Sorry for taking so long in getting a post out. Inbetween looking up Hurricane info for friends, watching the Hurricane, repebbling the nest, molting, etc. it has been a busy week. I’m tired… I have posted some Hurricane news here but the best way to get up to date info now is to watche the live streaming feeds from the local stations in the affected areas.
Quotes of the Day:
- This article has so many great quotes in it that I am putting it up here! Kinky for Perry
So would I support Rick Perry for president? Hell, yes! As the last nail that hasn’t been hammered down in this country, I agree with Rick that there are already too damn many laws, taxes, regulations, panels, committees, and bureaucrats. While Obama is busy putting the hyphen between “anal” and “retentive” Rick will be rolling up his sleeves and getting to work.
- “Physicists also speculate that the planet may even be more dense than Joe Biden.” -Doug Ross from Report: Astronomers discover planet made of… diamond?
- “Earthquake, hurricane, Obamacare. When does it stop? Seven more and I vote we let the Israelites go.” –Charles Krauthammer
Must Reads of the Day:
The race card, the racial thing – whatever it’s gonna be called, it is the number one asset this administration believes it has to win in 2012. Their own polling data has shown that to be true over and over again. But how far are they willing to push that? Race. The charges of racism? I believe all the way if they have to. And they are gonna get people stirred up. And if Barack Obama doesn’t win re-election, watch them stand back while the riots break out, and watch them mouth the words “Burn baby burn.” I don’t think they are willing to go that far, I know it. If they can’t have America, nobody will. That’s how big – that’s how important this election coming up is. Even the people who pay attention to this stuff…they don’t realize how big this is. How important to the country. We are truly at a fork in the road here. This administration is going to attempt whatever necessary to remain in power. Race. Intimidation. Media attacks. Division – divide and f**king conquer
There’s way too much stupid for a full Fisking, so just a few highlights.
- Victor David Hanson: The Middle East Mess
At some point things could get ugly in Libya and someone is responsible; if we led from behind in the bombing, do we lead from behind in ensuring there is not a Mogadishu-like chaos? Or is that a European problem? With thousands of shoulder-held missile launchers in Libya, the question is not academic or partisan.
- George Will: Liberals’ Wisconsin Waterloo
Walker has refuted the left’s sustaining conviction that a leftward-clicking ratchet guarantees that liberalism’s advances are irreversible. Progressives, eager to discern a victory hidden in their recent failures, suggest that a chastened Walker will not risk further conservatism. Actually, however, his agenda includes another clash with teachers unions over accountability and school choice, and combat over tort reform with another cohort parasitic off bad public policies — trial lawyers.
As the moonless night of fa$ci$m descends on America’s dairyland, sidewalk graffiti next to the statehouse-square drinking fountain darkly warns: “Free water . . . for now.” There, succinctly, is liberalism’s credo: If everything isn’t “free,” meaning paid for by someone else, nothing will be safe.
- Victor David Hanson: California’s Water Wars
What is clear in this confused mess is that concerns for salmon and smelt now endanger a vast California agribusiness sector that provides thousands of jobs, earns the state billions in revenue, and ships produce worldwide at a time of global food crisis.
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.
How Reactor 4 at Fukushima I Nuke Plant “Exploded”, According to TEPCO
The rest was either blown off to the ocean or landed somewhere else in Japan.
Japan gov’t: Fukushima cesium equal to 168 Hiroshima nuclear bombs
Here we go. Radioactive Japan (or at least East Japan). Now all radioactive debris and garbage can and will be burned and buried.
Japan Triples Airborne Radiation Checks as ‘Hot Spots’ Spread
27,000 Bq/kg cesium in kindergarten near west coast of Japan — 200+ km from meltdowns
Another Radioactive Rice from Chiba, 46 Becquerels/Kg
The rice has been cleared for shipping, because the level of radioactive cesium is much below the national provisional safety limit of 500 becquerels/kg which will pose no threat to health, according to the authorities in Chiba.
It’s “Koshihikari” brand rice, but since it’s not from Niigata the rice may be blended and sold. If it’s blended, there is no requirement to state where the rice was harvested.
Caveat emptor, except the buyers don’t have all information available to them to decide on their own.
Fukushima radiation alarms doctors
Your new element of the day… Argentum-110m detected in marine life: China researchers — All water samples contain strontium-90
[Tweet of an Ibaraki citizen]
“I work at a hospital in Ibaraki.There were patient of endless nosebleed in April.were patients of diarrhea and fever for no reason in July.Now even hospital staff are suffering diarrhea for no reason…it’s getting spooky” ..This kind of the tweets are getting more and more everyday.
Fukushima radiation spread as far as Romania – Bioaccumulation of I-131 in Sheep and Goat Milk
World News:
Russian Central Bank To Offer Gold-Backed Loans (Or Why The Spam-Standard Is Coming To An End)
So let’s get this straight: Russia, which has been dumping US bonds with unseen vigor, and which has been buying gold at a record pace, has just offered its citizen the once in a lifetime opportunity to trade in their hard assets for paper in an imploding fiat system, but with promises to make 7% worthless percent. Oh, and when the “liquidity crunch in the banking system” goes away and one hopes to reclaim title to their gold, one will just find that the title certificate was signed by one Linda Greenova, and said title is perpetually lost in Siberian limbo. And while one waits to reclaim said title from robosigning transgressor #1, Bank of USSR, those heavily armed gentlemen in camouflage attire who just broke into your apartment will not wait to reclaim what now rightfully belongs to mother Russia.
So UBS Is Considering A Charge On CHF Deposits After All
One headline and one denial later, we now learn that the original news was in fact correct. As MarketWatch reports “UBS Friday said it may shortly begin to levy a temporary charge on Swiss franc deposits as a way of encouraging its bank customers to keep their cash in the surging Swiss currency as low as possible.” In doing so, the bank joins such illustrious banks as our own BoNY which announced on August 4 it would start charging a 13 bps fee on deposits. Naturally, this is nothing but yet another attempt to devalue the recently record Swiss Franc. If proven successful, look for even more institutions to establish comparable cash prohibitive mechanisms that force savers to sell the host currency and expose themselves to FX and counterparty risk in addition to everything else that already plagues fiat.
Ireland Faces Down Vatican as Kenny Demands $1 Billion Abuse Compensation
An American-Murdering Dictator Turns To His Friends
The once arrogant dictator of terrorist-sponsoring state of Libya is presumably on the run and like all dictators before him probably hiding in a hole somewhere in the desert, but he still managed to get word out to his friends in the United States in an attempt to get out of the country with his head still attached. So who does he reach out to? Why none other then that wonderful, progressive, Department of Peace advocate, Dennis Kucinich (D-Land of Oz).
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who has been one of the most outspoken critics of the Obama administration’s military intervention in Libya, confirmed Friday that he was invited to visit the North African nation in an attempt to end months-long conflict between the Qaddafi regime and the rebel forces who have been aided by NATO air strikes.
The Guardian first reported that the Qaddafi regime offered Ohio Democrat an all-expense paid trip Tripoli as part of a hastily arranged “peace mission.”
When the enemies of your country are reaching out to certain people in a desperate plea for help it tells you two things. One is that they have a friendship that obviously spans the years, and two, when a bloodthirsty American-murdering dictator reaches out to somebody it’s somebody who probably ought to be on a terrorist watch list and not an elected member of Congress.
But don’t fear, Dennis has friends in other places. Like Syria.
Gaddafi ‘seen in Zimbabwe on Mugabe’s private jet’ as Libya rebels march on dictator’s home town
Search for Gaddafi : Rebels Loot Compound, a Crush on Condi? Update: Mass Grave Found
Somalian refugees heading to Yemen
11 Pakistanis Slaughtered By Bomb Hidden on Child’s Tricycle
Report: Al-Qaeda’s Second-in-Comand Killed By CIA Drone Airstrike In Pakistan…
24-hour rule in effect.
Shariah Abolished for Greek Muslims
Do you remember the jihadist terror campaign that ravaged Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city? Do you recall the bombings, the suicide-hijackings, and the random assassinations that finally coerced the city to surrender to Islamization?
No? Funny, I don’t remember them either. Yet there is no question that Malmo has surrendered. Large enclaves of the city, like similar enclaves throughout Western Europe, have earned the dread label “no-go zone.” They are unsafe for non-Muslims, particularly women who do not conform to Islamist conventions of dress and social interaction. They are especially perilous for police, firefighters, and emergency-medical technicians.
Why would a community discourage the so-called first-responders? After all, the top priority of law-enforcement officers is to assist crime victims. In an Islamic enclave, a high percentage of these will be Muslims. And obviously, the fire department and the ambulances are dispatched to save lives — here, Muslim lives. Yet, the community is hostile. The police and other emergency personnel are viewed as agents of the non-Muslim state. Their presumptuousness in entering the Islamic enclave and acting under the color of Swedish law is taken as an affront to Islamic sovereignty.
An Islamic enclave in the West may as well be the West Bank, and the authorities the IDF. They are regarded no differently. That is why, as Soeren Kern of the Madrid-based Strategic Studies Group notes, “Fire and emergency workers . . . refuse to enter Malmo’s mostly Muslim Rosengaard district without police escorts.” And sensibly so: When firefighters attempted to extinguish a blaze at the city’s main mosque, local Muslims pelted them with stones.
There is a simple reason why this has happened to Malmo, and why it is happening in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, etc. The European Union forced on its member states the same approach to their swelling Muslim populations that the Obama administration is now trying to strong-arm American cities and states into adopting. It is a suicide theory, holding that the only threat to our security is “violent extremism.”
More Hope & Change… Iranians Carry Nazi Obama Signs at Al-Quds Day Protest
Well, if China’s education system is worse than that of the US, we can probable stop worrying about the dollar relinquishing its reserve status. On the other hand, we would be the first to point out that China, which does not admit defeat, is probably in the early stages of the next bubble: that of importing teachers, educators, professors and generally Ivy League Ph.D.’s. Which is great: take as many as you want. The average tenured Ivy League (not to mention MIT and NYU) professor has already done enough damage to the US – it is only fair that they destroy China next.
China deploys advanced CSS-5 MRBMs on Indian border
The PLA has replaced liquid-fueled, nuclear-capable CSS-2 IRBMs with more advanced and survivable solid-fueled CSS-5 MRBM systems to strengthen its deterrent posture relative to India, the Pentagon has said in its annual report on Chinese military build up to the Congress.
The report also says that Beijing is pumping in huge investments on border infrastructure developments laying more roads and rail network along the Sino-Indian border.
“Although this construction is primarily aimed at facilitating economic development in western China, improved roads could also support PLA border defense operations,” it said.
At Least 53 Dead After Armed Men Torch Mexican Casino (Video)
Canadian Author Tied to a Tree & Beaten Unconscious After Publishing Anti-Islam Book
A Canadian author was dragged from his bike, tied to a tree and beaten unconscious after publishing a book critical of Islam.
Paris Dipersico was tied to a tree and beaten for writing an anti-Islam book. The Toronto Sun said this may qualify as a hate crime. (Ya think?)
US News:
Incredible Pictures Of HURRICANE IRENE Ripping Up The East Coast
Raw Video: Irene Brings Flooding to Manhattan
Officials issue “Code Red” warning of potential dam failure in Maryland — 15 miles from nuke plant
I, for one, will not be watching the 9/11 memorial service. Why? because it is beginning to smell more and more like it has become an shallow, cynical Hollywood style ‘media event’ with the families of the victims only invited to give it some legitimacy and not a memorial service. I bet if Bloomberg could get away with not inviting the families he would do that, too. I have a better way of remembering 9/11 then some Bloomberg djinned up craptacular-I recorded the first eight hours of the live coverage… Bloomberg: No Clergy, No FDNY -UPDATE
No, Michael Bloomberg’s Super Colossal, Low-Salt 9/11 Memorial and Networking Event is a big-ticket item for the the ones who can be tapped, later, for their money or their influence — the most important sorts of people.
And of course, some of the families of the dead will be allowed in. One does need them for the pictures, after all.
First Responders and Clergyfolk are not very important to the powerful and the enlightened. They only protect us, rescue us, resuscitate us, console us, pray with us, bless us and bury us. And when they die doing it, well, one does feel terrible about it for a whole news cycle or two. And then one takes a private jet somewhere, and tries to forget…
I don’t know why I should be surprised. Priests and First Responders are, like our troops, front-line folk. They’re like heroes in the cowboy flicks; they ride in, shoulder the burden, help put things to rights, and then — while the elite get on with assuming their power and asserting their primacy –they recede into the background. Only the very few stick around to say ‘thank you’ and wave them off. Sometimes children ask them to come back, or to stay.
Bloomberg’s priorities are all wrong. He’s thinking like a Baron — or no, he’s not really thinking at all; he’s being pragmatic: mustn’t let the help get get too much recognition, get too full of themselves — they might start getting uppity and making demands on milords purse and time. Mustn’t let the damn clergy murmur their vulgar prayers, or next we’ll have tent-revivalists cluttering up the fairgrounds and making such spectacles of themselves.
The big crowds for New Years Eve, or for the big parades, are alright, he thinks, but this is not for the riff-raff. Let’s just keep the invite list confined to those who know how to dress and how to behave, and which fork to use, and when.
You know…all those consequential (and so very, very smart) people who — ten years into this — have not managed to fill the still-exposed, gaping holes in the downtown ground.
Perhaps that’s because of the increasingly exposed, gaping holes in their own heads and hearts — from which pours out so much that is mediocre, bleak and unhelpful.
Giuliani, for all his faults, wouldn’t be doing this.
U.S. allows Mexican police to stage cross-border raids
President Barack Obama’s administration has expanded its role in Mexico’s fight against organized crime by allowing the Mexican police to stage cross-border drug raids from inside the United States, according to senior administration and military officials.
Mexican commandos have discreetly traveled to the U.S., assembled at designated areas and dispatched helicopter missions back across the border aimed at suspected drug traffickers. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration provides logistical support on the U.S. side of the border, officials said, arranging staging areas and sharing intelligence that helps guide Mexico’s decisions about targets and tactics.
Muslim Brotherhood in Our White House and the Murder of SEAL Team Six
It must be determined whether Obama’s actions and the people with whom he surrounds himself compromised our SEAL Team Six and SPECOPS troops. The fact that Obama brings individuals into our White House who are allegedly associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, coupled with the other actions he has taken, screams for an investigation into the murder of our beloved Navy SEALs and SPECOPS troops.
The American people must demand it and Congress must carry out this investigation immediately.
Our Space Policy Chickens Have Come Home To Roost
With the retirement of the Space Shuttle last month, the U.S. and its international partners are now entirely reliant on non-U.S. providers for transportation to and from the International Space Station — Russian Progress tankers and others for cargo and Russian Soyuz capsules for crew transfer and lifeboat services. There is currently no U.S. backup or capability.
It turns out that this is a problem, because the venerable Russian rocket that had successfully delivered 43 consecutive Progress missions failed today, with the cargo destined for the ISS instead scattered across the forests of Siberia. Concern is compounded by the fact that Roscosmos, the Russian company responsible for the launch, had also put a communications satellite in the wrong orbit just last Friday, meaning that they had two failures in less than a week.
But wait! It gets better. There was supposed to be a crew delivery to the station next month, and it was planned to go up on…you guessed it…the same type of rocket that failed today. If crew had been on today’s flight, they might have survived (the Soyuz has an abort system), but there’s a good chance they would have been injured — cosmonauts have been injured severely enough to end their careers in previous similar aborts. So now plans for crew replacement this fall are on hold.
How did we get into this mess?
Pentagon Quake Nightmare: Fukushima on the Mississippi
“Electric power would go out, not for days, but for weeks and months in the four state region,” he said. “Municipal water systems, they all run on electricity, don’t they? Well, people are gonna get thirsty. You need water for firefighting, don’t you? Second, all gasoline pumps run on electric power. Same with diesel fuel. So in terms of road mobility, of getting the relief forces in, and evacuating people out — no gasoline? The cascading failures go on and on.”
Including, potentially, a Fukushima on the Mississippi. 15 nuclear power plants are in the New Madrid seismic zone.
Following the Japan disaster, a task force assembled by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission “recommended sweeping changes to the agency’s regulatory approach to safety issues… [and] order utilities to conduct reviews of seismic safety using the latest research, and, potentially, agree to costly upgrades,” the Wall Street Journal reported last month. “A major area of concern, federal officials say, is the New Madrid seismic zone.”
Steve Jobs’s resignation as CEO of Apple offers an opportunity to reflect on a great success story of America and capitalism. Where else, and under what other system, could someone without a college degree, whose biological father, a Syrian professor named Abdulfattah Jandali, gave him up for adoption, build a company so successful that it that amassed a greater store of cash than the U.S. government and annual revenue approximately twice the annual GDP of the entire country of Syria? My first home computer was an Apple Macintosh bought in the 1980s, and I’ve put out at least four different newspapers and four different Web sites on Apple machines.
That’s not to say that either Apple or Mr. Jobs is perfect; I’ve been skeptical of him and his admirers in several posts on this site. But for a guy who started out making computers in his parents’ spare bedroom before moving to the world’s most famous garage, it’s been quite a trip. And at a moment when everyone seems to be dwelling on the failures of America or of the free enterprise system — unemployment, deficits and debt, volatility, debasement of the dollar — Mr. Jobs’s story is a positive reminder of the potential that has been open here to would-be-entrepreneurs. Perhaps it will inspire some young college dropout who is a son or daughter of an immigrant and who is dreaming up the next great invention in his parents’ spare bedroom or garage.
How Jobs Made Business Cool Again
t’s 1981. Most people have never heard of Silicon Valley. The country’s most famous businessman is Lee Iacocca, the head of Chrysler Corp. He’s famous because in 1979 he engineered a government bailout — loan guarantees — that saved the company. He’s also famous because, unlike his peers, Iacocca is colorful. He seems to believe in what he’s doing.
In 1981, business executives aren’t known for either personality or passion. The general public sees business as a boring, impersonal, possibly suspect activity. Its significance seems purely financial.
“Businessmen,” Tom Wolfe tells the Wall Street Journal, “no longer have the conviction that what they’re doing is exciting and glamorous, which is, I guess, another way of saying intrinsically worthwhile.”
That was all about to change.
In the 1980s, entrepreneurs became heroes, celebrities and role models. The Apple whiz kids, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, were the new face of business.
Prez exits on wave of ineptitude
And so farewell, Barack Obama, don’t let the hatch door of Air Force One hit you on the way out of Massa-tu-setts, as you pronounce it.
The first family came in separate planes, and they’re leaving, ditto. Hey, it’s only money, our money.
Even before Irene, this wasn’t much of a presidential vacation compared to the earlier ones. An Obama vacation on the Vineyard has been downgraded from Cat 3 to tropical storm. It’s hard to get excited about the arrival, yet again, of the second coming of Herbert Hoover.
He’s already had at least two visits to the political ATM here this year, not to mention his wife Mooch-elle’s shakedown cruise a couple of months ago. What do they say? Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and familiarity breeds contempt.
Actual Headline: ‘President Works in Golf During His Working Vacation’
Of course when you’re the big cheese, you can’t sit around daydreaming, even on vacation. According to press reports, the president was briefed Wednesday on Libya, Hurricane Irene and the economy, and he chatted on the phone with General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt and American Express CEO Ken Chenault.
Maybe he could ask Immelt why he was shipping all those GE jobs to China just as were announced.
Funny, but I never recall the media noting Bush was on a working vacation when he was down at his ranch. You know, a place he actually owned.
Obama’s vacation stormy from start
The president’s retreat appeared doomed from the start as the stock market dove just before his arrival a week ago at the sprawling, $20 million Blue Heron Farm in the swish Chilmark section of the island paradise. The vacation only got worse as the Congressional Budget Office reported anemic economic growth, fighting erupted in Libya’s capital and a rare earthquake centered just south of the White House rocked the East Coast and cracked the Washington Monument — all while Obama hit the links, the beach and the bike paths.
“President Obama apparently believed he needed a vacation after all the damage he has done to our economy,” sniped Republican National Committee spokesman Ryan Tronovitch. “Voters wanted leadership on jobs and the economy, but all they got was a vacation and a few rounds of golf from our president.”
Obama Returning Early to DC; Michelle Opts to Join Him
President Obama is leaving Martha’s Vineyard today instead of Saturday, undoubtedly hoping to avoid reports that he is lounging on vacation while Hurricane Irene barrels into North Carolina.
Mrs. Obama appears to have initially decided to finish out the vacation, according to reports, staying with the couple’s daughters until Saturday at a cost of thousands to taxpayers.
But after saying today the first lady would return Saturday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest later said she and the family would join the president. I can only think the president’s political advisers intervened directly to avoid a public relations nightmare.
The first lady also traveled to Martha’s Vineyard a few hours ahead of the president a week ago Thursday, a separate trip that added to the taxpayers’ tab for the trip.
Bringing Mrs. Obama home a day later would have forced the Secret Service to continue to provide security on Martha’s Vineyard even though the president would be back in Washington. And Mrs. Obama would have again billed the Air Force for a separate, specially equipped jet to take her hom
Queen Michelle Obama Wore $156 T-Shirt For Bike Workout
Let them eat peas.
Her Royal Highness Queen Michelle Obama was out biking this week near Martha’s Vineyard. She wore a $156 (was $200) T-shirt for the workout.
Judicial Watch sues for Michelle travel documents
“How much did the American people spend to send the First Lady on a family outing in Africa? That’s what we want to know,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “On the surface, the trip seems to have been totally unnecessary and was as much an excuse for the Obama family to go on a safari as it was a mission intended to advance the nation’s business in Africa.”
The Judicial Watch FOIA request filed on June 28, 2011, seeks:
- Any and all records concerning mission taskings of First Lady Michelle Obama’s June 21-27, 2011 trip to South Africa and Botswana.
- Any and all records of concerning transportation costs for Mrs. Obama’s June 21-27 trip to South Africa and Botswana.
- Any and all passenger manifests (DD-2131) for Mrs. Obama’s June 21-27, 2011 trip to South Africa and Botswana.
Yesterday, a widely circulated British tabloid article suggested that Michelle Obama’s trip were costing taxpayers $10 million, thanks to her expensive tastes.
White House Sources Dish on Michelle Obama: ‘She’s Like a Junkie’
White House sources today claimed that the First Lady has spent $10million of U.S. taxpayers’ money on vacations alone in the past year.
Branding her ‘disgusting’ and ‘a vacation junkie’, they say the 47-year-old mother-of-two has been indulging in five-star hotels, where she splashes out on expensive massages and alcohol.
Don’t forget the burritos, french fries, shorts ribs and cheeseburgers. Only for her, of course.
The ‘top source’ told the National Enquirer: ‘It’s disgusting. Michelle is taking advantage of her privileged position while the most hardworking Americans can barely afford a week or two off work.
‘When it’s all added up, she’s spent more than $10million in taxpayers’ money on her vacations.’
See if you can solve our Photo Puzzle o’ the Day!
At this point I’m sure they’ll be happy to see him leave so they can prepare for Hurricane Irene. He and his big-spending wife may want to consider another vacation destination next year in their final year living on the public dole
Comparing Obama’s Performance in Office with that of a Sack of Hammers
Hint: It’s not even close.
Congressman: End congressional pensions
Today U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO), former state treasurer of Colorado, announced he will introduce legislation after the scheduled August recess that would put an end to the defined-benefit retirement plan currently available to members of Congress.
“I’m a Marine Corps combat veteran and I was taught that you should never ask others to do anything that you would be unwilling to do,” Coffman said. “These are extremely difficult economic times and Congress needs to set an example and lead the way for the country. I think this is a good start.”
Terrorist Wants to be Freed From Jail Because Koran Says It’s OK to KILL US
The Islamic terrorist who tried to take down a plane full of innocent people by concealing a bomb in his underwear is demanding release from prison because, he says, “all Muslims should only be ruled by the law of the Quran“, which of course, endorses killing non-muslims. He further goes on to complain that he was treated poorly after he assaulted prison guards and says that he has a right to assault them, again, as per sharia law.
Alarums and Excursions: If the Sybil Could See Today
Where are the Augurers today? Or a Sybil to note the trends? Are there more plagues of Egypt to enter the Beltway?
My own theory is that America cracked after the Connecticut Senatorial primary of 2006 -- Senator Lieberman was thrown out of the Democratic party for working across the aisle with the President of the other side. Precedent was created.
The tea party groups (Fiscal Conservatives all) are being slammed just like the Social Conservatives of the 1990′s were. Rep. Waters (D-CA) telling them to “Go to Hell,” is not the road to civility.
In the last Administration, the Democrats called forth their hate against an American president who believed in Wilsonianism. It was what the Democrats believed in under Reagan and Bush pere (and FDR, Truman, JFK and LBJ). Did the Democrats sacrifice their soul for power?
Before Caesar crossed the Rubicon, Sulla brought his troops to Rome in 88. The precedent was set.
My question: Is this foreshadowing something worse? Or has the die already been cast?
Here is another plague… Sex-Crazed Insects Whip Up ‘Bugnadoes’ In Iowa
Tornadoes aren’t the only funnels that touch down in the Midwest. “Bugnadoes” — vortexes of swarming bugs — occasionally twist through, too.
On the night of July 4, professional storm chaser and photographer Mike Hollingshead caught sight of an enormous bugnado in southwestern Iowa. The air above the cornfields was so thick with bugs “it looked like it was smoking,” Hollingshead told Life’s Little Mysteries. He captured the strange sight on camera, and his video has gone viral in recent days.
But what are the bugnadoes?
Your ‘surprisingly unexpected’ economic news of the day:
9,173 Ounces Of Gold Transferred From HSBC To JP Morgan Gold Vaults Overnight
One back of the envelope hypothesis: we have counterparty risk at the bank level (which is currently manifesting itself at both the CDS, the stock price, and the Li(E)bor level) are we going to start seeing counterparty concerns at the gold depository level next? What next: a run on the [ ] gold depository in a self-fulfilling prophecy? The second hypothesis is by now well known- JPM needs all the gold it can get. But a paltry 9,173 ounces? Of course, the last hypothesis is that the two precisely 9,173 ounce transactions are in no way related.
His message for anyone who thought that Irene may have been a risk: you ain’t seen nothing yet: “The developments in recent weeks have made it quite clear that the markets don’t function properly. Things are spinning out of control and are potentially dangerous for society. Only a fraternity of academic high priests connected to the finance markets is still speaking of efficient markets. Still each market participant is pursuing their own selfish interests. The market isn’t reaching equilibrium — it’s falling into chaos.”
U.S. initial jobless claims rise unexpectedly
Unexpected: CBO Sharply Lowers Growth Forecast
Change you can believe in.
JP Morgan May Take Over Bank Of America
More Hope and Change!™ Food Stamp Use up 74% in Just 4 Years
Recovery Summer™? You’re soaking in it… The Endless Economic Recovery
Obama has only his own economic medicine to blame. His preferred treatment — huge hikes in federal spending, massive new environmental and financial regulations, ObamaCare, an out-of-control labor relations board, verbal attacks on businesses and the rich, etc. — just isn’t working to get the economy back on its feet.
If a patient were taking an unusually long time to recover from an illness, a responsible doctor would try a new treatment regimen, rather than simply administer larger doses of the same drugs. He might even consult other doctors to see if they’ve had better luck with different prescriptions.
But Dr. Obama gives no sign of doing anything other than pump more Keynesian medicine into the IV. It’s possible he’ll try a different approach in September, when he gives his much-anticipated jobs speech. If he doesn’t, it will be nothing short of malpractice.
Another Obama Record!… Percentage of Young People Employed Is Lowest Ever
How’s that hope and change treating you now?
There are no jobs… But Obama can sing in the shower anyway.
The percentage of young people employed was the lowest ever for a July since the government started tracking the numbers in 1948.
The Slow Disappearance of the American Working Man
What is going on here? For one thing, women, who have made up a majority of college students for three decades and now account for 57 percent, are adapting better to a data-driven economy that values education and collaborative skills more than muscle. That isn’t to say women have yet eclipsed men in the workplace. They continue to earn about 16 percent less than men and struggle against gender discrimination and career interruptions as they disproportionately take time away from the job to raise children. And both men and women have confronted job losses in the weak economy. In July, 68.9 percent of women aged 25-54 had jobs, vs. 72.8 percent in January 2008. (In 1969, however, fewer than half did.) After a long decline in men’s work opportunities, the recession worsened things with a sharp drop in male employment. Unemployed men are now more likely than women to be among the long-term jobless.
The economic downturn exacerbated forces that have long been undermining men in the workplace, says Lawrence Katz, a Harvard professor of labor economics. Corporations have cut costs by moving manufacturing jobs, routine computer programming, and even simple legal work out of the country. The production jobs that remain are increasingly mechanized and demand higher skills. Technology and efforts to reduce the number of layers within corporations are leaving fewer middle-management jobs.
The impact has been greatest on moderately skilled men, especially those without a college education, though even men with bachelor’s degrees from less selective schools are beginning to see their position erode. “There’s really been this polarization in the middle,” Katz says, as men at the top of the education and income scale see their earnings rise while those in the middle gravitate downward.
Obama Seeks The Ultimate Free Lunch For Housing, And It’s A Bank Bailout In Disguise
Depending on precisely how the proposal is implemented, the effect may be to take poor performing loans off the balance sheets of banks and hedge funds and dump the risks squarely on the backs of taxpayers via Fannie and Freddie.
It’s no wonder Geithner supports it.
Regulators Gone Wild: Two lessons in how to kill an economy and ruin enterprise
An Amazing Indictment of Obamanomics – Banks that Don’t Want Deposits
U.S. regulators have asked some banks to take more deposits from large investors even if it’s unprofitable, and lenders in return are seeking relief on insurance premiums and leverage ratios, according to six people with knowledge of the talks. Deposits are flooding into the biggest U.S. banks as customers seek shelter from Europe’s debt crisis and falling stock prices. That forces lenders to raise capital for a growing balance sheet and saddles them with the higher deposit insurance payments. With short-term interest rates so low, it’s hard for financial firms to reinvest the new money profitably. …At least one firm, Bank of New York Mellon Corp., tried to recoup some of the costs by charging depositors 13 basis points, or 0.13 percent, for holding unusually high balances.
Let’s think about what this article is really saying. Banks normally make money by attracting deposits and then lending that money to people and businesses that have productive uses for the funds.
Yet the economy is so weak that banks are leery of taking more money. The story is complicated by other factors, including flight capital from Europe, taxes (or premiums) imposed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and various regulatory issues.
But even with these caveats, it’s still remarkable that banks want to turn down money – or charge people for making deposits.
Sort of like McDonald’s turning away customers because they lose money by selling Big Macs and french fries. Or, better yet, like McDonald’s turning away free goods from suppliers because not enough people want to buy the final product.
Understanding Just How Harmful Obama’s Tax Hikes Would Be
Among the tax increases that would hit small company owners proposed in the president’s budget are a higher marginal tax rate on income from sole proprietorships, Subchapter S corporations, and other pass-through entities; increased capital gains taxes on investments by high earners; repeal of the last-in-first-out approach to inventory accounting (LIFO); and treatment of private equity and venture capital carried interest as ordinary income.
While raising taxes on small business might help to reduce the deficit–so long as we do not just increase government spending at the same time–it decreases small business starts, growth, hiring, and investment, making it a bad economic move.
Progressive income taxes discourage business formation because they penalize people for successful risk taking but do not compensate them when they fail at the same activity. Research by Glenn Hubbard and William Gentry shows that higher marginal tax rates lead to lower rates of company formation, while analysis by the World Bank and Donald Bruce and Tami Gurley-Calvez shows a negative correlation between tax rates and new business formation.
LOL! Well, that did not take long… Former Obama Economic Adviser Blames DC Earthquake for Failed Economic Record (Video)
Why not? They’ve blamed everything else.
Obama’s “Very Specific” Jobs Plan Downgraded To “Some Reasonable Ideas”…
And this is the second time it has been downgraded.
More Stimulus Ideas From The Wealth Transfer Party
As to why granny should switch to cat food so that some yuppie lawyer can hang on to the house that was bigger than he could afford, well – a friend of mine used to call the Democrats the party of random wealth transfers. I was never convinced that “random” was the precise word. Their intention is always to soak the rich and help their current notion of the deserving, and there is often some overlap between their target zone and their drop zone.
Still, this latest notion is just one more example of capricious rule changes during the game. How it will help investor confidence is beyond me.
The Latest Obama Administration Fake Budget Cut ‘Proposal’
One need only momentarily, cringingly recall the debt ceiling debacle for recent evidence of the Big Talk, No Action nature of all of this.
Where we saw the Tea Party, Insurgent-supported plan – which would have seriously cut and capped spending, started the ball rolling on a Balanced Budget Amendment and averted U.S. credit downgrade – be almost summarily dismissed by the DC Establishment so that they could instead force feed us a non-cutting, Super (Stupor) Committee alternative that fails utterly to address our catastrophic deficits and debt.
Wonder why Congress’ poll numbers are so low these days? This is why.
Perhaps the worst faux government cutting offenders of all are to be found in the Barack Obama Administration. Members thereof have been making so many head fakes towards Less Government that many must by now be suffering from whiplash.
(Luckily for them, ObamaCare has not yet gone into effect.)
Leading this disingenuous charge is the Commander in Chief his own self.
Pity the rubes who watched Glenn Beck and bought gold at $800
God bless you, Anthony Weiner, for trying to protect people from buying gold at $1,300 a troy ounce — the price when he made this report came out. America is a great nation that should be thankful that it has this outstanding young man who stands up for morality and fairness, because if there is anything that Anthony Weiner represents, it is full disclosure.
That was in May 2010. Now 15 months later, I am happy to report that Glenn Beck is no longer on Fox News. But sadly, gold no longer sells for $1,300 or $1,200 or even $800 a troy ounce.
Looks like it is headed for $2,000.
The “oracle of Omaha” is just another Obama lickspittle…
But he’s off base when he suggests that all high-income taxpayers pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than their middle-income coworkers.
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy (except for the UN, of course):
Elijah Cummings is a dolt and a race-baiter, not necessarily in that order.
Our infrastructure is truly being hollowed out from within, not unlike an infestation of termites inside a home’s foundation.
Is the Justice Department Partnering with Scandal-Plagued Project Vote?
The DOJ was required by law to respond to Judicial Watch’s FOIA request within 30 working days, or by August 5, 2011. (U.S. Postal Service records indicate the DOJ received Judicial Watch’s request on June 28, 2011.) As of the lawsuit’s filing, the DOJ has neither produced the records requested nor responded with the date when they will be forthcoming. (Nothing new there.)
Now, we already know that Project Vote is corrupt. We also know that the organization is putting a full-court press on key swing states to manipulate voter registration laws in order to “get out the vote” for Obama and the Democrats in 2012. And leading that charge is Estelle Rogers.
Rogers, a former attorney for ACORN, is a primary contact person on policy matters at Project Vote on both state and federal levels and has been actively involved in voter registration issues. By threatening lawsuits under Section 7 of the NVRA, Project Vote has aggressively sought to force election officials in various states to increase the registration of people receiving public assistance. (Under Section 7, states are required to offer voter registration services at all public assistance agencies, including unemployment offices and food stamp offices.)
And this corrupt campaign is working.
Obama Justice Department Shuts Down Gibson Guitar For Breaking Indian Law (Video)
It’s an Obama world…
The Holder Justice Department raided Gibson Guitar facilities in Nashville and Memphis this week because the company is using unfinished wood from India and this violates Indian law… Not American law.
Unreal.
Gibson Guitar CEO: “Obama Justice Department Wants Us to Just Shut Our Doors & Go Away”
Ironic: Federal Government Screws Goat Herders
How did these poor goat and sheep herders with centuries worth of practice and knowledge ever manage to bring a herd in without the assistance of the all-knowing and all-seeing federal government must be some sort miracle. Federal government. Is there anything it can’t do?
I don’t want to even know how many of these new rules this group of herders are violating.
Another candidate for the Obama regime’s blanket amnesty for illegal aliens… Man who killed girl, self had been deported twice
Good News: Almost 10% of Employers May End Health Insurance Once Obamacare Exchanges Begin
So much for that often-told promise about being able to keep your health insurance, eh Barack?
Ol’ Lindsey should just come out of the closet and switch parties, already. The only one he is fooling is himself… Graham sees unity between himself and tea party
Graham says his position on the recent debt ceiling debate has shown the tea party his willingness to stand up for common sense and fiscal conservatism.
He says the debt ceiling legislation that was passed was not a good deal for the country and he wanted deeper cuts.
Tea Party Responds to Maxine Waters’ “Go to Hell” Screed
2012: The Fork in the Road…
Obama team to Texas Democrats: It’s time to start attacking Rick Perry
Yes, they really do have an online form just for this on Obama’s campaign site. I’m intrigued by the fact that they’re not content to rely on standard oppo research in this case but want man-on-the-street grumbling from Texas liberals instead. Is that because they’re deeply (and understandably) worried about voters being dazzled by Texas’s record on jobs and think that only “eyewitness testimony” from the locals disputing it will be effective? Or is it because Perry has a huge, obvious populist advantage over President Spock such that only fellow salt-of-the-earth southerners might be able to counter it? The “Rick Perry is the liberal antichrist” message will only go so far; to reach undecided voters, they need to start casting doubt on his heartland authenticity too. Rank-and-file Texas Democrats can help.
Speaking of cultural contrasts, here’s a photo that was tweeted today by David Limbaugh. It’s clever, but (a) there’s already an obvious liberal counterattack and (b) it’s easier to get traction with the “noble serviceman versus slacker dandy” comparison if the slacker dandy in question didn’t give the order to shoot Osama Bin Laden in the face.
A wave of fear has come over Washington — and it’s not the earthquake or the hurricane. Self-appointed Republican elites, fretting Hill Republicans and left-wing carnival barkers all have one thing in common: Perryphobia.
It’s an acute condition, with different manifestations. But it has the same root cause – arrogance toward Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
Left And Right Going Nuclear On Rick Perry
When you hear every single liberal media outlet in the country say, “We will know more about Rick Perry after we vet his 11 years in office,” you need to understand that what they vindictively mean is: “President Obama and his followers will be proud of us after we are done with the mother of all smearing campaigns against the conservative governor of Texas.”
Not since Ronald Reagan has a Republican candidate for president evoked such outright fear and loathing from the mainstream media and the far-left.
They are flat-out petrified of Perry and are desperately trying to kill off his candidacy before it can take hold. Why?
Simple. As they suspiciously heap praise on the likes of Jon Huntsman and even Mitt Romney, they increasingly worry that Perry has the best chance to defeat their handpicked socialist messiah now occupying the Oval Office.
With exactly that mission in mind, an editor of a major newspaper told me: “We plan to declare war on Rick Perry and do all in our power to crush him.”
There you have it. No pretense of integrity, professionalism or of unbiased news-gathering. This particular newspaper plans to use its very considerable resources to destroy the Perry campaign before it gains momentum. Period.
Beyond the usual suspects in the far-left media, many in the GOP establishment such as Karl Rove, are doing all they can to derail the Perry campaign. Again, why?
Erick Erickson, in an excellent horse race summation in Red State, nails the answer:
“So you have these guys … trying to settle every score they can with Perry and his consultant, Dave Carney. … Because so much of the consultant class will be shut out of the White House should Rick Perry win, their livelihoods depend on Rick Perry losing either now or in November.
And frankly, for a few in the GOP consultant class, they’ll gladly see Perry lose in November just to ensure they are not shut out of a Republican White House. For all the talk of Perry being an establishment guy, the establishment hates his guts as much as the left does . . .”
Did an Editor of a Major Newspaper Threaten to “Crush” Rick Perry?
With exactly that mission in mind, an editor of a major newspaper told me: “We plan to declare war on Rick Perry and do all in our power to crush him.”
There you have it. No pretense of integrity, professionalism or of unbiased news-gathering. This particular newspaper plans to use its very considerable resources to destroy the Perry campaign before it gains momentum. Period.
This is a very serious allegation. While it is easy to believe that a Big Media editor might say something like that to someone s/he trusted, it seems to me that if this quote is accurate, we should be told who the editor is. Or, at the very least, shouldn’t Mr. MacKinnon explain why he is not telling us?
LOL! It is the neutered small dog that barks the most. Apparently Obama and the Democrats are experiencing ‘shrinkage’… “Leaving aside the insane notion that there should be anything more to ‘manliness’ than…”
The RINO ‘cocktail party’ weeniedogs have started to chime in now, too… Peggy Noonan: Is Rick Perry too macho?
I’ve never had the sense that Perry is “walking around enraged.” I do think he sometimes gets too cute in trying to project the John Wayne vibe that he’s got going. The Bernanke crap seemed to me to be his way of winking at “frontier justice” and the secession nonsense was basically a tin-eared riff on “don’t mess with Texas.” Noonan seems to believe he can’t control himself when he says these things but I think it’s more calculated — not planned in advance but willingly indulged in when he senses a rhetorical moment developing organically that’ll help polish his image as a steely, plain-spoken southerner. He knows what he’s doing; you don’t get elected governor of Texas three times without being a savvy retail politician. And while it’s true that “Texas style” might not translate well everywhere nationally, how serious a liability is that really? TNR argued yesterday, quite reasonably, that Perry is an almost perfect synthesis of every quality the left despises. That won’t change even if he never makes another “tough guy” gaffe, so prepare for seething, hysterical, pants-crapping rage from liberals if Perry gets elected no matter how circumspect he is about his language. And as for centrists who might be squeamish at the thought of electing a Rooster Cogburn type to the presidency, all Perry need do is utter a single word: “Jobs.” That’s his get-out-of-jail-free card for basically everything, and the worse the economy gets, the more useful it’ll be.
You know it is over when one of the ‘Fat Ladies of the Dempocalypse’ starts singing. The other ‘Fat Ladies’ aka Rosie O’Doughnut and Mikey ‘Mr. Creosote’ Moore should be piping in anytime soon… Al Gore versus Al Gore
The 45th vice president of the United States (certainly the most controversial one since Aaron Burr) is having a great debate between what he says and what he does. This time, it is not about his overuse of electricity — at a rate 12 times that of a normal person — but rather his finances.
From the Hill on Friday: “Al Gore on Friday bashed the notion that climate scientists are manipulating data for financial gain, a charge levied by global warming skeptics, including GOP White House hopeful Rick Perry.”
From the Telegraph on November 3, 2009: “Al Gore, the former US vice president, could become the world’s first carbon billionaire after investing heavily in green energy companies. Last year Mr Gore’s venture capital firm loaned a small California firm $75m to develop energy-saving technology. The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient. The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, the New York Times reports. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts.”
From Al Gore on Friday: “This is an organized effort to attack the reputation of the scientific community as a whole, to attack their integrity, and to slander them with the lie that they are making up the science in order to make money. These scientists don’t make a lot of money. They are comfortable, as they should be, but they don’t make a lot of money. That is not their motivation for doing what they do.”
Ah yes, Al “Truistic” Gore Jr.
As progressives engage in their latest round of provincial-American sneers (we’re back to the anti-Texan trope, with Perry’s entry into the presidential race), it is important to recognize that the endgame of the statist movement, as I’ve been at pains to explain, is not, as the left would have you believe, a leveling of the class system; rather, what they are after is a new class system, one divided along the lines of the ruling class (including the attendant parasitic inside the Beltway satellite industries, be they media or lobbyist or analyst or private sector crony businesses, etc.) and their bureaucratic apparatchiks, and those who are to be ruled over. Meaning, the rest of us.
After all, we can’t have certain types moving up in class just because he or she gets lucky and, say, invents a better way to keep nachos fresh, or thinks up a new way to keep a mullet looking sharp.
Flailing Obama in the Black Community
Tavis Smiley and Cornel West launch a “Poverty Tour” that criticizes the president in harsh terms.
Obama Raises Big Bucks From Wall Street, Lawyers and Hollywood
Warren Buffett to Host ‘Please Raise Our Taxes’ Fundraiser for Obama
Wouldn’t Buffett do more to achieve his desired outcome if he would cut out the middle-man and charge the guilt-ridden rich saps attending the dinner the same money but then send it to the US Treasury instead of giving it to Obama?
Rutgers Poll: Majority in NJ Say Obama Doesn’t Deserve Re-Election
Barack Obama in Serious Polling Trouble in Battle Ground State of Pennsylvania … 35% Job Approval
Fore!… Plurality of Voters in New Jersey & Large Majority in Florida Say Obama Does Not Deserve Reelection
Some Dems think the unthinkable: Not Obama
The re-election of a sitting president requires an iron discipline and unflagging support from his own party leaders and the party voting base plus a substantial percentage of independent, no-party voters. In spite of his impressive fund-raising successes, President Obama may have trouble right here in River City.
From where I sit, watch, listen, check my abundant email and phone messages, I know many, many Democrats in Iowa who are deeply troubled by Obama’s policies and lack of firm leadership pushback against the Republicans. Whether they will dare to launch a caucus write-in insurgency for Hillary Clinton or some other Democrat is still uncertain. But even just talk of that should get the attention of the White House.
What did it? Well, yesterday we exchanged e-mails again. I asked him whether he was still in the not-Obama camp. He replied: “Funny you should ask, as this question has popped up with increasing frequency among many of my more Democratic orientated friends. . . . in these discussions I keep hearing incredulous variations of ‘You can’t possibly vote’ for ______________ (fill in the blank). My response is, yes . . . actually I really could!!!” So why has he switched. This, he wrote, is what he tells his Democratic friends:
The breadth of government has reached a tipping point from Roosevelt’s efforts in the 30’s to ostensibly attempt to provide a safety net for the most neediest Americans to becoming an economically unsustainable entitlement bazaar that is eroding any remaining collective sense of traditional American self reliance and independence. I have flipped back and forth over the years between which party frightens me the most and clearly I now prefer the deficiencies of the Republicans to the deficiencies of the Democrats. I always fear the extremes of both parties but the Democrats have shifted so far left they they now seem intent on using Western Europe as their economic and social template, which is a disaster without possibility of a solution. Entitlements (and I mean more than just Social Security and Medicare), a corrosive, debilitating, nonsensical tax policy and government overreach are literally sucking the life force out of the underlying vitality and spirit that has made us both remarkable and exceptional in the course of world history and are the primary contributors of our current situation. While there is no certainty that Republicans will succeed in addressing these issues, there is certainty that Democrats will not.
He hasn’t found a candidate yet. But he and many like him, I suspect, are searching. When you hear the Republican candidates speak and debate and review their records, keep in mind that they probably will have every gettable GOP voter. It is “John” and others that they have to appeal to. I’ll try to check back periodically and see how he’s doing in his “not-Obama” search.
Gallup: Perry leads GOP field by 21 points among tea partiers
But Perry also has a slight edge over Romney, 25% to 19%, among Republicans who say business and the economy is their top issue. Romney, a wealthy businessman, has argued his business credentials make him better suited to solve the economic problems facing the country than candidates who lack significant private-sector experience.
This is what I meant last night about coalition-building. Romney can win a two-man race if he’s set up as “the economy candidate” versus Perry as “the ideologue,” but if Perry fills both niches the race is over. Those Texas jobs numbers go a long, loooong way. In fact, I wonder if Romney’s still the favorite even if he does somehow seize the economic mantle from Perry: Per the blockquote, 56 percent of Republicans are part of Perry’s tea-party base versus just 36 percent who say they’re not TP supporters. And even among the latter group, Romney’s lead is just three points. Who exactly is his base right now among primary voters?
I can also attest to the fact that an Ivy League education isn’t all that it is cracked up to be. Whatever small accomplishments I have in life are not easily traceable to my academic achievements (even though I was considerably closer to Clinton than Gore in class ranking). Arguably, the most successful president of the post-war period, Ronald Reagan, attended the ultra-obscure Eureka College. I don’t know what his grades were and I don’t much care. All I know is he got Gorbachev to “tear down that wall.” (Not exactly, but you know what I mean.)
Turning to Perry, he was a mediocre student at Texas A & M, a school that emphasizes a more practical form of education than Yale. What does this mean? Don’t know, but these days going to an Ivy no longer appears to be the royal road to career success it once was. This study of Top 10 Job Placement Colleges only shows one Ivy, Cornell, in the tenth position. Number one, not surprisingly, is The University of Texas at Austin.
Perhaps more importantly… and amusingly… this study from the Wall Street Journal shows Perry’s Texas A & M the number two choice of corporate job recruiters with nary an Ivy in sight until Cornell (again) at fourteen. Harvard, Princeton and Yale did not make the top twenty-five.
So if Rick Perry is a dope, he’s the kind of dope we need. But obviously, he’s not. It’s all projection and wish fulfillment.
Learning curves, intelligence and Rick Perry *UPDATED*
Although Obama’s grades are still a state secret, we know that the MSM is going to make hay of the fact that Rick Perry had a 2.22 GPA at Texas A&M. There’s no escaping the fact that he wasn’t much of an academic. I have a few thoughts on that subject. They start with a picture making the rounds on the internet, showing a 22 year Perry and a 20 something Obama:
Ignore the Obama image. Aside from misstating his age, it’s old hat. We know, because he confessed, that when he was younger, he was a punk: doing drugs, hanging out, being bad.
Much more interesting to me is the Perry photo. Perry was a pilot in the United States Air Force, and attained the rank of captain. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I know diddley squat about flying, but I know this much: the United States military does not entrust its fancy jets to idiots. Indeed, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that, in order to be a military flyer, you have to demonstrate, repeatedly, that you’re intelligent, responsible, cool under pressure and . . . here I’m getting to my real point … you have a good learning curve.
Good Grief. Romney Now Says Man May Not Be the Cause of Global Warming Climate Change
This is so confusing.
Over two months ago, Mitt Romney told a New Hampshire audience, “I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that.” But, the world has changed since then and suddenly Romney finds himself in second place. Hence, the sudden junk science epiphany.
Poll: Tea Partiers disappointed in Hill leaders
One of the great contributions of the Tea Party to the present political climate was a renewed emphasis on conviction, as opposed to pure politics — and the recruitment of political outsiders with expertise in crucial areas like entrepreneurship, the military and, quite frankly, parenthood. But as Republican leadership has increasingly incorporated Tea Partiers in Congress, that emphasis on conviction has been painted as arbitrary stubbornness and that outsider status has been portrayed as dangerous ignorance. Tea Partiers need to remember what made them likable to independents and undecideds: In 2010, Tea Party candidates were truly “of the people.” And establishment Republicans need to remember it was the Tea Party — and not the GOP — that carried the midterm elections.
Behind the Scenes With Tea Party Terrorists
A truly disturbing look at the greatest threat facing America.
Sarah Palin has shown the way on this one, which is part of the reason why the left still fears her so… A Plea To The GOP: Don’t Pull A Digital Nixon
So successful campaigns using digital tools well should always be congratulated, sometimes emulated (never duplicated), and always topped. Showing up is a great first step. Then it’s time to understand how to win in an emerging medium.
Gunwalker/Fast & Furious/Castaway
ATF Death Watch 64: The Gunwalker Cover-Up Continues
What are the odds? And what are the odds that Villalobos was a running a gun smuggling op in New Mexico that was both independent and parallel to the ATF’s Arizona and Tampa-based gun smuggling efforts?
As we said from the start of Senator Grassley and Congressman Issa’s investigation into the so-called Gunwalker scandal, the pols needs to [find and] interview the people at the sharp end of this black bag job.
While I’m not scanning the skies for black helicopters (yet), Uncle Sam’s minions are circling the wagons, attempting to keep a lid on who know who did what with which gun from what source and why.
Look for the Union Label/Whackademia/The Badger Rebellion:
Lib Fail. Special Prosecutor Says No Charges Will Be Filed Against WI Justice Prosser
No charges against Prosser; time for Bradley to step down
Wisconsin Justice Ann Walsh Bradley accused Justice David Prosser of using an illegal ”chokehold” on her. At the time, I pointed out that if the charge was not sustained, and Bradley falsely had accused Prosser of using a potentially life threatening “chokehold,” Bradley needed to step down.
More childish behavior out of Wisconsin Liberals/”Teachers”/Union Thugs. It is “FOR THE CHILDRENNNNNN!!!11!!!™, dontchaknow. Memo to Br. Smith: In order to behave like an adult you have to mentally and psychologically be an adult. I know eight year olds that are more adult in their behavior then any Wisconsin Liberal/”Teacher”/Union Thug. The people who did this are little more then overgrown temper tantrum throwing five year old spoiled brats and should be treated as such… Inner-city Catholic school doors super glued before Gov. Walker visit Friday
According to Br. Smith, one protester said ” ‘Get ready for a riot,’ because they were going to disrupt the visit.”
Br. Smith said that, in his opinion, the Republican governor’s visit to read to students there on Friday was not about political overtones connected to protests that have been happening all year in the state regarding the rollback of collective bargaining rights for many public workers.“People ought to start acting like adults,” said Br. Smith.
“You’ve got little kids who have no clue what you’re even talking about, and you make something political when it isn’t, that’s just flat-out wrong.”
Somebody needs to remind the Wisconsin revanchists and irredentists still seething about their string of defeats that it’s for the children.
In Other News…
Has it Come to “This” Yet? Some Thoughts About the Nest Egg
“The Sovereign Man,” Simon Black, who lives life the way most of us cannot, has published some very detailed investment survival strategies in recent days. I offer them with no further commentary of my own. Everyone must decide for themselves what is best. Everyone must decide….has it really come to THIS and what is that?
These are not, [shall we say?] suggestions that you are going to find in the corporate media, who live in the world where there once was the “summer of recovery.”
Chuck Norris Smashes Obama’s ‘Stealth Gun Control
It’s been said that guns have two enemies — rust and politicians. Rust never sleeps, and neither do those who would seek to restrict our constitutional rights. So let me tell you about a meeting you weren’t invited to, where those people were planning an attack on our rights that’s very much “under the radar.”
It happened in July at the United Nations headquarters in New York, at a meeting to draft of what they call the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty.
An Arms Trade Treaty doesn’t sound bad in concept — isn’t that what the U.N. is for? The problem, however, is what U.N. diplomats consider to be “arms.” To you and me, the word means tanks, fighter jets, missiles, that kind of thing. But look no further than the U.N. plaza to see what the silk-stocking set considers “arms.” There you will find a bronze statue of a simple .38 revolver — with its barrel tied into a knot.
How to achieve 9.9% unemployment
When it comes to unemployment, few places are better at increasing it than big cities. In the past two months, Chicago’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose a full point from 8.9% in May up to 9.9% July. That is a remarkable accomplishment considering that nationally, unemployment remained at 9.1% in that period.
So how did Chicago do this? The Chicago Way. City Hall keeps imposing regulations and requirements for new businesses that are so numerous that even liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias complained: “Chicago Requires A License To Help People Fill Out The Paperwork To Get a Business Permit.”
NYC Mayor Wants Traffic Camera On Every Corner
Heartache: Prisoners Not Being Evacuated From Rikers Island
New York City is surrounded by small islands and barrier beaches, and a glance at the city’s evacuation map reveals all of them to be in Zone A (already under a mandatory evacuation order) or Zone B–all, that is, save one. Rikers Island, which lies in the waters between Queens and the Bronx, is not highlighted at all, meaning it is not to be evacuated under any circumstances.
According to the New York City Department of Corrections’ own website, more than three-quarters of Rikers Island’s 400 acres are built on landfill–which is generally thought to be more vulnerable to natural disasters. Its ten jails have a capacity of close to 17,000 inmates, and normally house at least 12,000, including juveniles and large numbers of prisoners with mental illness–not to mention pre-trial detainees who have yet to be convicted of any crime. There are also hundreds of corrections officers at work on the island.
The comments are a hoot.
Nevada congressional campaign mistakenly leaves strategic note in press release
“I am proud to consider Israel a friend and I reiterate my unwavering support for its fundamental right to exist and the absolute necessity for Israel to secure its people from outside threats. I stand ready and willing to assist Israel in defending itself against all acts of terrorism,” the statement reads.
Lest the reader wonder why Marshall was issuing such a statement, the campaign unintentionally provided a helpful explanation:
“Background: Israel has been in the news lately, and will be even more in the news with [Glenn] Beck’s ‘Rally to Restore Courage’ in Jerusalem. In an R district, it will be useful to express support for Israel and demonstrate some foreign policy prowess while it is a timely topic — especially for people who are likely paying attention to Beck’s event.”
“It was an internal comment left by mistake,” explained James Hallinan, Marshall’s communications director.
Meantime, business-strangling regulations proliferate. Many of these originate with the environmental movement, which Villaraigosa and other Democrats count on for political support and media validation. The city has tried repeatedly to control emissions at the port from ships and trucks, for example. Also harmful are various labor-friendly regulations, such as the city’s effort to expand unions’ presence from the docks to the entire network of trucks serving the port—essentially forcing out independent carriers, many of them Latino entrepreneurs, in favor of larger firms using Teamster drivers.
Such policies could backfire, says economist John Husing, who has done extensive research on the port sector and who calls L.A.’s port by far the largest generator of blue-collar employment in the region. They could lead shippers to transfer their business to cheaper and less heavily regulated ports elsewhere, precipitating a shift of blue-collar employment to Charleston, Houston, Savannah, and other growth-oriented southern cities. This is particularly dangerous given the planned 2014 widening of the Panama Canal, which will make southeastern ports far more competitive for Asia-based trade. “Our ferocious concentration on the environment and other issues has created a huge potential issue of social justice bigger than we might want to deal with,” Husing says. “We are telling blue-collar workers here that we don’t want you to have a job.”
When criticized for the poor economy, the mayor cites some minor changes in policies favoring business. But Los Angeles remains one of the least hospitable places for business in the country, says consultant Larry Kosmont. Companies need to hire consultants, lawyers, and other fixers to complete even small-scale projects, he says; the system is particularly tough on smaller businesses, and firms without subsidies are unlikely to locate or expand in the region. “It usually takes two to three times more to process anything in L.A., compared even to surrounding cities,” Kosmont says. “It makes a big difference if you are a major Korean airline or AEG or if you are an independent entrepreneur.” If the system doesn’t change, he predicts, “we’re going to end up like a better-looking Detroit.”
California Governor Chugs on with Ill-fated High Speed Rail No Matter What the Experts Say
Hmmmm…. Given a choice to be like the Democratic party Valhalla’s such as California, New York, Illinois or to be like those “redneck, raaaaacist, gun toting, Christiantist, terrorist teabagger bitter Klingon” bastions of Texas and Tennessee which would people choose? Well, judging by the census numbers and business relocation numbers people are voting with their feet and going to the “Heart of Redness”. It is OK, Timmy! Soon the only people who will be left in that third world hellhole city known as Los Angeles will be people just like you and the millions of illegals and entitlement junkies who view you much like a Leech views a ‘host’. Enjoy the rioting, looting and burning when the money runs out and the high speed gravy train stops and the entitlement junkies come to redistribute your wealth… UCLA Professor: Without Media Bias the Average US State Would Vote Like Texas or Tennessee (Video)
Marshall Angelo Mazzagatti, of the Naples police who led the operation said: “He couldn’t believe it when police arrived and arrested him. He thought after nearly a decade on the run he was home free.
‘When he asked how we had found him and we told him he was not at all happy with his girlfriend who is heavily pregnant and about to give birth.
‘When we saw the pictures on Facebook we could not believe his girlfriend had been so stupid. It was very easy to track them down as she was stood in front of a restaurant sign in Marbella.’
This is the same question I asked and it is why I don’t do the whole ‘pink ribbon’ thang… Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Gave $1.3 Million To Planned Parenthood Over Last Two Years
What does breast cancer have to do with killing babies?
MSM Circus and Celebutard Side Show:
The Obama Broadcasting Corporation
It’s fine that NBC made a strategic decision to move to the left, adding blatant bias to its overall coverage. It’s where most of the networks are anyway, only NBC is a little further over on the spectrum. Fox News is conservative – I’d say unabashedly so, except that it pretends to be fair and balanced, which it’s not – and being a conservative network is fine too.
But what’s very disconcerting is having a major TV news network in the tank for a specific politician. This is unprecedented and a little frightening, giving off the noisome air of a nationalized, official government network.
A couple things you must understand about
liberalsprogressives–
They love their junk science, especially when it punishes the American economy and puts money in their pockets. And,liberalsprogressives always use fear and emotion to push their radical agenda because they can’t win an argument with facts.The liberal media was in a frenzy last night and pushing the line that global warming was making Hurricane Irene worse.
MSNBC Host to NC Governor: Will Hurricane Irene Create Jobs?
World history is loaded with examples of disasters that became known for the economic booms they triggered (the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, the stimulus, etc), so that must be why Mike Barnicle probably felt compelled to ask the question.
Transcript from Real Clear Politics:
Mike Barnicle, of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”: We don’t have much time left here but is there potentially a rather dark, downside to the storm and that after the storm passed, after it’s over there might be employment in reconstruction and things like that?
Gov. Beverly Perdue (D-NC): “I hadn’t thought of that but obviously there will be some employment as people rebuild and prepare. This morning they said there’s at least 27,000 or 28,000 structures that have an opportunity to be hit by the storm. So, we’ll know by Saturday or Sunday. But all of us want jobs, but this isn’t a way to get them quite frankly.”
CNN Contributor Cafferty: Perry, Bachmann & Palin Supporters Seem to Be Allergic to Brains (Video)
CNN’s Jack Cafferty blasted conservative Americans who believe in smaller government and the free market yesterday by saying they were allergic to brains. The far left CNN contributor slammed the “intellectual lightweights” leading the Republican presidential field. He said their supporters “seem to be allergic to brains.” Recently he also bemoaned a possible Palin run and gave credence to the conspiratorial theory that Bachmann and Perry are serious members of a theocratic fringe sect of Christianity.
Faith and the Fishwrap of Record
The editor of the New York Times just got religion: He thinks it’s time to ask GOP presidential candidates “tougher questions about faith.” Oh, brother, where wast thou in 2008? The Fishwrap of Record led the whitewashing of Barack Obama’s wacky black liberation theology pals and freaky-deaky Chicago pastors.
Now, the skews-paper is ready to start asking “tougher questions about faith?”
Snortalicious, dear readers. Snortalicious.
Faith questions for Keith Ellison
Stanley Kurtz observes that “[o]utgoing New York Times editor Bill Keller has kicked up a controversy by placing on the table a series of religious questions for the Republican candidates for president. I want to get in on the act and pose a set of questions for Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison, America’s first Muslim congressman.
I summarized my research on Ellison just before he was elected to Congress in 2006 in the Weekly Standard article “Louis Farrakhan’s first congressman.” I posted several of the documents on which the article was based in the companion Power Line post “Keith Ellison for dummies,” which hasn’t yet made the transition to our new site. I’ll repost it as soon as it is available. More recently, Middle East Quarterly editor Denis MacEoin reviewed the record in detail in “Keith Ellison’s stealth jihad.”
Ellison’s public career raises basic questions that haven’t been asked by the media or answered by Ellison. Here are a few that come to mind…
In related news…Archbishop: MSM can’t be trusted on matters of faith
Of course, no one asks that the NYT or MSNBC demonstrate “sympathy” for the Catholic or any other faith — but a fair shake would be welcome. All the news media needs to do is state accurately and openly what the Catholic Church or any other religion teaches on an issue and allow readers to decide for themselves. In the case of Catholicism, it should be especially easy to do, as the Church publishes an official catechism that serves as the final word on Church doctrine. Reporters could store that volume in their desks right along with the AP style guide and refer to it anytime they want to provide the Church’s position on an issue. I imagine other religious faiths publish similar materials.
Or, the MSM could abandon all pretense to objectivity. That, at least, would alert readers to the reality that they need to diversify their sources to ensure a well-rounded perspective. But until news sources like Newsweek and CNN speak the truth about themselves, Chaput and others will continue to call them out.
‘Ed Schultz With a Smaller Rack’
The title quote is how Ace of Spades describes Contessa Brewer, whose eight-year career at MSNBC has come to an inglorious end. Ace reminds us of one of her highlights:
BREWER: “Joining me now to talk about this and the nation’s real problem of joblessness, the Reverend Al Sharpton. What’s your reaction to hearing someone say, you know, when it comes to income inequality, all’s well, a rising tide floats all boats?”
JESSE JACKSON: “Uh, I’m Reverend Jesse Jackson.”
Video: Ed Schultz: “Pretty boy” Rubio will be “downright ugly” to senior citizens
Schultz then took objection to Rubio’s statements on entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, saying “political hacks like Marco Rubio, who want to get rid of social safety nets” are “what’s weakening our people.”
What were the crazy words that so stirred up Mr. Schultz? Read ‘em for yourself:
These [entitlement] programs actually weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever it was institutions and society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and for your future because you had to. But all of that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. And as government crowded out the institutions in our society that did these things traditionally, it weakened our people.
That’s right. Schultz thinks it’s “psycho” to suggest the most effective social safety net is the family and a strong sense of community.
But to be clear, Rubio didn’t even suggest we eliminate Social Security and Medicare. He simply acknowledged one of the most basic economic truths: People respond to incentives. As the government provided Social Security dollars for retirement and Medicare dollars for health care, folks had less incentive to save for themselves. Unfortunately, people came to rely too heavily on these entitlement programs — such that the programs themselves are broke and, yet, folks aren’t fully in a position to do without them.
Tom Friedman’s Fantasy World: Obama Is Tiger Woods or Something
For months now, Obama has been playing not to lose, keeping his own plans for a “Grand Bargain” on debt, deficits, taxes, jobs and investment vague, while waiting for the Republicans to say crazier and crazier stuff — like promising the return of $2-a-gallon gasoline, or insisting that climate change was made up by scientists to get research grants (but politicians taking millions from oil companies can be trusted to tell us the truth on this issue), or that Texas has a right to secede. But while the G.O.P. candidates have been obliging the president with their nuttiness, it has not helped Obama’s poll ratings.
So Republicans are all nuts, but the man running up trillion-dollar deficits is the one to be trusted.
OK.
Many Americans can see that most of these G.O.P. candidates are closer to professional wrestlers than politicians — with their fake body slams and anti-Obama bluster. All they are missing are the Tarzan outfits. This is the silly season.
Tarzan outfits? Um, what if someone suggested putting Obama in a Tarzan outfit? How well would that go over with the delicate sensibilities of the folks at the New York Times? Hey Tom, what if someone Photoshopped Herman Cain into a Tarzan outfit? Wouldn’t that be raaaaacist?
I support businesses’ rights and if ESPN wants to enact a ban on political commentary from their on-air talent (it seems a bit of a stretch for me to include personal social media accounts into that) they have the right to do such and contributors have the right not to sign with them. However, if ESPN is allowing one on-air talent to air his political views while denying another the same privilege under the same rules, then it seems tantamount to discrimination and a host of other problems, which isn’t OK.
Global Warmening:
Comedian Al Gore: Climate Scientists Not Motivated by Money
These frauds would be out of business if they weren’t living off government grants to peddle their junk science. But the chief hoaxer, Al Gore, says financial motivation has nothing to do with it.
How is it Gore became so wealthy?
Gore Says Debating Him On Climate Science Is The Moral Equivalent Of Being A Bull Connor Racist…
Ego maniac.
Sun Causes Climate Change Shock
If Michael Crichton had lived to write a follow-up to State of Fear, the plotline might well have gone like this: at a top secret, state of the art laboratory in Switzerland, scientists finally discover the true cause of “global warming”. It’s the sun, stupid.
CERN Update: Cosmic Ray Data will Force Climate Models to be ‘Substantially Revised’
“[I]t is clear that the treatment of aerosol formation in climate models will need to be substantially revised, since all models assume that nucleation is caused by these vapours [sulphuric acid and ammonia] and water alone.
It may be too strong to say that this finding rubbishes previous climate models that didn’t take cosmic ray effects into account. But not by a whole lot, since the models don’t account for cosmic rays. One thing is for sure: Humanity cannot do a thing about cosmic rays or their influence on the atmosphere.
Walter Russell Mead: More Green Madness On the Plains
Greens are asking President Obama to take a job killing stance during a time of high unemployment that won’t help the planet. Greens are part of this president’s base; he would like to make them happy. But they keep asking for the impossible — and calling him a coward and a weakling when he doesn’t deliver. This is the kind of behavior that gets a lobby group pushed to the fringe; nobody wants them in the room when the serious business goes down. GPO, as British gentry used to write in their address books beside the names of questionable guests: invite them to ‘garden parties only’ but don’t let them indoors.
The environment is a real issue; greens are not wrong to be concerned about the consequences of humanity’s thirst for energy on our planet. But the basic strategy of the green movement — to become a single-minded, single-issue lobby group that screams bloody murder whenever anybody anywhere reaches for any kind of energy source — is a comprehensively misguided approach.
For the sake of the planet, the greens must wise up.
NSF ‘Investigation’ Allegedly Clears Climate Hoaxer
As if the National Science Foundation is going to actually find wrongdoing by a guy living off their payroll.
The Sock Drawer:
Zoo staff prepare for Happy Feet’s farewell
Happy Feet pines for the ocean
“For the last few weeks he has really been showing us that he wants to leave,” Dr Argilla said.
“When he has the odd swim he enjoys the sky. I think that’s why he tries to escape out of the pool.
“He is ready and he’s really stroppy. His personality has changed. He’s a lot more feisty, he doesn’t like us holding him and manhandling him to give him medication.
“I think he is going to be pretty happy to see the back of us.”
The bird arrived at the zoo weighing 22 kilograms, although it was estimated that up to three kilos of that was sand that had to be removed. He now weighs a healthy 27.4kg.
He will leave Wellington on Monday for a four-day voyage aboard the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research survey ship Tangaroa, before being released into the ocean near Campbell Island.
Happy Feet fascinated by own reflection
Scientists Find Huge Underground River Below Amazon (VIDEO)
Cyborg eye technology adopted by shooting victim
Sleeping with the fishes! NFL star’s amazing fish tank in his bedroom
Study: Sex With Cavemen Gave Humans an Immune Boost
Sex with cavemen, three words I never thought I’d write.
The yummy mummies: How Egyptians used gel and curling tongs to look their best 3,500 years ago
