NOTE: I apologize for the lack of posts for the last couple of days. My accounts for an MMO that I play got hacked and and I had to reload them and then go and physically check the accounts. It was carnage-missing characters, banks cleared out, etc.. Spent many hours on the phone with the company trying to get everything restored and have been looking at character auctions on the off chance some fool is trying to auction my toons.
The Must Read of the Day! Victor David Hanson: Where Dreams Die
A man would have to be mad to leave such beauty, and the brilliant work of his predecessors who as artists built the dams and canals, laid out the agrarian patchwork, founded these communities that serve as bookends to the works of architectural and municipal genius in San Francisco, or Los Angeles and San Diego. Yes, a man would have to be mad — or quite rational — to leave paradise lost.
You see, here is the situation in California. Tens of thousands of prisoners are scheduled by a U.S. Supreme Court order to be released. But why this inability to house our criminals when we pay among the highest sales, income, and gas taxes in the nation? Too many criminals? Too few new prisons? Too high costs per prisoner? Too many non-violent crimes that warrant incarceration? God help us when they are released. We know what crime is like now; what will it be like if thousands are let go? I doubt they will end up in the yards of the justices who let them out.
I think I have a clue to what’s ahead.
Japan and the softly glowing world…
- BBC
- NHK in English (Live feed in upper right corner)
- Telegraph of London
- Kyodo Wire
- Japan Times
- Asahi Shimbun
- The Daily Yomuri
- Japan Today
- ImTranslator – Online Translator, Dictionary, TTS add on for Firefox (It comes in handy)
- Japanese government list of nationwide radioactivity concentration
- Japan Geigermap
- Ibaraki Prefecture Geiger Counter Readings
- US National Radiation Map (updated every minute)
- Via Soylent Green: Radiation Exposure in Daily Life
- Radiation Dose Chart
- Radiation Converter
- ZeroHedge commenter Max2205′s excellent post about radioactivity including a list of radioactive elements and their half lives.
- Donations to the American Red Cross that are being designated to Japanese Earthquake relief are already getting to the folks in Japan and are most helpful.
Super Typhoon Songda Projected To Pass Over Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant
So far the only good news to accompany the Fukushima catastrophe has been that for all the fallout, the radiation has been mostly contained due to Northwesterly winds which have been blowing any radioactivity mostly out and into the Pacific (coupled with relatively little rainfall), as well as the dispersion of irradiated cooling water which promptly enters the Pacific after which it is never heard of or seen again (there is at least a several year period before 3 eyed tuna fish feature prominently in restaurants across the country). This may be changing soon now that Super Typhoon Songda, which according to Weather Underground will form shortly as a Category 5 storm with 156+ mph winds, will take a northeasterly direction and 2 days later will pass right above Fukushima. The good news: by the time it passes over Fukushima it will be merely a Tropical storm. The bad news: by the time it passes over Fukushima it will be a Tropical storm. As the latest dispersion projection from ZAMG shows, over the next two days the I-131 plume will be covering all of the mainland. Although judging by how prominent this whole topic is in the MSM lately, it seems that conventional wisdom now agrees with Ann Coulter that radioactivity is actually quite good for you.
Fukushima Reactor 1 Drywell Reading Hits All Time High 204 Sieverts/Hour
Remember Fukushima, the worst nuclear catastrophe in the last 20 or so years which soon will surpass Chernobyl in total radioactive emissions into the environment? Well, the radiation in the now officially melted down Reactor 1 has just hit the highest ever reading since the crisis began, or 204 sieverts/hour, recorded in the drywell. Not Micro. Not Milli. Sieverts. It appears the “excuse” that the counters are broken isn’t being used this time, although we are confident that the “spurious reading” allegations will fly.
New TEPCO analysis shows 94% of nuclear fuel melted in Reactor No. 3
TEPCO-AREVA Contract to Treat Contaminated Water at Fukushima I Nuke Plant Is Shrouded in Secrecy
Japan slammed as new leak found at stricken nuclear plant
Hawaii dairy farmers fight radiation by feeding boron to cows, goats Angry Parents in Japan Confront Government Over Radiation Levels
Japan gov’t expert: 1,300 sq. kilometers in Japan above Chernobyl level for forced migrations
Despite excessive Cesium found in tea leaves, some local growers still ship out
World News:
Of course they are. They can not stay in power if they can not control the flow of information and the ability for citizens to express themselves… As world burns, G8 leaders fiddle … with the Internet. Seriously?
Sarkozy, Obama, and the other leaders at the G8 should be evaluating the policies that have brought them to the brink of financial ruin. Unfortunately, their attention will be elsewhere: on Internet regulation, for one thing.
Here is one reason they need to get a handle on the flow of information…Things Are Spinning Out Of Control
Power is based not just on controlling events in the real world but on the perception of having some control over the real world. Once the central banks’ control over large-scale trends and systems is revealed as illusory, then the unraveling of the Status Quo’s powers will gain momentum.
God bless YouTube, because he picks a nuanced third way and he’s really just a stupendous troglodyte
Euro Drops Following Juncker Statement IMF May Not Release Next Greek Tranche
Elsewhere, Greece is already planning its upcoming series of 24 hour strikes which will make sure that Greek budget deficits continue to demonstrate that only the US is worse than the Mediterranean country when it comes to balancing its books.
It’s Greek Protest Time All Over Again – Follow The Latest From Athens Live
Alas, there is nothing left to add: this is the future, and it is coming to a developed country near you.
Belarus snaps up TVs, fridges as ruble plunges
Belarus consumers are sweeping store shelves bare in a frantic attempt to spend their devalued rubles before prices of imported goods go even further through the roof in the cash-strapped former Soviet state.
The central department store in the capital Minsk no longer has television sets or refrigerators in stock as people rush to spend their rubles on anything from appliances to fur coats to jewellery.
“People bought up everything … new deliveries are all at the new exchange rate. Only tie pins are selling at the old rate,” said an attendant in the jewellery department.
Food items are also in demand.
And The US Banks Managing The Libyan Sovereign Wealth Fund Were…
And Now a Word from My New Sponsor: ARAB SPRING!
Egyptian Group Plans to Form “Nazi Party”…
Yemen Slides Closer to Full-Scale Civil War, Pitched Street Battles in Capital Leave Over 40 Dead…
Saudi Facebook Campaign Calls on Men to Beat Women Drivers
The page, titled “The Iqal Campaign: June 17 for preventing women from driving,” refers to the Arabic name for the cord used to hold on the traditional headdress worn by many men in the Gulf, advocating the cord be used to hit women who dare to drive.
It has drawn over 6,000 “likes” on the popular social networking website.
Sudan: Christian Couple Stabbed in Home by Relatives For Leaving Islam…
Because the Koran says so.
UK Leftist Leader George Galloway Meets With Palestinian Islamic Jihad Leaders…
Not exactly shocking news, Galloway has always been at the forefront of the leftist-Islamist alliance
A must read! The Dreamer Goes Down For The Count
I had never thought there were many similarities between the pleasure-loving Charles II of England and the more upright Barack Obama until this week. Listening to his speeches on the Middle East at the State Department, US-Israel relations at the AIPAC annual meeting and most recently his address to the British Parliament the comparison becomes irresistible.
“Here lies our sovereign king,” wrote the Earl of Rochester about King Charles:
Whose word no man relies on.
Who never said a foolish thing
Or ever did a wise one.This seems to capture President Obama’s Middle East problems in a nutshell.
In Britain Obama repeats his error on Israel
President Obama is in Europe, supposedly trying to dissuade the Europeans from participating in the Palestinians’ attempt to gain statehood without offering peace to Israel. At his press conference he, no surprise to his critics, revealed he really doesn’t have a clue how to proceed when he described the major issues between the parties
It’s “Heads You Win, Tails You Don’t Lose” With This Currency
Bottom line, the clock is ticking on a Hong Kong dollar revaluation.
Smartest. President. Evah!™ From the “just imagine how long the MSM and idjit celebutards would howl if George W. Bush or Sarah Palin did this” department’:
- Gaffetastic… Obama Signs Wrong Date (Off by 3 Years) in Westminster Abbey Book
- When Toasts to the Queen Go Bad
If he gifts the Queen with another pre-loaded iPod, I doubt this particular moment will make the cut.
I’m starting to wish President Obama hadn’t been excluded from the invitation list for William and Kate’s wedding now — who knows what fun we missed out on.
Radical Islamists Welcome Obama to London
Maybe if Obama holds talks with these jerks, his Royal Highness can persuade them to reform their Islamist ways.
The only one he is fooling is himself…Obama Quotes Churchill to British Parliament After Chucking His Bust From the White House
When Obama moved into the White Hous in 2009 one of the first things he did was ship the bust of Former Prime Minister Winston Churchill back to Great Britain. It cluttered up his Oval Office.
But, that didn’t stop Barack Obama from quoting Churchill today in his speech to the British Parliament.
British Press Pans Obama’s Empty TelePrompter Speech to Parliament
The pictures were better than the words…
…Perhaps Mr Obama was smothered also by his audience, which remained stubbornly unresponsive. For most of the time the President had nothing to bounce off: no applause and certainly no shouts of praise or blame as might be heard in an American church or at an American political rally.
The presidential text sounded as if it had been worked on so hard and conscientiously by a vast team of helpers that it had lost all savour, and been reduced to a series of orotund banalities, of the sort which can be heard at every tedious Anglo-American conference: “Profound challenges stretch out before us…the time for our leadership is now…Our alliance will remain indispensable.”
It did not help to hear Mr Obama assert, after only a minute or two, that “fortunately it’s been smooth sailing” between Britain and the United States “ever since” 1812, when we burned down the White House. Everyone present will have been able to think of occasions when this was not so. Suez did not seem like plain sailing.
Remember that Obamacare was designed to be like Britain’s NHS…Elderly patients dying of thirst: Doctors forced to prescribe drinking water to keep the old alive, reveals devastating report on hospital care
Doctors are prescribing drinking water for neglected elderly patients to stop them dying of thirst in hospital.
The measure – to remind nurses of the most basic necessity – is revealed in a damning report on pensioner care in NHS wards.
Some trusts are neglecting the elderly on such a fundamental level their wards could face closure orders.
The snapshot study, triggered by a Mail campaign, found staff routinely ignored patients’ calls for help and forgot to check that they had had enough to eat and drink.
Dehydration contributes to the death of more than 800 hospital patients every year.
The First Data Release From Air France 447′s Black Boxes
Here is what Captain Dave of Flight Level 390 has to say about it. Read it! It will scare the bejabbers out of you. AF 447… Part 3
Sharia In Germany: No Jail for Violent Child Rape – His Mom told him to do it
This is how far Germany has fallen, kowtowing to evil in letting violent child rape go unpunished
Oil-Rich Venezuela Suffers From Energy Crisis
As the great countermoonbat Milton Friedman observed,
“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”
What would happen if you put a socialist of similar stripe in charge of Venezuela, a founding member of OPEC that is floating on oil? Naturally, the result would be an energy shortage
Speaking of Venezuela and Obama’s BFF Chavez… As Obama Ignores Latin America, Foes Rush In
Imprisoned drug lord Walid Makled is a symbol of the narco-corruption that has infected Venezuela under Hugo Chávez. He is also a symbol of declining U.S. influence in Latin America.
Arrested last August in Colombia, Makled allegedly spent years sending gigantic cocaine loads to the United States. At one point, his U.S.-bound shipments amounted to ten tons each month. Since his incarceration, Makled has revealed that “he had as many as 40 Venezuelan generals and top officials on his payroll to provide security and distribution, among other things,” according to the Wall Street Journal. This revelation was explosive but not altogether surprising, given what U.S. officials already knew about the Chávez regime and its role in the drug business.
A few years ago, the Treasury Department formally accused Gen. Henry Rangel Silva, now serving as Venezuela’s “general in chief,” of trafficking with FARC, Colombia’s prominent narco-terrorist organization. The Government Accountability Office subsequently reported (in 2009) that the volume of cocaine moving through Venezuela had increased “significantly.” Indeed, the oil-rich country is now a major hub in the global drug trade: The United Nations reports that Venezuela was the departure point for more than half of all maritime drug shipments from South America to Europe between 2006 and 2008.
The close relationship between Chávez and FARC helps explain Venezuela’s growing importance to international cocaine trafficking.
US News:
The six-block scar: Astonishing satellite photos show just how Joplin was wiped off the map
This is a fine example of the fundamental difference between the ‘red states’ and the ‘blue states’. No rioting, no looting, no waiting on ‘Uncle Sugar’ to do everything for them…St. Louis Facebook Group Organizes & Sends 4 Truckloads of Supplies to Joplin, Missouri
Signs of survival: Tornado-hit Joplin shows that humour exists even in darkest times
Family seeks high school grad Will Norton sucked out of car’s sunroof during Joplin tornado
Tornado Hits Sedalia MO, Heavy Damage In Parts Of The City, No Deaths Reported
The entire Kansas City area was under a tornado warning at one point, and there were brief touchdowns of small tornadoes reported throughout the late morning and early afternoon. School kids in the greater Kansas City area got to put their tornado drill training to use, today.
At 12:59PM KMBC meteorologist, Gary Lezak reported that as many as 12 to 14 tornadoes had touched down in Kansas City within a span of 90 minutes.
East of KC, Sedalia MO, home of the Missouri State Fair, appears to be the town most severely affected by the damaging storms that passed through Western Missouri, earlier today.
Always remember that the leader of this organization ran as a Democrat in the Kansas gubernatorial elections…Westboro Cult Publishes Flyer: “Thank God for 125 Dead in Joplin” – Plan to Protest Funerals
Poll: 50% Say Government Will Go Bankrupt Before Budget is Balanced…
Hold on, we’re already bankrupt.
Every single Democrat in the Senate loves Barack’s budget except for all of them
Via Powerline:
Today, in what would be a major news story if the times we live in were not so bizarre, the Senate voted 97-0 against President Obama’s FY 2012 budget. Obama’s budget was such a joke that not a single Democrat was willing to support it.
So one naturally asks: do the Democrats have something better to propose? The answer is: No. The Democratic Senate has not come up with a budget in two years, thereby violating federal law. President Obama has not proposed a replacement for his laughable FY 2012 budget, which not a single member of Congress is willing to support.
Charting Why 0% Y/Y GDP Growth Is A Distinct Possibility
Today’s chart of the week comes from Bloomberg’s Senior Economist, Joseph Brusuelas, who correlates initial claims (inverted axis) and GDP (Y/Y% not annualized). Alas for Tim Geithner and anyone who read his “Welcome to the Recovery” Op-Ed from August 2010 clearly written under the influence of hallucinogenic Kool-Aid, it appears that the economy is about to grind to a halt. The chart needs no explanation.
Thanks Barack… Economy Struggling – Foreclosures “Astronomically High”
And the hits keep on coming…
Sale of seized homes at 28% — 6 X normal…
JOBLESS FOR WEAK: 424,000…
Economy Struggling to Regain Speed…
Dow spooked…
Utah Has Had Enough: BofA / CFC Foreclosures
ReconTrust Co. isn’t meeting requirements for carrying out foreclosures in the state, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleffsaid in a letter to Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan. The letter, dated May 19, was released today by Shurtleff’s office.
“All real estate foreclosures conducted by ReconTrust in the state of Utah are not in compliance with Utah’s statutes, and are hence illegal,” Shurtleff wrote.
LOLOLOLOL! Poor widdle Barack…House Of Representatives Will Refuse To Officially Recess Thus Preventing Obama From Making Any Recess Appointments
You may remember some of Obama’s greatest recess appointments….Craig Becker to the NLRB and Donald “The Rationer” Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
When President Obama signed the trillion-dollar stimulus law in 2009, he proclaimed that he was “keeping the American dream alive in our time.” The stimulator-in-chief failed to mention that billions would be spent keeping American tax scammers afloat on our dime.
At a congressional hearing on Tuesday, federal auditors reported on the latest porkulus spending gone wild. According to a new General Accounting Office audit (summary and full report pdf here) conducted over the past year, nearly 4,000 stimulus recipients received $24 billion in Recovery Act funds — while owing more than $750 million in unpaid corporate, payroll and other taxes.
CBO: Stimulus to Touch More Lives Than Originally Estimated
In the private sector, if you overshot your target by $43 billion you’d be out of a job and maybe even investigated until the end of time, but in DC the champagne is probably flowing over news that they only went 5% over the projection.
No worries. Thanks to the “government spending equals jobs” philosophy, spinning this is simple: “Whoops, we accidentally saved or created more jobs than expected.”
More Victor David Hanson awesomness: An Honest Obama Campaign
Your tax dollars at work… King Canute’s kindergarten
President Obama spends a Half-Billion Bucks to get 5-year-olds to sit still in their seats.
Preposterous does not begin to describe this idiocy.
If you want to understand a person look at who his best friends are. In Obama’s case they are all radical leftists and Islamofascist supporters…Wow! Dem Lawmaker Agrees… Says Obama Is “Tilting Toward Hamas”
Here is a fine example of an MSM propaganda piece from the biggest MSM Obamaworshiping ‘ho’s’ in the business-Why you should love $5 gas
For a president who travels with two “beast” Cadillacs and a fleet of SUVs, Barack Obama sure has a lot of nerve to tell others to cut back.
Irony: U.S. Transportation Sec rolls up in 7MPG SUV to unveil new fuel economy stickers
From Jalopnik:
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood unveiled new fuel-economy window stickers for cars and trucks, saying “we’re not just sitting around waiting for high gasoline prices to come down.” His ride of choice to the unveiling: This 12-mpg Chevy Suburban SUV.
Except that it’s not 12-mpg. For security reasons, bureaucrats at the highest level drive around in armored SUVs that are shielded from the possibility of EMPs (electromagnetic pulses) by replacing the fuel injection system with a carburetor. It gets 7-mpg. Maybe.
EPA Administrator Confirms: No fracking water contamination
Can you afford a vacation this year? The question you better be asking yourself if you will be able to afford food by this time next year.
Surprise, surprise, surprise…Obama Appointee Who Helped Craft ObamaCare Now a Lobbyist For Planned Parenthood…
Chrysler-a division of Government Motors: Parties ensue as Chrysler pays off borrowed money with other borrowed money
That’s right – neither Chrysler nor GM pay taxes. They are exempt for several years costing taxpayers at least $42 billion. That was a decision Obama made (the regime gave any ‘private’ company a tax exemption if they drank the kool-aid and took TARP money). Ford gets no such privileged treatment, pays its taxes and still has to compete on the open market with both. For someone who gives lip service to “leveling the playing field” Obama tilted it severely to political points. And with the non-curious, lazy media at his back, he gets headlines like those at the Detroit News and Free Press and it’s based on news that is misleading at best, and outright false at worse.
Bill Clinton Basically Agrees That Dems Are Playing Politics With Medicare
Bill Clinton and Paul Ryan were caught chatting off stage at an event yesterday at a forum on the national debt held by the Pete Peterson Foundation. During their discussion Bill Clinton basically agreed with Ryan that democrats were playing politics with there “Mediscare” attacks and that something needed to be done to fix Medicare.
Bill ain’t dumb and he isn’t going to go down with the sinking S.S. Obama…Video: Bill Clinton Tells Dems to Stop Playing Politics with Medicare, Defends Paul Ryan
Instead of fixing the problem, the Democrats have punted, not even coming up with their own budget! Instead, they are content simply attacking, via demagoguery and demonization, the GOP that by the way did pass a budget. At least one Democrat is awake and seems to want to actually fix the problem rather than scoring cheap political points at the nations expense
ObamaCare: Survival of the Well-connected?
Like in the children’s game, we were all to play Follow the Leader. No one needed to look inside the bill in order to buy it.
That used to be called “a pig in a poke,” an expression that warned against buying something when the content was concealed. The phrase is rooted in a time when buyers in farmers’ markets were cautioned to check inside the pokes, or sacks, lest they might get home and find that the farmer had sneakily dropped a worthless cat into a sack in place of a costly suckling pig.
As it’s turned out, no small number of businesses in Nancy Pelosi’s home district have opened the poke and discovered that it’s filled with some real rubbish. Their response, increasingly, is “No thanks.”
“Pelosi’s district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of waivers nationwide,” waivers providing a year-long pass from ObamaCare, reported Matthew Boyle in The Daily Caller last week.
“Of the 204 new Obamacare waivers the Obama administration approved in April,” Boyle reports, “38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district.”
Video: How The Crybaby Left Likes To Debate…
Simon Rosenberg, President of liberal think-tank NDN gets frustrated during a debate over Medicare reform. What does he do? He takes his ball and goes home.
Paul Ryan Hitting Back Against Dem Demagoguery
I wouldn’t say he’s “punching back twice as hard”, (he’s too mild mannered for that), but he’s throwing some right jabs against the Dem’s shameless demagoguery
Marco Rubio, “a man in a field of mice”
Just how many more top secret taxpayer subsidies will emerge were being used by the Fed to keep the kleptocratic status quo in charge?
This man should be in jail, not the House of Representatives…
- Bawney Fwank Admits He Helped Boyfriend Land Job at Fannie Mae While He Sat on Committee Overseeing The Agency…
- Barney Frank knocked on his Fannie
Asked if he should have disclosed his efforts to help Moses land the job at Fannie Mae, Frank said: “It was widely known. It was out there in the public. It’s nonsense.”
Congressional Republicans pounced on the embarrassing revelation.
“Just when you think you’ve heard the worst, Democrats in Massachusetts take shameless politics to a new low,” said Tory Mazzola, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “The fact that Barney Frank didn’t see this as a conflict of interest is alarming by itself, but it’s so deceitful that it really shows voters that he’s not looking out for them in Washington.”
Moses, who lived with Frank in Washington at the time, worked for Fannie until 1998, when he left the mortgage behemoth. Moses, who could not be reached for comment, and Frank split up that year.
These guys should be in jail, too…
- House members in the know score ‘abnormal’ stock profits, study says
- Figures. Defeated 2010 Dems Gave Staffers Huge Bonuses Before Leaving Office
Before the defeated democrats left Washington DC last year after fleecing the public with irresponsible policies they gave their staffers huge bonuses – nearly double what returning lawmakers paid their staffers.
Is Fitzgerald Protecting Obama From the Blagojevich Trial???
Among other factors, the prevailing basis for same sensational headline as well as related analysis was due to the fact that Antoin “Tony” Rezko – Uber Confidante to Blagojevich, Obama and Nadhmi Auchi – had not yet testified as a Federal Government Witness in USA v. Blagojevich.
Same refusal by US Attorney Fitzgerald to place Rezko in the Witness Box to bury Blagojevich further corroborates the brutal realities that US Attorney Fitzgerald has been running egregious political interference to both benefit and protect Team Obama (i.e., Allison Davis, Dr. Eric Whitaker, Marty Nesbitt, et al).
Last week, President Gutsy thanked the CIA for helping him get Bin Laden.
Meanwhile Attorney General Eric Holder is pursuing criminal action against CIA employees involved in the enhanced interrogation techniques that helped lead us to Bin Laden. Former Attorney General Mukasey calls Holder’s decision to reopen the cases as “unconscionable” – a “demoralizing” decision that will have a stifling effect on intelligence gathering.
Rob Bluey at The Heritage Foundation interviewed Mukasey about this outrage
Figures. White House Progressive Media Czar Is Married to MoveOn.org “General Betray Us” Crank
Like with everything Obama does, there’s no more than a two degree of separation between him and some America-hating leftist radical.
Wasserman Schultz Wants Republicans To Pledge Not To Use Israel As A Campaign Issue.
Sitting in front of Netanyahu, the DNC chair asked the RJC to “pledge to refrain in 2012 from using Israel as part of the issues in campaigns,” according to RJC executive director Matt Brooks. “It started that way. Right from the get go they just jumped on it.”
The Dems made Netanyahu so uncomfortable, he offered to leave so the they could continue their bickering without him in the room.
Listen up RNC; I have a great idea for a campaign ad…
While the voice-over talks about how the leader of the Democrat party is “tilting toward Hamas”, a dude wearing a red white and blue donkey tee-shirt pushes an elderly Holocaust survivor wearing a star of David tee-shirt in a wheelchair over a cliff.
It would be done in a very light-hearted fashion, but it would drive the point home, I think.
How’s that work for you, Shultz?
Sheesh….Debbie Wasserman has gone in to full blown ‘Monkey flinging its own poo’ mode. DNC Chief Wasserman Shultz: Republicans Are “Anti-Woman”…
Debbie Wasserman Schultz Is On A Roll
If epic liberal hypocrisy such as that doesn’t make your head explode, how about some epic liberal projection:
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz attacked the GOP presidential contenders on their own terms Thursday.
The Florida representative questioned just how dedicated they were to “American exceptionalism.”
“Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman … I’m concerned about their commitment to American exceptionalism,” Wasserman Schultz said at a breakfast for reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
Uhhhh?
Right. Everybody knows that American exceptionalism is a concept that the leader of her party failed to grasp when asked about it early on in his presidency. Everyone knows that it’s a concept that resonates most with conservatives.
Supreme Court upholds Arizona illegal immigration sanctions
A very significant ruling from the high court today on the constitutionality of Arizona’s law imposing sanctions on businesses that hire illegal aliens. This is not SB1070 signed by GOP Gov. Jan Brewer, but an earlier law passed by, ahem, then-Democrat Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano — who, of course, now serves in an administration using the same preemption argument against SB01070 that the court just rejected in the business sanctions case.
Take heed, Arizona-bashers and Holder DOJ
Supreme Court upholds state requirements on employment verification
The ruling is important in several ways. First, it establishes that state governments have an interest in enforcing employment eligibility. That point may come into play in later cases, and it lends credibility to efforts in other states to mandate employment-eligibility verification. Next, it allows those other states to use Arizona’s law as a template. That will strike a blow at the economic magnet that incentivizes illegal immigration, hopefully slowing down the tide crossing the borders and making later immigration reform that much easier.
Matthew Franck at Bench Memos offers a brief reminder of another virtue of the ruling — a reminder that courts should stick to the textual meaning of law:
Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority, and based the ruling on the plain meaning of the federal immigration statute, which expressly preserves the power of states to legislate on the subject of employing illegal immigrants through their licensing power, as Arizona had done here.
This should have been an 8-0 ruling, given that the law was written with Arizona’s intent expressly in mind. It’s another reason that elections for executive office matter very, very much.
If ordinary citizens have little claim to privacy in public places, then what about their electronic devices? U.S. border-patrol agents often search the phones and computers of American citizens who cross the border—routinely “accessing email accounts, examining photographs and looking through personal calendars,” according to The Constitution Project, a watchdog group. “In some cases, electronic devices were confiscated for as long as a year.” And in Michigan, the State Police have high-tech forensic devices enabling them to download information from the cell phones of stopped motorists—something they have been doing without a warrant.
In New York, a cell phone alert system will send text messages with a unique ring tone in the event of a terrorist attack or other emergency. By next year the system will go nationwide, and all new cell phones will be required to contain the special chip needed to relay the messages. Orwell comparisons are overdone, but it is hard not to think of 1984: “The voice from the telescreen paused. A trumpet call, clear and beautiful, floated into the stagnant air. The voice continued raspingly: ‘Attention! Your attention, please! A newsflash has this moment arrived from the Malabar front. Our forces in South India have won a glorious victory. . . .’ “
More Big Brother Is Watching You…US to store passenger data for 15 years
You Will Respect My Authoritah!
So demandeth the DOJ and TSA in regards to Texas’ efforts to pass HB 1937, a bill that would have made invasive pat downs by TSA agents a felony. But never fear, Texas was forced to kill the bill because they did not have enough votes to pass it. And the Chicago-style thuggery and extortion goes on and on…
But it wasn’t just the lack of votes at play here. Oh no… The DOJ threatened to stop all flights in and out of Texas if the bill proceeded apace. That is the real reason there weren’t enough votes. When you threaten to basically exile an entire state and stop their citizens from traveling, you gut the economics in that state. Most politicians at that point see money literally flying out the window along with votes that would reelect them. That’s the problem with the Texas legislature. There aren’t enough real Texans residing there. However, the ones handling this bill… well they are feisty true patriots who don’t give up in a political tussle. Barack Obama, Eric Holder and the DOJ goons should know that you don’t mess with Texas.
So let’s see if we understand the constitutional atrocity that was just foisted on probably the bravest state in the union shall we? The DOJ just stomped all over Texas’ Tenth Amendment rights to quash their Fourth Amendment rights. If the government can do this (and they just did), what makes you think they haven’t just skirted the entire Constitution? Making it a founding document in name only while denying what they are doing all the while. This comes at a time when a whole slew of Fourth amendment violations are happening around the country from Indiana to Kentucky and in various other states. I don’t believe in coincidence – this is planned pure and simple. We see the government now violating all our rights on a daily basis and they are getting more and more heavy handed and brazen.
CHANGE! Top Jewish Donor Dumps Obama For Siding With Hamas-Fatah Alliance
Thank Sheriff Dupnik, too, Jared…‘Thank you for the freak show… she died in front of me’: Survivors’ horror as Giffords gunman is dragged out of court after bizarre outburst
Another “Dupnik production”…Seventy-One Shots: The Death of Jose Guereña
Dupnik’s SWAT team initially claimed that Guereña fired at them while they were serving a warrant — as he slept. They claimed that his bullets hit the bulletproof shield that the entry team hid behind, and that the barrage of bullets they fired back was in self-defense.
Only, Guereña never fired his weapon. Awoken by his wife with screams that men with guns were invading his home and threatening his family, Jose Guereña armed himself with a AR-15 rifle and crouched in the hallway. The SWAT team unloaded upon Guereña on sight. He apparently recognized the home invaders as police. He took 60 rounds, but never — as the Pima County Sheriff’s Department was forced to admit — took off his weapon’s safety as he was being killed.
Prejudice and bigotry?
It was, you’ll recall, a claim Dupnik made in the wake of Jared Loughner’s bloodly rampage at a “Congress in your Corner” event at a Safeway supermarket in Tucson, where six were killed and 14 others were injured — including, gravely, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Dupnik was attempting to blame the conservative Tea Party movement for the shooting when he made the comment. And even after it was revealed that Loughner’s few known political views had been described as “quite liberal,” and were in fact muddled at best, he refused to retract his slur.
So when Dupnik’s teams attempted a complicated four-house raid of minority families looking for drugs, perhaps bigotry and prejudice really was in play.
The war that dares not speak its name…US and Lybia:
*crickets*
*crickets*
Look for the Union Label/Whackademia/The Badger Rebellion:
Her Royal Liberal Highness Judge Sumi Strikes Down WI Union Bill Again
Far left activist Judge Maryann Sumi once again struck down the legislative union bill this morning….As noted previously, Judge Sumi’s son is an AFL-CIO activist.
SEIU Purple Army blunder of the day
Question: If hapless SEIU members collected sick pay while on protest duty, will they have to give it back now?
Question: If the drillers are evil, aren’t all the Pennsylvania-based companies that manufacture drilling equipment and employ untold numbers of Americans evil, too?
How Prison Unions Helped Create Overcrowding Problem in California
It’s a one-two punch. Unions fight to keep prison populations high, then fight the construction of new, privately owned prisons which would ease the overcrowding.
And private prisons could have been the answer.
This article explains how a private prison corporation built a prison in nine months, had it operational in a year. It held three thousand.
But rather than that, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association used its power to keep facilities from being constructed, helping to create the situation we have today.
It’s incredible the union still has the nerve to accuse the corporation of greed.
MI Teacher Rewarded With $135,000 For Threatened To Kill Herself and The Principal
In the real world, you get fired for something like this, thrown in the can and charged under the law. But in the artificial world propped up by thousand-page union contracts, you don’t even get a slap on the wrist. Instead, you collect a bounty.
In Other News…
Epic Sarah Palin Documentary to Premiere in June… In Iowa
“This film is a call to action for a campaign like 1976: Reagan vs. the establishment,” Bannon told RealClearPolitics. “Let’s have a good old-fashioned brouhaha.”
Sarah Palin’s All-American Road Trip
What a great combination: Sarah Palin and Rolling Thunder. Memorial Day in Washington, D.C. sounds like it will be a blast. The event is the kick-off for a cross-country bus tour. The Palin family will hit the northeastern corridor first, on a route that will take them to “historical sites that were key to the formation, survival, and growth of the United States of America.” (As readers know, I LOVE me some all-American summer road trips.)
Hope Gov. Palin makes it out here to the Rocky Mountain West, where pioneer women homesteaders blazed trails Mama Grizzly-style.
‘Lamestream media’ confusion builds about possible Palin run
Gallup Poll: Palin Within Two Points of Romney For GOP Nomination…
DNC “Rapid Response Team”? Boy, are they running scared! DNC sets sights on Herman Cain
Thursday’s Gallup poll had Cain in the top of the pack among GOP voters, with 8 percent of the vote ahead of Tim Pawlenty, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman. He trails Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich.
“When you have somebody who is so likable and so respected on our side and among the American people as a whole, that is clearly making them nervous,” Carmichael added.
Despite his high poll numbers and likability factor, there are some on the Republican side who still have doubts about the viability of his candidacy. According to Carmichael the criticism has not phased Cain at all.
“This is the guy who spent his whole life being called an Uncle Tom and an Oreo. If he was sensitive he wouldn’t be running for president,” she said.
They truly are getting desperate if they are letting Crazy Howie out of his padded room….Video of Howard Dean: GOP Hate Muslims, Gays, Immigrants
This from the party that founded the KKK, fought for slavery, not against it, filibustered the civil rights act and to this day traps minorities in failed government schools and urban environments.
Justice Department Green-Lights Prosecution of Dem John Edwards For Alleged Campaign Violations
OUCH! That is gonna leave a mark… Oh My…T-Paw Calls Out Barack Obama
After 34 years of teaching sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I recently retired at age 64 at 80 percent of my pay for life. This calculation was based on a salary spiked by summer teaching, and since I no longer pay into the retirement fund, I now receive significantly more than when I “worked.” But that’s not all: There’s a generous health insurance plan, a guaranteed 3 percent annual cost of living increase, and a few other perquisites. Having overinvested in my retirement annuity, I received a fat refund and—when it rains, it pours—another for unused sick leave. I was also offered the opportunity to teach as an emeritus for three years, receiving $8,000 per course, double the pay for adjuncts, which works out to over $200 an hour. Another going-away present was summer pay, one ninth of my salary, with no teaching obligation.
All of this because a single person complained about a 70-year tradition.
Vermont Seeking ObamaCare Waiver So It Can Implement Single-Payer Socialized Health Care System…
There’s irony in here somewhere.
Barone: NY-26 Proves Republicans Have To Go On The Offensive Against MediScare Campaign
Needless to say the media will draw too many pro-Democrat conclusions from this race. But we need to learn from the mistakes, which need not have ended in a lost District.
As an aside, and minor consolation, redistricting probably will do away with this District, as western upstate NY is losing a seat, due to the loss of population to more business friendly southern and western states.
UPDATE: Vote fraud will continue in Minnesota.
The Supreme Court’s California prison verdict could spark a crime comeback.
Christie Pulls New Jersey Out of Regional Cap-And-Trade Program…
In the meantime, what should graduate directors tell their graduate students? It’s actually very simple. There are no jobs. This simple formula, repeated often, can actually serve as a palliative for anxiety. A potent meditation on the absurdity of a system that every year produces hundreds of experts in various fields but can find them no employment whatsoever, this straightforward and categorical phrase can ease the burden of disappointment.
Another instaclassic from Iowahawk! So You Have a College Diploma
Note: Listen to the hag off camera ask if they can get a dog to bite it.
Leonard Cohen saw The Future and he was right!
MSM Circus and Celebutard Side Show:
Video of Charles Krauthammer: How the Media Will Try to Help Re-elect Obama
He can go work with Olby over at the Goracle’s cable channel… MSNBC’s Ed Schultz suspended after calling radio host Laura Ingraham a ‘right-wing slut’
Behold its Latin inscriptions and embossed seals; why, if you just squint a little, it looks like it could have come from Harvard, maybe even Hogwarts. Drink in the bold signatures from the dean of your college and the president of the university, affirming to the world that you have fulfilled each academic requirement and never bounced a tuition check. And thus it also affirms that you have been sanctified as a graduate of this fine institution, and are now granted all rights and privileges thereunto appurtaining. What exactly are those rights and privileges, you ask? Believe me, you’ll be finding out soon enough.
The only thing he is sorry about is that he is about to get kicked off the MSM gravy train…..Finally! MSNBC suspends Ed Schultz for calling Ingraham a ‘slut’
I was wondering yesterday just what it would take for MSNBC to discipline Ed Schultz for spewing such vulgar hatred on the air: The ‘New Civilty’ (Cont’d): Ed Schultz Calls Laura Ingraham ‘A Slut’. Praying for the death of Dick Cheney didn’t do it:
“He is an enemy of the country, in my opinion. Dick Cheney is an enemy of the country….Lord, take him to the Promised Land, will you? See, I don’t even wish the guy goes to Hell, I just want to get him the hell out of here.”
Nor this: Video: MSNBC’s Ed Schultz: “We ought to rip (Cheney’s heart) out and kick it around and stuff it back in him”. Nor advocating voter fraud: Ed Shultz doubles down on stupid: “I’m not advocating voter fraud, I’m just telling you what I would do!” Nor his many meldowns accusing the GOP of murder: Latest Ed Shultz Meltdown: Republicans “Want to See You Dead…They Kinda Like It When That Woman Has Cancer”. Apparently calling Laura Ingraham a slut did: MSNBC suspends Schultz for calling Ingraham a ‘slut’
“I could set the building on fire”
MSNBC has suspended Ed Schultz, host of the “The Ed Show,” for one week without pay for calling conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham a ‘right-wing slut’ on his syndicated radio program Tuesday.
Prior infractions that got noticed by MSNBC, including an obligatory threat to burn down MSNBC (something that I wrote about as well: Unhinged Ed Shultz threatens to burn down MSNBC studios! Then breaks down crying!)
Color me not surprised. The View Hags See Nothing Wrong With MSNBC’s Ed Schultz Calling Laura Ingraham a “Slut”…
So they wouldn’t have a problem with a conservative man calling Michelle Obama a “slut?”
Anyone know if O’Donnell was dropped on his head when he was a baby?
[channeling Glenn Reynolds…] They told me if I voted for John McCain there would be widespread suppression of freedom of speech and blatant censorship of the press and they were right! Obama White House Bans Newspaper For Printing a Mitt Romney Op Ed
The White House designates local pool reporters to augment the traveling pool of reporters covering events on the road. Usually a request is all it takes to get added to the pool. But when the Herald contacted the White House to get its reporters added to the pool the paper was denied access.
Apparently the water in Obama’s pool is too warm for the Boston Herald!
So, what is the deal? How did the White House explain this banning of the Herald? They actually didn’t bother to explain it at all, haughtily ignoring the question. However, a White House press staffer told the Herald that it was because the president was not happy that the paper dared to print an op ed by Mitt Romney.
This was very entertaining watching grown-ups — people who think they are so much smarter than we retards on the right — realize that Arianna Huffington may be a lot of things, but a kumbaya socialist, she is not.
You spread your wealth around. She ain’t gonna.
Like the emperor without his clothes being laughed at as he marches, Matt Osbourne has taken his archived posts and gone home.
Michael Moore: Since Obama “controls” car companies, he should force them to build trains, not cars
“The auto thing is a good example too of where I wish Obama would just, if he would just ratchet it up another notch. Yes, he saved the jobs of all my friends back in Michigan. But now that we sort of control the car companies, let’s get them doing mass transit. Let’s get them doing things that are going to save this planet. Because the internal combustion engine is not going to get us to the 22nd century. That’s just not going–we’re not going to have a planet. That has to stop. And I just thought: gee, we have this power. You know, you can do things.” -Michael Moore
So Moore only drives a bicycle and uses mass transit to get around, right? Yeah – I didn’t think so. Exit question: if we ban the automobile and heavy equipment like bulldozers, what will Moore use to illegally fill in the wetlands at his luxurious mansion to expand his beach?
And people are worried about the power of Google or Fox News?
George Soros and Barack Obama are partners in a global effort to undermine the United States Constitution and American exceptionalism. Of that, there can be no doubt
Sex, Jokes and Politics: Why $15 Million Won’t Buy Traffic Like Ace of Spades
Soros-funded Media Matters for America has 90 employees and an annual budget of $15 million, and gets about 650,000 “unique visitors” per month. The annual budget at Ace of Spades HQ is unknown, and its “employees” are just a bunch of part-time goofs, but they get about 3 million hits per month.
Tuesday afternoon, I got a sample of the awesome power of Ace’s traffic when he linked my post about Christina Hendricks, temporarily overloading the servers and producing about 5,000 visits in the span of three hours. What would traffic have been like, if the servers hadn’t overloaded? Dunno. But that surge was as impressive as
Christina Hendricks’s cleavagean Instalanche.Why is Ace’s traffic so awesome? He explains:
Very often I get criticized for running funny or trivial stories, or going off-message. There is a contingent of folks who want their political sites doing nothing but relentlessly messaging. . . .
They seem to make the error of not realizing that for a message to be effective, first, it must be read in the first place.
And being a little idiosyncratic and random and funny and goofy helps with that. Whether the Seriousness Brigade realizes that or not. . . .You should read the whole thing, if you want to understand why all-politics-all-the-time unnecessarily limits readership.
Global Warmening:
Oh noes! The abalone must be saved so we can eat it!
Judge orders U.Va. to release climate research documents
Al Gore got a D in Natural Sciences
Like Scientologists, followers of Al Gore’s religion are following a dummy who wouldn’t know science if it bit him in the butt.
57% Of Americans Think Electric Cars Suck
Apparently, Big Oil and Big Coal and Big Industry and other Big’s got to Americans with their “disinformation campaigns,” poisoning their minds with anti-Gaia propaganda or something
Um, actually these two Girl Scouts are right on this one, hun. The places where they are chopping up the Palms to make Palm oil are going to end up looking just like Haiti (treeless) if they do not change their methods (aka bulldozing everything in sight and burning what isn’t used) of producing it…Video: 2 Girl Scouts Assert Cookies Are Bad For Environment
The Sock Drawer:
I do not have cats from hell, I have The Striped Sister Kitteh’s of DOOM™-Shiva and Catzequatal! Though Shiva, the sneaky one, does love watching TV especially Sir David Attenborough’s “The Life of Birds”. She sits in front of the TeeVee like a 5 year old watching Saturday morning cartoons when that is on. She also enjoys watching “Life in the Freezer” and does her ‘good deed for the day’ by trying to kill the Leopard Seals when they are trying to catch the Penguins….Reading the catnip leaves
What would 007 say? New James Bond novel sees spy ditch his trademark Aston Martin for a Bentley
Sigh…from Aston’s and Bentley’s to this….Is the quickest way to charge a Nissan Leaf… by towing?
RIP SPIRIT: NASA Announces Death of Rover on Mars
Evidence that early Antarctic Circumpolar Current development affected global climate
“As the global ocean currents were formed and strengthened, the redistribution of heat likely played a significant role in the overall cooling of the Earth,” Katz said.
No current is more major than the ACC, scientists believe.
Often referred to as the “mixmaster” of the ocean, the ACC thermally isolates Antarctica by preventing the warm surface waters of subtropical gyres from passing through.
The ACC instead redirects some of that warm water back toward the north Atlantic, creating Antarctic Intermediate Water.
This blocking of heat enabled the formation and preservation of the Antarctic ice sheets, according to Katz.
The circumpolar circulation, Katz concludes, was responsible for the development of the modern four-layer ocean current and heat distribution system.
A dispatch from the Penguin Pool at the Edinburgh Zoo:
There are many chicks of various ages to be seen. Some are newly hatched which you can only see their black heads poking out from under their parents when they are getting fed and larger chicks who no longer fit under their parents brood patches so are either standing next to mum or dad or are sleeping and have just their heads stuck in the brood patch like an Ostrich. “Mr. and Mrs. Valentine”’s (the nest builder-see dispatches from February) chicks are getting really big and should be getting out of the nest and start exploring soon. Some couples, like “Mr. and Mrs. Snowflake” (Snowflake is the grey penguin), are still incubating their eggs but they should hatch soon.
One couple in the nest that is fourth from the left in the row closes to the camera either broke their egg or it did not hatch (it happens) and the penguin keepers took it away. It was interesting to watch their behavior the first couple of days afterwards. They both would stand at the edge of their nest and would look all around it for their egg. They behaved somewhat lethargic and depressed so I have started calling them “Mr. and Mrs. Clinically Depressed” or “Mr. and Mrs. CD” for short. When the Penguin on the nest next to them (3rd from the left on the cracked nest ring) would expose his/her newborns to feed them Mr. and Mrs. CD would get down from their nest and go look at the chicks, while they were doing so Snowflake (the biggest pebble thief at the Penguin Pool) and a couple of others would go steal pebbles from their nest until Mr. and Mrs. CD noticed them and would run them off. Mrs. CD also took to laying on the nest totally flopped out hardly responding to others (as in defending her nest) for a couple of days, too. They have seemed to perk up a bit and are doing some courtship behavior.
The Kings are wandering through the Gentoo nesting area as I am writing this. The Penguin on the cracked nest ring is feeding one chick while the other is sorta crawling around the nest pecking at stuff and exploring. One thing that has been interesting is that some big floppy leaves have blown into the enclosure from the neighboring trees. These are being scooped up by the Penguins and are being used as nesting material. The penguins who failed at breeding are abandoning their nests so you will see a couple of empty nest rings.
