Headbangers Ball: Metallica-Master of Puppets Live
YouTube – Metallica – Master Of Puppets live Seattle 1989.
I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since my first Metallica show.
They might be treading water in Auckland, but they will be eating popcorn at Machu Picchu.
It just might be good to be an Inca again, well better than it has been…
The last time global warming came to the Andes it produced the Inca Empire. A team of English and U.S. scientists has analyzed pollen, seeds and isotopes in core samples taken from the deep mud of a small lake not far from Machu Picchu and their report says that “the success of the Inca was underpinned by a period of warming that lasted more than four centuries.”
Your messenger wonders if the AGW movement, headed up by wealthy white fat-cats like Al Gore, is just another attempt by “the man” to keep the little brown people down…
The new study is called “Putting the Rise of the Inca within a Climatic and Land Management Context” and was prepared by Alex Chepstow-Lusty, an English paleo-biologist working for the French Institute of Andean Studies, in Lima. Alex led a team that includes Brian Bauer, of the University of Illinois, one of today’s top Inca-ologists. The study is being published in Climate of the Past, an online academic journal.
Alex spends a lot of time in Cuzco and he told me the other day that the report “raises the question of whether today’s global warming may be another opportunity for the Andes.”
Sure people like Gore and his buddies complain about the idea of Wall Street being under water; but aren’t they really worried about poor people in Peru making big money selling ethanol corn grown up-slope in the Andes? Yep, think of all of those Inca descendants driving those huge flex-fuel trucks made by Chevy and Ford from their corn profits. Go ahead Al – stop the world from warming and keep the Peruvians poor.
The author of our little story makes this observation…
Core samples from glaciers and from the mud beneath lakes in the Andes, the Amazon and elsewhere have built up a history of the world’s climate and the message is crystal clear. It is that changes have taken place in the past, during the six or seven thousand years of our agriculture-based civilizations, that are just as big as the ones we are facing from today’s CO2 warming.
Ok, Ok, Ok I follow this, except this part: “…the ones we are facing from today’s CO2 warming.” Really now? Couldn’t it just be that since our good old planet goes through these changes with regularity that this change is well – a regular one? In any event it is comforting that we survived before. I mean I guess it is.
…finally, there is the role of natural variability in changes now being observed. Nobody disputes that the climate, independent of human activities, changes. The question is to what extent changes now underway can be attributed to natural variability. “So far, in the 21st century, global warming has stabilized and no one really knows why,” writes Dr. William Cotton, a professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University. “None of the ‘known’ climate forcing mechanisms can explain the discrepancy.” We know too little about natural variability of the climate to confidently make predictions, he insists.
then just what do you know?
Cover Songs: Antony and the Johnsons-Crazy Right Now
For some reason I like this interpretation of the song Crazy Right Now originally performed by Beyonce.
Get Real Baby: When Will the Realist Start Getting Real?
The New Republic
Washington Diarist by Leon Wieseltier
The Long Arc
Post Date July 15, 2009
I am not an Iran expert, unlike almost everyone I meet, but I find it hard to imagine that the young men and women suffering the blows of the Basij would not welcome our support, that they are in the streets with angry thoughts of Mossadegh. If these events have shown anything, it is that their enemy and our enemy are the same.
His little essay explains in a very simple way why Obama’s approach with Iran is wrong.
On a rainy day in 1993, I sat with my parents at the opening ceremonies of the Holocaust Museum and heard President Clinton, who was doing nothing to stop the genocide in Bosnia, suggest that the genocide in Bosnia must be stopped, because never again can we allow genocide to occur. My mother laconically whispered that “he talks about Bosnia as if he is somebody else.”
If all of us support the dissidents but the president does not, the dissidents have an American problem. If none of us support the dissidents but the president does, the dissidents do not have an American problem. And either way, the president is “meddling.” Obama’s parsimonious performance in the first weeks of the rebellion in Tehran, the disappearance of his eloquence and his championship of change, was an attempt by the president to impersonate the rest of us, to be just another saddened consumer of tweets and feeds. Hence his refrains about “bearing witness” and “the world is watching.” That is uplift for a demonstration, or a vigil. Witnessing and watching are varieties of passivity. The rest of us witness and watch, because we can do little else.
I could go on, but I guess the horse is dead. I just am amazed that any conservative on this blog could believe Obama has the right approach. I just might have enough time now – I feel a PG Rant coming on in the very near future! 
Son Of “What Americans Know About The Politics Of Other Countries”
A little vicious for this site, The Beast continues his series of national slurs back on his original blog. A tidibit from the post:
India
1. Geography
India depends from the crotch of Asia and Africa like a half-descended testicle. It’s climate ranges from fetidly hot to bakingly hot. Life in India is somewhat akin to life inside a bamboo steamer that occasionally runs out of water. India is a land of deadly mountains, lethal deserts, pestiferous cities, malarial swamps and predacious jungles. In that sense it is not entirely unlike California with a dash of Louisiana. India swarms with deadly diseases, malignant parasites, dangerous insects, poisonous reptiles and vicious predators. India is also overpopulated, leading one to consider the possibility that as bad as these vermin are, the Indians must be worse.
Baseball Physics With Rockies Pitcher Jeff Francis
The New York Times has a good article on Colorado Rockies’ pitcher Jeff Francis and his love for physics.
As his arms pushed down paddles and his body lurched forward, Francis uttered words to his trainer that, safe to say, he would not if his Colorado Rockies teammates were any closer than Los Angeles.
“What number of Newton’s laws is that one, Scotty? You know?”
No.
“Third,” Francis beamed. “Third.”
Jeff Francis is rehabing from shoulder surgery, and in the process he is rediscovering his love for science. Francis was a physics major at the University of British Columbia in Canada before entering pro baseball.
“I think about this stuff a lot,” Francis, 28, said during his workout Wednesday. “Watching the way the sun moves and the stars move — people look up and see the moon, but I’ll see the phase it’s in and think what time of year it is, and the time since the last eclipse. You see it spinning around in a chair, the angular momentum of when you pull your legs in, you spin faster. The forces that when you’re riding a bike and lean, you don’t fall over because of the forces and vectors through the wheels. I can’t help it.”
“The days of science taking a back seat to ideology are over… To undermine scientific integrity is to undermine our democracy. It is contrary to our way of life.” Or – “Science is what we say it is. Sit down and shutup!”
No it is not a conspiracy. What we have here is a dogmatic approach.
Alan – “What we have here is a failure to communicate!”
Well I can kinda see how choosing truth and science over team hope-n-change’s dogma could rankle.
Then the nerve of this tuff stuff!
In a surprisingly well done report CBS postulated…
The e-mail correspondence raises questions about political interference in what was supposed to be a independent review process inside a federal agency — and echoes criticisms of the EPA under the Bush administration, which was accused of suppressing a pro-climate change document.
That deserves a resounding “YA THINK?” The CBS article needs to be read in full. It has fun little tidbits like this…
“I was told for probably the first time in I don’t know how many years exactly what I was to work on,” said Carlin, a 38-year veteran of the EPA. “And it was not to work on climate change.” One e-mail orders him to update a grants database instead.
For its part, the EPA sent CBSNews.com an e-mailed statement saying: “Claims that this individual’s opinions were not considered or studied are entirely false. This Administration and this EPA Administrator are fully committed to openness, transparency and science-based decision making. These principles were reflected throughout the development of the proposed endangerment finding, a process in which a broad array of voices were heard and an inter-agency review was conducted.”
Carlin has an undergraduate degree in physics from CalTech and a PhD in economics from MIT. His Web site lists papers about the environment and public policy dating back to 1964, spanning topics from pollution control to environmentally-responsible energy pricing.
Didn’t somebody mention transparency?
The Kicker of St. John’s Wood: A Book Review
A rational person in a rational world should be able to say that the premise and storyline of the latest book by author Gary Wolf is silly, ridiculous, and prone to flights of fancy. Unfortunately, in the first decade of the 21st century the subject matter and conjecture found in the pages of The Kicker of St. John’s Wood is not so far-fetched and is indeed instead a remarkably accurate and reflective look at the forces, feelings and mindset of the modern-day Left.
Read the rest of this entry »
The age of confusion
There is something very sad and wrong about child stars or those who are the children of very famous parents. They inevitably turn out confused and devoid of identity. The focus of the media lense is often a magnifiying lense burning a hole into their soul and creating a void that they spend the rest of their lives attempting to fill. The “defining” of them by the media and popular culture results in them often defining themselves in twisted and perveted ways. The death of the tragic Michael Jackson is such one case. A child who never had a child grew into an adult who attempted to perpetually be a child, think like a child, and ultimately indulge himself sexually with a child. But he is not alone, Lindsay Lohan thinks she’s a lesbian, Chastity Bono thinks she’s a man, Paris Hilton thinks she’s something other than a scrawny brat and Britney Spears thinks she’s a good mother and that shaving her head was a good idea. The list of course is endless with those lost and hurting souls who’ve let the limelight use them and then turn them into mere shadows of their potential selves forever searching for an identity and worthwhile purpose.
It’s both sad and tragic and the public eats it up.
The World Cooling On Global Warming
To riff off of PG’s post:
Last night Henry Waxman tacked another 300 pages onto the Cap and Trade bill under debate in the House today. That brings this 1000+ page document to 1300 or so – wonder if it’s even going to be read by many of the reps who are to vote on it? Support is still a bit tottery but they are forecasting it’ll squeak by.
Part of the reason the vote will be close is because even some Dems wonder at the wisdom of foisting an energy tax onto the backs of consumers at a time when gas is creeping back up towards $3 a gallon, the economy is in a recession and the globe hasn’t warmed a bit in a decade. In fact it’s cooled a bit. Australia is even getting ready to dump their own C&P program.
Kimberly Strassel sums up the “warmist’s” dilemma quite well in today’s Wall Street Journal:
Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.
She’s referring to that clampdown we saw a year or more ago when Al Gore and the Warmists annouced the debate was over and then tried to get dissenters fired. Lefty rags denounced Skeptics as “Deniers” and tried to set them on a moral par with those who refuse to believe the Holocaust ever happened. This was a big red flag to many. When you’re in the right on an issue you don’t squelch debate – you pursue it. Debate gives you a chance to prove you’re, well, right! Strassel shows us why:
The number of 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.)
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.
Gore et al saw this coming. They understood that it’s impossible to push an agenda based on the Globe Warming when the globe ain’t. Hence the switcheroo from warming as a science issue to a moral one. You have a right to debate facts, but you don’t have a right to be immoral. Disagreement with the warmist orthodoxy now makes you a bad person.
Hence the current rush to get as much pushed through as soon as possible. Warmists have to make hay while the sun shines. Strassel sums it up:
Republicans in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost arguments against climate legislation. That’s made sense in light of the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the economic ramifications. Yet if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won’t be alone.
The future’s not bright for Al Gore & Company.
Your humble messenger’s snippets: How climate change, historic legislation, tax loopholes, wealth transfer and million dollar green jobs are all related!
Does anyone wanna buy a pig in a poke?
June 26 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama prodded lawmakers to approve a “historic” bill to limit greenhouse-gas emissions as part of intensifying lobbying efforts for a vote in the U.S. House that could come today.
…Obama, in his public comments, called the measure “absolutely critical” to ensure a clean-energy economy that would help the U.S. “be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy.” He also predicted “a close vote” on it.
June 26 (Bloomberg) — America’s biggest oil companies will probably cope with U.S. carbon legislation by closing fuel plants, cutting capital spending and increasing imports.
“It will lead to the opportunity for foreign sources to bring in transportation fuels at a lower cost, which will have an adverse impact to our industry, potential shutdown of refineries and investment and, ultimately, employment,”
AXcess News – Washington – President Barack Obama vowed to close tax loopholes on foreign investments Monday, even going so far as to threaten banks with action if they didn’t cooperate in identifying American foreign investments.
The Democratic administration of President Obama will pursue American businesses and individual taxpayers who use foreign loopholes in investing abroad to avoid paying federal income taxes. The move will affect major US companies such as Caterpillar.
Washington, DC — Spain’s decade-long program to subsidize the creation and continued existence of so-called green jobs through a massive infusion of taxpayer resources “has cost many jobs,” former President Bill Clinton admitted to a Spanish audience at the European University of Madrid this week, according to the Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo
Will the last Republican please turn out the light?
It is not an exageration at all to say that today’s elected Republicans may well be the worst of all time. It’s bad enough that none of them seems capable of offering a cogent opposition to Obama’s radical plans. In fact, one of the least written-about aspects of the rather sudden and surprising ascension of Obama’s truly left-wing agenda is the utter lack of a coherent opposition. When Bill Clinton was pushing his more moderate plans, he faced Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, Tom Delay, Joe Scarborough, Rick Santorum, Bill Paxon, and Susan Molinari in the House, with Senators like Fred Thompson, Phil Gramm, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, and Connie Mack. Republican governors presided over New York, California, Texas, Illinois, and New Jersey. When the cable news shows or Sunday talk shows sought out Republican spokesmen, there was a plethora of articulate, knowledgeable sources who both understood and believed in Republican ideals, and best of all, could explain them to the viewers.
Today, as Pres. Obama pushes what would be the most radical restructuring of health care and the economy in at least 75 years, Republicans are left with precious few voices to join the debate. As if that weren’t bad enough, now the GOP seems afflicted with a self-destructive urge that should put the party on a suicide watch.
RIP Michael Jackson
I suppose it has been chic to make fun of the quirky, often circus-like, life of Michael Jackson. But those in my generation cannot escape the fact that our cultural lives were transformed immensely by the ‘King of Pop.’
When I was about twelve and cable television arrived in my neighborhood, the first thing I did was turn to Mtv (ch. 46) and the first video I saw that day was Thriller. It was fitting that the first video I saw on my own cable television set was the greatest video.
Long after the sad carnival that surrounded his life was played out, his music was always going to endure. Michael Jackson died today of an apparent heart attack. As it is when any icon of our youth passes away, a small part of us goes with him. Rest in peace.
No good deed goes unpunished for the Artful-Parser.
Our Equivocator-In-Chief has been bitten by the snarly dog once again…
On the diplomatic front, Ahmadinejad has demanded that Barack Obama, the US president, stop “interfering” in Iran’s affairs, the Fars news agency reported.
“I hope you [Obama] will avoid interfering in Iran’s affairs and express regret in a way that the Iranian people are informed of it,” he was quoted as saying.Bush comparison
Ahmadinejad said that Obama’s comments were similar in tone to those of this predecessor, George Bush, and could put an end to any hopes of dialogue between the two countries, which have not had diplomatic relations for 30 years.Since taking office in January, Obama has made diplomatic overtures towards Iran. but in recent comments, he said there were significant questions about the election results and that he was “appalled and outraged” by the violent suppression of the protests.
Addressing Obama, Ahmadinejad said: “Will you use this language with Iran [in any future dialogue]? If this is your stance, there will be nothing left to talk about. Do you think this behaviour will solve the problem for you? This will not have any result except that the people will consider you somebody similar to Bush.”Ahmadinejad has repeatedly accused the US, Britain and other Western nations of backing the protesters disputing the election result.
As I tried to illustrate in my post here, and in my response to the Scribe here (though I think he missed it), it is not a lack of understanding going on here. It is a question of principles.
Understandable Explanation of Derivative Markets
These kind of emails are always kind of fun to get:
Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. She realizes that
virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such,
can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she
comes up with new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now,
but pay later.
She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the
customers loans). Word gets around about Heidi’s “drink now, pay later”
marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers
flood into Heidi’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any
bar in Detroit. By providing her customers’ freedom from immediate
payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals,
she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most
consumed beverages. Consequently, Heidi’s gross sales volume increases
massively.
A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that
these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases
Heidi’s borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since
he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.
At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders transform these
customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These
securities are then bundled and traded on international security
markets. Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities
being sold to them as AAA secured bonds are really the debts of
unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb,
and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the
nation’s leading brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk manager
at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand
payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar. He so
informs Heidi.
Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being
unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since,
Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy.
The bar closes and the eleven employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS drop in price by 90%. The
collapsed bond asset value destroys the banks liquidity and prevents it
from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in
the community.
The suppliers of Heidi’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions
and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the various BOND
securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her
bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.
Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family
business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is
taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and
lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective
executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings
attached cash infusion from the Government. The funds required for this
bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class
non-drinkers.
Now, do you understand?
Sanford’s wife: He’s earned a second chance
I report, you decide.
Statement from First Lady Jenny Sanford:
I would like to start by saying I love my husband and I believe I have put forth every effort possible to be the best wife I can be during our almost twenty years of marriage. As well, for the last fifteen years my husband has been fully engaged in public service to the citizens and taxpayers of this state and I have faithfully supported him in those efforts to the best of my ability. I have been and remain proud of his accomplishments and his service to this state.
I personally believe that the greatest legacy I will leave behind in this world is not the job I held on Wall Street, or the campaigns I managed for Mark, or the work I have done as First Lady or even the philanthropic activities in which I have been routinely engaged. Instead, the greatest legacy I will leave in this world is the character of the children I, or we, leave behind. It is for that reason that I deeply regret the recent actions of my husband Mark, and their potential damage to our children.
I believe wholeheartedly in the sanctity, dignity and importance of the institution of marriage. I believe that has been consistently reflected in my actions. When I found out about my husband’s infidelity I worked immediately to first seek reconciliation through forgiveness, and then to work diligently to repair our marriage. We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong. I therefore asked my husband to leave two weeks ago.
This trial separation was agreed to with the goal of ultimately strengthening our marriage. During this short separation it was agreed that Mark would not contact us. I kept this separation quiet out of respect of his public office and reputation, and in hopes of keeping our children from just this type of public exposure. Because of this separation, I did not know where he was in the past week.
I believe enduring love is primarily a commitment and an act of will, and for a marriage to be successful, that commitment must be reciprocal. I believe Mark has earned a chance to resurrect our marriage.
Psalm 127 states that sons are a gift from the Lord and children a reward from Him. I will continue to pour my energy into raising our sons to be honorable young men. I remain willing to forgive Mark completely for his indiscretions and to welcome him back, in time, if he continues to work toward reconciliation with a true spirit of humility and repentance.
This is a very painful time for us and I would humbly request now that members of the media respect the privacy of my boys and me as we struggle together to continue on with our lives and as I seek the wisdom of Solomon, the strength and patience of Job and the grace of God in helping to heal my family.
Obama: Jimmy Carter On Steroids
Sometimes fortune pats you on the back and sometimes it kicks you squarely in the nuts. Obama has enjoyed the former, and now he’s dealing with the latter. For months he’s been talking up “engagement” with the Mullahs in Iran, buttering the Arab street, apologizing for everything from the Crusades to the statue of Mohammed in the supreme court chambers, and promising an end to confrontation and conflict in the Middle East. After all, the reasoning seems to go, if projecting power hasn’t worked, maybe projecting weakness will!
So after investing heaps of political capital into Iran, scant days after his “Cairo” speech, Iranians have their faux election and the streets explode – right in Obama’s face. Obama is stuck – he can’t talk up the protestors without appearing to talk down the government he’s been talking to. He’s gone all in on this political Ponzi scheme.
Dick Morris sketches out the political danger the President is in today:
When President Clinton, for example, dithered as Bosnia burned, he acquired a reputation for weakness that dragged down his ratings. It was only after he moved decisively to bomb and then disarm the Serbs that he shed his image of weakness. It took President H.W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq to set to rest concerns that he was a “wimp.” Jimmy Carter never recovered from the lasting damage to his reputation that his inability to stand up to Iran during the hostage crisis precipitated.
So now, as North Korea defies international sanctions and sends arms to Myanmar and Iran slaughters its citizens in the streets, President Obama looks helpless and hapless. He comes across as not having a clue how to handle the crises.
And, as North Korea prepares to launch a missile on a Hail Mary pass aimed at Hawaii, the Democrats slash 19 missile interceptors from the Defense Department budget.
The transparent appeasement of Iran’s government — and its obvious lack of reciprocation — make Obama look ridiculous.
Long after the mullahs have suppressed what limited democracy they once allowed, Obama’s image problems will persist.
Foreign Policy weakness is the herpes virus of the Democratic Party – it keeps flaring up at the worst times. The current spectacle in which the leader of the party that invests Gitmo Terrorists with civil rights yet turns away nervously from a people fighting and protesting for free elections and democratic reform is a scab that wont fade any time soon.
Senator Boxer is a clown
Imagine if you knew a guy who was offended when being referred to as ‘mister’ or ’sir’ in the course of a conversation. Every American instinctively understands that these are terms that convey respect and would therefore never correct the usage of them unless he wanted a person to be more informal. Now reverse the scenario.
Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh was following military protocol last week when he repeatedly called Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., “ma’am” at a Senate hearing.
But during a line of questioning on protecting and restoring the Louisiana coast, Boxer interrupted Walsh.
“Do me a favor,” she asked him. “Could you say ’senator’ instead of ‘ma’am’? It’s just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title, so I’d appreciate it.”
“Yes, senator,” replied Walsh of the Army Corps of Engineers.
This short dialogue is instructive in two ways. First, it shows that Boxer has absolutely no clue about how military people address each other. It would have been perfectly acceptable for the General to have been addressed as ’sir’ or by the title ‘General.’ And when military personnel speak to females that outrank them, they use the term ‘ma’am.’ But second and more importantly, it shows just how low the bar has been set in California and across America by those with a liberal axe to grind. It has become taboo to call an unmarried woman ‘Miss’ or a married woman ‘Mrs.’ We instead are forced to deal in the nonsensical and made-up ‘Ms.’ Boxer’s attitude is an indictment of how ridiculously brainwashed feminists have become when they can’t even decipher that ‘ma’am’ is a term of respect.
Neda: The new symbol of freedom in Iran
What a president should sound like
The death of Neda
Elections have consequences – Ours and Theirs: We now have “The Third Way”. We await theirs.
Unfortunately brutal crackdowns start like this also…
“I’m absolutely optimistic, because history has taught me that all the revolutions start like this,” she said. “Every revolution has violence and some people die, but nothing stays like this forever.”
I agree with the forever part. I do think the optimistic part is well..a bit optimistic based on this support…
“When a young woman gets shot on the street when she gets out of her car,” Obama said, “the violence clearly has reached an intolerable level.” But reports from Iran show his own statements are being “mistranslated” there and spun to suggest that the U.S. is encouraging rioters, Obama said, and he doesn’t want to give opponents anything to work with.
Rarely if ever is it a lack of understanding – it always is a matter of principle.
President Barack Obama did not “lose” Iran. This is not a Jimmy Carter moment. But the foreign-policy education of America’s 44th president has just begun. Hitherto, he had been cavalier about other lands, he had trusted in his own biography as a bridge to distant peoples, he had believed he could talk rogues and ideologues out of deeply held beliefs. His predecessor had drawn lines in the sand. He would look past them.
Thus a man who had been uneasy with his middle name (Hussein) during the presidential campaign would descend on Ankara and Cairo, inserting himself in a raging civil war over Islam itself. An Iranian theocratic regime had launched a bid for dominion in its region; Mr. Obama offered it an olive branch and waited for it to “unclench” its fist.
Mr. Obama’s June 4 speech in Cairo did not reshape the Islamic landscape. I was in Saudi Arabia when Mr. Obama traveled to Riyadh and Cairo. The earth did not move, life went on as usual. There were countless people puzzled by the presumption of the entire exercise, an outsider walking into sacred matters of their faith. In Saudi Arabia, and in the Arabic commentaries of other lands, there was unease that so complicated an ideological and cultural terrain could be approached with such ease and haste.
Days into his presidency, it should be recalled, Mr. Obamahad spoken of his desire to restore to America’s relation with the Muslim world the respect and mutual interest that had existed 30 or 20 years earlier. It so happened that he was speaking, almost to the day, on the 30thanniversary of the Iranian Revolution — and that the time span he was referring to, his golden age, covered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the American standoff with Libya, the fall of Beirut to the forces of terror, and the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Liberal opinion would have howled had this history been offered by George W. Bush, but Barack Obama was granted a waiver.
Sometimes being glib has limited utility.
Bizarre: SC Gov. Disappears
South Carolina’s weirdo governor Mark Sanford mysteriously left town last week and neither his staff nor his family had any idea as to his whereabouts. Chaos swirled when the lieutenent governor tried to take control, only to be rebuffed by Sanford’s staff. As of this morning, the staff is saying that they expect Sanford to return home sometime today.
Mark Sanford has been mentioned as a leading GOP presidential candidate, and like all leading Republicans these days turns out to be a complete jackass. After getting elected, Sanford first tried to go without any security detail at all, but was finally convinced he couldn’t do that. So now he just regularly ditches them. Even though this was Father’s Day weekend, Sanford’s wife said she had no idea where he was and that the family had had no contact with him. In fact, she specifically said that it was not uncommon for him to vanish like this “to get away from the kids.” Nice.
Although South Carolina is a Republican state with GOP control of the legislature, Sanford still can’t get along with the statehouse. He sued them this year to try to forego using stimulus funds that Washington was offering, even though the legislature passed a budget containing the funds. The state supreme court said the governor had no constitutional authority to refuse to spend money the legislature had authorized. And on the last day of the recent session, the legislature voted to override every one of Sanford’s ten vetoes. That’s when he disappeared.
Glenn Beck further embarrassed the Right by claiming that this was all a conspiracy to tarnish leading Republicans because Sanford “is a threat.” Yes, he’s a threat to the notion that Republicans will ever be taken seriously again. But in that regard, Beck seems to be his ally. Check out this clip where Sanford calls taking federal stimulus money “fiscal child abuse” and Beck tries to suggest that Sanford is fighting Washington bureucrats, when in fact he was fighting his own Republican-run legislature.
Saturday Night Rock- CHICKENFOOT – Sexy Little Thing
YouTube – CHICKENFOOT – Sexy Little Thing.
Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony, and Chad Smith….Chickenfoot.
Auto Company’s Bankruptcy Plan Wipes Out Current and Future Liability Plaintiffs
In case you weren’t mad enough already, take a look at another class wiped out by the Chrysler and pending GM bankruptcy plan.
a lot of panicked plaintiffs’ lawyers involved in cases against GM are screaming these days as they watch years of toil on behalf of people seriously injured by defective GM products (like crushed roofs, exploding “side saddle” gas tanks, and collapsing seat backs) potentially go for naught as GM makes its grandest attempt ever to crush an entire class of former customers and existing and future products liability claimants in a sale that many plaintiffs lawyers of record only received written notice of in the past couple of days.
Many thanks to the Center for Auto Safety’s Executive Director, Clarence Ditlow, for his help in organizing the team, and to Public Citizen’s Adina Rosenbaum and Allison Zieve for their tremendous assistance in framing the legal arguments and drafting the pleadings.
And, of course, special thanks to The Coleman Law Firm’s own Bob Coleman for his generosity in dedicating the firm’s resources to this important pro bono effort.
The sad, and all too tragic, stories of my clients, taken from the filed objection, are set forth below. The only thing my clients did wrong here was buy a GM car. For this act of brand loyalty, they have paid dearly.
I f their stories don’t bring a tear to your eye, then you probably support the sale’s treatment of product liability claimants too!
Obama/ABC Coordinate Day-Long Infomercial on Health Care
Republicans have charged that the press is in the tank with the Obama White House moreso than with in any previous political/media situation. Obama himself responds by saying, Hey, FOX News is an entire network out to get me, so that should even everything out. Now, a new bulk of data comes in.
In an extraordinary, unprecidented, and frankly astonishing development, the Obama White House operation has convinced ABC News to produce a collaborative, day-long programming marathon that will highlight President Obama’s rescue of American health care.
The network will agree to essentially turn over its entire programming to the White House next Wednesday, and in exchange the White House will generously agree to let Charlie Gibson broadcast the ABC Nightly News from the Blue Room. Seems fair to me.
Now the usual buzz-kills have raised “ethical” issues with the so-called “conflict-of-interest” and have questioned whether ABC News is really “reporting” the news, or just promoting it. But come on! This is is a once in a lifetime chance to promote the partisan agenda of The One. Which mortals among us could dare deny ABC News the right to touch the cloak of the Savior?
Although, I do feel compelled to at least offer this opportunity to the Bush bashers here to offer a full, if chagrined, apology for insisting — usually angrilly and with spittle flying (not to mention with attacks among the conservatives on this site) — that Bush had completely co-opted the media through intimidation or charm. Surely, if they possess a shred of integrity, the last two posts will leave them gasping with frustration and humiliation.
Right?
BTW, ABC News of course is vociferously demanding that this doesn’t mean they are in the tank with Obama. They insist that they are a legitimate news orginization which will hold Obama’s feet to the fire. Interesting then that if you go to ABC News or to their political section, you will find not one single mention of this, the major media/political story of the day, and one that ABC’s readers would surely like to at least be told about. This tells us all we need to know about the ABC’s objectivity.
Obama’s Third Lawless Corruption
The position of Inspector General is a rather innovative invention by American professional society. It is a position that exists within a company or a government agency whose sole job is to be a watchdog on that entity. The New York Times has an Inspector General who occasionally calls out his newspaper for poor or biased coverage, and government IG’s actually review contracts, budgets, and personnel moves to make sure everything is on the up and up. Obviously, the position only works if it is immune from repercussions from the organization it seeks to catechize.
Enter Gerald Walpin, the suddenly-former Inspector General of the corporation that runs AmeriCore.
In his capacity, Mr. Walpin investigated and raised flags about certain expenditures of the federal government that were payed to organizations controlled by one Kevin Johnson, former Phoenix Sun guard, mayor of Sacremento, and loyal Obama lapdog. Walpin concluded that the expenditures to Johnson violated scores of protocol.
Johnson balked and Obama lowered the hammer on Gerald Walpin.The usual objections have arisen, to wit, ”This is a right-wing hit job.” Except that publications like The Village Voice seem to think the smoke indicates some fire, and Talking Points Memo says that this story “isn’t going away.”
Now, in a sinister move likely authored by former Clintonista Rahm Emanuel, the White House has turned with fury on their accuser, saying 
Walpin had to be fired because at a recent meeting he was “confused” and “disoriented,” a charge which is vigorously and persuasively disputed by Mr. Walpin himself.
It took all of five months for the Obama White House to begin a character assassination/slander campaign against a civil servant who dares to question them.
While this will be said innumerable times over the next three and a half years… if Bush had done this, the Left would have been apoplectic, and the mainstream media would have at least noticed. This is a major story, but just see if you can find it among the major journalistic outlets. So why on Earth would Obama and Emanuel think they could get away with this?
Well, just look above.
Look out below: State Tax Revenues Falling
Calculated Risk: Report: State Personal Income Tax Cliff Diving.
Just WOW. This snippet comes from a WSJ link in the posting by Calculated Risk.
State income-tax revenue fell 26% in the first four months of 2009 compared to the same period last year, according to a survey of states by the nonprofit Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.
The report … is one of the most up-to-date measures of how deep the recession is digging into Americans’ wallets and, consequently, state coffers.
…
The time span notably includes the April 15 deadline for filing taxes, a critical time for states to collect revenues.
Some massive cutbacks in state services are on the horizon. Check out Arizona’s revenue decrease. Guess we are going to have raise some taxes…cough,cough.
TV Munchies: “Entourage” Parody Gives You Same Recycled Plot As Actual “Entourage”, But Without The Sucking
Lord of the Sith – Darth Bama
The most impressive, and unfortunately the most substantive, video of Obama you will ever see. It is said that the dark side of the Force can give one great power. I hate to brag, but I do have some great ability to kill flies myself but I require two hands and a reliance upon my intuitive understanding of the typical takeoff flight pattern of a fly when it is frightened. The secret had been handed down to me by another famous fly killer (an ex-boss). But the straight on death blow is a rare phenomenon in and of itself and rarely seen in person or on video. This, in fact, may be a once in a lifetime opportunity for the general public to view such a scene.
The Cyberwar in Iran
How Iran’s Hackers Killed Big Brother – Page 1 – The Daily Beast .
Tehran’s streets may be bloody, says Douglas Rushkoff, but the opposition has won the digital war. The battleground: Facebook and Twitter. The weapons: bandwidth and hacking. The prize: the end of totalitarianism.
I am not sure that one can describe this as the end of totalitarianism, as we know that the electoral choices involved here basically break down to the lesser of two evils. But it does speak to a newly discovered power of the people, the right to be heard.
Twitter, for all its faults, and the Internet, for all its insubstantiality, nonetheless serve as the strands of an existential telegraph. By resisting those who would censor history in real time, those flinging messages into the ether are demonstrating their freedom of speech—or, rather, their freedom to speak in spite of all efforts to the contrary. This mere gesture of freedom—the ability to connect to others and confirm one’s experience of the world—is what social networking is all about. While this may or may not be enough right now to topple an unjust government, the opposition, in demonstrating that this freedom is now a permanent right, has already claimed victory.
Confirmed: Access Denied in Iran
FriendFeed has been almost completely blocked in Iran as far as we can tell. We have a large number of very active Iranian users, and we noticed a steep decline in activity yesterday.
So Three Weeks Ago The Beast Had This Thing They Called A “Heart Attack”…
and is now the proud possessor of a “stent” in his right coronary artery. Naturally this had to happen 10 days before heath insurance kicked in at the new job. The good news is that the attack itself was tiny (he thought it was a sore throat) and damage minimal. One blockage in one artery that was fixed via catheter literally 3 hours after he walked into the emergency room. On Friday afternoon of Memorial Day weekend, no less! The cardiologist showed up in shorts and a tee shirt. he said “We can either treat this with medication and send you home or we can go in right now, find out what’s wrong and fix it on the spot.” Tough choice, right?
There’s nothing like restored blood flow to make a guy feel Aces. The Beast was back to work six days later. When the Beast-dad had his heart attack in 1988 he was out for 5 months. Technology is amazing. Co-workers were flabbergasted: “You don’t look like you’re back from a Heart Attack, you look like you’re back from vacation!”
No more paddling around in the float tube – at least for now.
Orton vs. Cutler and 11 game win streaks
At Friday’s conclave, it became abundantly clear that the Bronco faithful among us have taken a Bob Marley view on the state of the team. In essence, these brainiacs are sticking to the mantra of ‘don’t worry about a thing, everything’s gonna be alright.’ I’m not so optimistic but I hold out hope that they are correct.
I bring this up because yesterday Kyle Orton was named the starting quarterback of a franchise that is still in the throes of turmoil. Aside from an inexperienced head coach that drove off the franchise quarterback, the Broncos are trying to revamp perhaps the worst defense in the league, retool a horrific running game, and reign in a talented but uncontrollable receiver. But the optimists among us are unfazed. They point to the records of both QB’s as starters. Orton has been something like 21 - 13 to Cutlers 17 – 20 as a starter. They point to McDaniel’s ability to develop quarterbacks. They point to Cutler’s problems in the red zone, or his immaturity, or the fact that he has yet to win wherever he has been. I don’t really dispute any of this, and in fact, take solace in their arguments. But the NFL is about the ability to thread the tough pass, lead, have the respect of your teammates, and show that you have the ability to win. Cutler had all of those things. And can anyone claim that Cutlers record would not have been better had Denver even been mediocre on defense? Would Cutler not have won more if he hadn’t unknowingly battled diabetes during the 2007 season? Ultimately the points are moot. I am just not yet sold on McDaniels. Or Orton.
On a more positive note, the hottest team in baseball is the Colorado Rockies. Propelled by stellar pitching, the Rox have put together an impressive eleven game win streak. But if they are going to be serious in September, I predict that over the next four weeks they need to cut their deficit to the Dodgers in half. So about a week after the all-star break, we’ll know if the not-so-kid-Rocks are just temporarily filling seats or making a serious run.
Iran is on fire: Failure to cover post election rioting in Iran by MSM
Last night at our bi-annual conclub conclave, I was hoping to give my fellow bloggers a glimpse into the real-time access to information that is available in today’s world. Most of you did not grasp the power of the stream of information available at your fingertips and laughed it off as “I don’t want people to know if I am in the shower, or eating lunch, or driving down the highway”. With those points I would certainly agree. But the power of the medium is on display today, right now, in real time.
While CNN and most of the MSM have been slow to recognize the events transpiring in Iran today, the real-time flow of information sources like twitter and friendfeed have been ripe with the pictures and the stories of the uprising and unrest following the “official” announcement of today’s election results. There are numerous photo streams and blog postings detailing the action. Real time discussions of the events are taking place on friendfeed and twitter as well as many other lifestream sites.
This is the true power of the real time web. And perhaps it helps to put another nail into “corporate controlled” MSM.
As a comment on friendfeed noted “An amazing showcase of how new forms of communication make it much harder for dictatorships to control people!”
The New Trend Toward Web-Only Ads
Several advertisers have recently started releasing web-only advertisements, which allows them to cheaply produce spots longer than 30 seconds, but more importantly, allows them to run far racier productions than television would allow.
Bud Light is the most well-established company to have tried this, and they also have produced the most entertaining spots. You may have seen “Swear Jar”
Their newest one caters to a similar audience, and is the funniest one yet.
Impromptu Conclave; up to the minute minutes of the meeting
At noon today, I called DFV to arrange our bi-annual Conclub Conclave. After several tense minutes of negotiation, we were able gather a quorum by getting both Dave and Steve to agree to appear. These are the minutes of that gathering.
6:45 DFV and E arrive at the Cork in Ft. Collins. They scan the place, settle in, and order a couple of Bud Lights. It is the beginning of the second period of game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
7:25 Dave arrives. He fails to bring his usual trinkets. DFV and E pay no mind. Usual pleasantries are exchanged. Shots of Jaeger bombs flow smoothly
7:35 E goes to help rummage up some food. Pizza, Wings, and cheese fries are on the menu. Pittsburgh is up 2 – 0.
7:45 Food is served. Dave elects not to eat. Discussion turns to why Dave and DFV refuse to post their required posts. DFV falls back on the excuse of no liberals posting = no fun. Wes is gone. Andre is gone. Phooey can’t post. Therefore, there is no enlightening discussion. E counters that their posts spark the discussion regardless of the politics. Dave is about 80% done with his book and uses this as an excuse (along with his farming operations).
8:30 The Pens win the Stanley Cup. Another Jaeger bomb for all. Out to smoke
8:50 Guru Steve arrives. All move inside to re-locate in the bar. More discussion of posting, twitter, other sites like twitter, and computers ensue.
9:15 E posts the Louis CK post. All must see it.
9:27 Steve, Dave, and DFV go outside to smoke and look at Louis CK video on DFV’s iPhone. E stays inside to guard drinks from the riff-raff that is starting to inhabit the bar.
9:41 DFV, Steve and Dave come back in and discuss cancer and other modern issues.
9:53 Scotty arrives. Pleasantries are exchanged. More discussion. Topics include family guy and the Simpsons, former conclubber Jamie, Sarah Palin and the Rockies (who won their 9th straight game by the way).
10:40 Guru Steve adds a picture of a handsome individual posting minutes on his computer. Talk turns to talk radio, the Broncos and Brandon Marshall, Knowshon Moreno and other Bronco topics.
Update:
11:35 The five engage in various discussion mixed in with bouts of smokes on the back porch. One of the main topics is the state of the Republican party. This discussion takes up a significant amount of time as Dave sticks by his assertion that the GOP cannot surrender its values to become Republican-light. Damien doesn’t really see politics that way and argues that there is always going to be coalitions that guide policy. In essence, there will always be Olympia Snowes but she is a useful idiot anyway because she still caucuses with Republicans.
11:55 Shots of some 100 proof schnaps that made our breath minty fresh.
Sometime between midnight and 1:35 Scott departs. Topics: Shots of Jaeger. Beer. Jobs. Rockies. Post more. Liberals on the site.
Depart at 1:35
Overall it was a great time to be had by all. Little business was accomplished other that E harping on Dave and DFV. Both eventually gave in and agreed. We still need a webmaster that can implement our ideas. In keeping with tradition I thought I would include a song that best incapsulates the evening. Think Heineken beer. Cheers!
The 15 Hottest Conservative Women In The New Media – Right Wing News Conservative News and Views
Just click on Ashley Herzog’s (Townhall) picture for link.
Brown Government Teeters on the Brink of Collapse
For the last three days, the political news out of London was growing increasingly fractious for the UK Prime Minister. It was clear that Gordon Brown’s Labour Party was to be trounced in local elections on Thursday. And the resignations of two previous cabinet officials made his position more precarious still. Nonetheless, most observers believed that Brown could hold on to the office until an election next year. But after the surprise resignation of Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell today, who publicly called his party’s leader an electoral albatross and demanded that he resign his post, news is swirling tonight that Brown could have to stand down within days.
If so, it would mark a stunning end to one of the shortest premierships in UK history. Brown had spent ten years waiting (sometimes seething) under Tony Blair in a pre-arranged agreement by which Brown would support Blair for party leader in 1997 and eventually Blair would stand aside for Brown. Well eventually turned into a decade, but Brown bided his time. Now, it appears that his ten year wait will have given him control of the government for barely 24 months.
Thomas Sowell: Housing Boom and Bust
This week, Glenn Beck had a three-part interview with expert economist Dr. Thomas Sowell.
Anyone with an extensive mortgage industry background (which includes yours truly), knows this is the truth.
As is this “primer” from Mark Levin re economic disaster, and how we got here.
When Sowell speaks (or writes), people should pay attention. He is brilliant and has a “layman’s terms” style.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Even Hugo understands the irony behind “Comrade” Obama’s actions.
From my favorite news source - TV New Zealand. The news from Kiwiland.
Chavez: “Comrade” Obama more left wing
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez said that he and Cuban ally Fidel Castro risk being more conservative than US President Barack Obama as Washington prepares to take control of General Motors Corp.
During one of Chavez’s customary lectures on the curse of capitalism and the bonanzas of socialism, the Venezuelan leader made reference to GM’s bankruptcy filing, which is expected to give the US government a 60% stake in the 100-year-old former symbol of American might.
“Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right,” Chavez joked on a live television broadcast.
Read the rest of this entry »
Another poor misguided soul…
Barack Obama should stop apologising for America
It is time for President Obama to recognise that his strategy is weakening his country and making the United States more vulnerable to attack, says Nile Gardiner.
“No leader in American history has gone to greater lengths than Barack Obama to make amends for his own country. From condemnation of American “arrogance” in a speech in Strasbourg to acknowledging U.S. “mistakes” before millions of Muslims on Arab television, Obama has rarely missed an opportunity to apologise for the actions of the American people.
President Obama has elevated the art of national self-loathing to new heights, and seems to delight in prostrating the most powerful nation on the face of the earth before its critics and rivals, especially on foreign soil.”
Man where is this guy’s proof? The nerve of this dude…
“Obama’s supine approach has become a humiliating spectacle for a country that, together with Great Britain, has done more to advance the cause of liberty and freedom across the world than any nation in the world. Every groveling apology by the president undermines America’s confidence, standing and power, and strengthens the hand of those who seek her destruction.
It is time for President Obama to recognise that his new strategy is weakening his country and making the United States more vulnerable to attack. The dream of America haters who revel in the vision of the humbling of a superpower, is being realised by an administration that has so far fundamentally rejected the idea of American exceptionalism.”
CHEERS
