"Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face." - Thomas Sowell
Freedom and liberty are the foundation of America. This love of freedom requires that freedom for others be just as important as freedom for you. Today this commitment to freedom is being superceded by a constant government expansion that will leave all of us subservient to the power of bureaucrats.
by Thomas Sowell - December 31st, 2008 - Townhall.com
Many countries around the world already have government-run medical care. People who get sick in these countries usually wait much longer to get treatment, including months on waiting lists for surgery, often paying in pain or debilitation, rather than money.
When you read this article it becomes clear to anyone with a brain why socialism does not work. So why, you must ask, is it so popular with so many? As noted in the article, many actually believe that the impossible OUGHT to be possible, and they vote that way.
As long as the politicians can persuade people that they can vote to keep prices low without destroying quality and availability of the item in question, socialism will be tried. Since the unintended consequences CANNOT be avoided, the politicians (who are not stupid) know that they have to find a scapegoat for the actual consequences that will follow.
That scapegoat will always be "the rich" or "the white man" or "those conservatives". The problem is that many "rich" or "white" or "conservative" think if they go along, by feeding the alligator, then the alligator will eat them last. That is what we have become, a nation that is trying to postpone the problems we face so someone else down the road will solve them, maybe after we are gone. Few Americans will stand up and fight TODAY for the heritage our forefathers gave us!
The top executives of Lehman Brothers destroyed as much as $US75 billion ($109 billion [Australian]) of the company's value by rushing the stricken investment bank into a surprise bankruptcy filing, an analysis by Lehman's liquidators has found.
by Christine Seib - December 30, 2008 - The Australian Business
Most of the loss of value occurred because the bankruptcy filing caused the bank to default on trading contracts with counterparties, immediately cancelling 900,000 separate derivatives contracts. These cancellations included contracts in which Lehman was owed money. If there had been on orderly unwinding of the contracts over several weeks, at least $US50 billion could have been saved, the liquidators found.
This article goes on to explain that the fire sale price of some assets that had regularly generated $4US billion in annual revenue brought in only $500US million as a selling price.
Anyone not aware of the real consequences of declaring a crisis probably do not realize the total disaster the inarticulate retard (George W. Bush) and Henry Paulson created here in America with their insane handling of the banking crisis. American stockholders lost trillions of dollars due to the stupidity of George W. Bush and his Treasury Secretary.
The entire fiasco is reminiscent of the Savings and Loan crisis, where government ordered the S&L industry to divest itself of what were called junk bonds. The S&Ls thus lost hundreds of billions of dollars in the fire sale of these bonds, receiving only a minor fraction of their value. Since of course, like Lehman Brothers above, the underlying assets were worth much more than was received. An orderly, not panic stricken, handling of the S&L crisis would have discovered that only a small percentage of the bonds would not be paid off. The people who bought the junk bonds made billions off them because they were worth so much more than their fire sales value. The government then tried to sue the buyers, who bought the bonds in honest sales that the government forced, for daring to make money off the stupidity of the government forcing the sale.
The book has not been written yet, but there is an intelligent economist out there who will write it, calculating the value of assets that George W. Bush wiped out with his panicked declaration of the banking crisis. Another crisis was the stupidity of conservatives who bought his socialism based "compassionate conservative" lies in the first place.
The banking crisis was handled as stupidly as the way Lehman Brothers was handled. Thank you George W. Bush. You proved you are an inarticulate retard to the very end.
By Andrew Osborn - December 29th, 2008 - Wall Street Journal
[Russian academic Igor Panarin] predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.
I never thought that such an idea would be discussed with a real concern for its credibility. I also never thought the American people would vote to make America a socialist state. I guess I never thought that conservatives in the Republican Party would ask me to leave, accusing me of being a RINO, whatever they think that is. These are strange times.
The above article certainly does not contradict the article entitled The Coming Entitlement Crash of 2010 by Terry Paulson which also came out today. The Paulson article seems a little more realistic however I wonder whether it could not become the trigger for the scenario above?
In any event, the meltdown is coming and the many liberals who advocated socialism, prayed for socialism and voted for socialism will be furious with everyone except themselves when it happens. They have never once accepted the unintended consequences of the laws that they passed were entire predictable. Vote for socialism and the economy will collapse? The people who voted for it insist this is false since "Socialism has never really been tried".
Just wait. I am afraid the only question now is whether we will be destroyed by the Islamo-fascists or the liberal-democrats.
by Randall Hoven - December 28th, 2008 - American Thinker
What went wrong in Iraq? Why? Who was to blame? Comfortably ensconced in my armchair on Monday morning, let me tell you what happened.
First, how do we know anything went wrong? We should not start out with the common mistake of comparing what actually happened to some impossible ideal. The "ideal" war has zero casualties. We need to compare what actually happened to other feasible alternatives. That means if you are going to criticize what happened, you must present at least one other feasible alternative that would have had a better outcome. (If you can't do that, would you please just shut up.)
I agree. Would those on the left who claim we should not have expanded the war against the Islamo-fascists into the Iraq battlefield, PLEASE SHUT UP.
This is a credible and intelligent assessment of what happened in Iraq. One of the key points is something that continues to outrage me about the liberal-democrat scum who hate our military and blame us for everything. They list as dead at American hands the Iraqis killed by Al Qaeda since the war ended and their subversion of Iraqi Democracy began.
by Isabel Vincent - December 28th, 2008 - Associated Press
A Holocaust survivor's amazing tale of romance - hailed by Oprah as "the single greatest love story in 22 years of doing this show" - is an outrageous fabrication, fellow camp survivors and experts told The Post.
Like her fellow con artist, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey is granted exemption from accountability. It is curious how this continues even after her previous examples of gullibility and malpractice. For anyone else, setting up a school she so mismanged that the children were abused would have banned them from public life. For Oprah, the incomepetence is not just ignored, it is held up as an example of her basic "decency".
Oprah was equally gullible when Barack Obama wrote his "autobiography", not waiting until he had actually accomplished anything. That book was as much a con job as this fabricated love story. Oprah of course loved it. Now when it is clear that the person who was Obama's childhood mentor (carefully never named by the "writer") was an active communist, Oprah and Obama simply ingore the attacks. Much else in his biography could not have happened. I don't name the writer because once again there are credible charges that it was not an autobiography but a ghost written con job. Maybe the actual writer did not know what was trued. The fiction that Obama wrote it continues though, so how are we to know?
Hollywood has taken over our society. Barack Obama is a fictional cult hero. His history is as much of a fraud as this holocaust sham. Yet we were unable to stop the publishing of that ealier sham. This time the sham has been cancelled because Herman Rosenblat and his wife have acknowledged what many have been saying since the early drafts failed the credibility test. The pretension that these two met in a concentration camp, the premise upon which their long term marriage was transformed from a good story into a Great Love Story, simply never happened. It is a lie.
Similar problems exist with the Barack Obama saga. The Magic Marxist Messiah is an affirmative action success story. A second rate articulate black man has swaggerred his way into the Presidency because no one, from the gullible Oprah on, has questioned what this man has really accomplished. He is not incompetent. Simply duplicitous. That is what is truly scary.
What we have to worry about is whether the press will ever vet this con man Obama, any better than they have vetted the glory hound Oprah and the other con artists that she has foisted on the world?
by Thomas Sowell - December 27, 2008 - Washington Times
Some of us were raised to believe that reality is inescapable. But that just shows how far behind the times we are. Today, reality is optional. At the very least, it can be postponed.
Kids in school are not learning? Not a problem. Just promote them on to the next grade anyway. Call it "compassion," so as not to hurt their "self-esteem."
Can't meet college admissions standards after they graduate from high school? Denounce those standards as just arbitrary barriers to favor the privileged, and demand that exceptions be made.
Can't do math or science after they are in college? Denounce those courses for their rigidity and insensitivity, and create softer courses that the students can pass to get their degrees.
Once they are out in the real world, people with diplomas and degrees - but with no real education - can hit a wall. But by then the day of reckoning has been postponed for 15 or more years.
It takes Thomas Sowell to point out that many of the problems of a nation and a society are reflections of the illusions that are fostered to create that state. The illusion that we can postpone dealing with reality has been fostered by the corrupt education establishment in its continued destruction of our education system. Educators have spent two generations subverting the greatest nation ever created.
Now this educator based illusion is becoming the basis for governmental decisions. These illusions will have far worse consequences in the years ahead. The freedom on which this nation is based is being systematically destroyed upon the illusion that there is greater justice in allowing a bureacrat to determine what is fair than allowing competition determine how much comfort the world provides any single individual. What is fair and how do you decide this so that people, all people, will agree?
America has voted for socialism, the nanny state, governmental protection from reality, postponing the reckoning for our bad decisions about the future. Having voted for this failed economic system under the illusion that "real socialism" has never been tried, America is in the process of throwing away the great success of a uniquely great nation. Though we are postponing the consequences, through illusions as out of touch with reality as the sun rising in the west, reality will ultimately bring us down to earth.
By then we will be one more failed socialist state with no more liberty and justice than all the previous failed socialist states.
by Noel Sheppard - December 21st, 2008 - Newsbusters
Internet behemoth Google on Sunday declared the conservative website Lucianne, founded by Lucianne Goldberg, harmful to computers.
Oddly, as NewsBusters reported, the same thing happened to the conservative website "American Spectator" almost exactly a year ago.
The link here to my earlier article about the socialist brainwashing orgainzation Google makes it critical that conservatives be aware of the risk to using this biased organization as their search engine.
There are plenty of other search engines that have not yet succombed to the idea that conservative and libertarian thoughts must be suppressed.
by Judi McLeod - December 15th, 2008 - Canada Free Press
Who ever thought that Joseph Farah would be my inspiration in sending an early Christmas present to victims of Wikipedia?
But it was Farah who launched a “dragon-slaying mission” trying to force accountability on the free, online encyclopedia that inspired CFP techie Brian Thompson’s “Break the Wicked-Pedia Link Campaign”.
“I can’t kill this beast alone. But with your help and the help of other people of goodwill and good conscience, we can defang this monstrosity,”
Every single day I talk with another person who tells me what a great resource wikipedia is. I then have to spend several minutes to tell another person what an abomination of lies and socialist myth the site has become.
I do not know why left wing people find such joy in spreading their lies and propaganda. But they do. I don't know why these same small minded vindictive people think that going to the campaign events and speeches of their opponents and disrupting them is reasonable "free speech". But they do.
You never find conservatives or libertarians or moderates who spend their nights and days on the Internet spreading lies about people they disagree with. Just as you never never find conservatives or libertarians or moderates who spend their nights and days trying to interfere with the free speech of those they hate. But liberals and socialists do both constantly.
What kind of scum think these are reasonable actions?
by Raymond Ibrahim - December 14, 2008 - American Thinker
All-permeating "white-guilt" did not appear out of thin air. It has taken a sustained propaganda effort, a wide-ranging mobilization of education and culture, to inculcate and sustain self-loathing among American Caucasians.
This article posits an interesting opinion. The liberal practice of encouraging white guilt, trying to claim that whites were outrageous and evil in conquering America, is itself racist to its core. It actually becomes obvious this is true if you read the article. The agenda is transparent. The purpose of white guilt is to blame the winner for the losers shortcomings, and transform the loser into some idealistic and nobel pacifist.
by Byron York - December 15th, 2008 - National Review
There’s no doubt the problems in Illinois are serious. But a closer look at events suggests that some key state officials, all of them close allies of Barack Obama, are actively fostering a sense of crisis and, in the case of Madigan, actually taking steps to make the crisis worse — while citing the worsening crisis as the reason Blagojevich must go immediately.
If you thought that Blagojevich's actions were indicative of the worst kind of political corruption, you have not seen anything yet. The new machinations by Blagojevich opponents are the most insulting manipulations ever seen. They are insulting to the citizens of Illinois and the press which reports them with little criticism. The Attorney General refuses to sign a document and on the basis of her own refusal to sign the document, claims that the Governor is thereby proved too "mentally handicapped" to continue in office.
On the basis of her refusal to sign the document because of accusations that have not been charged, much less proved, she wants the Illinois Supreme Court to remove a sitting Governor. If the Illinois Supreme Court dares rule in her favor we will have a new definition of "banana republic". Illinois has looked stupid on occasion but this will mark a new standard.
At the least I think the term "chutzpa" also got a new definition. Lisa Madigan's picture has got to be added to the dictionary definition for that word.
by Bjorn Lomborg - December 15th, 2008 - The Australian
According to Obama, "few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change".
Such a statement is now commonplace for most political leaders across the world, even though it neglects to address the question of how much we can do to help America and the world through climate policies v other policies.
This is an interesting article by someone who is still supportive of the idea that man is affecting the planet. He simply believes that idealistic but impractical solutions to the warming is not helpful.
I am even more of a sceptic than Mr. Lomborg. It concerns me greatly that the global cooling in the last ten years, even despite growing CO2 levels, has not rendered the arguments of the man caused global warming fanatics moot.
Obama's goals and policies are more than hot air. They are a fraudulent campaign to foster socialism on the basis of lies about the environment. The level of duplicity already documented about some of their ridiculous claims proves that these people are not sincere but misguided. Obama, like the rest of the enviro-extremists, is simply a liar.
This blog is usually a place where I comment on the most interesting current articles with long term consequence. I try to not get sucked in to coverage of the hot issues of the day just because they are hot. So I am really annoyed by the articles that have already started to treat the Chicago Corruption Crisis as a partisan issue since it is overwhelming a more important dialog. Should our nation become a socialist nation? That is the only really important question at this point.
Instead this Chicago Corruption Crisis is dominating the national discussion. Some in the press are claiming Republicans and Conservatives are using this minor issue to "create" an attack. It isn't Republicans who are touting this issue.
The only article I have posted on the Chicago Corruption Crisis to this point has been one ripping the despicable U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald for the way he publicly attacked a governor who has not yet been tried. Fitzgerald is in violation of the rules of conduct for U.S. Attorneys (see my blog The Rule of Law for that posting) in saying what he said to characterize the Governor's conduct. No one should approve of this type of conduct. Fitzgerald is a radical extremist who sees himself as being above the law. He is not interested in crime, he is interested in taking down the powerful. He went after Dick Cheney and only "got" Scooter Libby for a highly questionable claim of lying that is itself an abomination of justice. The extremism of scum like Fitzgerald does not serve the nation. My posting on the issue can hardly be considered a partisan attack with a Democrat Governor being the person Fitzgerald is going after.
When you think about the Chicago Democrat Machine you have to be amazed at how often it has been accused of corruption in the running of our nation. There are still a large number of conservatives who believe that John Kennedy had his 1960 election stolen for him by the Chicago Democrat Machine. Though Democrats grin even as they claim they do not believe this, Nixon, the man who was cheated, never doubted it. Who can question with sincerity that the strong evidence Democrats stole the election aggravated the defensive attitude which led Nixon to the excesses that were Watergate?
Democrats did not stop with Nixon though. Lies about Republicans were pretty regular during the entire 1960s. Does anyone remember the contemptible lies and smears about Barry Goldwater.
Democrats invented the partisan attack machine. Their political machines mastered stealing elections and smearing their rivals a couple of generations ago. They used their attack machine throughout the 1970s to equate all Republicans to Nixon and vilify and condemn conservatives with little or no evidence. They tied every Republican who had ever met Nixon to the Watergate scandal. This history of their attacks is ignored by Democrats.
Democrats then smeared Ronald Reagan at every opportunity and during the 1980s used any action by any Republican to try to impeach Reagan. These efforts never succeeded with regard to Reagan, but do Democrats really think their attempts were not noticed? Do Democrats think their lies were not hated? Do Democrats think their partisan actions would not have repercussions? Do they think their claims of innocence now are believed?
Current partisan viciousness was established solidly by the contemptible acts of Democrats during three decades. It became clear that this was the way the game was played. When Republicans finally started to play by the same rules and used personal actions to impeach Clinton (don't forget how often the misogynist Clinton pressured women to sleep with him, not all were as willing as Lewinsky) the holier than thou reaction of Democrats was then and remains now ... pretty weak. That does not mean that the Democrats, masters of the lie, smear and attack for three decades, did not scream about how unfair it was and how they would get even! The new tactic by the practitioners of partisan politics is to scream an accusation of "partisan" at anyone who attacks them in return.
It is absolutely ironic that Chicago is still at the center of Democrat corruption nearly 50 years later. The organization accused of stealing an election to create the Camelot dream is now coming back once again to poison our nation's political landscape. And once again Democrats are starting to scream about how conservatives are evil for even asking who else might be involved using their new tactic. The new tactic? Accuse anyone who criticizes them of being partisan.
Already they are building walls to assure that Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Rahn Emanuel are impervious to criticism. They are circling the wagons and claiming they have to circle the wagons because otherwise those evil partisan conservatives and Republicans will smear their innocent, decent and beyond reproach fighters for the people's business. In case anyone has forgotten, Blagojevich was once of those pure innocents when Obama campaigned for his re-election.
I doubt that conservatives will be successful in getting back to the discussion of how to stop the huge swerve left into socialism that Barack Obama has promised and is trying to deliver. Already we have some gullible Republicans who are applauding any minor appointments by Obama that are not extreme liberals. Republicans have missed, or at least ignored, the extreme backgrounds of those being appointed to issues of energy and education. Republican leadership remains gullible and misguided.
Barack Obama is a creature of the Chicago corruption machine and a master of blaming Republicans for partisanship when they attack him. He is not reaching out to unite America. He is reaching out to deceive America. The Magic Marxist Messiah has learned well the Democrat technique of turning the corruption of those around him into a way to attack Republicans for being angry partisans. We will not see unity under Obama. We will see attacks against anyone who dares disagree or criticize.
by Andrew Orlowski - December 12th, 2008 - The Register (London)
Google this week admitted that its staff will pick and choose what appears in its search results. It's a historic statement - and nobody has yet grasped its significance.
Not so very long ago, Google disclaimed responsibility for its search results by explaining that these were chosen by a computer algorithm. The disclaimer lives on at Google News, where we are assured that:
The selection and placement of stories on this page were determined automatically by a computer program.
A few years ago, Google's apparently unimpeachable objectivity got some people very excited, and technology utopians began to herald Google as the conduit for a new form of democracy. Google was only too pleased to encourage this view. It explained that its algorithm "relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. "
That Google was impartial was one of the articles of faith. For if Google was ever to be found to be applying subjective human judgment directly on the process, it would be akin to the voting machines being rigged.
The article by Orlowski then notes how what can only be called the "global socialist movement" found a way to rig Google results. The bland reaction by Google finally relented when enough people were outraged and Google made changes they said were designed to fix these rigged results. They assured us the problem would never happen again.
Now we find that once again Google is biasing its results, and once again it is in service to the "global socialist movement". Since it is clear from what we have learned of the politics of Google employees (who are almost universally advocates of the "global socialist movement") why are we not surprised?
Anyone who uses Google needs to be suspicious of their results. In some searches randomly conducted I found Walmart is always way down the list compared with their marketing results for the same products. With the passionate hatred for Walmart by the "global socialist movement" who with a rationale brain thinks this bias is not intentional?
Last year during the election, articles critical of Sarah Palin always appeared at the top of searches immediately, while articles that defended her were on the second page. Who with a rationale brain thinks this bias is not intentional?
Google LIES. It is as simple as that. Google lies.
by Robert Block - December 10th, 2008 - Orlando Sentinel
Tensions were on public display last week at the NASA library, as overheard by guests at a book party.
According to people who were present, [John] Logsdon, a space historian, told a group of about 50 people he had just learned that President John F. Kennedy’s transition team had completely ignored NASA.
[NASA administrator Mike] Griffin responded, in a loud voice, “I wish the Obama team would come and talk to me.”
Alan Ladwig, a[n Obama] transition team member who was at the party with [Lori ] Garver [Obama transition head], shouted out: “Well, we’re here now, Mike.”
Soon after, Garver and Griffin engaged in what witnesses said was an animated conversation. Some overheard parts of it.
“Mike, I don’t understand what the problem is. We are just trying to look under the hood,” Garver said.
“If you are looking under the hood, then you are calling me a liar,” Griffin replied. “Because it means you don’t trust what I say is under the hood.
The tone of the Obama administration is starting to become more and more obvious, as the extreme leftists who are moving into power start to flex their muscles. As people like Carol Browner, with her arrogant indifference to following the law and her blatant efforts to punish anyone who is not "green enough" to suit her, show up as leaders in the energy and science fields. It does not indicate Obama will be tolerant of anyone who does not believe in his extreme agenda.
Recent reports have indicated that Israel has received a green light from the U.S. and will strike before the end of the Bush administration rather than during an Obama presidency that purports to value dialogue without precondition with Ahmadinejad. Other reports indicate that Israel lacks the political will to attack Iran, especially with Ehud Olmert in office. With the recent successful medium-range ballistic missile test and claims of 5,000 uranium-enrichment centrifuges, Ahmadinejad may have brought the situation to a critical tipping point, as the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran is an unacceptable scenario for the State of Israel.
It is difficult to believe but here in America public opinion is wrapped up in the profanity laced and totally predictable "crisis" of Governor Blagojevich selling Barack Obama's Senate seat. It is of course totally useless to think about this now. It is NOT useless to think about and worry about the coming nuclear holocaust whose opening signal will be the destruction of Tel Aviv.
Yet no one in America seems to be concerned. Even worse, Israel is currently led by some of the least qualified leaders in recent history. They are appeasers who dream of peace while the Islamo-fascists who line their borders chanting for their destruction are deemed to have good hearts. The only requirment is that Israel simply "make nice" to them. The unambiguous historical record that such illusions have never made sense does not dissuade current Prime Minister Olmert.
The drumbeats of war grow louder by the day and the American populace simply chants, "Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah" as it covers its ears and ignores them. We need to pay attention. What Israel chooses affects us greatly. They must not waver. Any nuclear war against Israel will quickly spead to America.
On her last day in office, nearly eight years ago, [Carol] Browner oversaw the destruction of agency computer files in brazen violation of a federal judge's order requiring the agency to preserve its records. This from a public official who bragged about her tenure: "One of the things I'm the proudest of at EPA is the work we've done to expand the public's right to know."
The reason that socialist regimes are ALWAYS destructive of individual liberty is the attitude typified by this arrogant extreme environmentalist. Socialists never think that laws apply to them. They answer to a higher law, their own opinions of what is right. Laws (and government power) are only applied to those they oppose.
All you have to do is read the article below about the willingness of these people to lie about global warming to understand how arrogant they are. The destruction about to be caused to our national economy is reflected in the damage that was caused to the records of the agency the last time Browner had power as head of the EPA. The uselessness of liberal judges to enforce the rule of law when faced with such actions, as explained in the article, is indicative of the way socialists subvert civil society and inflict their tyrannical wishes.
The last sentence quoted above shows their real attitude. The "public" referenced in that sentence is those who agree with them. Obama promised the "complete transformation" of our economy to his utopian dream of "green energy". Disagree and your rights are crushed and ignored with an arrogance not matched in the history of our nation. Welcome to socialist America in the 21st Century.
by Jay Ambrose - December 11th, 2008 - Scripps Howard News Service
It's not that long now until we have a new president, and many on the left and some others are salivating because here's their chance to get George W. Bush, to put him on trial for war crimes, and if doing so tears this nation apart, so what? That's what justice demands, they say.
Actually, it proves what many have said all along. The people who are opposed to George W. Bush are opposed to America. It does not matter to them that we have seen no additional attacks since 9/11. It does not appear to matter to them that we are winning the war against the Islamo-fasicsts. Actually that last is wrong because it does matter to them. They are outraged that we are winning. It is their hatred for America that inspires their hatred for Bush.
I wonder what their position is going to be when the nuclear bombs start going off in American cities. The appeasement of the liberal left will lead inexorably to the nuclear holocaust that we avoided in the cold war. Communism is spreading all over the Western Hemisphere and Islamo-fascism, another socialist economic system, is taking over the middle east. It is absolutely bizarre that America has voted to join the rest of this world in using the most evil economic system ever invented. 100 million people died in socialist states during the 20th Century. I wonder how many Americans will die in the 21st Century before we have a chance to reverse the coming disaster?
by Dr. Tim Ball - December 10th, 2008 - Canada Free Press
Proponents of human induced warming and climate change told us that an increase in CO2 precedes and causes temperature increases. They were wrong. They told us the late 20th century was the warmest on record. They were wrong. They told us, using the infamous “hockey stick” graph, the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) did not exist. They were wrong. They told us global temperatures would increase through 2008 as CO2 increased. They were wrong. They told us Arctic ice would continue to decrease in area through 2008. They were wrong. They told us October 2008 was the second warmest on record. They were wrong. They told us 1998 was the warmest year on record in the US. They were wrong, it was 1934. They told us current atmospheric levels of CO2 are the highest on record. They are wrong. They told us pre-industrial atmospheric levels of CO2 were approximately 100 parts per million (ppm) lower than the present 385 ppm. They are wrong. This last is critical because the claim is basic to the argument that humans are causing warming and climate change by increasing the levels of atmospheric CO2 and have throughout the Industrial era. In fact, pre-industrial CO2 levels were about the same as today, but how did they conclude they were lower?
This article explains in detail how this fraud was perpetrated ... with reference to peer reviewed articles to prove it. Again and again the enviro-extremists have insisted that they do not have to respond to any efforts to understand the truth because they have the truth. They scream that it is settled science. Their position is "Just shut up and believe us!" They are liars.
The problem with their lies is that obvious flaws in their supposed "science" make it clear how stupid their man is causing global warming hypothesis is. Not just wrong. Stupid. One of their studies actually tries to prove that there was no medieval warming period, ignoring the fact that there is overwhelming historical proof just based on the agricultural production of the period.
Again and again the global warming "science" of the extremists simply does not stand up to scrutiny.
by Christi Parsons, John McCormick and Peter Nicholas - December 9, 2008 - Chicago Tribune
"I think we've got a unique opportunity to reboot America's image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular," Obama said Tuesday, promising an "unrelenting" desire to "create a relationship of mutual respect and partnership in countries and with peoples of good will who want their citizens and ours to prosper together." The world, he said, "is ready for that message."
The illusion that these Islamo-fascists want to behead us because of something that we have done, or failed to do, is unacceptable. Our enemies are certainly ready for the Obama message. It is a message of surrender and appeasement. It is not a message that says we demand to live free and will let you work out in your own country how you will live.
When an enemy twists buying product from them at a negotiated price, into the idea that we owe them any lifestyle that they demand, there is no way to deal with them. That is the idiocy of what Obama is saying. Just as he thinks that he can spend America to riches, he thinks that we should pay more than market prices for oil. To him, we are rich and some higher price for oil is "fair".
The socialist illusion that wealth just exists is the dream of imbeciles who become bitter when the economy tanks. They always think that it is the fault of "the rich" and they then resort to evil punishment of "the rich" for daring to interfere with their utopian dream.
by Carter Clews - December 11th, 2008 - Get Liberty
“Already people are rioting because they’re losing their jobs and somebody else has been bailed out. And the unfairness of it becomes more and more evident as we go along, because the auto companies may be hurting, but there are very few companies that aren’t hurting. And they’re going to hurt. We don’t have enough money to bail everyone out.” [Senator Jim DeMint]
To Barack Obama, the Magic Marxist Messiah, it is about HOPE. To George W. Bush it is about COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM (whatever that means). To the American people it is about promises that cannot be fulfilled.
Barack Obama is a dreamer who has never earned his mantel of leadership through anything but campaigning. During that campaign he made promises no one can meet. George W. Bush was an excellent Governor of Texas but he never understood the difference between managing a state and leading a nation. Else his approval ratings would not be so low. Barack Obama is about to find out what it is like to fail to deliver on expectations.
Expectations are growing that the federal government can be the piggy bank for everyone's dreams. Already the disaster that George W. Bush and Henry Paulson have created by first, declaring a disaster, and then botching the solution beyond belief, has enraged the American people. The new auto bailout has 52% opposition and 28% who are uncertain. Only 20% support the auto bailout.
If it goes through there is absolutely no question that we will see the riots Senator DeMint is afraid of when the first bailout is denied, whenever that is.
by Michelle Malkin - December 10th, 2008 - Creator's Syndicate
Democrats and the media can no longer rest on the old rationalization that Blago is an exception to the "we're cleaner than thou" rule. 2008 was the year of Democratic Reps. William "Cold Cash" Jefferson, Charlie "Sweetheart Deals" Rangel, and former Detroit Mayor Kwame "Text Me" Kilpatrick. It was the year Democratic Massachusetts State Senator Dianne Wilkerson got caught stuffing bribes from an FBI informant down her shirt. It was the year 12 Democratic leaders and staffers in Pennsylvania's state Capitol were stung in a massive corruption scandal involving cash, sex and abuse of public office. And it was the year of multimillion-dollar embezzlement scandals at Democratic satellite offices of ACORN and the SEIU.
How about Elliott Spitzer? And yet among the many articles that you find in the major newspapers and the coverage on TV we keep hearing quotes like CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "Most of the scandals ... have involved Republicans." If so it is only because the MSM covers up for corrupt Democrats and gloats over any hint of Republican scandal.
Leave it to the MSM to assure this embarrassment of Democrats (of likely the only state in America where Democrats are more corrupt that North Carolina) is used to launch an attack on Republicans. With such blatant bias by the MSM it is no surprise that most people erroneously think that Republicans are more corrupt than Democrats. The little problem that twice as many Democrats go to jail for corruption and even twice as many more get away with corruption that no Republican could hope to survive is simply ignored. Since it is never reported no one ever hears about it. Can't let a little thing like reality get in the way of a little slander of Republicans, now can we?
Even in this crisis, the MSM continues to be "in the tank" for Obama. On 11/23 David Axelrod said definitively about the vacancy, "I know [Obama]’s talked to the governor and there are a whole range of names many of which have surfaced, and I think he has a fondness for a lot of them." Obama said after this crisis surfaced, "I have had no contact with the governor or his office, so I was unaware of what was happening." One of them is lying. Axelrod came out quickly and said he "misspoke". The press just ignores the contradiction. This time, because it is Democrats, it is the press that is running the cover up.
I am curious why more are not speculating over the reason Fitzgerald announced this so quickly. Was this done to assure that his own imminent removal from office could not stop the effort to clear out some of the corruption that is so normal in the political arena from which our new President has come? Does Fitzgerald, perhaps, not trust our new President?
by Jeffrey Lord - December 9th, 2008 - American Spectator
The president-elect, not satisfied with the taxpayer bailout dollars now cascading in the trillions down a stupendous rat hole, is busily planning a mammoth public works construction program that makes soon-to-be former Senator Stevens look like a nickel-and-dimer. Using FDR's words Obama's intention, according to Sunday's New York Times (which failed to mention the FDR connection), is to pick "winners and losers" in the private economy with a "government-directed industrial policy" run by politicians. Instead of by the kind of entrepreneurs who created The Pride of the Susquehanna.
Obama and company, employing the same liberal principle that created the Fannie Mae mess and imploded the global economy, are now fleshing out the details of how they will force march the American economy backwards to the 1930s or to a Stevens-style pork barrelism. Instead of New Deal terms like the Works Progress Administration you will hear buzz words like "green jobs" or "hybrid buses" and so on.
"If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last," said Reagan.
I suppose it could be argued that I should post this article over on the Patriot rather than here or the Eagle since it is so clearly funny and the Patriot is my blog for humor! Making that decision is a hard call. However I finally decided that though funny, making the point that Obama's plans are so obviously identical to Senator Ted Stevens' plans, this was a serious issue that deserved to be treated seriously on the Eagle.
I do not understand how the MSM can be so critical of Ted Stevens for his Bridge to Nowhere and not see how the huge governmental boondoggle proposed by the Magic Marxist Messiah is exactly the same. The New New Deal is not something that we need all that much or the States would have done this themselves. As noted in a list of of projects "ready to go" across America, the list for North Carolina included 77 projects, 60 of which were local parks, swimming pools, monuments to favored politicians, etc. Building this list of useless projects will be the biggest pork fest ever conceived. Even the roads and bridges to be built that are marginal at best. All of this will be done with money taken from people who will not use that money to create jobs.
However the joke is that this was pointed out during the campaign and no one cared then either. After 40 years of brain washing by our left wing politicized school system, the tyranny of socialism is not understood by most Americans.
The media's disingenuous failure to state the obvious
by Christopher Hitchens - December 8th, 2008 - Slate
The obvious is sometimes the most difficult thing to discern, and few things are more amusing than the efforts of our journals of record to keep "open" minds about the self-evident, and thus to create mysteries when the real task of reportage is to dispel them. An all-time achiever in this category is Fernanda Santos of the New York Times, who managed to write from Bombay on Nov. 27 that the Chabad Jewish center in that city was "an unlikely target of the terrorist gunmen who unleashed a series of bloody coordinated attacks at locations in and around Mumbai's commercial center." Continuing to keep her brow heavily furrowed with the wrinkles of doubt and uncertainty, Santos went on to say that "[i]t is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene."
How can these liberals like Fernanda Santos write such bilge? Christopher Hitchens is vastly better at the English language than I, so he can write this humorous article, which makes the point of the stupidity of the some on the left, all the while never lowering himself to STATE that accusation. It is inferred with great linguistic art.
It is one of the reasons that I still like and admire Hitchens even though we rarely agree on most conclusions in politics. At the very least, he is determined that truth and clarity be the starting point for our conclusions. Not too many on the left are still this honest.
I am a little surprised that a left wing site like Slate would allow this much truth. Great article. Classic Hitchens.
Opinion - December 8th, 2008 - Wall Street Journal
"A political dialogue with Iran should not be deferred until such a time as the deep differences over Iranian nuclear ambitions and its invidious involvement with regional conflicts has been resolved."
Was this candidate Obama, urging talks with Tehran without preconditions? Not at all: It is the recommendation of a 2004 Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored task force on Iran, led by Zbigniew Brzezinski and his erstwhile protege, Robert Gates.
This would be the same Robert Gates who spent months as a member of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which warned against deploying more troops. In a not-so-small irony of history, Mr. Gates was pulled from the ISG to lead the Defense Department -- and enjoy credit for the surge -- just weeks before the ISG's report became public.
The American people have truly become total buffoons. We are so happy to be winning in Iraq that we will even give credit to someone who opposed the strategy that worked. Robert Gates has proved with his participation in the Council on Foreign Relations attempt to subvert the very war he is now claiming credit for winning, that he is two things. One, not fit to lead our nation's Defense Department at a time of war. And two, as duplicitous and two faced as the Magic Marxist Messiah who is keeping him on.
Barack Obama admires "two faced" and "duplicitous". What I cannot understand is how Michael Steele and Bill Bennett and Rush Limabugh and various other Republicans can be so "happy" at Obama's cabinet appointments. Have they not read his Alinsky strategy? Do they not understand how they are being conned? Has Republican leadership truly sunk to such an incomeptent level of gullible buffoons?
by Byron York & Rich Lowry - December 8th, 2008 - National Review
"Conservatives will rebound,” President Bush said during an Oval Office interview Friday, but only with “new blood,” “new ideas,” and a “new wave” of leadership. In a candid exchange during an hour-long session with National Review editors and writers, the president conceded that his eight years in office have sometimes been tough for conservatives, but said his philosophy of “compassionate conservatism” is still the guiding belief of a majority of Americans.
Tough for conservatives? How about tough for America.
Does George W. Bush actually believe that the disastrous economy is not the fault of 8 years of spending like a drunken sailor? Does George W. Bush actually believe that the corruption, waste and pork that happened on his watch is not his fault? Does George W. Bush actually believe that "compassionate conservative" is not simply a semantic renaming of the socialism that he has practiced? It is socialism "light" maybe, but it is still socialism ... and still tyranny.
Bush may be right that the American people have decided to abandon the greatest economic system, free enterprise, and protector of individual liberty, constitutional rights, ever invented and become one more failed socialist state that allows tyrannical bureaucrats to destroy individuals with impunity. That does not make it right ... or conservative.
The problem is that the inarticulate retard does not have a clue what conservatism really means. Liberty. Freedom. These are concepts beyond his understanding. He still does not understand why the hard core socialists hate his guts. You have to concede Bush is a patriot. That alone means the real socialists, who want a global society, will berate anything he does. No matter how many times they have insulted him and denounced him, he keeps reaching out to the socialists to be his friend. It will never happen. Why can't he see that?
If Bush had not botched the war against Islamo-fascism I might even feel some empathy for his plight. However he allowed the left to claim Iraq was a separate war, almost causing defeat on that front. His failure to communicate what the war was about also lost the American people ... who turned against Republicans over this one issue of Iraq.
Now the American people have elected the stealth socialist, Barack Obama. The surge towards tyranny is unstoppable while some Republicans still hope for socialism light to become fashionable again. Bush still does. I ifnd that amazing.
The panic in global financial markets has sparked an unprecedented rush into safe US Treasury securities, driving yields on short-term government notes down to almost zero.
[snip]
But Bob Eisenbeis, analyst at Cumberland Advisors, said the unprecedented low yields are a sign of "dysfunction" in markets. Eisenbeis said US municipal bonds are paying upwards of 6.0 percent tax-free and corporate bonds even more, but that fears of default and a lack of knowledge about underlying bond quality have led investors to shun these alternatives.
The concern about bond quality is almost certainly related to the discovery that high risk sub-prime mortgages were fraudulently packaged as low risk instruments. The affordable housing boom has now turned into a total market housing bust that is harming all Americans who own homes. With 10% of the homes in America in either default of foreclosure, it is unlikely that home prices will recover for years. In the meantime, borrowing on a house is nearly impossible, no matter how much of a down payment you are willing to pay.
If deflation continues to occur the boom to bust cycle in Treasury notes could become a reality. Though most do not perceive that the U.S. Government would ever default, the explosion in debt that Barack Obama is promising could well drive even our federal government into default. What will happen to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid if our nation goes bust?
by Salena Zito - December 6th, 2008 - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Today, if a union organizer goes into a workplace and gets 30 percent of the employees to sign a “union interest” card, an election is ordered by the National Labor Relations Board. A secret-ballot vote is held six weeks later, giving both union and employer time to lobby the workers.
Under card-check, not so much: If a majority of employees sign a union card, then the union becomes the bargaining unit. No more six-week campaigns, no more elections. It’s a done deal; you’re essentially a union shop.
Noted later in the article is concern about "the arbitration portion of the act which puts a government bureaucrat in charge of determining company contracts with workers." Does anyone think that there will be fair negotiation if an ACORN representative of socialism is appointed the arbitrator and he is determined to provide lifetime employment, say like the auto companies are burdened with, for all employees?
This is not union organizing. This is government dictated socialism through the guise of union organizing.
What is next? If the "Great Depression 2" scenario plays out, what's after 2011? Recovery? A new bull? How can you protect your money? Or are we all helpless victims of the raging winds of fate and Wall Street's self-serving brand of capitalism.
This is an excellent article that highlights many of the issues we face in an intriguing view of the future. The relationship of our current circumstances to the movie Rashomon is especially fascinating. It seems obvious that the world has become sufficiently complex that everyone has created their own view of reality. Thus we have Democrats backing Marxism, denying that Marxism has been tried repeatedly and left 100 million people dead during the last century. These Marxists are then outraged that anyone would label them Marxists!
These same people, liberals-progressives-socialists-marxists, whatever you call them, label their enemies as fascists. Curious, because the most compelling characteristic of a fascist is a belief in the economic system of socialism ... something that only the left embraces. Leftists thus label their enemies with a name that is totally wrong on its face, and the leftists cannot see the irony in that. However that is consistent with this article's claim that everyone today has their own view of truth, none of which are truth. I agree with the writer on that. That is true. That creates much of the difficulty of fixing our problems.
Even within the opposition Republican Party, there is a serious problem. As noted in the quote above, many people find Wall Street to have subverted the concept of capitalism into something that is totally bizarre. Of course it needs to be noted that "capitalism" is actually an invention of Marx, and that the appropriate goal of Wall Street should have been "free enterprise", a totally different concept. However the economic system of "free enterprise" is totally incompatible with Wall Street as it operates today. Wall Street does not fund creative new companies. Wall Street funds mergers and acquisitions to subvert creativity. The goal of Wall Street today is to end competition, not encourage it. Wall Street has thus become an enemy of the American concept of free enterprise that has made us the richest country on earth.
Today we have two parties, both of which in different ways are destroying America. One, the Democrat Party, advocates government socialism. One, the Republican Party, advocates corporate socialism. Both are anathema to the economic engine that brought us to where we were at the end of the Reagan era, the late 1990s. It is this that concerns me as to whether the 100 year Bear Market is our most probable outcome. Both parties, in different ways, are working to destroy personal freedom along with the destruction of our economic system, free enterprise.
by Nasir Khan - December 4th, 2008 - Washington Times
Pakistani officials are urging the incoming Obama administration to stop air attacks on Pakistani territory and even are hinting that they might shoot down U.S. drones that have hit al Qaeda militants and civilian bystanders.
The response to this threat needs to be understood in light of the growing rumor that Barack Obama wants to make his first visit to a foreign country a visit to a Muslim Country. Cairo Egypt is one site that is being floated as a trial balloon for his first trip abroad. Another is Indonesia. Either is a curious step for someone who is preceived as a Muslim sympathizer by hald our nation.
The real concern for our future? Pakistan already has nuclear bombs, and A. Q. Khan is ready to resume his help getting nuclear bombs for other Muslim countries the minute that we lose support of the moderate (reasonably moderate at least) government in Pakistan. It was only 40 years ago that the last socialist government in America, under Jimmy Carter, abandoned the Shah and turned loose the tyrannical evil Iranian Ayatollahs that have funded so many of our enemies. Obama seems poised to encourage the Muslim extremists to take over more of the Middle East, with the clear sign that he is not going to resist. As he emaciates American opposition to the war against Islamo-fascists, the world will become a much more extreme and dangerous place.
If Pakistan goes extremist, and the well funded (by American foreign aid) Egypt goes extremist, it will not take long before we will see nuclear bombs going off here in America. Those bombs will probably follow the first nuclear bombs going off in Tel Aviv, though it is possible we will be first.
Jimmy Carter did more damage to America's security in 4 years than we have been able to repair in the 38 years since. I have little doubt that 40 years after Obama has left the public stage, the evil he will have inflicted will be worse. The only real question is how many Americans will die for the Magic Marxist Messiah's delusions?
Eliot Ness and his colleagues raided supply lines, manufacturing hubs, and warehouses, but alcohol consumption was still legal. You didn't have armed-to-the-teeth cops breaking down the doors of private homes the way they do now for people suspected of consensual drug crimes. During prohibition, doctors could prescribe alcohol as medication. Today, federal SWAT teams storm medical marijuana clinics and terrorize their patients, thanks to the Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Gonzales v. Raich, which allowed the federal government to prevent a dying woman from possessing medical marijuana, solely for her own use, to treat the symptoms of her illnesses, even though the voters of California had determined that she should be left alone.
The conservative movement has much to answer for, not in the appropriateness of their goals, but in the contemptible unintended consequences of their tactics. This issue of the war on drugs is a perfect example of the intolerance, lack of Christian charity, blind stupidity, stubbornness of its supporters and total failure of the process used in the war to accomplish the intended goals.
It is amazing to me the number of conservatives who get irrational in their condemnation of anyone who dares to question their support of this war. If you dare question the results of this program they condemn you as evil and refuse to discuss the issue further. It is as dogmatic as any "politically correct" attitude of the extreme left.
A person cannot discuss the failure of this process if they expect to be able to continue to have any say in the Republican Party. Question the war on drugs and you are banned.
by Eric Lichtblau - December 3, 2008 - New York Times
Mr. Mukasey told reporters that there was “absolutely no evidence” that anyone involved in developing the policies “did so for any reason other than to protect the security in the country and in the belief that he or she was doing something lawful.”
The comments appeared aimed at tamping down speculation that Mr. Bush, before leaving the White House next month, might issue pre-emptive pardons to protect counterterrorism officials from legal jeopardy in the face of possible criminal investigations by the new Democratic administration.
What a blithering idiot. The problem in America is the huge number of conservatives like Mukasey who still don't get it. WE ARE AT WAR. And the most evil enemy is the global socialists who are our own citizens who see America as the enemy. They want to destroy America. That means they wish to criminalize anything that defends America and decriminalize anything or anyone who hates America.
They are the many Democrats who demand that we make the war by Islamo-fascists against us a police action, not a war. Their constant refrain is a demand that we respect the humanitarian rights of those who hate us. They know that this is an incompetent way to defend America against this enemy. The result is that they are as much the enemy of our form of freedom and liberty as the Islamo-fascists themselves.
Their summation is a simple, "If we lose, we lose." They don't care how many are beheaded or bombed. They are much more comfortable with the religious dictated socialism of the Islam jihadists than they ever will be with our form of freedom.
That means that they will go after anyone they can destroy who is a patriot and who defends our form of government. They want to change our nation to socialist so they see American defenders as their real enemy. They will go after anyone who has worked to fight the Islamo-fascists as a war, rather than as a police action. Like George W. Bush, Mukasey is perfectly happy with creating another 1,000 Scooter Libbys, allowing Democrats to destroy decent Americans who have done nothing wrong, if that means he can keep his delusion that Democrats are not our greatest enemy at this point in history.
Unless and until Republicans see this war against Democrats as the most important war, and stop surrendering before the battle even starts, freedom and liberty are doomed.
On Election Day, Franken lost the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota to the Republican incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman by 725 votes. But over the next week, Democratic counties keep discovering new votes for Franken and subtracting votes from Coleman, claiming to be correcting "typos."
In all, Franken picked up 459 votes and Coleman lost 60 votes from these alleged "corrections."
As the inestimable economist John Lott pointed out, the "corrections" in the Senate race generated more new votes for Franken than all the votes added by corrections in every race in the entire state --- presidential, congressional, state house, sanitation commissioner and dogcatcher --- combined.
And yet the left-wing, George Soros-backed Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie, stoutly defended the statistically impossible "corrected" votes. There's something fishy going on in Minnesota besides the annual bigmouth bass tournament.
You bet there is, but it is not just Minnesota. It is amazing how few people notice but in every campaign recount Republican ballots get spoiled in huge numbers while almost no ballots ever get spoiled for the Democrat candidate. And whenever there are votes that are found they are always vastly disproportionately in favor of the Democrat candidate, totally out of line with any statistical probability. How strange is that?
In the year 2000 election thousands of George W. Bush ballots got spoiled on every single recount. Not until a crowd of Republicans pounded on the door of the recount rooms and demanded entry did the amazing spoiled ballot process stop happening. How strange is that?
If the Democrats who were running the recount had gotten a couple more chances to sabotage the votes, Al Gore would have been President. That is the actual reason Democrats were so angry and kept insisting that George Bush stole the election. To Democrats any act that interferes with their recounting until they win is stealing an election.
The explanation of how the election was stolen in Washington state is as obvious as it ever gets. Who honestly believes that 2,000 more absentee ballots can be turned in for a single district than are even requested? How impossible is that? If 100% of the requested ballots had been turned in the fraud would be obvious to anyone but an idiot. But 2,000 MORE than were requested? However our courts will never get involved in such a situation, even as they refused to get involved in Washington.
The courts only get involved when the Democrat is behind, the way Gore was in Florida. When the Democrat is ahead, they "let the legislature and executive branch officials" deal with the elections. Our courts, the most corrupt on the planet, would not want to interfere with an "honest" stealing of an election ... now would they?
What Ann is pointing out has been known for years. Our election system is rigged by Democrat officials to steal any close election. Republicans know that the only way to get elected is when it is not close. Close goes to the Democrats ... by fraud. I predict that Franken will find a way to steal enough votes to be declared winner. Welcome to socialist America in the 21st Century.
by Michelle Malkin - December 3rd, 2008 - Creator's Syndicate
It was supposed to be a joke. As an endless parade of corporate beggars marches to Washington in search of handouts for their beleaguered industries, some of us in the news business snarked that journalists would be next in line. I launched a Newspaper Bailout Countdown Clock on my blog after The New York Times Company's bonds plunged into junk territory in October. A few weeks later, columnist Jon Fine published a tongue-in-cheek memo in BusinessWeek outlining a federal newspaper rescue proposal.
The jibes were meant to be facetious critiques of for-profit enterprises demanding massive taxpayer expenditures under the guise of preserving the "public interest." But now, in a rather unfunny turn, the newspaper bailout push has actually come to pass.
The Republican governor and the Democratic attorney general of Connecticut went on the record last week in support of government intervention for failing local newspapers.
No one is better than Michelle Malkin at writing seriously and ridiculing her opponents in the process. How can anyone not laugh at the idiots who are proposing that we bail out the "dead tree press". (I love that name!)
She points out in the article that another option would be to resurrect the "town crier" and subsidize them as well.
by Suketa Mehta -November 28th, 2008 - New York Times
MY bleeding city. My poor great bleeding heart of a city. Why do they go after Mumbai? There’s something about this island-state that appalls religious extremists, Hindus and Muslims alike. Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.
The New York Times published this editorial Saturday that explains their view of the recent attacks on Mumbai (formerly Bombay). They have come to the conclusion the attacks are NOT a part of the global war to dominate the world, launched by the multiple extremist groups that form the Islamo-fascist movement. No way ... they insist. The attacks are a reaction to the horrible capitalism of both the Hindu and the Muslim communities in the new India.
It is all the capitalists fault ... meaning of course those evil capitalists in America.
Don't blame the Muslims. It is not their fault for beheading people. Blame the capitalists for hoarding all the wealth of the world and deluding the poor into dreams of getting rich. And the Hidus too. If the Muslims are at fault at all it is for not opposing the capitalism.
Steven Emerson wrote an article deconstructing the logic of the New York Times article. His article is titled Yes, the terrorists are winning.
The following extracts from the article makes the important point very clear.
Watching and reading reports of the Mumbai attacks was an Alice in Wonderland experience. Even after an Islamic terrorist group took credit, TV anchors and reporters assiduously avoided the term Islamic terrorist.
[snip]
On Wednesday, even though everyone knew by then that the perpetrators were jihadists, CNN constantly referred to the terrorists as "extremists"- with no modifier. Hell, they could have been the Basque ETA or the ultra right wing U.S. militia. Then a CNN anchor asked his guest with totally innocence, "Now why would an extremist group target a Jewish house of worship?"
What an idiot.
Steven goes on to point out that even the inarticulate retard, George W. Bush has abandoned calling the Islamo-fascists by any name that references Islam. He has even given government orders that only "extremist", "terrorist" or "militant" can be used. The people committing these crimes are offended if we call them by their real names and we certainly don't want to offend them now do we?
Another article by Robert Spencer is called appropriately, Still Unprepared Against Terror. His contribution to pointing out the obvious follows
The primary reason for this unpreparedness, of course, is the unwillingness or inability of government, law enforcement, and the mainstream media to confront the ideology of the jihadists and the Islamic doctrines that provide the foundation for that ideology.
Instead, it is an ironclad dogma in the American public square that the overwhelming majority of American Muslims decisively and unequivocally reject that ideology and doctrine and have nothing but abhorrence for the jihadists. Thus it is unsurprising that it was a Kuwaiti journalist, rather than an American one, who in the wake of the Mumbai attacks dared to observe that the Emperor has no clothes: “Unfortunately, we have yet to see a distinguished popular condemnation in the traditional Arab or Muslim communities that strongly rejects what is happening in the name of Islam.”
Deepak Chopra was just the first to blame the west and America specifically for causing the terrorist attacks. Islam is never at fault. Why are we are allowing this hypocrisy to continue?
An earlier posting on this blog creates even more concern. Our new President, the Magic Marxist Messiah, only called the Pakistani leader and not the Indian leader. We may be moving from an idiotic refusal to blame Islam into an even worse duplicitous coverup and active collaboration with Islam. Why would Obama only call Pakistan? Is he perhaps just as stupid as George W. Bush?
Mary Katherine Ham has created a delightful video that is intended to lighten the growing fear that freedom in America is about to end. I am not sure whether this video is a good thing ... or a bad thing. Is making light of the coming loss of liberty someting we should accept?
... Constitutional Lawyer Discusses Ramifications Of Controversy [over Obama Birth Certificate and his refusal to provide it] - See Update at bottom of this posting!
by John P. Connolly - December 1st, 2008 - The Bulletin (Philadelphia)
Mr. Vieira said Obama supporters should be the ones concerned about the case, because Mr. Obama's platform would be discredited it he were forced to step down from the presidency later due to his ineligibility, were it to be discovered.
"Let's say we go a year into this process, and it all turns out to be a flim-flam," said Mr. Vieira. "What's the nation's reaction to that? What's going to be the reaction in the next U.S. election? God knows. It has almost revolutionary consequences, if you think about it."
Mr. Vieira said Mr. Obama's continued silence and avoidance in the release of his birth certificate is an ethical issue because of the dire consequences that could be caused by a possible constitutional crisis.
What is happening here? Let's look at the possibilities.
1. Obama was born in Hawaii and the birth certificate is on file. If so, what could Obama gain by stonewalling on this issue? Could he be trying to create a situation where his opponents are ultimately discredited in order to create long term negatives for them? Does he really think such a ploy will not create permanent determination to repay his childish behavior? Or is he so much the Chicago politician that he assumes his enemies will oppose him even on issues of critical nature to the nation? In other words, is his claim to seek unity a total farce?
2. Obama's place of birth cannot be determined. How do we ever end the controversy? What other evidence would convince his opponents to stop challenging his Presidency? How would we ever get unity in a nation where a significant minority will never be satisfied with him as President when the issue is open? This will create a festering wound that will tear at our nation as long as Obama is President.
3. Obama was born in Kenya and this can be proved by records. The recent election will be declared a farce and America will be thrown into immediate chaos. How will the Main Stream Media ever regain confidence of most of our nation after their obvious failure to even try and validate Obama is proven? How will the Democrat Party run anyone for President in a second campaign? What if Obama refuses to accept a ruling that he was not a valid candidate when he has in fact won the election? What will happen to our Constitution if he successfully ignores being an invalid candidate and finds some federal judge who will swear him in? What if that person is one of the liberals on the Supreme Court?
No matter which of these three circumstances is true, this issue will become more and more a crisis as time goes by. No outcome is truly capable of ending the growing hatred in our nation. One possibility is alluded to in the quote from the article, "It has almost revolutionary consequences."
That does not bode well for the future of America with the Magic Marxist Messiah as President.
Update - December 5th, 2008 ... Truthers to the Right is an article by Michelle Malkin in which she claims that there is an article in a contemporaneous newspaper in Hawaii which announces the birth of Barack Obama, on American soil. It is truly curious to me why this fact has not been made known in any earlier posting on this issue. This is surely strong evidence that Obama is a citizen and that we need to stop wasting time on this. It also seems that paragraph 1 above is the truth. If there is decisive evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii, why is Obama continuing the charade? Release all the evidence now so we can stop wasting time on this issue.
by Matthew L. Wald - December 1st, 2008 - The New York Times
As governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for homeland security secretary, pledged that her state would not cooperate with a major domestic security initiative, the Real ID drivers’ license program.
The program, which she would direct if confirmed as secretary, imposes stringent requirements on states for confirming the identity and legal residency of people who want drivers’ licenses. Ms. Napolitano said the law would impose huge costs on the states without reimbursement from Washington.
In June, she signed into law a bill that forbids Arizona from cooperating with the federal requirements.
If this is how the Magic Marxist Messiah chooses his nominees, we are in for an interesting few years. In fact if this is how he picks his nominees, selecting people who will not enforce the laws they are sworn to uphold, it is going to be hard to keep our government from becoming a mockery of the rule of law. Of course I guess you could say that our judges have already made a mockery of the concept of the rule of law and there is little Obama can do to make it all that much worse.
It is an indication that he does not just hold our Constitution in contempt as he has publicly stated, but he seems willing to put the entire fabric of civilized society at risk. How can you trust someone who accepts a job that conflicts with their own beliefs?
"I think I was unprepared for war," Bush told ABC News' Charlie Gibson in an interview airing today on "World News." "In other words, I didn't campaign and say, 'Please vote for me, I'll be able to handle an attack,'" he said. "In other words, I didn't anticipate war. Presidents -- one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen."
ROTFL
I cannot stop laughing. I cannot think of a dumber or more ridiculous statement this inarticulate retard could have said that summed up his incompetence and primary failure as a leader any better. That primary responsibility, communicating what needed to be done to the American people, has been botched with such regularity I suppose I should still not harbor hopes. Yet Bush's expectation that people will see this statement as "honesty" instead of "stupidity" simply cannot be explained.
It is truly sad, but during this critical point in our history, no less competent Republican could have been elected to defend our nation. Our soldiers have done a magnificent job. Our President has blundered along trying earnestly and doing a good job only after he screwed things up at least once. He has never been able to effectively explain and defend America or any patriotic act taken on its behalf a single time during the entire eight years of his tenure.
And to replace him we have the Magic Marxist Messiah of the me-me-me generation.
The Bush administration was a near disaster even when the president stuck to his "compassionate conservative" principles. Bush spent the first few years of the war in Iraq conducting a "kinder and gentler" conflict. (Remember all of those months when the Islamofascists ran Fallujah?) If not for the absolute strategic necessity of the very late "surge" the war would have been lost.
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In short, almost nothing good was accomplished during the Bush Administration -- either for conservatives or for America. Let us no longer fool ourselves. Let us stop defending the indefensible. George W. Bush was no conservative. And he was too nice to be president.
The only real question is whether we have waited too late. There is a real question as to whether the hostility to conservatives and libertarians, the gullibility of the young me-me-me generation and the relentlessly adoring Bush acolytes among the social conservatives have left us with any chance to turn the nation around before government is so powerful that freedom and liberty has no chance. What do you think?
Usually, children's books do not scare me. But I just read a children's book entitled "Barack" by Johah Winter ...
"Barack's" dust jacket states that it is for children ages 4-7. This book scared me very much.
I am scared because of what this book will do to my daughter and other children who read it. My little girl is six and a half years of age. I will not allow her to read this book or have it read to her without my being able to explain to her what was omitted from the book. I will be checking with her school teachers for the next five years or so to make sure that she is not exposed to this book without the material that was omitted. To do otherwise would allow my child to become a victim of political deception.
The constant barage of socialist propoganda from the MSM is the major reason our current gullible me-me-me generation voted by over 70% to support Barack Obama in the recent election. Now they are adding to the Marxist propaganda the personal cult propaganda of the Magic Marxist Messiah. The end goal is to assure that electoral victory over free enterprise and liberty is lasting and permanent.
If you have not succumbed to the lies of the left, this article is a good listing of the cover up about Barack Obama's Marxist background that should frighten anyone who loves what has always represented American exceptionalism.
Freedom is at risk, exactly as predicted by Friedrich Hayek.
For advocates of the root-causes theory of crime, the central story is, ever, the sorrows and grievances of the perpetrators. For those prone to the belief that most eruptions of evil in the world can be traced to American influence and power there is only one subject of consequence.
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The noteworthy point here was the writer's conclusion that the U.S. itself was to blame for the power of these beliefs. "It is easy for Americans to dismiss such thinking as bizarre," Mr. Slackman allowed. But that would miss the point that the persistence of these ideas represents the "first failure in the fight against terrorism." A U.S. failure? Nowhere in the extended list of root causes here was there any mention of the fanaticism and sheer mindless gullibility that is the prerequisite for the holding of such beliefs.
Its very ordinariness speaks volumes about this report. A piece written with evident serenity, the perversity of its conclusions notwithstanding, it's one emblem among many of the adversarial view of the nation that is today entrenched in the culture. So unworthy is the U.S. -- an attitude solidly established in our media culture long before the war on terror -- that only it can be held responsible for the deranged fantasies cherished in large quarters of the Arab world. So natural does it feel, now, to hold such views that their expression has become second nature.
With the youth of America having been brainwashed for 40 years there is little to defend our nation against these idiotic views. The me-me-me generation has their Messiah and now they get to spew such idiocy without fear of contradiction. Who is surprised that Obama would call Pakistan and commiserate with the Muslims about how unfair it was they would be blamed for this Hindu caused massacre. Obama DID NOT of course call India, the perpetrator (along with America) of this horrible episode (according to Obama), since he did not want them to think he cared about their deaths. You think it is insane to believe that India can be blamed for inciting these Muslims to slaughter their people? Then explain why Obama CALLED the MUSLIM leader and DID NOT CALL the HINDU leader. There is no other rational explanation.
