Sometimes a picture says a thousand words...

How's all that Hope and Change working out for ya??

We've got a President who has spent more in the first six months of his first term than the evil George W spent over his entire eight year administration.

We've got a President whose projected budget will spend more than all the Presidents we've ever had, combined.

We've got a President who rammed through a $787 billion spending bill chock full of pork and political paybacks, using the fear that unemployment will hit 8% if the stimulus bill isn't passed. And now unemployment sites at almost 10% and rising, with no real end in sight.

We've got a President, although beloved and worshiped at home, who is seen as extremely weak pushover to the rest of the world. North Korea has stepped up their nuclear weapon program and has fired missiles in the direction of Hawaii. Iran continues to flip the bird to the rest of the world, refusing to halt it's nuclear weapons program. Russia invades it's neighbor and continues to rattle sabres. And what does President Pantywaste do? He pledges to reduce our own nuclear stockpile and is considering scrapping our missile defense program...the same program that is designed to protect us from the missiles openly being developed and tested by the likes of North Korea and Iran.

Unemployment rising over 10% with no real end in sight. Sabre rattling from our enemies and adversaries. A federal budget deficit in the trillions, highest in our nation's 200+ year history. Government control and ownership of the banking and financial systems. Government control and ownership of auto industry. Government control of the salaries paid to executives in the private industry. Soon-to-be government control and ownership of the healthcare industry. Over 30 "czars" who oversee pretty much all aspects of our lives (compensation, health, consumer purchasing, etc), all reporting directly to the president without Congressional approval.

Is this the change you all were hoping for?

Listen to this

You need to listen to the audio here. It's a YouTube video, but it's all audio. It's a little over 9 minutes long, but please listen to it. The speaker does get a bit excited and may sensationalize some statements, but listen to what he is saying. This is some scary shit. And with them controlling both the House AND the Senate, it may very well be unstoppable. This is about the Cap-and-Trade bill under debate in the Senate. It has already been passed by the House by 219-212. While the House only requires a majority (51%) vote, the Senate requires a 2/3 (67%) vote.



The speaker makes a very good point about global warming. If we human beings and our burning of fossil fuels are to blame for the temperature of our planet increasing, how do we explain away previous ice ages? Its a proven fact that our planet has had numerous ice ages in its history. For Christ's sake, aminals have been found frozen alive in ice. What caused the temperature to rise enough to cycle the planet out of these ice ages? I'm pretty sure there were no soccer moms driving SUV's thousands and thousands of years ago, were there?

No. Our planet has cycled from cold to hot to cold to hot more times than we can even imagine. So why now, all of a sudden, are human beings responsible for causing the temperature to increase? Humans may have been around for many thousands of years, and have weathered through untold numbers of temperature cycles. So why does our burning of fossil fuels over the last 50 years get blamed? Are we humans SO freaking conceited to think that we now control Mother Nature? We now can control the natural temperature cycles of the entire planet....the same cycles that have ocurred for millions of years?

Disagree? Then please explain what caused the Earth's temperature to rise enough to cycle out of its previous ice ages when there were NO human beings burning fossil fuels. Can't explain it? Then you can't assume mankind is responsible for the rising temperatures now...regardless of how much money Al Gore makes trying to convince us otherwise.

Nuff said...

A lot of people blame President Bush and his Republican policies for damaging the economy. The Obama administration and it's media minions still refer to the economy as the "inherited economy." However, looking at the data presented in these graphs, its kinda hard to continue making that argument.

Click the image to enlarge it.

Congress is the government branch who actually controls the purse strings of the United States. The president can't spend a dime without Congressional approval. The Democrats took control of the House in 2006, and control of the Senate in 2008. So the Democrats have practically owned the economy since 2006.

Over his eight years in office, President Bush spent $994 billion dollars. In contrast, President Obama has spent nearly $12 trillion in his first six months. Now you tell me, who's economy is this? Sure, the Democrats make the argument that eight years of bad Bush policies are to blame, and they were just left holding the bag. However, if fiscal irresponsibility by the Republicans is to blame, then why take the spending to the next level? $994 billion over eight years averages out to $124 billion a year...nothing to be very proud of at all. However, at President Obama's rate of spending over just six months, he's well on his way to $24 trillion a year.

12 trillion = 12,000 billions. Here's a cool graphic depicting what this actually looks like. OMG!

Now you tell me who is responsible for the economy? Still think its President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress?

Graphic borrowed from here.

Is the honeymoon over?

Here we go again

I guess we're all done with the financial crisis. And the recession must be over. Right?

Two U.S. Democratic lawmakers want Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery, the Wall Street Journal said.

Lack of adequate government oversight and a loosening of mortgage lending rules and principles contributed heavily to the financial and economic crisis we are in. As a result the crisis spawned the need opportunity for the government to "bailout" the banks who made these bad lending decisions. And now the banks are being urged by Congress to loosen the rules again.

What the fuck??? These guys are all about blaming the Bush Administration for the economic problems our country now faces. But now that there's a new sheriff in town, and they are in the midst of raiding our country's treasury with the "Stimulus", it must be OK to relax the mortgage lending standards again. The same mortgage lending standards that got us into the mess in the first place. I guess this will just ensure we are in a constant need of government bailouts.

Stop the planet. I want to get off.

Holy Smokes!

On April 1, the new federal tax on tobacco products went into effect. The tax is part of the expanded SCHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) funding signed into law in February 2009 by our president. While I'm not sure taxing tobacco and alcohol to fund health coverage for children is the right way to go, the cause is noble nonetheless. The expanded tax funds healthcare coverage for an additional 4 million children, pregnant women, and legal immigrants.

To provide the funding, in part, the bill raised the maximum federal excise tax on cigarettes and cigars from a nickel to maximum of 40 cents. Do the math, folks. That's an 800% increase. All at once, with the stroke of a pen. Holy smokes!

To survive, manufacturers simply pass the tax burden on to the consumer. Simple supply and demand economics illustrate that if prices increases high enough, demand for said product will decrease. And if demand decreases enough, people lose their jobs. Don't believe me? Just ask the employees of Hav-a-Tampa.

Tampa will lose part of its cigar heritage in August when Hav-A-Tampa shuts its factory near Seffner and lays off about 495 employees, closing a factory that has been operating since 1902.

So why is Hav-a-Tampa closing its plant in Tampa?

...the company attributed much of its trouble to the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, a federal program that provides health insurance to low-income children. It is funded, in part, by a new federal tax on cigars and cigarettes. McKenzie couldn't say how much sales of Hav-A-Tampa cigars had fallen off, but the numbers have dropped significantly, he said.

Previously, federal excise taxes on cigars were limited to no more than a nickel, said Norman Sharp, president of the Cigar Association of America trade group. The tax increase, which took effect April 1, raises the maximum tax on cigars to about 40 cents, Sharp said.

OK. Adding a possible 35 cents to the price of a cigar may not be enough to make people instantly stop smoking cigars. Cigar smoking is more of a leisure-time activity, rather than an addiction. Thusly, there's still a demand for the product. So, what happens next?

Work that had been done in Tampa will now be performed in an Altadis plant in Puerto Rico, where it has extra manufacturing capacity, McKenzie said.

Yeah, that's it. the jobs will be moved off-shore.

"We can't afford to make these cigars in the U.S. anymore."

Ahh. If the cigars are made in the US, Hav-a-Tampa will have to absorb an 800% increase in the excise tax, payable to Uncle Sam. But if the cigars are made off-shore, no such tax burden applies. So, off-shore they go. And almost 500 American jobs disappear with it.

Want to raise the tax to generate some additional revenue for the noble SCHIP program? Fine. But was it really necessary to do it by a factor of 800%? Do you know of ANY tax on ANYTHING that increased 800% overnight?

President Pantywaste strikes again

What is happening in this world? The atrocious events going on in Iran has elicited shock and condemnation from the world over. I don't profess to be an expert on Iranian election protocols, but when a government bans all media coverage, and then starts beating, jailing, and even murdering it's own people in the streets, it obviously has something to hide. And how does our President respond? He says,

"The Iranian people are trying to have a debate about their future."

He calls is a debate. A fucking debate. Innocent people shot dead in the streets by the government. Very good, Mr. President. You sure don't want to upset the mullahs. After all, they might not show up for your hotdogs and fireworks this weekend.

From James Lewis over at American Thinker:

The White House is now occupied by a little president who just isn't there when he is called upon to take a clear, moral stand. For such sheer gutless flabbiness and evasion, you have to look back to the dismal Jimmy Carter years. If Tehran seems quieter today, it's because the civilian demonstrators have been identified and are being beaten and tortured and maybe killed in Evin Prison. Don't believe for a moment that the sadistic regime has changed, just because you don't see people bleeding on the streets. They are bleeding all right. It's just out of public view.

{SNIP}

The Europeans are being Reaganesque. Angela Merkel is morally serious. She stated officially that "Germany stands on the side of the people in Iran who want to exercise their right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly."
Nicolas Sarkozy upheld our real values. He called the pictures of women and teenagers being beated by Basij thugs on motorcycles "brutal" and "totally disproportionate." "The ruling power claims to have won the elections ... if that were true, we must ask why they find it necessary to imprison their opponents and repress them with such violence."

When a French president shows more balls than an American president, it's freaking pathetic.

It's not like anybody expects Obama to launch a bombing campaign to punish the mullhas. This isn't about any form of military intervention. What happens in Iran stays in Iran. This is an Iranian problem and needs to be handled by Iranians. But how about voicing some form of support for the innocent people who are fighting to get their voices heard in their own government? Hope and Change, right?

Ah, what should we really expect from a noob.

It is truly embarrassing to be an American right now.

Enough is enough already

Yet another pseudo-comedian still suffering lingering effects of BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) has decided that the Palin family is still fair game too. Not just the Palin family, but the Palin teen daughters. The ever-classy Bill Maher, deciding to jump on the Letterman vs. Palin bandwagon, fired a few shots of his own. As per Jimmy Arone from Big Hollywood:

In defending his friend, Maher thought Republicans had over reacted and this was just a case of ‘fake’ outrage. Much ado about nothing. He then went on talking about how Letterman had invited Sarah Palin and her young daughter, Willow, to appear as guests on his show but the Governor declined because she thought it would be wise to keep her daughter away from him. Said Maher, “…that’s right, he’s 62 years old, he’s gonna fuck her right there on stage…it would be very wise to keep her, very wise, yes. You know, I’d worry a little more about the 18-year old hockey players who knock up your daughters.” To which his audience of trained seals laughed and clapped and had a good old time.

One has to assume Billy doesn't have any daughters of his own, because I can't imagine him being so amazingly crude otherwise. Not wanting to be outdone by his colleague's joke implying that one of the Palin daughters got raped, Billy gives us a wonderful visual of a 62-year old man actually doing it on stage. Real classy, Bill. Real classy.

You have to wonder why the left-leaning media and so-called comedians feel they have to keep bashing Sarah Palin, almost six months after the election. And not just Sarah Palin, but her teen daughters. So what if Bristol, the 18-year-old, is an unwed mother? News Flash - teen girls do get pregnant...even ones that come from wholesome, conservative, Christian families. I suppose the "left" would have preferred Bristol abort the pregnancy, rather than keep and raise the child. During the election cycle Billy even likened the teen pregnancy to a prison sentence.

Why is the left so obsessed with beating on Sarah Palin and her family? Is it possible they secretly view her as a threat to them in 2012? The left has shown everybody that charm, charisma, and personality is all it takes to make it to Oval Office, and that while experience is sometimes helpful, it is not necessarily required. As long as you can read a teleprompter, smile and wink, having no experience running anything at an executive level doesn't really matter.

So in the mind of the left, Sarah Palin is most certainly a threat. I don't think there's any doubt she has just as much (if not more) charisma than Obama. You may not agree with everything she stands for or says, but that smile and wink can charm the pants off you. In my opinion, this is why hey continue to bash her...bash her family...bash her daughters. However, the more they bash, the more they make her look like a victim, and the more sympathy for her they generate.

Flight 93 memorial

These guys might be reading too much into this, but I can certainly see their point. It was Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, and the planned memorial to be built on the site does suspiciously look like the traditional Muslim crescent and star.

And it even points towards Mecca. Granted, Flight 93 was headed east towards Washington when it "crashed", and Mecca is east of the US. However, you'd think the designers would have a little more compassion for the TRUE victims of Flight 93 and their families. Unless their true intention is to make this a memorial for the fucking murdering terrorist camel-jockey assholes Religion of Peace.

Story of my life

Now I understand everything.

Everyday normal Republicans

Government Motors, Part Two

Is it OK to boycott the new Government Motors?

Gary Jason over at American Thinker presents a good case as to why we should boycott the new Chrysler and GM. From the article:

To start with the obvious, even though Obama denies that he will manage the companies, we have all learned by now that he has no problem doing the very thing he is denying. (In ordinary life this political artfulness is called lying). He fired one CEO, forced Chrysler to accept Fiat (WSJ.com 6/5/09), told GM that it cannot move its headquarters out of Detroit (WSJ.com 6/3/09), and may have ordered that whoever buys GM's European auto maker Opel must agree not to export cars to the U.S.. (WSJ.com 6/1/09) These decisions were made in secret with no Congressional oversight, by a man with no training or experience of any kind in business, never mind the auto business.

Yeah, a little scary.

But the negative consequences will spread well beyond the auto industry. By so conspicuously stiffing the bondholders in favor of his political supporters, Obama has made raising capital vastly more difficult. Every investor now knows that past bankruptcy law means nothing; if the President is paid enough by some special interest group, he will rip off the secured debt holders to satisfy his supporters. This will surely lower the demand for corporate bonds, leading to less capital for business expansion, hence fewer jobs.

So far, Ford seems to be the only American car manufacturer surviving. But for how long? How long before the UAW and the Obama administration makes a play for Ford? Or forces successful American-based foreign manufacturers like Honda and Toyota into the UAW fold.

Picture from here.

Picture from here.

Picture by Ronny Gordon.

Please say it ain't so

Difficult as it may be, it is wrong to automatically jump to conclusions when an airplane crashes. Remember the one that crashed over New York a short time after 9/11? We ALL thought it was another terrorist act initially, until it was determined that it was a structural problem with the tail piece. The Air France crash on Sunday is a horrible, horrible tragedy, and my thoughts and condolences go out to the victims and their families.

Airplanes are built by humans, and as such are not completely immune to mechanical failures. However, it is extremely rare that an airplane just falls out of the sky. But I guess it is not out of the realm of possibility. Again, not wanting to jump to conclusions, this could still be the result of a mechanical failure of some sort. We may never know, as the black box devices may be thousands of feet under the water. However, for an airplane to just disappear from radar and end up at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean without even a peep from the pilots, something major had to happen, and happen very quickly.

And then we see something like this report. Reported on a Buenes Aires news site on May 27, 2009:

Bomb threat on Air France flight.
Posted on 27 May 2009 at 16:27
The airport safety delayed an Air France flight this evening before departring for Paris immediately after the company received a bomb threat over the phone at the airport of Ezeiza.

The Federal Police, along the Firemen’s direction and the Airport’s Safety proceeded to inspect the plane, that arrived this morning from the French city and, after a brief stop, it was preparing to return.

The routine procedure lasted approximately one hour and a half and, as sources of the airport reported all the passengers are ok and they were not evacuated.

So, on May 27, an Air France flight had a bomb scare phoned in to the airport in Argentina. The Paris-bound flight was delayed as the aircraft was searched and the passengers re-screened. And three days later, a Paris-bound Air France flight from Brazil ends up at the bottom of the ocean, with no warning or distress call from the pilots.

Coincidence? I certainly hope so.

Government Motors

I don't know about you, but I find it very disheartening to see what is going on here. For years, GM and Chrysler have built products that are inferior to the products built by Toyota, Honda, and Nissan. And their balance sheet shows it. Cars that are more durable, reliable, and fun to drive are the cars people will buy. If these cars happen to be from Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, then so be it. Companies that continue to produce inferior products will, and should be allowed to, fail. GM has been around for almost 100 years - plenty of time to get their act together, learn to adapt to an ever-changing marketplace, and build cars that people want to buy. They deserve to fail, file for bankruptcy protection, and let the American bankruptcy laws and courts do their thing. If an amicable deal between the creditors, bondholders, and management cannot be brokered, the company liquidates assets. The secured creditors are contractually-bound to be paid 100% either in cash or in troubled assets - this is why they are classified as "secured bondholders."General creditors fight over what is left.

However, our government has deemed the American auto-industry "too big to fail". If GM and Chrysler fail, the ripple effect would devistate an already devistaed economy. Hundred of thousands of jobs will be lost. Think of all the tax revenue that represents. So in steps Mr. Hopey McChangy, forces Chyrsler into a goverment-brokered bankruptcy, creates a "New Chrysler", forces the secured bondholders of Old Chrysler to accept pennies on the dollar, while the New Chrysler stock is owned by Fiat, the UAW, and the United States Goverment. From David A. Skeel Jr., as posted on The American.

As the administration has pointed out in defense of its plan to commandeer the bankruptcy process, asset sales (known as 363 sales, based on the relevant provision) have become a common feature of Chapter 11 cases in the last 20 years. What makes the Chrysler plan unique, and makes it similar to the receiverships of the New Dealers’ era, is that it is not really a sale at all. It is a pretend sale and its main purpose is to eliminate the pesky creditors who might otherwise interfere with the government’s plans. It also seems to flout bankruptcy’s priority rules by giving Chrysler’s employees (who are general creditors) a big stake in New Chrysler while forcing senior lenders to take a major haircut. The usual rule is that senior creditors must be paid in full before lower priority creditors are entitled to anything.

A similar deal will most likely be implemented with GM, but since GM is much larger than Chrysler, the final outcome will probably differ. From the Associated Press, as posted on Yahoo News.

The company appeared closer than ever to filing for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday after its bondholders turned their backs on a federally ordered offer to swap their debt for GM stock. If GM does file, the governments of the United States and Canada could end up with as much as 70 percent of a reconstituted GM when the court dust settles_ with the biggest share by far held by the U.S. Treasury.

Did you catch that? 70%?? !! ?? Holy crap! Folks, it's no longer General Motors...it's Government Motors. With that much ownership of the new company, the US and Canadian governments will be able to make all corporate, board-level deciscions.

According to the Byron York, as posted on the Washington Examiner:

Obama knows the public doesn't want the government to run GM and Chrysler, which is why he has said hundreds of times that the government has "no interest" in running the automakers. But on Monday, at a White House event to hail the GM bankruptcy, he gave away the game when he said the feds will stay out of running GM "in all but the most fundamental corporate decisions."

It didn't take any parsing to realize that in Obama's vision, the government will let GM management handle the small stuff, but when something really, really matters, the new owner -- the United States government -- will do the deciding.

Combine the government's 70% ownership of New GM, and their 8% ownership of New Chrysler, and this should be recognized as nothing short of the nationalization of the American auto industry. Do we really want our government, using our yet-to-be-earned money, building our cars for us? Seizing publically-held corporations and nationalizing industries goes on in banana-republic, 3rd-world, communist/socialist states like Venezuela - not in America.

Question: When did "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" change to just "government of the people"?

Answer: January 20, 2009.

The Big Stick

***** UPDATE *****
The blog post mentioned below has since been removed from the Telegraph.co.uk website. Not all too surprising. I just wish I had cross-posted the whole thing.
***** UPDATE *****

Wow. Imagine seeing a OpEd piece in the country like this from the Daily Telegraph in the UK.

School's out! Suddenly it is playtime for all the naughtier elements in the more "reclusive" parts of the world who enjoy kicking Uncle Sam's butt but didn't much relish tangling with Dick Cheney and (what was that other guy's name?). This time Comrade Kim is really throwing his toys out of the playpen. He has even unilaterally revoked the 1953 armistice between the Korean War belligerents, which means, in case anybody is interested, that North and South Korea are once more at war.

So, what is the response of the Messiah in the Oval Office? Really severe rhetoric, is the answer. The soundbite manufacturers have been burning the midnight oil and the auto-cue is going into meltdown. So is the confidence of Asian leaders. The word is out: the most powerful nation on earth has got itself a pussycat for a president and all the bad guys are queuing up to give him the finger.

The article even calls him President Pantywaste. This would be even more funnier if it weren't so sadly true. Do you think it's just a coincidence that North Korea has upped the ante with six long range missile tests and a nuclear detonation test, all within the past week or so? Do you think they would have dared try this while Bush/Cheney were running the show?

"Walk softly, but carry a big stick." This was a phrase coined by Teddy Roosevelt back in 1901. He attributed it then to an old West African proverb. What it means is to tread carefully, negotiate peacefully and diplomatically, but be ready to use force if necessary. True back in 1901, and even more true today. If there is no Big Stick, there is no negotiating, diplomacy, respect, or peace.

It was the American Big Stick that saved Europe, twice. It was fear of the American Big Stick that eventually ended the Cold War. All through the 1990's, Saddam Hussein felt the American Big Stick, along with a host of other Sticks. Right or wrong, intended or unintended, fear of the American Big Stick is what makes us the "world's policeman" by default.

On the flip side, we cannot bring out the Big Stick whenever we want, as the "walk softly" part is just as important. Diplomacy and negotiation must be given a chance to work. The Big Stick should be used only as a last resort, after all efforts to walk softly have failed. However, refusal to use the Big Stick has grave consequences, and should never be put away.

What happens when the American Big Stick is put away? The refusal to confront the Iranian hostage situation with a Big Stick led to US embassy employees and citizens being held hostage for 444 days. How a rag-tag group of college students could overwhelm US Marines guarding the embassy is puzzling. How President Carter could allow the situation to last past lunch hour the first day is mind-boggling. The Iranian captors, and the Iranian government, had absolutely no fear of Jimmy Carter's Big Stick. What they did fear, however, was Ronald Reagan's Big Stick. And they wanted no part of it.

President Obama's recent World Apology Tour and his constant criticism of American foreign policy has put the world on notice. The American Big Stick has been put away.

And, sadly, both friend and foe alike have taken notice.

Next stop...Galt's Gulch

Millionaires Go Missing - an OpEd piece posted on the Wall Street Journal.

I read this headline and almost peed myself in excitement. Could it be that Atlas has begun shrugging?

As the State of Maryland has discovered, raising taxes on the "super-rich" to fund bloated government budgets doesn't necessarily equate into more tax revenue for the state. From the article:

Maryland couldn't balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by fleecing the wealthy. Politicians in Annapolis created a millionaire tax bracket, raising the top marginal income-tax rate to 6.25%. And because cities such as Baltimore and Bethesda also impose income taxes, the state-local tax rate can go as high as 9.45%. Governor Martin O'Malley, a dedicated class warrior, declared that these richest 0.3% of filers were "willing and able to pay their fair share." The Baltimore Sun predicted the rich would "grin and bear it."

One year later, nobody's grinning. One-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls. In 2008 roughly 3,000 million-dollar income tax returns were filed by the end of April. This year there were 2,000, which the state comptroller's office concedes is a "substantial decline." On those missing returns, the government collects 6.25% of nothing. Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year -- even at higher rates.

Sure, the recession and the Bear market has likely taken a toll on the number of millionaire tax returns this year. And while it's not too likely Galt's Gulch has opened for business, it is very likely many of them have simply moved to more tax-friendly states. Raise the tax rates high enough and the "super rich" simply vanish, proving that Trickle Up Poverty really does work.

Where do I sign up !!??!!

Posted over at American Thinker.

Quite possible the best.column.ever. A definite MUST read. Here's a few snippets to wet your whistle.

I wish I were a liberal

I wish I were a liberal, because then everyone would like me. My family would start talking to me again, and chances are, my ex-husband would want to renew the marriage vows he broke when I started spouting conservative opinions.

I'd like to be a liberal because it's ever so much easier to allow others to form my opinions for me instead of researching an issue myself. That always gets me in trouble, especially when the facts I discover diverge from the latest politically correct consensus.

I'd like to be a liberal because then I'd be rewarded for all my shortcomings and nothing would ever be my fault. I'd be an important cog in the wheel of social justice, and a cherished warrior in the current fight for equality.

I'd like to be a liberal because any guilt I would normally feel for what used to be considered deviant, irresponsible behavior may be assuaged by merely advocating the expenditure of other people's money on whatever the cause du jour is. Very cool. Especially since my stock portfolio has tanked.

Click over and read the rest. You know you want to...

Would be funny if it weren't so creepy

Photo sampled from here.

Charge your iPod, kill a polar bear?

Posted on The Seattle Times

In a report Wednesday, the Paris-based International Energy Agency estimates new electronic gadgets will triple their energy consumption by 2030 to 1,700 terawatt hours, the equivalent of today's home electricity consumption of the United States and Japan combined.

The world would have to build around 200 new nuclear power plants just to power all the TVs, iPods, PCs and other home electronics expected to be plugged in by 2030, when the global electric bill to power them will rise to $200 billion a year, the IEA said.

Ummm, if environmentalists are concerned about the increased electrical power needed to charge our iPods in the future, they're gonna go freakin' ape-shit when we start plugging in all the electric cars they're gonna make us drive.

It's ironic that these environmentalists are the same environmentalists who don't want us to build any more power-generating plants. After all, the polar bears need a place to live, too.

Words to live by

These words are frequently misattributed to Abraham Lincoln, due to a speech Ronald Reagan gave in 1992. The true author of these words was William J. H. Boetcker,a 19th-century, German born Presbyterian minister. These words appeared in a pamphlet he published in 1916, entitled "The Ten Cannots".

• You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
• You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
• You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
• You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
• You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
• You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
• You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
• You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
• You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
• And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

These ten statements are what differentiates traditional liberal values from conservative values. They espouse civic virtue, personal responsibility and personal liberty, while not creating a reliance upon the state to provide everything for everybody. However, in my opinion, neither of the mainstream political parties in this country truly represent these values. The Republican party used to be close, but has strayed over the years. And the Democratic party, in my opinion, was never very close. Perhaps it is time for a 3rd party to emerge? Sure, I know our political system already has numerous "also-rans". However, none of them are big enough to compete, nor will the Big 2 really allow them to compete.

Why is it we have 12 candidates from which to chose the next American Idol, but only 2 from which to chose our next president?

Zombies

nuff said...

Excuse me sir, but your slip is showing

So, James Carville, the political consultant and strategist for the Democratic party thinks the Democrats will retain their majority status for the next 40 years. He's so sure of himself and his prediction, he has written a book entitled "40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation."

Notice the title...he uses the word Rule. I would think an American political consultant would know that Americans do not elect rulers, we elect leaders to represent us in our government. Remember the whole "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" thing??

If I wanted to be ruled over, I'd move to some other flea infested rat hole third world country. I would rather my elected officials lead or govern me. Ruling is what socialist dictators do. Sound familiar?

Perhaps Carville's book title is correct. He envisions the Democratic party ruling Americans for the next 40 years. Telling us what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and how much to pay for it. And not to worry...those of us who don't fall in line will just get branded as potential terrorists by the Department of Homeland Security.

Those of us who are already counting down the days until November 2012 and praying we make it until then, should be happy to see the left so convinced of their longevity. The more convinced they are, the easier it may be for them to fall.