Articles in Folder “Things That Are Simply Unbelievable”:
2548.\\ Krauthammer: Closing the New Frontier
NASA is on the chopping block and the US is abdicating space. This is sad and depressing. Not to mention dangerous to our national security.
I happen to think that space travel should be driven by the private sector. But the market isn't there yet. It'll take a few more decades for private industry to get the right mix of cost, performance and safety. Until then the government is the only mechanism for incubating the needed industries and technologies and ongoing research.
And we're totally giving that up. Defeat and retreat. We're leaving control of space to China and Russia because we can't scrounge up $3B extra per year to fund the space program. How much are we spending on porkulus and porkulus II ? Oh that's right, trillions.
Nice work Mr. Obama. You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy.
TAGGED AS: China, Finance, Krauthammer, NASA, Obama, Politics, Porkulus, Space
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PERMANENT LINK2547.\\ I Don't Usually Post A Self-Fulfilling News Story, But...
I did so earlier today it seems. Apparently Berlin has refused, in no uncertain terms, to bail out the Hellenic Republic. That isn't good news for Greek national solvency, terrible news for the rest of the PIGS, and ultimately a complete embarrassment for the European common currency.
What it portends for what remains of Western Civilization is still in the future. The only question is how far in the future that definition can be pushed. My money is on a total meltdown before 2012.
2544.\\ Coming to America: Crisis
Niall Ferguson's article in the Financial Times yesterday cuts to the core of the apparently insurmountable fiscal disaster we face. He repeats Larry Summers rhetorical question "How long can the world's biggest borrower remain the world's biggest power?"
I think it is absolutely fitting that the final implosion of Western Civilization is starting in the very birthplace of liberal democracy. Greece is doomed, that much seems increasingly clear. The dominoes will fall across the Club Med region. Berlin and Paris and London will attempt to right the ship, but it is a matter of rearranging positions in the lifeboat. The ship is lost. Europe has been on the slippery slope for years and is now in a headlong slide down the hill to ruin.
America seems next. Our collapse would make Greece's look like a minor nuisance. It seems pretty clear by now that the current one-term Administration is about as capable and up to the task of saving America as my 4 year old son. Unlike my son, however, Obama lacks modesty. He'll be the one at the helm loudly proclaiming how he, the second coming of Christ, did away with all the terrible things George Bush did as the bridge submerges and the stern rises out of the ocean. The reality is that while we might have been set on course to strike the iceberg by the previous Administration, the current one grabbed the wheel, locked in the course and put us a flank speed all the while loudly strutting and clucking about how great things will be because they took over the captain's chair.
It is, in short, a fast approaching disaster of epic proportions. Forget 1929, I'm talking 476 here. From this inflection point outward in the timeline, we will become a shell, a joke, America in name only. We'll be ruled by oligarchs and corporations and foreign governments, in short the barbarians. Oh future generations will still think of themselves as American, aping our ways and taking our titles, but they won't be any more American than the Ostrogoths were Roman.
Crisis, disaster, my friends, looming ahead. It may already be too late.
****UPDATE:
Von Mises agrees with me at least in part
****UPDATE 2:
And the BBC by way of Breitbart's Big Government
TAGGED AS: America, Debt, Deficit, Disaster, Finance, Financial Times, Niall Ferguson, Politics, Rome
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PERMANENT LINK2543.\\ The Next Man on the Moon Will Be Chinese
I don't like profligate spending. I'm against all sorts of government expenditure. I would like to see the space industry dominated by American private enterprise.
However, in eviscerating NASA and providing little to no incentive for the market to fill the void, Mr. Obama has permanently relegated America to second or even third-tier status as a space power. We will have no advanced launch capability. No refueling capability. No mechanism for protecting our dwindling space assets. Our national security absolutely relies on America dominating the near Earth orbital zone. Instead we will now be forced to rely on China, India and Russia for access to space.
Forget about the moon or Mars. Those are now the property of China Inc.
TAGGED AS: China, NASA, Space
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PERMANENT LINK2530.\\ NY Times in Absolute Denial
Not that this is a shocking or entirely unheard of thing, but the New York Times seems hell bent on protecting the soothing bubble that encloses them in their fictional world. To wit, today's editorial is a verbal dose of head burying.
My favorite bit:
"Mr. Obama has done many important things on the environment, and in foreign affairs, and in preventing the nation's banking system from collapsing in the face of a financial crisis he inherited."
Really? I mean, REALLY NYT??
What are the many important things he's done on the environment? Participate in foisting the ongoing fiction of the climate models on the American people? Threaten to destroy the nation's economy by running industry out of business via taxes and caps? Failing utterly to add anything meaningful to the dialogue at Copenhagen? What exactly has he done except issue diktats of dubious legality via the EPA? Diktats that will undoubtedly be wrapped in Constitutional legal issues for years, I might add. I'm still waiting for the seas to stop rising and the planet to start healing...
Where are all of these foreign policy achievements Mr. Obama is allegedly responsible for? Surely you don't mean the Nobel Peace Prize, that universal joke laughed at by everyone on the planet outside of Scandinavia. Perhaps Iran? Iran where we have made no progress and indeed have regressed over Mr. Obama's tenure? Perhaps you mean North Korea...um, no. Cuba? Or how about our disapproval of Honduran democratic elections and support for the thug dictator the Hondurans threw out? Or how about Mr. Obama's total failure to produce anything positive with China? Seriously, what are these wonderful foreign policy miracles he hath wrought?
But the cake has to be your assertion, NYT, that OBAMA saved the financial system. Aside from historical fiction, it is ideologically incongruous for a liberal paper claiming a leftist President properly saved the banks. A simple Googling of the topic (which seems utterly beyond your editorial research efforts when it doesn't align with your agenda), reveals that the crisis was borne of government interference in the market (specifically the housing market) and the solutions for it were devised and executed in 2008 under George W. Bush. The final piece of the response to the crisis, the 'porkulus' bill of spring 2009, is indeed attributed to Mr. Obama. And this package of spending has been widely ridiculed as a pork-laden equivalent of throwing money into the air and hoping it lands someplace helpful. It didn't create jobs, it didn't help people stay in their homes, it didn't increase business spending, it didn't produce any significant positive benefit of any sort. It failed. In fact, Mr. Obama's only response to the financial crisis has been to nationalize the automotive industry, meddle with private business practices such as how much they pay their employees, nationalize and endlessly back Fannie and Freddie and in the process take over ultimate responsibility for most mortgages in the US, attempt to nationalize the banking industry by forcing solvent banks to take government loans and government diktats, attempt to force employees in the private sector to join labor unions, attempt to nationalize the health insurance industry, attempt to nationalize the student loan industry and yet continue to push the very subprimes types of mortgages that were the primary cause of the meltdown. In effect, Mr. Obama's response to the financial crisis has been to prevent another crisis by eliminating the market altogether and simply creating a socialist system by executive fiat.
There. Now that that's all out, I'll simply close by saying the NYT is out of touch, in an echo-chamber bubble, in denial and has ideological myopia of a colossal degree.
TAGGED AS: Economy, George W Bush, New York Times, Obama
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PERMANENT LINK2527.\\ Nanny State Journalists
Wow. I knew the news media was evil, but I didn't realize it was so pervasively evil. Read the anonymous author's account of the past 30 years of the demise of journalism.
TAGGED AS: Anchorman, Journalism, Media, News
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PERMANENT LINK2525.\\ The Health Bill is a Massive Tax
"The so-called "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" in fact will make access to health insurance more expensive and less useful, and will also render the care provided by insurance less effective, more risky, and more expensive by taxing the production of new capital goods. The taxation approach taken by Senate Democrats is a purely foolish method of funding regulations that are themselves horrible."
Thanks Ludwig von Mises.
Left unsaid: It is a method for funding regulations that establish government control of your health. I've seen this movie before, it was called Logan's Run.
TAGGED AS: Autocracy, Dystopia, Economy, Government, Health Care, Insurance, Logan's Run, Tax
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PERMANENT LINK2524.\\ WSJ: Google Gets On the Right Side of History
Great article today in WSJ on Google's recent throwing down of the gauntlet in China.
What I find most refreshing about the piece is that it concisely lays out the ideological bankruptcy of the regime and elites that seek to profit from the oppression and murder of the Chinese people. Anyone doing business in China, anyone who bows to the wishes of the autocrats, has blood on their hands. Until Tuesday, that included Google.
Of course, China being autocratic and involved in epic levels of industrial espionage is nothing new. But finally, finally, the Google Incident has pushed this more into the limelight. More coverage here, here, here, and some less thought of implications are discussed here (will Google stand firm with censorship in France and Italy too?)
More on the staggering size and scope of Chinese espionage here, here, here, here, here, here, and this site here run by an excellent blogger who focuses on this topic.
And I've reserved the scariest spying reports for last: here, here, here, here, and finally the chiller here.
They won't have to beat our military. It'll be like the Cylon war. All of our systems will suddenly stop working and we'll be blind and dark. Be afraid.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Cyberwar, Google, Hacking, National Security, Spying
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PERMANENT LINK2515.\\ It's Called Afghanistan, Charlie Brown
Poor Charlie Brown. Even Barack Obama doesn't like him. Did anyone think that "Change" included moving the beloved airing of Peanuts? What an asshole. Luckily we have it on DVD and will be watching that tonight instead of listening to that muppet drone on about the military and Afghanistan (neither of which he knows anything about).
Thanks be to Youtube:
TAGGED AS: Afghanistan, Asshole, Barack Obama, Charlie Brown, Snoopy
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PERMANENT LINK2509.\\ Economics of Failure
Excellent article in the Journal today. I encourage you to read it. Leave out all the pro-Reagan stuff and take the article on the merit of its central argument: that you do not promote long term, broad based growth by spending so far into debt that you can't get out.
Read it. And think about it when you hear about the tens of trillions of dollars that 'reform' is going to cost us.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Economy, Finance, GDP, Health Care, Ronald Reagan, Spending
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PERMANENT LINK2495.\\ Why Isn't The American President in Berlin Today?
Modern Germany exists because of the United States. Yet the one world leader that won't be present to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is the American President. He's 'too busy' to attend, he claims. I'd use that excuse too if it took me an entire year to dither on strategy in just a single world hot spot.
Not too busy, I'm sure, to play basketball or make grandiose speeches as indoctrinated children chant his name in the background. Ich bin ein Kenyan.
JFK and Reagan are likely astonished, wherever they are. Barack Obama's absence is shameful.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Berlin, Berlin Wall, Europe, Germany, JFK, Ronald Reagan
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PERMANENT LINK2488.\\ SC man gets 3 years in prison for sex with horse
Made the front page of Drudge again!
I'm not sure which is funnier, that it took place in Horry County or that the first time he got caught he had to register as a sex offender.
Stay classy South Carolina. Stay classy.
2487.\\ Holy Christ This Man Loves Himself
And no I'm not talking about Rush Limbaugh (or myself for that matter).
No, I'm reacting to a growing story over at Big Hollywood. Remember the brainwashed children mindlessly singing the praises of dear leader? Well the march of the cult of Obama continues to build. I originally said Goebbels would be proud. At this point I think he'd just outright resign from the Nazi Party and join up with the people who obviously do propaganda so much better, the Obama White House. Mao would be only a step behind him.
Check out all the scary, scary details over here.
Along the same line, we find out today that Barry wasn't watching election returns last night, no. He was, in fact, WATCHING THE HBO SPECIAL ABOUT HOW GREAT HE IS. He is post-racial, post-partisan, post-achievement and now post-humility. Hopefully 2012 adds one more giant "post" to his long list of titles.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Creepy, Cult, Ego, Goebbels, Mao, Narcissism, Propaganda
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PERMANENT LINK2486.\\ As If There Were Any Doubt...
David Harsanyi deconstructs the 2000 page omnibus health bill in an article from the Denver Post last week.
I just don't understand how something with a $1.2 Trillion price tag will reduce our deficit. I also fail to see how half a million words outlining new regulations, taxes, fees, mandates, penalties and bureaucracy could possibly make health care faster, cheaper and better (hell I'd settle for any one of those three).
Best bit:
As you flip through the pages of the House bill, you will notice the word "regulation" appears 181 times. "Tax" is there 214 times. "Fees," 103 times. As we all know, nothing says "affordability" like higher taxes and fees. The word "shall" - as in "must" or "required to" - appears over 3,000 times.
God help us. Although I suppose in the near future I'll be required to say "Government help us".
TAGGED AS: David Harsanyi, Health Care, Nancy Pelosi, Orwellian, Taxes
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PERMANENT LINK2477.\\ Mandated Shopping
Congress cannot legislate the purchase of goods or services. It cannot force the people to buy a particular product. It cannot force the people to buy anything. This includes health insurance. In fact, the very notion of Congress forcing everyone in the nation to purchase a service is unconstitutional and therefore illegal.
"But aren't we already forced to purchase auto insurance policies?" you ask. Well of course, but that is different on two levels. First off, it is a State government, the first sovereign power under our form of government that is legislating this requirement. The Constitution specifically allocates the necessary powers to States to make and enforce such laws. Secondly, and obviously, the law only applies to people who choose to purchase a vehicle. Since owning a car is not a right (as of this writing at least - who knows, that could change any day now), there is minimal infringement upon individual liberty. It is also a key role of State government to protect our individual freedoms (including our property) from the unlawful or harmful activities of others.
If Congress is allowed to force every one of us to buy health policy, why stop there? Why not legislate that everyone must purchase an automobile from a US automaker? Or why not simply legislate directly which goods and services we are required to purchase each week and from whom we are to purchase it? Naturally to ensure 'competition' the Government itself will soon be producing goods and services and subsidizing them. And why stop there? Why not simply legislate the private sector away completely? Surely it is unfair to someone someplace that I can buy something that they cannot. We should all be forced to buy exactly the same things in the approved quantities from the approved vendors...
It is absurd, of course. Yet this is the logical extension of the argument being used to foist subpar services on us at higher prices. It is un-American, unconstitutional and represents the worst of social engineering.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Constitution, Health Care, Liberty, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2475.\\ Pelosi Denies Public Access to Public Space for Public Plan Announcement
Only those who don't dissent are permitted to enjoy an America rationed out by those who know best. You're not on that list.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Elitist, Fascism, Health Care, Nancy Pelosi
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PERMANENT LINK2471.\\ One Author, Totally Deluded
I am slowly shaking off the rage that has prevented me from writing anything about this story so far this morning. I don't even know where to begin. First go read this morning's op-ed in the Boston Globe.
Where to start. First off, the entire premise of the article is that Americans are ignorant. Every single one of us is stupid and deluded with the exception of the few enlightened ones who know so much more than we do that they deserve to rule in a paternalistic style, taking care of us from womb to grave. They just don't want us to worry our pretty little heads about things we couldn't possibly understand (like the health care bill, for example, which Congress won't let us read before they ram it through the legislature). In reality they're much more cynical. They just don't want our petty natures and preferences for things like self-determination and liberty to get in the way of their well-thought out grand intellectual exercises in social re-engineering. You know, sort of like fascists believed.
From the beginning of this article I had my hackles up. I don't like people taking the piss out of this country. But I agree with the first paragraph of the text. There is pandering by politicians to the public about how great everything is all the time. But the part that turned me totally hostile and made me flew into a rage was the sentence "The fact of the matter is that whenever anything really significant has been accomplished by our government, it is precisely because it was better than the American people."
There is nothing about any government or any State that makes it better than the people by whose consent it governs and in whose interest it serves. Government is not a thing that grants nobility of action, purity of character or goodness of intention. It is a temporary social contract that exists to provide impartial equity in human interactions. It is a framework within which a society of people functions. It is not an end unto itself, it is simply an means to an end. It cannot be "better" than the public because it is made up of the public. It cannot be noble because it is nothing more than a framework of rules. It cannot be pure or good or evil for that matter because it is not a person or a sentient entity, it s a legal construct that can evaporate as soon as the will that brought it into being dissipates.
Government is not a person or a philosophy or a social experiment. It doesn't exist to advance any agenda other than that which the people have deigned to adopt. In short, therefore, it is not, has not and will never be better than the people who allow it to continue.
Offered up as some sort of proof to the contrary is FDR's goading America into WWII and wasn't the government so much more enlightened and noble than the moronic mob who opposed US entry into war.
This, of course, is ridiculous. Taking Roosevelt's leadership, principles and strategic thinking and transmuting it into some sort of beneficent action of an enlightened "Government" is nonsense. FDR was elected because people believed in his ability to lead. They trusted him when he laid the groundwork for support of the Allies. It wasn't an American Government, so much better than Americans, that got us into war. We entered the war because we were attacked by Japan and because we trusted our chosen leader to guide us in that war. The same goes for LBJ and his Great Society and for Obama's Nationalized Health Care. People elected these leaders because they believed in their principles, their agenda and their ability to lead (although in Obama's case it may simply have been Oprah's endorsement, who can say).
Now I may completely disagree with FDR, LBJ and Obama. That doesn't make them 'better' than me or somehow more enlightened than me because they have one vision and I have another. It simply means their vision is the one that counts because they were elected. Of course, their vision could be totally wrong. In that case, they are no more stupid than I nor more ignorant and I am no more better. I'm simply right and they are wrong. And since history is written or at least kindest to the victors, in 50 years I have no doubt that whatever happens over the course of Obama's (hopefully short) tenure will be viewed as 'right' and 'better' than whatever else would have happened but didn't.
In short, it is stupid to ascribe supernatural 'better' powers to events which happened over those which didn't. If Washington had been captured and hung and we were all British, we'd have a short lesson in our grade schools about the aborted rebellion that thank God was put down by the King. And this boob writing in the Boston Globe would be gushing at how much better the King was than the population which wanted to separate from Britain. Imagine if the King didn't have the courage to stand up to those who wanted a revolution! This is the same argument as the author seems to believe is a proper guiding principle.
I'm all for humility when dealing with people that cannot possibly compare in any metric of national greatness or who are our friends. But when it comes to despots, thugs, criminal and rogue regimes and belligerent potential enemies, then it is Go America time and we should be as pro-USA as possible. It is incumbent upon everyone in this nation to be as proud as possible and to lord it over any potential enemy. We know our faults, but just like a family we don't have to air dirty laundry and weaknesses for our enemies to pick apart and potentially exploit. We should be as boastful as possible. And so should our leaders. Because if neither we nor they believe that this is the greatest place on earth, the grandest experiment in history, the literal shining city on the hill, then we are totally at the mercy of our enemies' psychological manipulations. Just ask the USSR how things went when they actually began to believe they were the Evil Empire.
The author asks, by what standard is one nation greater than any other nation? He then proceeds to detail failings of our system in comparison to others. He's right. There isn't any one standard. It is a comprehensive standard that takes into account financial power, knowledge, scientific contribution, military capability, cultural impact, geography, morality, guiding principles of government, the legal system, technical prowess, businesses, literature, ecology, social mobility, national flexibility and capacity for change, material resources, historical impact, international esteem, immigration numbers, inventions and overall quality of life. By THAT standard there is no doubt who is number one. But if you still have a lingering question as to who is the best or by which standard we should judge such a superlative, then simply ask anyone in the world today: "What country is the most important in the world?" Nobody is going to say Sweden just because they have higher home ownership and greater wealth distribution. I defy you to find a person on the planet since Teddy Roosevelt sent the Fleet round the world who would claim the United States of America is something other than the most important single nation on the planet.
The author holds up healthcare as a reason why we are not the greatest country on earth. He claims we are the only industrialized nation without a national health care system. He clearly doesn't know his own government. Medicare and Medicaid are both national health care plans available to any and all Americans who need them.
But that point aside, the next argument is that immigration patterns demonstrate that every country in the world is just as good the next one. Yes Mexicans come to the US but Turks go to Germany and Indians go to Great Britain and Arabs go to France. So there you have it, every nation has people who want to go to it and therefore the USA cannot claim it is better because people are immigrating. Balls. Everyone from every nation comes to the United States. The Japanese don't immigrate to Germany. The Chinese don't immigrate to Italy. Tajiks don't flock in huge numbers to Brazil. The fact is that everybody in the world comes the United States. This is an immigrant nation and that regenerative power is the source of our great strength. We get the best, the most industrious, those with the greatest hunger and thirst for opportunity. They come to our shores in droves, by the shipload. They attend our schools and take that BETTER KNOWLEDGE back to whatever shithole they came from in an effort to improve their nations. And at the end of the day, anyone can become an American. A guy from Senegal can't move to Tokyo and become Japanese. A single mother from Mexico can't sneak across the border into Germany and become German. Anyone can come into this country and become part of it. They add their distinctive ability, experience and knowledge to the whole and THAT makes us the greatest nation on earth thank you very much.
The author continues his everyone-wins-a-prize train of thought. And I have to quote it here because it is just such rubbish:
"The point of all this isn't that America doesn't have a lot to be proud of. It does. The point is that just about every country has a lot to be proud of, and America has no more right to assume it is the greatest nation in the world than does France, Switzerland, China, or Russia."
Really? The United States isn't greater than Switzerland? That is ridiculous and ultimately beside the point. Any nation can say whatever it wants about its own national greatness. The proof is in the historical record and will be written by the greatest nation no matter what the others say or do. I'm claiming that this greatest nation is the US. If the Swiss want to believe they're the greatest then fine, let them do so. I would apply my comprehensive metric described above to blast that nonsense out of the water, but whatever. I would ask my future generations when they read the history of the 20th and 21st Centuries, which was the greatest of the great powers? They won't say Switzerland.
I had thought the most ludicrous argument was past at this point. But no. The author has more for me to tear to pieces. He claims:
"None of this would make much difference if the self-congratulation was just harmless bragging. But there are consequences. A country that believes it is the greatest in the world is also less likely to be constrained by that world. One could argue that the Iraq war was a direct result of a sense of national infallibility. So was our willingness to torture, our reluctance to admit our mistakes in Afghanistan, our culpability in the global recession, and our foot-dragging on global warming. Such a nation is also less likely to introspect or to strive for true greatness because it believes its greatness has already arrived."
Egad! It isn't harmless bragging for starters, it is legitimate belief. And a great nation has no obligation to be 'constrained by the world'. Can you imagine? We're suddenly in the business of constraining nations and subjecting them to the diktats of a bureaucracy someplace in Geneva. No nation should be constrained by the world. Nations constrain other nations. Nations coerce and force and lead and encourage other nations. Nations are the primary actors in global affairs. "The World" doesn't exist and even if it did, no entity has authority to constrain the United States. The United States is governed by one document that supersedes any and all laws. It is illegitimate the US Government that seeks to submit the United States to be constrained by the world. That is a US Government that has abrogated its duty, exceeded its authority and must be dismantled and replaced by one that adheres to the Constitution.
The Iraq war was a direct result of the strategic need to dispose of Saddam Hussein and ensure the Iraqi oil supply by creating the conditions for the long term stability and prosperity offered by a free form of government chosen by the people of that nation. That stability and prosperity will reduce the threat of Iraq becoming a reactionary power that disrupts an already unstable part of the world. And yes, our belief that we had the power to create that stable situation was a direct result of our belief in our national greatness and in our nation as a force for good. The author would imply that if we had only been smarter and more humble, we could have lived with total chaos in the middle east in perpetuity. He has a right to believe that, of course, until such chaos leads to the murder of anyone he loves. Then he might wonder why we didn't try to do something, given our great capabilities.
The final thoughts of the author require some analysis. He says that America can't take criticism and that Americans constantly need to be flattered and have their pride attended to. I completely disagree. One major part of our national greatness is our ability to change. Change isn't something that comes from the State or is organized by Presidents. Change is an unseen shift in attitude and beliefs that take place over time in the people that constitute the nation. Nobody forced Americans to recycle (as of yet). And who in the 1940s would have cared much for it? I'm not an environmentalist yet I recycle because I believe it is the right thing to do. Had someone tried to legislate that morality it would certainly have backfired in a person like myself. Lincoln freed the slaves in States not controlled by the Union, yes. But his actions, his enlightened wisdom, didn't create change in attitudes. That change had been brewing for decades and continued to brew for decades to follow. Change flowed UPWARD, not DOWNWARD from the enlightened ones.
Americans don't need flattery. We know our weaknesses and it is a sign of our greatness the degree to which we self-flagellate and wring our hands and agonize over flaws in our national character that a people such as, say, the French, would be aghast at. The Chinese don't sit around talking about how morally corrupt they are. The Russians don't agonize about being a nation of nationalists. The Germans don't sit around and wonder how on earth they got to be so racist. The Cubans don't have thousands of call-in talk radio shows where they debate the pros and cons of teaching evolution in schools. This is a nation in constant flux. Change is constantly flowing in various directions. It isn't all in a uniform march to a better society as progressives and end-of-historites would have you believe. There isn't a logical conclusion to the change ever flowing in a constant direction. But it is more ongoing and churning change than any people anywhere in time or place have ever seen. And that churn wasn't created by Barack Obama's executive order. Change is a feature, a characteristic of America and Americans.
In one final jibe at Americans, he despairs that American Government may be just as good as American people and therefore the end of times is near. I would argue that America's elected officials have always been, and are by design, the same or worse than the people they represent. It is precisely because the politician is a cynic or is a pretentious, self-righteous pretender, that they are elected in the first place. It is their ability to appear that they know what they're doing that encourages us to vote for them. The Constitution recognized this and the founders acknowledged the base morals of humanity and built into the system the ability for self-correction.
We should truly despair when the State becomes the ultimate achievement of mankind. The ultimate expression of our intellect. The basis for reorganizing society along the lines of those who are the 'best'. We should truly despair when the 'best' rule us. Their capabilities coupled with human nature and unchecked ego give rise to dictators and emperors.
TAGGED AS: America, Arrogant, Barack Obama, Boston Globe, Congress, Constitution, Democracy, Hubris, Leftist, Liberals, Liberty, Nation, Principle, State
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PERMANENT LINK2469.\\ The Universe is Laughing
I've spent the day swinging between incredulity and disbelief, outright uproarious guffawing and barely contained rage (albeit the rage was only after listening to Rush on my way to lunch and back).
I have nothing about the award to Mr. Obama, Peace Be Upon Him, that hasn't already been said a zillion times on Twitter and the other parts of the interwebs. And frankly I'm still angry and upset and tired after watching the Red Sox suck ass against the Angels last night.
So. I've read it all, absorbed it all, realized that I have nothing original to add and instead will let Benjamin Kertsein's gorgeously written article do all the speaking for me.
Aside from the fantastic use of the term "rhetorical flatulence" to describe the Nobel Prize Committee's announcement, the best and most salient bit is as follows:
"When powerful people make fools of themselves, it behooves us to remember that when the fools are powerful, there is a strong chance that we are all in serious trouble. Obama and Obamamania are a joke that, in the end, is also on us."
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize, Nonsense
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PERMANENT LINK2468.\\ Baucus Bill Bull
Read this article and then defend the plan.
My favorite bit:
"Only in government accounting could an additional 29 million people receive new health coverage with a savings of $81 billion. By this congressional logic, America could insure all 6 billion people in the world at a savings of trillions of dollars."
UPDATE:
There's also this analysis which demonstrates the government socially engineering a dependent society where it makes more sense to do nothing than it does to actually work.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Health Care, Liar, Senate
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PERMANENT LINK2460.\\ Internet Danger
I think that the recent decision to let lapse the ICANN governing agreement is quite possibly the most dangerous thing our nation could possibly do. This is like the British giving up the Royal Navy in the 1920s. The fact is that the Internet is a product of American ingenuity and is our nation's intellectual capital. It is a strategic asset of the Republic. We've given it up to the thugs and dictators (including our future enemy China) and they will not hesitate to use it against us in every conceivable way. They will attack our industries, our infrastructure, our technologies, our universities and use the Internet, as only authoritarian states can, to undermine the existence of the Republic itself.
The world is falling apart, we're encouraging it to do so and remain more interested in Dancing With the Stars and the 2016 Olympics than the 20% effective unemployment and the dramatic fall in the relative power of our nation, our culture and our civilization.
The Visigoths are at the gate and we've just given them the key.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Decline and Fall, Disaster, ICANN, Internet, Weakness
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PERMANENT LINK2457.\\ Well Everything's Going Fine...
Unemployment at nearly 10%, the highest in 26 years. Looks like Obamanomics is going swimmingly. Just like Stalin's, Mao's and Castro's state control of the means of production, our leftist economic policies are doomed to failure (as the French, Germans and British have begun to realize).
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Leftist, Obamanomics, Socialism, Unemployment
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PERMANENT LINK2452.\\ Harry Reid, Evil-Doer
The massive, swaggering, greasy hypocrisy of Harry Reid knows no bounds. His ego is matched only by his corruption. For his latest shenanigans, which includes exempting Nevada from the costly parts of ObamaCare and shifting that burden elsewhere, this article on Politico.
TAGGED AS: Democrats, Harry Reid, Medicaid, Nevada, ObamaCare
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PERMANENT LINK2448.\\ Where's the Help Barry?
Why haven't we responded yet to the tsunami in the Samoas? The level of death and destruction in an American territory would seem to warrant overnight reaction. Where are the C130s and C-17s and C-5s full of relief? Where is the Navy?
Why are we moving so slow (if at all) while Washington promises an 'aggressive response'. As of this afternoon, we've only offered 'sympathy' to the American citizens that have lost everything.
Why has no one in the media asked this question?
TAGGED AS: American Samoa, Barack Obama, Disaster, Tsunami
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PERMANENT LINK2441.\\ Promise-Breaker-in-Chief
What the fuck is going on in Washington? Aside from human nature, unrestrained greed, rampant corruption and outright fraud, that is.
Funding that no one has asked for, for projects that the Pentagon does not want. And a President so weak he can't even live up to his own words by lifting a pen to strike down horrific wasteful spending at a time of unprecedented fiscal peril.
What a bunch of crooks we have running the place. Where's Patrick Henry when you need him?
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Congress, Finance, Liar, Military, Pentagon, Revolution, Spending
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PERMANENT LINK2440.\\ Vivre Sarkozy!
Sarkozy takes it to Barry. When the President of France is tougher than you are, you might be a bit of a wuss.
Seriously though. In the dark days of the early 2000's, the French were weak and sniveling annoyances. Now they're leading the freaking charge while we read teleprompters and dream of futures where Americans are controlled from the District of Columbia to live and breathe and think in a manner consistent with the ideology of the ivory tower theorists.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, France, Iran, Nicolas Sarkozy, United Nations, US
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PERMANENT LINK2438.\\ Stimula-tastic!
Nice. So let me understand this, 4 million have LOST their jobs since March but the Federal government has GROWN by 25,000?. And you want them to choose and administer your health care? Fuck me.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Government, USA Today
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PERMANENT LINK2434.\\ Big Brother Chu to the Rescue
Aside from the sheer self-righteous assertion that everybody except for a few lunatics in the sticks agree totally with climato-nazis, does it bother no one but me that this story is a page directly out of Orwell's novel?
I mean, the government has to teach us because we clearly don't know what is good for us?
I don't trust government, I don't admire government, I don't need government to run my life for me. I don't need regulations on everything including the appropriate way to piss in the morning. Pave the roads, field the army and keep the Islamic fanatics away from my children. Anything else you do is something I don't need and frankly don't very much care for.
TAGGED AS: Environazis, EPA, Government, Liberty, Steven Chu
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PERMANENT LINK2420.\\ She Said it Best
Apparently, Nancy Pelosi is not at all focused on corruption in her own wing of the political spectrum while in the meantime she's demanding investigations into the previous Administration's alleged corruption.
HYPOCRITE.
But she said it best: I'm Clueless
TAGGED AS: Congress, Corruption, Nancy Pelosi
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PERMANENT LINK2416.\\ Obama the Weak
In a bold act of appeasement and surrender to our enemies, Obama has scrapped the missile defense shield.
Quite apart from being reckless and feckless and exposing us to nuclear threats, it also hangs our allies out to dry. Poland the Czechs will put this backstab on par with the last time they were bent over and fucked in the ass by the West, 1938 and 39.
We've just lost Eastern Europe to the orbit of the Russian Empire. Nicely done Barry. Anything else you'd liked to surrender? Let's do it now and get it over with.
Lot's of news on this here, here, here and here.
What is most distressing is the apparent assumption by the boobs in DC that by sacrificing the security of the American and European peoples, they'll get Russia to cooperate on a range of issues (Iran). A first year undergrad in European History knows better than this and is clearly more fit to run our foreign policy.
TAGGED AS: Appeasement, Barack Obama, Missile Defense, NATO, Poland, Russia
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PERMANENT LINK2409.\\ Poor Canada
And indirectly, poor America. Since our national educational, economic and technological cultures are so closely linked, this spells major trouble.
Even without overt militarism, a nation can defend itself in at least SOME aspect. Not in Canada where they're basically giving it all away for free.
TAGGED AS: Canada, China, Espionage, US
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PERMANENT LINK2405.\\ Breitbart.tv » 'Go Home!': DC Crowd Drowns Out CNN Reporter During Live Report
They Don't Like CNN, I Would Guess.
My favorite part is when they start chanting "Glenn Beck! Glenn Beck!" LOL
TAGGED AS: CNN, Glenn Beck, Joe Wilson, Protest, Rally, Washington
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PERMANENT LINK2402.\\ Union Hell
Holy crap. Turns out that one of the bills under consideration to reform health care will force health workers in hospitals and doctor's offices around the country into labor unions.
Sorry, this is the 21st century isn't it? For a moment I thought we were back in the late 1800s.
Forced unionization did wonders for the auto industry in this country. And mining. And manufacturing. And the airlines. In fact, I can't think of a time or place (within living memory) where labor unions actually helped anything at all (besides helping themselves of course, enriching their members).
Not only is it unfair, it is un-American and anti-capitalistic. In the age of instant communication and universal distribution of knowledge, labor unions have long outlived any usefulness they once had. They are now no more than parasites, sucking the soul out of our economic bloodstream.
TAGGED AS: Health Care, Unions, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2401.\\
In a piece penned from Bizarro America, Thomas 'the world is flat' Friedman waxes poetic over the totalitarian state of China and wishes could please have some more wasteful spending in Congress if it means that we can finally impose all that is good and enlightened on the dumb rubes here in America.
Fuck freedom and liberty if it means the electorate (mob) can overrule those intellectuals who are fit to govern them. The unwashed masses shouldn't have a say in their own lives if it means that lifestyle conflicts with the philosophy of the ivory tower.
An American Liberal Democrat advocating totalitarian dictatorship of the enlightened elite. I never thought I'd ever live to see the day.
TAGGED AS: China, Dictatorship, Economy, Leninism, Politics, Thomas Friedman
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PERMANENT LINK2395.\\ The Curious Case of the Missing Van Jones
In today's Washington Examiner, Byron York asks what I assume to be a rhetorical question. Why did the media, in particular the New York Times, totally ignore the Van Jones scandal. And what's more, why does the New York Times only print news that is favorable to Barack Obama? And why have they consistently not printed any news, ever, that was not favorable to him?
Again, I assume it is rhetorical and that Byron knows how corrupted, elitist and ideological the 'news' room is at the New York Times. That they don't report news at all. They are the modern day Hearsts who see their role as educating the dumb folk out there who can't see the truth. Their truth. That kind of ego maniacal, systematic lying is nothing short of yellow journalism without any positive side effects.
My favorite bit from the article:
"Times readers didn't know it, but the causes for Jones' departure included the fact that he signed a 2004 petition supporting the so-called '9/11 truther' movement; that he was a self-professed communist during much of the 1990s; that he supported the cop-killer Mumia abu-Jamal; that in 2008 he accused 'white polluters' of 'steering poison into the people of color communities'; and that earlier this year, speaking to a friendly crowd in Berkeley, Calif., he called Republicans 'a--holes.'"
So he's not only a first class dick, he's also a communist, a racist and prone to conspiracy theories. Bet you won't find any of that in the New York Times.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Byron York, Elitist, Leftist, New York Times, Van Jones, Washington Examiner
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PERMANENT LINK2393.\\ LA Times and Editorializing the Absurd
If you can get through today's editorial in the LA Times without laughing then you've bested me. The naivete of the entire position is stunning and even more so from an alleged news organization.
The notion that any regime in Iran just wants to sit down and talk with us is absurd. The Iranian interest is not in making things smoother with the United States. If they do that and thaw the relations, the regime will topple under a groundswell of public pressure. The only way they cling to power is to paint the 'other' as an evil, interfering hegemon bent on the destruction of the Iranian people, culture and Islamic religion. If relations were to thaw, the nuclear program would come under international scrutiny which is not in the mullahs' interest.
Heeding Iran's call for talks at this juncture is no different than acquiescing to HItler's request for conference in 1938 in Munich. That went so well that surely we should give it another go. After all, talking to thugs and dictators has always worked out.
TAGGED AS: Iran, LA Times, Nonsense, Nuclear Weapons
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PERMANENT LINK2392.\\ Van Jones is a Lunatic
Just watch the video...
This guy is our leader's pick for high office? Questioning his judgment at this point. What's next, Reverend Wright for Racial Reconciliation Czar?
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Democrats, Racist
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PERMANENT LINK2386.\\ Sentenced to death on the NHS - Telegraph
Yeah. I wonder how this is working out for the Brits? Clearly we need the same thing here. You know, to ensure 'competition' (as if State control somehow miraculously provides MORE competition than the free market containing hundreds of competing companies).
TAGGED AS: Daily Telegraph, Health Care, NHS, UK, US
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PERMANENT LINK2385.\\ Holder Versus American Patriots
Ralph Peters does his usual job of verbally stripping his opponents of any philosophical legitimacy.
I like that he's framed the attack on American security not as a policy decision but as an ideological purge of the third world type. It is an interesting, but very subtle twist on this argument that resonates with me because I firmly believe that he's absolutely correct.
Dangerous times, my friends. Stay thirsty.
**** UPDATE:
Reading some of the comments. Didn't realize Eric Holder worked for Janet Reno and was involved in Ruby Ridge and Waco. Makes total sense that he'd seek to undermine our Liberty.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, CIA, Eric Holder, George Bush, New York Post, Ralph Peters, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2384.\\ Bending Over (Backwards)
Go ahead and read this, now. Completely agree with the article. In fact, I suggest we launch an investigation into World War II abuses committed by American GIs against Nazis. Might make sense in the bizarro world we live in today.
Point to remember for the rest of the day:
"So many 'rights' have been conjured up out of thin air that many people seem unaware that rights and obligations derive from explicit laws, not from politically correct pieties. If you don't meet the terms of the Geneva Convention, then the Geneva Convention doesn't protect you. If you are not an American citizen, then the rights guaranteed to American citizens do not apply to you."
Amen brother.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Britain, CIA, National Security, Scotland, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2380.\\ Poor Panetta
After reading this article, I'm more convinced than ever that Barry & Co have no clue what they're doing.
I should temper that somewhat. I prefer to say instead that I am wavering between believing they're totally clueless and believing that they're utterly un-American and have a deliberate plan to destroy this country for some bizarre reason. For me, only either extreme can sufficiently explain the ongoing assault on the defense and intelligence capabilities of this nation.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, CIA, Eric Holder, Intelligence, Leon Panetta
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PERMANENT LINK2379.\\ And in Another Victory For Socialism...
Apparently we're going to declare that the due process of the Honduran Supreme Court is null and void. America is demanding a return of the socialist thug to power or else we'll suspend aid. That's right. We're suspending aid to a fellow democracy where the people rose up and threw out their leader. The military enacted it, the courts deemed it legal, but we don't care.
TAGGED AS: Honduras, Leftist, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2378.\\ Holy Friggin Crap.
Drudge is screaming this headline.
Obama wants to control the Internet now and decide which machines should and should not be connected. Furthermore, it allows the President, not a Congressional panel or a group within NSA or some other agency, but the President to direct the seizure of private networks (corporate or otherwise) at will. Perfect way to squash dissent. Just ask the Chinese and the Iranians.
This should raise the hackles of every single person in the country. I don't care what political stripes you have. This is censorship pure and simple using the need for "cybersecurity" as a cover to eliminate opposition to state takeover of our personal lives.
I've said it before. This is what produces revolutions.
TAGGED AS: Censorship, Congress, Freedom, Internet, Liberty, Obama, Privacy, Revolution
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PERMANENT LINK2377.\\ Dear Eugene Robinson: WTF?
What constitutes 'moral clarity' for Mr. Robinson? Seems like to him morality is embodied by murdering a young woman, lifelong alcoholism, misogyny and ruthless self-absorption.
Well to me, that is the definition of immorality. So I suggest the article be renamed "Ted Kennedy: An Eternal Prince of Darkness"
Glad we have such objective journalists hard at work in our nation.
TAGGED AS: Eugene Robinson, Leftist, Ted Kennedy
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PERMANENT LINK2376.\\ How is this Right in Any Way?
TAGGED AS: Bias, FoxNews, Guns, Health Care, Leftist, MSNBC, Obama, Racist
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PERMANENT LINK2372.\\ Madeline,You Ignorant Slut
If nothing demonstrates the Left's approach to terrorism more than this video, then I don't know what will.
Here on that bastion of objectivity, MSNBC, Ms. Albright refers to the worst case of terrorism in British history as an 'accident'. Let's hope and pray that she meant to say 'incident'. No surprise that the apologist Andrea Mitchell didn't bother asking for clarification, she probably agrees with it being an accident.
WTF
TAGGED AS: Leftist, Libya, Lockerbie, Madeline Albright, MSNBC, WTF
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PERMANENT LINK2371.\\ You're the Imposter!
LOL. And here I thought that the Democratic Party was opposed to forcing people to show their ID's for any reason (i.e. for voting).
TAGGED AS: Congress, Democrats, Health Care, Town Halls
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PERMANENT LINK2370.\\ Watch Out Mr. Terrorist!
As if ignoring the release of a convicted Libyan mass murderer wasn't enough, now this absurdity.
That's right, we might, just might, do something to you that the State of California has identified to be potentially dangerous to pregnant mothers and contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer in monkeys.
Now, tell us who masterminded the Cole bombing or you might get cancer in a few years!
TAGGED AS: CIA, Obama, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2355.\\ Calling Leni Riefenstahl
Are you freaking kidding me? I feel like the lone Wiemar Democrat in January 1933 screaming "WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING!?!" Where is the media criticism? Where are the intellectuals on this blatant group-think mindlessness?
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Children, Communism, Creepy, Liberals, Politics, Self-Righteousness, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2352.\\ Maxine Waters is a Liar
She's on America's Newsroom right this minute claiming that people were 'tricked' into signing mortgages. She's also asserting that nobody understands what is in a contract such as a mortgage and so you can't blame people for the housing crisis. Somehow it is because of deregulation, she claims, not Barney Frank and ACORN pushing subprime loans and encouraging people to put zero down that we've had a housing bubble. Deregulation caused a bubble? I think she means that manipulating the housing markets from a Congressional committee caused the bubble. The principle of the market has been working just fine for several hundred years, thank you very much.
She's a liar, a fraud and she has terrible hair. She clearly fits in with her district. But more importantly, this is just one more piece of evidence that she's off her rocker. See this gem from over the summer.
TAGGED AS: Capitalism, Congress, Economy, Liar, Liberals, Maxine Waters, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2351.\\ All in all you're just another brick in the wall
Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone!
http://news.ionlinephilippines.com/2008/10/singing-obama-kids-video/
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Children, Communism, Creepy, Liberals, Politics, Self-Righteousness, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2343.\\ Social Engineering Redux
I heard this on BBC World this morning and nearly shat myself: Put carbon tax on babies: academic says.
Does this smack of failed social engineering projects of the last century or what? It is very thinly veiled attempt to force human civilization into a box of robotic obedience to crackpot theories. It is a truly dystopian future that looms ahead if we are going to seriously put ecological well being ahead of human existence.
It is the latest in a string of theoretical nonsense that seeks to manage the relationship between population and consumption of resources. It is also frequently the realm of science fiction.
"The seeds of the Little War were planted in a restless summer during the mid-1960s, with sit-ins and student demonstrations as youth tested its strength. By the early 1970s over 75 percent of the people living on Earth were under 21 years of age. The population continued to climb -- and with it the youth percentage.
In the 1980s the figure was 79.7 percent.
In the 1990s, 82.4 percent.
In the year 2000 -- critical mass."
It is Last Day!
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, greens, children, crackpot theories, social experiment, dystopian future, Logan's Run
TAGGED AS: 1984, BBC, Children, Environazis, Logan's Run, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2342.\\ My Thoughts Exactly
After a disheartening start to the day wherein I sat bewildered in front of The Morning Joe listening to a bizarre argument over waterboarding (replete with Junior High School -esque types of arguments), I was happy to get to work and read Dennis Ross' latest: The Can't-Win Kids
As usual, for me he has captured the essence of this issue. Unfortunately, the next time anyone takes Iran's nuclear program seriously will be as a mushroom cloud rises over Tel Aviv.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, Iran, nuclear weapons, Dennis Ross, The Media, George Bush
TAGGED AS: Bewilderment, Democrats, Dennis Ross, Disgust, Iran, MSNBC, Nuclear Weapons, The Media, Waterboarding
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