Timeless Wisdom

I like old quotes.  They teach us that wisdom is timeless and that there's nothing new under the sun.  Situations may change, but human nature does not.

"Health Care Reform" and Other Liberal Schemes

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
    -- C.S. Lewis

 

Global Warming Scam
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
    -- H.L. Mencken

Flying Naked: TSA Goes Hardcore

** CAUTION:  Unhinged DeviledEgg Rant! **
TSA (Thousands Standing Around) now get to check out naked chicks in between wanding old ladies and releasing classified manuals on-line

All because Western Civilization doesn't have the collective testicular fortitude to tell suspected barbarians they can't fly.  That and the fact that incompetent bureaucratic boobs didn't have the foresight or initiative to merge the terrorist database with the no fly list.

Flying is not a right, it is a privilege, like driving.  You meet a certain profile, you don't fly.  Period.  Ride your goat, Ahmed!

The Founders set up a government to protect the liberties of free and moral people.  We lock bad people up so good people can go about their lives without facing TSA screenings at the grocery store.  People who criminally misbehave are removed from civilized society so good citizens can proceed with their liberties and human dignity intact.

We fail at the global level
We should not be letting bad people from uncivilized areas cross the pale into the civilized world and then be at liberty to smash and slash and burn.  But it's too late now, the barn door's been open for 50 years, so the next step is profiling.

Ordinary American citizens should be presumed innocent until proven guilty
Foreigners who fit certain profiles (based on country of origin, travel habits, etc) should be presumed suspicious until demonstrating credentials to the contrary.  Go stick a wand up their wazoos and leave Americans with a clean background alone!

Outsource Homeland Security to the Professionals
While a rabid, identifiable group loudly foams at the mouth in murderous hatred of the west, TSA (Thousands Standing Around) focuses on Grannies with walkers and children in strollers.  The cheapest and best thing we could do to keep ourselves safe would be to outsource "Homeland Security."  Fire the overpaid, incompetent bureaucrats and turn over airline safety to people who know how to get it done:  The Israelis.

The Piddle Class Speaks
For a European-style, piddle down your leg, violate our rights, anything to make us feel safe perspective, read this Wapo Editiorial, where they beg for more strip searches and human cattle drives at our nation's airports.  I won't besmudge my blog by repeating any of it here.

Real Men Don't Pull Punches
Here are my favorite comments on the subject.  They've said it so much better than I can:

Tunku Varadarajan (Cool name, even cooler beard)

instead of denying my 10-year-old boy the right to take a pee when his destination is a whole hour away, why can’t we be radically more careful about those we let on board our planes?

Abdulmutallab’s name was not on the terrorist “no-fly” list, which has fewer than 4,000 names in total. It was, however, on a larger database of some 550,000 individuals, called TIDE (Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment)—and it was inserted there, it seems, only last month. Why is anyone on this list allowed to board a plane to the United States? (Daily Beast - Tunku Varadarajan)

Christopher Hitchens (My all-time favorite atheist lefty)

Why do we fail to detect or defeat the guilty, and why do we do so well at collective punishment of the innocent?

The answer to the first question is: Because we can't—or won't. The answer to the second question is: Because we can.

The fault here is not just with our endlessly incompetent security services, who give the benefit of the doubt to people who should have been arrested long ago or at least had their visas and travel rights revoked.

It is also with a public opinion that sheepishly bleats to be made to "feel safe." The demand to satisfy that sad illusion can be met with relative ease if you pay enough people to stand around and stare significantly at the citizens' toothpaste.  (Christopher Hitchens - The Truth...)

Brotherhood of the Traveling (and burning) Pants

Just In Time For the Patriot Act Renewal!

I'm going to unload. I'm angry beyond words about "counter-terrorism" and "homeland security" - partly due to logic, partly due to my personal experiences with these incompetents.

We have two enemies of freedom here: Muslim extremists and a federal government all to happy to tighten down the screws on the American People under any excuse.

I'll reveal to you the real reason behind the Patriot Act and how this was not designed to increase your safety, but to increase power in Washington. Then the apparent incompetence of Janet Napolitano will make sense. Once you realize the real motivation behind homeland security, her actions will become crystal clear.

A few facts about the underwear bomber.

Ever try to fly internationally without a passport? That is what this guy did, apparently with the help of a well-heeled and fast-talking accomplice. Oh, and of course this fellow was on a terrorist list. His own family squealed to the authorities about him. No baggage and a one-way ticket paid for with cash. Good God, what does a Nigerian Muslim need to do to get someone to take notice?!!

TSA and international security are loathe to typecast Muslim passengers, and so this scum slipped by. Think about that the next time you see a grandmother being felt-up by the local airport gestapo.

Here's another odd fact: a passenger was videotaping the whole flight, then calmly stood when the flames erupted and continued filming to the bitter end.

80g of explosive to bring down an airliner? A primary explosive that burns like a road flare? Please!

I'm sure the mainstream media will tell you that a car can be completely destroyed with only 80g. What they won't tell you is that it usually is placed on the gas tank, where the gasoline does the "heavy lifting". This Nigerian was not in a position to place the explosive on the fuel bulkhead. It was around his huevos rancheros.

I'm completely skeptical about this being a credible terrorist effort. Either the Nigerian was incompetent (quite possible) or something else is afoot...

Where there is smoke, there's a fire.

Remember the anthrax attack and how it shut down Congress? What were they debating at the time? Yes, the Patriot Act. Now they are looking to renew the Act (which has been given a three month extension) and lo and behold, a flaming terrorist arrives. How convenient.

Remember the feds harassing Dr. Hatfill all those years about the anthrax? They backed off, paid him handsomely and then placed the blame on a dead government scientist on the East coast. Again, how convenient.

You can't work as many years as I have in the government and not make some interesting friends and contacts.

A contact told me, from his position in counter-terrorism, the most likely suspect was at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. He called some of the bureaucrats that worked there "unstable" - from his personal interaction with them.

What we find when we poke around many of these terrorist acts is that the Feds usually have a guy on the inside, many times providing the necessary expertise and hardware. I reference the first World Trade Center bombing. Research who provided the explosive ingredients. Have a jaw-sling handy, your jaw may hit the floor.

Ditto for the Oklahoma City bombing. The ATF had at least one informant telling them about what McVeigh was preparing to do. How odd no ATF agents were injured - their office was empty at the time of the blast.

I have long suspected that these agencies track, and even allow a few of these terrorist acts to increase their power and control. Isn't that what we accused King George of 234 years ago? "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us..."

What I'm trying to get at here is for you to be very skeptical about these terrorist acts and watch how the government is more than happy to clamp down on your freedoms.

Ah, the Patriot Act.

Just one month after 9/11, amidst the anthrax scare, a telephone-book sized "Patriot Act" arrived at Congress. Few read it before voting. I've helped prepare similar federal budgetary proposals in the past; a telephone book sized document takes many months of multi-agency review before being presented at the highest levels. Ergo, the document had been prepared before 9/11 and was awaiting cut-and-paste to bring it current.

Are you aware that only a small percentage of investigations that use the Patriot Act involve terrorism?

I read recently that the combined terrorist watch list is close to 1,000,000 names. A few years ago another contact confided to me that the actual list was an order of magnitude larger - at that time the list was claimed to have only 400,000 names - but in actuality had 4 million individuals on it. Truth be told, some of those names are aliases. But it does go to indicate the level of paranoia our federal security organs have.

I remember Ashcroft telling us, with fear in his eyes, of 4,000 Muslim sleeper agents lurking within the United States. Think about that for a minute. Let's say these were very lazy terrorists, inclined to one terrorist act every four years. That would be 1,000 terrorist acts per year, or three per day. Perhaps I've been sleeping, but I don't recall anywhere that many. Oh, I'm sorry, the FBI is so competent they have a handle on them all. Please!

We are being played, pure and simple.

Never mind the fat Napoleonitano behind the curtains.

I believe that purpose of "homeland security" is to condition us to a severe reduction in freedoms. The real enemy of those elitists in power is not some underwear bomber. It's you. You hold the reins to their power.

What are those reins? What I'm doing now, the first amendment. The voting process. The second amendment. The jury of our peers. Constitutional rights, checks and balances.

Regarding the underwear bomber, Janet Napolitano first said the system seemed to work as planned. That was the most truthful thing she has said in the last eleven months. The system wasn't designed to find Abdul the Terrorist; it was designed to slowly take your freedoms, one liberty at a time.

Using terror as a pretext, this is what your tax dollars have been paying for in the name of homeland security:

- Email being handed over for data-mining and profiling
- Internet activity being logged
- What library books have been checked out
- Telephone conversation recording (CALEA) and archiving
- Bank records open to any federal investigator with only a writ of assistance (no judge involved)
- Travel monitoring / profiling
- A 4th Amendment - free zone 100 miles from any U.S. border
- I worked at a satellite development center when DHS came and asked if we could design a domestic imaging satellite for them!

And many other infringements. No need to worry, you have nothing to hide if you are not a Muslim extremist, tea party protester, Constitutionalist, gun owner, blogger...

The federal government knows well who the real enemy is, and I must give the devil due for throwing such a wide net over all of us.

What can you do?

Give 'em hell! Every time I get harassed by airport security, or come across some goon with a federal badge, I raise their blood pressure to the point they almost put me in cuffs. Three examples:

- While traveling through LAX I saw a wheelchair bound citizen being felt-up by some TSA thugs. I looked one of these goons in the eye and said, "Boy, he really fits the profile, doesn't he?!!" The thug looked at me with eyes that would kill if given a chance.

- While traveling through Arizona, far from the border, I was pulled over by an INS vehicle. An agent came out and demanded I answer all sorts of questions; I told him pointedly that my SUV was empty, no Mexicans here, and that his authority had limits. After waiting five minutes I walked aggressively back to the INS vehicle to tell him I was leaving the scene; the driver actually began to back away before stopping and cracking the driver's window into which I cast my invectives.

- On leaving for an overseas trip I was accosted by U.S. Treasury agents and had my luggage searched at the boarding gate of LAX. They said they were looking for large sums of money leaving the country and subjected me to all sorts of questions and indignities. They found nothing. When I returned to the States I convinced a white sorcerer to lay a curse on those evil agents. It's amazing what kind of people you meet in Los Angeles!

So What can you do? Give 'em hell. Let them know you are not their property, that you are an American Citizen!

- Hugh Farnham

The Ballad of Harry and Nancy

I don't care who you are, this is funny!

Democratic Party operative compares Pelosi and Reid to bank robbers...

Why do Obama, Pelosi and Reid continue the suicide mission that is "Healthcare Reform" in the face of declining (only 32% approve) support?"

We all know the standard boilerplate answers:  They're bravely doing the right thing for the public, gotta keep the nutroot base happy, etc.

A democratic operative offered a surprisingly candid answer:

"They're in the bank, they've got their guns out. They can run outside with no money, or they can stick it out, go through the gunfight, and get away with the money."

The alarm has been tripped, cop cars are en route.  Can Obama and the Pelosicrats make their getaway?

DC Examiner

The System Works... for Overpaid Public Servants

A Terrorist arrives in the US, lights his fizzle bomb, is tackled by a guy from the Netherlands, and burns his nads in the process...

...and Grand High Poobah of Heimatland Sicherheit Janet Napoleonitano says "The system worked" in letting the little jihadi with premature detonation issues board a US bound airliner with explosives.

I'd hate to see what a system failure looks like:  A free New York vacation for Bin Laden and twenty of his closest friends and goats?  And all the tactical nukes they can fit on the plane?

Nigerian Bank Account E-Mail Scheme Exposed!

The father of the Explodus Interruptus jihadi is the former Nigerian Minister of Banking.  Rumor has it he's behind all those e-mail scams that begin with "I have millions in a Nigerian bank account and I need your help..." 

In other news...

Senator Tom Harkin (Socialist - Iowa) is impatient that the Democrats may not be able to completely trample the constitution before the voters step in, so he's introducing a bill that would limit filibusters and reduce everything in the Senate to 50 votes, versus the 60 it now requires for cloture.

Some libtard commented on the article, whining that Republicans were making it SO HARD for the Democrats to ram their socialist programs up our collective wazoo.  Makes me want to slap him upside the head with a bound copy of the Federalist Papers...

CBS - Peter King
Weekly Standard
Photo courtesy of Chicago Ray

Infinite Jihadi Justice

WARNING!  Unhinged DeviledEgg Rant!

Looks like we shwacked a nest of terrorist rats in Yemen. They're smoking dog turds in hell now, as Satan violates their every orifice.

Turbaned turds everywhere must be wondering why Allah has granted global omnipotence and omnipresence the infidel America ...
 
WHY? BECAUSE GOD HATES YOU, THAT'S WHY!!!  
Just look at where you live!  Do your really think God's favored people would be found in a third world toilet, mired in ignorance and fetid squalor?  The only bright spot in the whole Middle East, where democracy, scholarship and scientific discovery takes place is ISRAEL, A JEWISH STATE!!!
 
God must love Israel.  And God loves America, because we stand for freedom, liberty and the flowering of his gifts in the hearts and spirits of men and women everywhere.

A perversion of God's gifts 
The bearded bastards who have perverted their own faith have also perverted God's gifts. Yes, man is physically stronger than woman, but he must use that strength to protect her, not to circumcise and stone her.

God gave us the light of reason and an ability to see beyond our horizons, but 7th Century obscurantists quench that light and poke out the eyes of those who envision a brighter future. Just look at the Islamic world's lack of scholarship in the sciences and humane letters.

You Ain't The Flaming Sword of God!
God gave us free will so we can worship him of our own volition. We can even be so stupid as to deny Our Creator and blaspheme him.  Hollywood does it every day. 

Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,”says the Lord. -- Romans 12:19

Any reading of the Old Testament backs that up. The Israelites only exacted revenge when directed to by God, according to his plan.   

I seriously doubt that Our Father in Heaven is directing you to strap bombs on children and the weak-minded so they can blow up innocent shoppers in a marketplace.  

You think you're avenging God? Hah! He can take care of himself. Trust me on this one.  He was looking after himself just fine long before your prophet came along.

You destroy God's creation and usurp his authority while robbing mankind of the freedoms He gave us. That's why your "defenders of the faith" (aka terrorists) are leaving little grease spots all over God's creation, victims of a nation that truly loves and worships its creator.

Salaam!

My Other Blogs

I barely have time for this blog, so I don't know why I have two more...

Liberalism is a cancer, Americanism is the answer!  Fight the Progressive Scourge!

Intellectual Ammo is a resource center for patriotic conservatives looking for ammo to combat liberalism. You will find in-depth resources to expand your knowledge and links to info on Conservatism, Libertarianism, The US Constitution, and great thinkers like Thomas Sowell.  I only infrequently post there, but I do constantly update the links.

Ontological Angst - Philosophy, Brain Droppings, Amateur Existentialism, real life observations.  Some subjects require deeper thought and more words.  I post here infrequently, only as the mood strikes me.  This is kinda like my own version of Victor Davis Hanson's Personal Papers, only less well-written. 

Bill Haley and the Birth of Rock and Roll

Bill Haley was more dangerous than Elvis and he's even been blamed for the Berlin Wall going up.

We watched One for the Money - The Birth of Rock and Roll a few weeks back and I highly recommend it.  It honors those rock and roll pioneers while giving props to the black musicians who really started it all but couldn't get radio time and had to watch their songs made into hits by white artists like Elvis, Pat Boone and Bill Haley.

Bill Haley:  Bandleader and Country and Western Singer Turned Rock and Roll Pioneer

Bill Haley and his Comets sing Rock around the Clock, the song that opens the 70's sitcom Happy Days.  The show's producers picked that song because many consider Haley the creator of rock and roll and that song the genre's first hit. The silence as the jukebox lays down the record suddenly punctuated by banging drums and Haley's vocals is a metaphor for rock itself bursting upon the scene.

That and other Haley songs provided the soundtrack for the 1955 movie Blackboard Jungle, about high school hoodlums.  The movie, and the band's wild antics (jumping around, flopping on the ground, shouting, base player riding his base like a pony...) scared parents across two continents.

Build The Wall

A rump Pink Floyd (really just David Gilmour and his extras) was quick to cash in on The Berlin Wall coming down in 1989 even though their album The Wall, had nothing to do with that wall.  Many other artists joined in the celebration, but no one mentioned the Rock and Roller who perhaps contributed to the wall's construction. 

Bill Haley and the Comets gave a raucous concert in Berlin in October of 1958 that caused some youth rioting, and the wall went up soon after.

After investigating the wild riot at the Sunday night performance of the guitar-strumming singer and his "Comets," the shocked West Berlin senate banned all future rock 'n' roll concerts.

Neues Deutschland, East Germany's official Communist organ, denounced Haley in a front-page editorial for "turning the youth of the land of Bach and Beethoven into raging beasts."

Haley's Berlin show turned into a fist-and-stick battle between 500 youths and police, resulting in four injured policemen, 18 arrests and 50,000 marks ($11,900) damage to the hall.

The Communist Party organ, however, branded Haley an agent of so-called aggressive Western politicians who were seeking to exploit rock 'n' roll to create an atom war psychology among young people. (Stars and Stripes)

... And they did it in suits and ties
The whole phenomenon cracks me up because they were all in suits and ties.  I can only imagine what it did to kids and parents to see such men perform these wild and unexpected antics.  And the music is good, too, with a jazzy, late big band feel.  I'm too young to have experienced that era, but it sure must have been exciting.

So what's with the Spit Curl He was always Sporting? Haley was blind in his left eye, and it didn't always track with the right one.  The curl took attention away.

Here's a rowdy version of Rudy's Rock.  It's tame by today's standards, but these cats were the first to swing it.  Everyone else is just a copycat... 

Merry Christmas!

* - Hector Garrido's "Jesus, Light of the World"

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

Here are a few Christmas themed links for your digital stockings:
Chicago Ray has a nice Christmas Eve post with interesting, family friendly links to Christmas themed web sites, including the history of Christmas.

Keep Christ in Christmas!

Government Gone Wild

Democrats have drawn the battle lines quite clearly.  2010 is the year we fight. 

Not with bullets or by shouting people down, but with the most lethal weapon we possess:  Our vote.  Check your county office to verify you are registered and help like-minded friends, family and co-workers to do the same.

As Dennis Prager is fond of saying "I prefer clarity to agreement."

Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have shown us what unbridled Democratic liberalism looks like.  With no pesky "Repugs" to stand in their way, they have shown their true colors, and every poll shows ordinary Americans don't like it. 

This year has provided us political and ideological clarity 
There are bright, stark lines dividing conservatives and the GOP from liberals and Democrats.  Democrats have embraced these kooky alien ideas while the minority Republicans have fought the good fight against them:
 

• Environmental legislation that would enrich government cronies while destroying our economy
• Refusing to drill for our own bountiful energy resources, while simultaneously refusing to build more nuclear power plants
• One-size-fits-all health care that enslaves doctors and their patients while bankrupting the nation 
• Buying up companies and telling them what to do, while playing favorites with crony capitalists
• A "Safe School" Czar who should not be allowed within 500 feet of any child
• Socialist academics eager to practice their theories on government and society, since no real-world enterprise would have anything to do with them and their loony ideologies

Government Gone Wild
But most of all, Democrats have brought us government as a hydra-headed monster poking a bureaucratic and regulatory snout into every corner of society.  Democrats stand for a statist solution to everything, leaving nothing but abortion to individual choice.

Can we stand up for liberty and freedom?  Liberty to make our own decisions, and freedom to fail?  Yes we can.  All we have to do is vote.

Hoping for Change in 2010

Our clueless federal government is intellectually, morally, and financially bankrupt

I have three thoughts on this health care bribery and corruption porktacular slouching through senatorial Gomorrah, but they all involve long strings of profanities, so I'll share these three instead:

Constitutional Buffoons Crapping Down Our Chimneys
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has written an excellent summary on the constitutionality of this stinking heap of communist excrement Harry and the Pelosicrats are crapping down our chimneys just in time for Christmas.  Too much to summarize here.  Go read the whole thing; it is rich with links to smart people who are prepared to challenge this court.  There is hope!

Harry Reid, Mass Murderer
"We've got to get this done!" is the urgent cry of the power-mad progressives.  "People are dying!"

OK.  This bill doesn't kick in until 2014, so Harry will kill over 200,000 people in the interim, points out Larry Holland at ResistNet:

Earlier today Harry Reid whined that every 10 minutes 2 people die in this country because they have no healthcare. 

Rush did the math and asked this question, If 2 people die every 10 minutes because of no healthcare, then by 2014, when your healthcare bill takes effect, you Harry Reid, will have allowed 200,445 people to have died because you made amendments that will not allow them to have healthcare til then!

2010:  Year of Bankrupt Governments
Ralph Peters, an articulate and patriotic veteran I greatly respect, says 2010 will be the year of the bankrupt government.  He lists countries like Greece and Dubai, and includes states like New York and California.  Here's his conclusion:

What of our own country, with its soaring debt, congressional irresponsibility and an administration whose No. 1 priority is expanding unaffordable entitlement programs? Draw your own conclusions. (Source:  NY Post)

Indeed.  If ever there were a time crying out for change, it is now.

DC Gangstas Cornering the Energy Market

Rampant economic ignorance allows DC shysters to pluck us like chickens

Wonder why we're trapped in a fiscal nightmare (and getting deeper)?  Crap like this is why...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two senators on Friday offered yet another approach to tackling climate change, proposing the government sell pollution allowances to industry to cut greenhouse gas emissions and then use most of the money to send tax-free monthly checks to every American.

The "dividend" checks, estimated to average about $100 a month over nearly two decades, would be aimed at offsetting the higher cost of energy.

The proposal by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine...

Free Money!!! 
... and millions are stupid enough to fall for this latest piece of DC flim flam.  Shake down the energy producers, causing them to pass the increased costs onto the consumer.  Next, bribe the consumer with checks so they look the other way while the feral government continues the shakedown scam.

Take dollars away from people in the form of higher energy costs, then send us dimes, while the rest of the money sticks to the fingers of shifty politicians.  If anyone other than a politician tried this they would be prosecuted for fraud.

Breitbart

Don't you hate it when they go all changin' everything?  I used to live in an apartment like that...

Progressive Crack-Up

Our economy is in trouble, we're deep in debt, and taxpayers are angry. Progressives ignore all this and continue the Long March towards budget busting and economy killing climate legislation and "health care reform." Even juicier, the nutroots are turning on their messiah

Reasons's Matt Welch has a good take...

Boy, this “Obama Derangement Syndrome” really has gotten out of hand. Why, just this past week the decreasingly popular president has been called a “bald-faced liar,” “an executive who can’t bring himself to lead,” and even an “Uncle Tom.”

And that’s just by liberals.

A Lesson for Conservatives

But here's the salient point for conservatives considering who could best lead us out of the desert and into the political promised land:

Yet there are lessons we can all learn from Obama’s lost year. Chief among them is the insight that when you project all your hopes, desires, and even fears onto a Rorschach test of a politician — whether Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, or otherwise — not only are you bound to be disappointed, you might just deserve it, too.

Government officials use force and the threat thereof to impact our lives, not always (or even most of the time) for the better, so it behooves all citizens to get over their schoolyard crushes and figure out just what their objects of political desire plan to do with all that power.

Progressives are cracking up, let's not follow it with one of our own.  We need to avoid the hero worship and "schoolyard crushes" that blind us to reality.  Look at what it did to the libs...   

Read more: New York Post

Most Expensive Government Money Can Buy

We Used to Call this Bribery and Corruption...

From Landreau's Louisiana Purchase to Nelson's Cornhusker Kickback, congressional crapulence is on full display.

Senators who held out got all kinds of goodies for their own states.  Ben Nelson got Harry to exempt his state from the medicaid increases caused by the bill, and you and I are picking up the tab.  Politico catalogs the greed of these pigs at the trough, from Vermont to Michigan. 

This craven, immoral display dishonors the man who set the cornerstone of the capitol, George Washington.  It is a contravention of everything our founders stood for.  Pitchforks and torches are all this gang of bandits deserves.

The Utopian schemes of leveling, and a community of goods, are as visionary and impracticable, as those which vest all property in the Crown, are arbitrary, despotic, and in our government unconstitutional.
-- Samuel Adams

"In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
-- Thomas Jefferson

If this "health care reform" is so great, why do they have to bribe everybody to vote for it?

UPDATE!

It's not just rightwing yahoos from flyover country calling this corruption.  Dr. Tom Coburn, Senator from Oklahoma has chimed in:

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) was even harsher, calling the internal Democratic negotiations - which included expensive provisions aimed at winning over Democratic holdouts - "corruption."

"This process is not legislation. This process is corruption. And it's corruption that's obvious to the average American in this country," Coburn said. "And it's a shame that that's the only way we can come to consensus in this country is to buy votes."

 Harry Reid Redefines "Normal"

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Majority Leader Harry Reid, called the special provisions aimed at swaying certain Democratic senators "a normal part of the legislative process."

It's past time to throw the bums out. That's a"normal" part of the citizens taking back their country process

Copenhagen... I Used to Dip that Stuff!

A Global Shakedown
Any climate agreement that changes one law in the US or transfers one dime of taxpayer funds to another country is a willful selling of our national sovereignty.  This is a taxpayer shakedown meant to transfer trillions from productive, working people to the useless international bureaucrats, who skim their percentage then pass pennies on to favored kleptocratic rulers.

American aren't buying it, thank God in heaven:

Just how bad is the threat from global warming? About one in six Americans (17 percent) think the global warming situation is a crisis, which is essentially the same number who believe in flying saucers and the little green men with bulbous heads who supposedly fly them.

Draft of Final Copenhagen Statement (Translated by Me)

We, the collected cluster of presidents, ministers, high poobahs, tyrants, dictators, international shakedown artists, miscellaneous rabble and ignorami, do hereby decree:

The earth is heating up.  If current trends continue, it will eventually catch fire and we will all die in a hellish conflagration.  The only way to avoid this inevitable fate is for all rich, capitalist pig nations to immediately hang their heads in shame for the unforgivable sin of bringing prosperity to the world.

The next step is for these same gluttonous polluters to open their wallets (with heads still hung in shame!) and give trillions to the International League of Syndicated Wealth Reapportionment Organization, where the funds will be administrated by the UN Grand High Poobah Rapporteur of Public Wealth Redistribution.

Legions of useless, self-important bureaucrats, when not busy raping the women and children of the third world, will spread this wealth around.  Some pennies and farthings will actually make it to petty potentates and power-crazed kleprocrats, who will pretend to better the lives of the proletariat while greatly enriching themselves.

This will alleviate the guilt of rich liberals (who still must hang their heads in shame!), as BBQ grills and internal combustion engines fall silent and cold all across the greedy, self-indulgent first world.

The collective blameworthiness of the developed nations cannot be assuaged until we are all mired in a poverty that makes mankind look with nostalgia upon the pestilence-ridden Middle Ages.  

May Mother Earth smile upon our suicidal obeisance and preserve the polar bears.

It Ain't Up To Snuff...
Hearing "Copenhagen" mentioned every five minuted was giving me flashbacks, even if they were pronouncing it the snooty European way.  It reminded me of this song from my high school days  when all us redneck farm boys chewed.  Just like in the song, I gave it up when my wife threatened me.  She tastes better...

Saturday Humor: A Holiday for Atheists

This makes the regular e-mail rounds, and it's not true, but it's still worth repeating... 

In Florida, an atheist created a case against the upcoming Easter and Passover Holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case against Christians and Jews and observances of their holy days. The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized days.

The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring, “Case dismissed!"

The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, "Your honor, How can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, yet my client and all other atheists have no such holidays."

The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, "But you do. Your client, counsel, is woefully ignorant."

The lawyer said, "Your Honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists."

The judge said, "The calendar says April 1st is April Fool’s Day. Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned."

Global Community Organizing in Snarkenhagen

Obama takes community organizer shakedown skills global!

COPENHAGEN — A visibly angry Barack Obama threw down the gauntlet at China and other developing nations Friday, declaring that the time has come "not to talk but to act" on climate change. (Politico)

Saudi Arabia funds terrorists; A bloodthirsty, illegitimate Iranian regime murders its own people (and our troops in Iraq) and spreads terror in Lebanon, Palestine and points beyond; the Darfur slaughter and rape continues; Somali pirates disrupt international commerce...

But dammit!  President Obama is really mad that nations are balking at economically castrating themselves upon the altar of Gaia! 

And now for something completely different...
Gerald Warner turns his British wit on this Copenhagen farce, as only a British sarc-snark can:

When your attempt at recreating the Congress of Vienna with a third-rate cast of extras turns into a shambles, when the data with which you have tried to terrify the world is daily exposed as ever more phoney, when the blatant greed and self-interest of the participants has become obvious to all beholders, when those pesky polar bears just keep increasing and multiplying – what do you do? [...]

Unfortunately, the response of all intelligent people will be to fall about laughing; but it was worth a try – everybody loves a tryer – and the climate alarmists are no longer in a position to pick and choose their tactics.

The danger of this ploy, of course, is that people might say “If we are going to be chargrilled anyway, what is the point of handing over billions – better to get some serious conspicuous consumption in before the ski slopes turn into saunas.”

If you're as tired as I am of the flatulent cloud of hypocrital sanctimony emanating from Copenhagen, go read Gerald Warner's entire column.  It'll  hit the spot.

Canadians Not Blinded by Science

I love sarcasm, especially when it's aimed a self-righteous busybodies whose schemes rely on fleecing the gullible...

Canada's National Post skewers the International Socialist Plenary Conclave going on in Copenhagen:

... stop worrying. These extravagant UN get-togethers always produce some sort of a final accord. Witness Kyoto in 1997, where an all-night session produced a compromise deal -- even if all the signatories have spent the last 12 years ignoring it.

As for those who are stressed by the possibility that negotiators will reach a last-minute agreement containing bona fide emission caps that will beggar industrialized nations for the benefit of developing ones, we also say stop worrying.

While delegates might sign away the moon amid the giddy glitter of Copenhagen, the realities of domestic politics they face when they return home-- recession, unemployment, budget deficits --mean their pledges will quickly fade to nothingness.

The editors unmask this charade as the scam that it is:  A transfer of wealth from rich, productive countries to poor, kleptocratic ones (and to upcoming countries like Brazil, China and India who should be ashamed of themselves participating in this cash grab.)

I didn't do anything to any of these beggar countries, so I owe them nothing.  In fact, Papa Silverfiddle spent a lot of time in Mexico and Brazil helping them improve their manufacturing processes. 

These countries should stop begging and start producing things other people want to buy.

They've blinded us with science!

Global Grab and Rape

Global climate schemes destroy wealth and displace productive economic activity, enriching international shysters who produce nothing

The biggest lie about Europeans is that they are unconcerned about wealth.  Remember the UN "Oil for Food" scheme they had going with Saddam?  It allowed the dictator to starve his people while providing cheap oil to Europe and under-the-table bribes to the continent's crooked politico-business class.

Massive Fraud in European Carbon Credit Market

Well, another decade, another scandal, this one involving massive fraud in Europe's carbon credit markets (The ridiculous practice of buying and selling of pollution)

This resulted in losses of approximately 5 billion euros for several national tax revenues. It is estimated that in some countries, up to 90% of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities.

Crafty people who produce nothing of value find ways to insert themselves into the revenue stream and exact their parasitic toll.  It's called Rent Seeking.  Think DC politicians. 

The NY Post editors get to the crux of it:

The whole point of the exercise is to transfer a trillion bucks from the economies of the world's developed nations to Third World kleptocrats -- with God-only-knows how much cash sticking to the fingers of well-connected UN bureaucrats.

Global climate treaties are stick-ups perpetrated by international shysters to enrich themselves while assuaging liberal guilt.

Cap and Trade market schemes waste money in the form of transaction fees gobbled up by people trading smoke. 

Smoke and mirrors is more like it. 

Volokh

Missing Bush White House e-mails Found

Dick Cheney Must Be Behind It!
Computer experts have recovered 22 million Bush White House e-mails previously thought lost or destroyed (22 million!) and Bush foes who had filed lawsuits to have them handed over are jubilant.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House e-mails from the administration of President George W. Bush, according to two groups that are settling lawsuits they filed over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record keeping system.

Bush haters have been devouring the e-mails like a pack of ravenous wolves.  One Cheney e-mail to the president has them particularly excited:

Well, George, I'm off to my secret, underground, undisclosed torture chamber.  Got a fresh shipment of jihadis in and I want to test out the new cattle prod.  The bullwhip just ain't cutting it anymore.  I want 'em pissin' their pants when I get my torture on!  Bwahahahahaha!  -- Dick

White House Manipulated Gas Prices

Other e-mail traffic reveals the source of the gasoline price spike in 2007:  President Bush accidentally bumped the secret dial under his desk that he used to control global petroleum prices.

He had purposely turned it down in 2004 to get reelected, then dialed it back up afterward to reward his Big Oil cronies.  But he apparently got excited while eavesdropping on an ordinary citizen's phone call to Sweden and slammed his knee into the dial.  The impact was so severe he had to give up mountain biking for a week. 

Despite that, he didn't realize what he'd done until campaign money began gushing in from corrupt oil companies with thank you notes attached.  The event prompted this e-mail to the energy secretary:

Hey Tater!
Damn, still can't believe I did that...  Can we blame the gas price increase on France?  Just askin'  heh heh heh...  -- The Decider

More Embarrassing E-Mails

There are supposedly other embarrassing e-mails, including one where the former president compares Nancy Pelosi to a washed up drag queen and threatens to lasso Keith Olbermann and pull him behind his horse like Ben Cartwright did to a bad guy on a Bonanza episode.

It is also rumored that in one piquant missive, Vice President Cheney offered to "Butcher that fatass Michael Moore like the hog that he is," and unfavorably compared Senator John Kerry to a flaccid male appendage, but that has yet to be confirmed.

Don't believe me?  Go read the story here:  Breitbart

ObamaHawk

President Obama finally stood up for America in his Peace Prize acceptance speech.  I think some self-interest was involved.  Life can't be easy for a man whose checklist includes "threaten political opponents," "send more troops to Afghanistan," "bomb Pakistan, " and "pick up Nobel Peace Prize."

Still, I've gotta give credit where credit is due
Paul at Powerline gives props to President Obama for finally standing up for our values in his Nobel acceptance speech.

But fundamentally I think Obama delivered a mostly thoughtful discussion (as these things go) of how to reconcile our lofty ideals with the existence of evil, and how to reconcile the occasional need to go to war (including at times for humanitarian reasons) with the tragic nature of any actual war.

Michael Ledeen at NRO also gave it a thumbs up, saying some parts were "downright neoconnish."  Here's the part of the speech Ledeen liked best:

America will always be a voice for those aspirations that are universal. We will bear witness to the quiet dignity of reformers like Aung Sang Suu Kyi; to the bravery of Zimbabweans who cast their ballots in the face of beatings; to the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran.

It is telling that the leaders of these governments fear the aspirations of their own people more than the power of any other nation. And it is the responsibility of all free people and free nations to make clear that these movements — these movements of hope and history — they have us on their side.

He should have said this months ago, but at least he finally said it.

Jake Tapper provides a comprehensive review of the speech and the "Obama Doctrine" that emerges from it (It looks a lot like the Bush Doctrine, but shhhh!, don't tell anybody!)

From the speech:

"There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence.

Nonviolence Doesn't Work Against Nihilists
Yes.  Nonviolence works against American citizens stubbornly clinging to a racist past, or a British empire steeped in the values of Western Christendom.  But it will NEVER work against those who are hell bent on imposing their illiberal dystopian ideas by force of death and destruction. 

We don't need revolutions and armed insurrections in the US; we have constitutional freedoms and the ballot box.

We conservatives should support our president when he defends freedom, and that's what he did in Oslo.  Was it Reaganesque?  Hell no!  But it was a start.

Suckers!

So Tiger's a cheetah and grown men are losing their minds...

From the New York Post:

"I want my money back from Nike for all of this useless garbage that I have spent my hard-earned money on for the past 10 years!" one person wrote on his message board. "They put this person out there and we bought it, and now it turns out he is a lying."

That little foot stamping rant was from an adult...

If you wear a certain ball cap because of your man-crush, or play with the same balls he does, you've already lost yourself.  You can admire a certain trait in someone, or appreciate his special talent, but that's a far as it goes.  Anyone with a grown-up view of life and human nature is not surprised at stories like this.  Disappointed?  Yes.  Sad?  Yes.  But not surprised.  No one is impervious to sin. 

All is Vanity

A Preacher from a long time ago summed it up well...

"Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher,
"Vanity of vanities! All is vanity."
What advantage does man have in all his work
Which he does under the sun?
A generation goes and a generation comes,
But the earth remains forever.
-- Ecclesiastes 1:2-4

The President Who Never Was

What strikes me about this president is how unpresidential he can be. We all have expectations of what the chief executive should be; Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush come to mind. A leader who molds the executive branch by sheer force of will and integrity. I don't see that here.

Some of you may wonder what a “Pogue” is. There are several definitions, but I like the military one: Personnel Other Than Grunt. Someone who is not a leader, a support person. As in “I asked supply for 5.56 ammo for the squad, but some F*ing pogue sent .308!” Not a leader of men. A bungler with the minus touch.

This lack of leadership is due to the substance of this man. It's obvious to most that without being breast-fed by his teleprompter, he would be lost and off-script. That does not describe any of the leaders I've worked for in the past, individuals who could speak convincingly from the heart at the drop of a hat.

It's the foundation of his beliefs. His view is that America, as founded, was an exploitative capitalist playground that crushed the poor underneath. A capitalist tyranny in desperate need of a socialist messiah - a Robin Hood who would steal from the rich using the IRS and redistribute to poor. In his mind he may have told himself, I could be that man. Lord, send me!

Est-il faible?

As Obama was glad-handing the elite during a European swaree this year, French President Sarcozy turned and said, "Est-il faible?" which means, Is he weak? Perhaps properly translated, Is he a wimp? What do you think other world leaders think of this man? Countries often go to war not due to strength, but due to weakness.

I'm not going to touch upon any "birther" arguments except to say that Obama's lawyers have expended over $1,700,000 fighting the birth certificate issue. What is more important is his adherence to the Constitution. I have seen nothing since he took the Oath that shows he has any respect for the bill of rights or of checks and balances. Some would assert that he is a domestic enemy of the Constitution. Many of his Czars most certainly are. They are the ones who write for his teleprompter.

As we approach the end of his first year in office, let's take a look at the issues he has faced:

- The economy (Obamavilles springing up all around)
- Climate change (talk about the biggest fraud of the last 100 years!)
- Handling the H1N1 "plague" (my county just ran out of body bags... just kidding)
- Fixing "health care" (was it really broken or just over-regulated?)
- Signing a Hate Crimes bill (what part of the 1st Amendment don't you understand?)
- Providing for our fight in Afghanistan (McCrystal cooling his heels for months)

And so it is. The president who never was, and a superpower without a real leader.

- Hugh Farnham

Misplaced Guilt: Take up the White Man's Burden (of shame)

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. ~ Bertrand Russell

Atheists, Agnostics, and even large numbers of self-liberated Christians and secular Jews claim to have escaped the chains of shame and guilt.

Not so fast...

Charles Krauthammer (self-described as "not religious") exposes the secular guilt that infests the environmental movement:

Politically it's an idea of genius, engaging at once every left-wing erogenous zone: rich man's guilt, post-colonial guilt, environmental guilt.

Nevermind that our carbon belching factories built the modern world and lifted whole societies and chunks of humanity out of squalor, we must pay for our sins.  No good deed goes unpunished.  Does this spring from a poor self-esteem or a wretched self-loathing?

I am guilty of many things, but I feel not one shred of responsibility for the cesspools of ignorance and grubby fiefdoms that still pockmark the globe.  Liberal enablers need to look in the mirror. 

Real Guilt Serves a Purpose

Rabbi David Hochberg explains the purpose of a properly ordered guilt grounded in an ancient, unchanging morality:

Guilt is a very powerful and healthy emotion that keeps us honest with ourselves. It is our safeguard for inappropriate behavior. It is very difficult to do the wrong thing when we feel guilty. [...]

Guilt is the door to Teshuva (repentance).

God hatred knows no ideology

From loony lefty enviros to Ayn Rand objectivists, we see humanity's tendency to kill God and then invent a poor substitute.  Throw God away, and people will worship a golden calf (or the earth), inventing their own orthodoxy, dogma, and catalog of sins.

It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything. 
-- Malcolm Muggeridge

Obamaville

Right here in my neck of the woods. And no, I didn't do it.  Wish I had...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Someone has put a lot of thought into a welcome sign that may surprise you, it's in front of a homeless camp off I-25 in Colorado Springs.

Its message, "Welcome to Obamaville, Colorado's fastest growing community." Despite repeated calls no one could answer the question, who put up the sign?

To some homeless the sign's message says enough. Mark Limonez, a homeless man living in "tent city", says the sign doesn't make him feel good about trying to get back on his feet. "Guys are trying to work but there's not enough work out there, so they go pan handling or flag a sign" Limonez says, "I've never seen so many camps since I've been out in the streets - there's no money."

There are no logos on the front of the sign and no clues to where it comes from.