Friday, May 30, 2008

Promises, promises

Remember a few years back, when Alec Baldwin promised to move out of the country if Bush was elected?

Still here. Darn it.

Now Susan Sarandon has promised to move out of the country if John McCain is elected.

Until now, I was indifferent to McCain and was planning not to vote. McCain, after all, is not a real conservative and has offered opinions of subjects I care about which leave me no doubt that McCain thinks I'm stupid or evil or both.

However, Susan Sarandon has made the best argument yet for voting for Juan McVain, and I'm almost convinced.

Now if only Sean Penn, Jeanine Garafalo, Al Franken, George Clooney and the rest of the wacko liberal Hollywood crowd would make the same promise, I'd become a McCain campaign volunteer.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Science, nature and people

I've been watching an HDTV show about the lowland gorilla in the Congo.

Gripping. Couldn't tear myself away. A British scientist followed a family of gorillas through thick and thin, danger and happiness, birth and death, and her party gained the confidence of the gorillas. They never got close enough to touch, but after years of encounters the silverback finally stopped aggressing and acted nonchalant, accepted the group of humans, and the studying really began.

Fascinating, and enjoyable, at least 'til the very end.

The very last line uttered by the scientist?

"we have so much more to learn about this other kind of humanity."

Um, no. Yes, they hold hands and kiss and embrace and grieve and love and all that. Gorillas are, after all, very highly developed mammals.

But 'other kind of humanity'? Let's see.... do they recognize the rights of others? Do they sacrifice themselves for others?

Some would say yes, but the truth is they only do such things for their own tribe. Strangers are all enemies, as it is in nature. Chimpanzees will casually tear babies limb from limb if the babies are from a different family than their own. It's nature. It's the competitive instinct, my line, my family, my children first.

Humans, of course, recognize other humans as such even when strangers. In Israel, hospitals routinely treat sick and injured Palestinians, without questions, without reservations. Being human is the only qualification for deserving help. Our own soldiers treat the battlefield injuries of the other side.

This is the kind of accommodation that apes will never make. Highly developed they are, but they are NOT the complex and mysterious synthesis of mind, soul, spirit and body. They are not made in His image and likeness, but each according to its kind.

We may never know the full extent of the consciousness of the great apes, what they think, how they feel, what they really are.

But they are not human.

Unless you're a wacky scientist-- courageous and dedicated to be sure, but wacky.

Err Amerika chickens comin' home... to ROOST

When the liberal radio network called Air America first began, the financing came from all over. People thought it was a great opportunity; imagine, a liberal radio show or shows with the success of Rush Limbaugh, only for OUR side! The nation is DYING to hear this stuff, it's gonna be a HOME RUN!

But of course, financing coming from 'all over' has a down side, and it included the looting of a New York charity of almost a million bucks, and lots of fraud and money laundering and so forth.

It's easy to convince people to make illicit 'loans' when you can make them believe it's short term and will be paid back with big interest. that, I'm sure, was the sell.

If they had consulted Limbaugh listeners, of course, they'd have known better. There is no market for liberal talk radio. People don't want to hear it. If they did, there would be a host of programs on local stations already taking advantage of that audience and those dollars.

No audience, no dollars. And that's what happened to Err Amerika.

Now those 'financiers' are coming home to roost, so to speak.

Mystery solved

Charles Johnson at LGF has received some research from a lizardoid--

.. and the mystery of why Scott McClellan wrote his Bush bashing book is now solved.

It's called George Soros' money.

Scott McClellan has sold his soul for liberal money. His publishing company is owned by a financial group that is part of the Soros companies. There is also an investment fund group that is chock full of rich liberals (including the Clintons) who have benefited from Soros money as well.

Whenever a motive is a mystery, find the money trail and the mystery is solved. McClellan was always a man for sale.

As the son of Carol Keeton Strayhorn, former independent candidate for governor of Texas (who was said to be furious at the lack of support from Bush and the Republican party when she ran against former Bush Lt. Gov. Rick Perry), perhaps McClellan had other motives too.

But none of them were honest, none were upright. His 'outrage' at the evil Bush administration is fabricated, a product created for sale.

McClellan is a phony trying to get rich at other people's expense.

Through all this, nobody has revealed what his signing bonus was for the book, or what his payment terms are, or how much money he is expected to make. Anyone who writes a book liberals disagree with is instantly discredited as out for money, and these details unfailingly hit the press. Their absence is proof of his perfidy.

And once again, the dagger hits. Et tu, Brute. Bush sat with this man and congratulated him on the great job he did, thanked him, spoke of looking back warmly on these days in the future.

And in return, another knife in the back.

With all the responsibility of his post, Bush has suffered much over bad results from his decisions. He lies awake at night over the death of soldiers, and his tears are often public, much to his own dislike. I wonder, though, if the greater price he has paid has been to suffer the betrayals by the people he trusted.

As the only decent man in Washington, such things were always inevitable; they are doubtless no easier to take on that account.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Obama drama

Well, the initial Memorial Day fluff has faded, and the 'fallen heroes' in B. Hussein Obama's audience have presumably returned to their coffins.... But there's this one thing--

Obama mentioned his uncle (actually great uncle) was in the army and helped liberate Auschwitz (actually Buchenwald) and save the Jews (he didn't say that, but he clearly is trying to fertilize some affection from that group).

Great story, once you get over the stupid errors. Oh, and he has repeated this Auschwitz story before, so it wasn't an accidental mistake. Lots more Jews died at Auschwitz than Buchenwald, and he might have been playing that angle.

But here's the problem:

In the army, helping liberate Buchenwald, was a C. T. Payne. That's all that is known, and the 'keeper of the 89th Division archives' on his website, a guy named Kitchell, is a flaming leftist moonbat who is unlikely to offer/permit any actual research into this Payne fellow. He has grudgingly come forth with confirmation that Payne served in that capacity, but does not add information, like a serial number or full name. He essentially just repeats what his website already says and adds some ugly anti-Bush raving for guys like Dan Riehl of the Riehl World View blog. Enjoy Kitchell's BDS here.

And in another website, a geneological one, Obama's great uncle is listed as Charles W. Payne.

Of the United States NAVY.

The FATHER of Charles W. Payne is, confusingly, Charles T. Payne, born in the 19th century and unlikely to be serving in the 89th Division during the end of WWII, as he was in his fifties then.

So the question is, who was the C. T. Payne in Germany at war's end, freeing the guests of Hotel Buchenwald? Was he the guy who had a daughter named Madelyn, the mother of the mother of Barack Hussein Obama? Or was that Charles W. Payne, listed geneologically as born in 1924 (the right age, at least) and listed geneologically as the father of Madelyn, and said to have served in the Navy?

(German prison camps generally were on dry land.)

Ultimately, someone is going to have to go into government military archives and sort this out. No help will be forthcoming from Kitchell.

How long?

How long can the American left, home of feminism and gay marriage advocacy and all sorts of radical 'reform' agendas, continue to support by default the Islamic fundamentalist movement?

All over the world, western governments bend over backwards to accomodate Islam while simultaneously trying to drive Christianity from the public square and denouncing Israel as a Nazi-like occupier and war criminal.

But Islam HATES homosexuality. Islam HATES feminism.

Islam hates most of the left's pet projects and people. And I mean hates them enough to kill. Young gay teenagers in Iran dangle dead from nooses on portable cranes in the back of pickup trucks while executioners explain to the crowd how to avoid meeting the same fate. Feminists are called whores and foreign spies, and arrested for recruiting and advocating in the streets.

I shudder to think what will happen to the first Iranian environmentalist who denounces government nuclear 'research' on the grounds that it's bad for the environment.

And you thought it was only Europe....

Well, dear reader, the Islamic movement has gained a historic piece of American ground.

They have actually been granted something like police authority in a Miami neighbourhood, by the local government, on purpose. Serious-looking American men in suits, ties and the ever present sunglasses are going to be 'patrolling' a crime ridden Miami neighbourhood in some nebulous quasi-police role explained here.

Something between policing and community outreach, they say. They can talk to people who don't like talking to police, they say. No radios, they have to call 911 like everyone else, that's what they say. They're not police, they're 'liasons between police and the community'.

You see, they claim that they're interested in moral reform. Minister Rasul Mohammad says "what we need most is moral reform".

Moral reform. Why does some small reckless part of me wonder if there's going to be an increase in Muslim recruiting in this neighbourhood? That's what's happening in prisons. There's a British prison (ironically named "Whitemoor") so 'taken over' by Islam that the guards are afraid to go to work and white men are terrified of being sent there to serve time.

And now American Muslims, NOI types, are planning on expanding this fertile recruiting ground by patrolling neighbourhoods and recruiting the young criminals before they even GO to prison.

Even today Christians are still accused of constantly trying to get people to become Christians. Evangelizing, they call it in the Bible. "Get outta my face", says the American left when Christians evangelize to them. Much ground has been gained by the anti-Christians in terms of laws against prayer in schools, hate crimes (homophobia is said to be a Christian crime) and so forth.

These same people WELCOME Islam, probably because Islam is also extremely anti-Christian and seems like a fellow traveler with leftist tendencies.

And one day this bedfellow of theirs will absolutely swallow them whole.

The anti-religion types will find a much less meek religionist in the Muslim; the Koran tells them to take over the whole world by conversion or by the sword.

As opposed to the Evangelical who will walk away with his shoulders slumped at some point, driven to exhaustion by the frenetic opposition to his 'good news', the Islamic evangelizer will instead refuse to take no for an answer.

And he will lop off the heads of those who try treating him with the casual dismissive contempt aimed at the Christians.

The American version of the European transition to Eurabia has begun. The Nation of Islam is now the police, somewhere in Florida.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Simply Obamanable

For Barack Obama to misstate the number of American states is a gaffe. For him to misspeak the name of Sioux Falls or Sioux City or Sunrise or Sunshine is a gaffe. He's tired, campaigning is hard, brains cramp.

I can understand his small casual errata.

But for him to claim that 'fallen heroes' are in his audience for Memorial day simply shows what we already know; he is essentially disinterested in America, does not love it, does not feel patriotism, couldn't care less about national history or proud American traditions.

Every American knows Memorial Day is for dead people. That's what a MEMORIAL IS! You can't pay homage to the memory of someone who ISN'T DEAD!

Obama is a slacker, a postmodern dopesmoker who thinks about his country in casually dismissive terms. "Racist, greedy capitalist, environmentally polluting America." No sense wasting an ounce of brain power learning about THOSE traditions; we're here to CHANGE this country, not to celebrate her!

If he showed up at a funeral and lamented the passing of great people, many of whom are here today in this audience, what do you think people would do? Gasp in shock, of course. Rebuke him for being so contemptuously careless about these somber and important proceedings.

He would never make such a mistake, of course. HE KNOWS BETTER.

But he did NOT know better on Memorial Day. Such is his true color about his country. No red, white and blue, just beige. No passion, no commitment, no dedication, no love and no respect.

Next thing you know, he'll be singing the wrong words to the national anthem at a ball game.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Jupiterican SUVs are ruining the big planet

Well, looks like those evil rich Jupitericans driving their SUVs and running their air conditioners and leaving their cell phone chargers plugged in all the time are destroying the environment of the beloved planet.

That's what causes planetary warming, right? Rich people? Rich people who use too much energy and don't even ask permission from any other countries?

What's that? There are no SUVs on Jupiter? No evil rich people at all, no people of any kind?

No industry? No consumerism? No obesity?

Then what's causing Jupiter to warm up?

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Economy better than expected.... again...

Why is it the media always use "unexpected" when good news arrives about the economy?

This time it's "applications for unemployment benefits lower than expected". Not enough layoffs to suit the newsmonkeys, apparently.

The real chuckle is in the first paragraph, where they explain the number by postulating that employers are 'reluctant' to lay people off in SPITE of worsening economic numbers.

Could it be, instead, that they are not finding a REASON to lay people off, because it isn't as bad as the media say it is?

News vs. Reality

I saw and heard more than a dozen stories about the celebrated Obama rally in Oregon-- stories in which breathless infobabes repeated in shocked tones, "over 70 THOUSAND people!"

Obama, the messiah.

Now I find out it was a daylong party, featuring a FREE concert in the park by a popular band.

That explains about 50,000 of the 70,000. "The Decemberists" are the band, wildly popular in Oregon, and they begin their shows with THE SOVIET UNION NATIONAL ANTHEM.

Booming voices of a male choir celebrating Lenin's great deeds and the glorious future of the workers' motherland. You have to hear it to get the full impact, and you can at LGF. CJ has also provided the words, in English, if you feel like singing along.

Now, if you were the Obama-loving mainstream media, would you mention in a story that a band which plays the Soviet National Anthem opened for Barack Hussein Obama, who is currently reading "The Post-American World" by Fareed Zakaria?

This is an amazing meeting of the vibes here. Could things be any more clear about him?

A very silly argument

I have finally found a scientist willing to confront the fact that over historical time, the CO2 increase in the atmosphere is 800 years BEHIND the temperature increase. That is, everytime a warming cycle begins, CO2 does not increase before that, or even simultaneously, but so much later that the Roman Empire could have risen and fallen in the interim.

His argument is, basically, that CO2 does increase global temps, and adds to the strength and length of a heating cycle in a sort of feedback loop. He points out that a heating cycle is about 5000 years, and about 4200 years of a typical cycle could be attributed to CO2 increase, at least in part.

He says it doesn't CAUSE global warming but it greatly contributes to it.

Two Points--

One, what DOES start it? No attempt to answer. ("some currently unknown process").

Two, if CO2 does NOT cause the warming cycle to begin, is it not also possible that it does not contribute to it (or only minimally)? That is, isn't it possible that the actual cause of the heating cycle is what drives the entire cycle, and that CO2 is simply following along just as it did for the first 800 years? After all, if it was feedback, what process STOPS the feedback? Try the feedback loop in your guitar amp, and if you don't pull the guitar away the amp will melt down. What pulls the guitar away in nature? He doesn't say.

For as long as solar activity has been plotted, admittedly only a few hundred years, the sun has charted contemporaneously with temperatures, not 800 years behind them. When solar activity increases, the globe's temperature does too, and vice versa. It is well known that 'the little ice age' of 1650-1715 featured a very low level of solar activity, almost no sunspots, a "Maunder minimum" named for an astronomer of the 19th century who studied records and discovered this dearth of solar activity during that time period.

This article's assertion (Jeff Severinghouse, 2004) is the exact same speculation that the global warming types offered in the beginning, with the exact same questionable proof and outlandish conclusions. It is simply adapted to confront the CO2 lag issue.

More of the same weak arguments. That's what you get when you ask them real questions.

Global Non Warming

Yet another very good summary of the actual reality of 2008 and where we stand regarding the Global Warming-- er, um, climate change thing.

I'll buy climate change. It's changing fast. From warm to cold.

REAL fast.

UPDATE-- More on this from Investor's Business Daily, a few months back. I have often cited the assertions of this Russian scientist in that year, saying in the face of almost total opposition that the world would be cooling over the next decades. He took a lot of 'heat' for that, but his predictions are proving out.

Fox rox

Just saw Fox News this morning, and the Friends are working without a net.

Alyson Camerata was doing a standup with, as usual, no script on the teleprompter, only notes. Fox prefers its people to adlib rather than read straight.

She mentioned a couple of news items and then tossed out this gem of a sports note, saying the weather probably wouldn't interfere with "the NAACP Women's Golf Championship".

Then she said quizzically, "I think that's right".

If it is, then the old argument, "golf is a white man's game" has been, like, put to bed.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

The problem nobody's talking about

IT's been said by others, and I"ll echo it-- this story will make the Enron collapse (with its casualties, the workers who lost pensions) look like a Disney movie.

All across America, state and local governments are running pension funds. They are running benefits departments. For hundreds of thousands, in sum probably millions, of workers.

Their funding is done on the basis of actuarial data, the insurance company-style estimate of what will happen in the future based on what has happened. Factors like the average age of death, length of time spent with illness, average age of retirement, average performance of investments, etc., are used to calculate how much the government should put into the fund in year x so that when the retiree draws his pension in year z, there is sufficient money in the account to cover it.

Funds are invested, just as mutual funds and private company pension funds. And those investments haven't gone as well as the actuaries expected. Experts are now looking over these decisions, and more than one actuary has been fired. Actuarial firms are even being sued for state and local pension fund underperformance. This is not a case of being able to 'blame it on the evil Bush stock market'; these people are responsible for deciding how much to invest and for predicting how much that investment will yield. It is their area of expertise, it is what they sell when they sell themselves as consultants. Politicians enjoy nothing more than being told they have 'extra money'. And governments have used these rosy actuarial premises to remove monies from the annual pension fund set-asides and use those funds for other things... as all politicians can be counted on to do (see Social Security funds-- missing in action).

Bottom line? Millions of retirees may not get the retirement the government has promised them. That, or the government is going to have to jack taxes through the roof to cover the shortfalls. Many constitutional challenges await whatever decisions the governments might make, but it is certain that this is a nationwide financial catastrophe that nobody is talking about.

And without an Enron to blame for it, the Dems (who are nominally if not totally in charge of most of the governments with failing pension funds) are going to be swinging in the breeze.

As will the American taxpayer, the mighty beast of burden, the dumb ox who gets his cart loaded with more and more people every year, pulling harder and harder, soon to get the whip, and someday to stand still in spite of that whip, no longer willing to move for any reason.

Atlas will shrug, dear reader; it is only a matter of time. Government is not only not PERFECT, it is probably the MOST flawed organization of any kind anywhere in the country. Politicians should not be in charge of money.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Obamaniacal leftism

So good old B. O. believes that we should somehow check with 'other countries' before we decide how much we'll eat, what kind of car we'll drive or where we set our home thermostats.

He thinks it's unfair that we consume 25% of the world's energy when we are only 3% of the populace.

Does this mean that B. O. will be satisfied if we reduce our energy consumption to 3% of the worlds', in order to be fair?

Seems so. And that, of course, means (in the fair world of B. O.) we will use roughly 85% less energy than we do now.

This is the end, my friend. This kind of change means catastrophic collapse of the world's economy, not just ours.

And even if he denies that a 'fair' match between energy consumption and population share is what he had in mind (if not, why bring it up?), we are still faced with a putative leader who wishes to check with France, Russia and Iran every time we order a Big Mac or give the thermostat a nudge on a hot day or buy a used car.

Rules, restrictions, chains, prisons, slavery. Call it what you will, it's the end of American national sovereignty and personal freedom.

"but Dave, we should conserve and use wisely and be good stewards!" Agreed. We should volunteer to make changes in our own lives that suit the times. It's only right.

But when it's mandatory, and when it's at the demand of OTHER COUNTRIES, it's no longer liberty, no longer America.

Imagine the HOUSING CRISIS that would erupt if the European Union was allowed to legislate how big the typical American house should be! Half the houses in the nation would plummet to ZERO value! Banks would collapse, business would close by the thousands, jobs lost by the millions, unemployment and welfare benefits rocketing far beyond the taxpayers' ability to fund them!

"But monsieur, it is simply unfair zat you should have such a big house and such high energy consumption when zere are starving people in Ethiopia!"

You are free, sir, to have that opinion. I am free to dispute it, as I can't imagine what my living in a smaller house would do for an Ethiopian. But once you enslave me with legislation that removes my right to make such decisions for myself, the value of the house I presently own will drop to zero. Forbidden. Too big. Against ze international law.

Unwilling to make payments for a worthless property, I will then default on my mortgage, along with the millions of people whose houses are bigger than mine, and banks will fail, Home Depot and lighting stores and flooring firms and Sherwin Williams and innumerable other companies will close their stores nationwide, and every lawn mowing illegal in Texas will have to go home to Mexico to find a job.

Of course, rather than make a larger home illegal, they could just impose punitive Euro-style taxes on them. This wouldn't necessarily drop their value to zero, but it would darn sure depress it big time. Nobody wants to buy an obligation to pay stupidly higher taxes. We've already seen depressed areas all over America caused solely by rapid and large increases in property tax.

And as the value drops, more defaults, more credit crises, more lost Home Depot jobs, more Mexicans going south to cut their OWN lawns.

Every small and medium business in the neighbourhoods of larger homes will eventually be hit as values plummet and people move out; jobs lost there, stores closed, restaurants starved for business. More jobs lost means more benefits claimed, higher taxes needed to pay for them, and with the tax increase even fewer profits for business, even more closed stores, even more lost jobs, and the cycle continues.

this is B. O.'s vision for America.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Perfect timing....

Yet another proof that the ethanol subsidy on the part of the world's governments is a truly terrible idea--

Not only are forests being razed to grow corn (adding to global warming, anyone? No more CO2 absorption by THOSE trees), and not only has ethanol production contributed to corn shortages and food riots in poor countries, but now there are other food shortage problems cropping up, so to speak.

When this is all done, the ones who suffer most will be, as always, the POOR.

The very people leftists always claim to be speaking for, helping, defending against the depredations of the evil rich, are the ones who suffer most from the consequences of leftist policies.

When the evil rich are taxed and beaten down to lower middle class, they will still be able to eat.

Not so the poor.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

John Kerry, your phone's ringing

Recall, if you will, John Kerry's foolish assertion in that speech; if you get a good education, your prospects are wonderful. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.

Well, the King of horror, Stephen, is apparently unaware of the damage that assertion did to Kerry's reputation, and has fired a similar volley in a public appearance.

Do these lefties really not know that if you can't read, the military won't TAKE you?

An ironic message, to those who can't read, from he who cannot write.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Canseco defaults, press misses point

Jose Canseco has decided to walk away from his mansion, owing 2.5 million bucks on it.

He says in this article that it makes no sense, given there's a judgment against the house, for him to continue paying the bank for it, 'since it already belongs to someone else'.

Never mind that he is obligated to pay the bank, since he bought the house with a bank loan and the bank is not affected, or even interested, in any judgments against CANSECO. They made a deal with him and want him to honor it.

But the reporter clearly asked him if he sympathized with people losing their homes because of high interest rates, and he said he did.

What does this story have to do with people losing their homes from inability to pay? Canseco CHOSE to walk away, DEFAULTED on his loan, not because he couldn't afford to pay but because in his selfish and unethical judgment it didn't 'make sense' to keep paying for a house that one of his ex-wives was going to get in a judgment!

Canseco didn't LOSE his home, he WALKED AWAY voluntarily. He was not foreclosed. He simply said 'I will not bother to pay this debt which my signature obliges me to pay'.

I hope the bank sues the steroids outta that guy.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

at last, acknowledgement

Well, looks like the cooling trend of the last two plus years can no longer be ignored by the powers that be in the great global warming scam.

Now they're admitting that global warming 'could take a break' over the next DECADE.

This is a warning shot, dear reader. They do NOT intend to be shouted down or otherwise moved from their long term target of a global tax regime that redistributes wealth 'for our own good'.

They will continue to whine and complain that global warming is going to kill us all, even as the globe significantly cools. And any warming that comes after the next decade will be PROOF POSITIVE that they were right all along.

You only THOUGHT you could dismiss them when the globe cooled.

But it was never going to be that easy.

But if sunspots don't come back, maybe that 'decade' will turn into a generation or more, like it did a couple of times in the past 500 years. If it does, we'll have way more global problems than the attempt to put us all under the yoke of de facto communism.

We're going to have trouble finding something to EAT. Cooler temps worldwide will significantly impact crop growth to the negative.

A warmer planet means more areas can be used for agriculture. A cooling planet, not so much.