and ignores whether the result does not 'reflect' America or the demography of California, but USC, a nearby equally private entity, apparently should not? The truth is that majority/minority is already an archaic term in many regions of America, and diversity has lost much of its currency."

Black Puppet

Cornel West, a Princeton University professor and leading black intellectual, is harshly criticizing President Obama, a candidate he once supported but now calls "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats."

West, a former Harvard University professor, said during an interview with the website Truthdig posted yesterday that the president has not been true to his race.

"I think my dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men," West said. "It’s understandable. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he’s always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white…When he meets an independent black brother, it is frightening."

More here

Sugar Daddy

George Soros "has spent more than $48 million funding media properties, including the infrastructure of news journalism schools, investigative journalism and even industry organizations. And that number is an understatement. It is gleaned from tax forms, news stories and reporting.

But Soros funds foundations that fund other foundations in turn, like the Tides Foundation, which then make their own donations. A complete accounting is almost impossible because a media component is part of so many Soros-funded operations."

Source

Ponzi scheme unravelling

Bill Gross is the world’s biggest bond trader. He runs the PIMCO bond fund with over $250 billion under management. He recently disclosed through financial filings that PIMCO has sold every single U.S. bond in its portfolio. Local, state, federal bonds- all sold off. Gross knows bonds are about to default in record numbers. And most importantly, he knows that the last resort of the Federal Reserve buying our own government’s bonds at auction is a certain sign of Armageddon. When no one is left to buy your own debt but you, you have reached the end of a Ponzi Scheme.

Then there is legendary Wall Street investor Stanley Druckenmiller. He, too, is calling the Fed’s bond purchases a fraud and a Ponzi scheme. Druckenmiller says, "There is a phony buyer of $19 billion per week of Treasury Bonds." The phony buyer he refers to is the U.S. government. Druckenmiller knows that when a country resorts to buying its own debt, we are seeing the last days of the Roman Empire.

Another Wall Street legend, Jim Rogers, spoke out at a business conference last week. He said he plans to short sell (bet against) U.S. bonds with both hands. Rogers added, "If any of you have bonds, I would urge you to go home and sell them. If any of you are bond portfolio managers, I would get another job…if I were you, I would think about becoming a farmer."

Finally, we have the opinion of municipal bond expert Meredith Whitney, named by Fortune magazine as "one of the 50 most powerful women in business," and by Time magazine as "one of the 100 most influential people." She sees America in financial ruin with 50 to 100 cities defaulting on their debt in the next year.

What do these financial legends know that the rest of us do not?

More here

Taketh and giveth

Blogger "disappeared" three of my posts last Thursday and they magically reappeared this morning.

Erasing Hillary

A Hasidic newspaper in New York removed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and a female aide from its version of the now-famous shot of President Obama and his advisors watching the developments in the killing of Osama bin Laden. These Hasidic people are even weirder than the muslim extremists. We all agree that Hillary should be removed from the picture but the girl in the back is kind of cute.

Elsewhere, CNN reports that three people are dead after a shooting in a campus parking garage at San Jose State University. (Aren't guns forbidden on college campuses? Apparently someone didn't get the memo.)

The Associated Press story about the mustard who tried to open the door into the cockpit of a passenger plane minimized the man's intentions by suggesting, "He might have seriously mistaken the cockpit for the bathroom.... He's only been on three planes in his whole life."

A writer at Strarfor wonders if America, by the choice of its allies, has implicitly adopted the strategy of not winning, lest it destabilize its friends. Source

"...in 1954, about 96 percent of American men between the ages of 25 and 54 worked. Today that number is around 80 percent. One-fifth of all men in their prime working ages are not getting up and going to work. According to figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the United States has a smaller share of prime age men in the work force than any other G-7 nation. The number of Americans on the permanent disability rolls, meanwhile, has steadily increased. Ten years ago, 5 million Americans collected a federal disability benefit. Now 8.2 million do. That costs taxpayers $115 billion a year, or about $1,500 per household. ..." Source

President Carter Obama asks, What do Republicans want, a moat filled with alligators? Now that you mention it, Mr. President, that does sound like a good idea. And barbed wire on both sides. Mines, too. How about some tanks?

Michelle Obama has made obesity her signature cause during her husband's presidency. When will she turn her gaze at the obese government which grows yearly with no diet in sight? Isn't it big and bloated enough? Can't we just say no?

California Department of Transportation nixes public display of American flag because it would be an "impermissible act of public expression." Story (will anyone miss California when it finally slides into the sea?)

He's certainly not a moderate...A Saudi student at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island was arrested on Thursday after telling dining center employees, "...don’t worry, today is the last day, and tomorrow I blow the walls out." Story

Tell us what you really think..."Last week the world learned of the death of a misogynistic, homophobic, racist mass murderer who supported a theocratic, neo-fascist ideology posing as a liberation movement. In Washington and at New York's September 11 Ground Zero, spontaneous crowds cheered in the streets upon the announcement of Osama bin Laden's long-overdue demise." Source

An Imam in Morocco issued a fatwa stating that necrophilia is "Halal" or religiously acceptable practice in Islam. He said that a husband has the right to have sex with his dead wife. Source

Don't blame Bush or Cheney or Halliburton or Exxon...Barack Obama, in 2008 as the Democratic candidate for president, made it clear that one of his major policy goals was to make fossil fuels expensive, so that "alternative" and "green" sources of energy would be more economically competitive....And three months before he was confirmed as secretary of energy, Steven Chu confirmed in an interview that "somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."

Gingrich makes it official. He's running for president. Yawn. I just can't get rid of the image of him and Nancy Pelosi agreeing on global warming. Weren't they sitting on couch together on the sea shore? What a douche.

President Carter Obama urged businesses yesterday to "step up" and hire workers, pressing banks and other corporations to do more to help (the) economy. What he forgot to say..."so we can tax the shit out of them and make me look good."

Notice how people are always quick to blame oil companies for making "excess" profits? But do you hear of anyone complaining about Starbucks, Google, Apple, or Microsoft for making "excess" profits?

Sibel

Sibel Edmonds has a story to tell. She went to work as a Turkish and Farsi translator for the FBI five days after 9/11. Part of her job was to translate and transcribe recordings of conversations between suspected Turkish intelligence agents and their American contacts. She was fired from the FBI in April 2002 after she raised concerns that one of the translators in her section was a member of a Turkish organization that was under investigation for bribing senior government officials and members of Congress, drug trafficking, illegal weapons sales, money laundering, and nuclear proliferation. She appealed her termination, but was more alarmed that no effort was being made to address the corruption that she had been monitoring.

A Department of Justice inspector general’s report called Edmonds’s allegations "credible," "serious," and "warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review by the FBI." Ranking Senate Judiciary Committee members Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have backed her publicly. "60 Minutes" launched an investigation of her claims and found them believable. No one has ever disproved any of Edmonds’s revelations, which she says can be verified by FBI investigative files.

John Ashcroft’s Justice Department confirmed Edmonds’s veracity in a backhanded way by twice invoking the dubious State Secrets Privilege so she could not tell what she knows. The ACLU has called her "the most gagged person in the history of the United States of America."

But on Aug. 8, she was finally able to testify under oath in a court case filed in Ohio and agreed to an interview with The American Conservative based on that testimony. What follows is her own account of what some consider the most incredible tale of corruption and influence peddling in recent times. As Sibel herself puts it, "If this were written up as a novel, no one would believe it."

More here

Redacted

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, produced the movie, Redacted.

Total U.S. gross amounted to only $65,388. International release added $716,053 for a total worldwide gross of $781,441. The film's budget was $5 million.

Some say it was vehemently anti-American. Others say it was an accurate depiction of war.

More here

President Rick Perry?

As many grass-roots Republicans remain in search of a conservative candidate with the pizazz to go toe-to-toe against President Obama, a man from deep in the heart of Texas who was tea party before the tea party was cool appears to be giving the presidential race some thought.

Gov. Rick Perry has insisted on multiple occasions that he has no interest in the presidency, but RCP has learned that political associates have begun to nose around quietly on Perry's behalf.

A Texas pol who is close to Perry has been telling a few key strategists that the nation's longest-serving governor sees a vacuum and is waiting to be summoned into the race. This source believes that could happen by late summer. Without fellow Southerners Haley Barbour or Mike Huckabee in the race -- and with Newt Gingrich's early troubles raising further doubts about the current lineup -- there could be a glaring niche for Perry to fill.

More here

Crime scene

After viewing photos of a dead Osama bin Laden, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (Illinois) said there's "no question" in her mind that they should not be released to the general public because of their graphic nature.

"These are pictures of a violent crime scene. This is a dead person. A dead Osama bin Laden," she said.

Pointing to Taliban suicide bombers retaliating in Pakistan Friday, killing 80, Schakowsky noted, "you know that there's no good that can come out of circulating those photos."

A member of the House Intelligence Committee, Schakowsky was among a select group of lawmakers who were able to view the photos at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

Schakowksy said she viewed the photos from binders located in a congressional affairs room. Individuals must check their cell phones at the door before entering the CIA, she said.

Source

California's crazy women

Burt Prelutsky of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Frankly, I don't know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I'm not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine, even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we're number one. There's no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters, and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on 'Macbeth'. The four of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of blab. You don't know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words."

Meanwhile, in Louisiana they are flooding farmland so that the citizens of New Orleans can be safe. New Orleans, remember, was built on a swamp that keeps sinking and is more valuable than the peasants out in the provinces. I wonder what the more resourceful lawyers are thinking right now?

Elsewhere, from Britain...Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking recently explained his belief that there is no God and that humans should therefore seek to live the most valuable lives they can while on Earth. Story (I love it when atheists denigrate a faith in God by using a faith in science which has yet to prove anything as to whether there is or isn't a God)

Closer to home...The U.S. Postal Service has lost $2.6 billion so far this year and will require significant help from Congress to get back on track, it was reported last week. Just like public sector unions, the employees of the USPS are lavishly overpaid and are the recipients of overly generous retirement packages that no government entity can afford.

Quote of the Day by Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a freshman on the Budget Committee, speaking about Newt Gingrich..."Typically, you’ll find people in a presidential campaign running against the current president of another party, rather than running against his own party."

There is a lot of debate on the internet as to President Carter Obama's agenda. Is he truly an American in the old tradition or just a nice fellow who just happened to be born here? The question is...does he know the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner? I would bet NO.

Rush Limbaugh has something nice to say about Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Story

Porn, Weed, And Toilets In Afghanistan. Story

In parts of Norway where there are large numbers of muslim immigrants, blonde girls have to dye their hair brown and children can’t carry salami in their lunch boxes for fear of being beaten up by immigrant children. Norway's leaders continue pushing the joy of diversity at the children's expense.

Newt Gingrich says President Carter Obama has the advantages of the presidency, such as...support from the "left-wing media," and the backing of labor unions and billionaires like George Soros. "If you are a conservative, you have to start with an assumption that you’re not going to get an even break from the elite media." (Newt finally says something appropriate)

From the horn of Africa...over the weekend a Danish anti-pirate vessel was fired upon by a Somali pirate ship. The Danes returned fire, killing four pirates and capturing the other ten.

Israel is getting a lot of negative press coverage for the shootings on its borders this weekend but Turkey shot and killed 12 intruders and the mainstream media does not notice. Story

According to TMZ...Lindsay Lohan plans to stay on the straight and narrow for the REST OF HER LIFE -- telling friends, she's serious this time ... no drugs, no booze, no breaking the law ... ever again ... PERIOD. (Sure, sweetheart, we believe you)

New York is just like California. High taxes. People are leaving. The city of Buffalo has lost 11 percent of its population over the past decade. Overall, the state's population grew slower than all but three other states.

Actual headline..."Strip Search Finds Crack Between Buttocks" Story

Rush Limbaugh speaks with Heap Big Medicine..."The last thing Obama wants is to run against a real conservative. Obama hopes to hell he gets a squishy moderate, middle-of-the-road, McCain type. He wants somebody who is afraid to occupy conservative positions."

Collapse

Unless things change, the man (or woman) elected in 2012 will be the last American president to preside over the world's leading economy. If things get really bad, he will find himself presiding over the early stages of American collapse. Not "decline" but "collapse." "Decline" is what happens when you're Britain in the 1940s, and you cede global dominance to a major ally that shares your language, legal system, cultural inheritance and broad geopolitical objectives. That deal isn't on offer this time round.

Nor was the United Kingdom circa 1948 in thrall to anything like the same levels of spendaholic insanity. The current debate on the "debt ceiling" testifies to how thoroughly public discourse has flown the coop of reality. Sure, Congress can vote to raise the debt ceiling – just as you and your spouse can reach a bipartisan agreement on raising your own debt ceiling. Go on, try it: Hold a vote in your rec room, come up with a number, and then let MasterCard know what you've decided on.

Source

Soon

Thug

Under President Carter Obama, the National Labor Relations Board, ostensibly a neutral organization, has become radically pro-Union. They have outrageously brought suit against Boeing to force the company to keep all production in unionized Washington. This is an Orwellian assault on capitalism, and indeed, it is an act that ignores both law and seven decades of precedent interpreting that law.

Obama's newly radicalized NLRB has also brought suit against Arizona because that state passed a law requiring secret ballots for unionization. A secret ballot is the single most basic procedure guaranteeing fair and free elections in any democracy. The only reason to allow any other procedure is to make room for thuggery and intimidation by unions.

In perhaps his most thuggish act to date, Obama has proposed to sign an Executive Order that would require "all companies (and their officers) . . . to list their political donations as a condition to bidding for government contracts." What that means is that "[c]ompanies can bid and lose out for the sin of donating to Republicans. Or they can protect their livelihoods by halting donations to the GOP altogether—which is the White House's real aim." This is not just thuggery taken to a new level, it seems a clear violation of the First Amendment.

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Noodling

Brady Knowlton believes it's his inalienable right as a Texan to shove his bare hand into the mouth of a 60-pound catfish and yank it out of a river.

But wrestling a flapping, whiskered giant as it latches onto your arm with its jaws isn't among Texas's accepted methods of capturing fish. It is, rather, a class C misdemeanor, with fines of up to $500.

So Mr. Knowlton, a 30-year-old-private citizen, oilman and outdoor enthusiast here, is pushing a bill in the state Legislature to legalize hand fishing, also known as noodling, grabbing or hogging. Noodlers go into the water, then reach into holes, hollow tree trunks and other underwater nooks to find the fish.

Noodlers explore the banks and rocky areas of lakes and rivers for catfish lairs, using their hands or a branch to poke around in the murky water. They look for clues such as smooth, packed dirt (catfish will clean the area around their nests of debris and plants).

Nothing beats "the heebie-jeebies you get underwater, in the dark, with this little sea monster biting you," he says. He recalls that his arm looked like "the first stage of a chili recipe" after his first noodling experience about 15 years ago. Catfish are equipped with bands of small but very abrasive teeth.

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Clearing the swamp

Scandal in New Mexico...

Just when Bill Richardson appeared to be in the clear on corruption charges in New Mexico, new allegations of pay-for-play during his administration may envelop the former Governor again. A grand jury indicted a sitting district judge on charges of corruption for buying his appointment from Richardson in 2006, and a whistleblowing judge believes the rot went all the way to the top....

Source

Voter IQs

There was a popular webpage after the 2000 and 2004 elections showing purported average IQs in Blue States (e.g., Connecticut 113) and Red States (e.g., Utah 87). Of course, that was a hoax. But it received tens of millions of page views because it met a deep need among Democrats to feel smarter than Republicans.

Audacious Epigone has crunched the numbers from the latest release of the ongoing General Social Survey to find out whose supporters in 2008 did better on the GSS's 10 word vocabulary quiz (the scores from which correlate surprisingly well with genuine IQ tests.

Posting vocabulary scores on an IQ scale, McCain voters scored 102.5 versus 99.9 for Obama voters. On a real IQ test, the gap might have been even larger because the GSS vocab quiz shows only about a 10 point W-B gap. I suspect that McCain did better than Obama among people with higher performance than verbal IQs. (I'm trying to think of anything in Obama's biography, a hobby or whatever, that suggests a knack for something not involving words, and I'm drawing a blank: when a state senator, he was good at winning at poker against lobbyists, so I guess we'll count that. McCain loves casino gambling, which is a lot dumber than playing poker with people with expense accounts for making you feel good.)

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Geronimo

A local Native American organization is offering counseling to anyone who feels offended or hurt by the use of "Geronimo" as code name for the recent U.S. operation that killed Osama Bin Laden. Source

Meanwhile...Senator Kohl of Wisconsin becomes the sixth senator in the Democrats’ corner to decline reelection next year...Daniel Akaka (Hawaii), Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), Kent Conrad (N.D.) and Jim Webb (Va.) have said they’ll retire at the end of this term, as will Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), an Independent who caucuses with Democrats. If Republicans can win the Senate and retain the House, Obama's leftist agenda is dead, dead, dead.

Elsewhere...Your tax dollars at work...Illinois lawmakers have passed a bill which allows citizens to pick up road kill. Under the bill, people with proper permits could retrieve certain in-season, furry mammals killed by motorists. People could do whatever they please with the carcasses, whether it's skin them for their hides or add them to a rustic stew.

Here's a link to some Orangutan art. Do not confuse these paintings with the so-called avant-garde art from New York City or San Francisco.

If you're really, really bored and have wondered what Texas prisoners who are about to be executed have to say in their Last Statements, go here.

"The Republicans have a habit of nominating the guy whose turn it is – Bob Dole, John McCain. This time the guy whose turn it is is Mitt Romney. Unfortunately for him, his signature legislation in Massachusetts looks awfully like a pilot program for ObamaCare. So in recent days he's been out yet again defending his record: If I understand him correctly, his argument is that the salient point about RomneyCare and ObamaCare is not that they're both disasters, but that one's local, and the other's national, and that Obama has a one-disaster-fits-all approach to health care whereas Romney believes in letting a thousand disasters bloom. Celebrate diversity!" Source

Michelle Malkin has a way with words..."If only al-Murisi had been screaming phrases from the Constitution. The Selective Motive Determination Machine -- the same one that rushed to pin the Tucson massacre on the Tea Party, the GOP and Fox News without a shred of evidence -- would have kicked in to full gear...So how, despite a massive transportation and homeland security apparatus, did al-Murisi get into this country and get on a plane? He had no keys, no luggage, $47 cash, two curious posted checks totaling $13,000, and a trove of expired and current state IDs from New York and California..."

A 64-year-old art teacher at Central High School in Brooksville, Florida, Sandra Hadsock, has been accused of punching a student in the face after being called several obscene names. Hopefully, she'll be found innocent. Hopefully, she'll get a bonus too.

Tasteless? Yes, of course. Bin Laden's harem.

Osama bin Laden received visits from Taliban leaders and wealthy Arab supporters while he was hiding out in a fortified compound in a Pakistani garrison town, it has emerged. The revelation that the al-Qaeda chief had direct contact with his followers — and did not rely solely on messengers — came as a US-led task force urgently trawled captured documents and computer files for terror plots and information about extremists. Source

Ron Paul makes a good point while explaining that killing Bin Laden was wrong, "What if he'd been in a hotel in London? We wanted to keep it secret, so would we have sent the airplane, you know the helicopters in to London, because they were afraid the information would get out?"

Anti-American pro-Osama Bin Laden socialist Michael Moore will join left wing bomb throwing screwball Keith Olbermann as a contributor on his new show. What could go wrong?

So who cares about seeing Bin Laden's death photos? We want to see his porn stash. Write your congressman. Now.

Law that benefits only women

A Vienna (West Virginia) man would rather sit in jail than pay alimony to his ex-wife, hoping it forces a change in state paternity laws.

Monday, Sean Keefe, 37, was sentenced to six months in the North Central Regional Jail for refusing to pay his ex-wife $1,800-a-month court-ordered alimony.

"I didn't kill anybody. I didn't assault anybody. And I didn't steal from anybody and I am going to jail. I am in jail," Keefe said in a YouTube video posted Saturday.

Keefe alleges two years after he divorced his ex-wife, he discovered he was not the father of the couple's youngest son.

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Westboro Baptist Church rant

The leader of Westboro Baptist Church is very odd. Branded as a right wing hate merchant by the mass media, he has a strange history...

According to Wikipedia, Fred Phelps is a disbarred lawyer, a past civil rights activist, an abusive father, wife beater, and has run in various Kansas Democratic Party primaries five times, but has never won. These included races for governor in 1990, 1994, and 1998, receiving about 15 percent of the vote in 1998. In the 1992 Democratic Party primary for U.S. Senate, Phelps received 31 percent of the vote. Phelps ran for mayor of Topeka in 1993 and 1997.

Phelps supported Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic Party primary election. In his 1984 Senate race, Gore opposed a "gay bill of rights" and stated that homosexuality was not something that "society should affirm". Phelps has stated that he supported Gore because of these earlier comments. According to Phelps, members of the Westboro Baptist Church helped run Gore's 1988 campaign in Kansas. Phelps' son, Fred Phelps Jr., hosted a Gore fundraiser at his home in Topeka and was a Gore delegate to the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Gore spokesman Dag Vega declined to comment, saying "We are not dignifying those stories with a response."

So we have a "right wing extremist" with a history of Democrat party activism. Something about this guy and his church is fishy. And he seems to have a never-ending supply of money to fly around the country demonstrating at numerous functions they wish to publicize. Who is financing him?

Donald Trump has supported Democrats in the past but suddenly comes out recently against President Carter Obama in regard to his birth certificate. The end result makes the ring wing look silly which is most likely the reason Trump did it. Is that called a stalking horse?

Fred Phelps and his church seem to be doing the same thing...by exaggerating their extreme views they actually make the leftist Democrats look like moderates.

Sure

White House invite

How to get an Obama White House invite...Praise a convicted cop killer...Attend church with Reverend "God America" Wright...Rap about burning George W. Bush... Name daughter after cop killer.... Source

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks Threatens Its Own Leakers With $20 Million Penalty. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange now makes his associates sign a draconian nondisclosure agreement that, among other things, asserts that the organization’s huge trove of leaked material is "solely the property of WikiLeaks." Source

Elsewhere, a boy drowns while red-tape-challenged government employees from two different agencies watch. Story

From Europe...EU policy dictates that borders must remain open. The rush of refugees from northern Africa during the past weeks has strained the ability of some countries to handle them. Italy is being inundated. Denmark announced that they would begin monitoring its borders to avoid Italy's recent fate. Naturally, the EU is condemning Denmark. This could be the beginning of the end for the EU if the financial crisis doesn't do it first.

Here's the best definition of Islam I've ever seen...Islam is like the Westboro Baptist Church, only with a billion members.

"Newt Gingrich is Al Gore hiding under a Phil Donahue wig." Source Bonus quote, "Flashback 2007: Newt supported cap-and-trade: 'I think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system... that's very, very good. And frankly, it's something I would strongly support.'"

Tea Party Conservatives see the following as conservative candidates...Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Marco Rubio, and Allen West. All the others are Republicans in Name Only. Two women, two blacks, one hispanic, and one white guy. And the Democrats claim the Tea Party is racist and/or sexist.

Amazing underwater photos that show the growing gap between two tectonic plates near Iceland. Here

George Soros spent $27 million trying to help defeat George W. Bush in 2004. That's a big chunk of change. He has also recently gave $1.8 million to National Public Radio which provoked the controversy over federal funding. He is reported to have ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets. Story

Ron Paul wants to be president. Too bad, he's not going to be. Libertarians are a strange bunch. When they talk about economics they generally make sense. But once they veer off into any other subject, insanity ensues. For instance he claimed he would not have ordered Bin Laden to be killed. Says it would be a breach of "international law."

True of false? "Any tax increase will just be passed on to the consumer in higher prices - the government by far already makes more per gallon of gas sold than the oil companies."

Perspective...A massive earthquake rocked southwestern China on May 12, 2008, leaving nearly 87,000 people dead or missing and millions homeless. 87 thousand dead or missing...millions homeless. Makes one wonder how bad we really have it here in the good old U.S.A.

President Carter's Obama's reelection strategy can be summarized by this...Don't change donkeys in midstream.

Victor Davis Hanson asks..."How can increasing five-fold Predator targeted assassination missions against suspected terrorists, dropping precision bombs to take out the person and family of Muammar Qaddafi, and ordering a hit on Bin Laden be considered OK, but waterboarding three admitted terrorists who claimed responsibility for 9/11, and gave information that led to the demise of bin Laden be considered both amoral and illegal?"

I guess this makes sense in a nonsensical way...Pakistanis upset with the killing of Bin Laden get revenge by killing at least 80 more Pakistanis with suicide attacks on a military training facility.

Weird story of the day...The Phantom Time Hypothesis suggests that the early Middle Ages (614-911 A.D.) never happened, but were added to the calendar long ago either by accident, by misinterpretation of documents, or by deliberate falsification by calendar conspirators. This would mean that all artifacts ascribed to those three centuries belong to other periods, and that all events thought to have occurred during that same period occurred at other times, or are outright fabrications. Story

Joe Biden not a target for assassination, according to Bin Laden's notes. Whew, what a relief! We'll all sleep better tonight, won't we?

Islamists Hold Funeral Prayers for Osama Bin Laden in London, Chanting: 'Obama, Watch Your Back' and 'Democracy, Burn in Hell!' Source

Global Warming doctoring. And they got caught. Story

Bin Laden had three wives living with him. And he had a porn stash too. Story

In a literal application of the sharia law of an eye for an eye, Iran is ready for the first time to blind a man with acid, after he was found guilty of doing the same to a woman who refused to marry him. Story

Hope your love life is doing better than that poor fool....