Apparently A Deal Has Been Cut

SEE HERE The usual suspects are reporting that a deal has been made on the debt ceiling and the deficit. Obama was on TV doing his usual smooth talking that sounds like he's taking credit for something but it's hard to tell what. From what he said the deal just moves the next problem out past the 2012 election which only kicks the can down the road as usual. Pretty much what we've expected all along. Band-aid over the current problem and do nothing to fix the fundamentals. Economic catastrophe still looms in the out years. Good luck America!

Compromise Is Not A Solution: Cut Spending Now.

"What about reducing the debt?" Time to stop pretending that you can increase spending forever. We're broke and on our way to catastrophe! Stop this nonsense!

Click for Larger Image

Too Much fun not to share! Click on Image for a closer view! SOURCE "Mr. President, the economy is not a zero-sum game!"

More Attacks On the Private Sector

SEE HERE Let's get this straight. There are only two possibilities when the government increases the regulatory load: 1) the regulated business becomes unprofitable and goes out of business. This is especially a vulnerability of small businesses that operate on thin margins, or 2) the cost of regulation is passed through to the consumer in the form of higher prices. Unless there is an urgent reason for the regulation like a clear public safety issue, this is always a lose-lose proposition. The current administration seems to be focused on crushing the economy and they've made a very good start with runaway deficit increases (where is that money going exactly?), burdensome regulations and planned increases in taxation.

Ronald Reagan had it right: "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

What! If This Is As Representated Then Obama Has Achieved A New Low

This is so phony it makes me sick. Demonize the Republicans but the Democrats who owned both houses of Congress at the beginning have not presented a budget in 822 days. Now they want to blame the Republicans? Moreover this whole interview is designed to blame the Republicans. This is transparent manipulation. These guys have had years now to get their house in order and instead they have been sinking the economy and now they want to blame the Republicans. They all ought to be thrown out. SEE HERE "Have you no shame?" was the question thrown at Joe McCarthy. We need to dust it off and throw it at the Narcissist In Charge. What an outrage!

Doesn't This Just Make You Want To Run Out And Join A Union?

SEE HERE The great conflict between management and the worker led to unions, or so I was taught. Unions were supposed to be a good thing and management was supposed to be evil (never quite figured out why that was supposed to be so, except there was some notion that management didn't do any real work so they must be exploiting the worker). When you hear one side of a story it always makes that side look good. On the other hand when you've been on the receiving side of the union thuggery and bullying then maybe it starts looking like a distorted tale. I've not been impressed by the union record. It's one long tale of destroyed industries. Right now they are destroying the schools, before that they did a pretty good job on the railroads, the automobile industry, and the New York newspapers. I remember the Teamsters striking against the general public with interstate slow downs. Unions may sound like a good idea, but the reality has been less than ideal. Maybe the whole idea needs to be rethought.

Rubio On the Debt: Explosion of the Debt Endangers the Future

Clarity and straight talk: two years without a budget! The Democrats have failed to provide a budget, even to propose a budget. 822 days no budget!

A Little Common Sense ... Oh, I Forgot ... Obama Is President!

SEE HERE The day to day reality is:
"The government is receiving an average of about $6.5 billion a day in revenue and is spending $11.8 billion a day. Interest on the debt, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid payments just about absorb all the monthly tax revenue, leaving no money for other things, including the military."

Read more on Newsmax.com: Default on US Debt Is Obama’s Choice
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

However, as Rahn points out, the government has a whole lot of assets. It isn't as if we're bankrupt. We just have an administration in charge that wants to turn us into a European Socialist State with himself as King.

The Bigotry of Low Expectations: We Need School Choice!

I'm Pro-Choice about schools. We have a failed educational system. We need to free it up so that people can have a choice and competition in the school system. Give people a choice for the education for their children. Juan Williams nails it!

The Napoleon of Notting Hill

I'm reading G.K. Chesterton's "Napoleon of Notting Hill" for the D.C. Chesterton Society which meets in Sterling, Virginia at Famous Dave's. You can check out their information HERE I'm reading the Dover edition with a New Introduction by Martin Gardner that was published in 1991. The book itself was first published in 1904 and is impossible to classify. It is a kind of humorous romp set in the distant future of 1984, which Gardner speculates may be where George Orwell got the idea for his own title.

I'm not finished reading it yet, at least this time. I think I read it once before although given the fact that I've read so many accounts of it, I may be mistaken. I was tickled when I encountered a quote from Chesterton I'd see a number of times but hadn't known where it came from in his work.

"If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time." (pg. 10) The idea is one I think is all too valuable. We mostly ignore what we see as commonplace. This is built into our psychological makeup. We are much more attuned to the unexpected which stimulates our fight or flight reactions calling for an immediate assessment. But as Chesterton points out quite often, it is the commonplace where wisdom is to be found.

Another quite striking phrase comes a mite later when Auberon Quin, who becomes King, is striving to entertain his companions with pointless jokes and makes the comment: "For there is in me a madness which goes beyond martyrdom, the madness of an utterly idle man." Here I think Chesterton touches on something that has only gotten more pronounced since his time, which was not all that idle by our standards today.

Today our degree of idleness is far greater. Mack Reynolds used to write his science fiction in a universe set in our own time, future for him when he wrote, of "tellie and trank" in which the general populace was mostly idle and passed their time watching television and drugged on "trank", tranquilizers. We're rather close to that situation today empowered at least in part by the emphasis on entitlements and welfare state nannyism. The idleness is bad for the spirit and results in time spend on mindless and often destructive, but good sounding causes, be they environmentalism gone wild, or attacking the system, whatever system you care to attack. Idleness breeds madness. Often enough the fruit of our idle society is a stringy web of madnesses all bundled up into a single destructive strand that erupts into strangeness repeatedly and not limited to the lower classes but just as evident among the idle rich. "Without a vision the people die" is a biblical verse that seems appropriate. What ought our vision to be?

Perhaps you've see the bumper sticker: "Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty." Touchi-feelie nonsense is always my reaction. If you think about it, the bumper sticker is an affront. Acts of kindness should not be random but universal as we see to be kind and charitable. A random act of kindness is the act of a scoundrel who is not truly kind. What is a senseless act of beauty? It sounds like a hippie flower child putting a rose in the muzzle of a musket. No act of beauty is senseless and in beauty we see the world as it ought always to be. I think these kind of sentiments are the sentiments of a idle profligacy. In our affluence we have forgotten who we truly are and what we ought to be. The substitutes we make are banal and inadequate. All around us the tide of mediocrity rises so that we will be soon engulfed if we do not stir.


I don't know if that is part of what Chesterton is getting at. I've not yet completed my reading on this outting. Still I've already had much opportunity for thought and pondering Chesterton is a very sensible act of beauty.

"We're Mad as Hell and We're Not Going to Take It Anymore"

A Friend Sent This Video To Me

It's well worth a watch. The reality is that small business owners are between a rock and a hard place and this guy lays it out for the Washington delusional government. All the rhetoric is toxic and a bunch of lies. The Washington Elite running the government are a privileged bunch of know nothings taking us all to the cleaners and sinking the country at the same time.

Will This Finally Resolve the Question?

SEE HERE Well a subpoena has been issued for Barack Obama's birth certificate. An independent and frankly hostile attorney has obtained a court order to view the birth certificate and has promised to scan it and publish it. This should resolve once and for all whether there is a valid birth certificate being held in Hawaii. Then the controversy about whether the Adobe Illustrator scan published on the White House website is a forgery or not. It should be interesting and may, hopefully, put this whole matter to rest.

The Beat of the Universe

The mystery around us! SEE HERE

Liberals and the Debt

Liberalism costs more than the benefits it provides. Hello, is that a surprise? So if we keep doing what we've always done we'll get what we've always got! Also a plug for Cain!! Cain actually knows how to run something. Obama knows only how to foster deeper divisions.

Are Their Lips Moving?

SEE HERE I've been thinking about writing a short article about arguing with liberals. It's a thankless task like trying to pin jello to a wall. The reason is that to have an argument you have to care about the truth. Mortimer Adler said that the whole point of an argument was to jointly arrive at the truth. I agree with that but I wonder what Adler would have said about argument with liberal progressives whose motivation seems different. The only point is winning and achieving their goal. The current fiscal situation of the United States is unsustainable. You could simply confiscate all the rich people's property lock stock and barrel and you'd not be able to pay off the deficit. If we don't stop making the problem worse we'll be looking at a disaster.

Ownership of the problem can't be shirked by claiming that it's all Bush, Reagan ... someone else's fault. Our current leadership have grown the debt in two years more than any other administration has done in eight and there's no end in sight. This is a recipe for disaster and then they stonewall the Republicans who want to actually address the real problem and not just pretend it will go away.

A Reflection For Today: The Fleeting Nature of Fame

SEE HERE What makes life meaningful? If you have not reflected on this perhaps you should. Is it success? Is it fame? What does it mean to live a meaningful life or does it mean anything at all? Is there such a thing as a meaningless life? I'm inclined to say that the question isn't meaningful because as my mother used to say, quoting Milton: "They also serve who only stand and wait." We can't know the full scope of our own meaningfulness, for it is bound up in how we touch the lives of others. Meaning only means anything in the minds of knowers and only men and women are knowers. We all touch the lives of others in a myriad of ways each day and don't know it. Only in the mind of God can that impact be known. Our own experience of our lives is not an adequate test of meaningfulness, indeed, excessive focus on ourselves is more a defect than a virtue.

As C.S. Lewis has said:"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."

I think we can substitute for "original" the notion of "being meaningful" and then we see that it is seeking the truth always that ultimately makes for a meaningful life. I think that is true. It is truth that is meaningful and ultimately the Truth that is most meaningful of all.

Marco Rubio Analyzes the President's Rhetoric

Barack Obama is clearly clueless. What is more disturbing is that he is an outspoken advocate of class warfare. This is not only disingenuous, it is destructive for America has been built on the theme that anyone can achieve the American dream through hard work and initiative, apparently then only to be belittled and attacked as some sort of parasite. This isn't the American way. It is naive and pitiful, but it bespeaks a total lack of understanding of how America was built and prospered. To destroy us it is only necessary to make us like all the rest of the failed nations of the world.

If You Don't Understand the Global Warming Climate Alarmism Listen To This

This is 95 minutes of dynamite if you want to understand the Climate Alarmism shtick. It's two years old but it's a valuable experience if you care about that debate. Check it out!

John McCain Send Up — Hobbits Were The Heroes John

You have to listen to this send up of John McCain. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" compared to the way the establishment Republicans greet freshmen. Hysterical!! Absolutely On Target!

Climate Alarmism Self-Destructing

SEE HERE It's all over but http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifthe shouting folks. The logjam seems to be breaking and we're getting the real data that exposes the climate models for the fluff and phony predictive methods that they embody. Moreover more folks who have been faking data and supporting the alarmism are being exposed. It's doubtful that this posturing can go on much longer. CLIMATE ALARMISTS DON'T AGREE OF COURSE This is not a surprise. However the key is not whether the Climate Alarmist consensus is disturbed but whether the data holds up. A model that doesn't model real world data is called wrong! And wrong means that any predictions form the model are also wrong. ROY SPENCER RESPONDS

Whine Whine Whine All the Time

SEE HERE There is something incredibly cynical about the people who cause the problem with out of control spending then turning around and castigating people who want to stop it. The whole blame game in Washington is a poor excuse for serious dialogue. The magnitude of the ideological divide is the problem. The new Democrats are all socialists bent on destroying the traditional and historic understanding of the American Republic and exchanging it for a European model of nanny state tyranny and they are quite petulant when they don't get their way. Delayed gratification is not their long suite.

Never Let Facts Get In Your Way, Not If You're a Liberal

SEE HERE The nature of liberalism is to see the world through manipulative and shuttered eyes focused on agendas that do not need to be defended because they are revealed wisdom. So if anything bad happens it must be because those evil [fill in the blank with your favorite enemy-- homophobes, right wing conservatives, evil bankers, ... well you get the idea] did it. Don't confuse them with facts because they don't care about that. They only care about advancing the agenda. It must be a dark and unpleasant place being a liberal with all those enemies.

Manana Never Comes

SEE HERE Kicking the can down the road once more will just continue a process of systemic failure that has gotten us in every increment closer to the ultimate tipping point. If you never make a stand then you end up failing whether it is tomorrow, next week or next year. The exact point at which the cliff edge comes and the system becomes unrecoverable isn't quite clear. But come it must. So make a stand and stop this nonsense!

Government Hurts More Than It Helps

SEE HERE Why should this be a surprise? You get more of what you subsidize and less of what you tax. The government is an overall drag on the economy and the nation and the more regulations and rules and taxes and "help" the government provides the more parasites in the form of program managers, facilitators, and people who once trapped in the programs simply give up we will have and this breeds still more. It saps people of their initiative. The rules hurt and often break up families and create single parent families in abundance. In all it is horribly socially destructive. But dare not say anything for, after all, they mean well. We are all awash in the dysfunction of good intentions gone wildly wrong.

When Is A Christian Not A Christian? — Trick Question: When the Times Says He Is!

SEE HERE The ongoing media spin demonizing Christians continues as Ann Coulter points out using the Oslo tragedy as an example. The character is about as Christian as Karl Marx or Adolf Hitler. But the Lame Stream Media is quick to tie a series of labels of their own private enemies list on every nutnik that comes along.

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due!

Mark Levine on WGST talk radio. He is a Constitutional lawyer. He quoted from a U.S. House committee investigative session where it was discovered that the U. S. Treasury will have sufficient funds to pay Social Security and Veterans benefits for the month of August 2011. So the head of the Social Security Administration was questioned as to how these benefits would not be paid (Obama had threatened to stop Social Security payments on 3 Aug.). The committee found that Social Security does not have the authority to issue checks. The Social Security checks are issued by the Treasury Department headed by Timothy Geithner. Even Geithner does not have the authority to not issue Social Security unless he is directed by President Obama to not issue the checks. Pres.Obama alone will be responsible if Social Security checks are not issued starting on August 3, 2011. Every senior citizen and every American should work to remove this tyrant from the White House in 2012. Had enough change yet?

Some Things Need To Be Remembered

"Greed" is one of those liberal topper words. There are lots of liberal magic words that keep coming up. They have the character of being either "Of course you're in favor of ..." CHOICE! or "Of course you're against ..." GREED! They are intended to be dialogue stopper toppers. Friedman shows here how to handle it in an amusing graceful and penetrating way. We need more people like him!

Maybe We Should Try What Worked In Hong Kong

SEE HERE Stossel talks about the lessons of history, especially the lesson that planned economies are the worst in the world. We could learn a few things from Hong Kong!

Rapping Along As the Dollars Swirl Down the Drain

Rap was sent to me by my friend Ben! Thanks for the heads up. If you collect enough of those when the hyperinflation starts you can dispense with wallpaper.

Jon Stewart On Obama's Speech: Hilarious!

SEE HERE It's probably a sign that Obama's losing his touch when Jon Stewart makes so much fun of him. Despite a little distortion about who's being fiscally responsible in the current scenario this is just a hoot!!

Caesar Has Spoken: ... the NIC continues delusional ...

SEE HERE Whatever happened to the idea of checks and balances. I guess we don't need them now that the divine one is in office. I am troubled however by the thought of Marc Anthony "The evil that men do lives after them ..." — we're in a lot of trouble.

Something To Think About

Old news I know. I got this in the mail today and thought I'd share it anyway since it shows once again what a bunch of liars and prevaricators the Democrats, especially Obama, are.

what the Navy Seal team looked like when they went in to get Bin
Laden.

• A couple of things to notice: 50 caliber sniper o n the right. Knee, knuckle and forearm protection. Various plastic/wire ties.


• Absolute identity denial to protect their families.


• Free choice of footwear.


• Fourth from the right has three artillery simulators and CS gas grenades on his belly. He's the 'shock and awe' guy.


• Group Photo of Seal Team Six.and you can imagine the look on Bin Laden's face when these guys came through the door?

Let's be clear on this: OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American sailor, who Obama, just a few weeks ago, was debating on whether or not to PAY, did. In fact, if you remember a little less than two years ago, his administration actually charged and attempted to court-martial 3 Navy Seals from Seal Team Six, when a terrorist suspect they captured, complained they had punched him during the take down and bloodied his nose. His administration further commented how brutal they were. The left were calling them Nazi 's and Baby Killers. Now all of a sudden, the very brave men they vilified are now heroes when they make his administration look good in the eyes of the public. Obama just happened to be the one in office when the CIA final ly found the b...... And our sailors took him out. Essentially, Obama only gave an answer. Yes or No, to him being taken out. This is NOT an Obama victory, but an AMERICAN victory!! Forward on IF YOU AGREE!!"

Ed Schreiber Col. USMC (Ret.) "Semper Fi"

OBAMA'S OWN WORDS TRAP HIM:

2008: "Navy Seal Team 6 is Cheney's private assassination team."
2011: "I put together Seal Team 6 to take out Bin Laden."

2008: "Bin Laden is innocent until proven guilty, and must be captured alive and given a fair trial."
2011: "I authorized Seal Team 6 to kill Bin Laden."

2008: " Guantanamo is entirely unnecessary, and the detainees should not be interrogated."
2011: "Vital intelligence was obtained from Guantanamo detainees that led to our locating Bin Laden."

I HOPE THIS GETS SENT AROUND TO PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT THE TRUTH!

These Kinds of Things Make You Think It's All a Shell Game

SEE HERE The same plan, the same language, the rhetoric of compromise with the reality of capitulation ... does anyone have a spine and any principles any more in Washington? Don't answer that ... it's too depressing. The answer is clearly "No" in fact maybe "Hell no!" We're all being played and gamed and it's going to be business as usually and the country be damned.

Limbaugh: "Clueless or Saboteur"

Four more years of this and America as we know it is gone. It seems likely that it is intentional. When are we going to respond to what is going on?

Blatant Attempts At Manipulation Show Administration's Corruption

SEE HERE What is this about? On the one hand it's "Default ... default ... default" and then behind the scenes to the banks it's "don't worry." These are the actions of dishonest people, connivers and corrupt conspirators not public servants. It torques me beyond belief that we now have such evil people in positions of power. I come from a generation that believed in "Duty, Honor, Country." These people believe in nothing but their own aggrandizement and enrichment.

For the Record: Obama Lies Again!

SEE HERE Misrepresenting Ronald Reagan is a cottage industry among the liberal-progressive left. It's downright laughable when Obama attempts to cite Reagan as support for his desire to increase taxes. Let's just put the record straight shall we:

---

For the record, Ronald Reagan agreed to close tax “loopholes” in 1982 because Congressional Democrats at the time promised to cut $3 in spending for every $1 in revenue increases (sound familiar?). But to no surprise, Democrats reneged on their deal, and spending went up. The President later regretted the arrangement because the cuts never materialized. SURPRISE SURPRISE! That's because Democrats are Liars!

Now that liberals have discovered a newfound appreciation for the Gipper, how about a recap of what his presidency embodied.

In case they forgot, America experienced the greatest upward mobility known to man when Reagan slashed high tax rates and minimized onerous business regulations. In a nutshell, the country generated more wealth from 1980 to 2007 than in all previous years combined, as noted economist Art Laffer points out, after Reagan’s policies were enacted.

But liberals don’t care about the truth. They would rather create entitled brats who are hooked on government, not hooked on phonics.

If Democrats are in the mood, however, to quote the Great Communicator, let me suggest Obama and his pals mull over this one: “Government does not solve problems, it subsidizes them.”

The Death of Europe Is Well Underway

SEE HERE Pat Buchanan puts the Oslo killings in perspective. The issues that have brought this event on are real and fundamental. It didn't take a madman to show that. The solutions are currently elusive.

The Reality of Government Over Regulation

SEE HERE The government doesn't create jobs, but it is damn good at destroying them.

It Appears They Are Obstructionists As Well

SEE HERE Trying to prevent witnesses from testifying to congress is about par for the corrupt administration we have in Washington. They started a morally questionable program of providing arms to Mexican criminals and drug dealers and when it backfired on them now they are covering their proverbial behinds and trying to obstruct Congress. That's the way thugs and criminals work.

Have I Mentioned Before that Liberals Are Liars?

SEE HERE Here's another case in point. The capacity of the liberal-progressive mind for distorting and lying about reality is quite beyond belief. I run into it all the time because I find young people in particular telling me how things were and are, referring usually to events that happened before they were born and that I lived through and experienced. Some of the most egregious involved the Vietnam war. Others involve the Reagan administration and what Reagan did and believed. I'm always amazed at how convinced young people can be about events that happened before they were born when most of them can't even tell you what the issues were.

It is stunning how effective the rewriting of history can be. Every time I encounter this phenomenon I think about George Orwell's "1984" and "Animal Farm" and realize just how prescient he was. We live in a world that is trying to recapitulate the failed experiments of the 1920's and 1930's. What is scarier is that they don't even understand for the most part that that is what they are doing.

LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE CRITIQUE

The Long Shadow of the Third Reich

SEE HERE Tyranny has a way of creeping up on you. The political discourse in the United States has turned totally poisonous. I'm not sure how or why it has happened, but it has. The polarization is extreme between the current crop of liberal-progressives who seem to really be simply a kind of neo-marxists. They have a whole litany of cardboard enemies that they call names and ascribe bad motives to. Mostly they seem to think the rich should be forced to pay for everything because they are greedy manipulators or something. Don't get me wrong because there are a whole bunch of equal crazies on the right although frankly they're closer to the liberal-progressives than you might think. They think that the rich and powerful are conspiring to create a world state.

There doesn't seem to be much room for those of us who are just vanilla patriots who think that government has grown too big and too irresponsible and that it is crushing the rights and freedoms that we value as Americans. I think it's been over the top for a long time. The idea that I have to fasten my seat-belt under penalty or have to have a car seat for my kids is the imposition of the government in private matters that are of no legitimate concern of theirs. This has come to be called the "nanny state" and it is a form of soft-tyranny. The tyranny is of someone who is uninvolved with you insisting that you do things for your own good that are prudential matters. I'm not suggesting that it isn't a good idea to buckle up or to have a car seat for your infant. I'm suggesting that the government has no warrant to impose it as a requirement. Once these things started there has seemed to be no limit to them. Now the food police are out to impose their particular idea of healthy on you regardless of whether you want it. People are too fat. I'm one of them. I don't need to be told that I should lose weight. But since when is that a government matter, especially a federal government matter?

The problem with soft-tyranny is that it is a creeping form of hard tyranny. We're starting to seem more and more impositions of some trendy idea for our own good. When the strait-jacket is finally clipped into place and you wonder where your freedom went, just look back on this history of the growth of government. Freedom isn't free and demand the most continual vigilance.

A Short History On the Stupidity That Has Got Us Here

SEE HERE Compromise, hell! Capitulation is more the word. More of the same all the way down until the tipping point arrives and the system crashes with a thunderous finality. Track it yourself and set the threshold ... ten years, twenty years ... or more immediate. Certain to come because we have leaders without eyes or principles or spines or chests to take C.S. Lewis's metaphor. It's pretty tragic and sad.

Don't Cave: Care Enough to Fight!

SEE HERE I'm fed up to my eyeballs, maybe higher, with the attitude that we end up having to compromise with what is blatantly wrong. We've been there, done that, tried it, and guess what, it didn't work. Kicking the can down the road isn't going to work and never has. Red State points out that there is a long long history of this kind of being played for fools by the left. Joseph Sobran didn't call the Republicans "the stupid party" for nothing. We have to step up and lead or just forget it, and roll over again until we've rolled over some long that the nation is flushed.

The flushing sound will be the last best hope of freedom in the whole damn world going down the drain before the forces of collectivism. Once they are no longer resisted, once they are in charge, once they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, the future slavery of your children is ensured. Freedom isn't free. It requires courage and sacrifice and not compromising with rats and louses. Find a spine and stand up. Else we go down like the "men without chests" we have become.

Whistling Louder Past the Graveyard

SEE HERE Credit rating? What credit it rating. Move along now! It's really pretty amazing how Obama and the liberals have totally gulled the news media. why is that? Can it really be a conspiracy as the wack-jobs imagine or is it just that the media is so completely propagandized that they can't see reality anymore? I've been kicking around for a long time and I've always kept pretty current on things and I'm really staggeringly amazed that things have come to this point. Maybe it's the internet and http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifthe amazing speed that information and disinformation travels these days which makes me feel this way. Seriously though, I've just never seen such a large disconnect between what appears to be the actual reality and what is reported in the news.

As Jerry Doyle said in an audio I listened to of his book, "Have You Seen My Country Lately?" — it's all grapefruit anymore. Grapefruit is a word Doyle uses for news that isn't really news but more a distraction from more important matters. Things that would qualify are the usual antics of the Hollywood set, or the antics of the British Royals, while real news about matters of political and national importance simply get back burnered. Perhaps it's just a matter of perspective. We just don't care. If you feel powerless to affect things then you're more interested in the grapefruit than in important matters. Well that attitude is going to be tested pretty soon now. It may not be pretty.

Failure of Leadership

SEE HERE You don't have to take sides to see it. You just have to be a student of history. The Congress of the United States is addicted to spending. Even with strong motivation for getting their house in order they can't come to the point of actually doing it. You can ask why? The answers might vary. Failure to believe that what has always been done in the past can't just be done again, might be one answer. Another, the more conspiratorial answer, might be that the left is trying to take down the economy in anticipation of being given unprecedented power to "save the country" which would give them carte blanche to impose draconian change. Or maybe it is just total stupidity. Whatever it is, the prognosis is not very good. The current trends cannot continue for all that much longer without hitting the tipping point of unsustainability. One problem is that only one side seems to want to be adults about this. The other side simply plays politics as usual. This is a much told story. The left is quite expert at the blame game. It is almost their only game. The problem the right has is that it doesn't seem to have a counter to it. But if some adults don't step up soon we'll see just another round of incremental financial irresponsibility and the system will be that much closer to collapse. Depressing really! STAND FIRM

Alan West In His Own Speak

SEE HERE Obama is a Marxist. West ompares the government to a crack addict. You need to take the drug away. If you give them more money they will just spend it and more.

The Problem With Regulatory Power Unchecked

SEE HERE EPA Train wreck is on the way!

Natural Born Citizen for Dummies

I ran into this video on-line and decided it was interesting enough to put up. So here it is! The interesting thing is how determined the rhetoric has been to cloud the issue. The Supreme Court precedent is discussed. Only one Supreme Court precedent has ruled what a "Natural Born Citizen" is and that is one born to two citizens. This means that within the definition of Natural Born Citizen applicable to the constitution Barack Obama fails to be eligible to be president. The question becomes why no-one seems to care about what is quite clear if this construction is correct. As a minimum the matter should be cleared up authoritatively.

Results Paid For by Government

SEE HERE The reality of government science dominated by political motives. Money only goes to the "true believers" who support the politically motivated party line. That's not science folks. It's corruption and bribery. It undermines real science and creates a conspiratorial climate of manipulators who fudge their results to keep the money flowing and create phony artificial "so-called" consensuses. It makes real scientist sick with disgust. It violates the foundational principle of science which is "follow the data" and not cherry pick and fudge it.

Barbarians In Need of Discipline?

I'm not sure that this video doesn't prove the point. It is a little amusing but could easily be taken to extremes. The whole society is sinking into barbarism so it isn't just the so-called "gay" community. Perversion is widespread and civility as well as basic morality is on the decline. This only can go so far before we have something that no-one would doubt is barbarism.

Davidowitz: Handling the Debt Crisis

Critiquing the morons in Washington. Always a hoot!

Mass Layoffs Returning: The Government Is Crazy!

SEE HERE Washington is dysfunctional and deranged. The video commentary on this is over the top. While we've typically had a cyclical economy but never had a president spend 4 trillion dollars on a failed stimulus plan. You gotta listen to Davidowitz ... hysterical. What did we get for our money? Now we have a president who is spending other people's money like it is going out of style. They're crazy! That's the sober assessment.

Communism Inherently Hostile to the Human Spirit

The Sticking Point Tells It All! — It's Just More Of the Same Tax And Spend!

SEE HERE It's time to stop playing the Demoncrat game ... make promises about spending cuts for the future while getting tax increases today. Then, funny thing about that, the spending cuts never come, they just over spend. After a while even the dumbest of us should get the point that continuing to do this will destroy the economy and the nation. It gets inescapable after a while that the conviction grows that that is their goal all along. Goodbye America, hello tyranny!

Unreasonable Search and Seizure?

SEE HERE This kind of police stop frosts me. This appears to be a nearly motive-less stop where all the presumption is on the side of the police. Moreover the behavior of the police is unprofessional. If you watch the video prepare for a lot of bad language and use of the "F" word, and all on the part of the police. Being a policeman can be a dangerous job. My brother was a Baltimore County cop his whole working life and I never heard him use language like this. I went around with him in his car for a whole day one time. These guys need to go to charm school and start treating people, even people they think are guilty of something, with a little respect.

You May Have Missed This Given the Democrats' Lying and Covering Up

I'm so sick of hearing how Bush did it that I'm just fed up. Let's just admit the truth Democrats ... You guys did it! You've always done and you're continuing to do it. I guess the American people are easily gulled. I think it was P.T. Barnum that said "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."

The Debt'ly Hallows

SEE HERE If you keep doing what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. That means deficits as far as the eye can see only now the level is approaching a take down.

Check Out Undefeated

You have to wonder at the frenzy of the Lame Stream Media towards Sarah Palin. If she is as stupid as they claim why bother? The reality is that Sarah Palin is authentic. She's a patriot and she's not beholding to any group but speaks her might and steps up for America. I have not seen the movie yet but as soon as it gets in reasonable driving range I'm going to go see it.

More Soultions ... Wow, To Think We Never Thought Of This ...

The Solution to All Our Problems

Slash Spending Now!

SEE HERE The problem is too much spending and just passing a balanced budget amendment won't change that. Moreover, the current quantitative easing being conducted by the Fed will lead inexorably to increased inflation which will lead to increased interest rates which leads to higher interest on Federal borrowing which leads to explosive increases in the deficit. If we don't start slashing spending we'll just get to be present for the collapse. I don't know why so many supposedly sensible folks are whistling past the graveyard. Failing to deal with this developing catastrophe will only make it hugely worse. It's caused by irresponsibility at the highest levels and it won't be bandaged over with panaceas. There is only one solution to solve a debt addiction and that's to stop increasing the debt.

How Washington Works — More Accurately, Fails to Work!

SEE HERE The partisanship in Washington has reached the point where nothing really works. The differences in principle and lack of principle on the different sides of the aisle has reached the point where it is all a game of tug of war with everyone the losers in the end, especially the American people who are being cheated by a bunch of phonies pretending to give a damn about them when all they really care about is their perks, power, and plunder. It's disgusting! Worse, the few folks with principles struggle, work to come up with meaningful plans and are systematically undermined, often by the people of their own party.

Folks, the system is broken and needs badly to be fixed!

This Is Illuminating: Where Your Social Security Fund Money Is Going!

This is sobering in case you wonder why you can't trust the government to do responsible things. These folks are living better than I am and for free. That's kind of weird!

Propaganda Concealing the Agenda: Take Over The Banking System

I'm no big fan of banks and the financial wizards of Wall Street, but make no mistake about it. This isn't about fairness, it's about control. You might as well just call it what it is: Nationalization of the Banking System through a process of regulatory control. The interesting thing is that the very crisis that brought on the "too big to fail" was a Democrat induced crisis since they imposed the requirement of unrealistically low mortgage rates in the first place. The bundling of these bad mortgages was an attempt to mitigate the risk but there was just too much risk. So this is another example of the two step: 1) Create a Crisis, 2) When it happens declare it is caused by evil (whomever) and step in to regulate it thereby seizing control. Then it's on to the next crisis. Repeated as often as necessary soon enough what you have is soft fascism, and then it degenerates to total tyranny. That's the dynamic. Support it at your peril and the peril of your children. The rhetoric of course will be how rapacious the banks or whomever is the current target are. Demonization is a fundamental strategy of these prototyrants. It always sounds great. Don't you just love the way they name the bills. Sometimes the name is exactly the opposite of the result to be expected.

Hypocrisy Is Still On the Table

Scandalous how the hypocrisy goes on and on! The more this kind of thing goes on the more people realize how much the media is just trying to manipulate them. It's not new, but it has never been any more blatant than it is now.

The Fundamental Problem: Big Is Usually Bad!

SEE HERE I'm a great fan of Lord Acton's quote: "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The problem with bigness is that it tends to both unwieldiness, hence inefficiency, and then on to distorted and vague goals poorly focused with blind follow-through. When you buy big government you get corruption as a natural byproduct, also a lot of stupidity.

Have I Mentioned Before That Democrats Are Hypocrites?

SEE HERE Here we go again! Democrats can call all the names they want but when a Republican like Alan West says one of their own is "not a lady" they go ballistic. All I can say is that it were not so pathetic it would be hilarious. Liberals would not have standards at all if it were not for double standards. We ought to start keeping a box score, but it would have to be updated so often it would get tedious.

The Obama Deficit

We keep hearing from the Democrats that Bush caused the deficit. But the reality is quite different from what the Democrats commonly say. That is because Democrats are congenital liars. My whole life I've listened to them lying about his and that. Roosevelt's New Deal which deepened lengthened the Great Depression was always lied about. Johnson lied to get us more committed to the Vietnam war and created the Great Society which proceeded to destroy the families of the poor and disadvantaged. Now we constantly hear how it's all Bush's fault, but the emergency caused by the housing bubble was one brought on by Democrat policies and the facts are clear that were it not for that emergency Bush on well on his way to reducing the deficit. Only under pressure and getting advice that they desperately needed to bail out the banks did the deficit balloon. Then Obama accelerated the spending. Look at the numbers and look at the history and stop believing the Democrat swill.

If It Weren't For Double Standards, Liberals Would Have No Standards At All

SEE HERE "Once more into the breach dear friends ..." The hypocrisy of the liberal media and the progressives is simply astonishing and without any sense of shame whatsoever. If you ever want to understand what liberalism is about and what lack of integrity looks like just look at the way these folks always look the other way when their own are up to something and bash their opponents as if there is no tomorrow when the same thing or something less damning comes along.

Sarah Palin's comment about liberal hypocrisy seems so 'spot-on' (as the British say) that I can't help repeating it. This happens all the time. The only conclusion I can make is that they have no values whatsoever. The only thing they care about is winning and frankly while that might wash in a baseball game it is despicable in real life. Were the right to behave the way these slime balls do they'd be screaming bloody murder and if the Lame Stream Media had any standard or values of their own they'd be calling them on it. But they aren't and they won't and so you know that you're up against evil.

Make no mistake about it. People who act this way are evil. They get very upset when you say that, but it's hard to draw any other conclusion. So stand up and say it. This is the crowd for whom values are simply an opinion unless you happen to offend them and then you're a [pick a random despicable name] but the reality is that they're just projecting their own lack of values on the world around them. Sorry, C.S. Lewis called it years ago when he wrote "The Abolition of Man."

Cosmic Rays Cause Global Cooling

SEE HERE In case you wondered, the complexity of the earth's climate is a whole lot more complicated then the IPCC and the CO2 mavens understand. CERN has confirmed this link and it's just icing on the cake now. Yup, you guessed it, the sun it the culprit all along. Is that really such a surprise? The variation in the solar wind modulates the cosmic rays incoming and that modulates the clouds which are the biggest greenhouse gas of all. I wonder if the next big news will be about the magnetic field of the earth which also influences the particle flux on the planet?

West Tags the Narcissist In Charge (NIC)

SEE HERE West is taking no prisoners. He calls 'em as he sees 'em. Blatant liar is how he tags the president when he's using statistics from his teleprompter that have no basis in reality. There is way too much of this stuff going on in Washington. It would be nice to have a few folks there who actually care if anything they say is actually true.

M1A1 Abrams for Egypt? Whatever for?

SEE HERE You have to wonder what the Obama administration is thinking? Well maybe not. Obama has shown no interest is secure borders for Israel and now 125 Abram tanks for Egypt is a recipe to strengthen an increasingly unstable state in the region with a history of attacking Israel. You have two choices: malice or stupidity. Since we already are told how brilliant the administration is on every turn by the Lame Stream Media, we can rule out stupidity, which leave malice. Malice towards Israel is my call. I'll stand with Congressman West. This is a stupid idea.

On the other hand they already have a helluva lot of them. SEE HERE

Sanity With Regards to Islam

SEE HERE Herman Cain isn't rolling over and playing dead on the question of Islamic religious rights. What he's doing is asking for sanity and discernment. Islam is not like the Judeo Christian religions. It is a religion that has always been spread by force and which counsels suppression of its adversaries to a secondary status where they are disproportionately taxed and generally have fewer rights than their neighbors. In addition it imposes its own form of law "sharia" which is a code embodied in the Koran and the Hadith. Thus the religion is composed of two parts, the parts that deal with worship of God and parts that are political, repressive, incite to suppression of one's neighbors if they are not Muslim, and imposition of an external law. These are matters that clearly bring the religion into conflict with the secular state. Islam is inherently in opposition to much of what America stands for, so it isn't clear how we should react. Just ignoring the implications while the issue grows larger and more difficult to manage seems like the wrong way to go. Herman Cain is at least raising and confronting the issue. The people opposing him are just putting their heads in the sand like a bunch of ostriches.

This Would Be Hysterically Funny If It Were Not So Pathetic

SEE HERE So the science is just a narrative which got out of control? If that isn't a statement with an agenda driven context I don't know what is. There isn't any science that legitimately makes CO2 a very major climate driver. It's a bit player so far behind things like water vapor and the oceans that it can be largely ignored. The so-called science has been shows to be largely agenda driven bogus nonsense such as the hockey stick and cherry picked proxies to get the result they wanted and all the manipulation of the peer review process. The sad thing is that this is what can be expected all the time when government gets involved with science. Government publishes the result when it suits their agenda and they bury result that don't and stop funding the folks that got those "bad" results. Some of the scientists, those that have flexible morals, get the message and from there on out the science isn't science any more. One of the dead giveaways is the emphasis on modeling and the failure to do adequate validation of the models. Phony baloney as my dad used to say. Computer models are often, all too often, GIGO (Garbage In Gospel Out).

Meanwhile the fact of the matter is that the CO2 "greenhouse" effect is proving to be elusive. SEE THIS The most obvious question is whether in the face of this any CO2 driven greenhouse effect can be posited. Even the "lukewarmists" — those who say that there is a greenhouse effect but it is small, may be shown to be wrong. Now that would really be funny!

A Crisis of Liberalism — I hope Buchanan has it right!

SEE HERE The problem is that we're reaching the end of our rope. You can't go beyond where we are without courting complete collapse, especially as you print more and more dollars called QE1, QE2, and not a rumored QE3 so that inflation and hence higher interest rates become inevitable. When the interest rates start soaring and the currency becomes increasingly worthless and the U.S. credit status is downgraded and suddenly we find it all that much more difficult to service the debt then the liberals will still be standing around saying "Bush did it." But Bush didn't do it. He may have contributed. He may even have started it. But they campaigned against him and when they got is proceeded to do more of the same, much more. This is their deficit and their economic catastrophe shaping up. I hope we all survive it.

Project Gun Runner: When Will This Madness End?

Government stonewalling the Congressional investigation. What was the motivation for such an insane operation?

Meet Sarah Palin ... "Undefeated Playing Well With Public"

SEE HERE Apparently the Palin political documentary "Undefeated" is opening to some rave reviews by fans and even those that don't know much about Sarah Palin. I'm hoping it will have a wider release because I'd like to see it. Despite being demonized by the Lame Stream Media, Sarah Palin remains an authentic common sense voice for ending politics as usual and returning to a more restrained form of government instead of stampeding towards the great Federalism which becomes indistinguishable at some point from a socialist planned economy. We need voices like Palin's for if we do not stem the tide we will be telling our grandchildren how it was once in America to live free of all the regulation and nanny state provisions that seek to control every aspect of our lives.

Ten Reasons For Concern

SEE HERE So what's going on and what are the prospects? If someone asked me, and of course no one every does, the problem has been developing for a long long time, maybe longer than I've been alive. It takes time to develop a culture of economic dependence where everyone is a victim and no-one is responsible for anything so that it is always the other fella's fault. There was still a spirit of Yankee ingenuity and independence when I was a kid in the 1950's but it all went to hell in a hand basket as time went on.

It didn't happen all at once. It took a lot of time. I personally think that the Great Society programs had something to do with it. When you start telling people that their sufferings are caused by someone else, something that, even if there might be a grain of truth in it, isn't really true. Bad things happen. Sometimes you cause them by failing to pay enough attention so that when the train arrives you're still on the tracks. Sometimes you just don't have the strength or ability to overcome a particular adversity and so you get run over because you weren't fast enough, smart enough, or some other enough. The fault there may only be poor judgment.

Still, if you focus and push as hard as you can you can usually accomplish more than you ever thought was possible. That's what's increasingly missing in our society. Too many people are prepared to just lay back and let someone else do it. That doesn't work when everyone is doing it. Quitting never got anyone anywhere. So if you're thinking that things are tough then remember the Marine Corp recruitment saying: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going!" Find something that challenges you that you've always wanted and start pushing and working and the day will come when you've accomplished it. Marva Collins always taught the kids "How do you eat an elephant children?" "One bite at a time Mz. Collins." She also said “Determination and perseverance move the world; thinking that others will do it for you is a sure way to fail.” I was introduced to her ideas by a "60 Minutes" TV episode and she was an inspiration. Churchill says it too: "Never give up. Never, Never, Never!"

"Read my lips ... No New Taxes" — Remember!

SEE HERE Democrats have been playing this bait and switch game forever and Republics, "the stupid party" as Joseph Sobran styled them always, fell for it over and over and over again. Well I for one am sick of it. It's a game they play but we don't have to fall in with these liars and hypocrites. They are a cynical and devious bunch. They have no interest whatsoever in ever balancing the budget or achieving fiscal responsibility. Their only interests are in power and influence and they have no principles whatsoever except cronyism and graft. So let's stop playing their game. Even if we lose we lose like men of principle and not like just another grifter.

Patriot Post Points Out the Plan ... Democrat Hypocrisy to the End

SEE HERE The reckless race towards national bankruptcy continues unabated as the Democrats continue to play their blame game of class division and demonization. Thus has it always been. The charade continues as they posture that a 14 + trillion dollar deficit which they accelerated into existence is somehow caused by various tax breaks for business. If some adults don't take charge of the economy soon there will be no economy to take charge of, only the ruins brought about by the progressive socialists race towards hegemony. Every time its been tried it's been a failure. But it takes someone with neurons to realize that doing the same thing over and over will get you the same result over and over. That's a breathtaking insight to a progressive who thinks that the only thing necessary to national prosperity is to put them in charge. How's that hope and change working for you? should be the question. Somehow the Obama administration escapes the hard questions, so why is that?

The Impact of Government Intrusion Catches Up With Us

SEE HERE Do you have a license to plant that tree in your front yard? Well that's a little extreme still, just wait a year or two however. We are being submerged under a welter of regulation of every conceivable thing. It saps creativity. It employs paperwork tracking drones who otherwise might actually have productive jobs and over time it just crushes everything in a mountain of largely pointless and stultifying regulation.

Hypocrite Factor: Are They Democrats?

SEE HERE Hypocrites are everywhere, but they seem to be especially dense in the Democrat party. If George Bush is up against it they vote now, but now that Barack Obama is up against a limit which is bouncing against because of much worse spending we're supposed to roll over and play dead. A plague on both their houses.

Globalization or Laziness and Stupidity? Maybe a little of both?

SEE HERE The data here is that the 20 somethings are earning less as a class that the Baby Boomers they are replacing. Two narratives are offered to explain the reasons and this seems to me to be one of those things called a false dichotomy. Our schools are certainly failing us to some degree as Greenspan points out, and the increased competition from cultures which are exploiting their populations is having some impact. There are also likely other factors. It's always dangerous to suggest one knows the causes of things, but it is far easier to say that one knows the result which is that America is no longer as productive as it once was. This is a bigger problem than people realize for if it continues we will decline to being second rate, and then perhaps third rate.

As a boy I remember when "Made In Japan" meant something was shoddy goods. Today we tend to think that about "Made In China" but with effort the Chinese are likely to reverse that. Increasingly "Made In USA" may come to mean shoddy goods and that would be tragic. We need to reverse this trend regardless of why it is arising.

I Knew Obama Was a Carter Clone

Laura Ingraham provides the Carter/Obama remix. This is fascinating. Do you suppose that politicians simply come out of some sort of stasis and you hit the replay button? This is so eery that I almost have to assume that Obama is recycling Carter's talking points. I knew he couldn't think for himself, but neither could Carter. If you're going to recycle pick someone good.

The Deathly Debt Ceiling of He Who Shall Not Be Named

Krauthammer On Obama's Posturing

SEE HERE It's all a big game of chicken with Obama thinking he can just have his way eventually without so much as giving a damn about the fact that he's driving the economy off the cliff. He's making out that it is the Republican's fault for just not letting him keep taxing and spending us into oblivion. Can people really be as stupid as this?

Razoring Through The World of Nut-Jobs

There are a wide range of ideas that people come up with and someone like me who hangs out a lot on the internet runs into them all the time. I'm actually rather fascinated by the folks that seem to leave proportional reason behind in a rush to affirm all kinds of "over the top" ideas. When they get into them far enough they start to sound reasonable, which is a little scary.

What I'm talking about is all the conspiracy theorists, doomsdayers, ufo-olgists, environmental wackos and the like. The ideas often have a certain plausibility but often simply segue into total lunacy, but the surface plausibility sucks you in. How do you respond to these things?

On the flip side is the folks who think nothing is ever really wrong, that everyone sounding an alarm is a wacko. That doesn't seem entirely reasonable either since bad things do happen and sometimes the most well-intended things turn out to have wildly unexpected and disastrous consequences.

My strategy is to try to understand the claims when I encounter them and then see if they make sense on the whole. It's often important to see what the reaction to the claims is. So many of these things are just totally crazy like the idea that the government was involved in dropping the Twin Towers as part of some conspiracy. I think you really have to be wearing a tin-foil hat to believe that. One of the most useful tools to at least prompt questioning of a wild idea is Occam's Razor, which simply stated says: "Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity." which might be further reduced to the idea that the best explanation for something is likely to be the simplest. So complex theories are less likely than simple ones.

Every now and then I'll trot this out to try to slice up a conspiracy theory or other off the wall idea. Another principle worth mentioning is Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." I particularly like the fact that one of my favorite science fiction writers, Robert Heinlein, used a version of this before Hanlon. Between Occam's Razor and Hanlon's Razor one can cut through a lot of the nonsense.

The Unknown Unknowns

SEE HERE The idea that the folks in Washington are really really smart people and that they will take care of us, is one of the single stupidest ideas in common vogue. The reality is that smart people are blind. Why is that? It's mostly because they think that because they know a lot that they know everything worth knowing and this leads them to make particularly stupid mistakes. Thomas Sowell talks about what amounts to intellectual humility and recognizing that there are a lot of "Unknown Unknowns" to use Donald Rumsfeld's phrase. Unintended consequences emerge form this ignorance and the current administration's blind policies are crushing the nation. We'd be better off with a lot of chimpanzees running the government than with all these "smart people."

It's Time For a Change While We Still Have Some Change

This evening I found a claim that Standard and Poors says there is a 50% change they will downgrade U.S. credit rating within three months. SEE HERE The problem is that the president just want to keep spending out of control and play the blame game with those who want to move us towards fiscal sanity. "The president has no plan to deal with an economy that is going bankrupt." — Yup Sarah, that about sums it up!