Obama's Priorities

It took Obama over two days to speak about the attempted bombing of a US airline in what has been proved to be an al-Qaeda plot and more than that to do anything in support of the Iranian students who are fighting and dying an oppressive regime. Important things like this take time and warrant careful consideration you know, plus there's that daily round of golf to get in.

But a minor incident (according to Drudge, no link as yet) involving a golf crony's son and a surfboard involves an emergency return to the million dollar oceanfront mansion:

KAILUA, Hawaii (AP) - President Barack Obama has abruptly ended a round of golf and sped toward his family's vacation home for what is being described as a "personal matter." An ambulance was seen speeding toward their compound.
White House aides said the speedy departure and return to the president's home was not a matter of national security or because of a threat to Obama's safety.

Obama was playing golf when reporters who travel with him were quickly assembled for a return to the first family's neighborhood.

Journalists saw an ambulance speed past with its lights on, heading toward the end of Obama's street. The ambulance would have passed through a security checkpoint at the end of the street.

Priorities folks, priorities.

Freedom Flame Burns in Iran

Iran has been ripe for revolution for a few years now. The chimes of freedom should have rung six-months ago after the election was rigged giving Ahmedinejad the "win" over the peoples choice Mousavi.

The subsequent uprising needed only the support of the United States and Obama voted "present" instead of giving his support. People died and one in particular will be the heroine of the revolt when it's all said and done:

Neda Soltan was not political. She did not vote in the Iranian presidential election on June 12. The young student was appalled, however, by the way that the regime shamelessly rigged the result and reinstalled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ignoring the pleas of her family, she went with her music teacher eight days later to join a huge opposition demonstration in Tehran.

“Even if a bullet goes through my heart it’s not important,” she told Caspian Makan, her fiancé. “What we’re fighting for is more important. When it comes to taking our stolen rights back we should not hesitate. Everyone is responsible. Each person leaves a footprint in this world.”

Ms Soltan, 26, had no idea just how big a footprint she would leave. Hours after leaving home, she was indeed shot, by a government militiaman, as she and other demonstrators chanted: “Death to the dictator.”

As an aside, note that Time's Person of the Year was Ben Bernanke while the Times (UK) chose Soltan. Telling indeed.

Anyway, the violence has flared up again and this time the results may be different. This is a continuation of the earlier protests but took on more fervor in wake of the death of Grand Ayatollah Montazeri who ran afoul of Ayatollah Khomeini but believed in a more relaxed theocracy than does the current leadership.

Things are getting bad as this video allegedly shows a child killed in the battles against regime forces:



This one shows the citizens beating said forces back:



The power of the digital world is on full display in this conflict as the ayatollahs have been trying to tamp down any news coming out but the young are using You Tube and Twitter to get the word out.

Let's hope that Obama can take time from his Hawaiian stay and support the people of Iran this time.

All breaking new reported here.

Merry Christmas

Posting with my new iPod Touch. Merry Christmas all.

Thursday Morning News and Notes

Happy Christmas Eve day. Not sure what the holiday sales numbers will look like but anecdotally I'd say they will be down. The big snow last week didn't help.

Anyway, here's what's news:

--How much do we hate Iran? So much that we're sending John Kerry over there to drone on and on. Perhaps they'll get so irritated by his incessant drivel they'll give up their nukes. At least he can't hurt the country too much while he's out of it but the Iranian protesters aren't too happy.

--Liberals are shocked that Obama is not the savior he said he was. We on the right spotted the smarminess and oily nature of Obama from the day he spoke at the 2004 convention. Again, savor the schadenfreude.

--Ezra Klein is a hack and always has been. He actually had the temerity to quote this BS by fellow hack David Weigel:

The problem is that Palin has put the political press in a submissive position, one in which the only information it prints about her comes from prepared statements or from Q&As with friendly interviewers. This isn’t something most politicians get away with, or would be allowed to get away with. But Palin has leveraged her celebrity — her ability to get ratings, the ardor of her fans and the bitterness of her critics — to win a truly unique relationship with the press. She is allowed to shape the public debate without actually engaging in it.

Both of these morons are too blinded by their partisanship to figure out that Barack Obama has never been questioned by a tough reporter. The media gave him a free ride that he still enjoys and one in which Sarah Palin could only dream about. Disingenuous scum; the both of them.

--The media continue to view Black Republicans with utter scorn and disbelief. Damon Dunn sums it up in a way that one wishes our party standard bearers would:

Dunn's is one of those rags-to-riches stories. He was born into poverty to an unmarried teen, he recounts, and raised in a trailer on his grandparents' small Texas farm, where he slopped hogs, tended chickens and studied hard. He became a high school honor student and an academic All Pac-10 at Stanford.

He's articulate, outgoing, good looking -- and one of the few black Republican political candidates. Why Republican? "No entitlement program got me out of poverty," he says. "It was hard work."

Amen. Note the scorn in the question "why Republican?"

Finally, Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukkah Hannukkah Chanukah to my Jewish friends. May you get everything you want and then some.

30 Terrorist's ent to Hell in Yemen Air Strike

Three big ones in that group including the guy who was pen pals with US Army terrorist Nidal Hasan:

Nasser al-Wahayshi, the Yemeni leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and his Saudi deputy, Saeed al-Shehri, were believed to be among 30 militants killed in the dawn operation in the eastern province of Shabwa, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki may also have died in the air strike which targeted a meeting of militants planning attacks on Yemeni and foreign oil and economic targets, he said.

If all the deaths are confirmed, the air strike would appear to have struck a severe blow against AQAP, seen as the most dangerous regional offshoot of Osama bin Laden's network.

"Anwar al-Awlaki is suspected to be dead," the official said of the cleric who was on the run in Yemen, where he was on the government's most-wanted list of terrorist suspects.

...The United States cooperates closely with Yemen in combating al Qaeda militancy. Pentagon officials were not immediately available to comment on any U.S. involvement in the raid.

The Yemeni official mentioned only one air strike, which a government website said had taken place at 5 a.m., but Al Arabiya television reported four raids.

Nice. It's good to know that we've retained our working relationship with Yemen and can get at these guys who think they are untouchable. It's also comforting to know that Obama will pull the trigger when we have these guys in our sights.

Ed notes that one of the guys was a guest at Club Gitmo and released under the Bush administration to Saudi Arabia where he was put through a 12-step program to beat jihadaholics. It obviously didn't work and now he's nothing but a million little pieces being mixed with sand and camel dung.

Good work.

Senator Reid Just Making Shit Up

The Obama administration and Senate Democrats have been jerking off the public by talking about the largest entitlement program ever being "deficit neutral". This from the same regime that lost a ton on the Cash for Clunkers program (and didn't help the environment or the US worker) and just about every other scheme they've gotten their grubby hands on. Shockingly, they were lying in this one as well:

To describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.

More here.

I know every administration cooks the books and plays with numbers but dude, the 0 administration has taken it to unseen heights. Ken Lay would have been embarrassed to try to pull something like this.

It's probably a done deal but there's always hope that the morons in the majority will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Global Warming hits South Jersey

A little bit of climate change right here in South Jersey:


The second biggest storm in history. Is Al Gore staying in Philly? No hiding this lack of decline.

That's a six-foot fence BTW.

Saturday Morning News & Notes

Snow is paralysing the region from DC to South Jersey. It forced me to cancel a trip north for a holiday party and skiing but once on the road this morning it was evident it was not a good idea to drive anywhere. I'm a good driver in snow as I've been doing it my entire adult life but even I wasn't comfortable with the kids in the car.

Anyway, here's a view from my back door taken about 30 minutes ago and it only started coming down heavily an hour or so ago:

Global warming indeed.

Here's what else is going on:

-The Democrats continue to meltdown. Healthcare has become the third rail of politics. The country hates the idea of Obamacare, the left in this country hates it for different reasons and now we have an intra-party schism that is destroying the coalition. Here we have a liberal slamming another liberal for being lackeys of the insurance companies. Savor the schadenfreude my friends, I know I sure as hell am:



-The vile Florida congressman Alan Grayson (D) is shamefully utilizing government resources to shut down free speech and potentially send a critic to jail. Remember when dissent was considered patriotic?

-That old curmudgeon Herb Denenberg rails against Congress and Obama. Someone definitely pissed in his oatmeal this morning.

-Shocker! The probe against Rep. John Murtha and other Dems ends without any findings. What a sham.

-Ex-Eagle and current Charger John Runyan is going all in and running for the seat in my district as a Republican. Note that the current occupant has been voting like a Republican in every single health care vote thus far as this district is deep red surrounded by a sea of blue. He's pretty good on the issues.

-Headline of the day:

Rodent infestation closes Capitol cafeteria

A Typical UN/Obama Result in Copenhagen.

Obama jetted over to Copenhagen to save not only the world but the greatest global warming conference ever attended by UN shills, despots and thugs. It was a big deal. No really. John Kerry said so and everything. So what did they accomplish besides spewing massive amounts of carbon--the evil stuff we exhale every second--into the air?

They accomplished absolutely nothing. When even the far-left British rag The Guardian can't spin it (buit the administration and MSM can), you know it was an epic failure:

Like businessmen who insist a deal is legit, politicians protesting they have done something "meaningful" arouse suspicions that the opposite is in fact true. And "meaningful" was about the best word the spin doctors could muster in respect of the agreement of sorts that was brokered in Copenhagen late last night.

The climate change summit had three big tickets on its agenda: emissions, financial assistance and the process going ahead. And on each of these counts the accord – which was effectively hammered out not by the whole conference, but rather by the US, India, China and South Africa – fell woefully short. There was no serious cementing of the positive noises on aid that had emerged earlier on in the week. On emissions, a clear-eyed vision for the distant future was rendered a pipe dream by outright fuzziness about the near term. And most alarmingly of all, there was no clear procedural roadmap to deliver the world from the impasse that this summit has landed it in. Outright failure to agree anything at all would have been very much worse, but that is about the best thing that can be said.

...Only two years ago, the world's leaders swore this would be the summit to build a new carbon order. The threadbare agreement thrashed out last night has not even laid the foundations. The progress on financial assistance over the fortnight is welcome, but with much of the money earmarked for climate adaptation, the global community is left resembling an alcoholic who has decided to save up for a liver transplant rather than give up drink..

Although no one who supported the conference will ever admit it; the leaked e-mails that collectively became Climategate (thank you Russia) destroyed the conference before the diplomats descended on the Danish city. Scepticism has grown over the years and the perfect storm of "hide the decline", arrogance of the global warming community and recessionary pressures merged to create what can only be described as the biggest UN failure since...well, whatever they last tried to accomplish.

For the record; South Jersey is expected to get 12-20 inches of global warming today with 3 already on the ground. The only takeaway I get from the Copenhagen circle jerk is that Pelosi and Obama had leave early because of this storm that is the biggest to hit the region in years. All one can say is thank the good Lord that the UN and Obama adminstration contains people so inept that they couldn't come to any real agreement so it looks like environmental and economic idiocy was narrowly averted.

Update: Mark Steyn has the last word on the joke that was Copenhagen.

Monday Night News and Notes

Here's what's new in the world:

-Not only "hiding the decline": hiding the data.

-Courtney Love loses legal control of her 17-year old daughter. It seems about 17-years too late as she's probably really screwed up after being raised by that friggin' skank.

-If I still lived in California, I'd be embarrassed that I was represented by Babs Boxer. That said; I live in New Jersey and am represented by idiots Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez so I guess I can't talk too much.

-Sweeeeet!



-I know proving Al Gore wrong is fish in a barrel easy but the UK press seems to enjoy it immensely:

In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.

Awesome. The Goracle is getting grilled for his scamming and now is pretty much looking like an f-ing moron on a daily basis versus the usual weekly basis.

Obama's Incredible Shrinking Poll Numbers

How the mighty have fallen. In yet another example of this nation being center-right, we have Obama sinking at a faster rate then, well, anyone in recent memory. We must all be racists.

First from Pollster--an aggregate of The One's numbers:



Not good and Ace notes, the streams are about to cross.

At RCP, Obama is below 50% in the aggregate.

The latest CNN/Opinion Research has him two points under water (from eleven days ago and that's not taking in to account the latest in the health care debate) and Rasmussen has him 11.

This will only get worse when the health care bill is passed that I mentioned. That is polling at depths heretofore unseen. Hell, CNN has support for Obamacare at 36% for and 61% against.

What a meteoric rise and fall. I'm guessing there are a great many incumbents on the blue side that are shitting collective pants with predictions like these.

Saturday Morning News & Notes

Army-Navy today. Go Navy, beat Army!

Anyway, here's what's news:

The steel from two cranes that bore witness to the crash of Flight 93 in Shanksville are being used in the hull the USS Somerset; a new Navy San Antonio Class LPD. LPD's are the back bone of the "Gator Navy".
-The Worst Media Quotes of the Year. My personal fave:

We don't know how much Kennedy was affected by [Mary Jo Kopechne's] death, or what she'd have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history.… [One wonders what] Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted's death, and what she'd have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded. Who knows -- maybe she'd feel it was worth it.

And if Kenedy had manned up, tried to save her, not taken a nap while she ran out of air and, you know, didn't allow her to die, we'd be able to ask her about it.

-Stimulus! Gitmo detainees to be held in Illinois. Nice scoop by Breitbart who is quickly becoming the go-to guy for conservative publishing.

-Noted Liberal intellectual drivels on. She's about as bright as anyone else in the lefty establishment. Did she grab her crotch and spit when she said it or make fun of Jews in ovens?


-Sarah Palin gets her revenge on William Shatner.

Layers of Editors and Fact-checking

The Philadelphia Inquirer made this little mistake in yesterdays print edition:

The Inquirer yesterday erred in publishing a photograph that accompanied a story on Judge Paul W. Tressler of Montgomery County Court. The photograph was not of the judge, shown at left, but of Howard Nevison, a sex offender sentenced by Tressler in 2006. The Inquirer regrets the error and apologizes.

D'oh!

But unlike blogs such as this, they have layers of editors to ensure that only factual stories are put in the esteemed, non-biased fishwrap. The same fish wrap that ran a 21-day endorsement of John Kerry in 2004.

Note that this correction was on the front page.

Thursday Night News and Notes

Hey y'all.

I'm full of venom tonight as my boys I-pod was ripped off and so was my phone. Here's to hoping there's a special place in hell for thieves. Preferably where they have barbed implements jammed into orifices.

Anyway, here's what's going on:

-Our illustrious president was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for, well, nothing. Here's what he said in his acceptance speech that I have to give him props for:

I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing naïve -- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.

But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.

"Evil does exist in the world"...many liberals don't ever comprehend that. Still a great many first person references but how does one make a speech for a an award one didn't deserve?

-Uganda has been swept up in a Muslim fervor and shariah law is the law of the land throughout much of the nation. The despotic regime is on the verge of passing legislation that would sentence homosexuals to death--all under the guise of stopping HIV. Libs went right for the blame the Evangelicals and neocons card but GOP representatives have come out against this vile action before Obama did.

-Oh Lord, we're putting the passage or failure of the healthcare fiasco in the hands of the Maine twins. Dude, Snowe better get her act together on this and not abandon who supported her.

-Got us a high-ranking al-Qaeda scumbag today. Not bin-Laden or Zawahiri but they have effectively been figureheads. The number three is the guy and hopefully it's who we targeted. Here's to hoping we slammed a Phoenix right into his left nostril. I'm so happy I want to be the first to say happy Nobel Peace Prize day!

-How pissed am I today? More pissed than Maynard was when he wrote this little ditty about LA washing into the Pacific and dreaming of swimming in Arizona Bay (NSFW or kids):

Awesome! Obama Polling 50-44% Against Bush

Never has a president squandered such good will in so short a time. The Dems squawked that Bush destroyed any goodwill we had after 9/11 but no politician had the backing that The One did when taking office.

Now, er, not so much:

Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama's declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they'd rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that's somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country's difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited. The closeness in the Obama/Bush numbers also has implications for the 2010 elections. Using the Bush card may not be particularly effective for Democrats anymore, which is good news generally for Republicans and especially ones like Rob Portman who are running for office and have close ties to the former President.

All along the way the Obama folks have blamed Bush but Americans by and large believe in that one true conservative tenet: personal responsibility and the personality trait where one takes the heat when they make decisions. Obama--in typical liberal fashion--has eschewed that and it's made him look petty and small.

Bush made the very difficult decision to authorize the forces for the surge and stood in front of the American people and looked stalwart (liberals of course called him stubborn and arrogant). Obama stood before the cadets at West Point and looked liked he needed a laxative.

Think about the relevance of this; Bush is missed and as Allah noted; he was polling at 22% when he turned over the keys to the Whitehouse.

Here We Go Again: Porkulus The Sequel

We borrowed $787-billion for the original porkulus that was used to burgeon Democratic politicians chances of reelection while bankrupting the country and producing minimal employment relief. How minimal? Try $246,436 per job "created".

The original porkulus was supposed to be for "shovel ready projects" that could get going real fast...or soon...or next month...or never. It was a Democrats wet dream: unlimited tax dollars to line the pockets of cronies all over blue America (including congressional districts that don't even exist). Why
sweat the little fact that it would put us in debt to the Chinese for decades, draw the recession out even longer, bring about inflation once we get out of it and raise taxes to Carteresque levels once the bill comes due.

So how do you follow up a shit sandwich like that? You introduce Porkulus II since the first did the job so effing well:

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama outlined new multibillion-dollar stimulus and jobs proposals Tuesday, saying the nation must continue to "spend our way out of this recession" until more Americans are back at work.

Without giving a price tag, Obama proposed a package of new spending for highway, bridge and other infrastructure projects, deeper tax breaks for small businesses and tax incentives to encourage people to make their homes more energy efficient.

"We avoided the depression many feared," Obama said in a speech at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. But, he added, "Our work is far from done."

Please, stop working, you're killing the country, dude. As for avoiding the depression; we'll just have a double dip recession and a side of hyper inflation instead, thank you.

What a good idea it would have been to just give deep tax cuts to everyone starting with not only small business but big business, enormous business and colossal business because business is who hires 95% of the population (although Obama would prefer if it was government that was 95% but I digress). Now he wants another $70-billion on top of the original fiasco.

One just wishes Obama had a little Tiger Woods in him and he concentrated on getting busy with half the women in America instead of focusing on the economy because the dude is spending us into oblivion. Plus Michelle could whack him upside the head with a nine iron and maybe knock some damn sense into him.

One good thing that will happen is that Keynesian economic theories along with those spewing out of Paul Krugmans piehole (but I am redundant) will be shown as the liberal farce we always knew they will and will hopefully be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Earlier thoughts here.

Obama Doing Everything He Can to Destroy American Business

Obama's gone full bore since the inauguration to either sink what industry we have left or take it over. Today, he sealed the deal and allowed his Environmental Protection Agency to start regulating a gas that is a requirement for life on the planet:

Officials gather in Copenhagen this week for an international climate summit, but business leaders are focusing even more on Washington, where the Obama administration is expected as early as Monday to formally declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.

An "endangerment" finding by the Environmental Protection Agency could pave the way for the government to require businesses that emit carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to make costly changes in machinery to reduce emissions -- even if Congress doesn't pass pending climate-change legislation. EPA action to regulate emissions could affect the U.S. economy more directly, and more quickly, than any global deal inked in the Danish capital, where no binding agreement is expected.

Many business groups are opposed to EPA efforts to curb a gas as ubiquitous as carbon dioxide.

An EPA endangerment finding "could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project," U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said in a statement. "The devil will be in the details, and we look forward to working with the government to ensure we don't stifle our economic recovery," he said, noting that the group supports federal legislation.

Mark my words that the US Chamber of Commerce is about to have an even worse jihad leveled against it. Several high profile corporations have already bailed under the heat The One has placed on them but they ain't seen a damn thing yet; but I digress.

So Lisa Jackson wasn't happy just driving business out of the state of New Jersey. No, she wants to destroy industry in the US as well and give India and China a leg up. Ask anyone who tries to conduct business in the the Garden state how oppressive the environmental regulations are.

Background: I'm in the environmental business and have worked in the two toughest states environmental regulation-wise--California and New Jersey. I watched as industry gave the Golden State the finger because of insane environmental policies and went south to Mexico or east to Nevada or Arizona. I believe in sane environmental policies--policies that actually protect people and the environment. Examples would include Superfund cleanup and elimination of actual air pollutants that could cause harm like lead and benzene. Lisa Jackson was a horrid leader on remediation and allowed hazardous sites to remain un-remediated and kids to live near them while cozying up to the companies that impacted the sites.

Jackson was slammed by that noted conservative site The Huffington Post for her shady record on cleaning up Superfund sites. She was like everyone else in the Obama administration: close to those they are supposed to regulate. Geithner, Bernanke, Jackson...Get the point? Now she passes legislation that furthers an unproven scientific finding. By the way, she's still not pushed to clean up Superfund sites that are leaching heavy metals, organic toxins and dioxins into the water and land now that she's on the federal level. I'm a conservative and would re-institute Superfund immediately if I had the chance.

Think I'm joking? How can one explain this? How about a site that was allowed to be capped and made into a golf course (where a PGA event was played] next to a sports field and a luxury condo development). Capping is essentially putting a plastic cover over acres of contamination:

A 2004 investigation by the Newark Star-Ledger found that Honeywell Inc., PPG Industries and Maxus Energy Corporation, the companies responsible for the chromium pollution, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lobbying and millions of dollars on their own scientific studies to convince the state of New Jersey that its chromium standard was too stringent.

According to the investigation, when the lobbying effort began, New Jersey considered chromium levels in soil at 10 parts per million to be safe; by the end of the companies' lobbying campaign the chromium standard was raised to 6,100 parts per million: one of the loosest standards in the country, allowing the companies to save millions on cleanup costs.

But jeez, carbon dioxide? This is a policy that gives Obama temporary street cred in Copenhagen but sentences his nation to a decade (hopefully) of effectively conducting commerce with a ball and chain around their checkbook. All for a supposed problem that is far from proven.

We are witnessing a major turning point in the economic outlook of the nation. Anyone who is out of work or loses their jobs because of this can feel free to take it out on their elected representative even though Obama subverted the Constitution and did this through the EPA simply to save them from actually having to vote as the Founding Fathers intended.

How Can CNN Get It Wrong All the Time?

CNN actually tried to be objective and granted, the reporter was put on the spot by the studio tossing it to her but didn't anyone in Atlanta pay attention to the fact that the National Anthem was playing while the busybody was wandering around jabbering?



That's CNN in a microcosm; they try to get it right and fail miserably.

Note the guy they interviewed who agreed with Eric Holder bringing KSM here is the same as in this video by FOX:



Via Gathering of Eagles--NY

Will Harry Reid Give Up His Seat To Pass Obamacare?

It's becoming more and more clear that Senate Majority Leader Reid is going to lose unless he changes his course quickly. Dropping his ravenous support of Obamacare would be the smart starting point to revive his sagging numbers:

"When you look at the entire poll, it's clear the voters of Nevada do not want this bill to pass," said Brad Coker, managing partner of Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., which conducted the poll Monday through Wednesday. "When you break it all down, it appears that Nevadans would just as soon throw this bill out and start over."

The poll carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Coker said the poll results aren't good news for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., chief architect of the Obama supported plan. Only 39 percent of the poll respondents approve of Reid's efforts to get a bill through the U.S. Senate at a time when he's running for re-election.

Though 70 percent of Democrats support Reid's efforts, Coker said that probably isn't enough to outweigh the disapproval of 53 percent of independents and 87 percent of Republicans.

"Reid is going to be front and center carrying the flag for this reform that few people like and that's not going to help him in his re-election," Coker said. "You remember what happened historically to flag bearers in war. The flag bearer gets shot first."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in the clear and she could pass the strictest and widest health care reform plan and still win. Her cheer leading only burnishes her credentials but not so much for Reid.

Is Harry Reid such an ideologue that he would risk his seat, his career and the power he's amassed to pass a bill that the majority of Americans as a whole and Nevadans in particular hate? I'm guessing no but he has been pushing hard so we'll take a wait and see approach.

The Award for Biggest Obama Shill is Awarded

The sheer knob-slobbering of this piece would even make Chris Matthews cringe:

Maybe Obama will persuade the lion and lamb to lie down together. Maybe he won't. Either way, I'll still think he deserved the Nobel.

He earned it in record time, the way I figure. The laurels were his from the moment the votes were counted that made him president because it got all of us -- black, white, Americans and people across the world -- over a hurdle that seemed impassable only a few years ago.

That's just a small taste of this unreadable drivel that should ensure that the editor gets fired or the Trib goes bankrupt.

The comments are 100% against the guy who actually wrote this seriously and not as satire.

NFL Week 13

A big one for a few teams.

Here's my picks for select games:

Dallas at the NY Giants-The Giants can't afford to lose this game and have any reasonable chance of making the playoffs. Romo has been decent of late but always seems to tighten up in big games. The G-men are without some studs and Eli is injured but I think they nut it up and pull out the win.

Giants 23 Cowgirls 20

Philly at Atlanta-The Eagles need to keep winning and the Falcons are without Matt Ryan while their backfield is beat up. The Eagles are without deep threat Desean Jackson but Jason Avant stepped up his game nicely. Brent Celek is crucial to Philly as he suffered from some greasy fingers last week.

Eagles 30 Falcons 20

Other games:

Vikings 24 Cardinals 21
Titans 35 Colts 32

Sunday Morning News and Notes

NFL picks to follow.

Here's the news:

-Sarah Palin knocks 'em dead at the Gridiron Dinner. The loud and rambunctious Barney Frank was overshadowed; a news event in itself.

-The Inquirer dutifully tells us that Corzine's loss in New Jersey had nothing to do with Obama even though it had a great deal to do with Obama.

-When even Trudy Rubin notes the Obama plan for Af-Pak is going to be construed as weak, you know it's a sign of weakness. Will someone please alert Greg Sheridan.

-Dude, the Tiger Woods story just get nastier and nastier. Why even get married?

-Montgomery Burns had a nice election in NYC and it didn't cost him a penny. No word on what Smithers said about it.

-Dana Milbank, Obama love and broken hopes. The media is inconsolable that the savior of their collective dreams is not exactly what he seemed.

Religion of Peace (TM) Continues to Show Why

You can judge a culture by how they raise their young and help the old. With that in mind, what do these tell us?














Story here. Via Tim Blair.

Climategate Derailing Copenhagen meeting

If you read any news that is not based in the US, you'll see that Climategate is a huge deal. How huge?

The Met Office plans to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by leaked e-mails.

The new analysis of the data will take three years, meaning that the Met Office will not be able to state with absolute confidence the extent of the warming trend until the end of 2012.

The Met Office database is one of three main sources of temperature data analysis on which the UN’s main climate change science body relies for its assessment that global warming is a serious danger to the world. This assessment is the basis for next week’s climate change talks in Copenhagen aimed at cutting CO2 emissions.

So to sum up: at least one third of the data used by the UN comes from this source and it will take three years to confirm or disavow the existence of global warming. That means that we shouldn't see anything from the UN over the next 3-years screeching about impending doom, right? Yeah right, if only.

Copenhagen is being looked at as a sham by much of the world with the exception of America because the media has done Obama's dirty work and dutifully not reported anything about it. This would be why people are getting their info online and the word is getting out in spite of the US media embargo.

Unfotunately for Gordon Brown, the Brit media has more scruples than their Yank counterparts:

The Government is attempting to stop the Met Office from carrying out the re-examination, arguing that it would be seized upon by climate change sceptics.

Got that, can't have those pesky facts backing up those vile sceptics, can we? More here.

Saturday Morning News & Notes

Big college games today. I like Alabama today but would love to see a close game. I'd also like to see Texas get waxed by Nebraska setting up a fight to see which non-big conference team gets the nod. I hate the BCS and have said a thousand times we need a damn playoff system.

Anyway, here's what's new:

-Democratic Senator Max Baucus nominated his mistress for US attorney in Montana--the state he represents. Now that's audacity. DC needs an enema in 2010; I wonder if it's covered under Obamacare.

-Our first black president brought hope for the African-American community. That hope was short-lived. Could Obama actually suffer because blacks feel betrayed and don't get out and vote in large numbers as they did in 2008? Short answer: no. Like every other Democrat in history he'll start paying attention to that particular bloc around election time telling them how much better they have it and then forget about them again after the election is over.

-A letter written by Thomas Jefferson is found at the U of Delaware.

-Proof that "ism's" that get too big and start spewing lies eventually fail.

-Playing fast and loose with TARP money. Imagine what they'll do with the money for socialized medicine that will accrue for several years before implementation.

-Over at RCP, Obama's aggregate job approval is below 50%. An epic free fall. That would be lower but CBS had him at a ridiculous 53%, which is well above everyone else.

-Update: Yes, San Francisco is actually considering public sex tents because of the growing instances of, well, public sex. I'm against them on the off chance I ever find myself there and Nancy Pelosi feels like getting down with her husband. I would probably be forced to burn my eyes out after seeing that.

PA Actively Killing Jobs and Budget Relief

In a perfect world, the Obama administration would have looked to the massive deposits of energy-producing raw materials we have under our feet to stimulate the economy. Instead he bowed to the altar of environmentalism more deeply than he bowed to the king of Saudi Arabia. He could have offered a plan that included tax credits to businesses who could extract oil, coal, natural gas that were new, clean and sustainable. Energy companies would have jumped at it and believe me; as someone in the business, the means to do so are what Obama would have called "shovel ready". We have environmentally friendly means that have been developed and can be implemented at will.

The jobs that would have been created would have been in the hardest hit states who are desperately seeking jobs like West Virginia, New York and rural Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania and parts of New York are in the midst of a modern day gold rush but the substance isn't a solid, it's natural gas and the amounts in the Marcellus Shale deposits would give us a serious leg up on the world when it comes to self-sufficiency in that particular raw material.

Instead The One poured our money into pork projects, handouts and funds for "community organizing" that do anything but.

Today, the state of Pennsylvania drove another stake through the heart of budget balancing and reducing the unemployment rolls by withdrawing a permit for water treatment for one of the largest gas-extracting operations in the country:

Months ago, with little public awareness, the Delaware County wastewater treatment plant got a state permit to accept wastewater from natural gas-drilling operations hundreds of miles away.

The plan was to take the polluted water from the burgeoning - and contentious - industry in the Marcellus Shale region, transport it by truck or train to the Chester facility, treat it there, and then discharge it into the Delaware River.

Until yesterday, that is, when the permit was abruptly rescinded.

Note the negative use of "polluted". Most water is polluted before it's treated, hell, toilet water is "polluted" as is water from your clothes and dish washer when it's discharged.

More:

Yet getting the gas out of the ground requires millions of gallons of water to fracture - or "frack" - the shale. Companies add various chemicals to increase the water's effectiveness, and the fracking process deep underground can contaminate the wastewater with toxics and natural radioactivity.

Again, note the use of the word "toxics"; it's misleading. Everything is toxic according to what we used to call science (before Climategate). Paracelsus; a Swiss chemist came up with this hypothesis on toxicity and it's not been disproven to this day:

“Alle Ding sind Gift und nichts ohn Gift; alein die Dosis macht das ein Ding kein Gift ist” [all things are poison and notwithout poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison”]. With the exception of E = mc2, perhaps no other single statement has wielded such force in establishing the popular notoriety and the professional stature of an individual in the history of science as the words just quoted.

What he meant was simply that everything is toxic. If you're thirsty and drink a glass of water, you're no longer thirsty. If you drink fifteen, you will have an adverse or toxic reaction. Example here.

I digress but my point is the MSM always uses loaded words when discussing environmental issues.

Let's continue with the PA story:

Companies need ways to deal with the wastewater. Options include treating it on-site, reusing it, injecting it into deep wells and transporting it to wastewater treatment plants.

But treatment has been problematic because the water has impurities known as "total dissolved solids" and other contaminants, such as chlorides (salt) and sulfates.

Dissolved solids, chlorides and sulfates are all easily treatable and can be accomplished by any municipal treatment plant in Iraq. Again, misleading.

Most plants cannot remove the solids (a lie--ed). On April 16, the DEP announced discharge standards limiting the solids in the wastewater effluent.

But just five weeks earlier, on March 9, the state approved a permit for the Delaware County Regional Water Quality Control Authority, which was already discharging levels of solids that were higher than the new standards, to accept this solids-laden water in Chester.

The approval meant that the plant would be "grandfathered," not having to comply with the new standards until its permit was changed for other reasons, DEP officials acknowledged.

So the plant currently can discharge the solids but now because it's coming from a shale site, they suddenly can't?

This is a plan by Pennsylvania to limit the extraction of a valuable commodity that would lift the standards of living in a depressed area but in Obamanation we must not piss off Gaia. Ed Rendell is falling right in line like a good little puppy dog while his state is withering and dying.

Meanwhile, China, Russia and other nations are getting fat, dumb and happy while devastating their environment.

Harry Reid Tanking in Reelection Bid

There's alot to look forward to in 2010 if the GOP can get their collective asses in gear. Chief among them would be Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid going down with the socialized medicine ship.

Reid should have been jettisoned as soon as he said this anyway but the Democrats hate the military so it didn't even register on their outrage meter one iota:



He turned out to be spectacularly wrong in a way few politicians have ever been.

He's run the most corrupt Senate of anyone in recent memory and he's about to lose his seat in the coming (hopefully) Democrat bloodbath.

JWF has more.

Friday Night News & Notes

It's been a busy week and the events in Obamanation still offer a right-wing blogger plenty of fodder. Plus, you'll never hear me say this again: I am rooting for the Giants this week against the Cowgirls.

Here's what is new is this crazy old world:

-First the Obama administration refused to call the Fort Hood murders terrorism. Now they rub salt in the wounds of the families of those who were the latest victims of Islamo-fascism. We've lost the War on Terror in less than a year.

-The New Jersey legislature knows that gay marriage won't pass the democratic way--by allowing citizens to vote--so they back door it and ram it down our throats. No pun intended.

-The Copenhagen Environmental circle jerk has lost some of it's luster in the midst of Climategate that show the whole Global Warming Swindle to be a scam. Hell, even Al Gore bailed on the sham meeting. Well, since they have nothing to really accomplish, they might as well get some free loving from the local hookers. At least if they're banging the locals, they won't have time to draw up any idiotic carbon reduction bullshit treaty that costs me money. Think about it: dorky scientist's getting some should be sufficient to make them forget why they're there.

-Glad to see that whole Obama approach to Iran is working out so well.

-Obama just sentenced our troops to a nightmare in Afghanistan by not setting a plan for victory, the Climategate story is enormous and being ignored by American media and the LA Times decides to cover hard news instead.

-John McCain calls a spade a spade. It's war vs. AARP who has failed an entire generation of their customers:

Friday Night Videos--All Cover Edition

There are so many good covers out there that picking a few is difficult. Perhaps I should pick the worst covers ever like Smashing Pumpkins doing Fleetwood Mac or Pat Boone doing Metallica.

Instead I'll start with the JGB doing Bob Marley's classic Stir It Up:



Or how about Metallica doing Dire Straits' epic Brothers in Arms:



Or what about Cake with the song you hear at every wedding and bar mitzvah mixed in a different way. Freddie Perrin's I Will SAurvive made popular by Gloria Gaynor:



Finally, a song that kind of grew on me. Alien Ant Farm doing Michael Jackson: