Prayers for Wah

Listen up.

2010-10-15T12:43:00.002-05:00

It has been a while since my last post. That is all.

Heh.

2010-07-03T10:58:00.000-05:00

Don't know who made this or when. Stumbled across when watching schoolhouse rock vids with my kids.

Agree with everything except the bit about the "honest" efforts of Congress.

"Call it $130 trillion or so..."

2010-06-15T08:23:00.001-05:00

Kevin Williamson at National Review on just how big our national debt REALLY is.

Good grief.

2010-06-12T16:11:00.001-05:00

Rory Gallagher

2010-05-17T19:30:00.003-05:00

Meet my new mancrush. He's dead, which makes the relationship very un-complex.

Seriously, rarely do you see a player transmit the utter joy of playing guitar the way Gallagher did. I don't think the rest of his life was particularly pleasant but when he was playing he looked like the happiest guy on earth.

UPDATE: Bullfrog Blues. This one will literally peel the paint from every room in your house. Again, the joy.

Indeed.

2010-03-14T14:15:00.005-05:00

Well, How 'Bout That.

2010-03-02T16:21:00.003-06:00

Newsweek is a little late to the party, notes Michael Yon, who declared victory in Iraq the better part of two years ago.

H/T K-Lo and MKHammer

Perfect Storm

2010-03-01T08:06:00.003-06:00

First, a refresher on this little gem

Then the latest on the yawning chasm into which the IPCC has fallen and down which it continues to plummet.

Kudos to the British press which seems to be resisting all urges to carry the water for these con artists. They have a lot more integrity than the American press, I'll tell you what.

Paul Gilbert: Scarified

2010-02-25T09:52:00.002-06:00

Merciful Flippin' Minerva.

Linus taps his base, Marco loses a stick, and Paul proves that he is the greatest guitarist in the world.

Kim Jong-IL: " I Give You Nukes, You Send Tailor"

2010-02-24T11:02:00.019-06:00

(Pyongyang, North Korea)

During a televised speech delivered from the Presidential office today, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Il offered what many Western journalists and academics have heralded as a shocking "olive branch": the shutdown of Pyongyang's entire nuclear weapons program in exchange for what "Dear Leader" referred to as a designer of mens clothes "who not make me look like I work at Jiffy Lube or something."

The offer from the Supreme Leader includes a complete and unconditional transfer of all of North Korea's enriched uranium and nuclear technology to the United States, and grants international inspectors unmitigated access to all military and government facilities in North Korea. The sole stipulation is that the US or another Western nation must provide a tailor or fashion designer, who will presumably take up residence in Pyongyang and design clothes exclusively for Kim Jong-Il.

The North Korean dictator cited the unflattering and uniform nature of his wardrobe as the impetus for his decision. "You think big shot like me, able to snooker hick snakeoil salesman Bill Clinton into giving me nukes, might be able to find tailor worth a damn in nation of 24 million," he continued, growing increasingly irate as he spoke. "But no. It always same, same, same! Same baggy, gray jump suit, same big ass Harry Caray glasses!"

As if to emphasize this last point, the Supreme Leader tore off his eyeglasses and sent them sailing past the camera, whereupon they were heard to smash against what was presumed to be the opposite wall. There was brief pandemonium as aides scrambled to assist the North Korean leader, who stumbled and groped about blindly until an aide produced an a pair of glasses identical to those destroyed. Scarcely skipping a beat, Kim Jong Il resumed his tirade.

"I try. I ask nice to my tailors. I plead, I beg, come up something different. Throw in a splash color. Try earthtone. Give me flashy sport coat and necktie. Mock turtleneck. Cardigan. Anything. But no. Same crap, different day. Why I feed these people 500 whole calories a day if this best they come up with?"

The Supreme Leader concluded his speech by informing Western leaders that the offer was on the table for 48 hours. The reverberations in the West were pronounced and instantaneous.

"Are we just going to let this golden opportunity go to waste? We can trust him!" screamed Eleanor Clift, who watched Kim Jong-Il's statement in the green room of the McLaughlin Group with the rest of the cast. Pat Buchanan began to mount an objection, but was silenced when Clift pounced on him and ripped his throat out with her teeth.

Others remain skeptical. "Are you kidding?" Asked an incredulous Donna Karan from her New York office. "No way. I remember going through this nonsense with Gaddafi back in the early 90s. He calls me out of the blue, 'Donna, Donna, you gotta help me, I'm sick of looking like Richard Simmons in a sailor suit.' I design the entire 'Tyrant Playboy' line, waste months of my life that I'll never get back, and in the end he goes with Versace. Do you think I ever got paid for the demos? Do you?"

Still, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the news a "pleasant surprise" and announced that her office is keeping the lines of communication open with Pyongyang to see if a deal might be struck. While optimistic, the Secretary of State cautioned that there were still hurdles to be cleared.

"I am not certain we can come to an agreement within Kim Jong-Il's time frame," said Mrs. Clinton, indicating that it might take time to find a tailor or designer who would be both willing and able to undertake the assignment.

"I had originally hoped that Isaac Mizrahi would be willing to take the job, but his only response to my office was "Eeeeewwwwwwwww!"

FINALLY...

2010-02-15T21:13:00.002-06:00

A "Hitler reacts" video worth posting (warning, a few naughty words):

Original site

Is Imbecile Just a Euphemism for Olbermann?

2010-01-21T07:46:00.006-06:00

Via Hotair.

How long are left wing crazies like Olbermann going to be allowed to continue to rehash the canard that the civil rights legislation of the LBJ years prompted a "white supremacist flight" to the welcoming arms of the southern (ie, racist) GOP?

In 1964, the Civil Rights Act passed by a significant majority in both chambers of Congress. To hear Olby tell the tale, this must have been due to the valiant, tireless efforts of those stalwart defenders of liberty, namely, the Democrats to defeat those vicious, craven, racist Republicans--who, don't you know, actually wore their white sheets to Capital Hill in those days.

Sounds reasonable enough. I mean, something made all those Dixie hicks switch parties.

But the trouble for Olbermann's premise is that someone forgot to burn the vote tallies after the law was enacted. From Wikipedia:

Vote totals
Totals are in "Yea-Nay" format:

The original House version: 290-130 (69%-31%)
Cloture in the Senate: 71-29 (71%-29%)
The Senate version: 73-27 (73%-27%)
The Senate version, as voted on by the House: 289-126 (70%-30%)

By party
The original House version:

Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%)
Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)

Cloture in the Senate:

Democratic Party: 44-23 (66%-34%)
Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)

The Senate version:

Democratic Party: 46-21 (69%-31%)
Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)

The Senate version, voted on by the House:

Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
Republican Party: 136-35 (80%-20%)

By party and region
Note: "Southern", as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. "Northern" refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states.

The original House version:

Southern Democrats: 7-87 (7%-93%)
Southern Republicans: 0-10 (0%-100%)
Northern Democrats: 145-9 (94%-6%)
Northern Republicans: 138-24 (85%-15%)

The Senate version:

Southern Democrats: 1-20 (5%-95%) (only Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas voted in favor)
Southern Republicans: 0-1 (0%-100%) (this was Senator John Tower of Texas)
Northern Democrats: 45-1 (98%-2%) (only Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia opposed the measure)
Northern Republicans: 27-5 (84%-16%) (Senators Barry Goldwater of Arizona, Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa, Edwin L. Mechem of New Mexico, Milward L. Simpson of Wyoming, and Norris H. Cotton of New Hampshire opposed the measure

Now, these numbers don't show that all Republicans supported the bill, nor that all Democrats opposed it. In fact, what they show is that northerners tended to support it, and southerners opposed it. Much of that southern opposition, across party lines, was owing to racism (in the case of Bobby Byrd this was undoubtedly the case; however, there were a few oddballs like Goldwater--generally a civil rights champion, and who later regretted casting "nay"--who opposed it on ideological reasons other than racism).

But what is undeniable is that this bill was supported by the vast majority of Republicans. In any vote taken in either chamber, GOP support was never lower than 80% of the total party vote. In fact, if the Republicans were the racist caricatures that Olbermann portrays, they could have killed the bill in the House from the outset. Now, Southern Republicans to a man voted nay. But might the fact that the GOP was a virtual non-entity in the south at that point somewhat elucidate which party in total more embodied the views and interests of the South in 1964? And since the vast majority of Republicans supported this legislation, might that not tell us something about how popular or "mainstream" southern racist Republicans were within their own party?

It just doesn't follow that hordes of southern voters, furious over the outcome of these proceedings, would eschew the party that in large measure voted exactly the way that the voters wanted them to; nor does it make sense that the disenchanted would then hie their little hate-filled fannies into the party that, a) supported the bill by a greater internal percentage than the Democrats, and b) would likely continue to support, at least at the national level, candidates who would embrace the equal rights platform. Maybe I'm completely wrong, and a total of eight Southern Democrats (in both chambers combined) voting in favor of the bill was enough to drive southern voters temporarily insane.

Or maybe, just some of them, just a handful, switched because they were disgusted with the hatred and meanness of Southern Democrats like Bull Connor, Bobby Byrd, and yes, Strom Thurmond, and had had enough.

Who knows. All I can say for certain is that Olbermann's premise makes utterly no sense. Man, who knew THAT could happen?

UPDATE:

I suppose it would have been asking too much to expect Stewart to avoid at least one shameless dig at a conservative (namely the Maha-Rushie), but it's worth it to watch Stewart utterly destroy Olby:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

target='_blank' style='color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-21-2010/special-comment---keith-olbermann-s-name-calling'>Special Comment - Keith Olbermann's Name-Calling

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Health Care Crisis

2010-01-19T20:39:00.005-06:00

Woot.

A number of Democrats already abandoning ship on Barrycare.

Most notably, Jim Webb and... Bahwney?

The Lesson Learned Here...

2010-01-11T07:15:00.005-06:00

Is never trust a liberal again. [Content warning on the right sidebar] Of course the western world has had plenty of previous opportunities to learn this lesson, but has instead chosen on countless occasions to repeat history.

How long do you suppose it will take before the self same lib environmentalists behind AGW attempt to take the helm of the Good Ship Global Cooling? I give it less than six months. When the press is referring to those in the global cooling camp as "some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists," the jig is pretty much up.

To say nothing of these little bits of trivia, which are apparently no longer on the media's "suppress list":

winters like this one will become much more likely. Summers will also probably be cooler, and all this may well last two decades or longer.

Prof Anastasios Tsonis, head of the University of Wisconsin Atmospheric Sciences Group, has recently shown that these [Multi-Decadal Oscillations in weather patterns] move together in a synchronised way across the globe, abruptly flipping the world’s climate from a ‘warm mode’ to a ‘cold mode’ and back again in 20 to 30-year cycles

--Gee, might that explain why libs were flipping out about global cooling a few decades back?

‘I do not believe in catastrophe theories [said Professor Tsongis]. Man-made warming is balanced by the natural cycles, and I do not trust the computer models which state that if CO2 reaches a particular level then temperatures and sea levels will rise by a given amount.

'These models cannot be trusted to predict the weather for a week, yet they are running them to give readings for 100 years.’

Uh oh. The Daily Mail is treating one of these kooky deniers as a legitimate scientist and allowing him to challenge the conventional wisdom. Better knock that off or the boys at the CRU may cancel their subscriptions.

And the doozy, not because it's anything new but because it's actually in print:

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.

This article is a prime example of the way that AGW is going to die the death of a thousand cuts. No one is going to run a story attacking the CRU or Darwin scientists outright; rather the press is just going to stop ignoring the climatologists and other scientists who haven't drunk the kool-aid. Global Warming will take its rightful place on the shelf along with previous muchadoaboutnothings like Y2K and the Bird Flu pandemic, and will be quickly forgotten.

Then, in 20 years or so, when nobody remembers any of this crap and the next MDO prompts a warming trend, we'll get to experience the fun and games all over again. Be prepared to talk your kids and grandkids down off the ledge.

Stuff you can't make up.

2010-01-10T17:47:00.003-06:00

Oh, you know I didn't mean it, you clean, articulate guy, you.

L-M-Patootie-O

Wasn't this this the guy who was just accusing Republicans of being akin to slavery apologists and segregationists for opposing Obamacare?

Oh, how sweet it is.

Of course, the democrats can't allow this to derail any aspect of their agenda, be it Obamacare, cap'n tax or anything else. Which is why the hypocrisy of the Congressional Black Caucus will be on full display through their "odd" silence on this one.

ROFL

2010-01-09T09:39:00.003-06:00

H/T Hotair

... You know, one of the reasons (I'm sure the main reason, folks) that Obama decided not to visit me in the hospital is that he thought he would heal me, and he didn't want that to happen. That has to be the reason."

Full article.

Christianity Explained, by Ann Coulter

2010-01-08T12:35:00.003-06:00

You tell 'em, Annie.

Coulter alone is thus far the only one who hasn't missed the key point of the whole Britt Hume "controversy." Hume's words--both about Christianity and about Buddhism--were, as Ann puts it, "100 percent factually correct." As I watched the clip of the "incident" on Youtube, I found myself wondering what specifically was so shocking about what Hume said.

And what he said was:

The extent to which he can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.

Ask any Buddhist if they are assured of being forgiven, if they know themselves to be redeemed, or if they have total confidence that something better awaits them in the hereafter. Depending on what kind of Buddhist you're talking to, they might not even believe in forgiveness for negative karma. And they certainly can't say for certain whether they've stored up enough good karma for an upgrade on their next "rebirth" as they struggle toward an enlightened state (Nirvana) or ultimate rebirth in the Buddhist concept of a higher, heaven-like existence. The Buddhist simply does not have assurance of forgiveness. The Christian does.

Furthermore, a Buddhist's struggle for self-improvement is simply his lone burden to bear against the world and his own fallen nature. It's him (his own merit and striving) against everything, including himself. Christians by contrast know that they're not good enough to "make a total recovery," as Hume puts it, or indeed to do anything good at all. The Christian knows that he is by nature corrupt, lousy, sinful, prone to depravity, and that, given the chance to improve himself by his own effort, he will screw it up 100% of the time.

But the good news for the Christian is that he doesn't have to be good enough. Christ did the paying of the penalty of the sin by dying on the cross, thereby stamping those who trust in him with an indelible "not guilty"; not only this, but by rising from the grave in a glorified state, Christ demonstrates to believers that not only do we not have to fear death, but we have also been transformed into new beings who are actually capable of doing right. ("Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" 2 Corinthians 5:17) Like the Apostle Paul, I can declare that if I have been "crucified with Christ," then I (old, pre-Christian me) "no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20) As I mentioned before, the Buddhist has no such similar assurance but must simply strive as best he can in an enterprise which the Christian recognizes is doomed to failure.

Truthfully, the only thing in any way shocking about Hume's remarks is that anyone would find them to be such. Of course, in order to find myself shocked by the "shock" of the "shocked," I would have to be as disingenuous, hysterical and sophomoric as they.

Oh YEAH.

2010-01-08T08:54:00.000-06:00

How much you wanna bet...

2010-01-04T11:25:00.001-06:00

That it turns out this was done by a democrat? After those racist Republicans get the blame, of course.

Um, about that CO2...

2010-01-01T10:49:00.004-06:00

Remember that vile toxin, Carbon Dioxide? The new pollution? The deadly gas that is collecting in our atmosphere in ever increasing quantities and which must be curbed NOW NOW NOW while there is still time, through whatever onerous regulations and draconian tax schemes our brilliant elected officials deem necessary?

Turns out there's been no increase in atmospheric C02 levels in the past 160 years.

In the words of Emily Litella... Oh let's just let her do the honors.

Playing Pretend

2009-12-30T09:45:00.003-06:00

Just try and get me out of your head, Barry.

Dick Cheney's 12/29/09 statement to POLITICO:

"As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of 9/11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.

“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al Qaeda trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency – social transformation—the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."

"No Indication."

2009-12-29T07:25:00.004-06:00

Me hold gun, look like warrior!

So our Homeland Security Sec says that there is no indication that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is part of a larger plot. Even though Abdulmutallab told FBI agents interrogating him something like "I'm part of a larger plot."

Oh, and there's the fact that Al Queda has claimed credit for this whole to-do.

But no indication that the botched Christmas crotch bomb was all part of something bigger. Nope.

Insufferable

2009-12-17T22:09:00.006-06:00

"Portrait of a loser"

Here's what I want to know. Why was this piece of human debris presiding over the Senate? This idiot couldn't successfully preside over the dunking of a donut in a cup of coffee.

For Franken to deny a routine courtesy to Senator Lieberman, just for the sake of spite, speaks volumes to the world about what a skidmark on the underwear of society the junior Senator from Minnesota is.

Few things make me really, really angry anymore about politics. The farce that is Senator Al Franken is one of those few things. It is exceedingly difficult not to despise this worthless wad of bloody phlegm.

Smackdown, Texas Style

2009-12-17T07:43:00.003-06:00

The Architect gives Obama a much needed, long overdue taking over the knee.

Favorite quote:

...This kind of attack gives Mr. Obama's words a slippery quality. For example, he voted for the bank rescue plan in September 2008 and praised it during the campaign. Yet on Dec. 8 at the Brookings Institution, Mr. Obama called it "flawed" and blamed "the last administration" for launching it "hastily."

Really? Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and New York Fed President Timothy Geithner designed it. If it was "flawed," why did Mr. Obama later nominate Mr. Bernanke to a second term as Fed chairman and make Mr. Geithner his Treasury secretary?

What it's all about

2009-12-16T07:10:00.003-06:00

So a little boy in Taunton MA gets sent home from school and "ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation" after drawing this picture for an assignment to "sketch something that remind[ed him] of Christmas."

Stories here and here.

Now I know what you're thinking. "How dare the boy's teacher use the word "Christmas" in a public school!" No, actually you're not thinking that, because no normal, sane person thinks that way. But such (pardon the redundancy) insane political correctness (pervasive in our culture to the extent that Lowes now sells "Holiday Trees," and Target eschews the Salvation Army bell ringers at Christmas time) is a symptom of the sort of depraved mentality that would cause a teacher to be horrified by a depiction of one of the Stations of the Cross. Growing up Catholic, I observed images similar to this boy's depiction every day in Parochial school and every Sunday at mass. Does this boy's teacher, principal, superintendent, school board, etc., believe that parochial school should be closed, and all the students therein subjected to psychiatric evaluation?

But more to the point. My first response when I read this article was "when I think of Christmas, I am reminded of the crucifixion too." Of what does this idiot teacher suppose Christmas is to remind one? Santa? Tell the kid to draw a picture of Santa. Or a tree. Or Washington crossing the Delaware on Christmas night, 1776 (as if there's anything laudable in THAT). The point is, for a lot of people, Christmas is about the first six letters in the word "Christmas." For a lot of people, it is about Jesus Christ coming into the world. So that He could preach that He is "the way, the truth and the life," and that none would come to the Father except through Him; to demonstrate, through miraculous signs and wonders, that He was who He said He was (and is)--God; to raise up and train the men who would lead His conquest of souls, and then, most importantly, to die. Jesus Christ was born to die. To be slain, as payment for the sins of mankind. And to rise, as Lord and Savior to all who would believe in him and receive his atonement for them.

It is impossible for me to think about Christmas and not think about the fact that it is about a little baby who was born precisely to die. For me. I don't know that an eight year old could have drawn a more appropriate picture of the meaning of Christmas. If anyone needs psychiatric help, it's his teacher.

Merry Muppets

2009-12-15T07:08:00.000-06:00

Via Hotair:

Merry Christmas

Kinda says it all, don't it?

2009-12-10T10:20:00.002-06:00

Photo currently under the banner on Drudge.

Gadzooks.

2009-12-10T07:54:00.001-06:00

Meant to post this yesterday.

...a six degree per century trend? And in the shape of a regular stepped pyramid climbing to heaven? What’s up with that?

LOL of the Day.

2009-12-10T07:36:00.001-06:00

"A" is for...

"Not a Baby."

2009-12-10T07:31:00.001-06:00

HT Ed Morrissey

Oh. My. Word.

2009-12-08T07:27:00.002-06:00

There is absolutely no way that Harry Reid will not be forced to offer some kind of retraction, if not apology, for this statement.

Apparently Harry failed to learn from Dick Durbin's little snafu. Reid rushes in where fools fear to tread.

Bah-dum-bah.

2009-12-07T09:32:00.002-06:00

Hey kids, here's a fun game. Unfortunately I can't get this all in one browser so there's a little setup work on your part.

Step 1: Open this link in another window. Minimize both windows so they fit side by side on your monitor.

Step 2: watch this video, and every time he finishes a sentence, push the red button in the other browser window.

THAT'll Learn 'em!

2009-12-07T08:28:00.002-06:00

Steven Hayward, the only man to ever accurately report on the link between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, shares an email (on which he was cc'd)from U of I Global Cooling Denier Michael Schlesinger to NT Times Science Reporter Andy Revkin. The gist: Mike is peeved at Andy for what he perceives to be Andy's less than total devotion to the party line.

The bestest exerpt evah:

But, I sense that you are about to experience the 'Big Cutoff' from those of us who believe we can no longer trust you, me included.

Dude, it makes about as much sense for you to refuse to play nice with the NY Times as it would have made for Stalin to spurn Times reporter Walter Durranty. Never bite the hand that spins the illusion for you.

Bizarro World

2009-12-02T11:58:00.002-06:00

Wouldja believe...

What Bizarro World do we live in where the views of a global warming skeptic are reported as if they are credible?

I have to resist the eyeroll impulse at the Express's reporting certain long-known facts as if they are just coming to light for the first time (the Vikings grew crops in Greenland during the middle ages? The HELL you say!). Still, better late that never.

Update on Climate Change Snowjob

2009-11-30T07:53:00.002-06:00

Eduardo Zorita, PhD, one of the contributors to the UN IPCC, weighs in on the scandal of the millennium.

A few items of note:

One, we have an IPCC contributor reiterating in print, again, that the "hockey stick" graph is a lie.

Two, he notes, almost casually, the history of intimidation behind this tight knit bunch of con artists. He makes mention that his own career may suffer for speaking out against Jones, Mann & Co. and also comments on the pressure put on up and coming scientists to tow the AGW line.

So much for impartial objectivity and the rigorous pursuit of scientific truth.

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter

2009-11-27T18:33:00.005-06:00

Possibly the most underrated, undernoticed, underappreciated guitarist ever, showing how it's done in an instructional video. Far worse ways to spend 10 minutes of your life.

Plus the Japanese subtitles are trippy.

Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation

2009-11-26T09:11:00.001-06:00

City of New York, Oct. 3, 1789

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th. day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and Us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Now I can die happy.

2009-11-25T09:15:00.000-06:00

HT Allahpundit

Tee Hee

2009-11-25T08:10:00.006-06:00

UPDATE 3: A reminder to Global Warming devotees who wish to debunk the claim that global temps haven't risen since 1998: said claim was issued by the very people they now seek to defend. Which kinda sorta of means they're on the hook to accept the "1998" assertion as fact...right? Or does their defense of the CRU only extend to explaining away damning emails?

UPDATE 2: A refresher on the "Hockey Stick" Fraud seems in order, since some of the Climategate "scientists" were the self same fabricators of this lie.

UPDATE: Robert Tracinski touches on all the salient points thus far, and points out on thing that the others have all missed: the criminality of this scam.

No Schadenfreude here

It's over

2009-11-25T07:07:00.002-06:00

If these brave SEALs are convicted for the crime of which they are accused, namely, giving terrorist scumbag Ahmed Hashim Abed a fat lip, then Western Civilization is dead. We might as well all bend over, grab ankles and let the barbarian savages have their way with us.

That these fine men are even being brought up on charges is a travesty. Abed was the mastermind of the murder of four Blackwater sercurity guards in Fallujah in 2004. You might remember that the corpses of those American civilians were dragged through the streets and some were then hanged from a bridge spanning the Euphrates. You might remember how the international community of vultures known as "The Press" flocked to that bridge to photograph those bodies, thus giving Abed and his fellow terrorists a much larger platform by which to broadcast their "message." You might remember how Markos Moulitsas eulogized those murdered Americans with those two little words, "screw 'em."

Much like the New York City trial of Khalid Sheik Muhammed, the treatment of these three brave Navy SEALs in this fashion is the re-gouging and liberal application of salt to a wound just barely beginning to heal. If our brave men and women in the Armed Forces are rewarded with such contempt for their heroism, it will be small wonder if fewer and fewer of them enlist. The decision to prosecute these enlisted men can be traced back to the limp wristed policies of liberal, self-loathing civilians. When simply arresting a villain like Abed has become for our protectors an act of altruism, it makes me wonder how much more abuse our protectors will take before they decide that we can fend for ourselves.

Bye Bye, Twitter

2009-11-24T10:14:00.003-06:00

So I deleted my Twitter account yesterday.

I actually sort of deleted it once before, but being a weak man, I re-enstated it within the grace period that Twitter allows for wishy washy types like me to change their minds. This time, it's a done deal. Not saying I'll never open another Twitter account, but I'm going to stay away for the indefinite future.

I love Twitter. Probably too much. It's a great deal of fun to try to express a thought in 140 characters or less. And it was far more dynamic experience to engage with the 1,800 or so people who were following me there, than jotting my thoughts down here, where they may or may not ever be seen by the 4 people who may or may not still be followers of this blog.

But I realized I didn't like the person I was projecting on Twitter. Twitter had, for me, almost exclusively become a forum to type sarcastic and mean spirited things about liberals generally and Obama specifically. My chief aim in life is to glorify Christ. I am, in John Piper's words, "to make Christ look magnificent." To say that some of my tweets fell short of that is an understatement in the extreme. My heart is prone to sarcasm and bile. I revel in it. I have at times fancied myself an artist of the medium. I have been an idiot and I have harmed the cause of Christ.

And since I'm not the sort of person to tweet things like "Standing in line at TJ Maxx. Sale on bedding!" or the sort of Christian who tweets prayers or verses that no one is going to bother reading, I decided that there was really no use for Twitter anymore.

This is not to say I won't continue to excoriate liberal idiocy on this blog.

It seems like the previous statement should be followed with a "but..." but I really don't have anything to add to that.

Velvet Elvis

2009-11-20T21:18:00.003-06:00

The following is a letter to my pastor, who several years ago gave me a copy of Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis. We'd had a few conversations about the Emergent Church and he was interested in my take on Bell's book.

Hi ___. After about 5 years or so I've finally finished Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis. Since you went to the trouble of buying it for me I figure I might as well go to the trouble of telling you what I think. Because you know how hard I find it to share my opinion about anything.

Rob Bell strikes me as a great guy. It's clear he loves Jesus and he loves people. He has a sincere desire to see the hurt and broken find restoration in Jesus. As you might imagine I have problems with some of his theology. I'll just try to hit a few key points:

Bell has a real problem with this or that person or denomination saying they have a "definitive" understanding of the Bible. Which is all well and good, if any of us claim to have a pure revelation of what God would communicate to us, we might as well write it down and tack it on to the end of the Bible. But Bell takes this to the extreme of almost saying it's impossible to really understand God's word. As he puts it "only God is absolute, and he has no intention of sharing his absoluteness with anyone." (Really? Does that include things like truth?) He calls the Christian faith a "paradox" to which we "never come to the end," (really? Not even in Heaven?) and goes so far as to quote "one of the great theologians of our time, Sean Penn," who said "the mystery is the truth." (in response, I quote the great theologian Me, who said, "what the flipping flarn is that supposed to mean?") The amalgamation of truth, and thus, the principles of our theology, should not be thought of as "bricks," which are static and inflexible and rough and which together form a wall to keep people out; but as "springs" on a trampoline, which are pliable and flexible and change, and which invite us to jump on the trampoline of faith to which they are attached.

Of course my immediate response to this is, when it comes to one's theology, how stretchy is too stretchy? Can we make God into a woman? Can we make the Trinity a quartet? After all, if only God is absolute, and if he's not going to share his absoluteness with anyone, let's have some fun with our theology, because, you know, it's all relative.

Also, Bell wants to have his cake and eat it too with this. After waxing ecstatic about his happy stretchy laughy taffy theology, he writes things like:

"But sometimes when I hear people quote the Bible, I just want to throw up."

And: "Sometimes when people are backing up their points and the Bible is used to prove that they are right, everything within me says "There is no way that's what God meant by that verse."

Now hold on a minute there, Tex. Don't go lobbing bricks at other people's trampolines. After all, as you say,"God has spoken, and the rest is commentary."

Well, if the "mystery is the truth," and we therefore can't really figure out which ways to interpret scripture are the right ways or the wrong ways (except those ways that Rob KNOWS are wrong. Trust him. He's a pastor.), where do we go from there?

Well, this brings us to the second point about Bell's theology that I'm not so wild about: he doesn't seem to leave enough room for God to help us not screw it up, and grants too much room for human beings working together to come to the right conclusions. Here's another excerpt:

"Notice what Jesus says in the book of Matthew: "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth with be loosed in heaven."

"What he is doing here is significant. He is giving his followers the authority to make new interpretations of the Bible. He is giving them permission to say 'Hey, we think we missed it before on that verse, and we've recently come to the conclusion that this is what it actually means."

"And not only is he giving them authority, but ...somehow God in heaven will be involved."

Now to be fair, Bell at least allows God to be "involved" in this. But [in this passage] Jesus was not giving "his followers", i.e., every Christian everywhere, this special authority (whatever in fact this "binding and loosing" is referring to). No, Jesus gives this authority to one person in particular: Peter, the person to whom he is speaking in the quote. Jesus gave Peter the revelation of God to write things that we now identify as scripture. Is Rob Bell saying that we have all been given this authority?

He doesn't go that far. But he spends a long time talking about this "binding and loosing" thing, suggesting, as in the quote above, that Jesus gives "his followers the authority to make new interpretations of the Bible." Does this make you a little leery? It does me. How do we prevent Christians from taking scripture and riding a one-way train to crazy town? Why, through other flawed human beings holding each other accountable, of course. Bell says this about the early church: "They gather together and make interpretations of the Bible regarding what it will look like for millions of people to be Christians."

Um, I thought, like, the early church was led by these apostle dudes, who had, like, the direct revelation of the Holy Spirit, and um, like, wrote things that weren't interpretations of scripture, but the scriptures themselves? Or something?

Oh well, at least we know that "somehow God will be involved." What's the worst that could happen? David Koresh? Who's that?

I jest a bit and he does say in other places in the book that he affirms that the Bible is "inspired" (no potential ambiguity in that term). But I'm disturbed that so much of Bell's theology rests on a bunch of humans rolling the dice and using their best guesses as they blindly cobble together this thing called Christianity, as opposed to the providence of God enabling them to work alongside God as God brings about what God wants. Bell has an extraordinarily high view of humanity and portrays a very laid-back God--indeed a God of borderline deism, who "has spoken," but has stepped back to allow his people to provide "commentary."

Consider this: " What do we find frustrates [Jesus] to no end? When his disciples lose faith in themselves... Notice how many places Jesus gets frustrated with his disciples. Because they are incapable? No, because of how capable they are...It isn't their failure that's the problem, it's their greatness."

Silly me, I thought Jesus got miffed when they lost faith in him, not themselves.

And this: "Jesus himself leaves the future of the movement in their hands. And he doesn't stick around to make sure they don't screw it up. He's gone."

Maybe it's my increasing lurch toward Calvinism, but I find that this is a borderline blasphemous statement about God's sovereignty. Jesus hasn't left anything in their hands, at least not exclusively. He is in control, right now.

Lastly I guess I'm concerned by Bell's apparent lack of concern for the lost. Bell is very concerned with loving people and introducing them to the love of Christ. He doesn't seem so concerned with whether they make it into the kingdom of Heaven or not. To his credit, he talks about sin, about the atonement of the cross, about hell. But he doesn't make much distinction between what he calls "hell on earth" and Hell in the eternal sense:

"The church must stop thinking about everybody primarily in the categories of in or out, saved or not, believer or nonbeliever. Besides the fact that these terms are offensive to those who are the "un" and "non," they work against Jesus' teachings about how we are to treat each other." How does that follow, exactly? How does recognizing that some people are saved and some are not translate AT ALL into how we are supposed to treat people? Are we to love the lost any less? Don't remember reading that. This is a complete straw man. As to the notion of being "offensive." Do people who are not Christians, get offended when identified as non Christians? Is that a pejorative somehow? Does the driver of a Chevy Impala get offended when you point out that their car is not a Buick Sable? If Bell is talking about screaming "sinner!" at people of course I agree with him, but who does that anymore? Can we let that hackneyed stereotype go? Can we recognize that it's actually a good thing to want people to be saved, in fact that it is very loving thing?

Apparently not, for about evangelism, he says "when there is an agenda, it isn't really love, is it?" To which I respond, so I didn't love ____ when I set out to win her as my wife? Of course love has an agenda. And furthermore, I say Rob Bell is a liar, [because he does have an agenda:]if Rob Bell doesn't have an agenda on Sunday morning, namely, to draw people into a deeper relationship with God, then I say Rob Bell is unloving.

Then there's this: "What's disturbing is when people talk more about hell after this life than they do about hell here and now." he refers to a genocide in Rwanda as "A hell on earth." I don't want to diminish the dreadfulness of any human suffering, ever. But quite frankly, the worst day humanity has ever had is nothing compared to an eternity removed from the presence of God. Genocide doesn't even come close. I get it that Rob Bell has a passion for people, I really do. I'm shamed by my own lack of compassion in comparison. But this theology runs the risk, if I may turn a phrase, of being "so earthly minded that it's of no heavenly good." Bell makes it clear that he isn't interested in people being saved so much as loved (again, he's the one who says we have to stop thinking about people as "saved or not") and I'm afraid he's loving people right into hell.

Aaand, I'm just throwing this one in as a parting shot. I'm sorry. I'm a weak man. Here's Bell's definition of a Christian:

"My understanding is that to be a Christian is to do whatever it is that you do with great passion and devotion."

Really? What if you're a prostitute?

Let me know what you think. If I sound acerbic please understand that I'm attacking the man's ideas and not the man. Rob Bell comes across like a great guy and if met him I'm sure I'd like him a lot and want to hang around him. I know he's an old acquaintance of yours so I hope you realize this is nothing personal.

I guess in closing, I'll say, I know you mentioned that the [my church] uses some of Bell's resources for small groups, and I have to say that having read this book, it bugs me. Not a whole heck of a lot, but some. However, if ____ and ____ chose to embrace Bell's theology on Sunday morning, I think that would probably prompt us to find a new church.

Take care.

Who you gonna believe, Al or your own eyes?

2009-11-20T12:03:00.006-06:00

Hacked emails show that even global warming activists aren't smoking what they're selling.

This on the heels of the news that Al Gore was photoshopping pics of gaia.

But fear not, all ye baldfaced liars. We increasingly think you are all full of crap anyway, so it's not like this is going to cause a backlash. On with the show.

Am I killing? Yup.

2009-11-07T11:21:00.001-06:00

At least this guy knows what a ________ he is.

Magically Delicious

2009-09-19T12:07:00.002-05:00

This is an O'Keefe video that I will post. Back from his college days, protesting Rutgers' racially insensitive policy of selling Lucky Charms in their dining halls. Get ready to laugh.

Part I

Part II

OMG II

2009-09-17T09:30:00.000-05:00

UPDATE on previous ACORN sting vid post: Another video, this time in San Diego. No murder confessions or former madams in this one folks. No, all that happens this time is that the ACORN staffer advises them to move their operation to Tijuana so as to avoid US Law Enforcement. "Trust the Mexican people," he says.

Oh, and he also offers to become Giles and O'Keefe's business partner.

Oh, and he would also like to hire Giles for her services.

If I sound like I'm not alarmed, it's because every time I think ACORN can't get any lower, they do. At this point I wouldn't be suprised if there's another video in which an ACORN staffer actually trots out an underage girl for the Giles and O'Keefe's characters to use to drum up business.

Heh.

2009-09-16T18:00:00.000-05:00

from Cuffy Meigs [H/T Ed Morrissey]

Oh My God.

2009-09-15T21:42:00.005-05:00

So I've been following, but haven't wanted to post, the videos made by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles that have been trickling out over the past few days. There are now at least three videos filmed at ACORN branches(the first in Washington DC, the second in New York, and the third, described below, in San Bernadino California) of which I'm aware in which O'Keefe and Giles, posing respectively as a pimp and a prostitute, sit down with ACORN staffers and receive advice on how to set up a prostitution business without getting caught. In these videos they not only are completely open about the business they propose to start, but also go to pains to point out that their intent is to smuggle in underage girls from other countries. In every instance, the ACORN staffers, rather than recoil in horror or threaten to call the police, willingly and enthusiastically advise the two undercover journalists on exactly how to go about engaging in human trafficking without getting caught.

Reaction to these videos thus far has been interesting. The Census Bureau announced almost immediately that they will no longer do business with ACORN. The Senate finally got around to voting to de-fund them yesterday. Interestingly, the mainstream media has universally decided to avoid this story, with Charlie Gibson today going so far as to suggest he'd never heard of any of this before today (His colleague at ABC, Jake Tapper, first reported on this story last Friday). As with the Van Jones story, my hat is off to Glenn Beck for dragging this story into the limelight. ACORN, for their part, has continued to posture sanctimonious (the have at least fired the staffers who appeared in the first two videos), claimed these were only isolated incidents, and has even gone so far as to threaten to sue the undercover reporters.

That's more or less where things stood until earlier today, when O'Keefe and Giles released a new video which will be all but impossible for the MSM to ignore. In this video, filmed at the San Bernadino ACORN chapter, Keefe and Giles more or less go through their same routine, only this time the staffer goes beyond just being helpful. Herself a former madam, the staffer not only lets the masquerade pimp and hooker in on the tips, and, if you will...tricks, of the trade, but also lets slip that she murdered her own husband after carefully and methodically plotting to make it look like self defense. Not only that, but the staffer threatens, on camera, to murder another individual to whom she had previously sent Keefe and Giles to receive further advice.

It would be suicide for the MSM not to get on the bandwagon at this point. Here's hoping they opt for suicide.

As with the other videos, I'm choosing not to post this latest one. But is so much more of a bombshell than even the previous two videos (I still can't believe that's possible), that i'll link it here. There are some gratuitous cheesecake shots of Giles decked out in her ho costume, caveat reader.

Your President's buddies, folks. Your President's buddies.

2 Million

2009-09-12T15:29:00.002-05:00

You go, my brethren and sisth..ren.

Silent no more. A majority still.

Details here.

Look at that picture. Heckuva lot o' voters there. If this doesn't kill the "health insurance reform" bill and the rest of the democrats' ultraliberal agenda (remember, the Senate still has to vote on the Cap & Tax bill that Congress passed. With the help of this piece of trash RINO who wants to be my next Senator), I don't know what will.

Oh wait, yes I do. The midterms!!

MJ

2009-09-12T12:12:00.003-05:00

I didn't want to discuss this on the day it happened, for obvious reasons, but I must take a moment to congratulate Michael Jeffrey Jordan on his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Michael Jordan was, is, and forever will be the greatest basketball player in the universe.

It is impossible to put into words what Michael Jordan meant to the game of basketball and what he meant to Chicago sports fans. His era--no, not the era in which he played--was something that I don't know will ever be paralleled. Even if my Cubbies ever win the World Series, I still don't think it will be the same.

As a fan of any sport, I have never had the kind of assurance that my team was going to win the way I did during Michael's era. Err, that is, once the spell of the Detroit Pistons was finally broken. And, there was that first partial season back from retirement, the last regrettable play of which was a generous Jordan feed to the fat and regrettable Luc Longley. But let's not dwell there.

Okay, I'll dwell there for just a second longer, just to say this. I will never forget the date I bought my Les Paul. March 18, 1995. What does this have to do with basketball, you ask? Well, as I was driving out of the Guitar Center lot with my new guitar, I turned on the radio and was greeted by two words. "I'm back."

For each of the six years of the era of Michael that the Bulls won the championship, you just knew they were going to win the championship. You just knew it. It was not not going to happen.

I remember during the '97 finals against the Jazz, the day of game 5. The series was tied 2-2, with the Jazz having won games 3 and 4. My boss was worried because momentum seemed to be going the way of Utah. "Relax," I told her. "This is Michael Jordan we're talking about. We're going to win."

That night, Jordon scored 38 points. With the stomach flu. The Bulls won that night, and the next. Done deal.

I won't go all girly describing his numerous other superhuman plays and feats, including the last basket he ever made as a Bull.

Oops, how'd that get there?

I'm also not going to dwell too much on his personal life. Like most professional athletes, he's had flaws a plenty, and he's done plenty of things that have disappointed me or ticked me off. I'd rather not go there right now. I'd rather just sit here in amazement and think that Chicago, my home town, the town whose professional teams just don't win, plain and simple (what, you expect some love from me for the South Side Apemen?), once had this man. And I got to watch him. I got to watch his entire career as a Bull. Like the song says, they can't take that away from me.

2009-09-11T15:01:00.002-05:00

[H/T Girlontheright]

UPDATE: In honor of 9/11 and it's stark and necessary reminder that evil exists and must be fought until our dying breaths, I'm adding a video presentation I put together a while ago that presents many different faces of evil. I deliberately chose not to include footage of 9/11 in this piece. I'm not sure why, maybe it's too sacred. But this video nevertheless seems appropriate to share it on a day for reflection on all that we hold dear, all that we must preserve, and all that must be fought, to the death if necessary. It's set to the tune of Mad World by Gary Jules, a particularly haunting and beautiful song. I was perhaps trying to do to much with this so my apologies if it moves too fast. Also the resolution seems to be a bit worse for wear from the youtube conversion and the font size is a little small if you don't full screen it.

God bless. God bless America.

Stupid White Fat Bastard

2009-09-07T09:25:00.004-05:00

I'LL EAT YOUR BABY!

Capitalism is Evil, concludes stupid white fat bastard Michael Moore in his latest film.

Don't recall reading anywhere in the article that Moore plans not to keep any profit that his film generates. Perhaps that speaks to the level of optimism that it will generate any.

One Less Fat Lecherous Liberal Drunk

2009-08-29T10:36:00.003-05:00

So Teddy Kennedy died.

I suppose one is obligated to offer some comment when someone as historically significant as Theodore Kennedy passes. But really, what is there to say? His politics were a detriment to the health of his country. He partook in the most vile sort of partisan ad hominem and bile over the course of his career. His personal behavior was beyond repugnant. He was a fat, lecherous liberal drunk who got away with murder.

I realize I'm speaking ill of the dead, and perhaps some of my recent tweets were beyond the pale. Or maybe not. I'll reprint them here for your consideration:

Ted Kennedy got kicked out of Harvard for cheating, and was let back in. Ted Kennedy left a girl to drown in 7 feet of water and didn't report it for over ten hours. Ted Kennedy led the inquisitions against Supreme Court nominees Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. About his political views, I don't have much to say. He was a liberal, I'm not, we had mutually exclusive views about what is good for the country. I can't really damn him for not agreeing with me. But there are liberals out there like Joe Lieberman, or like the late Sen. Paul Simon, who hold or held views that I think are wrong and harmful for the country, and yet at the same time are not utter douchebags as people.

A final thought about Chappaquiddick and the sad short life of Mary Jo Kopechne. If I were to drive off a bridge at night, and plunge into a body of water, I can't honestly say what I would do as the water rushed in and as panic immediately ensued. In fact, there is a stretch of road near my house where the curb comes perilously close--a mere 5 feet away--from a small lake. Many times as I've driven along that stretch I have prayed and asked God that if anything were to happen as either my wife or I were driving our minivan with our three kids in the back--and our van plunged into that lake--that God would give my wife or me the grace, courage and wherewithal to get everyone out safely. I've never been underwater inside a car at night; and never having been in that situation, while I can chest pound and talk tough all I want, the fact of the matter is I can't guarantee what I would do.

But I'm pretty sure of this: If I were in that car with a woman who was not my wife, and if I was drunk as a skunk, and if I then went about trying to cover and obfuscate and create a story to save my own skin while the girl's corpse was sitting trapped in a car underwater... Well, let's just say at the very least I would recognize that it was the end of any hopes I had ever harbored for a career in public service.

But truthfully, I don't see myself, in that situation, stopping there. Because while I am a flawed human being, and while I do screw up a lot, I have this thing called a conscience. And I think that had I not damn near killed myself trying to get that girl out of the water, and failing at that, had not immediately contacted law enforcement to report what I had done, well, let's just say the next time I got into my car, I might have been sorely tempted to first close the garage door and snake a hose from the exhaust pipe through driver's side window.

The Last Kennedy Brother

2009-08-26T18:20:00.000-05:00

According to Chris Matthews, anyway. What Mama Rose didn't know didn't hurt her, apparently.

When will we FINALLY overcome race and elect a black man President of the United States, people? WHEN?

Levity

2009-08-19T23:47:00.001-05:00

Letter to the Editor, Daily Herald

2009-08-19T22:26:00.003-05:00

To: fencepost@dailyherald.com

August 19, 2009

I'm a voter in the 8th district who is absolutely disgusted with the flagrant disregard that Congresswoman Melissa Bean has shown her constituents over the recess.

As a father of three, one of whom has special needs, I have an enormous stake in the health care bill that awaits Congress when it convenes next month. I have called the Congresswoman’s office just about every day since the recess began to inquire about town halls or an opportunity to meet Bean at her office. An enterprising undergrad could fashion a considerably entertaining drinking game out of the stonewalling that met my every call.

Every time the staffer says “the schedule is still being finalized,” take a shot!

Every time they say take your contact info and say “we’ll get back to you, “two shots and a Jäger bomb!"

I did not find out about tonight’s “tele-townhall” as a result of anyone getting back to me. I learned of it when I called Bean’s office yesterday. Bean’s staffer took my phone number and assured me that I would be connected to the conference call.

They were true to their word. I was connected to tonight’s call, but was not one of the lucky few who got to speak to Bean. I listened to the “meeting”, and after Bean disconnected I had the opportunity to make my feelings known in a voice recording that Bean will probably never hear.

This method of communicating with constituents is unacceptable. If we can get out and vote for our public officials, they can take one day per recess to meet with us face to face. Were she otherwise flawless, I would still say that Bean should be defeated in the next election for this snub to the 8th District.

Geoff White

Melissa the Coward

2009-08-19T20:48:00.003-05:00

My previous escapades with Melissa Bean's office have been blogged upon here.

Despite my skepticism, Bean's people were true to their word and connected me with the call. I was pleasantly surprised.

Of course this "tele-townhall" was still a carefully controlled environment, and who knows how many of the other people in the line were plants. The event was basically set up like a talk radio show, where you wait in a queue and get connected when and for as long (or as brief) as they wish.

All of the calls were screened in advance. One of Bean's staffers connected with me to ask what my question was. Alas, I let the cat out of the bag that I wasn't going to be a softball call, and--coincidence, most certainly!--my turn with the Congresswoman never came.

This method of communicating with one's constituents is completely unacceptable. If we can get off our asses and go out and vote for our public officials, they can take a day out of their recess to meet with us face to face. If we're worthy of their pleas for our votes, we're worthy of an in-person meeting. In fact I think there ought to be legislation mandating this, with an obligatory congressional censure for any representatives that fail to comply.

Were she flawless in every other way, I would still say that Congresswoman Bean should be defeated in the next election for this blantant demonstration of disregard for her constituents.

Here's a summary of my tweets of the event, from most recent to oldest:

#Beanteletownhall: Well, surprise surprise! My turn with the old Bean never came.
less than 5 seconds ago from web

#Beanteletownhall OH MY WORD. Bean just said that public option would be self sustaining and not dependent upon tax dollars.
24 minutes ago from web

#Beanteletownhall: "budget-neutral" doesn't mean no new taxes.
32 minutes ago from web

#Beanteletownhall now she's trying to say that the co-ops will be exclusively at the state level. Right.
43 minutes ago from web

#Beanteletownhall what a farce. One of Bean's todies just got online to ask "what my question is." Yeah, they're gonna let me talk to her.
about 1 hour ago from web

#Beanteletownhall She just praised herself for supporting Cash for Clunkers.
about 1 hour ago from web

#Beanteletownhall Blah blah blah, I included a measure on water treatment...
about 1 hour ago from web

#Beanteletownhall now patting herself on back for voting for porkulus.
about 1 hour ago from web

#Beanteletownhall Right now she's reading her CV. I'm on this committee, that committee, blah blah blah
about 1 hour ago from web

I got the call! Joining Bean's conference call right now. Any requests?
about 1 hour ago from web

Elevators And The Nanny State

2009-08-18T23:50:00.000-05:00

Occasionally my work requires me to walk to a high rise office building about two blocks away from my office. The other day, as I entered the lobby, I found that the usual panel with the little "up" and "down" buttons, ubiquitous to elevators everywhere, had been removed. Instead of that familiar elevatorial sight, there was a rather ATM-ish looking kiosk in the middle of the lobby. On it, above a keypad, was a screen which read "enter the floor of your destination." I punched in the number ten, and was instructed to proceed to my assigned hoist, elevator "E."

I complied passively, and moved toward the closed doors of elevator "E," which at the moment was on some other floor. I experienced some mild annoyance as the doors to elevators other than "E" opened with a beep to let their passengers on or off. To make matters worse, there were building attendants in the lobby directing traffic, as if we were all too stupid to recognize the first five or six letters of the alphabet. Another elevator opened, and for a moment the thought "screw it, I'll just take this one" crossed my mind; but as I moved toward this open elevator that was not "E," I beheld a most distressing sight: a little display on the inside of the elevator's doorway, placed there no doubt to prevent naughty little passengers like myself from doing what I was about to do, informed me that the elevator in question that was not "E" was programmed for that particular run to stop at floors 11 and 20 exclusively. Since I was bound for floor 10, not 11 or 20, I moved back toward the doors to elevator "E" with a woebegone schuffle.

Before long, elevator "E" arrived, and I boarded the elevator eager to be about my business on the tenth floor and then to beat as hasty a retreat as possible from the building with these conveyors of denigration. Upon entering the lift, I met with a second surprise, this one even more nauseating: The console with all the buttons I was used to pushing, the one into which I had absently poked commands times before, had been covered by a metallic box. They didn't just remove the console and replace it with something useful like a mirror, or at least made the area blend in with the rest of the wall. No, they slapped on a large, obnoxious, unavoidable protrusion about the size and shape of a large Fed Ex box. There it hung, bolted there as if to mock me, as if to say, "oh, the buttons are still here. They haven't been removed; they're now within my shiny gold plated confines, safe and sound. But they're not for you, nondescript, unimportant person. We command your destiny now. Content yourself that we are taking you to your destination, and worry yourself not with the details." A small key lock toward the bottom of the box, it too seemingly placed prominently, as if to taunt me, served as a rueful reminder that somewhere within the building, at that very moment, some BIG SHOT with the key could have accessed those buttons if he wanted to. Oh, yes. He could.

I arrived on the tenth floor and realized that I had really wanted the eleventh floor.

After an abbreviated reenactment of the humiliating ritual I was on floor eleven. At least I'm still allowed to open the frigging office door, I thought, as I entered the foreordained suite. I picked up the documents for which I had come, and I couldn't help asking one of the young ladies in the office what she thought of the new elevator system. Much like myself, she despised them. She couldn't say for certain whether the cars came or went faster or not, she (like I) simply knew she hated the assigned rides.

I walked back to the bank of elevators and obediently typed the ground floor as my destination in the console. One other fellow waited in front of our assigned door. I also asked him for his impression.

"They work okay," he said, "when everybody does what they're supposed to."

When everybody does what they're supposed to. When nobody hops on an elevator they didn't request, or gets off at a floor they didn't name as their destination. When nobody demonstrates an iota of free will, but instead docilely shuffles in and out of his or her preassigned cattle car.

There's no other way to put it: these elevators piss me off. I mean, I realize that whether I punch a destination into a console in the lobby or once ensconced in the car itself, it is I who pushes the button and who determines his end point. And 99 times out of 100, I am not going to veer from the course charted, by me, at the beginning of my ride: If I type 10th floor, I (usually) want to go to the 10th floor. But that little loss of liberty, illusory or otherwise (hey, what if I suddenly and randomly decide that I want to get off at the 7th floor as I'm halfway to 10?) is an irritable bridge too far. Am I never going to ride those elevators again? Hardly. But they piss me off, just the same. Am I going to do anything about it?

No. That's the honest truth. As William F. Buckley pointed out in his magnum opus "Why Don't We Complain?"

we are all increasingly anxious in America to be unobtrusive, we are reluctant to make our voices heard, hesitant about claiming our right; we are afraid that our cause is unjust, or that if it is not unjust, that it is ambiguous; or if not even that, that it is too trivial to justify the horrors of a confrontation with Authority; we will sit in an oven or endure a racking headache before undertaking a head-on, I'm-here-to-tell-you complaint. That tendency to passive compliance, to a heedless endurance, is something to keep one's eyes on -- in sharp focus.

I think the observable reluctance of the majority of Americans to assert themselves in minor matters is related to our increased sense of helplessness in an age of technology and centralized political and economic power. For generations, Americans who were too hot, or too cold, got up and did something about it. Now we call the plumber, or the electrician, or the furnace man. The habit of looking after our own needs obviously had something to do with the assertiveness that characterized the American family familiar to readers of American literature. With the technification of life goes our direct responsibility for our material environment, and we are conditioned to adopt a position of helplessness not only as regards the broken air conditioner, but as regards the over-heated train. It takes an expert to fix the former, but not the latter; yet these distinctions, as we withdraw into helplessness, tend to fade away.

And I, I'm afraid to say, am very much a creature of the times. I will not shake my tiny fist at the building management/politburo that inflicted this insulting, demeaning elevator system upon the tenants--who keep the management/politburo in BUSINESS, for crying out loud-- and visitors of the building. Irrespective of whether bitching about it would lead to any change or not. Americans don't bitch for the sake of bitching anymore, at least not those of us who are too busy working and getting on with our lives to take the time. (People denied their Popeye's Chicken are another matter).

And this trend is disturbing to say the least. We're used to getting screwed, and we just don't get that bothered about it anymore. For example: A friend of mine told me that a surefire way to kill Obama's "public option" health care bill would be to draw attention to the fact that the politicians won't have to take this plan for themselves. My response: Are you kidding? We know they're going to carve a sweeter deal for themselves. We know there are two sets of rules. That doesn't even phase us anymore.

I am heartened, however, that we as a people are demonstrating that there is a length to wish you can no longer push us without us swinging back. People are not sitting still and allowing the liberals in Washington to take our health care away. We murmured at the bank bailouts. We snapped a bit at porkulus. We started to shout after Cap and Tax and now that they've come for our health care, we are shaking the rafters with our voices. It took a while to wake us up, but we appear to be awake. For now.

Compared to that, an annoying elevator system is obviously small potatoes. But it's not minuscule potatoes, if we're going to allow 10,000 microscopic little encroachments to back us, over time, into an ever shrinking corral. I would rather be a nation that sends back our steak if it's overcooked rather than one that gradually relinquishes its freedom for the sake of politeness. Come to think of it, I think I will bitch about those elevators.

Profile in Cowardice

2009-08-18T10:01:00.003-05:00

Over the past two weeks, I've been calling my Congresswoman, Melissa Bean's office to inquire as to when she will be holding a town hall. I've pretty much called every day since the recess began.

An enterprising teenager could make a really boss drinking game out of the responses I've received.

"uh..." 1 shot

"we're still working on her schedule..." 2 shots

"let me take down your information..." 3 shots

"we'll be sure to get back to you..." 4 shots and a jäger bomb.

So, I just learned that Rep Bean will be holding a "tele-townhall" tomorrow night. Needless to say, I did not come by this information as a result of someone "getting back to me," but because once again, I called them.

Really, Melissa? A conference call? Even after the President has announced his majestic back pedal on the "public option?" You're still too afraid to meet with us face to face?

Supposedly, I'm going to receive a call tomorrow night around 8:30pm CST that will connect me with the meeting. We'll see if they call. The staffer on the phone got a little testy with me when I brought up that $25 per plate "townhall" that Michelle Malkin reported a few days ago. I may have earned myself a spot on the "accidentally forget to call" list.

If they do call, I will live tweet.

Not Constructive

2009-08-17T22:11:00.003-05:00

(image from www.thepeoplescube.com)

I guess you can put "Illinois Voters" between "Big Oil" and "US Troops" in the ranking of Senator Durbin's esteem.

Ya know, Dennis Leary wrote a song that I think would be entirely appropriate for Senator Durbin to sing to himself. This is a family friendly blog so I won't name the song in its entirety. I will simply note that the first two words are "I'm an." Google it.

Watch this. NOW.

2009-08-17T21:43:00.003-05:00

If you're a liberal, your head may explode as a result of taking in this much common sense in six minutes and 39 seconds.

My Personal Stake In Defeating Obamacare

2009-08-12T23:00:00.004-05:00

Hey, 'member this?

But don't worry, old, disabled or infirm citizen. If there is any doubt as to the value the President places on your life, rest assured. The President is as concerned about your well being as that of his own grandmother.

Actually, it appears that the more that Grandpa and Grandma learn about Obama's health care bill, the more pressure they're placing on the AARP to retract their support for the bill.

Maybe Nana and Bopa read this round up, prepared by Michelle Malkin, of the real-life consequences of socialized medicine in Great Britain.

I normally don't divulge many personal details on this blog. But as I reflect on how the President's proposed health care plan would absolutely devastate American medicine, thereby bringing significant harm to my family, I feel compelled to share a few tidbits about the medical saga my wife and I have lived with regard to one of our children. So, loyal readers (both of you), finish your juice and cookies and join me on the storytime mat, so that I may present to you a few snippets of Geoffy's World.

My oldest child was diagnosed with Pervasive Development Dysfunction when he was four years old. (PDD is another term for "high-functioning autism.") Prior to his diagnosis, there weren't any profound red flags that suggested a serious medical condition to my wife or me. Looking back, of course, there were perhaps things that might have tipped us off, had we known what to look for: My son had been colicky baby and screamed blue murder for the first six months; he was a toe walker, and had been prescribed both orthotic foot braces and, at one point, had his feet cast; he was hyper and seemed a bit strong willed. But he was emotionally engaged, responsive (enough), seemed to play more or less normal (maybe kept to himself a bit more than the average kid), etc. His first pediatrician didn't really express any concerns--he did order an ultrasound of my son's rather large six-month-old head, but the results yielded no evidence for alarm. My son's first three birthdays came and went, and so far as my wife and I knew, we had a healthy, "normal" kid.

When my son was three, we moved a sufficient enough distance to necessitate finding a new pediatrician. Though he didn't push too hard at first, the new doctor did voice some concerns about my son's social skills. Sometime around my son's fourth birthday, a well meaning friend (for whom I thank God) had the courage to recommend a book to my wife about something called "Sensory Integration Disorder." Portions of the book came painfully close to describing some of my son's attributes. At that point we took our son to a neurologist, who formally diagnosed our son as PDD. After consultation with our son's pediatrician, we arranged to get our son private occupational, speech and physical therapy. When he was enrolled in pre-school, he was placed in a class for special needs kids upon recommendation of his IEP (Individualized Education Program) committee.

If there is any one thing about autism that is most maddening, it is the lack of knowledge as to its cause and even greater lack of knowledge about how to effectively treat it. Parents of autistic kids, abhorring this vacuum of information, are especially prone to pouncing on any hint of a successful treatment, be it in the form of an internet testimonial, a second hand miracle story overheard at the play group, or some "alternative therapy" flyer posted on the corkboard at the local hippie free love vitamin-and-organic-wiccan-energy-drink store. We tried our son on the gluten-free diet, the casein-free diet, we gave our kids soy and rice milk, removed corn from the diet, etc. We refused to give our kids vaccinations with mercury, despite the pediatrician's gentle protestations that the amount of the stuff involved was less than the mercury content of your average can of tuna. You name it, we tried it. To no avail.

At some point along the way, some friends with an autistic child told us about a nearby clinic that specialized in treating autistic kids. This place was literally one of a kind, and, counting ourselves lucky to live within driving distance, we got our kid an appointment as quickly as possible. After our first meeting with one of the clinic's physicians, I drove home with something like a sense of hope (a novel sensation indeed to that point). Here finally was a specialized clinic with a wide enough patient population, extending back a sufficient period of time, to allow them to conduct meaningful outcomes research which might provide some clues as to the causes and possible treatments of autism. Some of their patients had shown significant improvement. The doctor was very careful to remain sober about my son's condition and to avoid building up expectations or giving false hope. Nevertheless, I remained optimistic. Their treatment plan basically involved running a barrage of tests on my son (blood, hair, urine, feces) to pinpoint chemical imbalances and excessive toxins and metals in his system, and then prescribing a series of vitamins, nutrients, amino acids, etc, that would hopefully restore some of his neurological and physiological imbalances over time. Our son's pediatrician was cold on the idea to say the least. Long story short, two years of very expensive treatment that was only partially covered by my insurance yielded exactly nothing.

My son was about seven years old at this point. He had been receiving OT and Speech therapy on and off throughout this entire period, both privately and through the public school system. In regard to the latter venue: when my son was six, we pulled him out of public school, having decided that all of our kids would be home schooled by my wife. Our son did for a time continue to receive treatment through the public school, which is a service they are required by law to offer even to private or home educated kids. Though at one point some young and naive administratress did attempt to tell my wife that the district was not legally obligated to provide services due to "separation of church and state." I didn't realize that home schooling was an organized religion. Live and learn. Eventually we came to realize that trying to coordinate with the district proved more trouble than it was worth and contented ourselves with the private therapy he was receiving.

Around the time my son turned seven, our son's pediatrician recommended taking him to be evaluated by a team of experts at the Children's Hospital in Milwaukee. They ran him through a number of different tests and assessments, and again, to make a long story slightly less long, their team of specialists (ranging from pediatric psychologists and neurologists to auditory specialists) offered a most unexpected diagnosis.

Your son is not autistic, they said, but has a language learning disability and RAGING ADHD. Again, the clouds parted as I turned in this revelation over in my mind. ADHD: That's treatable. Learning disability: Also treatable. Autism: Marginally treatable to untreatable. It's hard to put into words the (perhaps undue) relief I felt in that moment, as one arbitrary label was ripped from my son and another slapped on, as if with velcro. So after trying the myriad failed or inconclusive treatment strategies on which we had spent the last few years, not to mention considerable dollars, it was time to move on to that tried-and-true mainstay of the medical profession: drugs! Sh'haaaaah, bro! druuuuuugs.

Over the course of our grand little odyssey into controlled substances, the pediatrician prescribed three different ADHD meds for our son. Two were stimulant based, one non. Apart from one pill that had our son up all night blabbing like a speed freak at a Beat revival, there was little discernable change and certainly no benefit derived from any of the meds. So, one more miracle cure relegated to the dustbin of history.

Which pretty much catches us up to the present, and brings me to my wife's sciatica.

My wife, a petite little thing all of 5' 1", has not only delivered three kids but has had each of them in turn affixed to her hip for the last nine years. Lugging kids around for that long wreaks hell on your back and by the time the youngest grew to unluggable size, my wife was having severe back and leg pain. After other treatments failed to alleviate her pain, I suggested that she see a chiropractor (I had a very positive outcome through chiropractic treatment as a teenager). Before long, the DC treating her cajoled me into having myself and the kids x-rayed as well.

When I saw the x-ray results of my oldest, I nearly fell over. His spine, which was shot from the front, looked as if it was a side profile. His spine is so crooked it looks like a backwards "s." I couldn't believe it. How did this go unnoticed for possibly all of my son's nine years of life? My son basically has scoliosis and none of the manifold physicians or therapists who have poked, prodded or examined him six ways from a flipping months of sundays over the course of his life managed to catch it. Could at least some of his neurological dysfunction be attributed a compromised central nervous system with multiple nerve impingements as a result of his mangled spine? Who knows. But at the very least, a condition that absolutely can't go untreated, and that I possibly would not have known about for years, was uncovered. I told the DC to get my son on the table for and adjustment immediately. Time will tell if this treatment resolves the situation without my son requiring surgery. It also remains to be seen if a corrected spine will lead to any additional neurological regulation. After everything we've tried for my son, I've learned not to get my hopes up too much. However, short of seeing a witch doctor, if there is anything out there that holds even the slightest chance of bringing my son even a nanoparticle of additional functionality, you had better believe that I will try it.

Now, at last, to the point (yes, there really is one): My son has received a vast array of medical treatment over the course of his life. Some of this treatment has been conventional, some not. Some of it has been beneficial, some not. It has been a long, expensive process of trial and error (some of it necessary, some not) that simply would not have been possible in a socialist health care system. I praise and thank God for the private, employer-provided insurance that has funded the majority of the medical and therapeutic care my son has received. I also praise and thank God for certain members of our extended family who have generously helped us financially so that my son could get some treatment options that my insurance would not cover. It has been a tremendous blessing to see my son receive perhaps better and more diverse treatment than the majority of the populace.

And as my son, my other kids and my wife and I continue to age, I want the quality and availability of care we have thus far experienced to continue. I do not want a single payer government option. I do not want rationed care. I do not want the dumbing down of the medical profession as talented and bright young men and women chose more lucrative careers over a medical degree. I do not want some zit-popping, gum snapping, braindead government employee, who only got their job because their uncle gave money to some democrat's political campaign, deciding whether or not to authorize my son's treatment. I do not want to have to sell my house to raise the cash I will need in order to circumvent single payer and get a loved one the care they need (but I will, if that's what it comes down to).

A well-meaning liberal friend once asked me "Geoff, your son has all these special needs, so don't you think it's only fair that the people who have means contribute a little more in taxes so that people like your son can get the care they need?"

Leaving aside the fact that, no, I don't think the government ought to be seizing the wealth of my neighbors to take care of my kids (yes, family helped us, and yes, it enabled us to try some "alternative" therapies; But had we not these resources at our disposal, we would have made do with the treatment options that were insurance-covered, or scraped together the cash some other way), my liberal friend's question misses the point: My son would have WORSE care under Obama's plan than what he's had to date. The so-called "47 million uninsured" will have WORSE care under Obama's plan than the free care available to them now. EVERYBODY will have WORSE care than what they are getting now. Health care will be rationed. Private insurance, both unable to compete with government reimbursement rates--but nonetheless expected to subsidize the loss to medical groups that will result from those rates--will go out of business. Businesses, reeling from the "surcharge" tax that will hit almost of them, will dump their employees into Obamacare en masse. And Obamacare, dependent upon ever-dwindling tax revenues that will stem from ever-increasing tax rates levied against an ever-shrinking private sector, will invariably institute ever-increased rationing of care and cutting of services.

And once this abomination called "government option" health care is enacted into law and rapidly disintegrates into a cash-starved beast, what services do you suppose will be the first for the chopping block?

Well, if President Obama has to question whether his own grandmother's hip replacement is indicative of a "sustainable model" for health care, what the hell chance does your grandmother have for a hip replacement? Or, as implied in the video above, a pacemaker?

And since President Obama is an enthusiastic supporter of abortions of all varieties whose own website states that he wants prenatal screening for "all pregnant women"--presumably so that babies with detectable diseases or disorders such as Down's Syndrome can be diagnosed and "taken care of"--how enthusiastic is the President's administration (or whatever bureaucracy it spawns) going to be about caring for your special needs child, whom you obviously should have just aborted when you had the chance?

For Barack's sake, people--you can't provide compassionate care for everyone without denying a few people coverage! Now if everyone who is mentally retarded, deformed, autistic, paraplegic, or over the age of 55 will do their patriotic duty and swallow their government-issued cyanide capsule, we can get on with the business of making life better for all Americans. And yes, we do have "end-of-life consultants" standing by ready to help anyone that can't open the packet or swallow on their own.

The Waterboy

2009-08-12T19:30:00.000-05:00

In his column today, Sun Times Columnist and Obama Waterboy Neil Steinberg had this to say in response to the doubtless massive email respose to his monday column (for my own response, click here).

After I wrote about health care Monday was one of the rare times I stopped reading my e-mail -- too much, too mean-spirited and, ultimately, too dull. But one thing that is clear is that the reactionary right is afraid -- terrified of change, terrified of their own government, desperate that the nation not do anything it isn't already doing. It's a sad, sad way to live your life, and needless to say, deeply un-American. We are not a nation of self-hating cowards, at least not generally.

Wow. Now in addition to Nazi sympathizers, we're self-hating cowards as well. Again, way to go with that ad hominem, Neal. If you keep this up, you may manage to go your entire career without ever having to back up any of your infantile leftist drivel.

Response to Neil Steinberg

2009-08-10T21:55:00.003-05:00

To: nsteinberg@suntimes.com

Mr. Steinberg, I must respectfully object to the Opening Shot of today's column. It is you, Sir, who are "dead wrong."

You refer to those who oppose Obama's ideology and initiatives as "the enemy within," who are motivated by "purely ideological, if not pathological reasons." The fact of the matter, Mr. Steinberg, is that the citizens who have been turning up at town halls in droves are motivated of late primarily by a desire not to have a government run health care system foisted upon us. We respectfully called our representatives before the stimulus vote, to voice our opposition. We were ignored. We respectfully called again as the vote on Cap & Trade was drawing near. We were concerned about a bill that would lead to tax hikes and substantially higher prices on everything from electricity to pork chops. We were rebuffed. Then came health care reform. We weren't about to wait around for that infliction.

Depending on which surveys you check, fully 77-80+% of the population are more or less happy with their healthcare the way it is--at least to enough of a degree not to wish it transformed into a Canada-style "single payer" system. And yet the President has stubbornly charged full steam ahead, his administration going so far as to hire "supporters" on Craigslist to turn out at town halls to plug his health care plan. And yet it is the opponents of this health care bill who are "astroturfing," sayeth Speaker Pelosi, who today in an article jointly written by Rep. Steny Hoyer referred to all who are opposed to Obamacare as "un-American." Last week, Speaker Pelosi went so far as to liken us to Nazis. At least you only went so far in your column as to liken us to Nazi sympathizers.

All we want, Mr. Steinberg, is for our elected officials to hear us, and then act in accordance with our wishes. That's kind of what elected representatives are supposed to do. Or so I once erroneously thought. Thank you for helping me understand that our elected leaders should not be held accountable, should not have to answer to us, and should instead (in their immaculate wisdom) merely act in what they see as our best interest. Yes. Thank you for showing me the light. "Representative Republic"... why, that's Nazi speak.

Lastly, you suggest that we oppose President Obama's agenda simply for the sake of opposing President Obama. Not so. If President Obama announced across-the-board tax cuts tomorrow, we would laud him. If President Obama took a hardline stance with brutish thugs like Ahmadinijad and Chavez, and extended the hand of friendship to Israel (as opposed to what he has done, which is the exact opposite), we would commend him. If President Obama announced that government run mortgage, auto, and (I fear, soon) healthcare industries are bad idea, and announced that he was immediately reversing his policy, we would sing his praises in the street. Short of these pipe dreams, we would settle for the President and members of Congress abandoning their ambitions for government-run health care, in recognition of the fact that the vast majority of the populace does not want it.

Because you see, Mr. Steinberg, it's President Obama's ideas we oppose. Not President Obama. It's nothing personal. Of course, you know this, and hopefully someday, you'll bring yourself to admit it in print, and not immediately rush to baseless ad hominem. Of course, when you're under deadline, ad hominem is easier than reflective thought.

Steinberg's column.

More Thuggery

2009-08-09T21:50:00.002-05:00

Missed this before. Via .

Paid Obama hacks. This is what speaking out may get you.

Apparently being a community organizer is not without its perks.

Obama's Paid Hacks.

2009-08-09T16:19:00.003-05:00

Now, if only the GOP were organized enough to think of things like this. Criminy.

Twice as Hard

2009-08-06T23:00:00.002-05:00

"Punch back twice as hard," sayeth Papabama's peeps. Punch back? Surely you mean with arguments, to counter the arguments raised by the loyal opposition, Deputy Chief of Staff Messina?

After all, according to the Politico article linked above, you played a video exhorting the senators at your little pep rally to "do more prep work than usual for their public meetings." Sounds reasonable, right? You'd want the Senators to bone up on the legislation and have the facts at their disposal so they could present a reasonable defense of President Obama's vision for nationalized health care.

But wait, that's not exactly what you meant by "prep work," is it? Because the sentence in the article actually reads:

They showed video clips of the confrontational town halls that have dominated the media coverage, and told senators to do more prep work than usual for their public meetings by making sure their own supporters turn out [emph. mine], senators and aides said.

Hit back twice as hard...and make sure you've got plenty of your own people there. That doesn't sound at all provocative, does it?

But don't worry, average joe conservative, as you head out the door to the town hall in order to participate in this grand experiment called democracy. I'm sure our democratic friends are just as interested in a civil and cool-headed exchange of ideas as we are. I'm sure the Deputy Chief of Staff wasn't at all implying that there is any place for intimidation or the threat of violence at these events when he used language like "punch back twice as hard," and stressed the need for democrats to have their people there.

After all, the republicans are the mob, remember? They are the crazies. They are the ones who get out of hand. And those high-minded democrats, brimming over with self confidence and good will, surely realize that reason and common sense are the best weapons. There will be none of these heavy-fisted, GOP-style tactics among the democrats, who, armed with logic and facts, are liberated to simply allow their ideas to speak for them.

Therefore, this incident in St. Louis, where a black conservative was called racial slurs and beaten by an angry mob, simply did not happen.

Neither this obviously faked video from Rep. Kathy Castor's town hall meeting in Tampa, in which it appears to the untrained eye that some of Castor's goons are roughing up her critics. (Is there no low to which these shameless and deceitful republicans will not stoop?)

Because no reasonable person could construe that these two fictitious events in any way embody the spirit of the message sent by the Obama administration that democrat politicians should have "their supporters" on hand should the need for "punching back twice as hard" emerge.

You don't need to see his identification. These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along.

Sonia Schmidt on Obama's Friends

2009-08-06T19:30:00.001-05:00

I am truly hard pressed to say who my favorite personality on PJTV.com is. I truly think the entire team is fantastic. And Sonia Schmidt is no exception. Here's her latest clip, in which she delves into the company our President keeps.

David Bazan

2009-08-04T19:30:00.001-05:00

Just read this article in the Chicago Reader about former Pedro The Lion frontman David Bazan. Ten second bio: Bazan was raised in a Christian home, went to bible school, married young, rose to international fame with PTL (ironic acronym), lost his faith, became a drunk, and is now more or less an agnostic trying to get his life and career back on track.

The author of the piece, Jessica Hopper, is Bazan's former publicist. She is to be commended for a decent piece of journalism. Her writing is professional, and devoid of the bald faced hostility so often reserved for Christ followers by liberal art-fart rags like the Reader. Her portrait of the young Christians she interviews at Cornerstone--many of whom, clearly in denial, resort to superlative acrobatics in their attempt to understand Bazan's lyrics as somehow still "Christian"--could almost be said to be tender. David Bazan, former Christian, present agnostic (if perhaps back door seeker) is depicted as he is, without glorification of his "liberation" from "dogma."

That said, there is one thing that drives me absolutely bat-guano about the piece. It's this quote from liberal Christian writer David Dark:

when [Bazan] is addressing his idea of his God, the one that he fears exists but refuses to believe in, when he is telling him, 'If this is the situation with us and you, then fuck you—the people who love you, I hope they see you for who you are,' when he's doing that, he is at his most biblical.

Set the Bible aside for a moment, and let me use an analogy that involves what would at first appear to be a less-provocative document: The flight manual for your average commercial airline pilot. Now, I've never seen a flight manual for a 747, but I'm quite certain some sort of book exists. I imagine a thick spiral bound tome, about 500+ pages long, with a thick, shiny, gloss card stock cover. Something that would be a bear to fit in the glove compartment.

As I say, I've never seen this book, but I'm sure it has a thing or two to say about, oh, how to land the plane properly and whatnot. It may not say exactly what not to do in any and every situation, but "what not to do" can easily be inferred by someone smart enough to become an airline pilot. For example, if the book says something about aiming for the center line down the middle of the runway after you've begun your descent and have opened the landing gear, it's probably a safe assumption that you shouldn't attempt--at that particular time, anyway--that loop-de-loop you've been itching to try. Nor should you buzz the tower, pull up to play chicken in another incoming plane's landing path, or get on the intercom and scream "we're all going to die." Again, the book probably doesn't expressly state not to do those things. But if a pilot engaged in that sort of behavior, would his associates, superiors, and passengers refer to him as the "most by the book" pilot they'd ever met?

Like the flight manual, the Bible has a number of things to say about what one should and should not do. And among the list of "don't dos" are things like don't take God's name in vain, don't put God to the test, fear God and treat him with reverence, etc. Logically, since the Bible says these things, it would be "biblical" for one to abide by these rules and principles.

So how is it that someone who says to God,"'If this is the situation with us and you, then fuck you,'" is at his most biblical at that moment? Dark says his definition of "biblical" has to do with "the deep strains of complaint and prayers and tirades against conceptions of God in the Bible." He doesn't elaborate on what he means by this, but I assume he's referring to any number of passages in, say, Psalms, or Job, where the author is expressing his pain, panic, complaints, etc. to God. However, the difference between what Dark finds in Bazan's lyrics, and what is actually going on in the Bible, is this: the one bringing the complaint in the Bible never casts aspersion on God's integrity or righteousness--or if he does, he eventually repents (or gets fried). The sort of self-righteous telling-off of God as described by Dark assumes that the human in question is more morally righteous than God. I don't really know of an example of a God follower approaching God from this perspective in scripture, at least not without an eventual recanting and repentance from that erroneous stance. So if Dark thinks that Bazan is at his "most biblical" when his lyrics are openly blasphemous, what must he (Dark) think of as unbiblical?

Anyway, I wish David Bazan the best. I'm glad that he appears to be sober. I like what I've heard of his music and I hope he keeps working. I hope, most of all, that he dedicates himself relentlessly to pursuing the truth.

Are You Listening, Mr. President?

2009-08-03T17:23:00.005-05:00

This was the response Arlen Specter got when he used the word "fast" in relation to the health care bill.

The fact that there is mass outrage over the impending socialized medicine bill, coupled with the President's ever plummeting poll numbers, leads me to one conclusion:

President Obama knows that Americans by and large reject his socialist agenda the more they learn about it. As a good ideologue, he is trying to rush his ideology through and get it enacted into law before he is voted out of office. It appears that the President's favorite word--"change"--is actually more important to him than getting re-elected. I'm serious. If he were more interested in a second term, if the polls really were a concern to him, he would have quietly let the bill derail by now. Instead aide-de-camp Rahm Emanuel has been moving heaven and earth to at least get this bill out of committee in the House, and he has succeeded.

Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps August, with it's drum beat of ever-dipping polls and oft repeated scenes of outrage in town hall meetings, will take its toll and persuade the President that this issue is a loser. But I doubt it.

There's actually a third possibility I haven't considered, and it is probably the most likely: Barack Obama is so blinded by his own arrogance that he's determined to just give us what's good for us, whether we like it or not, and defeat in 2012 is simply in his mind an impossibility. For in order for him to be defeated, he would have to will it so.

And arrogant he is. Note the response to how poorly Obamacare has been received: There's greater need to "get out there and explain" the plan to the American people because they obviously "don't understand" what's in there. Well, a little hard to have a total grasp on a bill that hasn't even been written in it's final form. However, we get the basics, Mr. President. We get that it will cost, per the CBO's latest and no doubt deliberately underestimated budget, a bare minimum of $1 Trillion over the next decade (for a more realistic number, tripling the figure would probably get closer). We get that private insurance is to be phased out. We get that business owners, looking to recoup the "surtax" sodomizing that will be levied against the "rich," and already struggling to maintain their work force in a crap economy, will start dumping their employees into Obamacare by the bushelfull. We get that private insurers, faced with the loss of a huge percentage of their client base and unable to compete with the sweetheart deals that the government will negotiate for itself with healthcare providers, will steadily go out of business. We get that the medical profession will be dumbed down, because the best and the brightest aren't going to go into a profession that will make them little more than postal workers with stethoscopes. We get that care will be rationed, and that deadbeat relatives of contributors to political campaigns will soon be on the other end of our phones, explaining to us why our "cost-ineffective" procedures are being denied.

We get it. Obama knows we get it all too well. And so the need for speed. The need to rush it through now, before we can stop it.

Good Likeness

2009-08-03T17:18:00.001-05:00

BRICK!

2009-07-29T22:25:00.003-05:00

YES! Take that, Rahm!

If It's THAT Expensive, It MUST Be Good!

2009-07-28T22:15:00.003-05:00

Um, yeah...

Teachable Moment

2009-07-24T22:48:00.003-05:00

The arrest of Henry Gates and the subsequent foot eating spectacle by Our National Treasure jogged my memory of a little "run in" with the police I had not so long ago.

One Saturday night a few years back, as I was preparing to take my wife out for the evening, my then toddler daughter somehow got ahold of the phone when I wasn't looking (my wife and other kids were out picking up the sitter), and was happily pressing buttons by the time I noticed her sitting on the floor with the receiver.

Fearing a hefty long distance bill for an inadvertent call to Auckland, I took the phone from my daughter and disconnected the impending call. I put the girl in her play pen and returned to the business at hand. And then the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Yes, sir. This is the police. Did you call 911?"

What a strange question. "No, officer, I didn't."

"Sir, a call to 911 was placed from this number."

"Huh?"

"Yes, Sir."

Eventually it dawned on me what had happened and I started to laugh. I explained to him that the call had been placed by my daughter.

"That's fine, Sir, but we have to dispatch someone to the house."

"Really?"

"Yes, Sir. An officer is en route."

I hung up, bemused. The situation became more amusing to me with each passing minute and I was laughing heartily by the time I opened the door for the police officer. I welcomed him into my home, and explained what happened. He could tell in about two seconds that I was telling the truth, and after fawning over my daughter for a minute or two, he was on his way.

It was a very positive experience. I came away from it with a great story, and grateful that my town is served by decent, professional cops like the one who came to my home.

It certainly did not have to be a positive experience. I could have been an a-hole to the phone dispatcher. I could have stood in the doorway yelling at the cop and refused to let him into my home. I could have concocted some grievance litany or been verbally abusive to the cop. I could have refused the cops orders, and brought an arrest upon myself. I had the power to make things go very, very badly for myself. And instead, I chose to be jovial, friendly, humble, and mature, because I knew that was not only the smarter thing to do, it was also the right thing to do.

I knew all that, and I don't even have a faculty position at Harvard or anything.

Now, as for the President's "acting stupidly." Obama's presumptuous arrogance has been dealt with by others far more intelligent and eloquent than I. I am disappointed, but not surprised, that Obama extended the standard-issue non apology. I am disappointed, but not surprised, that it was only offered after Obama had basically been bludgeoned into doing so by an unending din of outrage and steadily declining approval polls. I am disappointed, but not surprised, that Obama still had to cast aspersions on the cops by throwing in the "race is still a troubling aspect of our society" remark. But what really makes me mad is the "teachable moment" bit. Obama couldn't just be a man and own that what he did was wrong. No, somehow the cops who did nothing wrong had to take their "fair share" of the blame. And it didn't stop there. No, Obama wanted it to be a "teachable moment" for the entire nation.

Because really, it's all our fault that Obama's a schmuck.

"It's Not About Me."

2009-07-22T22:33:00.008-05:00

WhatEVAH. The guy feels the need to issue a public defense of his chick jeans, but the most important piece of legislation for his entire Presidency, the one that currently hangs in the balance and will either make or break him (and, it so happens, the same bill that he's holding his one trillionth press conference to bitch about), isn't about him.

Didn't see the President's press conference tonight. Had more important things to do. Haven't seen ratings, wonder if he pulled more viewers than he did with the ill-fated ABC infomercial.

Rush et al will dissect the speech tomorrow, but for now, here's Hugh Hewitt's take on Obama's performance. Hewitt, who managed the Federal employee health care plan when he worked in government, knows a thing or two about health care. As you'll see, Hugh is less than impressed.

Also, one little snippet from the AP write up caught my attention:

[Obama] said Medicare and Medicaid, government health care programs for the elderly and the poor, are the "biggest driving force behind our federal deficit."

Unless they are tamed, he said to a national TV audience, "we will not be able to control our deficit. If we do not reform health care, your premiums and out-of-pocket costs will continue to skyrocket."

Got it. The socialized medicine programs we already have are bankrupting the country, so let's dump everybody in the plan instead of just old people. That'll fix things.

As Terry Jones, editor of Investors Business Daily pointed out, Obama's plan for a tax hike on "$1,000,000 families" or "people making over $250,000," or whatever today's metric is, will raise about an additional $500 billion in revenue over the next decade for Obamacare. (This WAPO piece substantiates that figure as a combo of additional taxes and reduced deductions.) Where, Jones asks, is the other trillion going to come from? (This Heritage article suggests Jones might have estimated low. $5 Trillion too low.)

Question: what has two thumbs and is about to get its cocoa-based confectionery goods packed by the Obama administration?

History Was Made.

2009-07-22T22:19:00.003-05:00

Belated Post.

On Monday, President Obama met with the three Astronauts of the Apollo 11 space mission--Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins--to commemorate the 40th anniversary of their historic Moon landing and to honor these three men as the inspiration and heroes that they are.

It was a truly historic day, not the least reason being that Barack Obama was able to bring himself to refer to three white guys as "heroes" without spontaneously bursting into flame. Well done, Sir.

Give Us Our Paper Back!

2009-07-22T19:35:00.001-05:00

What is going on at the Chicago Sun Times?

Today's Headline:

"County Might Let Pot Smokers Off Easy."

Yesterday's headline, which I can't find online, was something about a killer smirking during the courtroom proceedings while the parents of the victim wept.

Excuse, me, but this is the Sun Times we're talking about right? The same Sun Times that showcases weekly the rabid scrawlings of Mary Mitchell, Rev. Jessie Jackson, and Andrew Greeley? The same Sun Times that for the last two years could have adopted the slogan "The Official Newsletter of the Barack Obama Fan Club?" The same Sun Times whose editorial board has for years taken the leftward position on any and every topic?

Aren't we supposed to try to empathize with, or at least understand, the killer? Aren't we expected to extend patience, if not sympathy, to the potheads?

Just what is the world coming to when the Sun Times expects criminals to be held accountable for their crimes?

Duck And Cover Time

2009-07-20T19:30:00.000-05:00

As if resistance from dems and republicans alike to the President's plans for socialized medicine and draconian energy regulation--to say nothing of plummeting approval numbers--were not significant harbingers of bad news (for Obama), the White House is now delaying release of the budget update.

I do not envy the situation in which the President finds himself. It is just objective reality that he inherited a disastrous economy, blame for which last seeing lying at the feet of both political parties. However, with the truth about this economy staring him in the face every day since he took office, President Obama is still pressing forward full steam ahead toward socialized medicine.

Yesterday the Nation's governors, parties irrespective, added their voices to the growing chorus of condemnation for the "government option" health care plan that is currently being kicked around both chambers of Congress. Is the President listening? In the end he may be forced to. But delaying the release of the budget update until Congress has recessed, by which time Obama hopes to have his health care bill, appears a craven political maneuver.

I hope between now and the new scheduled release date of the report, Americans will have sufficiently made their voices heard to ensure that "Obamacare" is something we wipe our brows and nervously laugh about a few years from now.

In my backyard...

2009-07-17T04:00:00.001-05:00

From Fox News (full article):

A group committed to establishing an international Islamic empire and reportedly linked to Al Qaeda is stepping up its Western recruitment efforts by holding its first official conference in the U.S.

Hizb ut-Tahrir is a global Sunni network with reported ties to confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Al Qaeda in Iraq's onetime leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It has operated discreetly in the U.S. for decades.

Now, it is coming out of the shadows and openly hosting a July 19 conference entitled, "The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam," at a posh Hilton hotel in a suburb of Chicago.

Sounds like a hoot. To boost registration, might I suggest offering the first 500 to sign up a stylish leather suicide bomber vest from Harrods of Riyadh, and a copy of the hot new bestseller, "72 Pick Up Lines for 72 Virgins."

A Two-fer

2009-07-16T21:26:00.002-05:00

Boy. Two Biden gaffes in one day. I must have been a good boy recently.

First, "take a look around."

Then, "we have to spend money to keep from going bankrupt."

I don't know what particular cognative deficiency it is in particular that causes Obama to keep Slow Joe around; all I can say is, I'm profoundly greatful for it.

Still, it does seem just wrong that a man like Biden is allowed to hold an office once occupied by the likes of Adams, Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt.

HOLY FLIPPITY CRUD.

2009-07-16T05:20:00.000-05:00

IDB finds that the current healthcare bill the house is currently mulling will make... well, I'll just let them say it:

It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.

Full article.

[HT: Bill Dupray]

Crowder on Canadian Medicine

2009-07-15T22:44:00.002-05:00

One of my favorite newer pundits, Stephen Crowder, delivers a brilliant on-location report of the Canadian medical system. Originally posted on PJTV.com, and with thanks to the spunky Wendy Sullivan of twitter.com/rightgirl and Brass Balls Radio fame for the youtube link:

This is what awaits us, people.

Big Spender, Big Grifter

2009-07-15T18:06:00.006-05:00

So I saw today that Obama is requesting another $12 Billion for some educational program or other. And I realized my first impression was not to care.

Which got me thinking: Is Obama's game plan to ask for so much money, so fast, to fund his socialist ponzi scheme, that we just stop paying attention? Seriously. After a while, discussion of this billion or even that trillion just becomes so much white noise.

Ultimately Obamanomics will fail, because millions of people will realize that their just as broke and unemployed, and their 401(k)'s just as destitute, as they were a week, a month, six months, a year... ago. But in the meantime, he's doing a pretty good job exploiting people's short term memories when it comes to just how fast and how deep he's digging the hole.

Broken Record

2009-07-14T20:35:00.004-05:00

Reminded of They Might Be Giants' song, Ana Ng. "Everything sticks like a broken record." Like a broken record, I keep marvelling at my total absence of will to blog. From whence my sluggardliness cometh?

Partially, because of ennui/cynicism. It's easier to be a grumpy old man and sit there and kvetch at the news verbally rather than in print.

Partially, because, I figure, since Obama & Co are doing such a perfectly good job of making complete ass pies of themselves, what's left for me to contribute?

Partially, because in order to adequately describe the absurdity and stupidity that is the Democrat regime, I would have to invent new words, like "absostupidilliness," and I just...eh.

Holder wants to charge Bush administration officials for War Crimes. Sigh.

Holder isn't worthy of picking up a Bush administration official's dry cleaning.

Dems are trying to make an outrage out of this secret CIA program, never instituted, to assasinate Al Queda terrorists. Let me type that again. No, let me cut and paste, for I lack the strength: Dems are trying to make an outrage out of this secret CIA program, never instituted, to assasinate Al Queda terrorists. Set aside for a moment the fact that the only TRUE outrage is that it was never instituted...

I can just see the next blockbuster headline on the NY Times: "Democrats Outraged at Bush Administration Policy of Feeding Starving Orphans."

If there was a way such a headline would provide cover for Pelosi's bony rump, you know they'd run it.

And now, on the heels of cap n' tax, the dems are going to fast track socialized medicine to President Skippy's desk.

I'm just going to stop here.

Self Evident

2009-07-03T22:26:00.011-05:00

John Trumbull's Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence is one of the documents that remains permanently on the (appropriately) right side of my blog. So I won't re quote it.

I will however re quote the final sentence because it gives me chills:

And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

What great men signed the Declaration. They knew they were risking their lives, and many lost all in the defense of freedom. As Benjamin Franklin famously said upon signing this great document:

We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately

Ronald Reagan detailed the cost to several of the signers of the declaration in his 1981 Independence Day address [h/t conservapedia]

What manner of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists, 11 were merchants and tradesmen, and nine were farmers. They were soft-spoken men of means and education; they were not an unwashed rabble. They had achieved security but valued freedom more. Their stories have not been told nearly enough.

John Hart was driven from the side of his desperately ill wife. For more than a year he lived in the forest and in caves before he returned to find his wife dead, his children vanished, his property destroyed. He died of exhaustion and a broken heart.

Carter Braxton of Virginia lost all his ships, sold his home to pay his debts, and died in rags. And so it was with Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Rutledge, Morris, Livingston and Middleton.

Nelson personally urged Washington to fire on his home and destroy it when it became the headquarters for General Cornwallis. Nelson died bankrupt.

But they sired a nation that grew from sea to shining sea. Five million farms, quiet villages, cities that never sleep, 3 million square miles of forest, field, mountain and desert, 227 million people with a pedigree that includes the bloodlines of all the world.

Praise be to God for such men of courage and altruism. Hopefully I'll spare them more than one thought as I attend parades and barbeques tomorrow.

Happy Independence Day.

Klavan

2009-06-26T21:32:00.003-05:00

One of the many gems on PJTV.com is Andrew Klavan's weekly Klavan On The Culture segment. Like the vast majority of the content on PJTV, it's free. Klavan in particular is consistently brilliant in his satirical, surgical strikes on the myriad kookiness of the liberals we so love. Unfortunately these video segments can't be embedded. But here is the link to his latest.

A subscription to PJTV, by the way, is only $5 a month. Something to consider.

Disappointed

2009-06-26T21:24:00.003-05:00

So my multiple calls to Rep. Bean's office availed naught.

More disappointing was the fact that Rep. Mark Kirk (R)voted in favor of HR 2454. Kirk has been moving decidedly left in recent years, notably on issues like embryonic stem cell research, which he supports.

I campaigned for Kirk last November. I drove a little old lady to the polls on election day so she could vote for him, and I worked the phones late into the day (ostensibly I was working the phones for the GOP ticket, but the Lake County GOP headquarters was basically just Kirk central this last election. I will reserve my feelings for the joke that it the Lake County Republican Party for another post). I am exceedingly disappointed in Kirk for the manner in which he has returned the favor to the people who supported him. I will be lending him zero support next year.

Irony

2009-06-26T20:08:00.006-05:00

So on the same day that the House passes the biggest tax hike in the history of mankind--in the name of "saving the environment," mind you--the Wall Street Journal publishes this article which elucidates how completely out of whack our country's liberal elitists are in relation to the rest of the free world on the topic of global warming. A few prime cuts from the article, penned by Kimberley Strassel:

The number of [global warming] skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

But what about all those bloviating, sanctimonious editorials in the NY Times and other leftist rags in recent years, all of which assured us that adopting the sort of legislation passed by the House today would restore the USA's standing as the leader of the free world? Only through implementation of responsible measures such as 'cap and trade' laws, the Times assured us, would we finally be able to rid ourselves of the taint of those eight abominable years of George W. Bush. How then this new trend, which stands inexplicably askance of the Paper of Record? Reading on:

The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

Golly Gee. Apparently the Sulzberger Gazette either didn't know what it was talking about, or flagrantly lied. No worries. It's not like either of those possibilities has ever happened before, or ever will again.

European nations and other Western countries have suffered a century of socialism. They've tolerated decades of envirofacists, and now stare the imminent threat of islamofacism in the face. And quite frankly, they no longer have the time or energy for the degree of wilfully suspended disbelief required to maintain the Kabuki of global warming. They especially don't have time for a bill that, according the the Heritage Foundation, will eventually cost the average family over $6,000 in additional taxes per year.

Europe has been over to stupidity, and it sucks. I pray we are not required to endure even a fraction of the suffering and misery experienced by our cousins across the ocean before we come to our senses.

Wuss

2009-06-20T23:30:00.002-05:00

Obama's response to what is going on in Iran, in addition to being a week late, is complete milquetoast wussiness.

The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

Martin Luther King once said - “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.

The world is watching? How about the USA is watching, we stand behind the protesters, stop the violence now, or there will be "significant repercussions." (Hint, hint, all those troops we have stationed in the region...)

"As I said in Cairo..." Oh that's right, Mr. President, we forgot for a moment how special and important you are. Thanks for clarifying what matters here.

MLK said... yeah, that will go over big with Ol' Mahmood. How could we forget how he stood by Dr. King's side at the historic march from Selma to Montgomery.

Let's just turn our attention away from the world stage and concentrate on things more in your wheelhouse, Mr. President. You know, big decisions like Pistachio or Rocky Road.

For the record...

2009-06-20T21:20:00.003-05:00

I realize the brouhaha over David Letterman's repugnant remarks about Sarah Palin's daughter has more or less died, but something I forgot to mention before.

If Letterman had made those remarks about my daughter, I wouldn't have stopped at calling his remarks "despicable," as Todd Palin did.

I would have flown to New York and punched his lights out.

Just being honest.

What's this?

2009-06-16T21:27:00.002-05:00

*Blows dust off*

Why, it's my blog.

I find myself blogging seldom anymore. A number of reasons.

1. Twitter has destroyed my blog. If I have an interesting idea, I post it there, in 140 characters or less, and after that it's very hard to motivate myself to blog further on that subject.

2. Nothing the Obama administration does surprises me or strikes me as unexpected, and therefore, I'd just be blogging about the frickin' obvious.

Obama owns the mortgage industry. He owns the auto industry. And now, it appears, he owns ABC news...which I think technically makes him a pimp.

What is there to say, really. Get pissed, get good and pissed, and count the days until you can toss the loser out on his ample ears. If you or I don't channel the outrage in to votes, than anything we type is just so much playing with ourselves.

Cow Dunk

2009-05-23T08:21:00.007-05:00

Yesterday, talk show host Eric "Mancow" Muller was waterboarded live on WLS AM 890 Chicago. He lasted about 8 seconds. Here's the vid.

Mancow said it was torture. Before he went through it he said adamantly up and down that it was not torture. He had also interviewed a few Navy SEALs in the days leading up to the event. SEALs all undergo waterboarding as part of their training. Generally they would say things like "it's not fun," but stopped short of calling it torture.

Whether it's torture or not, even watching this video I find myself impressed and grateful that our military and intelligence communities have devised a method of interrogation that is so highly effective yet stops short of leaving permanent physical harm. It is rough, intense, and coercive, as is sometimes required for thugs with intel. But ripping out fingernails it is not. And considering that we've broadcast to the terrorist world that the longest they'll ever have to endure this procedure is 40 seconds at a stretch, any further comparison between us and Al Queda monsters who mutilate for fun is beyond contemptible.

As to whether there is lingering psychological harm, let's just say I'm not losing any sleep over whether or not Khalid Sheik Muhammed has nightmares about drowning.

Threat? What Threat?

2009-05-21T04:37:00.000-05:00

So in his speech today, the President is going to say that America "lost its way" in conducting the GWOT, and supposedly will renew his pledge to close gitmo.

This on the heels of a terror plot broken up by the FBI, which involved "three U.S.-born citizens and one Haitian immigrant - at least three of whom were said to be jailhouse converts to Islam."

Jailhouse converts to Islam. Will Obama emphatically pledge that none of the Gitmo detainees will be brought stateside? Not that we'd have anything to fear from them if they were brought here--I mean, you think they're actually going to proselytize to their fellow inmates? That's just crazy.

There is one person above all others whom I fear is lost in the woods on this issue, sir, and you can see his reflection in your teleprompter.

We Found It! No Really! Don't Click On That Other Link...

2009-05-19T19:24:00.000-05:00

MISSING LINK FOUND! Trumpets the headline on Sky News.

But wait, says Denyse O'Leary. This find raises more questions than it answers...

Finally, the Wall Street Journal article, which suggests that some scientists believe that this 47 Million Year Old primate may--just may, mind you--serve as common ancestor of later primates. And that other scientists with differing evolutionary paradigms are not at all happy with that idea.

Just one example of misleading, agenda driven journalism, kiddies--and an illustration of how you may have to dig a little deeper if the first whiff doesn't smell right. Remember this the next time you read the next sensational story about the unearthing of a missing link fossil, or about some new discovery of a planet that's "just like Earth, and may support life," or some archaeologist who claims to have irrefutable proof that Jesus Christ was really a married donkey salesman with five kids.

Ta-ta for now.

Haven't blogged in a bit.

2009-05-16T09:02:00.002-05:00

Well, what do you need to know anyway? Blah blah blah Socialism, blah blah Nanny State, blah blah blah blah higher taxes, blah blah great-grandchildren in debt for the rest of their lives, blah blah our enemies emboldened, blah blah blah blah blah blah fairness doctrine coming soon, blah blah blah blah blah blah Cap and Trade, blah blah blah blah blah.

ROCKEGAN!!!!!

2009-05-13T19:30:00.000-05:00

HECK YEAH! Somebody finally makes a documentary about my home town!!!!

The Hypocrisy of Judy Blume

2009-05-11T19:30:00.000-05:00

K-Lo at National Review spells it out.

This is just downright disgusting.

Dom DeLuise, RIP

2009-05-05T19:47:00.002-05:00

I have a lot of fond memories of Dom DeLuise making me laugh as a kid. He was a staple in several Mel Brooks films like Silent Movie and History of the World Part I. He's pretty much the only reason to ever watch the Cannonball Run again.

Here's my favorite Dom DeLuise role of all time (warning, a few naughty words):

Homey Don't Play That

2009-05-05T10:25:00.003-05:00

When Jeb Bush made his idiotic remarks the other day about the GOP's need to "get beyond Reagan", I confess I had daydreams of Damon Wayons sneaking up behind Bush in his Homie the Clown costume and giving him a good whallop with that sock.

Little Caesars

2009-05-05T09:50:00.002-05:00

In the late 80s early 90s, Little Caesars ran a series of ads that in my mind are the best commercials ever produced. Here's an example, and a link to more: