November 20, 2009
Dear Senator, Think Before You Vote
Posted by The MaryHunter at 2:20 PM | Comments (2)
Faithful reader Bergbikr has the right idea with this letter to our senators, regarding the Obama-Pelosi-ReidCare monstrosity. I think the chances of any senator reading this or any letter from a constituent are about as good as those of their reading the whole thousand-plus-page bill before a vote, but we'll never know if we don't try, will we.
Dear Senators:
There has been no extended congressional debate regarding the two frightening, 1,000+ page healthcare bills now under consideration. The consequences of moving our country in this direction WILL NOT save our economy but WILL decimate what has been the best healthcare system in the world. Superior American medical practice and innovation has been available to serve patients from other government run systems denied timely care and new drugs and procedures at home. If we now become a similar government controlled system, our healthcare will deteriorate and become rationed as doctors refuse to practice in a stifling environment and medical student numbers decline. Without capital generation in the system medical research and development will decline.
With our country currently facing unfathomable deficit spending and skyrocketing debt, how can we pay for a health care plan that will serve all? Vowing to do so will not make caring for a larger patient base less expensive. One plan version will tax the wealthy more but can the middle class be far behind? Proposed excise taxes on professional medical items will also be paid by the patients. Inevitably our children and grandchildren will be forced to pay this cost along with our other bonded debt. This is irresponsible.
We like the private insurance based system that we presently have and do not want to see it destroyed in competition with a non-profit and probably loss ridden government alternative. The goal of the Statist reformers of America is to convert our healthcare system into a single payer, government bureaucracy managing medical quality and quantity and end-of-life care for the good of society. This social purpose is most un-American!
So, now, again in great haste (as with the stimulus and Cap and Trade), health care legislation is being prepared to be passed before Christmas as the number one achievement of this administration. Can you please analyze the contents of this bill and its real cost without payout timing gimmicks before you vote on it? Can I also ask you to please consider voting NO, and instead seek legislation that will actually help benefit the healthcare system, such as insurance reform and interstate access? Capping frivolous lawsuits is a must as well.
And before considering massive healthcare reform, please take the first step of fixing the waste, fraud and unfunded costs of Medicare and of Medicaid. Finally, whatever legislation is enacted, it should certainly be made mandatory for members of Congress and all government employees.
Respectfully,
A Concerned American
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 10:35 AM | Comments (28)
Government Scrooges Nix North Pole Letters
Posted by Van Helsing at 10:24 AM | Comments (9)
A new front has been opened in the War on Christmas — the children's safety angle:
Thousands of starry-eyed children all over the world are writing letters to the jolly man at the North Pole this holiday season, but they will not likely get a response from Santa Claus or his helpers.
The U.S. Postal Service is dropping a popular effort begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers open and respond to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole postmarks.
Postal Service officials said they are tightening rules in such programs nationwide after a postal worker in Maryland recognized a volunteer in the agency's Operation Santa program as a registered sex offender. The postal worker interceded before the individual could answer a child's letter, but the Postal Service viewed the episode as a big enough scare to make changes to the program.
People in North Pole are incensed by the change, likening the Postal Service to the Grinch trying to steal Christmas. The letter program is a revered holiday tradition in North Pole, where light posts are curved and striped like candy canes and streets have names such as Kris Kringle Drive and Santa Claus Lane. Volunteers in the letter program even sign the response letters as Santa's elves and helpers.
As with all government decrees, there will be negative economic consequences.
Losing the Santa-letter cache is a blow to the community of 2,100 people, who pride themselves on their Christmas ties. Huge tourist attractions here include an everything-Christmas store, Santa Claus House, and the post office, where visitors can get a hand-stamped postmark on their postcards and packages if they ask for it. …
Santa Claus House, built like a Swiss chalet and chock full of all items Christmas, sells more than 100,000 letters from Santa and one of the lures is the postmark.
Operations manager Paul Brown believes his business will be affected under changes to the volunteer Santa letter program because tens of thousands of letters are addressed to Santa Claus House, North Pole, Alaska.
Those letters will still be forwarded to volunteers but it's unclear yet if anything will be done with them. Those intercepted by the postal service will probably eventually be shredded.
Here's an idea: Instead of shredding children's letters to Santa, why not keep them safe from molesters by treating child rapists to more than two months in jail?
On a tip from Anonymous Countermoonbat.
(Just Barely) Morning Briefs
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 9:55 AM | Comments (20)
Good Morning Campers, Good Morning Lefty Rachel Maddow Impersonators,
Item Number One: Deeply cool, a man who was evacuated at the age of five from South Vietnam after the communists (whom the progressive left were rooting for) took over has returned... as the Commander of a US Navy Destroyer.
"I thought that one day I would return but I really didn't expect to be returning as the commander of a Navy warship," CMDR Hung Ba Le said after stepping ashore Saturday. "It's an incredible personal honor."
A small victory for America, and a defeat to all those sanctimonious hippie cowards who wanted Le to be raised in a communist dictatorship. (The same sanctimonious hippie cowards who now control the White House and Congress.)
Item Number Two: Andrew Klavan mounts a defense of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Glenn Beck but I couldn't figure out how to embed the video.
Item Number Three: In a sign of the times, Barack Obama --- who threw enormous gala White House celebrations in honor of Communist China and Moslem Ramadan --- has cut the size of the annual Hannukah dinner in half. You gotta wonder if the J-o-o-s are going to get the hint that this guy doesn't care too much for them, or at least not as much as he cares about Muslims and Communists.
Also... I'm sure Lao, Andy, and the rest of Tiger Beat's target demo are very excited that another Twilight movie opens today. In dishonor of that, I give you today's stinger:
Leaked Emails Confirm Global Warming Is a Deliberate Hoax
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:52 AM | Comments (18)
The jig is about up for the global warming hoax. The Climactic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia has been hacked into, and its emails have been released to the public. Watt's Up With That offers some examples of what the academics paid to play along with this farcical swindle say to each other when they think the public can't hear them. Here's a gem:
I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. Mike's series got the annual land and marine values while the other two got April-Sept for NH land N of 20N. The latter two are real for 1999, while the estimate for 1999 for NH combined is +0.44C wrt 61-90.
Apparently even climate scientists have noticed that it's been getting colder, not warmer; that's why they have to fudge the numbers.
At least some of these people have a conscience:
I'm not too comfortable with this, and would rather not sign — at least not without some real time to think it through and debate the issue. It is unprecedented and political, and that worries me.
Everything having to do with "climate change" is political, all right.
On tips from Oiao, Dave K, LouieLouie, and Michael S.
A Tearjerker Argument for ObamaCare
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:40 AM | Comments (6)
Here's a tragic tale of the sort of lifestyle that really ought to be coercively financed by others via Big Government:
When an ambulance brought Daniel Webb home from the hospital after he hurt his knee in March, paramedics warned the then 550-pound man he probably wouldn't be able to get up from his recliner if they put him there, his wife said.
Webb told them to leave him there anyway. He would sit in that recliner, slowly dying, for the next eight months. Finally, paramedics were called back to his Greenwood home on Wednesday because he was in a lot of pain.
Webb's body was physically stuck to the power recliner and firefighters had to cut him from the chair to take him to the hospital. He died a few hours later, his body covered with sores and a "very bad odor," according to a police report.
Webb, 33, didn't ask for help for all those months, because he was ashamed and didn't have health insurance, said his wife, Ada. He slept and used the bathroom in his chair and she cleaned it every day. …
Webb's mother was the one who placed the final call to paramedics. Not only did crews have to cut apart the chair, but they had to cut a hole in the wall of the couple's mobile home about 70 miles west of Columbia [South Carolina] to get him out. A police report said he weighed about 800 pounds, but his wife said he was closer to 500 pounds.
If only he could have held on to see Obamao et al. provide free healthcare to everyone, Webb might have lived to make half a ton — unless being overweight put him last in line for rationed care.
On a tip from heckrulz.
Global Warming Causes Prostitution
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:59 AM | Comments (5)
If Big Government doesn't jack taxes through the stratosphere and seize totalitarian control of all human activity, it won't be only the polar bears who suffer. Global warming will force women into prostitution:
Suneeta Mukherjee, country representative of the United Nations Food Population Fund (UNFPA), said women in the Philippines are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the country.
"Climate change could reduce income from farming and fishing, possibly driving some women into sex work and thereby increase HIV infection," Mukherjee said during the Wednesday launch of the UNFPA annual State of World Population Report in Pasay City.
Not to worry, UNFPA bureauweenies have come up with "five measures to mitigate climate change and overpopulation":
• Bring a better understanding of population dynamics, gender and reproductive health to climate change and environmental discussions at all levels;
• Fully fund family planning services and contraceptive supplies within the framework of reproductive health and rights, and assure that low income is no barrier to access;
• Prioritize research and date collection to improve the understanding of gender and population dynamics in climate change mitigation and adaptation;
• Improve sex-disaggregation of date related to migration flows that are influenced by environmental factors and prepare now for increases in population movements resulting from climate change; and
• Integrate gender considerations into global efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
To sum up, they want to reduce the human population by promoting abortion and other means of birth control on your dime — and they want to yap some more about meaningless BS like "gender considerations" as they relate to natural and unavoidable climate fluctuation, also on your dime.
Time to add prostitution to The List.
On tips from mega and Beef.
Obama's KSM Show Trial Will Cost NYC $100 Million
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:17 AM | Comments (13)
Circus show trials don't come cheap. According to Charles "Chucky Schmucky" Schumer, the bill for Chairman Zero to put George W. Bush, the CIA, the military, and pre-Moonbat Messiah America on trial will come to a pretty penny:
"Rough estimate from the city of New York, which I received yesterday, place the added cost of moving the trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other terrorist suspects to New York somewhere in the ballpark of $75 million, that's a minimum," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)
Schumer said extra security procedures could push that number up to $100 million, and asked that the federal government foot the bill.
But New York is full of fat-cat capitalists, many of whom were foolish enough to vote for Obama. Let them spread the wealth around!
Maybe we can get Al Qaeda to pick up the bill. The propaganda value to their cause would be worth every cent. This farcical trial is likely to turn the tide in their favor. But so long as it can be used as an opportunity for Bush-bashing and sanctimonious posturing, that's fine with our current rulers.
On a tip from Wiggins.
Los Angeles ACORNista Eager to Assist Child Prostitution Business
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:27 AM | Comments (24)
James O'Keefe on the latest ACORN video released by himself and Hannah Giles:
Lavelle Stewart, of ACORN in South Central Los Angeles, tells us she thinks we have to hook up with "someone who's on that international sex business level," that "14 and 15 year olds been traveling overseas for years," that she can do independent research for us, and that she has had meetings with Porn magnate Larry Flynt. As for laundering the sex money into my faux political campaign, Lavelle says, "there are ways, people do it all the time. Yeah there are ways, especially out here in California."
With only one exception so far, Chairman Zero's ACORNista friends are always willing to help anyone they think crawls around in the sewer. No wonder the Moonbat Messiah would like to have his extensive ties to them scrubbed.
Don't miss earlier O'Keefe/Giles ACORN gems — and hold on tight for what might go public if Eric Holder still won't investigate his fellow cockroaches. Andrew Breitbart explains:
Not only are there more tapes, it's not just ACORN. And this message is to Attorney General Holder: I want you to know that we have more tapes, it's not just ACORN, and we're going to hold out until the next election cycle, or else if you want to do a clean investigation, we will give you the rest of what we have, we will comply with you, we will give you the documentation we have from countless ACORN whistleblowers who want to come forward but are fearful of this organization and the retribution that they fear that this is a dangerous organization. So if you get into an investigation, we will give you the tapes; if you don't give us the tapes, we will revisit these tapes come election time.
We'll see what the chances are of getting a "clean investigation" out of the same Injustice Department that scuttled the prosecution of Black Panther thugs who intimidated voters during last November's catastrophe.
On a tip from Oiao.
I Went All the Way to China and All I Got Was This Lousy Tee Shirt
Posted by The MaryHunter at 5:45 AM | Comments (4)
The man-child Barack Hussein Obama is back from his wondrous and productive trip to Asia. Productive, that is, in the photo-op sense. But besides that spectacularly obsequious bow to the Japanese emperor and that Great Wall product placement ad, what was actually accomplished by this boy-wonder president in the big-boy department, especially with China and particularly on his signature issues of global climate change and international human rights? Nada. Well, how about something as mundane as the global economy? Not so much:
There were no apologies, at least in public, this time. Few raised cheers. "On every issue - exchange rates, market access, even the terms of the broadcast of his town-hall meeting in Shanghai - the president was outmaneuvered by a Chinese government growing in confidence every day," said Scott Paul, the executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
At least he was honored with that commemorative Oba-Mao tee shirt, utterly befitting his standing in the world of the Elitist Left. Obama's Marxist father would have been so proud.
November 19, 2009
Portland Greets the Goracle
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:16 PM | Comments (44)
Here's the reception Al Gore got yesterday when he came to hyperliberal Portland, Oregon to hype the global warming hoax and his latest book exploiting it:
The debate is over; we have a consensus: Al Gore is a liar.
On a tip from Oiao.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 3:40 PM | Comments (46)
Seen on the Streets of Philadelphia
Posted by Van Helsing at 3:36 PM | Comments (16)
Compliments of Conan:
Pat Leahy Is an Idiot
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 12:36 PM | Comments (13)
In case you doubted how utterly stupid the leadership of the majority party in the senate is, consider this gob-smackingly stupid quote from Vermont's senior (and less liberal) senator, Pat Leahy.
"The red herring that my friend [Sen.] Lindsey Graham [R-S.C.] was covering is not realistic," Leahy said during an appearance on "Washington Journal" on C-SPAN. "For one thing, capturing Osama bin Laden — we've had enough on him, we don't need to interrogate him," Leahy added.
This is the Democrat mindset. They have no interest in interrogating OBL to find out what he knows about terror networks or future mass casualty terror plots. In the Obamunist world, terrorists are, at worst, criminals --- kind of like arsonists, just on a bigger scale, (and with legitimate grievances against American power, of course) These people are too stupid to think beyond putting terrorists in prison. The idea that Islamic Fascism is an ideology with objectives far more dangerous than burning down buildings just can't fit into their tiny leftist minds.
Al "PhotoShop" Gore Tries Lies to Sell Books
Posted by The MaryHunter at 11:45 AM | Comments (103)
Apparently, the 30-year low in hurricane activity was about to make some trouble for sales of Al Gore's new book, "Our Choice; A Plan To Solve The Climate Crisis." Therefore, he settled on a little PhotoShopping instead:
Shortly after the devastation of Katrina, Al Gore was busy making a correlation between hurricanes and global warming in an effort to drive home his claim that higher global CO2 emissions cause an increase in extreme weather events. The cover art for Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, features an image of a hurricane rising out of a smoke stack.
Seemingly underwhelmed that there have been no major hurricanes since Katrina, along with the fact that global hurricane activity is now at a thirty year low, Gore came up with an ingenious method of solving the problem of the lack of scary depictions of frightening hurricanes to display on his book – simply airbrush them in!
Paul Joseph Watson, author of the above-linked post, quotes Univ. of Florida hurricane expert Ryan Maue, who made an interesting observation about Algore's new tome:
The cover opens and closes half and half — so you only see one hurricane…as in the press release photo or the one on Amazon.
But this is the real picture sequence from the book which I looked at Borders today and took cell-phone pictures, original (before the retouching by some “artist”) Note all of the Arctic ice and the size of the Florida Peninsula… And the final product:
A midget Southern Hemisphere cyclone is off the coast of Florida, another hurricane is sitting on the equator off the coast of Peru — and the Arctic Ice is gone (perhaps it is summer) and the Florida Peninsula is half gone
There are other differences I am sure you can find — but the hurricanes are just nonsense…
Editorial license, you say? Creative adjustment of an image, something that's done all the time in marketing campaigns, just to make a point of a future that could be?
How about: desperate act by a lying enviro-moonbat who is doing anything and everything possible to promote as reality what has been and continues to be confirmed as a hoax. The trouble for Gore (and potential book sales) is that the public are finally catching on.
Major tip of the tam to Alex Jones' PrisonPlanet.com
California's Petty Tyrants Crack Down on Televisions
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:59 AM | Comments (20)
Even as they drive the state's economy over the edge of an abyss, California's moonbat rulers continue to impose needless, intrusive, and economically harmful decrees. If this one doesn't cause a revolt, nothing will — they're coming after television sets:
California regulators have adopted the first energy-efficiency standards for televisions in the U.S., a move that will eventually ban power-hungry sets from the state's store shelves.
As always, the sheer mass of the Land of Fruits and Nuts allows it to pull the rest of us down with it.
Wednesday's action by the California Energy Commission could lead the way in a general reform of standards for an industry increasingly focused on wide-view, flat-screen, high-definition sets.
The 5-0 vote by the California Energy Commission is just the latest effort by the state to secure its place in the forefront of the environmental movement.
California represents such a big consumer market that environmental groups hope the new standards will lead manufacturers to make energy-saving TVs for the rest of the nation, just as California's stringent fuel standards for cars and trucks forced automakers to produce more efficient models for all of the U.S.
When it comes to vehicles, "more efficient" also means "more expensive" and "more likely to get you killed if you have an accident."
Until California bureauweenies are able to impose their television whims on the entire country, the result of this latest fiat will be more economic hardship for a state that can't take much more.
Some manufacturers warned that the regulations will cripple innovation, limit consumer choice and hurt California stores, because people could simply buy TVs out of state or online. The industry also complained that manufacturers will be forced to make televisions with poorer picture quality and fewer features than those sold elsewhere in the U.S.
"Instead of allowing customers to choose the products they want, the commission has decided to impose arbitrary standards that will hamper innovation and limit consumer choice," said Jason Oxman, a vice president with the Consumer Electronics Association. "It will result in higher prices for consumers, job losses for Californians, and lost tax revenue for the state."
But at least the dictate will benefit man-eating polar bears, according to the bizarre delusions that comprise liberal ideology.
On a tip from Wiggins.
Narcissist in Chief Finds a Use for Our Troops
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:30 AM | Comments (17)
For a change, Chairman Zero deigned to visit American troops while on his junket in Asia. Here's what he had to say to them:
You guys make a pretty good photo op.
I'm sure they're pleased to know they're good for something.
Meanwhile, the long-delayed decision on whether they will get the reinforcements they urgently need in Afghanistan has been kicked back to after Thanksgiving.
On tips from Conan and Conservigilant.
White House Counsel's Job: Make ACORN Ties Vanish
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:04 AM | Comments (5)
Just as Anita Dunn — the Obama communications director who led a campaign to marginalize Fox News and who publicly praised the genocidal dictator with the biggest body count in human history as one of her "favorite political philosophers" — joined the crowd under Chairman Zero's bus, her husband Bob Bauer climbed aboard as White House counsel. His mission: to erase the many ties between our Community Organizer in Chief and ACORN, the astonishingly corrupt ultra-left activist group with which he has been closely associated his entire career. The Hill reports:
Newly appointed White House counsel Bob Bauer is "perfectly positioned to be tasked with erasing the tracks between Obama and ACORN," one Republican lawmaker charged Friday.
The lawyer's hiring, announced this morning shortly after Greg Craig officially resigned the post, was also an attempt by the White House to deflect any fallout that may arise from an ACORN investigation currently underway in Louisiana, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) added in a statement.
"Bob Bauer has a public record of defending Barack Obama's relationship with ACORN, the congressman told supporters. "Bauer's hiring appears to be a tactical maneuver to strategically defend the White House exactly one week after Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell raided ACORN's national headquarters in New Orleans and seized paper records and computer hard drives that may lead to the White House."
Separating Obama from ACORN won't be easy. Gateway Pundit summarizes their intimate relationship:
One of Barack Obama's first big "community organizer" jobs involved ACORN in 1992. He has been working along side ACORN since before he became an elected official. Obama also trained ACORN employees. He represented ACORN in court. Obama worked with and protested with ACORN. His campaign donated $800,000 to ACORN in 2008 for voter registration efforts. And, ACORN even canvassed for Obama last year.
The task of obliterating so much factual reality will require a great deal of audacity, which makes Bauer ideal for the job. As noted in the Morning Briefs, he tried to sic a special prosecutor on John McCain for objecting to voter fraud.
On a tip from TED.
Obama Imitates Team America: World Police
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 8:35 AM | Comments (9)
Chairman Zero in South Korea yesterday:
"Iran has taken weeks now and has not shown its willingness to say yes to this proposal . . . and so as a consequence we have begun discussions with our international partners about the importance of having consequences."
Hans Brix in Team America: World Police:
Hans Blix: I'm sorry, but the UN must be firm with you. Let me in, or else.
Kim Jong Il: Or else what?
Hans Blix: Or else we will be very angry with you... and we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are.
Police Grovel Before Muslim Maniacs
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:06 AM | Comments (11)
The obsequious political correctness that allowed Nidal Malik Hasan to fester away until he was ready to launch his terrorist massacre at Ford Hood is hardly limited to the military. Law enforcement is rotted through with it too:
The Ummah, a violent fundamentalist Sunni Islamic group in Detroit, advocates a separate Islamic state that would be controlled by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, also known as H. Rap Brown, a veteran of the black power movement now in prison for gunning down two police officers. According to the U.S. Department of justice the Ummah group "is alleged to have engaged in violent activity over a period of many years, and known to be armed."
Last month, as the result of a two-year investigation, the FBI raided the Michigan headquarters of the group, now headed by Luqman Ameen Abdullah, sought by the FBI for providing firearms and ammunition to a person known to be a convicted felon, sale or receipt of stolen goods, and other violations. Luqman Ameen Abdullah fired at federal officers, who returned fire and killed him.
Other members of the group remained at large, including Yassir Ali Khan and Mohammad Al-Sahli, also known as Mohammad Palestine, both wanted for conspiracy to commit federal crimes. The pair were arrested across the border in Windsor, Ontario, by local police cooperating with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
So far so good. But then…
In the course of the arrest, Windsor police patted down one of the suspect's wives. This sparked complaints about police insensitivity. Gary Smith, Windsor's chief of police, promptly issued a public apology.
"It was never the intention for Windsor police officers to offend or embarrass the families of our Islamic community," said Smith's press release. "The actions taken did cause embarrassment and did offend their religious beliefs. I sincerely apologize to the families and the Islamic community." The police chief further called for more "cultural sensitivity training."
It ought to do wonders for officers' morale to be forced into humiliating brainwashing sessions as punishment for bringing violent criminals to justice.
One of the FBI's sources said that Luqman Ameen Abdullah would beat children with sticks until they couldn't walk. And in a recorded 2004 sermon, Abdullah said, "Do not carry a pistol if you're going to give it up to police. You give them a bullet!"
Here's a better idea: let the women carry the pistols. After all, searching them would violate their "religious beliefs."
On a tip from Wiggins.
