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December 31, 2009
What the State-Run Lamestream Media Missed in 2009
Posted by The MaryHunter at 11:12 AM
Fox News has earned the right to crow about nine top stories of 2009 that you would have never heard of -- if CNN, MSNBC, HLN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and the rest of the MSM had been your sole source for news propaganda.
Moonbattery.com was there too:
Van Jones -- a damn commie in damn commie's Czar House.
ACORN Tapes -- a lesson in how not to community organize child trafficking and prostitution.
Science Czar John Holdren -- eugenics made easy.
ClimateGate -- new dictionary listing under "hoax."
Politicizing the NEA -- but, it's art.
Chas Freeman -- because having a bin Laden associate in the Obama Administration would be real cool.
Tea Party and 9/12 March on Washington Protests -- a few thousand, tops.
Kevin Jennings, Safe Schools Czar -- because pedophiles and perverts are people, too.
Democratic Stimulus -- porkulus bucks for everything from sex studies to dead folks went 2 to 1 toward Democrat districts.
With ratings for Fox News Channel and conservative talk radio ramping up with no sign of a slowdown, we can expect more news that isn't fit to print in the New York Times from these alternative outlets.
Chart on a tip from AnonymoUS.
Democrat Spinners: Obama More Aggressive Than Bush Against Al Qaeda
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:29 AM
New Year's Eve is a great time to lighten up with a big old belly laugh. Here goes:
Democratic strategists Wednesday asserted President Barack Obama "has been far more aggressive in fighting al Qaeda" than the previous administration.
Bwahahaha! At least they have a sense of humor!
In an e-mail this afternoon to supporters — which incidentally excoriated Republicans for politicizing the attempted bombing of Flight 253 — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) stressed it was President George W. Bush, not his successor, who relegated the fight against the terrorist network to the back burner by turning "its focus from al Qaeda to Iraq."
In case these clowns are actually serious, here's a little news quiz. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a top terrorist killed by US forces in Iraq, was affiliated with:
A) Saddam Hussein's regime of butterflies and daffodils
B) Those nasty Rethuglicans
C) The Boy Scouts
D) Al Qaeda
If you picked D, you haven't been getting your news from NBC.
Although he certainly had his flaws, George W. Bush devoted himself wholeheartedly to fighting Al Qaeda, with the result that despite nearly universal expectations following 9/11, there were no significant terror attacks on US soil until the Fort Hood massacre after he had left office. Obama for his part has fought terror by bowing to its financiers, installing a pro-terrorist activist as Attorney General, granting the architects of 9/11 a carnival show trial a stone's throw away from Ground Zero, condemning the interrogation of terrorists, closing Club Gitmo, and sanctimoniously denouncing America for its alleged misdeeds. No one who hasn't spent the last two years in a cave could be clueless enough to think Chairman Zero would exert even a tiny fraction of Bush's energy to fighting Al Qaeda.
But who knows? Maybe if the lie is sufficiently preposterous, liberals will strive to be politically correct enough to believe it. Nothing else could explain Obama being passed off as presidential material.
On tips from Conan, John R, and scottthong.
Go, Crystal Ball, Go!
Posted by The MaryHunter at 8:05 AM
We've looked back, so now, let's look ahead. As it's the season for predictions, here are a few notable looks into an uncertain 2010 from NRO writers and editors:
JOHN DERBYSHIRE:
- Barack Obama's illegal-immigrant aunt, Zeituni Onyango, will not be deported. (Copied that one from last year, too.)
- The GOP will make good, though not great, gains in the midterms. They will immediately embark on a strategy guaranteed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Go Stupid Party!
JONAH GOLDBERG:
- Chris Dodd loses his election. Capital police need to use a crowbar to loosen his grip on his office desk.
- Harry Reid loses re-election bid, calls results an "evil lie, bought and paid for by the insurance companies."
- Keith Olbermann takes himself so seriously, he cuts off his left hand to emphasize his seriousness about the public option. (He waves bloody stump at paramedic, yelling "don't touch the hair!").
HEATHER MAC DONALD:
- The consumption habits of every delegate to the Copenhagen global-warming conference will be a model to the world: i.e., they will match or rise above pre-conference consumption levels through uninhibited use of airplanes, air conditioning, computers, flat-screen TVs, iPods, and every marvelous object in our life that depends on energy for its manufacture and delivery.
- Democrats will hound the banks to increase their lending, especially home loans, to credit-poor minorities.
ANDREW STUTTAFORD:
- [...] the AGW jalopy will trundle along (cap-and-trade, not so much) regardless. Those who drive it have too much invested in AGW (or stand to make too much from it) to be able to admit that this is more complex a subject than they currently admit.
So... what are YOUR predictions for 2010? Ruth Bader-Ginsburg? Iran? Pakistan? Michael Moore? George Soros? Michelle-My-Belle? Time to don the turban and let 'er rip. Please keep them only slightly off-color, if possible. Or, not.
Here's one to start off:
- Rush Limbaugh will make a full recovery, return to his EIB command center, and deliver a most exquisite, line-by-line dope slapping to President Obama in response to his State of the Union
addresslie fest.
Government Expropriates Child on Behalf of Lesbian Ex
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:43 AM
Remember the anti-drug adds with the eggs frying on the skillet and the voice intoning, "This is your mind on drugs"? This is a family on moonbattery:
The birth mother of a 7-year-old Virginia girl must transfer custody of the child to the woman's former lesbian partner, a Vermont judge ruled, adding that it seems the woman has "disappeared" with her daughter.
Vermont Family Court Judge William Cohen ordered Lisa Miller of Winchester, Va., to turn over daughter Isabella to Janet Jenkins of Fair Haven at 1 p.m. Friday at the Virginia home of Jenkins' parents.
Now why would a Vermont judge want to give a woman's birth daughter to her former lesbian lover?
Miller and Jenkins were joined in a Vermont civil union in 2000. Isabella was born to Miller through artificial insemination in 2002. The couple broke up in 2003, and Miller moved to Virginia, renounced homosexuality and became an evangelical Christian.
The culture war rages on — with only the good guys taking any casualties.
If Miller does not turn over Isabella, the most likely scenerio is that she would be held in contempt of court and a warrant would be issued for her arrest, said Cheryl Hanna, a professor of constitutional law at Vermont Law School.
As moonbattery continues to derange our civilization, look for jails to fill with people incarcerated for increasingly bizarre reasons.
On a tip from Muddypaw.
EcoSnoop
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:23 AM
Attention citizens of Planet Earth: Have you observed deviants who selfishly reject the green agenda in favor of outmoded concepts like "liberty," "self-interest," or even "convenience"? Don't just curl your lip at them: turn them in at EcoSnoop, the website devoted to exposing eco-criminals.
EcoSnoop's mission is to help our communities heighten awareness of opportunities to be more green, save energy, eco hypocrisy, and even fill pot holes. Leveraging the power of the community, EcoSnoops use their an iPhone to capture clear pictures of a problem and post these pictures on a community website so that building owners and others can take action.
Currently the top crime at EcoSnoop is "Lots of light at gas station in the middle of the day":
Just a thought: Maybe the lights are on so people don't think the station is closed — or so they don't drive into the pumps in the gloom.
Like many who help pave the road to hell, the EcoSnoop folks have good intensions. They just want to save energy — which is important, considering that our moonbat rulers are doing all they can to prevent us from generating more of it. The site asserts that it is "dumb and offensive" to rat out neighbors, and even expresses ambivalence regarding the global warming hoax. But anyone familiar with Comrade Obama's chilling flag@whitehouse.gov mailbox can see where the phenomenon of online snitching is likely to head.
On a tip from Kevin R.
The Year in Moonbattery - 2009
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 6:56 AM
January - The Moonbat Messiah was inaugurated before a crowd that made rude chants at the departing President Bush and completely and utterly trashed the National Mall. And that was just the news media. The Moonbat Messiah immediately began filling his cabinet with tax cheats, dirty lawyers, radical communists, and eugenicists. One of his first acts was to sign a $787 Billion "Stimulus" package that promised to restore the USA to economic prosperity by the fall.
February - Obama's EPA began laying the groundwork to declare all human activity subject to Government regulation, via the human capacity for CO2 production, which the EPA designated a deadly gas despite the fact that plants need it to survive. The right-wing began to make jokes about Obama's Teleprompter dependency. It would be eight months before the left would do the same.
March - The Green Left designated polar bears the official iconic megafauna of the Global Warming Hoax, using a picture of some bears on an ice floe to claim that the big white beasts were facing extinction (when, in the real world, their numbers are increasing.) Lady M'Chel put in an appearance at soup kitchen and showed off her $540 kicks. Obama also rewarded his friends in Hamas with $900 Million in taxpayer dollars to thank them for their incessant rocket attacks against Israel.
Oh, and Keith Olbermann pitched a snit fit when Ann Coulter revealed that his prized Cornell degree actually came from Cornell's cow college affiliate.
April - It was discovered the Global Warmists were lying about sea ice melting away. Obama sent Air Force 1 to buzz lower Manhattan, just for kicks and giggles. Benedict Arlen Specter made a principled decision to become a Democrat when polls showed he was cheese toast if he ran as a Republican. Also, the totally free market "don't you dare call them socialists" government of B. Hussein Obama completed the nationalization of General Motors, with the Government and their union allies owning 80% of the company after telling investors who had loaned the companies billions "Be gone, Running Dog parasites! The means of production belong to the workers now."
In response to the predations of the Obamunists, a round of tea-parties were held to correspond with April 15th tax day. Distinguished journalists like Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow giggled like fifth graders at the word "tea-bag."
May -- The Progressive Left focused its rage and scorn on a person who represented the most serious threat to the American way of life in all the 233 years of the Republic's existence. I refer, of course, to Carrie Prejean; who received the kind of treatment from the mainstream media Hitler might have gotten had he been caught throwing puppies into a wood chipper.
June -- It was discovered that the EPA was burying memos that said Global Warming wasn't actually happening, per se. Also, 62 year old "comedian" David Letterman took a break from molesting the interns in his Manhattan production company to make some rape jokes about Sarah Palin's daughters; because it's just so funny when 62 year old men make lecherous jokes about young teenage girls.
President Barack Obama demonstrated his administration's commitment to transparency and the rule of law by firing an Inspector General who was investigating massive corruption on the part of one of M'Chel's cronies.
The Iranian Regime responded to pro-democracy demonstrations by brutally cracking down on protesters, murdering some in the street, and rounding up others for summary execution. To show his concern and support for democracy, President Obama went out and bought ice cream for his dog.
July --- Patriots celebrated the 4th of July with more tea parties to rouse a resistance against a president and a congress hellbent on tearing down the Republic the founding fathers fought so hard and sacrificed so much to bring into being. A West Coast blogger found a book co-authored by Obama's technology czar in which he advocated forced sterilizations and coerced abortions as a means of population control. Lefties defended him by saying, "It was the '70's." Not a reassuring defense given their moonbat messiah president's fondness for Jimmy Carter's policies. Meanwhile, crazy, lying, FoxNews personality Glenn Beck put up some crazy story about how Obama's (Ho!Ho!Ho!) Green Jobczar Van Jones was a radical communist 911 troofer. Beck was denounced as lying, insane, and dangerous. Within two weeks, Van Jones resigned in the middle of the night because ... well, because Beck was right. Keith Olbermann demanded that Beck be fired and threatened to engage in deranged, vituperative rants on his show every night until that happened.
Also, a racist Harvard professor got into a dispute with a white cop. PBO... who would later admonish Americans not to "jump to conclusions" about a mass murdering jihadist at Fort Hood and an attempting mass-murdering jihadist in Detroit... immediately declared in a press conference that the cop had "acted stupidly" while admitting he didn't know all the facts of the case.
And, a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Geophysical Research confirmed that climate cycles are natural and Global Warming is a hoax.
August -- Democrat Congresspersons heard from their constituents on the Obama-Pelosi Health Care bill. Since they didn't like what they heard, they announced that all future contact with constituents would be limited to registered members of the SEIU. The SEUI responded by beating up black people and old ladies outside townhall meetings. One especially zealous thug bit off a guy's finger. Lefties responded with, "Under ObamaCare, people who have their fingers bitten off by Union Thugs will have them sewed back on for free," leaving out the word "eventually."
The infamous "Obama as Joker" poster appeared. Leftists went into apoplectic fits at this heresy against the Messiah, and pointed out that no president in history had ever been defaced in such a horrible, insulting, defamatory way.
The Government began a phenomenally successful program called "Cash for Clunkers" in which perfectly serviceable automobiles were destroyed and rendered inoperable in exchange for vehicles with marginally better fuel economy at an estimated cost of $24,000 per vehicle.
Senator Ted Kennedy died, leaving John Kerry and Barney Frank to carry on the legacy of horrendously destructive far-left Democrat legislators from Massachusetts.
September --- PBO cancelled the US Missile Defense program for Eastern Europe, because he believed this show of "Smart Diplomacy" would convince Iran not to pursue its nuclear weapons program. In other news of smart diplomacy, Obama warmly welcomed Mo Qaddafi, Hugo Chavez, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejihad to the opening session of the UN. Not invited: The legitimate, constitutional leader of Honduras. Obama also declared the 9-11 should no longer be considered a day of remembrance, but instead a day in which the workers should offer the labors for the glory of the state.
During an address to Congress, Congressman Joe Wilson responded to one of Obama's many, many lies by shouting "You lie!" The left was again outraged, and pointed out that no president had ever, ever been heckled while giving a speech to Congress before.
California's farmers... driven to insolvency by a judge's edict to preserve a two inch fish... appealed to their senators to turn the water back on. The senators replied, "Sucks to be you, losers" and "Don't call me, Ma'am!"
NY Times columnist David Brooks revealed that he first fell in love with Obama while staring at the crease in his pants. A deranged Keith Olberman claimed he had the largest audience in cable news. If only Neilsen would count the voices in people's heads, it might be true. Meanwhile, Glenn Beck... the man who always lies ... played tapes of ACORN offering to facilitate tax fraud, illegal immigration, and child prostitution. Democrats immediately demanded an investigation... of the two journalists who exposed ACORN's illegal activities.
Airstrip One officially recognized environmentalism as a religion. As soon as they designate economics a superstition, the transition to leftist belief will be complete.
October --- PBO was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. While admitting that he had accomplished nothing, the Nobel Committee said he deserved the award for being so
"clean and articulate."
When word was leaked that Rush Limbaugh might become a 2% owner in the St. Louis Rams, the progressive left MSM publicized a number of racist quotations that... um... Limbaugh never actually said. When confronted, the MSM responded, "Who are you going to believe? Us, or a racist who wanted James Earl Ray to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor."
And Glenn Beck... the man who always lies ... played a video of Obama's Communications Director praising Chairman Mao and licking her lips like Mr. Ed going for the peanut butter. A few weeks later, she was gone. A deranged Keith Olbermann dropped his pants and took a crap on his desk, but nobody saw it.
November -- Republicans handily won the governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, and lost in a three way congressional race in NY in which no Republican was running. The left pointed to this as proof that conservatism was dead, dead, dead! Also, Sarah Palin sold about two million copies of her book, Going Rogue, which drove the left absolutely insane. David Letterman was hailed as a hero for not giving into a blackmailer who threatened to reveal the fact that he had sexually harassed many female interns. The interns were allowed to keep the Palin wigs after their encounters.
Also, leaked emails from Climate Scienticians proved that climate data were altered and deleted to artificially create "proof" of human-caused Global Warming. Progressive Leftists responded that the data that went into the Climate Change models were every bit as valid as the data that showed job creation under the Stimulus.
December -- An enormous contingent of moonbats flew to Copehagen in a veritable air force of private jets, generating as much CO2 in a week as an African country emits in a year, to save the planet from the dire consequences of wasteful CO2 production. And just to prove He has a sense of humor, God dumped half a foot of snow on them.
Senate Democrats finally passed a version of ObamaCare using last minute bribes to Senators Mary "Hello Sailor" Landrieu and Ben "Love You Long Time" Nelson.
On Christmas Day, a jihadist came within seconds of detonating a bomb on an aircraft with 278 people on board. The Secretary of Homeland Security declared that the system had worked perfectly, and the TSA would avoid future near-disasters by making it illegal for passengers to leave their seats during the last hour of a flight.
One year down, three to go... if we're lucky.
Is Wanda Sykes Happy Now?
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 6:20 AM
Back in May of this year, alleged comedian Wanda Sykes made the White Correspondent's dinner roll over with laughter by proclaiming that she hoped Rush Limbaugh's kidney's would fail. PBO laughed at the "joke," too. Jon Stewart defended it on The Daily Show, and angry left talk-show host Ed Shultz gushed over her.
So, I guess we can assume all of these people were delighted yesterday when Rush Limbaugh was taken to the hospital with chest pains.
Comments at the Huffington Post aren't too bad, the moderators must be out in force. Elsewhere, though, the Left is showing it's usual degree of class. Here are some comments from the San Francisco Examiner:
He's still not dead? What a gyp...
let that sob die.
Rush Limbaugh is an evil c*nt who makes me wish I believed in hell, so I could know he'd be going there.
From the Left-Wing "Gawker" Blog:
Argh, this would've been the greatest way to end what has been a big year in celebrity deaths.
This year might end on a high note after all. Since christmas hasn't happened for my click yet , this might be our little miracle
I was always hoping rush would die choking trying to wash down five oxys with Paula Deen's fried butter balls, but this would be okay too.
In the Washington Post:
.
With luck, it won't be long before the fat freak is stoking the fires of Hell.
I know what'll make a very happy new year for me. C'mon, you're thinking it too.
I hope if he croaks its a slow painful departure.
Yes, the mainstream left once again demonstrate their tolerance and compassion.
Richard Garner's Blog Has rounded up some more snark from lefties
Signs of a New Year in the Era of Obama
Posted by The MaryHunter at 6:19 AM
Image courtesy of FAIL Blog on a tip by scottthong.
December 30, 2009
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 5:25 PM
Top 10 Moonbattery Threads of 2009
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 3:55 PM
In 2009, these were our most popularest threads.
1. 1M Americans Choose Liberty over Tyranny
September 15, 2009 - 311 Comments
(Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny sells 1,000,000 copies. Moonbats go berserk. Especially Aquatarkus)
2. SEALs Could Face Full Year in Prison Over Terrorist's Fat Lip
December 5, 2009 - 217 Comments
(The post where namejacking and anonymous comment spam got so bad comment registration had to be instituted.)
3. Open Thread
September 5, 2009 - 190 Comments
(Glenn Beck was mentioned in a comment. The usual suspects went nutzoid. And Andyzipcode spewed insults and DNC talking points in defense of ObamaCare.)
4. Militant Theophobes Prove Me Right Again
December 16, 2009 - 182 Comments
(Lots of comment Spam from atheists claiming over and over again that they really, really don't care about religion.)
5. Benedict Arlen Defects to the Dems
April 27, 2009 - 172 Comments
(Goatse Wellstoned trumpeted the defection as proof of the USA's hard turn to the progressive left; eight months later with the Democrats in free-fall, things look very different)
6. Gangster Government
July 1, 2009 - 170 Comments
(The mere mention of Michele Bachmann sends Andyzipcode and Goatse/Kyle/Giles into deranged fits of spitting rage.)
7. Open Thread
July 31, 2009 - 155 Comments
("This website is sick. I can't believe how full of hate you people are.")
8. Captions Please
May 20, 2009 - 152 Comments
(A fun caption contest soon overwhelmed by humorless lefties shouting "racist" and anonymous trolls and sockpuppets joining in.)
9. Exhibit A in Limbaugh Versus CNN et al.
October 14, 2009 - 140 Comments
(In which it was pointed out the media were spreading fabricated Rush Limbaugh quotes, to which the left-liberals responded, "They're the kind of things we imagine him saying, Isn't that good enough?")
10. (tie) Homosexual Marriage Gets Its Nose in the Tent in North Carolina
August 18, 2009 - 129 Comments
(Gay Marriage never fails to rattle the left-wing cages.)
10. (tie) Letter to CNN
April 19, 2009 - 129 Comments
(This was a weird thread. A letter critical of CNN's treatment of the Tea-Parties was the topic, but then a troll calling itself "Moon Bat" showed up to defend CNN by attacking the tea-partiers. Then, Andy-the-attention-whore joined in with a chorus of "Bush's Fault! Bush's Fault! Bush's Fault" and it just got kinda weird after that.)
ObamaCare Is Racist
Posted by The MaryHunter at 12:55 PM
This will not be a surprise to anyone who knows who the real perpetrators of racism are in this nation (viz., liberal Democrats). The Demonrat health care reform bills actively promote racial bigotry and discrimination through provisions designed to favor racial minorities. Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation and Peter Kirsanow of the Civil Rights Commission wach write in NRO of the flagrantly racist policies. The Washington Times summarizes:
According to Mr. von Spakovsky, the Senate bill "directs the secretary of health and human services to award federal grants worth billions of dollars to educational institutions that train medical-service providers.
However, 'priority' for federal dollars is to be given only to those institutions offering 'preferential' admissions to underrepresented minorities (according to race, national origin, sex, sexual orientation and religion....). Thus, schools will be unable to compete for essential federal funding unless they adopt admission policies that intentionally and deliberately discriminate."
Furthermore: "The Senate bill even creates a federally funded and administered medical school [...] to 'grant appropriate advanced degrees.' Priority in admissions is to be given to 'students from rural communities and underrepresented minorities.' ('Underrepresented minorities' is liberal code for 'Asians need not apply.') Naturally, other sections of the bill require lots of data collection regarding race, ethnicity, sex, and so on."
These provisions would appear to go against the recent Supreme Court precedents regarding racial classifications.
Other cases, such as Gratz v. Bollinger (2003) and Ricci v. DeStefano (2009), make clear that racial preferences by government are presumptively illegal. The Ricci case was the one in which the court ruled in favor of white firefighters who previously had been denied promotions that all agreed they had earned. Although not a direct constitutional challenge, it succinctly stated the guiding principle: "No individual should face workplace discrimination based on race."
Despite this, the Senate is about to institutionalize this descrimination into the government health care system. And, there's more:
Meanwhile, Mr. Kirsanow reports on another strange part of the Senate bill: "Section 2046 (b)(3) grants the secretary of HHS the discretion to waive substantial penalties (i.e., fines of up to $300,000 and debarment from federal programs) for failing to report elder abuse and other crimes committed against residents of long-term care facilities that serve racial and ethnic minorities. Obviously, this could increase the probability that residents of such facilities won't receive the same level of protection as residents of nursing homes that serve non-minority populations."
In other words, in the name of protecting minority owners, the bill provides fewer protections for minority patients.
The immorality of these racist provisions is exceeded only by the hypocrisy of the Democrats who would condemn any Tea Bagger who disagrees with Obama as a "racist" and then turn around and institutionalize racism as the Law of the Land. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights as sent letters to President Obama and leaders of the Senate and House expressing concerns about the discriminatory provisions in both bills. Naturally, the warnings have been ignored.
And Finally, Anti-Moonbat of the Decade
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 11:06 AM
Who has done the most to thwart tyranny and preserve liberty against the predations of Categories 1-6?
Biggest Moonbat of the Decade: Category 6: Politicians (International)
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 10:55 AM
What politician outside the USA has done the most to advance barbarism and tyranny and set back civilization?
Biggest Moonbat of the Decade: Category 5: Politicians (American)
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 10:29 AM
Which American Politician has done the most to diminish liberty and advance tyranny in the name of the failed ideology of socialism?
Biggest Moonbat of the Decade: Category 4: MSM (News)
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 10:20 AM
Who is the most biased, partisan, unfair, and unhinged newscaster in the MSM?
Biggest Moonbat of the Decade: Category 3: Organizations
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 10:00 AM
Vote for the organization most consistently dedicated to the destruction of all that is good and normal.
Biggest Moonbat of the Decade: Category 2: Blogging
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 9:44 AM
Vote on the blogger who did the most to advance the causes of insanity, intolerance, ignorance, and anti-Americanism.
Poll is closed, and it was making the blog look weird.
Biggest Moonbat of the Decade: Category 1: Celebrities
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 9:35 AM
I have decided to break the Biggest Moonbat of the Decade into Categories, with five finalists in each category. Narrowing them down was not too easy.
Poll is closed, and it was making the blog look weird.
The winners will be announced in a few days after everyone is bored with the poll.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:12 AM
Big Government to Reduce Farms to Wilderness
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:37 AM
Anyone wondering just what the point of modern liberalism might be need look no farther than a recent story on the government spending your money to turn farms into forests:
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has ordered his staff to revise a computerized forecasting model that showed that climate legislation supported by President Obama would make planting trees more lucrative than producing food.
The latest Agriculture Department economic-impact study of the climate bill, which passed the House this summer, found that the legislation would profit farmers in the long term. But those profits would come mostly from higher crop prices as a result of the legislation's incentives to plant more forests and thus reduce the amount of land devoted to food-producing agriculture.
According to the economic model used by the department and the Environmental Protection Agency, the legislation would give landowners incentives to convert up to 59 million acres of farmland into forests over the next 40 years.
Even Milksac has noticed that the consequences of letting farmland go back to wilderness won't be pretty.
Mr. Vilsack, in a little-noticed statement issued with the report earlier this month, said the department's forecasts "have caused considerable concern" among farmers and ranchers.
"If landowners plant trees to the extent the model suggests, this would be disruptive to agriculture in some regions of the country," he said.
Ya think? But no worries, Milksac ordered the model to be tweaked so that we can all pretend everything will be fine.
The last time the country went this crazy, FDR was paying farmers not to plant crops while people went hungry. Now we're paying farmers to stop existing, like we all ought to do for the good of the polar bears.
Patriots want to roll back government. Liberals want to roll back the human race.
PUK Awards
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:10 AM
This site will never be at a loss for Open Thread pictures now that the highly recommended iOwnTheWorld.com has launched its first annual PUK Awards contest. Readers have been submitting and voting for their favorite images, with the top 10 vote getters to be posted later. Already some countermoonbat gems have come to light, including these:
Check out the rest, make your contributions, and cast your votes.
Wednesday Morning Briefs
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 6:10 AM
Good Morning Right-Wing Patriots and Left-Wingers Who Smell of Cabbage,
Item Number One: Faculty at the University of California at Whale's Vagina (Anchorman joke) are helping illegals cross the border by distributing satellite phones that lead them to water, enable them to evade the border patrol, and recite poetry to them. Oh, and taxpayer dollars are funding them as they scheme to break the law.
Item Number Two: Sarah Palin has been stalked non-stop by photographers during her Hawaiian vacation, while Granny Rictus Botox Pelosi has been left alone. Sondra K thinks she knows why. (Warning, don't click that link if you wanna eat lunch today. There's some booty even the Zohan wouldn't mess with.)
Item Number Three: A Danish newspaper has declared that Obama is greater than Jesus. As if we couldn't tell from all the hymns lefties force schoolchildren to sing to him.
Below, a drawing left by a janitor on an elementary school chalkboard. Why do I post this? It reminds me that talent does not always come with a lofty degree or a prestigious position, neither is the possession of those things an indicator of merit.
December 29, 2009
The Panty Bomber: Epic Government Fail
Posted by The MaryHunter at 4:16 PM
Where to begin? What else can be said about this total meltdown in governance and security at so very many levels, that allowed the terrorist attack on, and near bombing of, Northwest Flight 253? Here are the thoughts of a few notable commentators. Even if you have already thunk them, they bear repeating.
Cal Thomas offers his own experience as someone on a "watch list" to draw a stark contrast between his humiliating treatment and the bizarre kid-gloves coddling the Panty Bomber received:
I was once on a watch list because my name is similar to that of someone wanted by the law. It is inconceivable that someone with a real terrorism profile could get on a plane bound for the United States with explosives strapped to his body and not be detected. When I was on a list, my identification was taken into a back room, where calls were made to determine that I was not the one they were seeking. Sometimes a series of S's would be stamped on my boarding pass. This did not qualify me for a free drink or an upgrade, but an intimate pat-down, along with a complete search of my carry-on bag. I had to turn on my laptop computer to prove it was not an explosive device.
While "the system" wasn't quite able to treat the wealthy, quiet, and unassuming "alleged" bomber Abdulmuttalab with the same scrutiny that an average white-looking American guy gets when he's on a watch list, Ralph Peters notes that "the system" did exquisitely well at dismissing all that sensible yet un-PC profiling that otherwise would have sent up red flags. Not only that, but America's whole approach to preventing terrorist attacks has degenerated into a willful act of tying our own hands as we enable our enemies:
Despite vast databases crammed with evidence, our leaders -- of both parties -- still refuse to connect Islamist terrorism with Islam.
We're not just fighting men but a plague of faith. Until Washington accepts that, we'll continue to reap a low return on our investments of blood and treasure.
On Christmas Day, a Muslim fanatic attempted to butcher hundreds of Christians (dead Jews would've been a bonus). Our response? Have airport security analyze the contents of grandma's mini-bottle of shampoo -- we don't want to "discriminate."
With our lies, self-deception and self-flagellation, we're terror's little helpers.
Frank Gaffney, Jr. is an expert of sorts on terrorism. He scolds the Obama administration for their fanciful contention that this terror attack was an "isolated incident":
Read my lips, Ms. Napolitano: Mr. Abdulmutallab's actions were absolutely, positively part of something larger. What they were part of is the comprehensive theo-political-legal program that authoritative Islam calls Shariah.
This supremacist program requires its adherents to engage in jihad, or holy war, to bring about the triumph of Islam under a global theocracy, one that will impose Shariah on Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Pursuant to Shariah, jihad should - wherever practicable - be pursued through the terrifying use of violence. Where violent jihad is impractical or would be counterproductive, Shariah directs faithful Muslims to use other means to advance the same goal. Koran expert Robert Spencer calls the latter "stealth jihad."
As long as Ms. Napolitano, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., the intelligence community, law enforcement, the military, the media and most especially President Obama refuse to acknowledge what animates our enemies, we will never develop an effective strategy for defeating them, let alone successfully implement it. Part and parcel of achieving such an understanding is to stop allowing the stealth jihadists in our midst to blind us to this reality.
Christopher Hitchens asks the question on every frequent traveler's mind: "Why do we fail to detect or defeat the guilty, and why do we do so well at collective punishment of the innocent?"
In my boyhood, there were signs on English buses that declared, in bold letters, "No Spitting." At a tender age, I was able to work out that most people don't need to be told this, while those who do feel a desire to expectorate on public transport will require more discouragement than a mere sign. But I'd be wasting my time pointing this out to our majestic and sleepless protectors, who now boldly propose to prevent airline passengers from getting out of their seats for the last hour of any flight. Abdulmutallab made his bid in the last hour of his flight, after all. Yes, that ought to do it. It's also incredibly, nay, almost diabolically clever of our guardians to let it be known what the precise time limit will be. Oh, and by the way, any passenger courageous or resourceful enough to stand up and fight back will also have broken the brave new law.
The future murderers will generally not be from refugee camps or slums (though they are being indoctrinated every day in our prisons); they will frequently be from educated backgrounds, and they will often not be from overseas at all. They are already in our suburbs and even in our military. We can expect to take casualties. The battle will go on for the rest of our lives. Those who plan our destruction know what they want, and they are prepared to kill and die for it. Those who don't get the point prefer to whine about "endless war," accidentally speaking the truth about something of which the attempted Christmas bombing over Michigan was only a foretaste. While we fumble with bureaucracy and euphemism, they are flying high.
Buckets of great commentary concerning the Christmas Day Bombing can be found throughout NRO, including an editorial that details the serious errors of judgment by this administration and the last in repatriating Gitmo detainees:
Less than two weeks ago, the Obama administration repatriated to Yemen six detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. It was a test. About 90 of the 200 or so remaining Gitmo detainees are Yemenis. The president would like to move toward fulfilling his promise to close Gitmo, and thus to appease the antiwar Left, by transferring most of those Yemeni jihadists back home.
On Christmas Day, we got yet another indicator of how reckless this obsession with closing Gitmo is.
Though it is rife with critics who defamed Gitmo and ginned up pressure to release its prisoners, the Obama administration did not release the detainees now in control of AQAP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula]. That was done on President Bush's watch, albeit under pressure from congressional Democrats and ceaseless litigation. Obama is politically positioned to better withstand such pressure, but, by stubbornly pressing ahead with the repatriation of the most dangerous detainees, he threatens to endanger our national security. In his remarks Monday, the president explained that he has ordered a review to determine what went wrong on Christmas Day, so we don't repeat our mistakes. Here's an easy call that requires no extensive investigation: Let's stop releasing terrorists.
On tips from Mega, Bergbikr, and Penelope.
Who Are the Biggest Moonbats of the Decade?
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 1:36 PM
I am working on a couple of "Year-End Wrap Up Posts" and I was wondering if there would be any interest in a "Top Ten Moonbats of 2000's" List? I don't know how to set up a poll, so I would leave this as a matter of open debate. Here are some suggestions to get the ball rolling:
- Michael "The Hutt" Moore
- Jimmy "Jews Suck" Carter
- Pinch "Pravda" Sulzberger
- HRH Prince Charles
- Nancy "Granny Rictux Botox" Pelosi
- Cindy "Attention Whore" Sheehan
- John "Baby Daddy" Edwards
- Van "Ho, Ho, Ho! Green JobCzar" Jones
- Ed "Fatter, Uglier, and Stupider than Rush Limbaugh" Schultz
- Roseanne "Voices in My Head" Barr
- Janeane "Why Men Turn Gay" Garofalo
- Andrew "Milky Loads" Sullivan
- Rowan "Islam is the New Christianity"
AtkinsonWilliams, Archbishop of Canterbury - Juan "America Sucks" Cole
- Ward "America Sucks" Churchill
- Gavin "I'll Suck That Microphone" Newsom
- The Voters of Southeastern Michigan (for giving us Jenny Granholm, Carl Lenin, Debbie "Fat and Stupid" Stabenow, John Conyers, Marcia Kilpatrick, Kwame Kilpatrick, Monica Conyers, and Ghost of Wellstone)
- Dan Rather
- Keith "Loud and Stupid" Olbermann
- Chris "Stupid and Loud" Matthews
- Michael Newdow, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris... the atheists who are so indifferent to religion they crusade against it endlessly
- Garrison "Angry, Bitter Hippie" Keillor
- Barbara "Don't Call Me Ma'am" Boxer
Suggestions? Comments?
Update: Tim "I Created a Poll" Cartwright has created a poll. Please vote for your second choice. Barack Obama will, of course, win... because the decade of Hope and Change, Obama must win everything.
Science Labs Cut to Bring Students Down to Lowest Common Denominator
Posted by Van Helsing at 10:06 AM
Here's how an education system run by moonbats reduces us all to the lowest level:
Berkeley High School is considering a controversial proposal to eliminate science labs and the five science teachers who teach them to free up more resources to help struggling students.
The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.
According to establishment ideology, all white people deserve to be punished for being racists. However, what moonbattery actually punishes isn't white skin, but excellence.
Sincular-Mertens, who has taught science at BHS for 24 years, said the possible cuts will impact her black students as well. She says there are twelve African-American males in her AP classes and that her four environmental science classes are 17.5 percent African American and 13.9 percent Latino. "As teachers, we are greatly saddened at the thought of losing the opportunity to help all of our students master the skills they need to find satisfaction and success in their education," she told the board.
Rather than excellence, liberals believe in its antithesis, egalitarianism. If some students achieve more than others, that is a not a cause for just pride, but a crime against equality; they must be cut down to size.
When progressive utopia has been attained, no student will be allowed to achieve more than the dumbest, laziest punk in the class.
On a tip from Lee.
Under Dem Rule, No One at the Wheel at Key Anti-Terror Agencies
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:38 AM
Why are we left to rely on private Dutch citizens and random luck to spare us from major terror attacks? Because under the regime of Hope & Change, there is literally no one running our security agencies. It seems our socialist rulers have been too busy nationalizing the healthcare industry to see to the defense of the citizenry whose wishes they so openly despise.
Two federal agencies charged with keeping potential terrorists off airplanes and out of the country have been without their top leaders for nearly a year.
It took the Obama administration more than eight months to nominate anyone to lead the Transportation Security Administration and the Customs and Border Protection agency. …
Bogged down with health care reform, the Senate has yet to set a date to hold hearings for the Customs position.
Given a competent government that made our security a priority, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would never have been allowed near the airliner he almost blew out of the sky on Christmas Day.
He was able to maintain a valid U.S. visa despite warnings about him to U.S. embassy officials in Nigeria from his father. … The embassy visit in which Abdulmutallab's father said he was concerned about his son's radicalization triggered a Nov. 20 State Department cable from Nigeria to all U.S. diplomatic missions and department headquarters in Washington. It was also shared with the interagency National Counter Terrorism Center, said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly.
But apparently no one at our leaderless intelligence agencies thought that was reason enough to prevent him from boarding a plane to our country while waving red flags left and right by paying cash for a one-way ticket and bringing no luggage except the explosives in his underwear. Even Britain — hardly famous for defending its borders from Muslims — had denied Abdulmutallab entry.
One of the many reasons Obama's election was not just foolish but contemptible was the attitude it expressed toward the war being waged against us by Islamic terrorists. Liberals actually seem to believe that the bad guys will leave us alone if we appease them by electing a guy with a Muslim name and background who clearly has no interest in fighting them. Apparently even a cretin like Abdulmutallab is smarter than your average Democrat; at least he realizes that loathsome apologies on behalf of his country by a belly-crawling politician may be worth a Nobel Peace Prize, but they won't reconcile America and imperialist Islam.
On tips from Charles O and Varla.
Deadmeat Dodd Cut Aviation Security
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 7:51 AM
Earlier this year, Senator Chris "Waitress Sandwich" Dodd proposed an amendment to cut Aviation Security by $4.5 Million and use the money instead to pay off his cronies in the Firefighters union.
Back in July, Senator Chris Dodd, D-Conn., proposed an amendment reducing aviation security appropriations by $4.5 million in favor of firefighter grants -- a notoriously ineffective program. In fact, the money was specifically "for screening operations and the amount for explosives detection systems."
My worry is that if Deadmeat Dodd is too wounded to survive a Democrat primary, he'll simply be replaced by an equally corrupt and incompetent Democrat who simply hasn't been able to create a record, yet.
Best News Yet for Fox
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:43 AM
The appalling election of Barack Obama hasn't been a disaster for everyone: Fox News is riding high, as a terrified public seeks an island of objective information in television's sea of shamelessly distorted Obamunist propaganda. It hasn't hurt that the amateurs running the White House have explicitly established FNC as the one TV news service that won't toe their line.
The Nielsen Media Research reports through the week before Christmas show that FOX scored its highest viewership in its 13 years, the No. 1 cable news channel for eight years running. FNC also ranked as the No. 3 cable network in prime-time, No. 4 in total-day viewership.
FOX's overall share of the cable news market grew from 38 percent in 2008 to 44 percent in 2009.
As for the stale statist opposition:
CNN, meanwhile, slipped to third place in primetime cable news programming among the sought-after 25-54 age group - behind FOX and MSNBC. CNN ranked No. 23 in prime-time cable generally, 21 during the total day. MSNBC: No. 24 in prime-time, 30 in total day.
All of Fox News Channel's programs gained viewers over the previous year, while CNN's and MSNBC's were down. Among that 25-54 crowd, all of FNC's programs were up double-digits over 2008. FNC was up 8 percent in prime-time among the 25-54 viewers over the previous year, CNN down 9 percent, MSNBC down 3 percent.
Through Dec. 23, Nielsen reports:
• Fox News Channel's total viewership was 2.58 million, up 7 percent over the previous year. Among the 25-54 year olds: 653,000, up 11 percent.
• CNN's total viewership was 1 million, down 32 percent. Among the 25-54 set: 304,000, down 27 percent.
• MSNBC's total viewership was 958,000 , down 12 percent. Among the 25-54 crowd: 304,000, down 27 percent.
As for the shrill claims by the White House and other extremist quarters that Fox only gives the conservative side, another moonbat will soon be brought on board to join Geraldo, Shep Smith, Alan Colmes, Bob Beckel, et al.: Joe Trippi, former campaign manager of Howard "Dr. Demento" Dean. At least Trippi has the smarts to join a winning team this time.
On a tip from AnonymoUS.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:05 AM
Morning Briefs for Tuesday
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 6:07 AM
Good Morning Right-Wing Patriots, Good Morning Left-Wingers Who Get Excited When People Pay Attention to You in the Comments,
Item Number One: TMZ published a photo of former President John F. Quagmire on a yacht in 1955 doing his best Hugh Hefner impression. The photo turned out to be a faked, but it sucked in a number of bloggers; including one AIDS-addled conspiracy theorist whose nickname is "Milky Loads." Instead of owning up to his mistake, Milky simply deleted the post. Which is odd because this same blogger has been ranting for months about Sarah Palin "covering up" the circumstances of her pregnancy with Trig.
Item Number Two: Did you know the ACLU considers the Terrorist Watch List one of the 10 Worst Abuses of power since 9/11? As NRO's Andy McCarthy puts it: "It would be nice if the ACLU could explain how exactly a Nigerian national boarding an aircraft in Nigeria, or Amsterdam, has an American "constitutional right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure and to due process of law." But that's the sort of question only a sane person would ask.
Item Number Three: Tori Amos, a singer who was famous for about ten minutes in the 1990's, wants everyone to know she thinks she's smarter than Sarah Palin. She also thinks she's prettier than Sarah Palin. What do you think?
December 28, 2009
"Isolated Extremist"?!? Rove Eviscerates Obama on Flight 253 Terrorist Attack
Posted by The MaryHunter at 9:08 PM
Karl Rove brings new meaning to the concept "very troubling" regarding the reaction to the latest terror attack by Dear Leader and his minions. The dope slaps can be heard all the way to Yemen.
Before you attack the messenger, please be so kind as to concede that this is shaping up nicely as a most incompetent presidency. Any other conclusion is a delusion.
Flight 253 Plotters Were Released from Club Gitmo in 2007
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 4:35 PM
Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the Northwest bombing in a Monday statement that vowed more attacks on Americans.
Yeah, let's move those poor innocent victims of American oppression to Illinois and give them civilian trials with full Constitutional Rights. That'll teach Al Qaeda to mess with us!
15 Dead in Iran, Chairman Zero Plays Golf in Hawaii
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 4:19 PM
Doesn't it just suck how those inconsiderate Iranian pro-Democracy demonstrators keep getting murdered? Don't they know that Obama is trying to have a nice family vacation? Don't they know that smart diplomacy is working?
Stop dying, you cowards! You're making Dear Reader look bad!
Update: Chairman Zero read a brief statement off a Teleprompter criticizing the Iranian regime. Now, off to the gym Golf Course.
Update: Dear Reader springs into action:
A half-hour after President Obama vowed to catch the terrorists behind a plot to blow up a plane on Christmas, he arrived at 10:40 a.m. at the Luana Hills Country Club, where a golf course winds through a rain forest, the pool reports.
But that's all right. I mean, it's not like anyone ever criticized the president for playing golf as America was at war with terrorists.
Yeah, they're a bunch of effin' hypocrites.
Windmill Fail
Posted by Van Helsing at 3:45 PM
It would be hard to find a better symbol for our era of failed eco-idiocy:
This 200-foot, 187-ton windmill used in an attempt to generate electricity without resorting to technology deemed politically incorrect by liberals fell over in the night in Fenner, New York. No one has a clue why.
Shrugs Fenner Supervisor Russell Cary:
We don't know what the issue is. I'm just hoping we can learn from it.
Maybe they'll learn that windmills are a goofy, extravagant, inefficient waste of time. Or if environazis discover that a ground squirrel was injured in the crash, they may learn that they have to stick with solar power and pixie dust.
On a tip from Wiggins.
Career Fair Fail
Posted by Van Helsing at 1:56 PM
Via Fail Blog, on a tip from scottthong.
Chris Matthews Acknowledges Saul Alinsky as a Hero
Posted by Van Helsing at 10:37 AM
Saul Alinsky — the repellant radical who wrote the book on using underhanded tactics to undermine democracy — has now been acknowledged as a hero by prominent MSNBC Obamunist Chris "Tingles" Matthews. WND quotes Tingles:
Well, to reach back to one of our heroes from the past, from the '60s, Saul Alinsky once said that even though both sides have flaws in their arguments and you can always find something nuanced about your own side you don't like and it's never perfect, you have to act in the end like there's simple black and white clarity between your side and the other side or you don't get anything done.
I always try to remind myself of Saul Alinsky when I get confused.
We all know how often that is.
Next WND quotes former leftist David Horowitz, who describes Alinsky's salient contribution to moonbat tactics:
The strategy of working within the system until you can accumulate enough power to destroy it was what sixties radicals called "boring from within." … Like termites, they set about to eat away at the foundations of the building in expectation that one day they could cause it to collapse.
The Chicago community activist cesspool developed by Alinsky spawned our Termite in Chief, who has been advancing this agenda fairly openly via massive overspending à la the Cloward-Piven strategy, and who sends a thrill up Matthews' leg.
These are the sort of people liberals trust to give them the news.
On a tip from Rosalind.
Countermoonbat Courage in Iran
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:17 AM
Too bad this couldn't have happened while America had leadership that would have sided with the Democratic uprising against Iran's authoritarian terrorist regime. Here Iranian rebels save two of their own from a hanging:
Kudos to Iranians for having the character to prefer liberty to tyranny. It would be nice to think the same still holds true of Americans, despite the profoundly disgraceful results of our last election. But while Iranians are out on the streets getting shot, we just let corrupt statists seize control of the healthcare industry in open opposition to the will of the public.
The mullahs getting overthrown before they can get their hands on nukes is the best thing that could happen to this world, short of every liberal suddenly outgrowing moonbattery. Obama has made it clear he wants to "engage" with Ahmadinejad, just as he sided with tyranny in Honduras — but if the rest of the world moves toward freedom, the Moonbat Messiah won't be relevant.
On a tip from Wiggins.
Home Despot
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 9:08 AM
The Japanese Lost Decade should rebuke any notion that massive Government spending is the cure for structural recession. And the Japanese spent their stimulus on actual infrastructure... bridges, trains, tunnels, airports... not bailouts of state employee unions with a few road paving projects thrown in like the Spendulus passed by the Obamcrats. The Japanese still suffered a decade of recession and remain in a state of economic stagnation.
Lately, Dear Reader has been touting home weatherizing as the cure for our economical ills. He even showed up at Northern Virginia Home Depot to tout the economic benefits of spending a few billion dollars more on home weatherizing. (Look forward to Dear Reader being named "Home Remodeler of the Year.")
In the real world, this weatherizing scheme is almost as big a failure as the rest of the $533,000-per-job-created-or-saved Stimulus. In one "Cash for Caulkers" program, the government spent $2 million and weatherized a grand total of 7 homes.
Do you see why massive Government spending is not a boon to the economy? Never mind the fact that if home weatherizing is really beneficial, the Government shouldn't be having to pay people to do it.
History has shown repeatedly that these policies fail, so it is really an open question whether the Obamunists are just being stupid in inflicting this much useless debt on the country, or whether there is a malicious Cloward-Piven intent to destroy the USA through spending, debt, and regulation.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:52 AM
Trial Lawyers Poised to Sue Society Into Stone Age
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:23 AM
Moonbats had hoped Copenhagen would mean economically crippling Western Civilization. Instead, they had to settle for stealing $billions upon $billions from taxpayers on behalf of Third World dictators. But we're hardly out of the woods when it comes to the profound threat to society posed by environmental extremism. Our rulers are using the EPA to impose rules too extreme even to pass a legislature so hard left that it just seized control of the healthcare industry in the face of 2 to 1 voter opposition. Then there is a certain wholly owned subsidiary of the Democrat Party, the voracious locust swarm made up of trial lawyers:
Across the country, trial lawyers and green pressure groups — if that's not redundant — are teaming up to sue electric utilities for carbon emissions under "nuisance" laws.
A group of 12 Gulf Coast residents whose homes were damaged by Katrina are suing 33 energy companies for greenhouse gas emissions that allegedly contributed to the global warming that allegedly made the hurricane worse.
This is the equivalent of suing the owner of a black cat that walked across your path before you got in an accident. It isn't just dumb to think local power companies caused Katrina; it's insane. But the inmates are running the asylum now.
There's more:
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and seven state AG allies plus New York City are suing American Electric Power and other utilities for a host of supposed eco-maladies. A native village in Alaska is suing Exxon and 23 oil and energy companies for coastal erosion.
What unites these cases is the creativity of their legal chain of causation and their naked attempts at political intimidation. "My hope is that the court case will provide a powerful incentive for polluters to be reasonable and come to the table and seek affordable and reasonable reductions," Mr. Blumenthal told the trade publication Carbon Control News. "We're trying to compel measures that will stem global warming regardless of what happens in the legislature."
Liberals don't even hide the fact that they are using our infamously irresponsible left-wing courts to circumvent the democratic process and impose their deranged antihuman ideology.
Don't imagine the judicial branch will pass up this opportunity to expand its already alarming power:
U.S. appeals courts seem more than ready to arrogate to themselves this power. In September, the Second Circuit allowed Mr. Blumenthal's suit to proceed, while a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit reversed a lower court's dismissal of the Katrina case in October. An en banc hearing is now under consideration.
The beauty of the greedy totalitarian left's new strategy is that it allows them to sue absolutely anyone they don't like and/or has money to be looted. According to attorney David Rivkin:
There is no logical reason to draw the line at 30 defendants as opposed to 150, or 500, or even 10,000 defendants. These plaintiffs — and any others alleging injury by climatic phenomena — would have standing to assert a damages claim against virtually every entity and individual on the planet, since each 'contributes' to global concentrations of carbon dioxide.
This is why the Supreme Court's psychotic ruling that the CO2 we exhale is a pollutant signed the death warrant for our economy and our liberty. On top of the massive looting spree by slimy trial lawyers, power-drunk judges will engage in what the WSJ calls "ad hoc command-and-control regulation against any industries that happen to catch the green lobby's eye."
In the short term, we will see energy prices follow the same trajectory as the price of cigarettes. In the medium term, the economy will be too gummed up by avaricious lawsuits and whimsical judicial decrees to function at all. Unless we take our country back from liberals soon, there won't be any long term.
On a tip from Varla.
Morning Briefs for Monday
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 7:10 AM
Good Morning Right-Wing Patriots, Good Morning Lefties Who Are Offended by Nativity Scenes but not by the Folsom Street Fair,
Item Number One: Some pesky German Scientists have found a teeny flaw in theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming. It seems the 1st and 2nd Laws of thermodynamics make it impossible for CO2 and other greenhouse gases to cause global warming.
An intelligent person might conclude from this that the idea that you can regulate Global Temperature by limiting CO2 emissions is as absurd as the notion that you can spend your way out of debt or eliminate terrorism by appeasing terrorists.
Item Number Two: The Iranian government is once again brutally slaughtering pro-Democracy demonstrators. Will PBO respond by playing a few more rounds of golf, or going out for ice cream?
Obama Fluffer Marc Armbinder says that indifferently playing golf after a terror attack is a brilliant strategy by the genius president. Funny, that's not what Michael Moore said in Fahrenheit 911.
Item Number Three: Here is a pretty long piece on California's devolution into a failed state, which began in 1910 when California elected a large number of Progressives to state government. This set in motion the chain of events that led to California's current status as a state that is essentially run by unionized state employees. This situation makes it impossible for Government to deliver services efficiently to the people. At the same time, the unions demand ever higher amounts of tax dollars and thwart all attempts at reform.
Item Number Four: DHS Secretary and Dutch Water Retention Device Janet Napolitano was proudly boasting that the system worked perfectly in dealing with two attempted terror attacks over Christmas. Not surprising considering the Obama administration also claims the Stimulus/Bailout spending of over a trillion dollars to create double digit unemployment worked, too. My theory is, they are redefining the definition of "success" to mean "complete failure," so that they can claim ObamaCare is a success, too.
In response to the terror attempts, the TSA is now forcing passengers flights to remain seated without any carry on items --- books, mp3 players, nothing --- in their hands for the last hour of the flight. The really stupid part about this regulation is if it had been followed on Flight 253, it would have prevented the passengers from getting out of their seats and stopping the terrorist!
How people can look upon the routine stupidity displayed by our Government and think, "You know, those people should be in charge of health care" is quite beyond me.
I can only hope there is some sort of divine, cosmic justice for all the power-mad petty dictators who infest our Government:
December 27, 2009
If Newsweak Were Any Sappier, They'd Blow Their Noses with Pancakes
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 6:27 PM
Dying left-wing publication Newsweek has released it's "CW for 2009" and it's nothing but a gush-fest for the Obamas and a two-seconds hate for all who criticize them:
Naturally, Newsweek loves Obama, whom they consider to be "Like God."
Obama: Takes on wrecked economy, two wars, health care. His reward: more popular in Europe than in U.S.
In the real world, Obama has run up the largest deficits in American history, spent a trillion dollars to create double digit unemployment, made the terrorists and mullahs laugh out their turbans at us, and bumble-f-cked health care "reform" to the point where only the most ignorant members of the public support the plans being foisted by him and his party. (And here's a few dozen other things Obama has screwed up in less than a year.)
And they gush over the First Wookie as well.
Michelle: Making White House the "people's house."
True enough, in the sense that apparently anyone can just walk right into a state dinner.
Hillary: Best sec. of state since George Marshall.
Get a room.
Naturally, the people who dare criticize Captain Wonderful are attacked. Glenn Beck is a "weepy wingnut." Sarah Palin is a "flip-flopping quitter." Dick Cheney is a hypocrite.
You can understand why Newsweek is in a death spiral. Why spend five bucks at a newsstand to read what Huffington Post and Daily Kos put out for free?
Never Let a World in Crisis Go to Waste
Posted by Van Helsing at 3:11 PM
Scroll far enough down in Google News and you'll find the story that will change this country forever, dragging us across the Rubicon from a free country to a country where the government owns your very body, and as mentioned earlier, burning the bridge behind:
Fortunately for the Obamination Administration, which doesn't like to ever let a crisis go to waste, a world without competent American leadership is guaranteed to provide the complicit statist media with a perpetual smokescreen of crises.
Compliments of John L.
Crappy Nappy Crows That System Worked
Posted by Van Helsing at 12:45 PM
Once again, our liberal rulers failed completely to protect us, as a Muslim who has been on a terrorist watch list for two years was prevented from killing everyone aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 only by a private citizen, Jasper Schuringa. Now the joke Obama is passing off as the Director of Homeland Security is taking this opportunity to brag on behalf of the useless cancer that arrogantly calls itself our government:
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Sunday that the thwarting of the attempt to blow up an Amsterdam-Detroit airline flight Christmas Day demonstrated that "the system worked."
Asked by CNN's Candy Crowley on "State of the Union" how that could be possible when the young Nigerian who has been charged with trying to set off the bomb was able to smuggle explosive liquid onto the jet, Napolitano responded: "We're asking the same questions."
The question I'm asking is: How can even moonbats justify putting our security in the hands of a moron who refers to terror attacks as "man-caused disasters" and considers the greatest threat to come from patriotic Americans?
On a tip from Bill V.
Baucus Drunk on Senate Floor
Posted by Van Helsing at 12:05 PM
Presenting Senator Max Bacchus I mean Baucus (D-MT), one of the heroic statesman who have just snuck through nationalization of one sixth of our economy while the public was distracted by the Christmas holiday:
I do believe this socialist apparatchik had been knocking back a few toasts in celebration of crossing the river from liberty to statism and burning the bridge behind.
Montana, you owe the country an apology.
On tips from Wiggins and Byron.
Muslim Maniac Granted British Asylum After Killing Child
Posted by Van Helsing at 11:27 AM
It will take more than Muslims repeatedly attempting to blow up airliners full of innocent Westerners to put an end to the multicultural moonbattery we've been using to slit our own throats. The latest outrage from Britainistan:
An asylum seeker who ran over a girl of 12 and left her to die has won his appeal to stay in the UK after arguing for his right to a family life.
As for the right to a family life or any kind of life for the girl he killed, that must be seen in the larger historical context of ethnocentric colonial racist insensitivity. But Aso Mohammed Ibrahim did serve 4 whole months for the hit and run homicide.
Third World colonists will be pleased to learn that they needn't rush when it comes to planting anchor babies. Ibrahim didn't lay his down until after he had established himself as a criminal and even killed an innocent girl, but it was still fast enough in a country run by liberal weenies.
Just weeks before knocking down Amy outside her home in November 2003, Ibrahim had been banned for nine months for driving while disqualified and without insurance or a licence.
Amy … was trapped beneath the car but Ibrahim got out and ran off. A police officer drove her in an ambulance so both its paramedics could treat her, but despite their efforts she died in hospital later that day.
Ibrahim later went to a police station and confessed.
But after serving his sentence for failing to stop after an accident he met a British woman, Christina Richardson. They claim they had an Islamic marriage ceremony in Birmingham, but there is no documentary proof.
They now have two children, Harry, three, and Zara, two.
In 2006, Ibrahim was again convicted of driving while disqualified and given a two-year supervision order and a three-year driving ban.
Nonetheless, it has now been decided that he has a right to stay in Britain so that he can enjoy his family life under the surreal European Human Rights Act.
Why would the country's liberal rulers make such a demented decision? They're not telling the peasants.
The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal said the reasons behind the judgment would not be made public.
It's almost as if Britain's quisling rulers want to displace the native population with unassimilable Third World hordes. Strike that: it's exactly as if Britain's quisling rulers want to displace the native population with unassimilable Third World hordes.
On a tip from Lee.
December 26, 2009
Beck Bits: On Government Regulation
Posted by The MaryHunter at 5:25 PM
The endless laws, rules, and regulations [...] already on the books, along with the ones that are still coming (like "cap and trade") are not really about breaking your bad habits -- they're about breaking your spirit. They're about sending you the message that you are no more important or significant than the spotted owl or the salt-marsh harvest mouse.
These laws are a stark reminder that your significance as an individual, even as a human being, depends on the recognition you are granted by the state. We are all being trained that we are simply a small part of a much larger community made up of "humankind," along with trees, plants, and animals...and that we're all equal. But to do that, Progressives have to make you forget that your rights were endowed to you directly by your Creator, something that they can best make happen by turning us all into what Progressive H. G. Wells called "enlightened Nazis" -- people who look to the state for direction in every aspect of our lives, but without the violence that accompanied the Nazi movement.
Profiles in Countermoonbattery: Jasper Schuringa
Posted by The MaryHunter at 2:00 PM
More of a profile in counterterrorism, this story just goes to show you what the average Joe could do to thwart an attack that several governments and their transportation security organizations could not. Jasper Schuringa, the Dutch passenger who saved nearly 300 people from certain death on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 (and prevented one Islamic terrorist bastard from scoring those 72 virgins), took it upon himself to attack the suicide terrorist, without even thinking. The hero's account of what went down just moments before landing:
"Suddenly, we hear a bang. It sounded like a firecracker went off," said Jasper Schuringa, a film director who was traveling to the US to visit friends.
"When [it] went off, everybody panicked ... Then someone screamed, 'Fire! Fire!'"
Schuringa, sitting in seat 20J, in the right-most section of the Airbus 330, looked to his left. "I saw smoke rising from a seat ... I didn't hesitate. I just jumped," he said.
Schuringa dove over four passengers to reach Abdul Mutallab's seat. The suspect had a blanket on his lap. "It was smoking and there were flames coming from beneath his legs."
"I searched on his body parts and he had his pants open. He had something strapped to his legs."
The unassuming hero ripped the flaming, molten object -- which resembled a small, white shampoo bottle -- off Abdul Mutallab's left leg, near his crotch. He said he put out the fire with his bare hands.
All this could all have been prevented, since the terrorist had been on the U.S. watch list for two years for likely terrorist ties.
The intelligence database that Mutallab is part of is described as containing people who have "loose ties or links to extremists," Fox News has learned. Any person in this database is someone who as of yet rises to threat level of no-fly lists or other more serious screenings.
The astounding bravery of Mr. Schuringa naturally resembles the bravery of those passengers who stopped the moron-terrorist Richard Reid, who tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes, and naturally those Flight 93 patriots who gave their lives to prevent yet a third 9/11 target from being attacked. Mr. Schuringa more than made up for what governments usually cannot, or will not, do: he acted, boldly and decisively. When governments fail to protect us through excesses in incompetence or political correctness, it is We the People who must rise up and defend our freedom.
Thank you, Mr. Schuringa!
On a tip from SK.
UPDATE: Just when you thought it was safe to try to save your own ass (and the airplane as well), the Obama Administration's Dope and Derange Division has instigated restrictions on passengers making it a no no to act the hero. In stead, you must remain in your seat, thankyouverymuch.
Among other steps being imposed, passengers on international flights coming to the United States will apparently have to remain in their seats for the last hour of a flight without any personal items on their laps. Overseas passengers will be restricted to only one carry-on item aboard the plane, and domestic passengers will probably face longer security lines.
Something, not sure, but something, tells me that a clever terrorist will certainly be able to do a tactical work-around of this gem of a regulation. As Gateway Pundit noted: It's an Obama world.
Thanks for the tip, AtomicLibSmasher
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 12:42 PM
Sheldon Whitehouse Wins Pea Brain Award
Posted by Van Helsing at 12:32 PM
Congratulations to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), whose voting record was found to be second only to Comrade Obama himself for left-wing extremism. Not only did he declare that anyone opposing our nosedive into socialist ruin is a racist, he then explicitly denied using his own loathsome words:
Whitehouse is what we were left with when the Republican establishment chose to support the back-stabbing liberal RINO Lincoln Chaffee instead of his conservative opponent Steve Laffey in 2006. Chaffee unsurprisingly lost, then went on to leave the party and denounce Sarah Palin.
Way to make your fellow Dems proud, Whitelouse. Here's your award, compliments of HUGH:
December 25, 2009
Merry Christmas
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:15 AM
A Christmas message from the great countermoonbat Ronaldus Maximus:
On tips from Ed M and Son of Taz.
God Bless Our Military This Christmas
Posted by The MaryHunter at 9:14 AM
Thank you, all military and military families, for your supreme sacrifice -- especially at this time of year, when miles of separation seem so much longer. We wish you comfort, solace, and safety this Christmas and all year round.
Courtesy of The Washington Times, here is A Christmas Armistice, written in the trenches by Pvt. Frederick W. Heath, 1914.
The night closed in early - the ghostly shadows that haunt the trenches came to keep us company as we stood to arms. Under a pale moon, one could just see the grave-like rise of ground which marked the German trenches 200 yards away. Fires in the English lines had died down, and only the squelch of the sodden boots in the slushy mud, the whispered orders of the officers and the NCOs, and the moan of the wind broke the silence of the night. The soldiers' Christmas Eve had come at last, and it was hardly the time or place to feel grateful for it.
Memory in her shrine kept us in a trance of saddened silence. Back somewhere in England, the fires were burning in cosy rooms; in fancy I heard laughter and the thousand melodies of reunion on Christmas Eve. With overcoat thick with wet mud, hands cracked and sore with the frost, I leaned against the side of the trench, and, looking through my loophole, fixed weary eyes on the German trenches. Thoughts surged madly in my mind; but they had no sequence, no cohesion. Mostly they were of home as I had known it through the years that had brought me to this. I asked myself why I was in the trenches in misery at all, when I might have been in England warm and prosperous. ...
Still looking and dreaming, my eyes caught a flare in the darkness. A light in the enemy's trenches was so rare at that hour that I passed a message down the line. I had hardly spoken when light after light sprang up along the German front. Then quite near our dug-outs, so near as to make me start and clutch my rifle, I heard a voice. There was no mistaking that voice with its guttural ring. With ears strained, I listened, and then, all down our line of trenches there came to our ears a greeting unique in war: "English soldier, English soldier, a merry Christmas, a merry Christmas!"
Following that salute boomed the invitation from those harsh voices: "Come out, English soldier; come out here to us." For some little time we were cautious, and did not even answer. Officers, fearing treachery, ordered the men to be silent. But up and down our line one heard the men answering that Christmas greeting from the enemy. How could we resist wishing each other a Merry Christmas, even though we might be at each other's throats immediately afterwards? So we kept up a running conversation with the Germans, all the while our hands ready on our rifles. Blood and peace, enmity and fraternity - war's most amazing paradox.
The night wore on to dawn - a night made easier by songs from the German trenches, the pipings of piccolos and from our broad lines laughter and Christmas carols. Not a shot was fired, except for down on our right, where the French artillery were at work.
Came the dawn, pencilling the sky with grey and pink. Under the early light we saw our foes moving recklessly about on top of their trenches. Here, indeed, was courage; no seeking the security of the shelter but a brazen invitation to us to shoot and kill with deadly certainty. But did we shoot? Not likely! We stood up ourselves and called benisons on the Germans. Then came the invitation to fall out of the trenches and meet half way.
Still cautious we hung back. Not so the others. They ran forward in little groups, with hands held up above their heads, asking us to do the same. Not for long could such an appeal be resisted - beside, was not the courage up to now all on one side? Jumping up onto the parapet, a few of us advanced to meet the on-coming Germans. Out went the hands and tightened in the grip of friendship. Christmas had made the bitterest foes friends.
Here was no desire to kill, but just the wish of a few simple soldiers (and no one is quite so simple as a soldier) that on Christmas Day, at any rate, the force of fire should cease. We gave each other cigarettes and exchanged all manner of things. We wrote our names and addresses on the field service postcards, and exchanged them for German ones. We cut the buttons off our coats and took in exchange the Imperial Arms of Germany. But the gift of gifts was Christmas pudding. The sight of it made the Germans' eyes grow wide with hungry wonder, and at the first bite of it they were our friends forever. Given a sufficient quantity of Christmas puddings, every German in the trenches before ours would have surrendered.
And so we stayed together for a while and talked, even though all the time there was a strained feeling of suspicion which rather spoilt this Christmas armistice. We could not help remembering that we were enemies, even though we had shaken hands. We dare not advance too near their trenches lest we saw too much, nor could the Germans come beyond the barbed wire which lay before ours. After we had chatted, we turned back to our respective trenches for breakfast.
All through the day no shot was fired, and all we did was talk to each other and make confessions which, perhaps, were truer at that curious moment than in the normal times of war. How far this unofficial truce extended along the lines I do not know, but I do know that what I have written here applies to the [specific location censored out] on our side and the 158th German Brigade, composed of Westphalians.
As I finish this short and scrappy description of a strangely human event, we are pouring rapid fire into the German trenches, and they are returning the compliment just as fiercely. Screeching through the air above us are the shattering shells of rival batteries of artillery. So we are back once more to the ordeal of fire.
December 24, 2009
Happy Christmas To All! (Open Thread)
Posted by The MaryHunter at 6:00 PM
The yuletide would not be complete without at least one clip from "A Christmas Story":
God bless you all, from any and all points on the political spectrum. Have a warm and tasty and joyous Christmas celebration!
Jesus Was Not A Socialist
Posted by The MaryHunter at 12:30 PM
In a world where the secular left's War on Christmas has spawned such websites as StandForChristmas.com -- which tracks customer ratings for popular retailers for their "Christmas-Friendliness" -- it is intriguing that President Obama can, without a flinch, use the baby Jesus as a hook to justify his nanny-state political philosophy. As Cal Thomas observed today, Dear Leader dared to ask a Northeast Washington DC Boys & Girls Club "why we celebrate Christmas" and got the stunning answer "the birth of baby Jesus." (Ah, from the mouths of babes.) Dear Leader then proceeded to discuss what Jesus symbolizes to people around the world: "the possibility of peace and people treating each other with respect" and "doing something for other people."
Even the "three wise men" were invoked to support the president's idea of wealth redistribution: "These guys ... have all this money, they've got all this wealth and power, and they took a long trip to a manger just to see a little baby."
...which segued into:
"...it just shows you that because you're powerful or you're wealthy, that's not what's important. What's important is ... the kind of spirit you have."
Indeed, and Jesus taught often of the supreme worthiness of the poor and outcast: the poor man Lazarus who was carried by angels to Abraham's side while the heartless rich man suffered in hell (Luke 16:19-31); the widow whose offering of only two copper coins was the far richer treasure (Luke 21:1-4). Many Christians believe that these parables served primarily as a means of condemning the powerful hypocrites and the inhuman nature of the class system in general. However, since class warfare is actually embraced as a key weapon of the statist, the story of Jesus Christ is all too often usurped for completely different purposes by socialist liberals. Cal Thomas continues:
To the president, that means the spirit of government taking from the productive and giving to the nonproductive. To him, Jesus was a socialist or perhaps an early Robin Hood. Any first-year seminarian (if the seminary is a good one) could destroy this flawed exegesis.
Jesus of Nazareth was not a symbol. Neither was He just a good teacher, as some who do not fully accept His teachings about Himself like to claim. As Paul the Apostle put it, "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst" (1 Timothy 1:15).
The call of Scripture is to do for other people as we would like to have done unto us, but that call is personal, not corporate. That's because only people can be compassionate. A government check too often brings dependence and a sense of entitlement. A personal touch builds relationships horizontally with others and vertically with God.
What those "wise men" brought were symbols - gold, frankincense and myrrh. What they symbolized was the grandeur of the baby who would become a man and who, in the words of John the Baptist, would "take away the sins of the world" (John 1:29).
It's a little more than infuriating that the left at once strives to both drive the Christ-the-Savior story out of Christmas, and contrive a Jesus-as-Community-Organizer story for their own progressive devices. Jesus was not about politics. Jesus was about salvation.
Obamanomics on Display in Venezuela
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:28 AM
You don't need a crystal ball to see our government-run future — just a ticket to Venezuela, where Obama prototype Hugo Chavez is several years ahead of us in replacing the free market with coercive moonbattery. His latest misadventure is a new series of stores:
President Hugo Chavez on Tuesday announced a new chain of government-run, cut-rate retail stores that will sell everything from food to cars to clothing from places such as China, Argentina and Bolivia.
"We're creating Comerso, meaning Socialist Corporation of Markets," Chavez said at the opening of a "socialist" fast-food location for traditional Venezuelan arepas (cornbread).
"They'll see what's good. We'll show them what a real market is all about, not those speculative, money-grubbing markets, but a market for the people," said Chavez in his drive to change Venezuela from a market-based economy to a socialist one.
"Money-grubbing" refers to the phenomenon of supply and demand, which allows the market to spontaneously supply a sufficient quantity of what people actually want. But of course, our socialist rulers know what we ought to want, which is much more important.
Another aspect of economics loathed by leftists is free trade, which increases the wealth for everyone, thus making people less dependent on Big Government. Here's how Chavez battles it:
In his effort to break Venezuela's dependency on foreign goods, Chavez in May launched the Movilnet cell phone company that makes the "Vergatario," a locally made [from Chinese parts] mobile that sells for 13.95 dollars but that few stores have in stock.
More on the Vergatario, from last May:
It is perhaps the world's cheapest mobile phone. It is the latest offering from Hugo Chavez's socialist revolution. And its name is derived from a slang word for penis. Behold the Vergatorio. …
Priced just $15 (nearly £10), the phone has a camera, WAP internet access, FM radio and MP3 and MP4 players for music and videos.
Wow, what a deal. It's the magic of moonbat economics in action.
A government subsidy which cut the retail price to a quarter of the manufacturing cost is likely to make the Vergatario an immediate hit.
If you understand why few stores have any in stock, you are officially too intelligent to qualify as a liberal.
On tips from Lyle.
Morning Briefs (Reposted {WTF MT?})
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 8:25 AM
Good Morning and Merry Christmas Eve to all the Right Wing Patriots, and to the left-wngers, please remember the pharmacy is closed tomorrow,
Item Number One: Pathetic manless spinster Maureen Dowd shows what a difference elections can make. Back when John McCain was criticizing Bush's tax cut, he was taking a principled stand against reckless debt accumuluation. Now that McCain is criticizing Obama's multi-trillion dollar health care scheme, he's nothing but a bitter old man and a sore loser. Gee, do you think maybe there might be another reason McCain is her hero when he criticizes one president, but a villain when he criticizes another?
Item Number Two: Even Chinese Communists recognize that lowering taxes raises prosperity. So, you really gotta wonder if Chairman Zero's economic policies are just incompetent or deliberately malicious.
Item Number Three: Isn't this an odd coincidence? Just as the Obamacare bill is headed toward inevitable passage, MSNBC is pulling the plug on Dr. Nancy, a show that was nothing but a daily propaganda blast on behalf of state-run health care. A cynical person would suspect that the show only existed to help promote the Democrat Health Care agenda.
Below the jump, one of my favorite Christmas songs. (Sappy as all-get-out, but, hey, it's Christmas.)
Obama Sets Interpol Above US Law
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:58 AM
Is "treasonous" too harsh a word to apply to the arrogant leftists running Washington? You be the judge — in light of this:
Last Thursday, December 17, 2009, The White House released an Executive Order "Amending Executive Order 12425." It grants INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) a new level of full diplomatic immunity afforded to foreign embassies and select other "International Organizations" as set forth in the United States International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945.
By removing language from President Reagan's 1983 Executive Order 12425, this international law enforcement body now operates — now operates — on American soil beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the FBI, and is immune from Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Our president has set an international police agency above the Fourth Amendment constraints of the Constitution that he finds deeply flawed.
Interestingly, Interpol's US headquarters is in the Justice Department, run by the same corrupt, pro-terrorist lowlife who quashed an investigation into Black Panther voter intimidation on Obama's behalf. NRO wonders:
Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize?
Interpol works closely with the International Criminal Court, a gang of moonbats who would gladly round up prominent Republicans like Dick Cheney and throw them in jail on charges of insensitivity to terrorists. America has refused to surrender its sovereignty to this ultra-left kangaroo court — a policy Chairman Zero is likely to reverse.
In most banana republics, you only have to worry about your own police. But in the dystopia of "Hopey Change," who knows who may soon be dragging you out of bed in the middle of the night?
On a tip from Fiberal.
Older and Wiser
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:19 AM
Charles and Cayla were featured in the first post on Moonbattery, 5 years ago tomorrow. They wanted to apologize to the world because America had not yet degenerated into a place where the treasonous left-wing dregs of DC would be elected to run the government. Now, 10,454 entries later, they're back:
Compliments of John L.
Spreading
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 6:05 AM
(Senator Claire McRoadkill (D-MO), Senator Carl Levin Lenin (D-MI), Senator Ben "Dover" Nelson (D-NE), Senator Stuart Smalley (D-MI MN), Senator Mary "Louisiana Purchase" Landrieu (D-LA), Senator Dick Turban (D-IL).) (Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit)
The Democrats have absolutely no clue how much anger they are stirring up in the country.
Curious, isn't it. Insurance company stocks are sky-rocketing because the Democrat's Health Care Bill mandates that everyone has to purchase top-of-the-line insurance policies. (It's as though they passed a transportation bill that mandated everyone to buy Cadillacs, BMW's, and Lexuses). How does this square with the Democrats claiming that Republicans are in the hip pocket of Big Insurance? All Republicans are voting against the bill.
December 23, 2009
And Now for Something Completely Different... (Season's Woofings Version)
Posted by The MaryHunter at 7:57 PM
Alright, guys, who's in the doghouse?
On a tip from Mrs. MaryHunter, so that others might be saved my humiliation. (Do not, under any circumstances, gift your wife with a nose hair trimmer.)
Jimmy Carter Apologizes to J-o-o-s... Wanna know why?
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 5:40 PM
Jimmy Carter, the worst president and ex-president of the 20th Century, has made a post-presidential career of bashing Israel and sucking up to the Palestinians (and other brutal dictators like Kim Jong-Il, Baby Assad, Robert Mugabe {whom he helped gain power} Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro) has suddenly found it necessary to apologize to any Jews he may have offended by blaming every problem in the world on the existence of Israel.
"We must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel," Carter said in the letter, which was first sent to JTA, a wire service for Jewish newspapers, and provided Wednesday to The Associated Press. "As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so."
Why the change of heart? Let's just say, he has some reasons.
The letter comes weeks after his grandson, Jason Carter, said he would run for a Georgia state Senate seat being vacated by President Barack Obama's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Singapore. Jason Carter, who is running in a district with a vocal Jewish population, said in a statement that his grandfather's letter was unrelated to his campaign and hailed the apology as a "great step towards reconciliation."
Jimmy Carter is every bit the opportunistic piece of sh-t we always thought he was.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 5:02 PM
Profiles in Countermoonbattery: Dick Cheney
Posted by The MaryHunter at 3:50 PM
This post is intended to absolutely short-circuit our resident (was that redolent?) liberal trolls. Besides Sarah Palin and George Bush, what other name could possibly send socialist-Marxist lefties apoplectic other than Dick Cheney? Human Events has named the former VEEP their Conservative of the Year. Here is a distillation of their case for Mr. Cheney:
The newspaper named Mr. Cheney as their "conservative of the year" for his vehement defense of using "enhanced-interrogation techniques," which the liberal left has called "torture," and for the criticism he has directed toward the Obama administration for releasing previously classified memos and reports about it.
Former U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton wrote an essay singing Mr. Cheney's praises for the paper that also lauded him as a humble public servant, undeterred from frequent attacks on his character.
"Cheney's quiet, inner-directed motivation is simply impervious to the attacks orchestrated against him by the Chicago machine-style politicians at the White House, a fact also plainly visible to his fellow citizens," Mr. Bolton wrote. "And it is yet another important reason to have confidence that Cheney's solid policy analysis will yet prevail in the national political arena."
Dick Cheney has spoken out bravely this year in defense of Bush era policies regarding foreign policy, national defense, and fighting terrorism (yes, they used to call it terrorism way back when). He has tied the hapless Obama Court Jester Joe Biden in rhetorical knots. He's got an awesome dog. Despite sustained character assassinations from the state-run media and political hacks in the Administration and Congress, he has maintained his dignity under fire and never wavered in his defense of conservative principles. All this, while simply speaking out as a former VEEP and current United States citizen, without the deep pockets of a lobbying firm or PAC.
Moonbats will gnash their teeth and howl a plenty, offering predictable party-line attacks on Cheney while sneaking in Halliburton references left and right. Ambassador Bolton's article pretty well dismisses them all, with aplomb.
Kudos to Mr. Cheney, Vice President (Ret.), for standing his ground in the name of liberty and freedom.
Image courtesy of Human Events.
CFACT to Greenpeace: Two Can Play That Game
Posted by The MaryHunter at 2:59 PM
A few little-reported incidents at the COP15 Copenhagen Climate Summit show Greenpeace getting a taste of it's own medicine:
The Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), a free-market group that describes itself as "climate realists," tagged two of Greenpeace's well-known vessels with unflattering banners as they sailed outside of Copenhagen.
CFACT members boarded the Arctic Sunrise under the guise of delivering doughnuts to Greenpeace activists and unfurled off the ship a banner that read "Ship of Lies."
Later that day, CFACT pulled alongside another Greenpeace vessel, Rainbow Warrior, to affix a banner that read "Propaganda Warrior."
CFACT President David Rothbard said, "Greenpeace ships, like the Rainbow Warrior and Arctic Sunrise, have become global symbols for radical environmentalism, and we wanted to call attention to the harm these groups are causing. And second, it seemed appropriate to use one of Greenpeace's favorite tactics to make this point."
It is, as they say, to laugh. And laugh again.
Images courtesy of CFACT. Learn more here.
A Feminist's Idea of Humor
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 2:12 PM
NPR this week rebroadcast a 2007 Host Taxpayer-paid Propagandist Terri Gross that featured the comedic stylings of feminist satirist and self-avowed communist Nellie McKay (a.k.a. Who?). Here is some of what passes for cutting edge, feminist hilarity --- a little ditty McKay sang accompanied by ukulele. It went like this:
They say child molestation isn't funny (Ha, ha, ha, ha) Rape and degradation's just a crime (Lighten up, ladies.) Rampant prostitution, sex for money (What's wrong with that?) Can't these chicks do anything but whine? (Dance break!)
They say cheap objectification isn't witty (It's hot!) Equal work and wages worth the fight (Sing us a new one) On-demand abortion, every city (Okay, but no gun control!) Won't these women every get a life
Feminists don't have a sense of humor (Poor Hillary!) Feminists and vegetarians (Make mine a Big Mac) Feminists spread vicious lies and rumor They're far too sensitive to ever be a ham That's why these feminists just need to find a man
Are we ROTFLOAO yet?
Nellie McKay expresses concern in the video that she'll become a hypocrite if her tight satire makes her wildly popular and famous. I don't think she needs to worry.
And it's not like feminist issues are not ripe for satire:
That's the way you do it, ladies.
Recession, Depression, Recovery
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:52 AM
Cell Phones May Be Next in Nanny State's Crosshairs
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:36 AM
Our insatiably greedy Nanny State rulers can't inflict any more damage on the tobacco industry without driving it completely out of business, which would cut into tax revenues, so it's time to look for new victims. Companies that provide us with cell phones make a lot of money; bureaucrats could seize a fat cut of it by pretending that phones cause cancer too. The groundwork is already being laid:
A Maine legislator wants to make the state the first to require cell phones to carry warnings that they can cause brain cancer, although there is no consensus among scientists that they do and industry leaders dispute the claim. …
A similar effort is afoot in San Francisco, where Mayor Gavin Newsom wants his city to be the nation's first to require the warnings.
Maine Rep. Andrea Boland, D-Sanford, said numerous studies point to the cancer risk, and she has persuaded legislative leaders to allow her proposal to come up for discussion during the 2010 session that begins in January, a session usually reserved for emergency and governors' bills. …
The San Francisco proposal would require the display of the absorption rate level next to each phone in print at least as big as the price. Boland's bill is not specific about absorption rate levels, but would require a permanent, nonremovable advisory of risk in black type, except for the word "warning," which would be large and in red letters. It would also include a color graphic of a child's brain next to the warning.
As we saw with cigarettes, mandatory warning labels prepare the way for massive looting. Once you've forced phone manufacturers to proclaim right on their product that it's lethal, portraying them as sinister corporations in need of pillaging is child's play.
It's a good thing the country wasn't always run by liberal lawyers and their pseudoscientific enablers, or no doubt railroads would have been found to cause cancer in the 19th century, and automobiles in the early 20th.
On a tip from Wiggins.
Ex-Microsoft Moonbat Plots Planetary Peril
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:45 AM
The nonexistent global warming crisis is a gateway into an alternate universe of pure imagination that really gets the creative juices flowing. An ex-Microsoft technoweenie is promoting a scheme that puts Doctor Evil at his most diabolical to shame. Nathan Myhrvold
thinks that he has found a cheap and reliable way to solve global warming, which does not involve upending and perhaps destroying the world's economy. The global warming solution proposed by Nathan Myhvold involves running a hose up to the stratosphere with balloons and using that hose to pump out enough sulfur particles to dim the sun's heat just enough to counteract the effects of global warming.
Blotting out the sun with sulfur should lay to rest any claims that moonbats aren't trying to remake the earth in the image of hell.
Normally, concepts from the left generate disastrous unintended consequences. Not this time:
Nathan Myhrvold suggests that volcanoes and other natural processes already pump out sulfur into the stratosphere and that his scheme, if adopted, would increase that amount by only one percent. Nathan Myhrvold therefore thinks that there would not be any unintended consequences (like starting a new ice age.)
Maybe we should just stick with letting socialist bureauweenies upend and perhaps destroy the world economy.
On a tip from Mega.
A Harry Reid Christmas
Posted by The MaryHunter at 8:44 AM
For Harry Reid, 60 is the new 30:
To say "thank you" to Santa for the gifts he brings, the traditional reward is cookies and milk. To say "thank you" to the Democrats for their Christmas Eve gift, we also recommend something traditional: tar and feathers.
Hat tip to HopeNChangeCartoons.com. On a tip from TED.
Obama's Death Wish for America
Posted by The MaryHunter at 8:05 AM
It's confirmed: Dear Leader Obama has set our nation on course for financial Armageddon and socioeconomic destruction, under the guise of "fixing" health care and "fixing" the environment and "fixing" global warming and "fixing" the financial sector and "fixing" the auto industry and "fixing" _____ (insert Nanny State item here). As explained in international economic terms by the Cato Institute's Richard Rahn:
The Obama administration and the Congress are in a headlong rush to push the country over the fiscal tipping point. The fiscal tipping point is the point where the interest that premium bond buyers are demanding to compensate them for the risk of default and/or accelerating inflation causes the total interest cost to be so high that the government is borrowing just to pay the interest. This is equivalent to a family being so far in debt that it is borrowing just to pay the interest on its mortgage, credit cards, etc.
The proposed health care plan and the environmental cap-and-trade scheme will add trillions of dollars to the U.S. debt over the next few years and, in all likelihood, soon will drive the total debt burden to well over 100 percent of GDP. Even if the administration were to tax the "rich" at 100 percent of their incomes, there would still not be enough money to pay for all of these spending schemes.
The following should be known to most members of Congress. The size of the U.S. government is already well over the welfare and economic growth-maximizing rate. Taxes on upper-income Americans are well above the revenue-maximizing rate. Thus, for those in the political class to further increase the size of government and government debt as a percentage of GDP is grossly irresponsible. It is almost as if they had a death wish for the country.
Humans are quite good at adapting to climate change. Our species has already lived through hundreds of climate cycles. What they are not good at is adapting to the fiscal and monetary falsehoods of politicians. Yet, the politicians would prefer to fly around the world talking about climate change rather than putting their fiscal house in order.
Bond buyers are not stupid. They can see what is happening. If the administration and Congress do not soon reverse course, the cost of servicing the debt will quickly drive the U.S. to the fiscal tipping point.
Once the tipping point is reached, government will shrink one way or another, because there will be no way to fund the previous bloated state. Who will be most hurt? Those most dependent on government.
So, as the image of a once-proud, once-strong America pass before your eyes, whatever you do, don't be too hard on those 53% of Americans who got us into this mess just over a year ago. They were, after all, simply misled by hopeychange.
Odin's Day Morning Briefs
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 8:02 AM
Good Morning Right-Wing Patriots, Good Morning Lefties Who Think Axial Tilt is the only Reason for the Season but Reject the idea that Solar Activity is the Primary Reason for Global Temperature Variations Over Time,
I'll start making those things shorter now.
Item Number One: By now you have heard that radical leftist Jane Hamster of the far out space nut lefty blog Firebitchlake, has jumped ship and is opposing ObamaCare . In addition to be angry about the lack of a disastrous "public option," she also points out that ObamaCare is a huge tax increase on the middle class. Waitaminute? Isn't that exactly what those tea party people Jane Hamster and all of the left were hating on all summer were saying? Is Hamster tacitly admitting we were right all along.
Answer: Yes, but because she's a leftist, she'll pretend she came up with it on her own.
Item Number Two: Remember last summer when a tranny freakazoid named Maurice Schwenkler/Princess Ariel vandalized a Democrat Party Headquarters and Democrat operatives blamed tea party patriots? Well, the freakazoid pleaded guilty yesterday and was fined $5,000. Considering the SEUI only paid him/her/it $500, that's a net loss of $4,500. Princess Ariel should have consulted with Han Solo on the economics of rebellion.
Item Number Three: The Green Left has deemed Christmas Light displays offensive to the one true goddess, Gaia. So, the Energy Justice Network is urging ordinary citizens far out space nuts of the left to download and issue "Christmas Police Violation tickets" to neighbors with light displays.
Which gives me opening to post this viddy, which sort of ties in with yesterday's viddy. (And hits the tranny freakazoid angle, too.)
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:48 AM
Comrade Obama's Moonbat Christmas Tree
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:38 AM
Christmas is celebrated even in a White House infested with moonbats — but a little differently. For example, instead of a tree decorated with angels and the Star of Bethlehem, you'll find one sporting the likenesses of a genocidal communist dictator and a famous transvestite, as well as flags representing militant homosexuality and a grotesquely overpromoted community activist's face on Mount Rushmore. Via Big Government:
In light of comments made by Obama's former Communications Director Anita Dunn and Manufacturing Czar Ron Bloom, a place of honor for the tyrant with the highest body count in human history should surprise no one.
As for the angels, stars, and other Christian symbols on Christmas trees, Chairman Zero's fellow moonbats in Sonoma County, California have not just replaced them with portraits of Mao Zedong, but actually banned them.
On tips from J, nancz, and none.
'Twas the Night Before Christmas, ca. 2009 (aka Grandma's Last)
Posted by The MaryHunter at 5:00 AM
Monica Crowley offers up (with her apologies to Clement Clarke Moore) a timely health care twist on the timeless classic:
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the House
Not a Democrat was stirring, not even Nancy Pelosi, the louse.
The health care bill was hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that Senate Democrats soon would be there.
The American people were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of defeating Obamacare danced in their heads.
But Pelosi in her kerchief, and Harry Reid in his cap,
Hoped their caucus wouldn't bolt home for a long winter's nap.
When out on the Hill there arose such a clatter,
Reid sprang from his bed to see what was the matter.
Away to his office he flew like a flash,
And threw himself on the bill, which was done slapdash.
All 2,000 pages looked like the new-fallen snow.
"What's really in the bill? No one will ever know!"
When, his wondering eyes filled with mist
At the eye-rolling sight of eight tiny extortionists,
Reid jumped up, so lively and quick,
He knew in a moment their payoffs must click.
More rapid than eagles his bribers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!
"Now Landrieu! Now Lincoln! Now Lieberman and Nelson!
On Dodd! On Feingold! On Sanders and Levin!
Here's your payoff! Now go do the deed!
And vote for this sucker in our hour of need!"
He told them that his back was to the wall,
And he told them, "Now go! And dash away all!"
So back to their states the extortionists flew,
With their hundreds of millions, and other goodies, too.
And then, in a twinkling, Reid heard on the roof
Pollsters showing him the extent of his goof.
As he drew in his head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney President Obama came with a bound.
Having done no heavy lifting, he looked rested and ready
To sign this monstrous bill, even without Teddy.
A bundle of political threats he had flung on his back,
And he looked so smug, the thug, as he opened his pack.
His eyes, how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
He knew his fellow Dems; he knew how it'd go.
He was thin and skinny, not at all a jolly elf,
And Reid laughed when he saw him, in spite of himself!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon told Reid he had nothing to dread.
Obama spoke not a word, which was unusual for him,
Ready to sign a bill that will make health care more grim.
"Higher premiums! Fewer doctors! Higher taxes and fees!
And this bill's just the beginning - oh, what a tease!"
He sprang to his feet and bid Reid goodbye,
And went back to the White House in the bat of an eye.
But Reid heard him exclaim, and it sounded like a prayer:
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all ruined health care!"
December 22, 2009
Leftist Organizations Lose Mega-Millions to Green Energy
Posted by The MaryHunter at 1:53 PM
Two prominent leftist organizations will have a lot less in their vegetable-died hemp sacks for the Secular Winter Solstice Festival this year -- a whole lot less, to be exact:
"The ACLU was recently notified that our largest individual donor, David Gelbaum, who contributed over $20 million to the organization in 2009, will not be able to continue his support due to a change in his financial circumstances."
In the past four years, Mr. Gelbaum has given the ACLU $94 million.
"In one fell swoop, we have lost 22% of the entire organization's budget," the ACLU said.
But wait, it gets better, way better:
Mr. Gelbaum also gave significant sums [$48 million] to the conservationist Sierra Club...
And why was it that Mr. Gelbaum stopped gifting these folks?
A statement from Mr. Gelbaum, who had donated anonymously to the [groups] and is a wealthy California conservationist, said his investments in clean energy put him in a bad economic position.
His "highly illiquid position" also impacted negatively the Iraq-Afghanistan Deployment Impact Fund (IADIF), an organization that helps military personnel and their families. You might want to help ease the significant hit the IADIF took - check out the organization and donate if you wish.
It seems, however, that Mr. Galbaum's donations to radical-leftist interests far outweigh the good he did through the IADIF. From StopTheACLU.com:
Before anybody claims that Gelbaum at least donated twice the amount to those "who served in Iraq and Afghanistan" than the others... keep in mind - Gelbaum financed the very groups the ACLU collaborates with, such as Iraq Veterans Against the War and other anti-war groups.
What's happened to the ACLU and the Sierra Club is sort of like hitting the bizarro lottery. This double-decker schadenfreude sandwich may send some dutiful religious to an extra confession this advent season, but somehow it's just so... worth it.
Empathy for the Devil
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 11:45 AM
The lead defense attorney (John Galligan) for accused Fort Hood shooter Maj. Malik Nidal Hasan says he will file a motion complaining his client's civil rights are being violated.
Hasan is restricted to speaking English only, and the only visitors he can have are his immediate family, and his legal counsel. "But his attorneys and his family can't be in the room with him at the same time," Galligan complained.
Galligan was upset that his client was praying on the phone with his brother Friday in Arabic when he said the military interrupted the call.
Because of this piece of debris, there are 13 families that will have an empty place at the Christmas dinner table. And I'm supposed to feel bad that he has to speak English and can only meet with his family separately from his attorneys?
Sorry. Not feelin' it. I don't feel bad that guys like him get waterboarded either; pieces of crap are supposed to be flushed.
ObamaCare Meant to Be Unrepealable
Posted by Van Helsing at 10:28 AM
Soon we will be left with the faint hope that a future government will have the integrity to radically downsize itself by repealing the ObamaCare monstrosity. Except Harry Reid already thought of that. Not only does his version of the bill require a supermajority for changing rules, it outrageously states that the establishment of the Orwellian "Independent Medical Advisory Board" — aka the Death Panel — cannot be repealed. From page 1020 (PDF):
It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.
Unconstitutional? The whole concept of the federal government seizing control of the healthcare industry is unconstitutional. The question is: what are we going to do about it?
We know what the Founding Fathers would have done.
On tips from Byron and Eric. Hat tips: The Weekly Standard, Red State.
Ahmadinnerjacket Laughs at your Bumbling Incompetence Also
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 9:36 AM
When the Iranian regime was brutally murdering protesters in the street, our president responded by taking a drooling team of journalists fluffers along as he went out to buy ice cream for his dog.
This is what Chairman Zero and his Apparatchiks call "Smart Diplomacy." The theory behind it was that if the American president and state department stood by and did nothing while the Iranian government brutally repressed its people, the mullahs would be so grateful they would agree to cooperate in halting their nuclear weapons program.
Of course, the knuckle-dragging, Neanderthal right-wing scoffed that Iran's dictators would laugh at "Smart Diplomacy" and do whatever the Hell they wanted because in the end, nations will always act in their own self-interest and all the Hopey Changey bullcrap in the world will not change that.
So, who was right? The Iranians have given their answer:
Iran's president on Tuesday dismissed a year-end deadline set by the Obama administration and the West for Tehran to accept a U.N.-drafted deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel, and claimed his government is now "10 times stronger" than a year ago.
The international community can give Iran "as many deadlines as they want, we don't care," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to thousands of supporters in the southern city of Shiraz.
So, once again, Neanderthal Realism has pounded Hope and Change like the Giants pounded the Deadskins. And Chairman Zero retains his Detroit-Lions-like record of achievement in foreign and economic policy successes.
Expect our genius president and his team of smart diplomats to ... set another deadline. Maybe next year. Sometime. Hey, who's up for ice cream?
Oahu Airspace Shut Down for Anointed One's Vacation
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:34 AM
This won't help bring Obama's monstrous ego under control: while others toil to pay their increasingly extravagant taxes, the air over Oahu is to be shut down for two weeks in honor of his Hawaiian vacation.
[Aero-News Network] is researching reports of a massive TFR [temporary flight restriction] that will severely restrict air traffic on the tiny island of Oahu… for nearly two weeks. A Presidential TFR has been published (and was disseminated as of December 19th… barely four days notice) covering most of the island and severely restricts all [general aviation] operations on or near the island.
Numerous emails and phone calls indicate that the Hawaiian aviation community, especially that part of it that derives some or all of its livelihood from aviation access, is terrified of the effect of this TFR, put in place so that the president can go away, on holiday, for Christmas. …
The TFR also states […] ominously, that "The following operations are not authorized within this TFR: flight training, practice instrument approaches, aerobatic flight, glider operations, parachute operations, ultralight, hang gliding, balloon operations, agriculture/crop dusting, animal population control flight operations, banner towing operations, sightseeing operations, model aircraft operations, model rocketry, and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Amphibious operations are prohibited within this TFR except at Honolulu International Airport (PHNL)."
Needless to say, any small business that relies on access to the air will be crippled, right at a prime time for tourism. That's what they get for not working for the government.
On a tip from Air2air.
Manbearpig Laughs at Your Bumbling Incompetence
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 8:40 AM
A little insight is gained into Al Gore, the left-wing super genius who flunked out of Vanderbilt ... twice. Here we see Al Gore and fellow Climate Genius Gordon Brown in Copenhagen... walking into a closet together.
And they say Sarah Palin is dumb. I don't recall her ever walking mistaking a closet for a conference room, or a window for a door.
Healthcare Monstrosity Will Mean More Money for ACORN
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:27 AM
It will be years before we know just how much of a crime Democrats are inflicting on this country with the Obama/Reid/Pelousy healthcare power grab. But a few details have already come to light. For example, the election-stealing, child prostitution-enabling criminal enterprise where Comrade Obama cut his teeth will be soaking up still more of our money:
[The astonishingly corrupt] Senator Roland Burris is claiming credit for a provision in Harry Reid's "manager's amendment," unveiled Saturday morning, that could funnel money to ACORN through the health care bill.
From page 241 of Hairy Greed's manager's amendment (PDF):
In carrying out this subsection, the Secretary, acting through the Deputy Assistant Secretary, shall award grants, contracts, enter into memoranda of understanding, cooperative, interagency, intra-agency and other agreements with public and nonprofit private entities, agencies, as well as Departmental and Cabinet agencies and organizations, and with organizations that are indigenous human resource providers in communities of color to assure improved health status of racial and ethnic minorities, and shall develop measures to evaluate the effectiveness of activities aimed at reducing health disparities and supporting the local community. Such measures shall evaluate community outreach activities, language services, workforce cultural competence, and other areas as determined by the Secretary.
Yes, government-run healthcare will be race-based. Surprised? If you don't like it, you're a racist.
What does this have to do with Chairman Zero's alma mater?
According to a Senate legislative aide, the scandal-plagued Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now could qualify for grants under this provision. ACORN would also qualify for funding on page 150 of the underlying Reid bill, which says that "community and consumer-focused nonprofit groups" may receive grants to "conduct public education activities to raise awareness of the availability of qualified health plans."
But… but… I thought the O'Keefe/Giles videos had shamed Congress into cutting off the flow of our money into the coffers of this vile organization. Looks like I was wrong:
Earlier this year, Congress passed and the president signed into law a ban on federal funding for ACORN, but a judge ruled that that law was unconstitutional. If a higher court reverses that ruling, ACORN may be prohibited from receiving funds through the Office of Minority Health earmark. But according to the Senate legislative aide, ACORN would still "absolutely" qualify for federal funding through the provision in the underlying Reid bill because the anti-ACORN appropriations amendment would not apply to funds provided through the health care exchanges.
This bill is historic, all right. It will mark a turning point, where our liberal rulers establish that they can get away with absolutely anything. Soviet-style communism, here we come.
On a tip from Byron.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:43 AM
Priest Advocates Shoplifting
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:33 AM
Not even priests are immune from the moral derangement caused by moonbattery. Consider Father Tim Jones of St. Lawrence Church in York, England, who proclaimed during a Sunday sermon:
My advice as a Christian priest is to shoplift. … I would ask that they do not steal from small family businesses, but from large national businesses — knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices. … My advice does not contradict the Bible's eighth commandment because God's love for the poor and despised outweighs the property rights of the rich.
As for the tenth commandment, I doubt Jones read that far.
Liberal decay won't have to advance much further before we hear moral authorities declaring that killing people who own property you want to steal doesn't contradict the sixth commandment, because God's love for the lazy and shiftless outweighs blah blah blah.
If we had not forgotten that it is wrong to steal, we would not be faced today with a kleptocratic government so grotesquely massive that it threatens to crush society and reduce both Britain and the USA to 1980s Albania.
On a tip from John L.
Rock the Vote Promises Sex Embargo
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:08 AM
Government seizure of the healthcare industry is looming over us like that volcano in the Philippines about to blow. Of the many extremely regrettable aspects of this impending catastrophe — the loss of choice, the degeneration of quality, the end of innovation, the further empowerment of liberal petty tyrants, the stratospheric tax hikes, the bank-busting deficits, et cetera ad nauseam — perhaps the most awful has gone underreported. Raunchy "Rock the Vote" types may end their sex embargo.
Just when every tactic in the book had been seemingly exhausted in the health care debate, Rock the Vote comes along with a new one: if you want health care reform, don't sleep with anyone who opposes it until his or her mind is changed.
The youth advocacy group is pushing the campaign in a Web video and pledge on its Web site, which asks supporters to "hold out" for health care. …
"We pledge ourselves to the health and liberty of young Americans and to government for the people … and to never f---ing you if you are against us," the team of actors in the video says.
Ironically, anyone who has sex with the sleazy sort of lowlife likely to be influenced by Rock the Vote is in acute need of competent non-government healthcare, starting with emergency testing for STDs.
On a tip from Vera Toss.
Airstrip One May, at Some Point, "Coordinate a Response" to Muslim Mutilation of Women
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 7:04 AM
Christmas in England. It once meant Church Bells, Charles Dickens and Father Christmas. It once meant figgy pudding and cooked goose and other abominations of British culinary culture. Nowadays, it means Muslims getting together for Female Genital Mutilation Parties.
Hundreds of British schoolgirls are facing the terrifying prospect of female genital mutilation (FGM) over the Christmas holidays as experts warn the practice continues to flourish across the country. Parents typically take their daughters back to their country of origin for FGM during school holidays, but The Independent on Sunday has been told that "cutters" are being flown to the UK to carry out the mutilation at "parties" involving up to 20 girls to save money.
Feminists aren't happy about the practice, but they have other priorities... like ensuring women the unlimited, unfettered right to mutilate their babies in the womb. And in the end, multiculturalism trumps all. So, not much of a stink is being made about this. But Airstrip One's government has sprung into action and appointed a bureaucrat to study the issue.
A Home Office spokesman said: "We have appointed an FGM coordinator to drive forward a coordinated government response to this appalling crime and make recommendations for future work."
I'm guessing a policy of arresting, prosecuting, and... oh yeah... deporting the perpetrators would just be too uncoordinated for Her Majesty's bureaucracy.
Cost Savings for the Military
Posted by Van Helsing at 6:43 AM
It only seems like government spending is completely out of control on all fronts. When it comes to national security, the Obamination Administration is actually making cuts. Future expansions of the federal bureaucracy will be financed in part by savings from a less expensive communications system now being introduced for the armed forces:
On a tip from Stormfax.
Crowder Tours Scenic New Mogadishu
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 6:40 AM
Via Hot Air, Another Scary-Ass Tour of America's most liberal city. Nothing we haven't seen before, but I did learn something: Detroit was a prototype for LBJ's "Model Cities" Program under LBJ's "Great Society." The Federal Government poured money into urban areas, in exchange for which, the cities subjected themselves to bureaucratic micromanagement from Washington. How well did it work... about this well:
And now this same strategy of Federal Micromanagement is being applied to health care.
BTW: The real unemployment in Detroit is about 44.8%.
Morgen, Briefings für Dienstag
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 6:01 AM
Good Morning Right-Wing Patriots, Good Morning Left-Wing Drunks and Mama's Boys,
Item Number One: This is kind of old news, but according to Demonrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), opposing the government takeover of health care is just exactly like Krystallnacht and anyone who opposes it is a Nazi Klansman. Godwin's law must be one of the many laws Demonrats exempt themselves from... like having to pay taxes.
Item Number Two: And our Obamanized military is telling soldiers that not registering their guns is equivalent to terrorism.
Unbelievable.
Item Number Three: Did y'all know there's a volcano in the Philippines fixin' to blow sky high? This is of interest because a single large volcanic eruption will have more climate impact than every SUV ever produced, but Warmist climate models don't take volcanic activity into account. Just a reminder, nature's a whole lot bigger than we are.
OK, now, yesterday morning, somebody got offended because I quoted South Park in German. To make amends, here's a video of a bunch of high school kids, representing a rainbow of ethnicities, extending holiday greetings in several of the Earth's inferior languages. Frohe Weihnachten!
December 21, 2009
Democrat Solution to Health Care Reform: Kill 420,480 Americans
Posted by The MaryHunter at 9:35 PM
A little tidbit on Rush Limbaugh today stood out as supreme hypocrisy in the ObamaCare debate - well beyond hypocrisy, in fact. Alert contributor Chris Sells in the Arena at Politico.com summed it up well:
I watched the debate on and off last evening, watching the final comments by McConnell and Reid. A comment Reid made in regards to 2 people die every 10 minutes due to lack of insurance. So out comes the calculator..so that is 288 per day or 105,102 per year over 4 years (when benefits supposedly kick in in 2014) that is 420,480 deaths due to lack of insurance, according to Sen. Reid 2 per 10 minute statement. If this achievement is so "awesome" why the delay in benefits and help those 420,480 future deaths since this about people and not politics as Sen. Reid claimed?
So, on the one hand, we have Florida Rep. Alan "MyCongressmanIsNuts.com" Grayson claiming that the Republican solution to health care reform is to have old people die quickly. Seems quite an accusation, but we know he's been abducted by aliens at least once. On the other hand, Harry Reid is confessing that the Senate Democrat plan will kill nearly a half million people before the benefits kick in (and not just old folks, either).
Well, it's a darn good thing for "old people" that the Reid plan won out, isn't it?
Spend and Spend, Elect and Elect
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 3:28 PM
Harry Reid has a message for all the senators that went along with the health care takeover without selling prostituting their votes for massive amounts of pork: Suckers!
Reid said. "If they don't have something in it important to them then it doesn't speak well of them."
He likened the legislation to the defense bill, which is thick with earmarks and other provisions benefitting individual members and even private corporations. "That's what legislations all about," Reid said of thecompromisesbribes.
I am told the left is not happy at all with the bill. I'll believe it when Al Franken and Barbara Boxer vote against it. Or when Nancy Pelosi rejects it. Otherwise, I think it's a total head fake.
I guess the real question is, can we ever beat this beast back? I think there's always hope. If the bill is as horrible as we think it will be ... and we have some serious analysis to support that conclusion ... there's always a chance it can be dismantled piece by piece over time. There's also the fact that our country is fiscally insolvent and the Democrats have only two choices. 1. Keep spending like there's no tomorrow in which case there won't be. 2. Undertake very unpopular measures to close the gap, which, because they are Democrats, means raising taxes which will make the economy worse and make them even less popular. They are not in an ideal political position.
They are also deluded. They actually think a bill that hikes taxes immediately and raises the cost of insurance is going to be popular with the American people.
Can U Spell UCONN? Sen. Dodd's Little ObamaCare Secret
Posted by The MaryHunter at 11:28 AM
More today from Connecticut: Sen. Chris "The Sandwichmaker" Dodd stuck a neat little treat in among the other porky slices in the Senate health care bill.
A $100 million item for construction of a university hospital was inserted in the Senate health care bill at the request of Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., who faces a difficult re-election campaign, his office said Sunday night.
The legislation leaves it up to the Health and Human Services Department to decide where the money should be spent, although spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said Dodd hopes to claim it for the University of Connecticut.
The provision in the Senate legislation is included in a 383-page series of changes to the health care bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., outlined Saturday. Scattered throughout are numerous items sought by individual lawmakers, many of them directing money explicitly to programs or projects in their home states.
The one sought by Dodd provides $100 million for "a health care facility that provides research, inpatient tertiary care, or outpatient clinical services." It must be affiliated with an academic health center at a public research university in the United States "that contains a State's sole public academic medical and dental school."
Hmmm, sounds like it was written for UConn. No correlation, of course, with that tough re-election bid Dodd has coming in 2010.
UConn, a perfect name for what these Democrats are doing to the American people.
Hat tip: Rush.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:57 AM
Guardian Moonbat: Dopenhagen Farce Was Turning Point for Human Race
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:38 AM
It must be nice living in your own community-based reality. Even when your fellow moonbats fall on their foolish faces, you can pretend they succeeded beyond anyone's wildest imaginations — like Colin Blakemore, who triumphantly squeaks:
Copenhagen may mark a turning point in human nature, when the global village acquired a global mind.
A global village with a global mind. The liberal vision has been revealed in all its sci-fi dystopia nightmarishness. More moonbat daydreams from Fakemore:
What we have just witnessed is delegates from 192 countries talking about making sacrifices, slowing their development, constraining their industry, taxing their citizens, in a collective bid to stifle climate change.
Demanding sacrifices, slowing development, constraining industry, taxing citizens, all for a patently phony reason during a global economic slump. What's not to like? Plus there are massive wealth transfers from hard-working Western taxpayers to corrupt African dictators:
The developing nations are unhappy with the offer of financial compensation from the affluent powers. But the amounts over the coming decades are staggering.
Appallingly, Fakewhore attributes these astounding accomplishments to science, a field of endeavor that has been crippled and disgraced by its prostitution to the global warming power grab that all informed people now know to be a deliberate hoax.
On a tip from Mega.
Dems to America: Go to Hell
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:31 AM
Only one good thing has come of the ensuing ObamaCare train wreck. At least now the mask is off, and we can see our statist Democrat rulers for what they are.
They know there will be zero bipartisan support. They know the public overwhelmingly rejects ObamaCare. They know the bill will cost more than we can conceivably afford. They know it will not improve healthcare. But they also know they can burn our country down in less time than it will take to get them out of office.
When the smoke clears, the framework will be in place for the sort of authoritarian socialist regime where elections don't much matter.
A few highlights from an excellent piece in today's Wall Street Journal:
And tidings of comfort and joy from Harry Reid too. The Senate Majority Leader has decided that the last few days before Christmas are the opportune moment for a narrow majority of Democrats to stuff ObamaCare through the Senate to meet an arbitrary White House deadline. Barring some extraordinary reversal, it now seems as if they have the 60 votes they need to jump off this cliff, with one-seventh of the economy in tow.
Mr. Obama promised a new era of transparent good government, yet on Saturday morning Mr. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the world's greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and replaced it with a new "manager's amendment" that was stapled together in covert partisan negotiations. Democrats are barely even bothering to pretend to care what's in it, not that any Senator had the chance to digest it in the 38 hours before the first cloture vote at 1 a.m. this morning. …
The rushed, secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced on the country shows that "reform" has devolved into the raw exercise of political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the American entitlement state.
One of the many reasons no one but our rulers want ObamaCare is the extravagant cost, which will literally bankrupt our already double-mortgaged country:
The best and most rigorous cost analysis was recently released by the insurer WellPoint, which mined its actuarial data in various regional markets to model the Senate bill. WellPoint found that a healthy 25-year-old in Milwaukee buying coverage on the individual market will see his costs rise by 178%. A small business based in Richmond with eight employees in average health will see a 23% increase. Insurance costs for a 40-year-old family with two kids living in Indianapolis will pay 106% more. And on and on. … The truth is that no one really knows how much ObamaCare will cost because its assumptions on paper are so unrealistic.
Another reason: we will lose both quality and choice:
Unnoticed by the press corps, the Congressional Budget Office argued recently that the Senate bill would so "substantially reduce flexibility in terms of the types, prices, and number of private sellers of health insurance" that companies like WellPoint might need to "be considered part of the federal budget."
Innovation will effectively end, once medical technology has been frozen in bureaucratic amber:
Ultimately, "our capacity to innovate and develop new therapies would suffer most of all," as Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier recently wrote in our pages. Take the $2 billion annual tax — rising to $3 billion in 2018 — that will be leveled against medical device makers, among the most innovative U.S. industries. Democrats believe that more advanced health technologies like MRI machines and drug-coated stents are driving costs too high, though patients and their physicians might disagree.
Our rulers are deliberately suppressing innovation, because from their point of view, it raises costs by allowing us to live for too long past our productive taxpaying years.
Government is coercion. Anything run by government will in the end be run by thugs. Here, the thuggery is evident from the beginning:
For no other reason than ideological animus, doctor-owned hospitals will face harsh new limits on their growth and who they're allowed to treat. Physician Hospitals of America says that ObamaCare will "destroy over 200 of America's best and safest hospitals."
Like literally everything that Democrats have put their muscle behind, this will drive up taxes, as well as our 10+% unemployment rate:
[M]ost of the taxes start in 2010. That includes the payroll tax increase for individuals earning more than $200,000 that rose to 0.9 from 0.5 percentage points in Mr. Reid's final machinations. Job creation, here we come.
How does Big Government get anyone to go along with such an obvious disaster? Bribery and intimidation.
Those parts of the health-care industry that couldn't be bribed outright, like Big Pharma, were coerced into acceding to this agenda. The White House was able to, er, persuade the likes of the AMA and the hospital lobbies because the federal government will control 55% of total U.S. health spending under ObamaCare, according to the Administration's own Medicare actuaries.
Others got hush money, namely Nebraska's Ben Nelson. Even liberal Governors have been howling for months about ObamaCare's unfunded spending mandates: Other budget priorities like education will be crowded out when about 21% of the U.S. population is on Medicaid, the joint state-federal program intended for the poor. Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman calculates that ObamaCare will result in $2.5 billion in new costs for his state that "will be passed on to citizens through direct or indirect taxes and fees," as he put it in a letter to his state's junior Senator.
So in addition to abortion restrictions, Mr. Nelson won the concession that Congress will pay for 100% of Nebraska Medicaid expansions into perpetuity. His capitulation ought to cost him his political career, but more to the point, what about the other states that don't have a Senator who's the 60th vote for ObamaCare?
WSJ sums up by aptly describing ObamaCare as a "vast expansion of federal control," which is the sole point of the bill, as it most certainly will not improve healthcare.
Never in our memory has so unpopular a bill been on the verge of passing Congress, never has social and economic legislation of this magnitude been forced through on a purely partisan vote, and never has a party exhibited more sheer political willfulness that is reckless even for Washington or had more warning about the consequences of its actions.
These 60 Democrats are creating a future of epic increases in spending, taxes and command-and-control regulation, in which bureaucracy trumps innovation and transfer payments are more important than private investment and individual decisions. In short, the Obama Democrats have chosen change nobody believes in — outside of themselves — and when it passes America will be paying for it for decades to come.
Or forever. Given a choice between government seizure of the healthcare industry and the Chinese Red Army invading the country, I'd prefer the ChiComs. They would be much easier to get rid of than socialized medicine. If Democrats didn't know this, they wouldn't be so willing to enrage voters to shove it through.
Our liberal rulers don't care if we like what they're doing to us or not, so long as we can't stop them before the damage is done.
On a tip from Varla.
Teacher Fired for Offering to Pray for Sick Pupil
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:45 AM
Yet another indication of how bad it has gotten for the canary in the coalmine of moonbattery, Britain:
A Christian teacher fears she may never work again after she was sacked for offering to pray for a sick pupil.
Olive Jones, 54, said she had been made to feel like a criminal, and claimed that Christians were being persecuted due to 'political correctness'.
Mrs Jones, who taught children not well enough to attend school, said that after she raised the topic of prayer during a visit to a 12-year-old's house, the girl's mother lodged a complaint.
Just hours later, said Mrs Jones, her boss told her she would no longer be working for Oak Hill Short Stay School and Tuition Service, in Nailsea, Somerset.
She said managers had ruled her comments could be perceived as 'bullying'.
Liberals, accusing the Christians they oppress of bullying. At least they have a sense of humor — unless they are wall-bangingly insane enough to be on the level.
Closer to home, here's the story of a teacher who knows how to keep her job:
A third grader was told by a teacher at her New Jersey elementary school that the Bible was not appropriate reading material for quiet time, MyFoxNY.com reported.
The teacher at Madison Park Elementary School in Old Bridge, N.J., ordered the girl, Mariah, to put away her Bible.
Michelle Jordat, Mariah's mother, said her daughter was upset and confused by the incident, MyFoxNY.com reported.
No need to be confused, it's simple. The State will allow no gods before moonbattery.
On tips from Wiggins and Henry.
From Connecticut RINO to Georgia Dhimmi with Love
Posted by The MaryHunter at 7:40 AM
The last time we heard about Chris "The Sandwichmaker" Dodd's potential Republican competition for a Connecticut US Senate seat, we learned that former Rep. Rob Simmons was a co-sponsor of Two of Nancy Pelosi's favorite bills: Cap and Trade and Card Check. Of course, he did the obligate public 180, admitted his transgressions, and begged for mercy from potential voters. But now we learn that Simmons has been hiding from us a special BFF: Jimmy "The Dhimmi" Carter.
You see, while serving as a CT-RINO representative in the House during 2005, Simmons revealed his deep man-crush for the former peanut farmer and infamous America-hater through a love letter written on congressional letterhead.
Ready your barf-bags, gang (or your hankies, you leftie trolls):
In the letter, dated Sept. 22, 2005, Mr. Simmons tells Mr. Carter that he and his wife, Heidi, were proud to vote for him. "We felt you had the courage of your convictions, and we were very pleased when you won," Mr. Simmons said. He then thanks the former president for opposing the closure of Connecticut's Naval Submarine Base New London, saying that it was "an extraordinary act of patriotism."
"I can only say, Mr. President, that the courage, character and integrity you has shown over the many years of your extraordinary career makes us all proud to have voted for you so many years ago, and makes us proud to be Americans," the letter concludes. "And when we think back to Admiral Hymen Rickover's question to you, 'Why not the best?' we all answer with enthusiasm and conviction, 'Jimmy Carter is the best.' "
In his own handwriting near his signature at the bottom of the letter, Mr. Simmons added, "Thanks so much in all you have done."
The Simmons campaign staffers are doing their darndest to cover up the relationship:
"Rob's praise was a specific reaction to his critical assistance with saving the sub base, and in no way, shape or form was an endorsement of any of Jimmy Carter's antics," a statement posted by the Simmons campaign on Sunday said.
Uh, yearight. Naturally, Simmons' competition in the Republican primary, Linda McMahon, is having a field day with this love letter gone astray.
"If Rob Simmons' support for card check, cap and trade and partial-birth abortion doesn't give conservatives pause, his effusive praise for Jimmy Carter certainly should," Ed Patru, a spokesman for the McMahon campaign, told The Washington Times. "Simmons must be the only Republican in the country who both admits to having voted for Carter and is actually proud of it to this day."
Everyone out there who is proud of having voted for Dhimmi Carter, raise your mouses.
Laundry Day
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:01 AM
The difference? Che and Mao are highly regarded among the sort of people who are running our country.
Via The Chive, on tips from b1bbet and Edward.
Garrison Keillor: "Effin' Joos Ruined Xmas!"
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 5:00 AM
All those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write "Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we'll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah"? No, we didn't.
"Christmas is a Christian holiday - if you're not in the club, then buzz off."
I am guessing this is meant to be be some weird form of liberal humor --- like joking about Sarah Palin's daughters getting raped. We'll know for sure if a future episode of Prairie Home Companion features a mob of townspeople burning down a business while chanting "Burn down the Jew store!"
Update: Someone didn't get the South Park reference and went off on me for blowing something innocuous out of all proportion. Isn't that ironic?
Somebody's Got a Case of the Monday... Morning Briefs
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 3:38 AM
Good Morning Conservative Patriots, Good Morning Lefties Who Worry that PBO-Pelosi-Reid Are Too "Moderate" (i.e. Not Destroying America Fast Enough),
Item Number One: The left likes to praise Euro-trains as wonderful, efficient, and so great for the environment. They whine bitterly that we haven't taken out another trillion or so in debt to build a high-speed rail network that other people could use and make the airports less crowded for the elites. But it turns out that those trains aren't so great, and Gaia isn't impressed with them.
Eurostar rail services were suspended for a second day on Sunday as the company investigated why six trains carrying more than 2,500 passengers broke down, five of them in an undersea tunnel linking Britain and France. Passengers were stuck on the trains for up to 16 hours overnight on Friday because of technical faults caused by snow and sub-zero temperatures, Eurostar said.
Wonder how many of those trains were carrying Global Warming cultists back from Dopenhagen. Speaking of which...
Item Number Two: You can't say nothing good came out of Dopenhagen. The misery of Green Wannabe Fascists is a pretty sweet payoff for 42,000 tons of CO2.
Goodbye Africa, goodbye south Asia; goodbye glaciers and sea ice, coral reefs and rainforest. It was nice knowing you. Not that we really cared.
Mark Steyn has more.
Item Number Three: Other Eco-Fascists upset by the failure of Copenhagen to produce their dream of a Global Green Dictatorship have expressed their deranged grief by lynching polar bears in effigy.
Guys, I think that might be a bit off-message.
Just to make your Monday Morning a little more surreal, below the jump, there's a cat riding a Roombah swatting at a dog. (Language Advisory: You might want to mute this.)
Hurray for Trader Joe's
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 3:25 AM
If true, this story is a nice offset to some of the PC silliness out there,
My mom is very worried about my grandfather, age 89. He's a retired engineer and a navy edited army to navy officer officer of WWII who lives on his own in an apartment complex. He hardly keeps enough food for himself because he feels as though he can drive out whenever he's hungry (and live off of cereal and prune juice). The problem is that he got snowed in today. He told my mom that one day without food couldn't hurt, but my mom would not accept that. She ended up calling a bunch of places trying to find one that would deliver to him. She eventually ended up asking if Trader Joe's did delivery and they told her they could in this instance. She read out a big order and then proceeded to ask them how she should pay. They told there was no need to pay and said, "Merry Christmas!" Trader Joe's doesn't do delivery, nor give food out for free normally. I'm glad to see people out in the world care about strangers and help out.
Gaia dropped about 20 inches of Global Warming on our town this weekend. On Sunday, I couldn't help but notice that nobody in our neighborhood was waiting for the government to come take care of them. Most people were shoveling their own driveways (self-sufficiency), helping the elderly and infirm with theirs (charity), or paying young kids to do the shoveling (entrepreneurism). It was refreshingly American. And like the Trader Joe's story, it contradicts the lefty mantra that people and businesses will not do the right thing unless coerced by the heavy hand of Government.
December 20, 2009
I Triple-Dog Dare Ya!
Posted by The MaryHunter at 4:57 PM
Watching the film "The Christmas Story" with my kids, it occurred to me that there were a number of brilliant lessons to be learned from this classic, especially for Congress. In fact, one parallel was not lost on my 10-year-old daughter, either. She came up with the kernel of this post.
The culmination this Saturday of the whole Ben Nelson saga shows just how Harry Reid and the Liberal Left are goading "principled moderates" into voting for a bill that would utterly destroy our national health care system, not to mention the re-election chances of those moderate Democrats from conservative states. The build up and potential aftermath of this congressional tragi-comedy reminded us of the tongue-on-flagpole scene:
The leftist radicals in Congress have triple-dog dared (not to mention, flat-out bribed) Ben Nelsen and other "moderates" to pass some version of ObamaCare reform. Even a 10-year-old can understand that. If this monstrosity goes to Dear Leader Obama's desk, those leftist loons will simply scurry for their (safe) seats when the bell rings next election cycle, leaving duped moderates rather stuck with a serious problem. How it is that these misguided moderates can't realize that they are being suckered into taking the fall for Obama, Reid, Peosi and Co. is utterly beyond comprehension.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 11:48 AM
Phil Jones Could Not Be Found at Dopenhagen
Posted by Van Helsing at 11:43 AM
The Copenhagen spectacle is over now, and prominent warmist Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia — best known for having been revealed as a charlatan by the ClimateGate emails — never made an appearance. Phelim McAleer tried to find him, but was offered no help by the fascistic ecoweenies who turned out in hopes of crippling Western civilization on behalf of their depraved antihuman ideology:
Jones must be hiding under a pretty big rock if not even a polar bear could sniff him out.
On a tip from glenwood183.
Pez Gun
Posted by Van Helsing at 11:25 AM
Here's a toy that will not be found in anyone's stocking come Friday:
Imagine the hysteria, the suspensions, the calls for psychiatric evaluation that would result if kids showed up at school with these now. That's how much our culture has changed in just a couple of decades.
Given another generation of hyper-uptight wussified moonbattery, and in 2030 we'll be watching old videos of kids playing with Nerf footballs and gasping in amazement that they were ever allowed on school grounds.
On a tip from Stormfax.
Two Stooges Steal Wise Men From Nativity Scene
Posted by Van Helsing at 11:14 AM
The decay known as moonbattery has rotted our country so deeply that you can't even set out a nativity scene without the Wise Men being stolen, as happened last week in Stony Point, New York. But at least one of the thieves left us with a Christmas present — the sight of her falling flat on her fat face:
Fortunately justice was done:
Cassandra Stritmater, 20, of South Liberty Drive, and Danielle Leonard, 20, of Fonda Drive, were charged Friday with misdemeanor counts of petty larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and criminal mischief, police said. … The Wise Men figures were recovered, police said, along with other ornaments, [Lt. Keith] Williams said.
A certain pair of clods should expect nothing but ashes in their stockings on Christmas morning.
On a tip from Wiggins.
December 19, 2009
Moonbat Traffic Lights Pose Serious Traffic Hazard
Posted by The MaryHunter at 3:20 PM
The loony eco-leftists couldn't have thought of a better, more subtle way to inconvenience John and Jane Q. Public in Wisconsin than to inflict "high efficiency" LED traffic lights upon them.
Some Wisconsin communities that have installed high efficiency traffic lights are discovering the energy-saving bulbs are a hazard in a snow storm.
City officials say the LED lights use less electricity and don't give off enough heat to melt ice or snow. So when the snow falls and the wind blows, the traffic lights are obscured.
That's led to some traffic crashes at intersections where drivers aren't sure whether to stop or go. [...] City crews have manually been scraping the ice and snow off the traffic lights. Public works officials say the LED lights have saved thousands of dollars in monthly power bills.
For (pinkie to chin) thousands of dollars in government savings on monthly power bills, the intrepid citizens of some municipalities in Wisconsin and who knows how many northern states are having to fork out at least thousands of dollars in repairs, increased auto insurance rates, and lost work time. Plus, government employees must work extra hours in order to clean up the mess caused by the problem, while the root cause of the problem remains.
Does this sound like a government solution to you? Just wait until they take charge of your health care.
Observation: The DC metro area is under at least 20" of snow right now, the first such snowfall in years of this magnitude and this early in the season. Copenhagen is also getting pummeled with a blinding snowstorm in an even more atypical December weather event. I wonder if these pretty little LED traffic lights are being used in these key Global-Warming-Is-Real Centers of Brilliance -- and if any of the high priests of this cult are, therefore, in danger.
Ohio Progressives Imitate 'The Simpsons'
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 11:12 AM
In 2003, Entertainment Weekly magazine voted the Simpsons episode BABF13 "Bart to the Future" the Worst Episode Ever! But a line from that episode has become the governing philosophy of Ohio's liberal political class and one of the worst governors ever, Democrat Ted Strickland.
In the future-themed episode, President Lisa Simpson discusses with senior aide Milhous Van Houten how to trick the American people into accepting a tax-increase:
Milhouse van Houten: Well, if you just want to out-and-out lie... okay, we could call it a "temporary refund adjustment."
Lisa Simpson: I love it.
Now, see how Ohio's Progressive tax-and-spend governor is trying to hide his latest tax increase:
According to Strickland, Ohio Democrats, a few alleged Republicans, the Associated Press, and Ohio's compliant establishment media, this is a "tax cut delay." Journalists are going to extraordinary lengths to avoid writing or uttering the words "tax" and "increase" consecutively. I
Buckeye voters' taxes aren't going up, it's the tax cuts that are being delayed... until we can all go ice skating in hell.
P.S. As an Ohio Congressman, Ted Strickland kept a convicted sex offender who liked to molest little girls on school playgrounds employed as a campaign manager and even traveled to Italy with him after finding out about the conviction.
If Ted gets turned out of office next year, maybe he can be the new Safe Schools Czar.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 10:28 AM
Thomas the Tank Engine: Teabagging Dittohead
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 9:11 AM
Remember way-y-y-y-y-y back in 1990's, when some crackpot televangelist said that the Tele-Tubby Tinky-Winky was gay, and the left went off on one of their little snits: "Oh, look at those silly, dumb right-wingers investing all sorts of meaning in a kids show. They're so stupid."
In the immortal words of philosopher Stephen Crosby, "What comes around goes around." This time the silliness is coming from the left-wing equivalent of a crackpot evangelist... a crackpot university professor.
(Shauna Wilton, a professor of political sciences at the University of Alberta,) highlighted the class divide which sees the downtrodden workers in the form of Thomas and his friends at the bottom of the social ladder and the wealthy Fat Controller, Sir Topham Hatt, at the top.
"It also represents a conservative political ideology that punishes individual initiative, opposes critique and change, and relegates females to supportive roles," she said. "Any change is seen as disrupting the natural order of things."
Yeah, dingbat, because it's so much more reasonable to be afraid that children will turn into capitalists because of an anthropomorphic locomotive than that they will turn gay because of some purple mutant who sashays around with a purse.
I have a solution, though. Obama should put Van Jones and Kevin Jennings in charge of children's television. Then, Thomas the Tank Engine can raise a worker's revolution and impose universal health care while Percy and James fist the Fat Controller. Tinky Winky can stand off to the side yelling "Again! Again!"
Update: Arrgh! My eyes!
Dr. Wilton came to Augustana in 2003, and has also taught at the University of Alberta (Political Science) and the University of Lethbridge. She teaches primarily in Canadian politics and comparative politics, as well as in the Crime and Community Program. She is currently working a number of research projects related to culture, gender and ethnicity.
December 18, 2009
Alan Grayson: Crazy Fascist
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 10:53 PM
Demonrat Congresscritter Alan Grayson has become a hero and idol to the far-left nutroots. They don't love him because he is a brilliant legislator (he's not), or because he proposes innovative policy solutions that meet the challenges of the 21st century (he doesn't). No, they love him because he's a loudmouth hack politician who gives voice to the deranged hatred they feel for all who disagree with them.
Grayson called Federal Reserve senior adviser Linda Robertson a whore (He must be taking lessons from Chuck Schumer). He has declared that Republicans want sick people to die quickly and compared the American health care system to the Holocaust and 9/11. He has referred to a disabled Marine as "white trash." (My mistake, that was Democrat Congressman Dennis Moore.)
Now, Crazy Al Grayson is angry because someone started a website called "Mycongressmanisnuts.com" in his honor. He has written a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding that the person who set up the site be criminally prosecuted.
Like most progressive leftists, Al Grayson can dish it out, but he can't take it.
'Twas the Congress Before Christmas
Posted by The MaryHunter at 8:35 PM
Sen. Kit Bond shares his seasonal rendition of the current congressional folly, replete with his frisky dogs.
And a good debt to you, too!
Hat tip: BigGovernment.com
Bammy's BFF Gets All Catty and Stuff
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 11:00 AM
Look at that couple. So much in love. They'd spend long romantic evenings plotting to re-install a communist despot in Honduras. Chavez would tell Bammy how hot it got him when Obama nationalized banks and car companies. It seemed like it would last forever.
Then, the Norwegians gave Bammy a piece of bling he totally didn't deserve and ... someone got jealous and out come the claws:
Hugo Chavez told the delegates at the Copenhagen junk science conference that Obama smells like sulfur, too.If Obama, Nobel War Prize, said here, by the way, it smells of sulfur here.The Nobel War Prize has just said here that he came to act. Well, then show it, sir, don't leave by the back door.
Dude, TMI.
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Bammy in Dopenhagen Sans Teleprompter
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 9:58 AM
Oh, sweet smokin' Gaia, this is painful to watch. Ace recommends for maximum comedic effect, mute the sound and watch PBO give his neck muscles the workout of a lifetime.
"I come here today not to talk, but to act."
Specifically, he came to act like one of those glass drinking bird things.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:36 AM
Copenhagen Deal to Loot $100 Billion
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:16 AM
A last minute deal has reportedly been reached at the snowbound Copenhagen spectacle that will transfer $100 billion of OUR MONEY to odious Third-World dictators like Robert Mugabe on behalf of the flourishing polar bears.
Leaders and ministers from about 30 countries hammered out an outline climate accord early on Friday morning, hours before some 130 world leaders were to gather in a summit. …
On financing for the poor countries most vulnerable to the [IMAGINARY] ravages of climate change, it crystallised a consensus that has formed in the previous two days of the troubled UN talks.
It would kick off with $US10 billion ($A11.28 billion) a year from 2010 to 2012, climbing to $US50 billion ($A56.39 billion) annually by 2015 and $US100 billion ($A112.78 billion) by 2020.
That's fine, we're already $trillions and $trillions and $trillions in debt thanks to the never-ending spending spree of the liberal kleptocrats who have taken over the country. What's $100 billion more to buy a few palaces for their socialist dictator friends? We'll just keep those printing presses churning, and make every dollar you worked for worth that much less.
At some point, people will get angry enough to rebel.
On a tip from AnonymoUS. Hat tip: Watts Up With That?
Yes Vote on ObamaCare Would Be Suicide for Ben Nelson
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:52 AM
Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson, last of the moderate Democrats, is still holding out on the massive healthcare power grab, mainly over taxpayer funding for abortion. If that isn't motivation enough for Nelson to hold on tight no matter what the Obamunists threaten him with, a Tarrance Group poll of likely Nebraska voters might help. Here's what it found:
"In general, do you favor or oppose President Obama's plan to expand health care coverage to most Americans even if this plan increases the role of the federal government in health care and increases the cost of the deficit?"
Favor: 26%
Oppose: 67%
"If Senator Ben Nelson votes in favor of this plan, would that make you more likely or less likely to support Senator Nelson when he runs for re-election?"
More likely: 26%
Less Likely: 61%
If Nelson falls on his sword so that Obama/Reid/Pelousy can claim their Pyrrhic victory, we'll know that Rahm Emanuel must be holding his children hostage.
On a tip from Annie H.
Gore vs. Beavis Performance Art Slam
Posted by The MaryHunter at 7:35 AM
(Never turn your back on a great meme.)
Al Gore performing his original work as The Great Mr. Freeze.
Beavis performing his original work as The Great Cornholio.
Hat tip: Gregory of Yardale, Moonbattery.com
Happiest States Are Conservative States
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:08 AM
Researchers from the University of Warwick and Hamilton College have listed the 50 states and DC in order of the happiness of people who live there. The top 1O:
1. Louisiana
2. Hawaii
3. Florida
4. Tennessee
5. Arizona
6. Mississippi
7. Montana
8. South Carolina
9. Alabama
10. Maine
I count two minor blue states, a purple state that the ObamaCare debacle will quickly drive back to red (Florida), and seven solid red ones.
Hyper-regulated and overtaxed New York — the least free state — by some remarkable coincidence comes in dead last, with the rest of greater NYC's Tri-State Area right behind it. Other oppressively liberal states like California, Massachusetts, and Illinois also rank near the bottom.
One of the researchers draws this bizarre conclusion:
This suggests that life-satisfaction survey data might be very useful for governments to use in the design of economic and social policies.
Rather, Big Government should learn from the data that the more it interferes in our lives through economic and social policies, the less happy we are. Coercive bureaucracies don't make people happy; liberty does.
On a tip from Wiggins.
Friday Morning Briefs
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 3:51 AM
Good Morning Right-Wing Patriots, Good Morning Lefties Who Find the GLSEN Reading List "Too Vanilla,"
Item Number One: So, why is it a Republican Senator calls a stalker "Macaca" and his career is over, but a Democrat Senator calls a flight attendant --- who's just doing her job enforcing the rules Congress wrote --- a "bitch" and it's no big deal. Is there any explanation other than the mainstream media being run by Democrats, for Democrats?
A liberal writing at Salon agrees, it's no big deal because, get this, women are used to being called bitches. With so little self-respect, I can see why she's a liberal woman.
Item Number Two: Al "Stewart Smalley" Franken --- that most junior of junior senators, showed what a dickweed he was by rudely cutting off Joe Lieberman during senate debate yesterday. Lieberman is disliked by the nutroots who are Smalley's base, so naturally, he is not entitled to the courtesies extended to other senators.
Item Number Three: OK, Send the asteroid. Now the trannies are reproducing. One used to be a man, the other used to be a woman. The former-man-now-wife knocked up the former-woman-now-husband, unexpectedly, the old-fashioned way. Both had been taking hormones for years and years. Neither had completed gender reassignment when this happened, but it's a first, since after 6 months, people on gender reassignment hormones are usually permanently sterile (and the gene pool is grateful).
Gets my vote for most effed up thing ever. (Outside the Obama Economy, of course.)
And Finally, Remember the Stupid Commie Poster from yesterday I said somebody should Photoshop? Well, somebody got up ridiculously early this morning and did.
Have a good day and be good to one another.
December 17, 2009
Didn't Your Mommy Teach You to Chew Your Food Well?
Posted by The MaryHunter at 7:21 PM
Likewise, didn't your mommy teach you not to rush, but to carefully proof-read your essays before turning them in? Apparently Pres. Obama and his Democrat lackeys in Congress could use their mommies:
There is a lot of concern about bills being pushed through Congress too quickly with not enough time for members to read what's actually in the bill. One particular part of the massive spending bill that President Obama signed into law late Wednesday could have used a proof-reader.
It included a provision that requires passengers who carry firearms aboard Amtrak trains to be locked in boxes during their journey; passengers, not the guns.
The good news is that Amtrak has six months to implement the new policy, and by then the House and Senate will have had time to fix the mistake, so no one will be forced to travel boxed in a box car.
By this same logic, then in a perfect world, even if Obama-Pelosi-ReidCare is signed into law, maybe after 2010 and especially 2012, the new conservative president, House and Senate will still have time to go in and fix the mistakes.
Armed Response to Heretical Questioning in Copenhagen
Posted by The MaryHunter at 6:20 PM
This is how the open, inquisitive, scientific process of thoughtful scientific thinking and sincere questioning about the scientific science behind global warming plays out in Hopenchangen:
On a tip from JWWright.
God Laughs at Al Gore... Again
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 4:31 PM
By now you have heard, of course, that the Copenhagen Global Warming conference is getting hit by a snowstorm.
You might think this is no big deal, I mean Copenhagen is part of Scandinavia, right? And Scandinavia is cold, right? (Well, you might be thinking that unless you went to a public school and took 'Dealing with Feelings of Transgenderedness/Fisting 101' instead of Geography.) But Copenhagen normally has a mild climate, and has only seen a white Christmas (Solstice for you atheists who celebrate pagan holidays because they're more rational) seven times in the last century.
There is such a thing as the Gore Effect.
The so-called Gore Effect happens when a global warming-related event, or appearance by the former vice president and climate change crusader, Al Gore, is marked by exceedingly cold weather or unseasonably winter weather.
For instance, in March, 2007, a Capitol Hill media briefing on the Senate's new climate bill was cancelled due to a snowstorm.
On Oct. 22, Gore's global warming speech at Harvard University coincided with near 125-year record-breaking low temperatures. And less than a week later, on Oct. 28, the British House of Commons held a marathon debate on global warming during London's first October snowfall since 1922.
I really don't get how people can't believe in God. There's just way too much of this kind of thing going on in the world, if you pay attention to it. Maybe Al Gore should try reading God some of his poetry,
A Little Sanity Test
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 4:14 PM
Look at this picture (courtesy Legal Insurrection). What do you see?
If you see a beautiful woman being tenderly affectionate to her child, congratulations, you're sane.
If you just wet your pants and are foaming at the mouth because "OMG!!! SARAH PALIN CROSSED THE WORD MCCAIN OFF THAT VISOR!!11! !!" you might just be member of the Reality-Based Community.
If you are a sane person, you are probably baffled at why the RBC is so worked about this. So what if she altered the visor? This is no different than scraping a bumper sticker off your car after an election. But I'm pretty sure leftards don't understand this concept either. I still see a lot of Lesbarus around here with Kerry/Edwards stickers on them.
The truth is, the left simply hates Sarah Palin with deranged "we wish A-Rod would rape your daughter" fury. It doesn't matter what she does. She could be sitting on the couch somewhere eating a graham cracker, and the deranged left would still hate her with the white-hot fury of a thousand suns. And I think a big part of the reason is they tried so hard to destroy her, and she's happier and more successful than ever.
And as the Obamassiah they worship becomes more and more a ridiculous joke, they have to lash out at something.
Oh, by the way, did you hear about House Speaker Granny Rictus Botoximplants thanking God for abortion. Yes, she did, as all lifelong practicing Catholics do, if I understand Roman Catholic teachings as she explained them to the Pope last winter.
I only bring that up because I've noticed the thread topics that drive moonbats nuts are 1. Sarah Palin 2. God and 3. Abortion. So, I decided to put all three in the same thread. If your Pfizer stock skyrockets tomorrow, you're welcome.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 11:32 AM
More Moonbat Tears at Dopenhagen
Posted by Van Helsing at 11:20 AM
The hilariously pathetic Bill McKibben isn't the only ecokook to be moved to tears by the imaginary plight of the planet during the socialist spectacle being staged in Copenhagen.
It was a tear-jerking performance that prompted wild applause among the crowded Copenhagen conference floor.
The lead negotiator for the small island nation of Tuvalu, the bow-tie wearing Ian Fry, broke down as he begged delegates to take tough action.
"I woke up this morning crying, and that's not easy for a grown man to admit," Mr Fry said on Saturday, as his eyes welled with tears.
"The fate of my country rests in your hands," he concluded, as the audience exploded with wild applause.
If it's true that the fate of Fry's country rests in the hands of delusionary moonbats, then he's wise not to live in it:
But the part-time PhD scholar at the Australian National University actually resides in Queanbeyan, NSW, where he's not likely to be troubled by rising sea levels because the closest beach at Batemans Bay is a two-hour, 144km drive away. Asked whether he had ever lived in Tuvalu, his wife told The Australian last night she would "rather not comment".
A career environmentalist who once worked as a Greenpeace political liaison officer, Mr Fry has found his niche in global climate change talks over the past 10 years, representing small Pacific nations and running the climate negotiations for the Association of Small Island States.
Not everyone has the honor of doing something productive for a living.
Hat tip: Andrew Bolt Blog, on a tip from Charles O.
Obama Appoints Cuban Spy Ambassador to El Salvador
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:40 AM
The potential damage to our security interests at home and abroad of putting left-wing extremists in charge of the country could hardly be overstated. As mentioned in the Morning Briefs, our Community Activist in Chief has actually appointed a known communist spy as Ambassador to El Salvador.
On Dec. 9, Obama nominated Mari Del Carmen Aponte to be ambassador to El Salvador, despite the fact that in the late 1990s, the FBI discovered that she was working with Cuban intelligence officers. According to Insight Magazine, "When the FBI eventually questioned her about her involvement with Cuban intelligence, she reportedly refused to cooperate."
It should be noted that the Cuban regime on whose behalf Aponte spied on America planned massive terror attacks in New York City and urged the Soviet Union to launch a nuclear strike against the USA. But let's not assume that the appointment was motivated by unadulterated treason. Maybe it's just another example of unsavory characters looking out for their own:
Why would Aponte escape the Obama administration's scrutiny? Because she is a former board member of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest Hispanic advocacy organization in the United States, with 300 affiliated community-based organizations, many of which run like local ACORN offices. In fact, the day before Obama nominated Aponte, NCLR-affiliate Chicanos Por La Causa (CPLC) was raided by the Phoenix Sheriff's Office, which was investigating a kickback scheme between CPLC and indicted Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox. CPLC allegedly gave Wilcox $297,000 in undisclosed loans in exchange for her votes to award over a million dollars in county contracts to CPLC.
Or maybe it does all come down to treason:
The Obama administration has consistently bent over backward to seek the approval of the NCLR. La Raza, by the way, means "The Race"; the organization's founding document, el Plan Espiritual de Aztlan, rips the "brutal 'gringo' invasion of our territories" and urges Hispanics to "[reclaim] the land of their birth," while declaring that "the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny."
"Aztlan" refers to the planned "reconquista" — i.e., demographic conquest — of the southwestern third of our country. Our "post-racial" president and the rabidly anti-Caucasian La Raza get along fabulously.
Then-Sen. Obama appeared at the 2007 NCLR national conference, where he pledged, "I will not walk away from the 12 million undocumented immigrants who live, work and contribute to our country every day."
The next year, Obama told the conference that Hispanic communities were being "terrorized by ICE immigration raids" and said that "nursing mothers are torn from their babies." Even worse, he pledged to crack down on the First Amendment for the benefit of NCLR: "They're counting on us to stop the hateful rhetoric filling our airwaves — rhetoric that poisons our political discourse, degrades our democracy, and has no place in this great nation."
Obama's La Raza appointments started early and often. One of Obama's first appointments as president was [Director of Intergovernmental Affairs] Cecilia Munoz, a former senior vice president at NCLR. She describes anti-illegal immigration groups as "hate groups" that promote "bigotry." She has also suggested that crossing the border illegally is "a civil offense, not a criminal one." President Obama's first Supreme Court appointment was Sonia Sotomayor, a member of the NCLR.
A country that allows itself to be run by the friends of its enemies does not have a bright future.
On a tip from Byron.
Chavez Struts at Copenhagen Spectacle
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:49 AM
Thank you Hugo Chavez, for disabusing all but the most obtuse of the notion that Dopenhagen is about anything other than imposing global socialism:
President Chavez brought the house down.
When he said the process in Copenhagen was "not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn't that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship … down with imperial dictatorships" he got a rousing round of applause.
When he said there was a "silent and terrible ghost in the room" and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.
But then he wound up to his grand conclusion — 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ — "our revolution seeks to help all people … socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that's the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell … let's fight against capitalism and make it obey us." He won a standing ovation.
For knuckle-dragging thugs like Chavez to take everything you own and to micromanage every aspect of your existence is the objective of Copenhagen and the environmental movement in general.
Hat tip: Andrew Bolt Blog, on a tip from Charles O.
Gore vs. Data Poetry Slam
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 8:42 AM
Nobel Laureate Al Gore reciting his original poetry.
Lt. Cmdr. Data reciting his original poetry:
Hat Tip: Jonah Goldberg, NRO
Connecticut, You Lucky, Jammy Bastards!
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 8:18 AM
Michael Moore is boycotting your state.
SEIU Wheel Comes Off ObamaCare Express
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:14 AM
Comrade Obama has no better friends than the SEIU, an exceptionally thuggish union that spent $27 million on his campaign. SEIU's top commie Andy Stern has visited the White House more than any other person since the debacle known as the Obamination Administration began to unfold. Yet even the SEIU may oppose ObamaCare, now that the public option has been ostensibly yanked to placate Joe Lieberman.
The bill constitutes extravagantly expensive bureaucratic expansion for its own sake, and offers nothing to anyone except greedy, petty tyrant bureaucrats like Obama, Pelosi, and Reid — and those whose support has been explicitly bought with public money. Hot Air summarizes the chaos it has been causing among moonbat ranks:
Lefties like Michael Moore and Rosa de Lauro blame the centrist Lieberman and want him recalled from office, even though, um, Connecticut has no recall procedure. Democrats like Gibbs and Jay Rockefeller who are desperate to pass a bill blame the liberal Howard Dean for rallying the nutroots at the eleventh hour to kill it. House Democrats blame the Senate for never getting anything done, with Pelosi now reportedly promising exposed Blue Dogs that she won't make them take any more tough votes next year unless and until Reid has passed his half of each bill first. And Harry Reid … just sounds lost, frankly. Exit question one: How come so many liberals seem to want to do away with the Senate these days when it's the Senate that more accurately reflects public sentiment right now than the House? Exit question two: Is NBC right? Is this Dean-o's revenge on Obama?
Republicans on the other hand can have the strength of unity if they just keep it simple: kill the bill.
The Dems may yet ram through this atrocious bill, permanently crippling both our healthcare system and our economy. But at least they'll come out of it fractionated and resented, with Republicans and the public united against them.
On a tip from J.
Tiger and Barack (Part Deux)
Posted by The MaryHunter at 7:46 AM
Another picture worth a thousand words. Courtesy of BigGovernment.com (and neither we nor they are making this up):
Two peas in a pod? What advice could Tiger Woods possibly give to The Obaminator? To keep his pants on? To stop living a lie? The sordid reality show that is Tiger Woods, rather than being a teachable moment, is probably more a foretaste (in spirit, if not necessarily in the details) of what could well be an even more spectacular fall from grace for Dear Leader.
Barack Obama is like Tiger Woods in one crucial respect. He bamboozled us, and he has now lost our trust. Whether either man can recover the admiration he once basked in remains to be seen.
In Obama's case, that'd be some serious recovery, even at this early stage of his reign.
Another Stupid Commie Poster
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 7:34 AM
The Demonrats' "Progressive Caucus" (consisting of those members of the House who openly admit they believe in communism) has come out with the following poster so support state-run health care.
It's a good choice for a health care poster in that most reasonable people will find it sickening. This is how the Progressive Left views the country... Washington is the heart from which our vital lifeblood blows. Bullcrap. The Federal bureaucracy is more like a cancerous tumor, and it will only metastasize under Obama-Reid-PelosiCare.
When I look at this in the context of the Democrat's socialized health care schemes, I don't see blood vessels, I see the tentacles of the Federal bureaucracy. In fact, if I didn't have better things to do and a complete lack of mad Photoshop skillz, I'd rework the poster where the vessels were tentacles, and they were all attached to this guy:
Unless I am mistaken, "Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn" is the call to prayer at Democrat Caucus meetings.
Here's another angle...
Anyway, you get the point.
Obama Threatens to Close Key Air Force Base to Coerce Healthcare Vote
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:19 AM
Chicago politics now guides our national security. From The Weekly Standard's blog:
Twenty Republican senators have requested that the Senate Armed Services Committee launch an investigation into reports that the Obama White House threatened to close Nebraska's Offutt Air Force base unless Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson fell into line on health care. Those reports first appeared on this blog. In the letter to Senators Levin and McCain, the committee chairman and ranking member, the 20 ask that "a hearing be held as to whether the BRAC process has been compromised."
Nelson and the White House unsurprisingly deny everything. But TWS is standing by its story. Fortunately the threat — like most everything coming out of the Obamination Administration — is empty and fake:
The Base Realignment and Closure Process won't get started again for a couple of years, and Offutt is a nearly irreplaceable piece of America's national security infrastructure.
Offutt Air Force is the headquarters of United States Strategic Command, the heart of American military security. But then, if Chairman Zero could care any less about our national security, it wouldn't take him three months to respond to urgent requests for reinforcements in Afghanistan.
On tips from AnonymoUS and Conan. Hat tip: Stop the ACLU.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 6:39 AM
Morning Briefs: Illegal Immigration Round Up Edition
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 4:32 AM
Good Morning Conservative Patriots, Buenos Dias Amigos Illegales y Pervertos del Izquierdo
Item Number One: What's wrong with this poster?
If you guessed "Government promotion of religion," you're wrong. The ACLU has not raised a peep about it because it is aimed at illegal immigrants. The error, as Mark Krikorian at NRO points out, is that the decree that went out from Caesar Augustus was for everyone to return to the hometown of their ancestors for the census. And we all know that the last thing the Progressive Left wants is for millions of uneducated, unskilled ACORN voters to go back to the countries they are legally supposed to reside in.
Item Number Two: On a related note, the SEIU is pushing a new Amnesty Bill in Congress, it has two basic planks: 1. Dismantle border security and 2. Citizenship for all illegals. John McCain and Lindsey Graham have already creamed in their pants.
(Sorry to be so graphic, but it's true. They both creamed in their pants. And Lindsey Graham has been hiking on the Appalachian Trail with La Raza for Years.)
Item Number Three: In a relatedly related note, back in the 1990's, President B.J. Clinton nominated Mari Del Carmen Aponte to be Ambassador to the Dominican Republic. Her nomination was sunk when it was discovered not only was a Cuban Intelligence Officer banging her like a screen door, but she had also likely been recruited by Castro to spy for Cuba. Spying for enemies of the United States used to be kind of a deal-breaker for those who wanted to be ambassadors. But then we went and elected a president who was raised by radical communist Frank Marshall and mentored by radical Alinskyite Bill Ayers. And Chairman Zero just nominated Aponte to be ambassador to El Salvador.
Ponder this: The president sides with communist dictators (Chavez, Castro) against the free people of Honduras and then nominates a communist spy as Ambassador to one of Honduras's neighbors. Is it really so ridiculous to think that within his skinny chest beats the heart of a Marxist?
I was going to save this for next week, but it seems appropriate for today's briefs...
The Mother of ClimateGate?
Posted by The MaryHunter at 4:16 AM
Via BigGovernment.com: an important key to uncovering the fraud regarding the growing fiction of anthropogenic global warming comes from Russia (with no love -- at least not for the COP15 crowd). UK climate scientists may have manipulated Russian data to exaggerate global warming trends:
[...] We have yet further evidence that the data is being cooked to make the long-running claim of an increase in global temperatures, and now to diminish the apparent cooling of said temps. As the gang at EU referendum tout, "it is in Soviet Union that the CRU, NOAA, NASA show the greatest warming."
Location is everything when ambient temperatures are recorded for climate data analysis. But certain locales apparently weren't good enough for those conniving climate-scamologists:
Around the world temperature stations have been widely decommissioned in rural and higher elevations, and we see an over-emphasis on increasingly urbanized (and therefore warmer) stations in the curious selection process as to what temperatures should count, and how much. The latter point references the fact that the data is then adjusted, and we are also seeing an increase in adjusting urbanized (that is, artificially warm) temperature records not down, but upward.
Meterologist Joe D'Aleo posted a brief report that details what appears to be plenty of tweaking of raw temperature data:
On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.
[...]The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.
The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.
IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.
While it is unlikely that any of these allegations, if verified, will shake the eco-Marxists in Copenhagen from their efforts to subdue the international economy in the name of eco-utopia, maybe even the state-run media will finally come to report this hoax for what it is.
On a timely tip from J.
December 16, 2009
Wonderful, Wonderful, Copenwasten!
Posted by The MaryHunter at 8:48 PM
The Copenhagen Climate Convocation-cum-Gore Fest must be unbearably stressful for most authentic greenbats on this fragile planet. Not only did they see their High Priest, The Goracle, poop his pants with scientific inaccuracies. Not only did the house of emails that was ClimateGate collapse just days before the conference opened. Hopenhagen also did much to seriously ruin our environment through waste and excess.
The 40,500 tons of CO2 that will ultimately befoul our air and pummel us with polar bears was nothing. The very living earth has been scarred through mountains of glossy, tree-killing paper.
The paper-product gluttony begins in the morning, when attendees entering the Bella Center are offered a 302-page book about how to go vegetarian. Eating meat, particularly livestock, is responsible for about 50 percent of greenhouse gases, say the towering tomes.
Handouts from the Colombian rainforest exhibit, which appeared to be underwritten by the country's Ministry of the Environment, were printed on paper that did not indicate that it was recycled. That exhibit also provided documents promoting palm oil, which environmentalists say is being produced plantation-style in former rainforests, creating massive amounts of carbon dioxide from deforestation.
An NGO called Tearfund, which sells carbon credits and works to reduce poverty, offers up a 32-page brochure called "The first cut is the deepest; reducing global emmissions." Its handout comes printed on thick, high-quality paper that is not recycled.
While the official COP15 cultural guide is produced "completely CO2 neutral," and handouts from the Rainforest Alliance come with the Responsible Forest seal of approval, they might be the exception. Even the World Wildlife Fund's "Pocket Guide for a Living Planet" is not printed on recycled paper -- although it did use "vegetable ink" during printing.
Then there is the "Daily Programme," which comes in two parts every day. It tells you who is doing what, where and in which meeting room. Total pages on Tuesday: 56. The total Wednesday was 48, and everyone takes at least one. Do the math: 104 x 15,000 = 1.56 million sheets. And that's in just two days.
Could it be that a new dictionary definition of "hypocrisy" will include "COP15"?
Beck Bits: Capitalism or Socialism?
Posted by The MaryHunter at 6:26 PM
Wake up, America! You have bought into the lie that capitalism is only about money, corporations, greedy businessmen, and corrupt politicians who cut backroom deals. Capitalism isn't about money, it's about freedom -- the freedom to try and fail that made the United States the richest industrial nation in the world by 1905 and the freedom that has kept us there ever since.
When Americans say that socialism is a better system than capitalism they are essentially saying that they prefer to be led and fed by the state than be free. They are saying, perhaps ignorantly, that they prefer increased state control over their personal decisions because having a cap on success is an appropriate price to pay for also having a cap on failure.
Those who desire to have their hand held by government admit that they are sheep willing to be shorn and molded by their master -- yet their ranks are likely to swell as the economic crisis worsens, because hunger and fear almost always trigger a stampede to security.
Undocumented Guests
Posted by Van Helsing at 1:22 PM
A Letter to the Editor in a Nevada paper:
Compliments of J.
Gaia Wants Us Cold and Hungry
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 12:32 PM
That Gaia that the left worships really has a thing against humans being warm and fed. In Gaia's name, the US Government massively subsidizes ethanol to ensure that we burn our food instead of eating it. On Airstrip One, the Government serves Gaia by paying farmers not to grow pigs. Pigs are a delicious source of bacon, but their farts make Bill McKibben cry.
Coyote Blog wants to know if we could have a similar program here:
I wonder if we adopted this in the US, if jobs not lost not growing grain to not feed to pigs that aren't reared would count in the stimulus numbers?
And now you understand how the Obama people get their Stimulus job figures.
Militant Theophobes Prove Me Right Again
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 10:31 AM
Atheists claim to be grounded in reason and skepticism; and I'm willing to believe the ones that exercise a studied indifference toward Belief are probably sincere in that. But I think the militant ones are actually motivated by a childish hate toward God and toward people of faith. I think "Theophobes" is a more accurate description than atheists for those types.
Militant theophobes are celebrating that an Arkansas judge is letting them put forth a display celebrating nihilism and meaningless as an "in yer face" to Christian displays celebrating Christmas. Let's ponder this. Why be happy about the opportunity to spoil someone else's holiday if you are only motivated by reason and skepticism? Why not have your celebration of nihilism and self-centeredness in one of the other 11 months of the year, if it's not about an "in yer face" to Christians? If you are really motivated by reason and skepticism, why even care about other people celebrating what they believe?
Look, let's say I professed not to like fast food. Now, if I just avoided eating at fast food restaurants, that would be proof enough that I was sincere in my beliefs. If I stood outside McDonald's slapping Big Macs out of people's hands, you'd think I was a nut. If I demanded that the Government make it illegal for the golden arches to be displayed in public, you'd think I was a tyrant.
The intellectual vanity and vacuity of Theophobes is encapsulated in this quote from a high school sophomore who refused to read the Bible even as literature because, "This is the word of God. People take this literally ... I don't want to read about what they believe to be true."
That isn't reason, that's shoving your fingers in your ears and saying "Neener, neener, neener." There's something wrong when refusing to try to understand that which you do not believe is considered a mark of intellectual sophistication.
Yet Another Untruth From Al Gore: Increased Tree Mortality
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:45 AM
The international liberal elite had better figure out a way to shut up Al Gore if they are going to use the global warming hoax to impose worldwide socialism. The Goracle does rally the left's brain-dead base, but the rest of us are well aware that nothing this figure of fun bellows is true. Among his latest howlers is a claim that tree mortality has increased due to the nonexistent carbon crisis.
Describing a "runaway melt" of the Earth's ice, rising tree mortality and prospects of severe water scarcities, Gore told a UN audience: "In the face of effects like these, clear evidence that only reckless fools would ignore, I feel a sense of frustration" at the lack of agreement so far.
Back on planet earth, vegetation has been increasing significantly — due in part to the increased C02 that according to Gore is making all the trees die. As those who scored higher than a D in natural sciences would know, the more CO2 there is, the faster plants grow. Watts Up With That quotes the hoax-hawking IPCC itself:
Satellite-derived estimates of global net primary production from satellite data of vegetation indexes indicate a 6% increase from 1982 to 1999, with large increases in tropical ecosystems … Northern Hemisphere vegetation activity has increased in magnitude by 12% in Eurasia and by 8% in North America from 1981 to 1999.
Vegetation is also way up in Australia, Canada, and even Northern Africa.
Prepare to be told that oxygen increases animal mortality, when clueless liberal authoritarians like Gore control the healthcare system.
On a tip from Edward.
Call for Communist Condom Designs
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:13 AM
This time, socialism will be different. For example, in the Soviet Union, packaging was drab and unimaginative. Not so in the USSA. The People's Republic of New York City is asking for volunteers to create a thrilling new design for the city's brand of government-issued condoms:
The goal of the contest, said Health Commissioner Thomas Farley, is to "keep people excited about the brand."
Even without a new design, NYC managed to hand out 40 million "free" (i.e., paid for by tax slaves) condoms last year. Aspiring artists won't want to miss this opportunity for widespread exposure.
Artists over age 17 can submit their designs between now and Jan. 22.
The artwork must be original, "capture the city's distinctive culture while promoting safer sex" but can't be "sexually explicit," according to the Health Department.
The city will unveil finalists in February on its website — www.nyc.gov/health — and NYC Condom's Facebook page where New Yorkers can vote and select a winner.
In the meantime, health officials will still hand out their classic image — a black wrapper branded with NYC Condom and based on a city subway motif.
If only Chairman Mao had thought of this, China may never have needed to implement the infamous one-child policy. Someone needs to get word to the ecofascists in Canada's establishment media who would like to see China's inhuman dictate go global.
On a tip from Mark L.
Ted Kennedy's Office Still Producing Scandals
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:58 AM
Chappaquiddick Ted lies cold in the ground — yet the scandals continue:
The former office manager for the late Senator Ted Kennedy was indicted today on federal theft and fraud charges for allegedly pocketing more than $75,000 in unauthorized bonus payments over five years. Ngozi Pole, 39, was named today in a six-count felony indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. … According to prosecutors, Pole, pictured at right, was in charge of processing bonus payments approved by either Kennedy or his chief of staff. These payments, according to the indictment, came in two forms: a "holiday bonus" paid in December or January, and an "end-of-the-fiscal-year bonus" paid after September 30. The holiday bonuses ranged between $1000 and $2000, while the fiscal year bonuses "generally ranged from $3000 to $5000." These bonuses were not paid in lump sums, rather Kennedy employee salaries "were raised for a short period, after which employees' annual salaries were returned to their prior levels." Pole has been accused of keeping his salary at the inflated level for more than the prescribed period. From 2002-2007 he illegally pocketed more than $75,000, according to the indictment, and hid these larger-than-authorized payouts by submitting falsified records to successive Kennedy chiefs of staff.
But then, what's the big deal? It's not like Pole killed anybody. Besides, if robbing taxpayers were a serious crime, we'd have to throw the entire government in jail.
On a tip from Conan.
Midwife Describes Chaos of Britain's Socialized Medicine
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:08 AM
Britain's socialized medical system once again demonstrates what we will find when we go over Chairman Zero's "precipice" into government-run healthcare. Verena Burns, a midwife who recently escaped from the National Health Service into private practice, tells tales of horror:
Welcome to the modern NHS maternity ward. A world of shoddy practice, poor hygiene standards and a shocking disregard for patients' individual needs. …
Driven by targets and mired in red tape, our NHS maternity wards are becoming baby-producing factories where mothers' needs come very low on the agenda.
The quicker midwives turn out babies, the more successful everyone tells us that we are. We might as well be producing sausages. It's utter madness.
I started working as a midwife in Basildon in 1995. I left to work as an independent midwife in January last year because I simply could not bear to let any more women down.
During a typical 12-hour shift, I could be the sole midwife in charge of six women in the antenatal ward — some in early labour — or one of two qualified midwives running a postnatal ward with up to 32 women. …
From the moment I stepped into the admissions ward, the area was crammed with women clamouring for attention.
Since there is no time to address women's emotional needs, the clamoring is quieted pharmaceutically.
We offer them strong painkilling drugs such as pethidine or diamorphine — which is a form of heroin.
Drugs keep the mother nice and quiet which, of course, suits staff.
But they also likely to make her and her unborn baby terribly sleepy.
Although these drugs can sometimes increase contractions, they all too often slow them down.
The end result [is that] the woman will need more drugs, not fewer, and labour will take longer.
But, of course, we don't explain that as we dole out our pain killers. Besides, on a busy ward, what's the alternative?
Once a woman is in full labour, you'd thought we'd put her needs first. But I'm embarrassed to admit that, all too often, we were not allowed to.
Most hospitals rigidly enforce the rule that, once in labour, a woman's canal must dilate at the rate of 1cm an hour.
If that isn't happening, midwives are encouraged to tell the her that her baby may be getting in distress — even if that isn't the case.
Terrified and exhausted by a haze of drugs, the woman agrees to anything which is offered.
In practice, this means we give her extra drugs to intensify the contractions and so speed the arrival of the child.
Her pain levels increase and she'll need an epidural injection in her spine to numb the pain around her groin.
It's a vicious circle. I felt terribly mean persuading women to go along with it. I knew I wasn't always acting in their best interests. But what could I do?
It's a joke to say women have choices over how they give birth. The truth is — thanks to the drive to cut costs and improve efficiency — births are turning into conveyer-belt productions. …
Some are on such heavy drugs they don't remember giving birth at all. It's heartbreaking.
But the important thing is that a new taxpayer has been brought into the world. Hopefully Baby's first impression of it isn't retained:
It's no news that hospitals are often dirty. By the time I left, I was almost inured to the filth around me.
Mommas, don't let your babies be born in a country with socialized medicine.
On a tip from Judith M.
So Much for the Goracle's Consensus
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:12 AM
Of all the lies that the media has rammed down the public's throat in the interest of promoting progressive statism, the most outlandish may be that there is anything resembling a scientific consensus that human activity makes it be too warm out. Next time you're arguing with a dupe who gibbers, "But the experts all agree!" point them to Popular Technology.net, which links to 500 peer-reviewed scientific articles in support of the "denier" point of view.
Not all scientists are willing to sell out scientific principles in exchange for job security and government grants — only the ones the media listens to.
On a tip from Bergbikr.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:02 AM
Morning Briefs Wednesday
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 6:40 AM
Good Morning Patriotic Conservatives and Good Morning Leftist Weenies Who Weep at the Sight of Coral and Baby Corn,
Item Number One: PBO, yesterday, on Health Care: "From the discussions we had, it's clear that we are on the precipice of an achievement that has eluded Congresses and presidents for decades..."
Precipice: [pres-uh-pis] -noun 1. a cliff with a vertical, nearly vertical, or overhanging face. 2. a situation of great peril.
Sounds about right.
Item Number Two: Another United Nations Success! A UN-backed military mission to put down rebel guerrillas in the Congo has succeeded in killing more innocent civilians than rebel fighters. You can add this to other UN "triumphs" like the Oil-for-Palaces program, the Global Warming Hoax, letting the Palestinians get away with any atrocities they care to commit, failing to do anything in Darfur, and keeping the Iranian Nuclear Program humming along without interruption.
Item Number Three: Parents in Detroit New Mogadishu want to throw incompetent teachers in jail. A pretty radical step, which shows how desperate the situation in America's most-liberal city is: Desperate enough to throw educrats in jail, not desperate enough to reject the one-party, left-liberal, 40 year hammerlock that's driven their city into the ground.
Brought to you by An Obamanation Christmas:
Featuring:
"Tingle Bells" - CHRIS MATTHEWS
"It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Every Other Day" - THE ACLU ORCHESTRA
"What Child Prostitute Is This?" - THE ACORN COMMUNITY CHOIR
Counter-Moonbattery Alert: Save the SEALs
Posted by The MaryHunter at 4:15 AM
Let's not forget about those heroic Navy SEALs Matthew McCabe, Jonathon Keefe, and Julio Huertas, who face prison because they nabbed a vicious terrorist bastard and (only) fattened his lip in the exchange. Two of the SEALs were arraigned last week and they have separate trials scheduled for early January. While our Ditherer-in-Chief Barack Himself Obama could apparently care less for these heroes and the perverse, back-stabbing injustice being served to them, fortunately some members of Congress are speaking out on their behalf:
A second letter of support from members of Congress has been sent on behalf of three Navy SEALs charged with mistreating an Iraqi detainee. The latest letter written by Indiana's Dan Burton and signed by 40 of his Republican colleagues asks a Special Operations commander to drop all charges against the men.
Burton says in a separate statement: "This sends a backwards message to our men and women in the military who are charged with carrying out dangerous missions and must often use aggressive force in dealing with Al Qaeda and the Taliban."
God willing, some true justice will be done here.
Oh wait, we're in Hopeychange Land, where the U.S. is the aggressor, our president apologizes for our very existence, and our duty as the infedel is to bend over and dhimmi up. At least there are a few good members of Congress trying to push back against the overly PCified military brass.
December 15, 2009
100 Reasons Why Climate Change Is Natural
Posted by The MaryHunter at 8:40 PM
Perhaps a more creative title was warranted for this list, published in the London Daily Express, of 100 reasons that Al Gore, Rajendra Pachauri, and other anthropogenic-global-warming(-is-a-lie) profiteers should be locked up in Azkaban, their souls slowly sucked dry by dementors a plenty. The European Foundation compiled the list as a reaction to the lunacy going on in Wonderful Wonderful Copenhagen.
Political analyst Jim McConalogue, who wrote the report, said: "This demonstrates how tenuous, improper and indeed false the scientific and political claims are for man-made global warming, from claims that climate change can be controlled by human activity to the proposition that CO2 emissions represent a severe threat to our way of life, when in fact there is little evidence to support any of these claims."
He warned that the Copenhagen climate summit was likely to lead to "nonsensical targets" to reduce emissions, which would result in a "burdensome regulatory agenda". After Copenhagen, voters around the world "will see what travesty has been done in their name, as foolish politicians and indifferent industry associations have engulfed their countries in emissions legislation".
The first 10 entries of the list:
1) There is "no real scientific proof" that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man's activity.
2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.
3) Warmer periods of the Earth's history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.
4) After World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions but global temperatures fell for four decades after 1940.
5) Throughout the Earth's history, temperatures have often been warmer than now and CO2 levels have often been higher - more than ten times as high.
6) Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time.
7) The 0.7C increase in the average global temperature over the last hundred years is entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate trends.
8) The IPCC theory is driven by just 60 scientists and favourable reviewers not the 4,000 usually cited.
9) Leaked e-mails from British climate scientists - in a scandal known as "Climate-gate" - suggest that that has been manipulated to exaggerate global warming
10) A large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past hundred years.
Now, liberals will decry that The European Foundation is a right-wing think tank that resents the EU and was aiming to undermine Gordon Brown's trip to Hopenhagen. And, liberals would be right. All the more reason to listen to the European Foundation.
On an exquisite tip from J.
Your Tax Dollars At Work: Government Motors Marketing or SYTYCD Rejects?
Posted by The MaryHunter at 12:52 PM
Who would have thunk that GM would go to such lengths to hype the Chevy Volt, a car that we know everyone wants anyway, since CEO-in-Chief Obama wants us to want it.
Just a few days after the engineering team behind the Chevrolet Volt triumphantly rolled out the production version of its much-anticipated car for journalists to test, the folks in marketing followed it up with folk music, break dancing, and what looks like a few rejects from a 1986 high school production of the "Pirates of Penzance".
Oh do watch this and be awed:
But wait, it gets better:
Although it looks more like a "Saturday Night Live" skit, the dance routine that was performed on the Volt display at the Los Angeles Auto Show is all too real. [...] Reportedly, the cringe-inducing interpretation of an electric-powered future took place every hour during the ten days of the show.
You're either asking yourself "Is this really MY Government Motors?" or praying that GM is not a sponsor of the So You Think You Can Dance season finale tomorrow night.
The Tears of a Moonbat Are Yummy and Sweet
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 11:11 AM
Ace of Spades reports on the testimony of a sobbing, Gaia-worshiping leftist girly-man who can't bear the sight of coral, rocks, and baby corn.
This afternoon I sobbed for an hour, and I'm still choking a little. I got to Copenhagen's main Lutheran Cathedral just before the start of a special service designed to mark the conference underway for the next week. It was jammed, but I squeezed into a chair near the corner. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, gave the sermon; Desmond Tutu read the Psalm. Both were wonderful.
But my tears started before anyone said a word. As the service started, dozens choristers from around the world carried three things down the aisle and to the altar: pieces of dead coral bleached by hot ocean temperatures; stones uncovered by retreating glaciers; and small, shriveled ears of corn from drought-stricken parts of Africa.
He probably hasn't cried so hard since that mean fourth grade girl took his lunch money... in high school.
You know what I am thinking of, but it doesn't happen until around 3:45 into this clip.
Big Government Recalls 800,000 Doses of Children's Swine Flu Vaccine
Posted by Van Helsing at 10:57 AM
The latest from the same government that is in the process of seizing control of the healthcare system in the name of "reform":
Health officials are recalling hundreds of thousands of doses of swine flu vaccine after tests indicated they may not be potent enough to protect against the virus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified doctors about the recall Tuesday. The recall involves about 800,000 doses … intended for young children, ages 6 months to almost three years.
Fortunately, the swine flu was yet another overhyped phony crisis anyway. Imagine being at the mercy of Big Government in a real crisis. But then, being at the mercy of Big Government is in itself the ultimate crisis.
On a tip from Henry. Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.
UN-Backed Goons Cause More Civilian Casualties Than Damage to Rebels in Congo
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:42 AM
It's tempting to cut moonbats slack, on the grounds that they simply have no clue because they spend their lives immersed in liberal propaganda. But even if you had no source of information other than progressive AP, you would know that a world run by the UN would not be a pleasant place to live. Here's what our nascent global government has been up to in the Congo:
A U.N.-backed Congolese military operation to oust rebels from eastern Congo has caused more civilian casualties than damage to rebels, with more than 1,400 people deliberately killed over a nine-month period, human rights groups said Monday.
Human Rights Watch said it had documented "vicious and widespread" attacks against civilians by soldiers and rebels between January and September. Soldiers being fed and supplied with ammunition by the United Nations have killed civilians, gang-raped girls and cut the heads off some young men they accuse of being rebels or supporting the enemy, groups said.
"For every rebel combatant disarmed, one civilian has been killed, seven women and girls have been raped, six houses have been burned and destroyed and 900 people have been forced to flee their homes," British-based organization Oxfam said.
Human Rights Watch said it documented the killings of 732 civilians between January and September by the Congolese army and troops from neighboring Rwanda fighting alongside it. In the same period, it counted 701 civilians killed by the rebels they are fighting.
"Some victims were tied together before their throats were, according to one witness, 'slit like chickens.' The majority of the victims were women, children, and the elderly," the group said.
Your tax dollar at work.
Human Rights Watch said that the 19,000 peacekeepers in Congo — the biggest U.N. force in the world — must "immediately cease all support to the current military operation" until it can ensure there are no violations of international humanitarian law. The group also called for the U.N. to find "a new approach to protect civilians."
"The U.N. peacekeepers are being put in an appalling situation where they are supporting an army that is attacking its own population," it said.
That is, when the peacekeepers aren't attacking the population themselves.
By all means, let's gradually turn over American sovereignty to these goons, through climate change treaties and stealthier attacks like the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It's not right that only Africans should be butchered and raped for the greater glory of world government.
On a tip from scottthong. Hat tip: Gateway Pundit.
African Dictators to Demand 5% of West's GDP
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:55 AM
It's a good thing we all have plenty of money to spare, because the socialist dictators lording it over Africa are exploiting the Dopenhagen spectacle as an opportunity to demand a fat cut of it in the name of the global warming farce:
According to a draft text, 50 African countries are considering demanding five percent of rich nations' GDPs for developing countries, plus deep emission cuts, reports Danish daily Politiken.
The African Group is discussing tough financial demands of the developed countries at the UN climate conference.
In a draft text quoted by Danish daily Politiken, the group of 50 countries proposes that rich countries pay five percent of their GDPs to developing countries in support for their fight against climate change.
They may not get their 5%, but they are sure to be handed more than enough loot to inflict further damage to our economy — in the name of a "crisis" that has already been publicly exposed as a deliberate hoax.
If only there would be someone to shower down free taxpayer money to buy guns and palaces for our rulers, after economically suicidal liberal policies inevitably reduce the West to an African standard of living.
On a tip from Edward.
Second-Grader Feels Wrath of State Over Picture of Jesus
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:31 AM
Our government-run schools may be abysmal at teaching math, science, reading, and writing, but there is one lesson they get across effectively — Thou shalt have no gods before envirostatism:
A Taunton [Massachusetts] father is outraged after his 8-year-old son was sent home from school and required to undergo a psychological evaluation after drawing a stick-figure picture of Jesus Christ on the cross.
The father said he got a call earlier this month from Maxham Elementary School informing him that his son, a second-grade student, had created a violent drawing. The image in question depicted a crucified Jesus with Xs covering his eyes to signify that he had died on the cross. …
The student drew the picture shortly after taking a family trip to see the Christmas display at the National Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette, a Christian retreat site in Attleboro. He made the drawing in class after his teacher asked the children to sketch something that reminded them of Christmas, the father said.
The "psychological evaluation" aspect is especially alarming. After progressives seized control of Russia in 1917, dissidents were locked away in mental asylums for not embracing slavery to the State.
At least they haven't gone back to feeding Christians to lions. No doubt it would be considered exploitation of animals.
On a tip from Steve A.
UN's Rajendra Pachauri: Another Greedy Global Warming Profiteer
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:02 AM
What a surprise — like Al Gore, the UN's creepy climate chief Rajendra Pachauri stands to make a grotesque fortune off the global warming hoax:
A story emerging out of Britain suggests "follow the money" may explain the enthusiasm of the United Nations to pursue caps on carbon emissions, despite doubts surfacing in the scientific community about the validity of the underlying global warming hypothesis.
A Mumbai-based Indian multinational conglomerate with business ties to Rajendra K. Pachauri, the chairman since 2002 of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, stands to make several hundred million dollars in European Union carbon credits simply by closing a steel production facility in Britain with the loss of 1,700 jobs.
That's green economics in a nutshell: parasites profiting by throwing people out of work.
The Tata Group headquartered in Mumbai anticipates receiving windfall profits of up to nearly $2 billion from closing the Corus Redcar steelmaking plant in Britain, with about half of the savings expected to result from cashing in on carbon credits granted the steelmaker by the European Union under the EU's emissions trading scheme…
Corus has accumulated 7.5 million European Union surplus carbon allowances, or EUAs, given the company free by the EU, after corporate officials lobbied EU officials aggressively in Brussels.
The Corus-owned 7.5 million EUAs are estimated at up to $650 million; the company also anticipates "saving" 6 million tons of carbon dioxide by closing the plant and not producing the plant's capacity of 3 million tons of steel. The 6 million tons of carbon dioxide is worth an estimated $130 million at current rates and possibly as much as $325 million at expected market levels.
The economic term for providing incentives not to do anything productive is moonbattery — a devastating phenomenon that has turned our inner cities into cesspools and is systematically destroying the British economy.
Manufacturing accounted for 22.5 percent of Britain's economic output when Labour came to power in 1997, while it accounts for little more than 11 percent today, according to the London Times.
If Dems manage to ram through Tax & Charade, manufacturing in the USA will all but cease, to the delight of environmentalists. But not to worry: what we can't weave out of hemp, we can just buy from the ChiComs, and then send the bill to our grandchildren.
On a tip from scottthong.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:33 AM
Stimulus Money to Pay Students for Grades
Posted by The MaryHunter at 7:09 AM
Now, here's a great Nanny State deal for you students out there. Remember how your ma and pa used to pay you for getting good grades? Well never fear, now colleges are doing the same thing:
A number of public colleges and universities have said that they used federal stimulus funds to avoid or minimize tuition increases. Fort Hays State University may have a unique way to use the funds to help with college costs: It is paying students $5 for each credit they earn with a grade of C or higher. (Courses are typically three or four credits.)
(Does somebody want to explain how a program like this actually helps to create jobs in our fragile economy? Isn't that what the Porkulus package was all about: putting people to work? Ahh, but we digress...)
This Kansas college, flush with $2.8 million in porkulus money, had to do something with it. Some resourceful educators thought, hey, we just had to increase tuition, so why don't we use some of Obama's loot to incentivize students to get at least a C. Yes, a C. We need to look this up, but doesn't "C" stand for "all you need to do to get this grade is just show up"?
A spokesman for the university said Thursday that he hadn't heard of any discussion on campus about the appropriateness of paying for grades, and said that while it may not be common practice among colleges, "it's not among some parents."
No word, however, if students earning below a C are forced to pay the institution for getting failing grades. Back in The Day, middle and high school students who got, e.g., $5 for an A, $2.50 for a B, and nothing for a C, had to pay their folks $5 for anything worse.
The funny thing is: like so many of the Mysterious Porkulus Projects out there that are apparently benefiting our nation and creating jobs, the FHSU students don't even seem to be aware of this one:
But judging from an article this week in The University Leader, the student newspaper, the refund plan may not have had much of an impact on student behavior this semester. The article quoted the student body president as saying most students didn't know about the program. And the article quoted several students who will benefit as saying that they were surprised.
On a tip from Penelope.
Bummer About the Olympics. Have Some Terrorists as a Consolation Prize.
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 6:47 AM
NRO editorializes on the Obama Regime's decision to bring GITMO terrorists to a prison in Illinois.
The prison is a $145 million white elephant. When Illinois was comparatively flush with capital, it built the 1,600-bed penitentiary to stimulate the depressed Mississippi Valley town. But the state is now a basket case. Budgetary woes have squeezed law-enforcement funding, and local politicians -- including former state senator Barack Obama -- have insisted that alternatives to incarceration be found, even for violent offenders; as a consequence less than 10 percent of the TCC's space is currently being used. Naturally, Obama's home-state Democrats are thrilled by the prospect of having Uncle Sam take the TCC off the state's hands. Sen. Dick Durbin and Gov. Pat Quinn issued a statement rapt at the prospect of "generating up to 3,800 jobs" and "injecting more than $1 billion into the regional economy."
Doesn't the left usually whine about "running prisons for profit?" Oh, I forgot, it's okay when a socialist government does it.
Also, the editorial points out that once the terrorists are in the custody of the civilian prison system, they will be able to sue the government to make their surroundings more comfortable and accommodating. No doubt, the ACLU will eagerly assist them in pursuing these suits.
This whole scheme is emblematic of the Obama Administration as a whole: far left liberalism mated at the hip-joint with Chicago-style corruption with a billion dollar bailout thrown in to boot!
Economic Illiteracy: Guiding Principle of the Moonbat Democrat Left
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 5:32 AM
The majority party is sending a $1.1 Trillion spending bill with over 5,000 earmarks in it over to their jug-eared president --- who will sign it, despite his previous vows to really, really (I mean it this time) get cereal about deficit reduction. After signing it, the president will no doubt give himself a B+ on fiscal responsibility.
Also, our B+ lefty president has responded to a massive economic crisis that was brought about largely by banks making massive amounts of bad loans... by pressuring banks to make even more bad loans.
"Now no one wants banks making the kinds of risky loans that got us into this situation in the first place," he said. "But given the difficulty businesspeople are having as lending has declined, and given the exceptional assistance banks received to get them through a difficult time, we expect them to explore every responsible way to help get our economy moving again."
Yeah, that's real B+ thinking there, President Soetero. Did you ever think that maybe the banks have reasons to be cautious about loaning money? Like maybe they don't want to make a bunch of bad loans and have to go for another bailout?
Also, did you know the city of Baltimore is suing Wells-Fargo for loaning too much money to people with bad credit?
The city's lawsuit claims that Wells Fargo Bank, based in California, pushed African-American borrowers into loans they couldn't afford through an illegal practice known as "reverse redlining," which led to a disproportionate number of foreclosures - and consequently vacancies - in black communities.
Only moonbats would believe that capitalist bankers make money by loaning it to people who won't pay them back. And what's this "reverse redlining?" Aren't these the same people who sued or threatened to sue banks in the first place if they didn't loan money to minorities with bad credit? So, are banks damned if they don't loan money to minorities with bad credit and damned if they do loan money to minorities with bad credit?
Or, is it the case that just as the Earth has some ideal perfect temperature, there is some just-exactly-right level of loaning money to minorities with bad credit that the banks can do and not be sued? If so, would the moonbat left be kind enough to say what the level is and promise not to change it later for political expediency?
Maybe Americans For Prosperity or somebody should send ... lets see, 60 Democrat Senators + 257 Democrats in the House + 1 President ... 318 copies of this book to Congress and the White House.
Morning Briefs for Tuesday
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 4:54 AM
Good Morning Conservative Patriots, Good Morning Lefties with Blogs Nobody Reads,
Item Number One: The guy who failed out of college twice but is regarded by the Progressive Left as a Genius and Visionary, Al Gore, yesterday or the day before claimed that all the Arctic Ice would melt within 5 to 7 years from the heated breath of Manbearpig (or maybe because Manbearpig has heated the interior of the earth to millions of degrees, as the college flunkout recently claimed). The problem is, the scientician he claims told him this says it's a load of crap.
"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."
Which is how scienticians say "You're full of crap" to the people who write them checks.
Item Number Two: Google may completely blow off Christian and patriotic holidays, but they do honor the truly earth-changing historical events that are relevant to most people's lives... like honoring the birthday of the guy who invented esperanto.
Here's some esperanto for you guys, "Google estas kiun estr hipioj kiuj estas plena de crap."
Item Number Three: Something to ponder: Why was it outrageous slander for Sarah Palin to refer to the Health Care Commissions that would decide who would be eligible for what treatments as "Death Panels," but perfectly okay for the Progressive Left to claim that Joe Lieberman wants to "cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score"?
Ponder that.
Also, Ponder if Storm Troopers had FB pages:
December 14, 2009
Nutroots Demand Purity Test
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 12:46 PM
Can we expect to see a lot of editorial handwringing about how the Democrat Party is doomed if they continue to let the extremists in their party drown out and alienate the moderates?
Probably not.
Obamaville
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:33 AM
Those who lived in New York City during the disastrous reign of Mayor David Dinkins may remember Dinkinsville, as they called a fenced-in patch of Lower East Side rubble meant to house derelicts ejected from Thompkins Square Park. Dinkinsism — i.e., smash-and-grab socialism imposed by a bumbling Affirmative Action post turtle taken by liberal fools for a "magic negro" — has gone national in the form of Obamunism. Consequently, we now have Obamaville:
Actually, the reference goes further back than Dinkins – all the way to Herbert Hoover, who ushered in the Great Depression that was so artfully exploited and extended by progressive hero FDR:
In the 1930s, Hoovervilles (shantytowns) formed coast to coast in cities of the United States. Some families were fortunate enough to stay with friends and family members that hadn't been evicted yet, but homeless men, women and children were forced to take up residence in shacks as a result of the Great Depression. Angry, cold and hungry Americans, who had no other place to reside, dubbed groups of those shacks in honor of President Herbert Hoover.
Those desperate folks blamed Hoover for the downfall of economic stability and lack of government help. The small amount of resources that the federal government actually made available often did not go to the sick, hungry and homeless. That was simply because many city officials were corrupt, and kept those valuable resources to themselves.
American Thinker comments:
It hardly seems a coincidence that the sign was strung up within sight of the ubiquitous American Recovery and Reinvestment Act sign touting the wasteful dispersement of U.S. tax dollars on pet projects and boondoggles lavished upon Democrat Friends of B.O. While the Obama administration focuses on saving or creating jobs like the 3 jobs rescued for Clinton pollster Mark Penn at the cost of $6 million, the unemployment rate remains above 10% for those who even bother to try to find work in the eviscerated American business landscape. … While the Obamas jet back and forth from Scandanavia garnering Nobel loot and posing greenly for the Gropenhagen climate conference, many Americans will spend Christmas living in tents or their automobliles.
The usual liberal strategy is for the government to hand everyone a cheap crutch after it has broken our legs by taxing and regulating the economy into the dumps, thus ensuring our eternal gratitude. But apparently our current rulers are too greedy even to buy a few crutches with the $trillions they've been looting not only from us, but from future generations.
On tips from TED, Kevin R, scottthong, and AnonymoUS. Hat tip: Gateway Pundit.
Chairman Zero's B+
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 8:55 AM
I knew grade inflation at Ivy League schools was rampant, but PBO awarding himself a B+ on his first year in office (and, naturally, blaming Bush for not being able to give himself an A+++ with a gold star and a smiley face) is absurd.
Let's review the Administration's "successes" in its first year of office:
- 10% unemployment, 15% real unemployment, 3.5 million jobs destroyed.
- Deficit exploded from $400 Billion to $1,400 Billion
- 3 million more people on food stamps
- Assembled a cabinet of tax cheats , and an inner circle of radical communists (Van Jones), totalitarian eugenicists (John Holdren), and creepy perverts (Kevin Jennings)
- Went out for ice cream while the Iranian mullahs brutally murdered pro-Democracy demonstrators
- Sided with communist thug tyrants like Chavez and Castro against the free people of Honduras
- Went to China, scraped and bowed, and came back with nothing.
- Went to Copenhagen to pitch for the Olympics and was shot down on the first ballot
- Passed a $787 Billion stimulus that failed to do anything but line the pockets of public employees
If that's what a B+ looks like, what would a C- look like? Unemployment at 40%? Major cities nuked? Mel Gibson fighting with bikers in S&M gear?
Judge Decrees That ACORN Thugs Will Keep Getting Your Money
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:51 AM
As progressives consolidate the totalitarian power they've been dreaming of since the dark days of Woodrow Wilson, the legislative branch becomes increasingly irrelevant. Power is now in the hands of unelected bureaucrats like the ecofascists staffing the EPA and appallingly arrogant left-wing judges. For example, after the Giles/O'Keefe videos shamed Congress into pretending it would shut off the spigot pouring our money into ACORN, the judiciary was quick to defend the radical left's shock troops:
The U.S. government's move this fall to cut off funding to ACORN was unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled Friday, handing the embattled group a legal victory.
Unconstitutional. How strange that word must taste in the mouths of moonbats, who proclaim that the Constitution is a "living document" that says whatever you want it to say at any given moment.
U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon issued the preliminary injunction against the government, saying it's in the public's interest for the organization to continue receiving federal funding. …
Gershon said in her ruling that ACORN had raised a "fundamental issue of separation of powers. They have been singled out by Congress for punishment that directly and immediately affects their ability to continue to obtain federal funding, in the absence of any judicial, or even administrative, process adjudicating guilt."
If it's punishment not to be handed other people's money, how come I'm being punished? I never got a trial! I want free fortunes too!
The farce that currently serves us for a political system is a transition period between the constitutional republic of the past and the totalitarian oligarchy that is already coming into view.
On tips from John L and batman.
Rules of Derangement
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:18 AM
Liberals don't even bother to hide their intense hostility toward the military. Their moral avatar Bill Clinton has averred that he loathes it. Chris "Tingles" Matthews, whom they trust to install their opinions, refers to West Point as the "enemy camp." The challenge for progressives is: how is a herd of squishy-soft degenerates to overcome the greatest fighting force the world has ever seen?
The answer is to attack our fighting forces' most crucial asset: their morale. Our abulic Community Activist in Chief showed how it's done by dithering for months on end before responding to a desperate plea for reinforcements in Afghanistan, finally deigning to grant part of the request. The less thoughtful contingents of Obama's base would prefer outright surrender to the Taliban, but continuing to fight the war with his day late, dollar short approach will be much more devastating in the long run. The goal is not just to lose, but to lose slowly, painfully, and as senselessly as possibly, in hopes of leaving a lasting psychic scar and dissuading the best and the brightest from joining the military.
Only from this point of view can sense be made of the insane rules of engagement under which our troops are ordered to lose and die.
New military rules of engagement ostensibly to protect Afghan civilians are putting the lives of U.S. forces in jeopardy, claim Army and Marine sources, as the Taliban learns the game plan based [on] the rules' imposed limits.
The rules of engagement, or ROEs, apply to all coalition forces of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. …the Taliban is well aware of them and has its own forces acting in ways to counteract them [i.e., exploit them].
A few examples:
• No night or surprise searches.
• Villagers are to be warned prior to searches.
• Afghan National Army, or ANA, or Afghan National Police, or ANP, must accompany U.S. units on searches.
• U.S. soldiers may not fire at insurgents unless they are preparing to fire first.
• U.S. forces cannot engage insurgents if civilians are present.
• Only women can search women.
• Troops can fire on insurgents if they catch them placing an IED but not if insurgents walk away from where the explosives are.
Here's how the rules work to save terrorist hides:
Often, rules of engagement require varying levels of approvals before action can be taken. In one case, villagers had tipped off U.S. forces of the presence of a Taliban commander who was threatening village elders.
To get permission to go after him, U.S. troops had to get 11 separate Afghan, U.S. and international forces' approval to the plan. The approval, however, did not come until well into the next day. By then, the Taliban commander had moved on, to the consternation of the villagers who had provided the tip. Observers have claimed that it can take some 96 hours to acquire all the permissions to act.
In other cases, the use of force against insurgents may be blocked if they lower their guns, only to have those insurgents return later to attack.
Also, ISAF troops cannot engage insurgents if they are leaving an area where an IED has been planted. In one case, insurgents planting an IED had detected the presence of U.S. forces and immediately began leaving the area, tossing evidence of their preparations along the way. U.S. forces could not fire on them.
Unsurprisingly, this moonbattery has gotten American soldiers killed:
ROE restrictions were in effect when four U.S. Marines twice pleaded by radio for artillery support in combat action in Kunar Province in Afghanistan — and twice they were refused, before they were killed.
But these lives are considered expendable by the same politically poisoned brass that responded to the Fort Hood massacre by puling about the sacredness of diversity.
As the ROEs make glaringly obvious, our troops aren't in Afghanistan to win. The Anointed One has admitted that victory isn't the objective. They are over there to get killed for as long as it serves his political purposes. Then they'll come home ragged and beaten — not by terrorists, but by the infinitely greater threat to America, backstabbing liberal politicians.
On a tip from Mike B.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:14 AM
Retro Moonbattery from 1973
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 7:36 AM
The last time the Progressive Left had the level of political and cultural dominance it enjoys today was in the early to mid-1970's.While some lefties were high-fiving themselves over getting the USA out of Vietnam (shrugging off the subsequent genocide) and making legalized baby-killing national policy, a few academics were looking at ways to push the boundaries even further.
C. Etzel Pearcy, a geography professor at California State University, Los Angeles, proposed abolishing the fifty states as they existed then... with their geographically-influenced state lines and cultural distinctiveness... and replacing them with 38 states whose boundaries were based on consolidating large urban centers (gee, which party would that benefit?). States would also be renamed to eliminate the painful memory of those dead white guys who named them the first time around.
The resulting map looked like this (Click to enlarge):
I'm not totally averse to the idea of realigning some state boundaries; California is so huge it really needs to be split up. But this wholesale realignment and this kind of checkerboard disregard for culture and geography could only have come from someone pretty wrapped up in his own delusions of grandeur.
Monday Morning Briefs
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 5:24 AM
Good Morning Conservative Patriots, Good Morning Left-Wing Masochists, (Once again, showing up to see everything they believe in ridiculed and discredited)
Item Number One: How pathetic is Keith Olbermann? Well, pathetic enough to rant against ABC News's Brian Wright ("The Worst Person in The World!") for allegedly dishonestly editing a clip from the Daily Show to distort the point Jon Stewart was making about "Climate Change." And to prove it, Olbermann dishonestly edits the same clip.
BTW, Keith Douchenozzle claims FoxNews isn't a real news network because it supposedly doesn't give contrary opinions airtime, but KO has an elaborate rationalization to explain why he never permits dissenting views on his own program.
Item Number Two: Sweet! The Chancellor of UC-Berkeley had has family threatened and his home vandalized by lefty protesters who were upset about tuition and fee hikes. "The attack at our home was extraordinarily frightening and violent. My wife and I genuinely feared for our lives," whimpered University Chancellor Birgeneau. Gee, Birge, you never seemed to have a problem when they were protesting oil companies or military recruiters.
Item Number Three: Ponder the multiple levels of insanity at work here. A Muslim man in Italy murdered another man who made fun of his eye make-up. An Italian court reduced the man's prison sentence because genetic tests show he has a predisposition toward violence. Get it? He is actually getting out early because he is more likely to commit violence than ordinary people.
Lord love a duck.
The elites hate us. They really, genuinely hate us.
For some reason... maybe the crazed murderer angle... that last item reminds me of this old viral chestnut (Remember the early days of YouTube?):
Contra What the Left Says, Obama *Is* Coming for our Guns
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 4:53 AM
PBO's corrupt thug of an Attorney General is laying the groundwork for national gun registration --- which is the necessary precursor to de facto and/or de jure outlawing the private ownership of firearms (as has happened in Britain, Austalia, New York City, Washington DC and elsewhere) --- and wants the Justice Department to be able to deny anyone the Government designates as a potential terrorist the right to possess firearms.
According to the Law Enforcement Alliance of America:
(In the course of) US Senate testimony on Wednesday, November 18, Attorney General Eric Holder "revealed a stunningly broad and aggressive anti-gun agenda.
After explaining and defending his decision to give enemy combatants constitutional protections and the right to public trial in civilian courts in New York City, Attorney General Holder revealed his support for a national gun owner registration scheme and authorizing the government to ban firearm possession for any person by merely adding that person's name to the terror watch list,
IOW, under his scheme, the Justice Department will be able to deny selected individuals the right to own firearms, based on whom they decide is a "terror threat." We already know that this administration defines pro-lifers, anti-tax activists, supporters of immigration enforcement, and critics of Obama generally as potential terrorists.
When you consider that the DOJ will be in charge of deciding who is and who is not allowed to own a firearm, it is important not to forget what a corrupt piece of crap Eric Holder is:
- Fought for and got pardons for FALN terrorists.
- Extends the full Constitutional protections of American citizens to foreign terrorists.
- Dismissed charges against the Black Panthers for blatant voter intimidation.
In related scary-ass news, the Rand Corporation has published a monograph pushing for the establishment of a "Stability Police Force (SPF)." Not for Afghanistan. Not for Iraq. For the USA.
This research examines the creation of a high-end police force, which the authors call a Stability Police Force (SPF). The study considers what size force is necessary, how responsive it needs to be, where in the government it might be located, what capabilities it should have, how it could be staffed, and its cost. This monograph also considers several options for locating this force within the U.S. government, including the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Secret Service, the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) in the Department of State, and the U.S. Army's Military Police. The authors conclude that an SPF containing 6,000 people -- created in the U.S. Marshals Service and staffed by a "hybrid option," in which SPF members are federal police officers seconded to federal, state, and local police agencies when not deployed -- would be the most effective of the options considered. The SPF would be able to deploy in 30 days. The cost for this option would be $637.3 million annually, in FY2007 dollars.
This is not good.
The New York Times Is Not Racist
Posted by The MaryHunter at 3:01 AM
...they would only appear to be. Take, for example, from their 2009 Holiday Gift Guide, which opens as follows:
Somali fashion, do-it-yourself henna kits, children's books that draw inspiration from the lives of Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor: it's not hard to find gifts created for and by people of color this holiday season.
Does this mean that people not of color are not allowed to purchase either the Baby Jamz Vol. 2 CD, or the fascinating new book "Sonia Sotomayor: A Judge Grows in the Bronx/La Juez Que Crecio en el Bronx" by Jonah Winter? Hey, those Bindya Scarves would look hot hot hot on Mrs. MaryHunter, I must say.
This average white guy is now officially offended, on behalf of those NYT readers whom they feel they must label as "people of color."
December 13, 2009
Eco-Marxism and the Convenient Lie
Posted by The MaryHunter at 5:23 PM
Organized mendacity is the status quo for the whole climate treaty boondoggle. Set aside the whole ClimateGate issue and the hoax that is "man-made global warming" for a moment. As noted by Lee Lane and W. David Montgomery, two noted climate policy economics experts, it is certainly no secret that many of the signatories to the Kyoto Protocols, and likely any COP15 agreements, have no intention of abiding by said agreements:
[...] 187 nations have signed the Kyoto Protocol, resoundingly declaring the signatories' resolve to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Most of them are exempt from emission controls, and the ones that are not have acted largely as they would have had no agreement been reached. Global emissions of carbon dioxide have continued to grow.
The United Nations Conference of Parties in Copenhagen will follow this pattern. While all countries proclaim a wish to lower GHG emissions, developing countries refuse to pay the requisite costs to do so.
Of course, India and China, the two biggest offenders and the least interested in cleaning up their act, will either comply not at all, or simply fleece the West for the compliance costs, either directly through treaties or indirectly, through spiraling costs for their energy-intensive goods.
China and India insist that the developed world must pay them to reduce emissions. However, for the United States alone, fully compensating the developing countries for the cost of controls would entail annual income transfers of $200 billion by 2020 and of nearly $1 trillion by 2050.
For these authors, their beef is with the blatant hypocrisy, extortion, and lies surrounding international carbon emissions negotiations. However, they still seem to buy into Manbearpig. This is where Jeffrey Kuhner steps in (on the same opinion page of the Washington Times) to set the record straight. He details, in a highly recommended article full of quotable quotes, what is really at the heart of this full-out attack on capitalism and free markets: eco-Marxism.
The 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall should have exposed the failure of socialism. It didn't. Instead, the left simply moved from championing the class struggle to global-warming alarmism. Its goal, however, remains the same: to smash free markets and impose economic collectivism. The revolution continues, only today it is being fought under the green banner.
Just like the communists before them, radical environmentalists are driven by secular utopianism. They are followers of a pseudo-religion, except salvation is to be found in this world rather than the next. They demonstrate the irrationalism and imperviousness to facts and empirical evidence akin to a cult.
We've been pummeled with lies lies lies lies lies about global warming for almost as long as the "threat" had been first publicized. It's only now that awareness of the corruption underlying climate change science has been widely exposed. Nevermind that, however. Eco-Marxists refuse to concede the truth. The Big Lie is simply all that they have, and they're not giving it up.
[...] fear-mongers such as former Vice President Al Gore refuse to concede the truth. For Mr. Gore, global warming is not an "inconvenient truth"; rather, it is a convenient lie - one that must be propagated at all costs to maintain the faith in Gaea, the ancient pagan goddess of the Earth.
Eco-Marxists will stop at nothing to foist their eco-utopia on the planet, regardless of -- indeed, in spite of -- the facts. The EPA's decision just before Hopenhagen to classify CO2 as a hazardous pollutant, is to date the most radical power grab by the eco-Marxists toward totalitarian control of America, threatening to drape the US behind a suffocating Green Curtain.
The EPA's announcement marks a major political watershed: the rise of a socialist ruling class that is unaccountable to the voters. Instead of relying on democratic consent and persuasion, Mr. Obama is using regulatory agencies to impose his "Green New Deal." The original New Deal was passed through Congress - in other words, through the regular legislative process and democratic debate.
Liberals once believed in respecting the popular will and democratic procedures. Now, even those values can be abandoned in the mad dash to "save the planet."
Be afraid of being saved. Be very afraid.
Obama Approval Index Hits -19 on Rasmussen
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:26 AM
Despite two years of relentless media hype in his favor, Comrade Obama ranks somewhere between acne and colon cancer on his approval index — and is dropping like a stone:
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 23% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -19.
The approval index stands at an astounding -28 among the independents who were temporarily duped into electing him.
Obamunists did say that their messiah would unite us. At this rate everyone who doesn't work for the government or the media will be united against this tragic farce of a presidency by the end of next year.
On a tip from AnonymoUS.
EPA Is Buying Glocks
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:12 AM
Two years ago, the Supreme Court handed the EPA theoretically unlimited power by ruling that it can govern anything that produces harmless CO2 — i.e., all human and even animal activity. With one hand, the EPA has been closing its fist around the power that was offered, while with the other it reaches out for still more. Anyone who doubts that this unelected bureaucracy is quickly metastasizing into the ecofascist equivalent of the Gestapo, check out this procurement order:
PR-DC-09-02080 - (40) Glock Model G-19 Firearms
NAICS code 332994 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Criminal Investigations Division intends to award a sole source firm-fixed-price Purchase Order to Glock, Inc. under the authority of FAR Part 13, Simplified Acquisition Procedures for 40 Model G-19, 9mm frame handguns with finger grove and rail frames, Tijico night sights, extended magazine catches and 3.5lb/NY1 Trigger magazines.
You don't need Glocks to hug trees. They expect resistance.
On a tip from Chris.
Time for Prayer
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:49 AM
Just because Chairman Zero shunned the National Day of Prayer doesn't mean he isn't one to pray. Via SodaHead:
On a tip from Teleprompter Jesus.
December 12, 2009
Ecofascists Shut Down Free Speech at Dopenhagen
Posted by Van Helsing at 2:52 PM
Americans for Prosperity and voice of sanity Lord Christopher Monkton found out how Al Gore's "consensus" works when they tried to speak at a live webcast from Copenhagen:
The free exchange of ideas has been fed to the flourishing polar bears.
On a tip from glenwood183.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 2:36 PM
Global Warming Hoax Christmas Classics
Posted by Van Helsing at 2:31 PM
'Tis the season to laugh at the increasingly farcical climate change crisis:
Compliments of Minnesotans for Global Warming, via SodaHead. On a tip from AnonymoUS.
Intercepted Letter to King Harald V
Posted by Van Helsing at 11:29 AM
Compliments of Air2air:
Sarahcuda Versus Shatner
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 9:03 AM
Update: The voices in Roseanne Arnold's head say Sarah Palin is "half crazy and out of her mind."
Update: Yes, it was completely rehearsed.
William Shatner signs his book for Gov. Sarah Palin prior to participating in a skit with her during a taping of "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" at NBC Universal Studios on Friday, December 11, 2009, in Universal City, CA. Photo by Shealah Craighead. Copyright SarahPAC.
One Message, Two Perspectives
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 8:30 AM
An Australian school being sued by a group of parents for not socially promoting their children put the following answering machine message on their phone.
I'm of two minds about this. Part of says, "Hurray for sticking up for personal responsibility." The Progressive Left have shoved us so hard into the mentality of an entitlement society that people who don't work hard or at all believe they are entitled to the same rewards as those who do. The former group of people last year elected one of their own as president of the USA. It's about time there was some pushback against the entitlement mentality.
On the other hand, as a parent of two boys and the brother of two teachers, I have seen first hand just how simultaneously arrogant and stupid school administrators can be... on more than one occasion. These people have ingested the Progressive Left's propaganda that being "educators" puts them at a higher level than parents, and they often act with an air of infallibility that would shame the Vatican. And don't get me started on the idiocy of Zero Tolerance.
Of course, a free market approach would alleviate a lot of the problems on both sides. More schools, more choices, more parental empowerment... and not to mention less vulnerability to sick little groups like GLSEN.
Slip Sliding Away
Posted by The MaryHunter at 6:39 AM
Are President Obama's sagging poll trends getting you down? Then this little ditty will be worth every slip-slidin' second:
Courtesy of misterdregs on a tip from the intrepid TED.
December 11, 2009
Political Correctness: The Lie that Kills
Posted by The MaryHunter at 5:45 PM
It's been 36 days since the terrorist attack that left 14 dead, 32 wounded, and the nation scratching its collective head, asking why the Muslim extremist U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was so effortlessly able to perpetrate this act of jihad on American soil.
The reason, of course, is Political Correctness. Texas Rep. John Carter's district includes Fort Hood and he is more than just a little concerned that our government has apparently learned nothing from this horrid event.
We must not wrongfully prejudge people. However, we also can no longer refuse to take the steps necessary to defend ourselves, as clearly was the case with the Fort Hood attack. We can't allow political correctness to intimidate Americans from speaking out against clear and present dangers out of fear they will be ridiculed or penalized for offending any group. We should have learned that lesson in 2001.
Let's review the historical record beginning in 2001:
- Muslim males with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons - including Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki, then of Northern Virginia - rammed airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001, killing 2,976 men, women and children.
- A Muslim male with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons attempted to bomb a U.S. airliner with a shoe bomb in December 2001.
- A Muslim male with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons attacked the Los Angeles airport in July 2002, killing two persons and wounding four.
- A Muslim male with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons engaged in a sniping attack with a juvenile accomplice in the Washington area in October 2002, killing 10 and wounding three.
- A Muslim male with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons attacked his fellow U.S. Army soldiers in their tents in Kuwait in 2003, killing two and wounding 14 of his own comrades, a foreshadowing of the Fort Hood attack.
- Muslim males with ties to radical Islamic groups and individuals attempted to plan the bombing of the Sears Tower in Chicago in August 2006.
- Muslim males with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons, including Mr. Al-Awlaki - now in Yemen - plotted in 2006 to attack the Canadian Parliament and other buildings in Toronto.
- Muslim males with ties to radical Islamic groups and individuals - including the same Mr. Al-Awlaki in Yemen - were arrested in May 2007 for planning an automatic weapons attack on U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J.
- A Muslim male with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons attacked a U.S. Army recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark., in June, killing two recruiters.
...which led to this:
- Another Muslim male with ties to radical Islamic groups and persons, including Mr. Al-Awlaki in Yemen, stands accused of attacking our soldiers and civilians at Fort Hood, Texas, on Nov. 5, killing 14 and wounding 32. Mr. Al-Awlaki is publicly praising Maj. Hasan as a "hero."
...which could probably have been prevented, because of this:
The FBI and the Defense Department were aware that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was in contact with the same Mr. Al-Awlaki in Yemen with ties to the Sept. 11 attackers and the plot to attack Fort Dix, and that Maj. Hasan made verbal and written statements justifying attacks.
Maj. Hasan's profile, associations, communications and actions were a perfect match with multiple previous attacks in this country that had killed nearly 3,000 Americans since 2001. Yet no action was taken.
So, what's been done since?
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's chief concern apparently is not why the FBI and other authorities failed to prevent another attack, but whether the public might be led to blame Muslims in general, which would be politically incorrect. This is the same Department of Homeland Security that had no problem warning law enforcement agencies earlier this year of a supposed threat from "right-wing extremists," defined as Americans who believe in the Constitution and oppose Obama administration policies.
Rep. Carter hastens to point out that the American public comprises, on the whole, "good people who have developed a very strong aversion to judging others because of their race, ethnic background, religion or factors other than individual character and conduct." That said (and help me out here if this seems out of line):
...our virtue is being used as a powerful weapon against us by political extremists within our country and enemies without.
[...] when a Muslim male contacts the radical Islamic colleague of the Sept. 11 hijackers, the Fort Dix shooting plot and the Canadian Parliament bombing plot; tells responsible people that he sympathizes with our enemies; and claims that jihad against the United States is justified, somebody needs to stop him instead of failing to act from fear of violating the unwritten taboos of political correctness.
And why does this need to even be pointed out? Because:
We are letting political correctness destroy our nation. It cost the lives of 14 Americans at Fort Hood, and the current administration apparently has not learned a thing.
There is a simple definition of political correctness. It is just another word for a lie. When we say we have no need to fear or take action against people with clear ties to radical Islamic terrorists, that's a lie.
We must start acknowledging the truth if we want to survive as a free nation.
God willing.
Newsweek Slut: Monogamy Is For Losers
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 4:14 PM
We right-wingers have a stereotype of the social left that they put sexual gratification ahead of every other personal value. We stereotype left-wingers as hedonists, who disdain personal responsibility, and who would rather lower everyone's values to the lowest common denominator than try to raise people to a higher standard.
This stereotype is pretty much validated on a daily basis. Today, we read that Jenny Block, who writes for the dying left-wing publication Newsweek, writes that the answer to adultery is... to not have any expectations of commitment or monogamy in marriage.
She describes her own "marriage" as a sort of perpetual 70's key party, with the cliched 21st Century bisexual twist.
First we both dated the same woman. Then my husband dated her and I saw other people. And then they broke up and I dabbled until I met a woman, who like my husband, I cannot imagine being without. And so now it's her and me and him and him and me, and we are all fabulous friends. Everyone gets their needs met. No one feels left out or guilty, and the only time any of us questions our lifestyle is when we let those Disney movies come creeping back into our heads."
In other words, it's not adultery if nobody cares.
Some of us still naively believe that commitment to one person is a worthwhile ideal, that it spares one from the danger of STD's, and provides a stable environment to raise children who *won't* grow up to be sociopaths. But we are also the kind of people who don't believe in killing babies for the sake of sexual gratification; that's how screwed up our values are.
Also, there was a time when people would only write about the wonders of open marriage in the kind of magazines whose pages stick together. But one of the triumphs of the social left has been to make it acceptable for once respectable magazines like Newsweek to express this stuff.
Strange Lights in Norwegian Sky Explained
Posted by The MaryHunter at 12:40 PM
Have you seen this yet?
Reliable sources confirm: This was not a Soviet Russian missile test gone awry, as has been reported in the state-run media. This was, in fact, Obama's ginormous ego, which became simply uncontainable after Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize.
US Office of Safe Schools Newsletter
Posted by Van Helsing at 12:29 PM
Compliments of Air2air:
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 10:19 AM
EPA to Expand Its Power Over Water
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:57 AM
When the EPA took advantage of the most insane and dangerous ruling the Supreme Court has ever produced by preposterously declaring harmless CO2 emissions — an unavoidable product of literally all human activity — to be a danger to public safety, the power grab was unprecedented in human history for its potential scope. But when it comes to seizing control over every aspect of our lives, nothing is ever enough for liberal bureaucrats. After air, what we need the most urgently is water — making it a natural target for EPA tyrants:
A group of 28 Republican lawmakers from Western states is fighting efforts by Democrats in the House and Senate to quietly expand the scope of the Clean Water Act, the federal government's main tool for regulating the quality of the nation's waterways.
The lawmakers sent a letter Tuesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada opposing efforts to rush through Congress the Clean Water Restoration Act, a bill that would allow the federal government to protect all waters of the U.S. from pollution, not just the "navigable" waters covered in current law.
Reportedly Dems are planning to ram it through quickly and surreptitiously, by attaching it to more popular legislation, such as the defense bill, and passing it at the last minute before Congress flies away for vacation.
We do they need to sneak? Everybody wants clean water, right? But not everybody wants the federal leviathan to grant itself totalitarian control over your property because there's a puddle in your backyard.
Republican lawmakers say they were spurred to act in part because of complaints they heard back in their states and districts.
"The concern we hear back home is that this legislation would grant virtually unlimited regulatory control over all wet areas within a state. This bill attempts to trump state's rights and pre-empts state and local governments from making local land- and water-use decisions," the letter says.
Specialists say the legislation would extend government regulation to 20 million acres of the nation's so-called "isolated" wetlands and 59 percent of the nation's streams that do not flow year-round.
"This legislation will hurt states and communities across America. The consequences and impacts of the Clean Water Restoration Act deserve a thorough and open debate in Congress," the lawmakers wrote.
But a "thorough and open debate in Congress" would hardly be characteristic of our era of Obamunist "transparency," in which bills altering the nature of our country are shoved through before anyone can even read them.
Once liberal bureaucrats have established that the air, the water, and the weather fall under their jurisdiction, the food supply will be next on the agenda. This is the reason for disturbing claims that agriculture causes the imaginary global warming bugaboo.
On a tip from Byron.
Bureaucrats Crack Down on Windmill
Posted by Van Helsing at 9:38 AM
There isn't much you can do without major hassles in a world micromanaged by petty tyrant bureauweenies — even if you're a moonbat just trying to be green. Larry Walth put up a $10,000 wind turbine to help meet his electricity needs in Wishek, North Dakota. He righteously bleats:
It's energy and it's not coming from coal, which is not clean. I've got grandchildren and I'm concerned about their future and our environment.
You might think authorities would be pleased. But no:
In April, he was denied a permit to put up the wind turbine because it does not meet zoning codes for residential districts. But, in defiance of city officials, he put it up two months later anyway. And now he intends to keep it standing on his two-lot property on the edge of town.
Walth believes he is on firm legal ground since he put up the structure five months before city officials passed a new city zoning ordinance last month banning wind turbines in all non-commercial districts. Walth believes he is exempt from the ordinance, because it would have to be applied retroactively to his turbine. …
He said he was fined $50, roughly what he estimates the 2.6-kilowatt turbine saves him each month, after he put up the $10,000 turbine without permit. But the fine could increase to $500 per day if he disregards the city's order to remove it.
It doesn't pay to go up against City Hall, even in Wishek, ND. Walth scoffs at bureaucratic claims that people have complained about his windmill.
"People in this town can't figure out why they're spending all this time to tear it down," he said. "It's on my property. I don't care what they do, even if they get signatures from everyone in town."
That's where Walth went wrong: thinking that it's his property. If it were, everyone would agree that it's none of government's business what he does with it — just like if the wealth you create at your job were your property, the government wouldn't seize whatever percentage of your paycheck greedy bureaucrats deem fit.
Only in a free country like the late great USA do private citizens own property. In today's USSA, all property is effectively owned by the government, to be managed and even redistributed according to bureaucratic whim. Fortunately for Walth, no Kennedys can see his windmill from their seaside mansions, or he'd really be in trouble.
Walth is still hoping that Big Government will give him a 30% energy tax credit for his forbidden turbine.
On a tip from Frank W.
Quote of the Day
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 9:15 AM
Democrat Senator Max Baucus, explaining why he shouldn't be the subject of an ethics investigation after giving his mistress a $14,000 raise and nominating her for a U.S. Attorney position:
"I went out of my way to be up and up."
Nice pitch, but Bob Dole already got the job as spokesman for Viagra.
Federal Employees Raking Big Bucks During Recession
Posted by The MaryHunter at 8:30 AM
Now more than ever, it pays to work for the government:
The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.
Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months -- and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.
The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules.
Pegging the start of the recession at 18 months ago may be up for debate, but nevermind that: while some 7.3 million jobs have been lost in the private sector during this recession, the massive expansion of government we have seen under George Bush and now under Barack Obama is certainly making some folks cozy for Christmas.
Minnesota Teacher Brainwashing Program
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:39 AM
You would think the moonbat brainwashers who run the education establishment could rest on their laurels, now that their ideology has blossomed into an unqualified socialist elected President of the USA on the basis of his "oppressed" ethnicity. But no, they've only just begun:
A branch of the University of Minnesota may require all education students at the school to understand and accept that they are either privileged or oppressed and that they be well-versed in issues like "white privilege," "institutional racism" and the "myth of meritocracy in the United States."
Critics are condemning the Race, Culture, Class and Gender Task Group at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, which proposes making race, class and gender issues the "overarching framework" of all teaching courses.
The task group, formed as part of the Teacher Education Redesign Initiative at the state university, aims to change how future teachers are trained, based on the assertion that the teachers' lack of "cultural competence" contributes to minority students' poor grades.
Teachers are to be instruments of "social and cultural transformation" — i.e., termites gnawing away at what's left of our society by turning us against each other and undermining American values. If all you wanted to do was teach math, you're in the wrong line of work, and unlikely to get certified unless you can at least learn to mouth the correct slogans regarding the ultra-left ideology that the education establishment — best personified by influential Professor of Education, close friend of the president, and unrepentant Maoist terrorist Bill Ayers — has been hammering into the minds of children.
Adam Kissel of FIRE gives an example of what will be asked of prospective teachers:
They must reveal a "pervasive stereotype" they personally held about an identity group, and evidently must argue in a personal essay that this view has now been "challenged" on the basis of their experiences with that identity group. So if you say, "well, actually I don't have a pervasive stereotype" … you're probably going to get a bad grade.
The objective is probably not so much to brainwash teachers, as to weed out anyone not interested in brainwashing students on behalf of the radical left. Quotes from two of the most prominent figures in the history of the progressive movement bear repeating once again:
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
When an opponent declares, "I will not come over to your side," I calmly say, "Your child belongs to us already… What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community."
Adolf Hitler
On a tip from browncoat.
Still on Display at Atlanta Airport
Posted by Van Helsing at 6:52 AM
Considering the position Tiger Woods has gotten himself into with his conspicuously unconservative behavior, this ad is more relevant than ever. Maybe they should leave it up until next fall, when it will be more relevant still for Democrats. Between the "Stimulus" looting spree, Cap & Tax, the wildly unpopular nationalized healthcare abomination, and what they've done to the deficit and unemployment rate, this is exactly how the Dems are going to feel when they face reelection:
Fortunately for them, ACORN is there to pick up the ball and set it closer to the green.
Compliments of Mike G.
Friday Morning Briefs
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 6:42 AM
Good Morning Conservative Patriots and Insecure Lefties Whose Fathers Never Loved Them,
Item Number One: It isn't news when Senator Barbara "Don't Call Me Ma'am" Boxer says something stupid, the woman has the IQ of a peanut. So, here's what California's oh-so-junior senator has to say about how Viagra is just like abortion.
"The men who have brought us this don't single out a procedure that's used by a man, or a drug that is used by a man, that involves his reproductive health care and say they have to get a special rider," Boxer said on the Senate floor.
Yo, dingbat, first of all, taking a Viagra is not like having an abortion; nobody dies when a man uses Viagra. And second, some of us oppose forcing insurance companies to pay for any of this, because unlike the economic illiterates in the majority party, we understand that forcing insurance companies to pay for more things makes insurance more expensive.
Item Number Two: The person who has to be the happiest about Tiger Woods's troubles has to be Democrat Senator Max Baucus. Thanks to Tiger sinking his putz into so many, many holes, nobody is talking about how the prominent Democrat Senator tried to set his mistress up as U.S. Attorney in Montana. Of course, it also helps that he's a Democrat, and no one ever holds Democrats accountable for corruption... except maybe the voters; which is why Chris Dodd is in so much trouble the Democrat Party is trying to force him out. Funny how the party never cared about his corrupt ties to Countrywide until polls showed him losing to every Republcan, including the chick from the WWF.
Item Number Three: Remember Brian Baird, the moonbat congressman from Washington state referred to tea-party patriots as brownshirts? And was so scared to face his constituents that he canceled live townhalls in favor of controlled, pre-screened, "telephone town halls." Well, he's decided not to run for re-election in what was considered a pretty safe Democrat district. Dennis Moore in Kansas and John Tanner in Tennessee are also quitting. Tanner was outraised in fundraising by a gospel-singing farmer with no political experience. All of these seats were considered safe until polls began to show Pelosi's congress is less popular than Dick Cheney and independents are fleeing the Democrats in droves.
Democrats seem to sense that a bloodbath is coming in 2010. This is probably one reason passing the Government Takeover of Health Care is so critical; I bet every congressman who votes for it has been promised a job as a health care commissioner if they lose their seat.
By the way, Prep and Landing is one of the coolest Christmas Specials I've seen in years. It's available at Hulu for your viewing pleasure. (Thrasher the Reindeer is my hero!) Check it out this weekend. Have a good one.
All that Glitters Is Michelle
Posted by The MaryHunter at 6:25 AM
First Klingon Michelle Obama succeeded in making not just a glitzy splash, but a tasteless tidal wave with the Euro-elites at the Oslo Nobel ceremony:
How much more can one possibly miss the likes of Jackie Kennedy and Laura Bush?
Courtesy of Granny Jan.
Canadian Feminist Loves Chinese Oppression of Women
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 6:20 AM
China's "one-child" policy is brutal and demeaning to women. It forces women into coerced abortions and involuntary sterilization. Unwanted female babies are frequently left to die of neglect because male children are more valued. One Canadian feminist thinks not only is One Child a wonderful policy, but it should be a "Planetary Law."
A planetary law, such as China's one-child policy, is the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate currently, which is one million births every four days.
The world's other species, vegetation, resources, oceans, arable land, water supplies and atmosphere are being destroyed and pushed out of existence as a result of humanity's soaring reproduction rate.
Ironically, China, despite its dirty coal plants, is the world's leader in terms of fashioning policy to combat environmental degradation, thanks to its one-child-only edict.
The leftist love affair with Communist China continues unabated. Notice how what China admirers like Barack Obama, Thomas Freidman, and Diane Francis love the most about China is the state's ability to force its will on the populace. Scary, huh?
December 10, 2009
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:53 PM
Santa Claus Bailout Hearings
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:47 PM
A yuletide classic for the Age of Obamanomics:
On a tip from AnonymoUS.
Hard Times at Climate Researcher Magazine
Posted by Van Helsing at 1:13 PM
Compliments of Air2air.
Obama Is Not Getting Poll Numbers for Christmas
Posted by The MaryHunter at 11:52 AM
Even as B. Hussein Obama's insatiable ego continues to be petted and preened -- most recently by the Nobel Committee and other elitist multicultural intelligentsia in Oslo -- it is becoming more and more clear at least to Americans that The One simply comprises an empty suit and fake Grecian columns, and that's about it. Public Policy Polling reports some interesting numbers that don't particularly bode well with our Narcissist-in-Chief and his party:
For the second month in a row we find Barack Obama's national approval rating at 49%, with 47% of voters disapproving of him. He has the support of 83% of Democrats, 46% of independents, and 11% of Republicans. None of those numbers have really changed from our November poll.
Which means, they certainly haven't gone up from anything he's done in his last month of perpetual campaigning. Rasmussen, btw, has Obama's approval at 46% with his perennial, double-digit-negative Approval Index at -12.
Back to Public Policy. Some foreboding health care numbers for Obama and Democrats stand out:
Support for Obama on health care has hit another new low with just 39% of voters now expressing approval of his health care plans and 52% opposed. 90% of respondents who said they were opposed to Obama's plan said it was because it involved the government too much in health care with just 6% saying their opposition was because it didn't create enough government involvement.
Are more and more folks having buyer's remorse, after all?
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.
It's as if growing numbers of the American public were actually catching on to what the Right has been reporting for years about this radical community organizer from Chicago who just happened to become president. But will enough of America be able to shake off those kool-aid nanobots in time and address his assault on our nation and Constitution in 2010 and 2012?
On a twip from zabraksithlord.
Gays Say They Have to Teach Deviant Sex to Kids Because Their Parents Won't
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 11:01 AM
Just when I think I'm done with this frickin' gross topic that I'd really rather not talk or know anything about, something else comes up: Gay activists justify teaching fisting to middle schoolers because their parents wouldn't teach them.
Margot Abels led the workshop, "What They Didn't Tell You About Queer Sex and Sexuality in Health Class: Workshop for Youth Only, Ages 14-21. "During the session she praised the homosexual practice of 'fisting'"-widely condemned by medical authorities as dangerous-saying that, "It often gets a bad rap."Margot Abels told Boston's homosexual newspaper, Bay Windows. She taught them sex because she thought she knew better than the parents what should be taught to the children.
I didn't want to revisit the topic of this morning's rant, but there is so much moonbattery in that statement. Progressives always claim they know better than parents how to raise children; just like they claim that they know what's best for everybody and should be empowered by Government to enforce those choices. And they don't want you to teach your children your values, they want your children indoctrinated with their values.
Update: It gets even worse.
White House Serves ACORN Cookies
Posted by Van Helsing at 10:53 AM
Chalk this one up to the Audacity of Arrogance. At the White House Christmas party on Monday, ACORN cookies were served.
The chocolate cookies shaped like an acorn were quite a hit with Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.
"I didn't expect to see such stark symbolism," King said in an e-mail.
President Obama worked with the community organizing group ACORN in the mid-90s. But now ACORN faces a host of allegations related to voter fraud in the 2008 election and has been weakened by an undercover expose that shows employees offering tax advice to a couple posing as a pimp and prostitute.
As readers will recall, the videos showed that Obama's ACORNista friends from one coast to the other were eager to facilitate a child prostitution ring. Equally appalling, they are even more eager to do for other Dems what they did for Al Franken — slip them into office in opposition to the will of the voters. We know that Democrats are banking on massive voter fraud to pull their fat out of the fire in 2010, and they know that we know it. But to quote a progressive role model who epitomized liberal statism taken to its logical conclusion:
It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
Meanwhile, despite the early posture of outrage when the O'Keefe/Giles videos came out, Dems are making sure ACORN continues to be funded with money stolen from the voters they cheat.
On a tip from LouieLouie.
Amazingly, Obama's Ego Continues to Expand
Posted by Van Helsing at 10:30 AM
Maybe instead of the "Audacity of Hope," we should call it the "Preposterousness of Megalomania." Our first Affirmative Action president characterizes himself during his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, which he was awarded out of pure undisguised moonbattery:
I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence.
Actually, he is living testimony to the destructive force of political correctness pushed to the point of gibbering lunacy. David Freddoso (whose book The Case Against Barack Obama is highly recommended) comments:
One would hope that his legacy amounts to much more than a president who praises himself while accepting awards he clearly doesn't deserve, and who sounds more like George W. Bush with each speech he gives on foreign policy.
Or one could hope that the tragicomedy of this presidency cures us of liberalism once and forever.
On a tip from Charlie S.
The Atlantic: Christianity Caused the Economic Crisis
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 9:13 AM
The Atlantic is the publication that pays AIDS-addled blogger Andrew Sullivan to spread conspiracy theories that Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy to hide the "fact" that Bristol is Trig's real mother (a gynecological impossibility). So, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that they blame Christians for causing the current economic crisis.
The theory is that "Prosperity Churches" that proliferated through the oughts encouraged people to live beyond their means and buy homes they couldn't afford.
Jonathan Walton, a professor of religious studies at the University of California at Riverside, warned: "Narratives of how "God blessed me with my first house despite my credit" were common ... I would hear consistent testimonies about how 'once I was renting and now God let me own my own home,' or 'I was afraid of the loan officer, but God directed him to ignore my bad credit and blessed me with my first home,'" he says. "This trope was so common in these churches that I just became immune to it. Only later did I connect it to this disaster."
Doesn't this contradict the Progressive Narrative that giving mortgages to financially irresponsible people had little or nothing to do with the housing bubble and its collapse? Haven't we been lectured to that the entire collapse was caused by greedy bankers and George W. Bush?
And if it was good social policy for the Government to encourage people to take out mortgages they couldn't afford and treat their home equity like an ATM, why would it be disastrous for a church or anyone else to do so? I don't think the Progressive Left should be allowed to have it both ways.
Or maybe the simplest, Occam's Razor explanation is that Progressive Leftists will rationalize anything that let's them bash Christianity.
Global Warming Priest Dave Reay Denounces Personal Hygiene
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:37 AM
The beauty of the global warming hoax is that it allows liberals to wallow in their trademark neurotic guilt, baseless sanctimony, and hostility to civilization while imposing all elements of their agenda — including deliberately excessive taxation, suppression of the private sector, totalitarian power for Big Government, degradation of our standard of living, elevation of animals over humans, and even the rejection of personal hygiene that progressives indulged in so flagrantly and so fragrantly during their halcyon days in the 60s.
World-renowned high priest of the climate change cult Dr. Dave Reay, Senior Lecturer in Carbon Management at Edinburgh University, has been loudly denouncing the Gaia-oppressing habits of bathing and washing clothes. Proclaims Reay:
For the largest cuts [in harmless carbon emissions], simply washing less frequently is the way to go.
Washing your clothes less often is important too:
Advertisers [have] convinced us that our shirts must always be "whiter than white", our sheets should forever smell of spring flowers, and that to be dressed in freshly laundered clothes at all times is a badge of success. We live in a "wear once and wash" culture.
It is easy to see how these emissions stack up. A full load in a washing machine uses around 1.2 kilowatt-hours of electricity per cycle and tumble drying clocks up a further 3.5 kilowatt-hours, resulting in over 2 kilograms of [yap yap yap yap…]
Buying new clothes when the old ones haven't yet been worn to rags is also an eco-crime, according to Raey. Oh, and so is drinking coffee. Medieval peasants didn't drink coffee, so we shouldn't either — since our Warmist ruling class expects us to emulate a 14th century serf's lifestyle.
On a tip from BURNING HOT. Hat tips: Interested-Participant, Jawa Report.
Public Funding for ACORN Will Continue
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:25 AM
House Minority Leader John Boehner has a very small surprise for us: despite lopsided votes in favor of cutting off public funding to Comrade Obama's outrageously corrupt enablers at ACORN in the aftermath of the O'Keefe/Giles videos, the Big Government fire hose will continue to blast a torrent of our money at these vermin. On Tuesday night,
Tom Latham (R-IA) offered an amendment during deliberations on the Democrats' massive year-end appropriations bill to clarify the prohibition on federal funds going to ACORN or its subsidiaries. That amendment was shot down on a 5-9 party line vote as Republicans sided with taxpayers while Democrats stood with ACORN.
Rep. Latham's amendment is necessary to prevent taxpayer money from going to ACORN because the Obama Administration's Department of Justice has taken advantage of a legal loophole to allow ACORN to continue to receive federal funds — despite the passage of the House GOP's Defund ACORN Act in the fall.
Democrats can't let their ACORN storm troopers go unfunded no matter how awful it makes them look, because their votes on Porkulus, Cap & Tax, and healthcare nationalization will make them reliant on the industrial scale voter fraud that is ACORN's specialty if they are to stand any chance of reelection.
We are quickly reaching the point where the charade that the statist looters running Washington represent the people they rob, suppress, and exploit can be dispensed with altogether.
On a tip from LouieLouie.
Daily Kos: Obama Is Preparing the Way for Christ's Return
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 8:15 AM
Well, at least they've backed off a little from declaring him the Messiah. Katherine Jean Lopez at NRO finds this warm, soft, stinky little nugget of what the "Community-Based Reality" actually believes.
It is known in many esotericists' circles, that before the Christ will reappear, there must be a measure of Peace in the world! President Obama is helping to restore that peace.
PBO really doesn't seem to give a damn that the Iranian people are kept "peaceful" by a brutally oppressive regime. And he seems to share the belief of Middle East leftists that Israel should just go away for the sake of "peace" in the Middle East. He is content to allow Iran to acquire the nuclear weapons to achieve that end.
PBO spoke in Oslo about the United States role in preserving world peace, but back home, he is systematically gutting the military of weapons systems like the F-22, the Combat Search and Rescue Helicopter, and missile defense systems needed to maintain that role.
Let me ask, what good is peace in the absence of freedom and justice?
What is the progressive utopian ideal of a society? Well, it is a society in which everyone is guaranteed food, clothing, and shelter. It is a society in which access to education and health care are fully guaranteed and provided to all members. In exchange, members of this society have restrictions placed on their personal mobility and expression in order to limit the potential for damage to others, to society, or to the environment.
That is the precise description of a prison.
Jesus Christ did not come to Earth to put us in prison. He came to free us from prison.
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:11 AM
Planned Parenthood: "A Fetus Is Just Like a Fingernail"
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 6:41 AM
You know how abortion apologists often claim that abortion is a difficult "heart-wrenching" decision for a woman, and they deeply understand the troubling consequences?
It's a load of crap. They don't believe any of it. It's just crocodile sympathy to give them the appearance of giving a damn. In the end, it's all about sexual gratification without consequences, and Big Abortion's lust for blood money. In the video below, we see a Planned Parenthood abortionist -- who obviously hasn't missed too many meals worrying about the "heart-wrenching" decisions she is involved with -- breezily encourage a young woman to scramble its brains and vacuum it out. Another abortionist suggests that she might die if she goes through with the pregnancy.
I should also note that this is the kind of citizen journalism Congress is trying to outlaw. They can't stand having the truth about ACORN, Planned Parenthood, and other left-wing tax hogs come out.
I got into an argument on Facebook yesterday with a pro-abort who said, "Well, I support abortion because I don't think a woman who's been raped should be forced to have a baby." And I said, "OK, Fine, can we agree to restrict abortion to cases of rape and serious physical harm to the mother?" And he switched gears and said, "I believe in a woman's right to choose." And I'm like, "So, why did you even bring up rape, dingleberry?" It's bullsh-t. They don't care about rape, they care about consequence-free sexual gratification.
And the really asinine part of his argument is that the availability of abortion encourages rape, because adult men can have sex with underage girls without consequences; and we know Planned Parenthood sure as hell isn't going to turn in the rapists. Planned Parenthood facilitates statutory rape, and are rewarded for this with billions of taxpayer dollars.
Pure. Evil.
Morning Briefs, I Don't Care If You Heard Them Already or Not
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 5:03 AM
Good Morning Conservative Patriots, Good Morning Lefty Attention Whores,
Item Number One: In Australia, two contestants on a reality show are being prosecuted on animal cruelty charges for killing and eating a rat; a dirty, filthy, rat. Good Lord, what's next? Should we prosecute people for swatting flies?
Item Number Two:Airstrip One has launched a $2 Billion warship that has neither guns nor missiles. They couldn't afford to equip the ship with an operational weapons system. This is the kind of thing that happens when you gut military spending to pay for nationalized health care; which is a major reason why government health care is such a priority among those who want to weaken the United States.
Item Number Three: Once again, the lefty "scientific" community is out to prove that if you don't support socialism and environmental extremism, there's something wrong with your brain. Researchers are out to prove that people who don't believe in Manbearpig have "dead spots" in their brains. Because, you see, it's "irrational" to be skeptical of people who travel the world on private jets warning us that our "lavish" lifestyles and hydrocarbon consumption is destroying the planet. It's "irrational" to be suspicious of socialists who want to reorder the entire planet along socialist lines based on climate change, the only proof for which is severely questionable data.
You want proof that Global Warming is just a conspiracy by Socialist Hippies to get us to live like them? OK, here's a Global Warmist who thinks we need to stop washing ourselves. (Thank you, Scott). Case closed.
A Quick Rant Before I Get to the Briefs
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 4:35 AM
I just want to make a comment rant for a minute on the Kevin Jennings controversy. Do gay activists realize how gross and disgusting the whole concept of "fisting" is to normal people? Do they realize the normal parental reaction when some activist tries to teach these things to a middle-school kid is to want to knock his teeth down his throat? And what kind of sicko thinks his mission in life is to teach gross, disgusting sex acts to kids in middle school?
From a purely tactical point of view, demanding the right to teach this sort of activity in public schools puts off people who might otherwise be sympathetic. If I were a gay activist, I might consider a strategy of not putting the most disgusting and deviant of sexual practices out front in the public debate. It begs the question of whether the goal of gay activism is really fair treatment under the law, or sexualizing children and normalizing gross, disgusting deviant activities.
I begin to think the reason that the norm in human society has been for homosexuality to be kept in the closet is because 1. normal people just don't want to have to hear about what gays do to each other and 2. gays can't keep their damn mouths shut about what they do to each other unless there are severe social penalties attached.
December 9, 2009
Free Roman!
Posted by The MaryHunter at 8:51 PM
This marks roughly the 75th day since director Roman Polanski was outrageously arrested for some benign crime he committed years ago when numerous Tinseltown breasts and bellies didn't sag nearly as much. This video is in honor of that day of justice and the Hollywood dingbats who doth protest too much.
Courtesy of zoltarsees.
The Green Left Goes After Children... Again
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 12:47 PM
Australian Ecothug Clive Hamilton shows the typical tactics of the Cult of Gaia by publishing an open letter directed at the children of Manbearpig skeptic Andrew Bolt.
Hi there,There's something you need to know about your father.
Your dad's job is to try to stop the government making laws to reduce Australia's carbon pollution. He is paid a lot of money to do that by big companies who do not want to own up to the fact that their pollution is changing the world's climate in very harmful ways.
Because of their pollution, lots of people, mostly poor people, are likely to die. They will die from floods, from diseases like dengue fever, and from starvation when their crops won't grow anymore.
The big companies are putting their profits before the lives of people. And your dad is helping them.
Sadly, this is not the first time the progressive left has attempted to intimidate skeptics by targeting their children for harassment. ACORN targeted the children of bankers for similar harassment. Animal rights activists routinely target the families of those they disagree with for harassment.
In other news of Progressive Left intolerance, a reporter in Maine has been fired at the demand of homosexual activists for a personal email in which he pointed out that Same Sex Marriage Activists were intolerant.
Irony much?
American Physical Society Members Have Second Thoughts on AGW
Posted by The MaryHunter at 12:19 PM
ClimateGate's latest impact on the scientific community: more divisions between the sensible and the soma-takers. Rather than continue to jump the shark, some members of the The American Physical Society would rather carefully revisit the society's 2007 statement that global warming poses a dire emergency to the nation and the planet.
Criticism is not coming from the lunatic fringe either, but from solidly mainstream scientists who are -- shudder the thought -- actually acting as scientists are supposed to: trying to get beyond fiction and politics to actual data and facts.
One APS dissenting member is William Happer, a physicist who runs the Happer Lab at Princeton University. Another is Hal Lewis, a professor emeritus of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A third is Robert Austin, another Princeton physics professor and head of a biophysics research group.
They've been circulating a letter saying: "By now everyone has heard of what has come to be known as ClimateGate, which was and is an international scientific fraud, the worst any of us have seen... We have asked the APS management to put the 2007 statement on ice until the extent to which it is tainted can be determined, but that has not been done. We have also asked that the membership be consulted on this point, but that too has not been done."
Of the signatories [to the petition] so far, Happer says, 77 are fellows of major scientific societies, 14 members of the National Academies, one is a Nobel laureate, and there is a large number of authors of major scientific books and recipients of prizes and awards for scientific research. He adds: "Some have accepted a career risk by signing the petition. The 230 odd signatories can hardly be dismissed as lightweights compared to those who spread the message of impending climate disaster."
Other APS members shed more light onto the ClimateGate fiasco:
This has become a common refrain: Hans von Storch, director of the Institute for Coastal Research, calls the climate change axis a "cartel." A colleague, Eduardo Zorita, went further and said the scientists implicated in the e-mails "should be barred" from future United Nations proceedings and warned that "the scientific debate has been in many instances hijacked to advance other agendas." One estimate from a free-market group says that 12 of the 26 scientists who wrote the relevant section of a U.N. global warming report are "up to their necks in ClimateGate."
And still, this is Al Gore's reaction:
Of course, this is the very same Al Gore, High Priest of Climatology, who believes that the earth's interior is several million degrees (pinky to cheek), over 1000 times hotter than the surface of the sun.
Don't Jump to Conclusions
Posted by Van Helsing at 10:30 AM
In the aftermath of the terrorist massacre at Ford Hood, Comrade Obama united and uplifted the nation with a stirring message: "Don't jump to conclusions." If only he'd been around on 9/12:
The motto will continue to serve him well as the wheels come off his farcical presidency.
Compliments of Morris.
Lord Love a Duck
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 9:47 AM
The insatiable desire of the Government to regulate every aspect of human existence appears once again.
Wednesday, a House panel was to consider a proposal to ban the promotion of a postseason NCAA Division I football game as a national championship unless it's the outcome of a playoff.
Worse, this was a Republican Congressman's idea. What does the Government need to regulate college football? Why do they need to regulate health insurance? Because they want the power, that's pretty much it.
Did you know the fast food industry does a better job at maintaining food quality standards then public schools? I know that comes as no surprise to anyone, and it's pretty easy to figure out why this is. What's inexplicable is the "Government always does it better" belief that so many people seem to have.
Global Warming Blamed for Cannibal Polar Bears
Posted by Van Helsing at 8:15 AM
Time for an update of The List — the media has again resorted to shrieking that the nonexistent global warming crisis has turned cuddly polar bears into bloodthirsty cannibals:
A group of tourists were left horrified when they came across the grisly sight of a polar bear eating a cub in northern Canada.
The large male adult bear had separated the baby from its mother and killed it in the Churchill Wildlife Management Area, in northern Manitoba, close to Hudson Bay.
Witnesses were left shaken and tearful after the incident.
Statist snake oil salesman rarely pass up a chance to tug on heartstrings:
One theory for the cannibalism is that climate change is melting the bears' Arctic hunting grounds, forcing them to survive on land for longer and hence leading the starving animals to turn on their own for food.
This provides such a plentiful food source that the polar bear population has been exploding. Thanks to cannibalism, the more polar bears there are, the more they have to eat, leading to more polar bears. Clearly we have to stop this vicious cycle with climate change legislation before polar bears overrun the entire planet, driving up housing prices for the underprivileged.
Back in reality, killing others' young is a common practice among ferocious beasts. The theory that global warming causes polar bear cannibalism
is disputed by Inuit leaders in Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, who claim it is wrong to connect the bears' behaviour with starvation.
Kivalliqu Inuit Association president Jose Kusugak said: 'It makes the south — southern people — look so ignorant.
'A male polar bear eating a cub becomes a big story and they try to marry it with climate change and so on, it becomes absurd when it's a normal, normal occurrence.'
Moving right along, the press assures us that whatever Eskimos may think, bear infanticide
can be accentuated among polar bears when they run low on fat reserves and become hungry enough to resort to cannibalism, according to conservation group Polar Bears International.
The group predictably claims that global warming is making the bears burn up fat reserves while they wait for the UN to do something about the weather.
If only bureaucrats had video of the cub's demise to run at Dopenhagen, reassuring themselves of the righteousness of their cause. They'll just have to make do with this one:
The stuffed polar bear is a poignant touch. At least our liberal rulers have one redeeming quality: a remarkable gift for self-parody.
On a tip from BURNING HOT.
Moonbat Tech: The E~Cart
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:48 AM
At last, technology has delivered a means for progressives to assuage their guilt as they shop for arugula at grocery stores lit and refrigerated at the expense of the put-upon polar bears:
The e~cart promises quite an electrifying experience! It's a shopping trolley re-designed to be fitted with wheels that harness the kinetic energy, generated due to its motion. The sourced up energy is deposited to the main power storage unit, when the cart docks into it. Just line them up, one behind the other to form a power chain!
Just by pushing their carts around, shoppers may be able to generate enough electricity to take the store right off the grid! That will come in handy, when Comrade Obama follows up on his campaign promise to make electicity prices "skyrocket."
Like most eco-concepts, it's about as likely to work as a magic spell, but that shouldn't stop the project from receiving a generous cut of the next stimulus package. In a world run by liberals, it's only the sanctimonious political correctness of the intentions that counts.
On a tip from Air2air.
What Do Barack Obama and Levi Johnston Have in Common?
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 7:38 AM
Saw this item about how Levi Johnston has become a gay icon about the same time I saw Van's Merry Hunter's post about Tiger Woods and Barack Obama, and something clicked. Both of these guys have an awful lot in common in terms of being celebrated by the progressive left, and in the reasons for which they are celebrated:
1. Both are celebrated by the progressive left despite a conspicuous lack of real accomplishments.
2. Barack Obama was abandoned by his father, Levi Johnston abandoned his son. It all gets back to the leftist celebration of sex as a consequence-free recreational activity: The progressive left seems to love men who ditch their kids.
3. Barack Obama would rather shoot hoops or play golf than deal with his responsibilities. Levi Johnston would rather play hockey and pose for Playgirl than be a responsible father.
4. Both of them were taken in by leftist radicals at a young age: Obama with Frank Marshall Davis, Bill Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright; Levi Johnston by the mainstream media and the trash of Hollywood.
5. Both are ridiculously hyped by the mainstream media far beyond their actual merits.
6. Addled dingbats Joy Behar and Andrew "Milky Loads" Sullivan are infatuated with both of them.
7. Both of them are self-involved narcissists in love with their own images.
8. Both of them are convinced they are much more clever than they really are.
9. Neither one of them knows squat about economics,job creation, or running a business.
10. Most of America is sick to death of hearing about either of them.
Of course, there is one critical difference. Levi Johnston may be a sleazy, amoral, airhead with a pretty face... but at least he's not a pretty, sleazy, amoral airhead who's bankrupting the country, gutting the military, and taking away our basic freedoms. (Yes, lefties... health care regulation, cap and trade, and card check will take away basic freedoms.)
Open Thread
Posted by Van Helsing at 7:24 AM
Morning Briefs: Stuff You May Have Already Read Somewhere Else
Posted by Gregory of Yardale at 7:23 AM
Good Morning Conservative Patriots and Left-Wing Perverts,
(Arrgh! I'm beginning to think the official motto of the Moonbattery Server is "Trouble Loading Page.")
Item Number One: Quote of the Day from Dopenhagen: How much is the Cult of Gaia demanding be sacrificed on the Altar of Manbearpig? According to the Internationational Energy Agency: "The short answer is trillions of dollars over the next few decades. It is a significant sum but a relatively small fraction of the world's total economic output."
Yeah, only about $10 Trillion being taken away from productive citizens and spent by Global Bureaucrats in the name what we all now know to be junk science.
Item Number Two: Uganda has proposed new legislation making homosexuality a crime punishable by death. You may think this is just awful, but to the progressive left, it's still not as evil as American Social Conservatives refusing to redefine marriage to accommodate the whims of people who want "fisting" to be taught to middle-schoolers.
It's also possible the Ugandans are just trying to get attention. Murdering homosexuals has worked well for Ahmadinejad, who was the toast of the UN and Columbia University a couple of years back.
On a related note, The Onion has a pretty funny article that is going to offend a lot of humorless lefties.
Item Number Three: Well, surprise, surprise, surprise. ACORN has finished investigating itself and concluded that it did nothing wrong. ACORN's Chief Executive Bertha Lewis patted herself on the back, calling the report, "part vindication, part constructive criticism and complete road map for the future."
Also, Obama spoke to the left-wing Brookings Institute where he blamed Bush for the failure of his Stimulus and the TARP bailout he voted for. From the Obama White House to the ACORN Whore House, the theme of the Age of Obama is: "Accountability is for losers."
Have a nice day.
Senate Smackdown in Connecticut!
Posted by The MaryHunter at 6:28 AM
The Republican Senate primary race in The Constitution State looks like a Democrat's wet dream. You see, the two candidates have some baggage. Candidate Linda McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), is getting smacked from social conservatives who don't appreciate the sexed-up nature of the WWE shows. (One wonders if they also object to the faux violence, or if that's copacetic. But we digress.) She's also being pinned by celebrity wrestlers who complain about the lack of benefits from the WWE during her reign there. The likes of "Superstar" Billy Graham and even former Goon-in-Chief of Minnesota Jesse Ventura have whined about no unionization and health benefits for stars, who are classified by the WWE as independent contractors. (And you know, health insurance can be pretty expensive, even for wealthy wrestling stars.) One certainly doesn't want to be on the wrong side of these mean mo-fos in a political campaign (shiver).
In the other corner we have former Connecticut U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons. As McMahon's primary opponent, Simmons stumps around his state with tea bags and a pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution as his favorite props. However, while in Congress this Connecticut RINO in Pelosi's court supported not only Card Check, but also the Cap and Tax bill.
But now, Mr. Simmons says he was wrong to co-sponsor the Democratic bills. He wrote a blog in October saying he would oppose them as a U.S. senator.
"I did a lot of listening, and concluded that I was wrong about two issues I supported in Congress - the Employee Free Choice Act (also known as 'card check') and 'cap and trade,' " he wrote on his campaign Web site. "After hearing more from the people who would be most affected by these bills, I became convinced they would cause more harm than good, and I would oppose them in the Senate."
Rep. Simmons should know by now that We the People can sniff out a faux conservative faster than Da Crusher could flex his biceps. If a Republican has to listen to "the people" to understand basic conservative, freedom-loving principles, has to look at poll data to understand that Cap and Tax and Card Check would be bad for America, then he is no Republican.
Of course, the winner of this round may go up against none other than Chris "The Sandwichmaker" Dodd, whose poll numbers are falling faster even than Obama's. Connecticut conservative voters have some careful vetting to do, lest we get another student of the infamous Jumping Jeffords into the Senate ring.
December 8, 2009
What Do Tiger Woods and Barack Obama Have in Common?
Posted by The MaryHunter at 4:48 PM
Well, it's probably not their golf swings. And, one must concede that Dear Leader, from all appearances, seems to be a content monogamous family man (unlike the last Democrat resident of the White House) who even has the occasional Bill Cosbyesque comment about fatherhood and personal responsibility.
What makes Tiger Woods and Barack Obama so alike?