Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Socialists and Muslim Brotherhood Unite Against Israel and The West

In case you wondered that the role of the left is in the world. The objective is to take down the capitalist system. Moreover it is to destroy Israel. The code phrase is "The Liberation of Palestine." SEE HERE

A Fundamental Transformation Is Underway! Maybe Not The Change You Were Looking For?

SEE HERE The whole idea that Democracy would spontaneously take root in the Middle East strikes me as naive. We'll see but Red State thinks NOT! The bottom line is that there is no hint of Democracy in Islam. It is a theocracy pure (hmmm... ) and simple (hmmm...). Maybe not. Instead we may see the beginning of something rather ominous. Only time will tell.

The Cain Train Is Coming! He Left That Democrat Plantation A Long Time Ago.

Let's Raise Some Cain!

The Fallacy of Just-So Stories

SEE HERE The world is full of myths motivated by beliefs that just aren't so. I'll call these "just-so" stories. You should probably start your own collection. There is no shortage of "just-so" stories, they pop up wherever someone wants to advance an agenda but doesn't have the actual facts. They make them up in a plausible way whether it is global warming or mercury in fish (hasn't changed in centuries) or that the poor are poor because they are exploited by the rich. Thomas Sowell touches on the edges of this theme, but it is far broader and it's worth starting your own personal collection. Failing that you'll find yourself nodding your head in agreement as some "just-so" story is sailed past you. The antidote is simple. "Show me the data." If they look at you like "what planet did you fall off of, it's obvious" then you know they don't have the data. It might be true, but probably isn't.

More Grapefruit! — We Need To Get Serious

SEE HERE "Grapefruit" is what Jerry Doyle calls all the distractions in the media that interfere with hearing the really important news which is about the important things. The sexual peccadillos of the ruling class show how little character and integrity they have and that is certainly part of the problem, perhaps only the most visible sign that they really have no principles at all but self-interest and that very narrow. We have to do away with the progressives and get back to character and principle or we all go down.

The Truth About Islam

Narrative is in English with French subtitles.

Monday, May 30, 2011

People Are Not Happy With Washington

SEE HERE I don't know why this should be a surprise? It's not as if there has been any decent leadership during most of my life and I'm getting pretty old. I can number of few moments when I had hopes that things were changing for the better, but they were generally dashed in short order. It will probably take a major take down to get us on a better track if we can survive it.

For the Record: Memorial Day 2011 Remember!

Hypocrisy of the Left: It Depends On Whose Ox Is Being Gored!"

SEE HERE This is amusing and ironic. I get so annoyed by the hypocrisy of the left media who find any stick to beat those they don't agree with and selective blindness whenever the same issue would affect their own prejudices. Here we have a non-reciprocal view of the Freedom of Information Act. It ought to be a red flag every time a so-called scientist refuses or drags his feet on providing the data. Real science is all about data and all about reproducing experiments to confirm data. Hiding data is anti-science, period! So when you see data-hiding going on is something that is supposed to be science you can confidently say: "That's not science!" Always! FULL STORY

Parsing Obama

SEE HERE Probably the first president that didn't have America's interests at heart. After all his wife said she only became proud of America when Barack was elected president, presumably then he would fix it and she could go on all these junkets.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Once the PIIGS Start Defaulting the Whole House of Cards Falls Down

SEE HERE The paper money economies of the world are probably approaching a tipping point. It's not clear how you prop up this house of cards once the cards start to collapse. The result is likely to be an unprecedented world-wide inflation that could make the Great Depression look like patty-cake. I hope that's not what will happen, but it's not clear anyone is taking the situation seriously which is troubling.

Palin Can Win Because She Has Real Principles

The bottom line: The talking heads are all liberal schmoozers without a principled bone in their bodies. They are the reason we're in the mess we're in. Either we start fighting for principled duty and honor based policies and stop all the stealing from Peter to pay Paul, crushing Peter and the economy in the process or we go down. It is going to be as simple as that in the long run.

Transparency? Labor Unions? — How Do You Know You're Not Being Cheated and Exploited?

Bob Goodlatte's Town Hall Meeting of May 17th, 2011


This is a long video (an hour and forty-six minutes or so) so you might not want to watch the whole thing, but I thought it should be put up when I found it. We have to start exercising fiscal responsibility before we crunch the economy, but right now it looks like we'll just drive the nation off the cliff and probably pay a pretty steep price for our irresponsibility.

Testing the Concept of Democracy

The problem with democracy which Aristotle and Plato viewed as mob rule, is that it represents the tyranny of the majority. When the majority discovers that they can take the property of the productive and distribute it among themselves the result is a form of tyranny and soon a form of poverty and squalor for all. When you cannot keep your property which you earned and created then that destroys what incentive you had to work hard and produce. Soon all exist at the subsistence level and blame the producers who no longer produce for their fate. Instead they should look to their own envy, greed, and sloth. Government that panders to these vices leads to the dissolution of civilization and culture. The next sloshing sound you hear is that of a great and noble experiment in freedom being flushed by the ignorant grasping for personal gain without the burdens of duty and the responsibility of citizenship.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

If This Goes On ...

SEE HERE "If this goes on ..." is a science fiction category for generating plots by extrapolating some trend into the future, often to extremes. It seemed like an appropriate theme for the notion of individual states starting their own currencies in hard metals. If you study the history of money in the United States you'll find there were all sorts of fascinating things including paper money issued as bank-notes so that shopkeepers had to have catalogs of banknotes so that they knew which ones they could safely take. This goes the other way from paper to hard currency. I'm inclined to see this as a positive development which could influence the Fed to slow or stop the destruction of the value of the dollar. There is no fundamental reason why anyone has to trade in dollars. Long before the United States became the United States there were all sorts of hard money currencies in simultaneous exchange. You might get a kick out of THIS Wikipedia article if hard currency history interests you. CHECK IT OUT!

Sarah Palin In Her Own Speak on May 2nd

Sarah speaks common sense which is becoming increasingly uncommon. How can a lady that quotes G.K. Chesterton be far off the mark? It's time to start calling out all the people who want to "fundamentally transform" America. They need a fundamental adjustment in their values.

Nothing Like a Mama Grizzly — Go Sarah!

Shameful! — We Need to Restore the 4th Amendment to Prominence and Stop This Invasion of People's Homes

SEE HERE The militarization of the police and the loss of proper procedures for serving search warrants leads to these kind of tragedies. How outrageous! It's time to go back to older procedures. Knock politely and ask to serve the search warrant. If you are afraid they'll flush the evidence, oh well! Is that the justification for taking a life when you make a mistake.

Semper Fi, Jose! Your country owes you one. It's time to rein in the police.

Thomas Sowell In His Own Speak

Common sense is what Thomas Sowell speaks and you learn a lot about economics in the process. I've been following Thomas Sowell ever since he was on Bill Buckley's "Firing Line" in the 1970s. He's a clear minded, incisive intellectual who was once a Marxist but came to his senses unlike the current occupant of the White House. "We're raising whole generations that regard facts as optional ..." says Thomas Sowell. "They're being taught that it is important to have views and they're not being taught that it's important to know what you're talking about." That's an indictment of the educational system that needs to be addressed. "I've always believed that there are pockets of sanity ..." he says. What's important of course is that the pockets of sanity grow larger. Sowell says that kids growing up in Harlem today don't get nearly the education that he got. Asked for an optimistic note, Tom Sowell said that he was 80 so he wouldn't have to see the outcome of most of the current policies.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Limbaugh Outs the Media and the Elite

SEE HERE If you're a Conservative, as I am, then it's about time this was made explicit. Read the whole piece but here's the part that I think is striking.

The Republican Party is really royal right now, inside-the-Beltway intelligentsia, power base is not oriented towards conservatism.

“Conservative Republicans make them nervous,” he added. “The inside-the-Beltway ruling class — the elite — they’re more oriented toward candidates they can attach the word ‘serious’ to — which is another way of saying someone who is boring, who doesn’t ruffle feathers, someone who exudes an air of formal education and sophistication — she doesn’t exude that, and I think it’s going to shake a lot of people up.

Read more on Newsmax.com: Rush Limbaugh: GOP and Dems Both Fear Palin
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

I think Limbaugh is exactly right. Candidates that are authentic, real people who believe in the Constitution and traditional values scare these media and elitists to death. They can't control them. They actually do things based on principle. What a horrifying thought! He goes on to name a few and these are the folks on my good guys list. 1) Sarah Palin, 2) Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, 3) U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, and Limbaugh's personal favorite candidate is Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Sounds like a good field to me!

62% Tax Rate: That's Motivational!

SEE HERE It's motivational to stop working early, slow down business growth, substantially destroy the incentive to start new businesses. The only thing government knows how to do is crush incentives and destroy innovation. We're well on our way to becoming a "used to be great" nation. It's time to shrink government big time. MORE FROM WSJ

20 Questions Someone Shoud Be Asking!

SEE HERE The sound of an economic collapse is likely the mournful sound of crying as the American dream disappears for many people. Meanwhile the government pretends to be doing something useful, when the reality is that it is government that causes most of the misery.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Unanimous Rejection of the Obama Budget

SEE HERE Unanimous rejection? In the senate? Wow! I guess that means it was a real stinker when even your own party rejects it unanimously. What is all that about? They're probably maneuvering to blame the Republicans for something ... That's probably it.

Criminal Charges to Be Lodged: Birth Certificate Is Forged!

Forged birth certificate is a criminal offense isn't it? What's with Trump calling Corsi to find out what he's doing? Is Trump an Obama mole? Fifteen minute Trump conversation with Corsi "What was next?" Criminal tampering with birth records in Kenya. This is sure an incredible sideshow!

Trump looks like a ringer. What's in the vault in Hawaii? Is there anything in the vault in Hawaii? If Trump is legitimate, then why isn't he demanding the truth when it is so obvious that the birth certificate that was released is a forgery.

Bachmann on the Debt Ceiling: Pay the Interest on the Debt!

If families paid their bills the way the government does we'd all be bankrupt. Bachmann makes good sense, something the president's cronies seem incapable of.

Aren't Laws for Everybody? — What's With All These Waivers?

SEE HERE Frankly I think Barack Obama is a criminal. He seeks ways to do what he wants regardless of whether it is Constitutional, or fairminded, or even legal. That's a criminal mindset. He reminds me of the old joke about "How do you tell a politician is lying?" and the answer is "His lips are moving." I used to say about President Clinton that when his lips were moving he was just trying to get you to do what he wanted. What he said had nothing to do with meaning, truth, or anything else in the real world except his desires. Whatever worked. Barack Obama seems to me to come from the same mold only worse.

Filtering Reality: Who's In Charge of Your Perceptions?

WATCH HERE The Internet is a fascinating phenomenon. I remember back before it caught on and it was populated largely by academics and government geeks exchanging files and folders and then the Mozilla browser came along and it began to explode. That was all before Google and Amazon and Yahoo and Ebay and all that sort of mad connectivity like Facebook and MySpace. The sophistication of it all continues to be amazing, but it is troubling that the net is beginning not only to keep records on you but to try to serve you by telling you one what they think you want to hear. That leads to a Balkinization of ideas, all cut up into nice little cubicles where your news is selected to feed your predilections. That's a great way to be a selfsatisfied prig where everything confirms what you think is true and right, but it's unsatisfactory because it isn't true, it's cherry picked reality. It's bad enough that we all tend to do that quite a bit all by ourselves, but it is extremely troubling when we are helped to do it. The Internet should help us to know the truth, not filter our truth for us so that we can maintain our prejudices.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Slime Balls are Slime Balls




SEE HERE Let's get back to, you know, a commitment to virtue and honor. I know it sounds old fashioned, but that's only because there are so many slime balls cluttering the political and entertainment landscape. "Duty, Honor, Country" is the motto of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Maybe we should commit to that as a standard for our leaders.

Myth of Mercury — The EPA Is In The Business of Generating Phony Causes

SEE HERE Mercury, hydrocarbons ... let's get real. There is no hard scientific evidence of many of the claims the EPA is pushing. This is about regulatory power and invasion of people's rights. It's time to throttle back a lot of these Federal agencies while we still have some freedom left. Demand hard scientific evidence. CHECK HERE

These claims about mercury dangers in fish go back decades and are wholly unfounded. The main danger from mercury is organic compounds which are manmade and dangerous nerve poisons. HERE'S SOME INFO Elemental mercury can be swallowed without harmful side effects. When I was a kid almost everyone used to play with mercury at one time or another. Like so many other things, the dangers are exaggerated.

Don't Count Palin Out


SEE HERE Real people with real values are what we need in political office today. I for one am sick and tired of the liars and sycophants that populate congress. I want to see candidates that have had real life experience doing real things not just a bunch of lawyers sucking up to the Washington elite. Palin/Cain, Cain/West, any ticket with real people would float my boat.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Peter Navarro: Still Counseling Cash and Has A New Book Coming Out!

SEE HERE I've mentioned before that Peter Navarro is my favorite market prognosticator. The reason for that is simple. I agree with his methods. He's a follow the trend long term investor who uses fundamentals first and then confirms with technical indicators. I totally subscribe to that method. It seems far more sane to me than methods that hocus-pocus use technical indicators with nothing but a sort of wild faith to sustain them. I'm also a longer term investor and not much inclined to short term thrashing. So following Peter is my style. He's not been too active lately because he's been writing another book on China. It's coming out in about ten days so if you're interested in the China situation you might want to check it out.

If There Is No Problem, Why Are They Doing This?

SEE HERE I guess the bottom line is that some people believe it is a good idea to get your ducks in line just in case. In case what? In case the dollar collapses I suppose. The whole economic thing just gets weirder and weirder. You have to wonder why Washington doesn't show more interest in getting its house in order? Do they know something we don't, or is it that they just don't care?

How About A Dose of Reality?

SEE HERE The sheer nonsense that gets talked up when Israel and Palestine are conjoined in a sentence is quite unbelievable. I suppose it shows how effective propaganda is after all. Israel is demonized and the Palestinians, those poor little Palestinians and their Arab "host" are supposed to be the good guys. Really! Maybe a dose of history would help, but I doubt it. The reality is that the hosts have intentionally kept the Palestinians in bondage and fomented hostility towards the Israelis for generations. Israel has no illusions whatsoever. These folks don't bargain in good faith and they are Israel's implacable enemies. That's just the facts.

Monday, May 23, 2011

What Is A Natural Born Citizen?

Both parents must be citizens for you to be a Natural Born Citizen. Both parents have to be citizens at the time of your birth. If you are born in the United States you are a citizen but not necessarily a natural born citizen. By this standard Barack Obama is not qualified to serve as president of the United States. SEE HERE This is a matter that is going to have to be decided authoritatively. What in fact does the constitutional language mean? There don't seem to be too many possibilities. The most obvious is that someone who is born of two citizens at the time of birth is also a citizen naturally born. If you are born here to two non-citizens then there's a question. And the intermediate case is also a question.

And You Thought You Lived In A Free Society? — Silly You!

SEE HERE Where do you draw the line on this stuff? "Hot pursuit" of a criminal in the context of a crime may be one thing, but this seems over the top. We are supposed to be a government of laws and not of men. Well this makes us subordinate to the whims of the local police and government social workers doesn't it? They can always trump up some story to justify breaking down your door and accidentally shooting you because you resisted. Seems like the 4th amendment is losing a lot of force here: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Sunday, May 22, 2011

The Truth About Greenhouse Gases

SEE HERE Just in case you still think there is anything to this global warming CO2 greenhouse gas story here's a Princeton physicist on the subject. "..The earth’s climate has always been changing. Our present global warming is not at all unusual by the standards of geological history, and it is probably benefiting the biosphere. Indeed, there is very little correlation between the estimates of CO2 and of the earth’s temperature over the past 550 million years (the “Phanerozoic” period). The message is clear that several factors must influence the earth’s temperature, and that while CO2 is one of these factors, it is seldom the dominant one. ..."

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Herman Cain Announces His Candidacy for POTUS

SEE HERE And Herman Cain owes nothing to the Washington establishment. Watch out for the vilification that will produce. You have to kow-tow to the Washington elite they think and that's part of the problem I want new blood in Washington untainted by the beltway madness so common sense can once more find a place at the table.

Herman Cain Rocks! The Cain Doctrine

This is my current favorite for the Republican nomination for president. He's smart, experienced, and capable, just the opposite of the current occupant of the White House. HERMAN CAIN FOR PRESIDENT

President Up Against the War Powers Act

Stand by for a crisis of leadership both between the president and the Congress. Will the Congress roll over and play dead ignoring the Constitution.

A Bit On the Bin Laden Take Down: Must Be Respectful

Friday, May 20, 2011

Count Your Blessings ...

SEE HERE See here sobering views of the efforts they are going to out in the West to hold back the flood waters of the Mississippi as it spreads to an all time high. The pictures are dramatic and it makes me want to count my blessings. I've been annoyed by all the rain we've been having, but luckily it has not led to flooding that affects my house. I can't imagine trying to build a levi around the house to protect it. What an immense undertaking!

Enduring Peace Based On Reality

The Palestinians have to accept some basic reality. They cannot go back to the 1967 lines because they are indefensible. They also don't take into account basic demographic changes. Israel has security requirements. Hamas is a terrorist organization and will not be negotiated with. Obama should get real and back Israel fully. The refuge problem will not be resolved 63 years later by partitioning Israel and wiping out the Jewish state. The Arabs have artificially extended this issue by refusing to absorb the refugees while Israel absorbed the Jewish refugees expelled from the Arab states. This is a sober evaluation, frank and honest. SEE HERE Here is Alan Dershowitz on the influence Obama has had on the peace process in the Middle East.

The Second Coming Is Tomorrow: Some Preacher Fellow Said So! Are You Saved Brother?

I always enjoy Michael Voris so I thought I'd put this up since some character on the internet says that Jesus is returning tomorrow. "I am with you always" is what He said so I imagine this is one of those trumpets sounding and snatched up into the air deals, but if you expect the Rapture anytime soon you might ask, "Why do you think you're going to be one of those in the air?" SEE HERE Meanwhile don't cancel your Sunday dinner reservations.

Walter Williams In His Own Speak with Dave Briggman

HEAR HERE Race and Economics, How much can be blamed on discrimination? -- a new book by Walter Williams. CHECK IT OUT Thomas Sowell addressed the issue of racial discrimination in a free market and showed that the market was a great leveler. It's all about skills and not about race. Dave said that he had a fall out with his partner on the air for calling the Social Security system a "Ponzi Scheme." That's pretty funny! Of course it is a Ponzi Scheme. Listen to Walter Williams and get the straight story.

Check This Out!

SEE HERE Just in case you were starting to feel comfortable and warm, maybe a cup of hot chocolate or a sip of raspberry wine, this ought to boil your blood and stir your soul. It popped up as a reference that a Facebook friend sent me and it's worth a read.

Is there anything to it? It seems over the top doesn't it? Increasingly you have to wonder. Reality doesn't seem as stable these days as it used to.

Red State Reviews the GOP Candidates

SEE HERE Things are getting ready to start getting interesting. Here's Red State's take on the field. Right now I like Herman Cain and any good solid Conservative as VP. I'm really interested in getting some Washington outsiders with a take charge attitude into the White House. We either clean house or we'll be cleaned out in no time.

Stock Market to Enter Slumber?

SEE HERE Economic slumber in the offing. That's probably optimistic. This whole situation reminds me a little of the period running up to Carter except it's likely going to be worse. Stagflation and the possibility of runaway inflation. We'll see! Meanwhile it might be a good idea to invest in things with great fundamentals.

Earth to Newt: Forget It!

SEE HERE Newt Gingrich is someone I have a lot of respect for, intellectual respect. But in a lot of ways he's a total idiot. His personal life has been a mess and his long tenure in Washington and hanging out with the Washington elite seems to have rotted his brain. I no longer trust Newt to do the right thing which is a shame. When Bob Goodlatte was first running for Congress I told him that when he got up to Washington I'd like him to follow Newt Gingrich's lead. Newt was doing courageous Special Orders appearances at the time challenging the liberal establishment and articulating what it meant to be a Conservative. He led the Contract with America fight which led to a balanced budget despite all the claims by the Clinton administration that they did it.

Well today's Newt seems to be a different creature altogether. Too bad! I'd have voted for the old Newt in a heartbeat, but I think the new Newt, the brain rotted Newt, sounds like just another conciliator, a RINO pretending to be a Conservative. When he spun the personal mandate and attacked the efforts of Paul Ryan he lost whatever shred of continued support I had for him. He should just bow out. So should the other RINOs like Mitt Romney. We need new blood that isn't tainted by the Washington disease of appeasement. Before the republic sinks into the sea we need a knock down drag out fight. Compromising with the forces destroying the nation is no solution. KRAUTHAMMER AGREES

How Dare You Question the NIC?

SEE HERE Lt. Col. Terry Lakin was sentenced to six months in jail and dismissed from the Army for daring to question whether Barack Obama was Constitutionally qualified to serve as President of the United States and, thus, as his Commander in Chief. Recently released the issue will not go away. The Narcissist In Chief has released a blatantly forged birth certificate. Jerome Corsi's book on the whole controversy has been released. The traditional definition of a natural born citizen has been ridiculed (a child born to two United States citizens). Terry Lakin was given a travesty of a trial and jailed for asking the question that has still not been answered: Is Barack Obama qualified to be president according to the Constitution? The straight-forward answer is "No." He and his cronies are busy destroying the United States and parceling bits of it out to their trade union co-conspirators. We need to get this guy out of office as soon as possible and just hope the damage already done can be repaired.

Coffee & Markets: Will Arab Spring Lead to War With Israel?

SEE HERE The pointers are all in the direction of upheaval in the Middle East region. The Obama administration is doing nothing that will quiet the situation and many things that are likely to inflame the situation. Armageddon? World War III? Just a replay of the six day war? We don't know, but frankly the indicators are of unrest leading to war.

Download or just play the podcast. The future goes to those who are prepared.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Jerome Corsi On "Birthers" — The Birth Certificate Is a Forgery

Obama Is No Friend of Israel

SEE HERE Obama prepares to throw Israel under the Arab Spring bus.

CLUELESS OBAMA

NETANYAHU ON BORDERS

ALLEN WEST ON ISRAEL

SELLING OUT ISRAEL

C.S. Lewis

The Left Demonizes Profit But the Reality Is That Profit Is the Only Incentive the System Provides. Without Profit the Economy Collapses.

SEE HERE Demonizing profits is a liberal mantra. The reality is that it is profits that pay your retirement and support the growth of the economy. Without profits the economy collapses. You're being lied to as usual. why does the left do that?

Call It What It Is! — Corruption

SEE HERE Exactly what empowers the government to pass a law and then exempt some from it? Cronyism is what it's called. It comes down to corruption and it's growing and despicable.

This is Funny! Government Will Start Writing Plain English?

SEE HERE When I was first working for the government and writing my first report, one of the senior civil servants took me under his wing and explained the rules for writing a properly bureaucratic report. Such things as never referring to a person and writing a lot in the passive tense since if you used the active tense then who but a person would be the subject, all these were the order of the day. So if we had developed something it was written as: "The frabblewitzer, a new technology for fritzing, was developed by the fritzing development group." You couldn't say anything like: "John Smith experimenting with new fritzing technology developed a method he coined the frabblewitzer." Couldn't have that. It will be interesting to see if all of this does anything at all.

A Saga of Why Government Isn't the Answer

SEE HERE Government is good at starting stuff that lets them swell the bureaucracy and lousy at getting anything done.

Arab Spring or Armageddon Rising?

SEE HERE I suppose this doesn't bode well for those who think the Arab Spring is the rise of pro-Western (ultimately) Democracy in the Middle East. Only time will tell, but the critical mass of the citizenry may well be more on the side of the jihadists than the moderates who are supposed to be the majority in the "religion of peace."

A Great Senior Moment

Here's a quote from a government employee who witnessed a recent interaction between an elderly woman and an antiwar protester in a D. C. airport. There were protesters on the train platform handing out pamphlets on the evils of America . I politely declined to take one.

The elderly woman was behind me getting off the escalator and a young (20-ish) female protester offered her a pamphlet, which she politely declined. The young protester put her hand on the old woman's shoulder as a gesture of friendship and in a very soft voice the young lady said, "Lady, don't you care about the children of Iraq?"

The old woman looked up at her and said, "Honey, my father died in France during World War II, I lost my husband in Korea , and a son in Vietnam . All three died so a bitch like you could have the right to stand here and badmouth our country. If you touch me again, I'll stick this umbrella up your ass and open it."


Arrived in an email and I thought it too true to not pass on!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Some Things Need To Be Remembered

VFIA #196 I Pledge Allegiance-One Nation, Under God: Part V from Dean Welty on Vimeo.

Paul Ryan On the Debt Crisis: Economic Expansion Must Be The Goal!

SEE HERE

Freedom of Religion Anyone?

SEE HERE One has to wonder where it says in the Constitution that the government should be hostile towards religion? This kind of stuff is why no-one should be sending their children to the public schools (indoctrination centers). First of all they get a lousy education. Homeschoolers are routinely cleaning their clocks on standardized tests, but worse than a poor education they generally are producing a sort of zombified kid who has been indoctrinated in liberal progressive politically correct concepts which may take a lifetime to get over. They can't write cursive. They can't read critically. They can't do math without a calculator. What kind of an education is that?

Stranger and Stranger

SEE HERE The problem of the funny birth certificate sequence numbers may have a resolution. If this is it, then Obama is a fraud, but wait, we know Obama is a fraud we just don't know a fraud what? What exact kind of fraud is he? This keeps getting stranger and stranger.

Liberals Respect Women? Sure They Do!

SEE HERE I'm not sure how this works. The Liberals talk a whole lot about women's rights and a woman's right to choose generally though it's to choose to have consensual relations and kill any happenstance progeny. But don't think the consensual part is too important it you're rich or privileged. Ann Coulter points out rather thoroughly how this works. But don't worry girls, "They'll respect you in the morning."

Natural Gas: Thoughts on Fracking!

SEE HERE You've probably heard all the hoopla over the fracking process which injects chemicals under high pressure very deeply and release trapped natural gas. The environmentalists are up in arms about it, but it's not clear whether they're just not against nearly everything. I'm inclined to send all the environmentalists to a deserted island somewhere where they can build the perfect society and then if they succeed we can all benefit. Meanwhile they really want magic.

They want energy for free with no environmental impact. Indeed what they really want it seems is to have no-one but themselves enjoying anything. My general sense of environmentalists is that they hate humankind except for their own rather small coterie. No-one seeks to destroy the environment. No-one wants to create nasty conditions in which to live. Environmentalists tend to set up strawmen and accuse corporations or others of just that sort of thing. I don't have that gene so I really don't know what it is all about.

We should all be good stewards of the environment, but we also have obligations to one another to try to help everyone to lead a full and fully human life. Environmentalists don't buy that. Many of them seem to think that it would be best if there were no humans around since they somehow mess up the environment. I've been reading C.S. Lewis "Studies in Words" and he has actually quite a lot to say about that in a theoretical sense when he talks about the words related to "nature." Man is part of nature not something apart from nature. We are the crown of nature and the only cognizant part of nature. It is certainly our obligation to be good stewards, but that's not what an environmentalist usually means.

"We Have to be Responsible" — What a Concept!

James David Manning On the Middle East Uprisings

Reality simply doesn't feature in our current thinking about the uprisings in the Middle East. The Arab Spring is likely to blow up the Middle East and not lead to peace but to World War III. It is about destroying the state of Israel. I think Manning is likely right. When will we know? Maybe when a mushroom cloud rises over Manhattan we'll see what is going on. Manning is viewing all this in an apocalyptic narrative. True? I don't know, but maybe, definitely maybe.

The Patriot's Post Quotes Walter Williams

"The sane among us recognize that in a free society, income is neither taken nor distributed; for the most part, it is earned. Income is earned by pleasing one's fellow man. The greater one's ability to please his fellow man, the greater is his claim on what his fellow man produces. Those claims are represented by the number of dollars received from his fellow man. ... What's the case for being forced to give anything back? If one wishes to be charitable, that's an entirely different matter. ... If anyone is obliged to give something back, they are the thieves and recipients of legalized theft, namely people who've used Congress, including America's corporate welfare queens, to live at the expense of others. When a nation vilifies the productive and makes mascots of the unproductive, it doesn't bode well for its future." --economist Walter E. Williams


That's it in a nutshell. If we don't soon return to sanity we are doomed.

Jobs Recovery Luke Warm At Best

SEE HERE Jobs are created aggressively by a healthy growing economy. We have a troubled economy burdened by excessive regulation and interference of the government in nearly every aspect of our lives. We have high corporate taxes, higher than most of the rest of the world, which not only make our products more expensive but make our industry less competitive worldwide. If we're exporting jobs it's mostly because of these factors. We don't have a free market, we don't even come close. We have a market very burdened by excessive regulation and interference as well as high taxes. That's the reality not the rhetoric you constantly hear about how it's the greed of business people. We need a new word but maybe hubris will do for the excess lust for power and wealth exhibited by the political class.

Can You Imagine If Bush Did This?

SEE HERE and HERE Apparently the Democrats have no problem with a Democrat interfering militarily and politically in the affairs of other sovereign nations. I question whether these moves would have been approved had the president's name been Bush. The Middle East, and for that matter the world at large, is full of tyrants and butchers who oppress their people. The question that needs an answer is "When is it appropriate for the United States to impose sanctions?" It seems to me that whatever the answer to that question is the reality is that the actions seem generally to be imposed in an arbitrary and highly selective manner. If we want to be policeman of the world then at least we ought to post the rules. Has the U.N. been consulted? No mention. Maybe we're going to set ourselves up and judge and jury and start executing other folks we don't like without any due process.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Freedom of Speech but Only If You're a Muslim

Tyranny is in the air brought to you by the United State government in response to Muslim threats of violence. Apparently we're wimping out. Respect for the beliefs of others is a virtue. Perhaps we should demand reciprocity however. If the Muslims expect respect perhaps they should show some.

Ben Stein On the Arab Spring

Stand by for the world to blow up. GAME OVER!

Buchanan on the Scandal at the IMF

SEE HERE The real question is not so much whether this guy is guilty as why he still had his job given his track record? I've worked at a lot of places: U.S. Government, large Aerospace Corporation, small Instrument Manufacturer, and Academia and in not one of those place would someone with his track record still have had their job. What's that all about? A man should be presumed innocent until proven guilty but where there is smoke there is likely fire.

Boeing Bankrupt ... Just Let the Government Run It

SEE HERE I am so sick of the government meddling in the affairs of business in ways that cripple competition and savage quality and profitability because of various factors they see as more important like paying off constituents. Government by greed, corruption, and cronyism is becoming the way it works. The problem is that it doesn't work, at least not for long. You can kiss prosperity goodby. The American Dream is over except for those who suck up to the government and forget about the rest of us.

CFACT Launches Podcasts on Environmental Realism

LISTEN HERE Global Warming and the facts: Two Things In Tension. 6.1% decline in Green House Gas Emissions? SEE HERE The cover story is that the recession caused the drop which almost eliminated increases back to 1990. Frankly I'm prepared to believe measurements but not speculative reasons. So who knows? ARTICLE

The Gingrich Passion for Self-Immolation

SEE HERE One has to wonder what has come over Newt Gingrich. He's certainly out of touch with the base. That probably means he's been hanging out with RINOs so long he can't tell the difference any more. Too bad. I used to like Newt a lot back when he was defending Conservative principles years and years ago on those special after hours sessions of Congress televised on C-Span. But here he is now, lo these many years later, lost his wives, lost his mind, and is staggering towards irrelevance.

Understanding the Danger Means Understanding the Left

SEE HERE Ultimately we are all in the gravest danger from one of our nicer instincts, which is to believe the best of the other fellow. On the other hand, ignoring what a person says of himself and the character of those he admires and associates with is to be delusional. We live in a society of people who are increasingly all delusional. This is the "something for nothing" society where everything is someone else's responsibility, someone else's fault. We are infinitely entitled and never obligated. We should get top dollar just for showing up because everyone is special and everyone's a winner. I'm sorry, but that's delusional. Catch up with reality and start reading the tea leaves because if you don't you're going to be in for some really awful surprises and they are right around the corner.

Monday, May 16, 2011

The Tangled Web We Weave When First We Practice To Deceive

SEE HERE Well it's getting more and more mysterious with more and more ins and outs and complexities. If Obama was adopted by his Indonesian step-dad, then what impact does that have on his citizenship? Maybe there is more motivation to Obama's secrecy than at first meets the eye.

Newt Is Dead — What Is That All About?

SEE HERE I used to like Newt Gingrich a lot. Of course that was before he engaged in serial wives and now has lost his philosophical bearing. I would not support Newt for dog catcher and this just ices it. I don't understand it either. He's smarter than that and he's always stood for solid conservative principles. Of course my wife pointed out that Goldwater went left in his dotage too. So what's that all about? Do the neurons start to give out and you become liberal as the neuron density falls? I just don't get it. Gingrich is off my list for sure at this point.

Wow! You're Missing Out. Be a California Lifeguard.

I think this is amazing. I knew the cost of living in California was ridiculous, but this seems crazy. Little did I know what I'd been missing. I wonder what the training requirements are? SEE HERE

Achievements You Can Go Bankrupt With: WOW!

The reality of runaway government has certainly been illustrated by the administration of our current president. He's well on his way to demonstrating how to bring down the greatest country on earth without firing a shot. Appeal to the envy of those who would rather take than give, punish those who produce and call them greedy and print money to pretend to cure the failings of the past while in fact enriching your friends while bankrupting the future. The Obama-Nation soon to be for sale to be on the trashheap of history if you don't do something to correct it. 2012 is coming!

Side Show Is Over: Trump's Out!

SEE HERE Not too big a surprise really. This had to be a Win-Win for Trump. He got a big offer from his network to continue with his show, The Apprentice, and he can claim to have been presidential timber the whole time, just that politics is not his "passion." How serious he ever was, who can tell?

Let's Get the Record Straight: Liberals are Liars!

Talking With Conservative Students

Emily Buck, the chair of the JMU College Republicans, speaks about 10 minutes into the video. The bias on campuses is the focus of this Glenn Beck video segment. The problem is not that liberals are intellectually superior to conservatives, they are more bigoted and repressive and shut down debate. The reason is simple. In any open debate the liberals lose because their ideas are not true and their reasons for holding them are simply veiled self-interest.

Education the Liberal Way and I don't mean the Liberal Arts!

SEE HERE There are some issues about the biases that are frequently found on college campuses among the frustrated liberal progressives who emerged from the 1960's and because activist college professors, in some cases the second generation of such creatures. The problem is not so much that they have extreme views that are leftist and frankly inspired by the failed Marxist system espoused by the late Soviet Union, but that they admit of no other system so that their classrooms are often a peek into only one end and that an extreme one, of the political spectrum. We need all points of view as well as healthy criticism on our college campuses, not just one highly filtered and biases point of view.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Education: From Liberty to Servility

The meaning of "liberal" is based on the root which comes from the Latin liber meaning "freedom." Increasingly education looks more like indoctrination rather than how to think.
This video from the National Inflation Association (NIA) calls the value of a college education into serious question from the point of view of economic return on investment. They are also pushing silver and gold investment and sounding the alarm that hyperinflation is coming. Whenever you listen to people at the extremes (and I think that NIA is definitely on one end of the spectrum) you have to question how much of what they say is accurate, but make no mistake about it, much of it is. There is way too much regulation. There is way too much bureaucratization. There is way too much organized meddling. The result of all this is higher costs and reduced effectiveness. Something needs to change. Is it as bad as they project? I sure hope not!

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Some Light Moments ...

Understanding the Dynamics of the Middle East

The reality of the Middle East is of deeply engrained hatred based on almost genetically disseminated core prejudice. The hatred not only of the Jews but of one faction of Islam for the others. The Christians are in the middle. The Middle East is a mess. Is there a solution? No-one has one. "The very question is American" say Totten. The Iranian strategy is to gain control of all Middle East oil. "Thanks Jimmy!" Jimmy Carter, a total nincompoop, created this mess and then pretended he had nothing to do with it. Another Nobel Peace Prize winner that was a sham. Add him to Henry Kissenger and Barack Obama.

The Price of Integrity In the United States is Persecution: We Have Lost Our Way!

SEE HERE This is a travesty. It is especially a travesty since the president has clearly lied about the birth certificate whatever else he did. The birth certificate released by the president is so clearly manipulated that its fraudulent character can hardly be denied. Dr. Terry Lakin has paid a high price to defend his principles. He should be honored and the treatment he has received is simply outrageous. The longer this kind of thing goes on the more serious the questions that are raised about the character and nature of our president. Why is this such a complicated matter? Nothings seems to be what it ought to be. Documents that most people commonly share are secreted away. What is the president hiding and why is there so much complicity in empowering him to continue the concealment?

Friday, May 13, 2011

Loser Of the Century

SEE HERE "Loser of the Century" was one of the first comments on-line. Hard to improve on that. The one success that Obama has achieved I think is supplanting Jimmy Carter as the worst president in my lifetime. He's well on his way to being the worst U.S. president in history, although I'm not sure whether that's also Jimmy Carter. We'd have to conduct a careful study since there are some other contenders. Also we might need to generate some important criteria. For example, do you measure presidential failure by just the failures during their term or the propagation of bad policy for decades after their term(s)? Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson might make the radar based on that consideration.

Delivering the Goods — Herman Cain

I thought Herman Cain did really well at the debate down in South Carolina. He's not a politician and that's what I'm looking for in 2012. The problems we have in are due to too many politicians and not enough people with any sense. Politicians are all plastic people looking to fake us out so they get elected.

This Is A Fun Video For Those Who Keep Saying The President's Birth Certificate Isn't Faked — Really!

Check this out and see how totally faked the Obama Long-Form-Birth-Certificate actually is. If that's not enough the kid who did this followed up with some more videos. I think this pretty much ices it if you had any doubts.
PART2 PART3 PART4 I guess if they shout "birther" loud enough they think everyone will ignore the evidence that these documents are forgeries.

Move Along ... These are not the Jihadists You're Looking For ...

SEE HERE You gotta wonder at the competence of the TSA. They can grope 6 year olds, nuns and grandmothers but real threats just sail on through.

Inflation? Some Folks Don't Think So ...

SEE HERE Well here's the other side of the story on inflation. This is the current administration narrative. Core inflation is only 1.2% they say. All that stuff about high gas and food prices is just a sideshow. Well I suppose we'll see how that works out for us. With the Fed continuing to print money like it is going out of style, one has to be excused if a momentary pang of doubt strikes us as we survey the price of food at the market. Could it all be just a false alarm? Maybe. Color me skeptical, but I'm up for being proved wrong.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Some Folks Just Don't Believe It

SEE HERE I always like Mark Levin's lead in that goes something like "From a deep underground bunker whose location is a guarded secret ..." etc. There are a whole lot of folks that relate to that sense of guarded pessimism, that we're being railroaded all the time by a less than candid government and a bunch of media flacks that couldn't get a story right if you wordsmithed it for them and they just ran it straight. This whole "We got Osama ..." narrative feels wrong and that White House total mismanagement and lying isn't helping. I guess we can say that Osama is dead, but it is less clear that it's because Seal Team Six shot him just a few days ago. Maybe they did, but the total ineptitude and haste to dispose of the body doesn't make it any more plausible. The flip side of course is the story of the stealth helicopter that we managed to leave on the scene after conveniently having the presence of mind to carry explosives to blow it up. What? This whole thing sounds more like it comes out of a Hollywood movie than like real life, but who knows. Truth is stranger than fiction and if that's true this has to be true because it certainly is strange.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The Script ... ??? So What's True and What Isn't?

This is another of these bizarre but revelatory interviews ... it's a couple of hours but the claims alone make it worth evaluating. Are these people for real? Can our government be so thoroughly infiltrated with phonies. These guys sure sound real. So what's true and what isn't? This guy sounds totally over the top. I guess one question is how much time should be devoted to listening to these kinds of things. I try to evaluate by interior factors first. These guys believe what they are saying. But is it really true? I put it on my plausibility scale and try to weigh things and end up decidedly bewildered. If these guys are right then we're in far deeper trouble than I'd like to believe. But whatever else, these guys believe what they are saying. GUEST'S WEB SITE

DISCLAIMER: I'm disinclined to believe some of this stuff, but it's a) Dramatic, b) Seems Compellingly Sincere (which can be either phony or misled), and c) Partly plausible but partly ridiculous which is why I'm disinclined to believe it. It never hurts to listen to the case, but you have to look for corroboration and not swallow anything no matter how plausible, sincere or realistic it sounds. We live in a world increasingly flooded with disinformation. So be careful what you believe. "Trust but Verify!!" as Ronald Reagan counseled.

Some Thoughts on Citizen Cain

SEE HERE I was very impressed by Herman Cain at the South Carolina GOP Presidential Candidate Debate. It's interesting how the liberal news media spins. The better the candidate the more they ridicule them. I probably should find some way to capture that fact in an index. The Index of Liberal Media Ridicule. (ILMR) I am so fed up with business as usual in the political arena that I'd vote for any real person over the plastic personalities that are trotted out for our consumption. Herman Cain is a real person. Sarah Palin is a real person. I'm not sure about Donald Trump, but at least he's not from Washington. Allen West impresses me. I want some plain spoken folks with principles and not more of the same Washington compromisers and go-along to get along types.

The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same!

Gas prices have not gone up, indeed gas costs pretty much what it always has. What has happened is the dollar keeps getting more worthless. The other day I put up something that showed that in terms of silver (a hard commodity) gas still costs about what it did (actually less) than it did in 1947. Then this came into my mailbox today and made much the same point. So when the media is wailing about high gas prices, and make no mistake about it, gas is going to be going up, don't forget that the reality is that the dollar is tanking.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Where There's Smoke There's Fire: The Problem That Just Won't Go Away!

SEE HERE Dimension Two I suppose — Is he really Indonesian? This gets more and more bizarre. It isn't helped of course by the fact of the president's secrecy which just give credence to these things. What does he have to hide? If nothing, then why is he hiding information?

Obama And His Cronies: It's All About the Power

Chicago corruption at its finest! The very fact that this guy could get elected says volumes about how doomed the country is. It's all about the power and feeding money and influence to his cronies. I hope we survive this experience.

This Is Kind of Crazy! How High Can Gold Go?

SEE HERE Gold going to $2000? Is that possible? If it is that seems to herald an awful lot of scary stuff, certainly a substantial loss in the value of the dollar I'd expect or a signal that the world is about to blow up in extreme violence. What drives gold to those kind of levels when it's already been driven up a lot? Not sure how you're supposed to protect your resources when the world is becoming so crazy.

The Crushing Cost of Federal Regulation

SEE HERE Do you really think we need all this meddling by the government? I think we'd do just fine without the vast majority of it. It's one thing to demand honesty of manufacturers and the providers of services. I think we should do that and have some recourse when it isn't provided. But the price tag is 1.7 trillion dollars a year. That's stupendous and there is no doubt that we're not getting anything like our money's worth. We should simply stop it. Virtually all regulation can be replaced by a few requirements that ensure transparency so that we know what is going on. This would actually make things cheaper. It would encourage innovation and entrepreneurship and would save an incredible amount of money.

The Religion of Peace Likes to Light Fires

SEE HERE Somehow the news media can manage to ignore it when Christians are the targets of violence. But they fulminate in high dudgeon when Isam is the target of far more minor matters. Christians are murdered, their churches destroyed but the newsmedia is silent. But if a fringe Christian minister burns a Koran we are told that that somehow justifies the killings and burnings that go on. It would be nice if there was some perspective. Instead the news media just spins their narratives almost as if the facts are irrelevant. One has to wonder what that is all about?

Does This Mean that Republicans Are Developing a Little Backbone?

SEE HERE I sure hope so! I'm so tired of RINO Republicans and roll over and play dead Republicans and Republicans that say one thing on the hustings and quite another when they cross the Potomac. We have only one historic opportunity to turn back the economic collapse of the United States and that's now. It's not tomorrow because tomorrow never comes. We can't do it by just jawboning. We've tried that and it never works with Democrats, they just lie to you and then do whatever they want. George Bush the elder should know that down to his toes. "Read my lips, no new taxes." But as soon as the Democrats agreed to roll back spending then he signed up for new taxes. Did the Democrats deliver on their part of the deal? Are they Democrats? Of course not. They never do! When their lips move it isn't to agree to anything to to make commitments, it's only to get you to do what they want. Then they do whatever they wanted to in the first place. Why we can't just figure that out and stop trusting them to do anything but wreck the country is beyond me. I've watched this country go downhill for 50 years. We are much less free today than when I was a boy. We have to work longer hours to live the American dream and both mothers and fathers have to work, which means that children are neglected. Sure they have every gadget money can buy. They can text and take pictures with their cell phones and they are lost and without vision. They also have to be led around by their noses because they have not been taught to think for themselves and be independent. Instead they are brought up to be wards of the state. In this direction tyranny and slavery lie. Stand up and turn back the clock to a time when Americans were independent and selfstarting free men and women. We don't need the state to make all our decisions for us. We can do it. We don't need a wet nurse bureaucrat in Washington to tell us what to do and how to do it. Draw a line in the sand and begin today to take back freedom.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Obama and the Black Community: The Dawn of Awareness!

James David Manning rips into Laura Ingraham when she fails to follow up on Obama criticism. Over the top, but he has a point. The media is so saturated with Obamazombies that even Conservative talk show hosts are treading lightly.

Something for Republicans to Think About ... You Know: "Engage Neurons!"


Engage!

SEE HERE The Republicans were always referred to as the "stupid party" by Joseph Sobran and not without cause. For unfathomable reasons Republicans quite commonly are elected by very Conservative grass-roots folks and then trot off to Washington and betray their constituents in the name of bipartisanship or some foolishness like that. Contrast that with what happens when Democrats win. They stomp all over the Republicans. The Republicans are always acting like Democrat-lite instead of expressing an independent voice of their own which is why their base ran and elected them. The message is that smaller government is the right message especially in a time when the Democrats are rather quickly sinking the country. Get a spine Republicans! Stand up and stand for principles and stop wimping out and pretending to be a rather bad imitation of Democrats.