I Don't Always Talk In Front of Whiskey Bottles ...

Bruce Bradley on Chuck Grassley: A ‘farmer’ with no law degree - POLITICO.com:

... But when I do, I TELL THE TRUTH!

Saying what they really think is a very very bad idea for Democrats. Iowa, do you want this guy, who seems to be running against Chuck Grassley (who isn't running)" or do you want a Lt. Colonel, Iraq vet that knows how to farm and cut hogs.

Is insulting farmers in IA in front of a bunch of whiskey bottles a good political move? Maybe even some of the dead vote will balk at this loser!

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Best Senate Ad EVER! Iowa People, PLEASE HELP!!

Squeal - YouTube:

OK IA people, THIS is the candidate for Senate! Might make it down there to vote for her RE-election, but right now you gotta help me out!

The ad is very well done and RIGHT to the point! She has the SUPER view on "cutting pork" -- those pork politicians need to A LOT more squealing!

NOT having Stuart Smalley and and whiny Amy for Senators! One more super benefit to get the hell out of MN!

Oh, I can imagine that media is going to HATE her ... attractive, smart, mother, military and farm background. I would be completely un-surprised to find that she is a Christian as well.

Of course they hate ALL Republican women, and BLACKS (even more) ... but intelligence, accomplishment, and ESPECIALLY BEAUTY in any remotely conservative woman makes their blood run completely cold!

When they say "freedom", they DO NOT mean the freedom to disagree with them ... especially if you are group that they have consigned to their thought plantation!

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Outrunning Glaciers on Acid

Remember The Acid Rain 'Scare'? Global Warming Hysteria Is Pouring Down - Forbes:

Back in the late '70s when I was in college, we needed to go fast on I-94 to get to Madison for other reasons, but we all thought that it would be funny to tell any officer that pulled us over that we were "outrunning the glaciers". Those were the days of Global COOLING ... which I know as now gotten the left all riled up to be reminded of, so they have went to work trying to rewrite that part of history.

No, it WASN'T "the same" then,  since not EVERYTHING had been fully politicized yet! One of the outcomes of that was that "research" tended to end up in a lot of different places, and maybe more importantly started from a lot of different premises. Today, you can set out to "continue to prove" GW, or you can get no money, get no degree, lose your professorship, etc. Tough choice if you are an academic that wants an advanced degree and needs to eat.

In the "old days", we all watched, read, or listened to the same message on NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, NYT, WaPO, etc and if you were a complete low brow reactionary, you MAY have gotten some wild right wing thinking from the EDITORIAL page of the WSJ, although their news pages were (and still are) just as left as the rest of the media. Oh yes, there was Buckley and National Review -- which I had never heard of until I got bummed out because Jimmuh assured me that the era of fun in America was OVER!

"Many" scientists thought the data showed we were cooling. It was NOT a "religious issue"! The idea of using "science" as a political cudgel to pound down the apostates had not been even remotely associated with "science" in those days (we still had religion for for the fixed outlook).  "Acid Rain", "Coming Ice Age", "Ozone Hole", "DDT", "we are going to turn Japanese", "Detente --- the obvious reasonableness of surrender to the USSR", "the world is OUT of petroleum" .... those were the "smart topics" of the day.

The list of topics aren't an accident, They were ALL considered to be "common sense", and if had Fox news in those days, you could likely have done a poll showing that people "didn't know the answers to the issues of the day" ... as in, "all the forests will die from acid rain" (probably before the glaciers ran over them, but they were not clear on that), all us country kids will be dead of skin cancer long before now, and the penguins would ALL be gone due to the "ozone hole".

DDT, well, it turned out to kill 50 million plus 3rd worlders by NOT being around, but we are back to using it now with no problem to birds (if a couple beers are OK, a keg isn't necessarily better), we not only didn't turn Japanese, they started their eternal  government managed recession in '90 and are still in it.

We didn't ever try the surrender to the USSR route -- but given BO, maybe there is still time. Oh, and world oil reserves were at "400ish Billion Barrels BB) in '80 and they are N of 1.6 TB today with a lot of countries using less ... + a lot of the Baaken isn't even online! The US could push Venezuala and the Saudis for the the top of the list!  We talk about that as about as much as GW folks talk about GW during a record cold March.

Don't get the impression that EVERYONE was just stupid back then, and we have obviously gotten smarter. SOME predictions DID happen! Reagan DID consign the USSR to the ash heap of history for example (until BO resuscitated it like a long dead Chicago voter).

So the linked article brings back memories:

And lobby they did. Between 1994 and 1996 the Enron Foundation contributed nearly $1 million to the Nature Conservancy, and together with the Pew Center and the Heinz Foundation they engaged in an energetic and successful global warming fear campaign which included attacks on scientific dissenters. Incidentally, the Heinz Foundation, headed by Teresa Heinz Kerry, generously provided a $250,000 award to Al Gore’s star congressional hearing witness, NASA’s James Hansen, who subsequently went on public record supporting her new husband John Kerry’s failed presidential bid.

A bunch of people hardly remember Enron ... going from the most admired business in America in the late '90s with a myriad of connections to both parties, to an early example of "W's fault ... he met with Ken Lay" (the CEO of Enron). As WSJs "Best of the Web" likes to point out, Paul Krugman was an Enron advisor and proponent and proud of it in the late '90s. Ah, how easy the memory hole works for one side of the political spectrum.

Historically, mankind inherently understood the relation between age and "wisdom", because it was ASSUMED, and UNDERSTOOD by at least the educated that to a very significant extent "education + experience = wisdom". Put that was before the cult of "progressivism", which assumes that the data/information/knowledge that they pick up today is INHERENTLY superior to the past (mostly because they have no clue about what happened in the past)

So, most no longer learn from the past ... even just a few short years in the past. It matters not that every time a set of policies has been applied in history, they have failed. If the "smart guys" think that printing bags of money + taxing it away from the economic winners so that the economic losers get "another chance" (typically to lose bigger amounts faster), it doesn't really matter how many times it doesn't work until you end up in Greece or Japan and you are just STUCK --- no capital to go forward, no successful folks left, and a bunch of unsuccessful ones that have even lost the will to fail after pissing away multiples of borrowed / subsidized fortunes.

I have to admit that as much as I'm looking forward to warmer temperatures, a nice big continental glacier forming would be VERY cool. Sure, the "30-40 tops" years I have remaining would only allow for a few100 feet of snow and ice AT BEST, puny by the 5000+ full monty behemoth, but the warmist tap dances would be a thing of beauty ... and there is always tracks for the Ranger!

Oh, never mind ... they will claim it is "due to human caused climate change" ... or it will just go down the memory hole like Krugman/Enron, "out of oil", "ozone", etc.

It is the age of OZ, and even when Toto pulls the curtain, the lefty witches will conjure SOME way to hide the humbug!

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Jon Bon Pony

The House Wins, Toyota Edition

The left likes to say "follow the money" ... which they often do relative to the RIGHT side of the street.

I prefer "The House Wins" ... as in Vegas, and now government sponsored lotteries. Back when I was a kid, Sargent Joe Friday and Bill Gannon regularly hunted down mob connected guys "running the numbers". It is a decent measure of advancing corruption that today "the numbers" (lotto) are run by the state.

Gambling may be "vice", but at least you choose if you want to be fleeced. Not so with the US legal / government system where "the house" is a combination of lawyers and government -- which is actually the same thing. 43% of our congress lists their OCCUPATION as "lawyer" we don't need to think very long to know that the number that have law degrees or have practiced law in the past would raise it higher ... and guess what? The entire SCOTUS of the US are lawyers! (news at 11)  BO is a lawyer as is his wife, and so were Billy and Hilly.  (BTW, the NEXT profession listed, with 100 is .... Teacher! No wonder our kids self esteem is so high and their scores are so low!)

While Packers and Vikings fans may find reasons to be at each others throats, the PLAYERS have a LOT more in common with each other than they do with either "their" or the "oppositions" fans. Football is game and the NFL is a business and the fans are the customers -- BUT, the NFL doesn't get to pass laws requiring you to pay money into the business or players salaries.

Same with Republicans and Democrats in the US government and lawyers. You may THINK that "your group", "your lawsuit", 'your justice", "your fairness", etc are going to get the upper hand, but rest assured "the house" ALWAYS comes out on top! Oh sure, they have a lot of good fights and froths, but they all know where their bread is buttered. Many of them go in nearly penniless, make a mere $150K a year, and come out either as or soon to be multi-millionaires. It is money that someone COULD easily follow if they wanted -- but the MSM, conservative media, or certainly not EITHER political party or lobbying groups. It is all one big happy game on the inside -- ALL those people are to some degree or another part of "the house". The lawyers are the "owners and superstar players" ... and we go down from there. (in more ways than one)

So we have the vaunted $1.2 billion "settlement". Who pays for this? Consumers of course, just like "corporate taxes". This is a cost of doing business and that is passed on to consumers. If they don't buy the higher priced cars, eventually the company goes out of business. Who gets the money? Lawyers.

I would guess that very few (if any?) of us actually believe that "the car started accelerating, the brakes didn't work, and there was nothing I could do to stop it! The ignition freeze? Gear shift locked in D?? put it in N and try to blow the engine for goodness sake, who cares!  (it is rev limited now anyway ... it will just be noisy) How bad are your brakes? If you REALLY believe that this can happen, go out in your drive, firmly press the brake as hard as you can with the car in gear, then floor the accelerator and see what happens. Or if you want don't want to do that, read this.

Of for a lot better fun, and to find the REAL problem -- not SO much that the government agencies are fools, but that the people that put them in power (ultimately US) are fools ... so what do we expect? READ THIS! Like everything else from PJ, it is both wise and funny, which I truly love.

So, the cause of "Sudden Acceleration" is panic, hitting the wrong or both pedals. Panic is caused by being human -- as is electing all foxes (lawyers) to guard the hen house (us).

For those of us that like to watch the spectacle of corruption and incompetence in our current national dance of death. (hey, may as well enjoy it, what else is there to do?) We are going to have a great contrast point coming up.

GM has known about an ACTUAL engineering problem for A DECADE ... during which time they were bailed out by our illustrious foxes. Naturally, this has gotten FAR less interest even though it is responsible for MORE accidents and deaths.

If you are driving down the road, calmly minding your own business and suddenly your steering wheel is LOCKED in whatever position it is in and your engine goes off, you may be surprised! Yes, you still have brakes ... but not power assisted, and you MIGHT have the presence of mind to try to tun the key back on, which hopefully will give you non-power steering in what is now likely to be an emergency situation --- remember, this is perfectly capable of happening at 60 or 70 in the middle of a curve, passing, etc. Oh, and your nice air bags? They are OFF!

Now it looks like Toyota tried to play their situation "old school" ... using engineering data, government studies, common sense, all that old crap ... and while they did avoid having anyone go to the pokey,  it was expensive.

THIS TIME, GM (Government Motors) has a different approach. They named Mary Barra CEO. BO invited her to the SOTU, and she has been a regular contributor to his Lowness! Well, piss down my back and tell me it's rainin!

 I'm betting that things to A LOT better for GM than they did for Toyota. What do you think?

Koch is Biggest Oil Sands Player

Washington Post Falls For Left-Wing Fraud, Embarrasses Itself | Power Line:

Only, of course they are not, that is just what the WaPO and a bunch of other lefty mouthpieces reported. They are barely a player at all as is easily and fully shown by this column.

** But that is not what I want to write about!!

I've been reading a bit too much "left" lately. "The Fox effect" and "Dog whistle politics" are books I'm slogging through for example. What more deeply thinking people need to understand is that for those on the left, Koch = EVIL, and articles like the one dissected here are taken as FACT!

Thy become enmeshed a world view where Fox News, racism, evil big business, big money, Citizens United and a vastly longer list of things are part of a woven tapestry where  "what EVERYONE knows"! Or at least "all right (correct) thinking reasonably intelligent people" ... and lord knows (a generic, imaginary lord) that NOBODY would want to be associated with "those people" (shhh, almost all of them are WHITE, but we are not racists here ... THEY are racists, you can even be white and be "one of us" as long as you say exactly the right stuff!).

So the NYT, Public Radio, NBC, Slate, etc, really have no other choice than to HATE all things Koch and attack them by ALL means, both legal or not. The MUST be stopped! Their brand of "speech" is not acceptable!

Meanwhile, they are completely blind to the actual top donors, both in groups or as individuals. "ActBlue, AFSME,  IBEW, American Federation of Teachers, American Assn for Justice ..." are nearly unknown relative to "BIG MONEY in politics". Individually, compare how often you hear "Katzenberg, Goldman, Simons, Eychaner and Linbeck" of which Linbeck, the little guy gave $1.25M in just 2012.  Meanwhile, OpenSecrets, certainly no "conservative organization" ranks them ALL TIME at #59 with 18M TOTAL from 89-2014.

But Koch is the name that has been branded by the media as evil -- pretty much as well as "Coke" (pronounced the same) is branded as a really good soft drink.

It is relatively hard work to look at a couple points of view and at least understand that it all isn't NEARLY as "cut and dried" as we would all love to have it.

In the universe proffered by "US education, the MSM, US entertainment, etc" the physical universe is daily observed by "experts", thought about, analyzed with "complete lack of bias" (other than "facts and logic"), and then lovingly fed to us all in completely easy to digest hunks that all link up wonderfully into a grand, correct, satisfying, objective, reasonable, popular, morally pleasing, somewhat comforting -- but still needing each of us  to fight the clear "bad guys" view of what is happening.

Then there are evil sorts like myself and the Koch brothers that say that universe is false -- and indeed that the universe that I inhabit is FALSE AS WELL, with the exception that I will claim there IS an understandable transcendent framework for what we all see with meaning and direction from a loving God.

But that is by FAITH ... , but so is the alternate view that it is all random and meaningless with the exception of the wonderful "meaning" described above as "the standard world view".  With that view, your "hope" is that you were right!

I say you get to pick, but BO, WaPO, NPR, etc say, no you don't! -- unless you want to be an idiot.

Eventually though, if not already,  your speech or other activity is labeled as "hate" or something else "not of the will of today's truth",  so you  run afoul of the IRS, NSA, EPA, or some other alphabet agency and become not just "wrong", but CRIMINAL.

So maybe it is safer to just think that the Koch's ARE the biggest oil sands player?

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Understanding Conservatives Via Facebook

What Facebook can tell us about conservatives:

First the learned published theory:

Here's my theory.  Conservatives are a remarkably well-organized and tight-knit group. It's why every book from a conservative author shoots to the top of the best-seller list. It's why Fox News Channel's primetime programming regularly doubles that of its cable competition. It's why Rush Limbaugh has no talk radio equal among liberals. It's not terribly surprising then that organizational closeness extends to the digital space where conservative use Facebook to share stories/links from a handful of conservative websites.

Here is my theory. Supply and Demand.

When you have high demand and low supply people are anxious to access the low supply information and share it by lots of means ... Facebook, word of mouth, etc. 

Liberal media perspective on the web, cable, radio, etc is a saturated commodity. Liberals have NO need to post anything from "marginal sites", because NBC, CNN, NPR, NYT, HuffPo (which USED to be considered "left wing"), etc are FULL of any story with a liberal slant that they could possibly desire!  True, false, slanted, insane, etc ... ALL are completely available and easy to find. 

 Everyone always gets exactly the view they want AND MORE on the liberal view blasted at them 24x7 from EVERYWHERE! Even supposed "conservative media" STILL present the liberal view and generally just respond to it (like this blog). When a liberal outlet deigns to mention a conservative view, it is often castigated as being part of the "echo chamber" for even having mentioned the "false" view. 

If you add "conservative" and "moderate" together, 75% if US people identify as one or the other, where only 21% identify as liberal. (see Gallup data)

The book "Left Turn" is a very good attempt by  a couple of university professors, based on PEER REVIEWED RESEARCH (the magic wand!) to figure out:

1) Where the American people are relative to bias (like "40")
2) Where a bunch of media and institutions are
3)  Where our politicians are

Here are a couple of charts from that book 

Basically, Joe Lieberman was about a 75, most Americans cluster around 40, standard MSM is around 70, and Fox is like 50.

So there is my "supply and demand theory" ... or the other guy and Hillary could be right and there is a highly organized right wing conspiracy that is taking these things and in an organized way posting them on FB!

You make the call.


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WaPo Questions BO Sophistry

President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy - The Washington Post:



We all have a little sophist  and/or narcissist in us -- the idea that the rest of the universe is just a reflection of us, that "everyone else is like us".  Mostly it is pretty innocuous, it just gets costly when we are foolish enough to elect a leader deep in the immaterialist fog.



It is actually why "liberals"  have so much trouble with evil, Hitler, Jeffry Dahmer or someone being a "conservative". They fervently believe that since THEY are absolutely "good inside", and there is no god, devil, or "dark side" in the universe, it HAS to be a case of "poor education, being exposed to religion, mental illness, or SOMETHING other than an actual diverse universe where everyone ISN'T "just like them"!!!!!



OMG, that CAN'T  be true!!!!



Except as WaPo seems to be noticing, it IS! We really DO have to "pay attention to that man behind the curtain".  No matter how fervently you believe that all matter exists only in your head, there may be a Samuel Johnson that shows up and refutes your view thusly.



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Gay St Paddies Day

Erin Gay Bragh? | Power Line:

It isn't enough to be treated like everyone else if you are gay. You must be treated SPECIALLY! Rather odd, when the supposed claim is the desire to be "treated like everyone else". Only, it isn't -- the desire is to have your lifestyle constantly validated and CELEBRATED! If you actually believed in your lifestyle, you would not care.

So everyone else follows the rules for the parade -- business attire, no green funny outfits, two flags, one Irish, one US, and the only political statement allowed is "England get out of Ireland". There are no groups identifying their heterosexual preferences for boobs, blondes, butts or brunettes either.

Turns out the parade isn't about sex! Wow, what a concept!  It is about Irish heritage and a SAINT! You don't get to eat, drink or smoke during the parade either, but the fact you don't is not a statement on the morality of any of the above.

If I go to someone's home that I know doesn't drink alcohol, I don't take wine, beer or whiskey even though I like all of the above. I don't have to always have my political or religious views expressed. I have them, they are mine. I not only don't need them validated, I'm absolutely fine if you want to question me on them or even denigrate them -- I will be very happy to defend them!

But we don't HAVE to have that discussion! I don't need to wear my NRA T-shirt into your left leaning wine tasting, nor bring my whisky bottle to your milk and cookies Southern Baptist softball game!

We are at a very strange place. EVERYTHING is REQUIRED to be politicized! It is not enough for SOME behavior to just be tolerated, it MUST be "celebrated"!!!

We don't demand that the drunk drink up everywhere -- why, it is DISCRIMINATORY for them to not be able to drink and drive! We don't need to have heterosexuals flaunting their preferences -- at work, in school, in the St Paddies day parade, etc.

Smokers? Good Lord! Do you suppose that anyone WANTS to be addicted to tobacco? or alcohol for that matter? Pedophilia? Gambling?  Do you think that somebody decides "hey, this looks like a pretty good lifestyle, I think I'll have sex with kids"!

 No, there are all sorts of inclinations, proclivities, weaknesses, mental tics, poor upbringing, bad choices etc  that have to be controlled, kept private, avoided, regulated, criminalized, treated, etc. If Slick Willie was a captain of industry rather than a lefty politician, he would likely be a destitute ex-con in sex addiction recovery ... assuming that he could beat the Juanita Broadrick rape charge, or if not he would  be someone's "girlfriend" having romantic tin tray meals.

Oh, on Slick, if you are on the left, compare the treatment of Anita Hill / Clarence Thomas with the treatment of Broadrick. Put W's face on Slick and THEN see what you think of the charges as presented in that bastion of right wing vitriol, Slate.

I really really hate the "we are going to boycott this and that" deal -- I find it to lack respect for TRUE pluralism and in my book "the American Way". Yes, Guinness really pisses me off by dropping out of the parade cuz the gays had a hissy fit, but the "I'm never going to drink Guinness again" feels like Carter shooting the US farmers in the back when the USSR invaded Afghanistan in the late '70s ... only it is ME taking the bullet by missing that very occasional pint of black tar.  

Frankly, we have become a very limp wristed  namby pamby nation in general -- China, Russia, some Arabs, etc are likely going to have to really spank our ass seriously before some manning up occurs. 9-11 just didn't really get the point across, and we are certainly asking for it now.


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Fox Effect Book

Sometimes it is good to realize how we got BO for President. Skip ahead if you need to ... it is AMAZING how "well informed" these voters were on Palin -- or at least the Tina Fey parody of Palin. Our MSM does to a great job of getting it's political message out there -- even when it is a parody. Remember, this is 2008 for those reading this in the future.

I've been trying to SLOG through "The Fox Effect" by David Brock, founder of "Media Matters", who says in their "About Us" section:

"Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."

Got that? Media Matters IS a 501c3 CHARITY! The IRS worked hard (and unsurprisingly) Media Matters agrees that Tea Party organizations should NOT have tax exempt status because they are PARTISAN! Good thing that MM is doing a public service by monitoring for CONSERVATIVE bias! Can't be having any of that, and to be searching for ONLY "conservative bias" is clearly "non-partisan", so it is great that Media Matters is a 501c3! Got that? This is how things work in a single party state!

Why, Fox listeners are ill informed!! They don't KNOW that Climate Change is settled science. They don't know that BOcare is going to SAVE us money! They don't know that "anyone that likes their healthcare can keep it!" They don't know that W was completely responsible for the 2009 budget! (not even liberals are smart enough to know that the House is responsible to set the budget) .... See, "facts" are not up for discussion, and only the left has "facts"!

I may not be able to get through this book ... essentially it's whole point is "Fox is biased"!!!!  HORROR!!!

Did you know that Fox brought up quotes out of BO's "Dreams From My Father" book??? This of course is NOT "journalism" ... like sending teams of folks to scour anything they they can to try to dig up something on W from his days in the National Guard. Hey, he might not have been the worlds best FIGHTER PILOT! Clearly complete disqualification for being president!

.... how DARE you mention that BO discussed the idea of "filtering his Mom's white blood out of his body"? IN HIS OWN BOOK!  Unlike W maybe not being the greatest National Guard pilot  (and not even bragging that he was), which is TERRIBLE! If we could get some "fake but true" documents to "prove" that he wasn't (even though he never said he was), would that be a crime?

Roger Ailes worked for Nixon ... uh, but Chris Matthews worked for Edmund Muskie, ran as a Democrat in Pennsylvania for congress and lost, was chief of staff for Tip O'Neil and was a speechwriter for Carter ... but he is a "good guy", no "bias" or even problem there!

Tim Russert was chief of staff to Daniel Moynihan and counsel to Mario Cuomo ... so he had experience!

Actually, it IS OK ... to me at least. I EXPECT that ALL people are going to have bias! Unlike the voters in the linked video, it would be VERY nice if they also had some clue about reality beyond the biased view, but I also know that I'm in a distinct minority on that theory.

Public Radio and TV are probably where I have the most difficulty. Every time I hear them say "we have PROOF that we are in the middle or the road because we get complaints BOTH that we are too liberal and too conservative"!!

Well DUH! Every self selecting set ... a church, a gun club, NRA, Sierra Club, etc, etc is going to have a "bell shaped curve population" ... half on one side and half on the other with most clustered around the middle!!!

Why? They select themselves! In general (excluding odd Mooses) the people listening to NPR feel that it is a "reliable and proper source for news" ... half of them will find it a bit on the liberal side, and half of them will find it a bit on the conservative side ... but those closest to the middle (the majority) will pretty much find it to be Goldilocks ("just right").

Most people feel the same way about the hoppiness of the  beer they drink, the hotness of their food, etc. etc. It is one of the most basic parts of statistics to understand this! It doesn't get any more basic than "the bell shaped curve"

We are ALL biased, and that is GOOD! We are NOT all biased in the same way ... thus we have something to talk about!

So why don't "liberals" think the same way? Because they KNOW that they are right! Not only that, they KNOW that conservatives are either stupid, evil or both! Thus, Fox needs to be stamped out ... along with anyone else that would ask questions of BO voters and make them look bad!

"Liberals" have the unconstrained view of mankind and believe that "key intelligent experts" need to get everyone's mind right. The "masses" are just not smart enough to understand the nuance and brilliance of the elite "liberal" view of the world, so it is only as a public service that they want to make sure that the horribly wrong thoughts of people not smart enough to see things their way are stamped out as quickly as possible!

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Ted Cruz Speaks Truth to Dirty Harry

Oh, Snap: Ted Cruz Fearlessly Calls Out Harry Reid For ‘Villifying’ Private Citizens on Senate Floor:

Somebody needs to get Reid back on his meds and off to professional help so he can maybe get a slight re-connect with this particular universe.

In the meantime, this is WELL worth the short time to watch.

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Merging Self-Righteousness with Empirical Delusion

‘Free to Be’ Boys and Girls: 40 Years After the Failed Gender Revolution | TIME.com:

The writer Andrew Sullivan is right when hedescribesthe sex difference as “so obvious no one really doubted it until very recently, when the blank-slate left emerged, That delusion was jumpstarted in 1974 with the advent of “Free To Be… You and Me.” Today, an army of gender scholars and activists is marching in support of the genderless ideal. But these warriors forget that ignoring differences between boys and girls can be just as damaging as creating differences where none exist. “Free to Be” is a cautionary example of how an idealistic social fantasy can turn into a blueprint for repression

The title is a good description of the "liberal" thought process, which unsurprisingly OFTEN (always?) results in "idealistic social fantasies that are blueprints for repression". 

Do we really need more "cautionary stories"? Take the idea of either "intention", or "great reverence for millions of years of randomness" out of creation, replace it with "self-righteousness and empirical delusions", and is there EVER a result other than disaster for at least thousands if not millions of people, up to and including mass slaughter? 

America's "war on poverty" is certainly an example of how an idealistic social fantasy turned into a blueprint for repression. The black male was replaced by the government as head of household. So he and his sons vacated said home for the streets, drugs, swagger and violence. Thus, in huge numbers they end up incarcerated or dead. 

We may be created in God's image, but it is less than a cartoon image.  We are NOT "little gods".

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A World Without National Socialism

I watched the excellent movie "Downfall" about the last days with Hitler in the bunker at the end of WWII. It is told based on interviews with his young female secretary who was 22 at the time she was picked to work for Hitler, as well as information from others in the inner circle that survived.

A lot of you have seen a clip from it since it is the base for hundreds of parodies about "Hitler is told", my favorite being Hitler being told that they couldn't get him a Harley to ride to Sturgis. My wife is kind of like his secretary in the hallway saying "that's OK, we'll find some REAL BIKERS!"

The biggest thing that struck me was Magda Goebbels, the wife of Joseph Goebbels killing all six of their young children because  "she didn't want them to live in a world without National Socialism".

What a shame, they could have just moved to Russia, or even Great Britain a few years later, or just have waited around for the "last days of BO", so at least their grandkids would have been "happy".

"Socialism, Communism, Fascism, etc" are all "worship of the state". For people that think, they MUST be atheistic, even though in their early stages their adherents will try to soft pedal the "Godless" aspect a bit. Hitler had very strong faith that you put a bullet through your brain and what you get is "peace" ... well perhaps, I've been reading Dante's Inferno lately ... there are ALWAYS alternatives!

When you worship man (and you WILL worship, your brain is built that way) ... collectively or in the individual ... yourself, Hitler, BO, it really makes no difference, it is simply idolatry, and humans are GREAT at idolatry.

The second thing that hit me was the young SS rounding up old men that failed to muster for defense of Berlin and shooting or hanging them as cowards. A set of them is confronted by a Waffen officer, and the SS officer says "who is going to stop me? them? you?" as he is gunning them down.

Ah, how much less boldness such officers would have if the population had .460 S&W mags and .223 ARs. One only needs to see a few of your buddies blown away to get a LOT slower at searching out the old coots that have "failed" to follow "Mien Fuhrer" or "The One!" as required. Standing out in open in the street shooting a few of your fellow citizens is cause for a lot less arrogance when it regularly results in your troop dying ignominiously in a hail of bullets.

Make no mistake, gun control is about CONTROL, a free person NEVER gives up their arms!

I wonder how many Americans under 30 can even tell you that "Nazi" stood for "National Socialist"? "Those that fail History are doomed to repeat it".

Ah yes, the dream of living in a world without ANY form of Statism ... Communism, Socialism, Fascism, etc. Once our founders dreamed of such, but in the words of Franklin when asked what kind of government the Congress had wrought, he replied;  "A Republic if you can keep it".

Alas, we could not.

Libertarian Fails to Sink Republican

In Florida, Republicans win first election showdown of the year - CNN.com:

I happened to catch NPR yesterday talking about how "this race COULD show that BOcare is OK" and then extolling the virtues of the "strong Libertarian candidate". The Democrats ran a candidate that narrowly lost the race for Governor in 2010 and poured money into the race in a district that BO won in 2012.

Jolly won 48.5% of the vote, and Sink got just under 47%. Libertarian candidate Lucas Overby was a distant third, with just under 5% of the ballots cast.

48.5 + 5 = 53.5 vs 47%, it would have been a LANDSLIDE!  Everyone knows that Libertarians take votes away from Republicans, the MSM just fails to talk about it. Oh sure, they can always find the INSANE Libertarian that says "we pull votes equally", and for those that are from this planet, their choice is pretty simple: There is the candidate on the statist left, the Democrat, then there is the middle candidate, the Republican, who I freely admit is usually WAY too far to the left, and then there is the Libertarian on the right ... edging over toward that anarchistic right hand. The Libertarian makes the claim that the R and the D are tweedle D and tweedle Dum, so it MAKES NO DIFFERENCE, and they MUST pull the L lever to "create REAL " ... and because the other lifeforms on their planet are doing it.

Often their "change" is another far lefty like Mark Dayton, and the fact that the Libertarian killed the Republican candidate naturally gets no coverage in the media -- be a shame to have some of those folks return to earth!

So in this case, the strong Libertarian failed to hand the election to the Democrats, but I'll bet that some of the lefty donors were throwing a bit of money that way. NPR was sure as heck doing all they could to point out how strong a candidate that Libertarian was!

Given this outcome though, FL 13 is like MH370, gone without a trace! Had the outcome been the other way, it would be headline news today "BOcare Wins!"

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Driving to Hawaii

Watch Cory Booker Claim He ‘Drove To Hawaii’ As A Teenager During Climate Talkathon:





Perhaps when the ice age gets a little deeper, Democrats actually can drive to Hawaii. Certainly, the claim that a Democratic Senator drove there on his first road trip is about as factual as the whole spectacle of the Democrats in general.



They  DO control the Senate, and have already been very willing to use various dodges to evade the filibuster, so could go ahead and pass cap and trade if they wanted to.  (which they failed to do even when they DID have 60 votes AND the house in '09-'10). But if they DID go on record as passing it, they wouldn't be about to get it through the House.



But what does that matter? If they had the strength of their convictions they would WANT to be on record as having passed it ... as the House as been on record more than once passing legislation to repeal or delay BOcare. Those actions received universal denigration in the media, but naturally when BO ILLEGALLY modifies and delays pieces willy nilly that is JUST FINE!



Never mind, the all-nighter was just a fund raising stunt, but the nice part of being a Democrat is that pretty much nobody that matters even cares to point out the obvious if it could be taken as "not reflecting well on Democrats".





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Koch's $4.4 BILLION Political Purchase

Kim Strassel: The Really Big Money? Not the Kochs - WSJ.com:

Mr. Reid was quite agitated on the Senate floor about "unlimited money," by which he must have been referring to the $4.4 billion that unions had spent on politics from 2005 to 2011 alone, 

Oh, I mean UNIONS, never mind, the Koch's were #59 on the list on the Open Secrets list they are 45th, with a LOT of unions above them.

I love this little shot of BO's top contributors -- drawn from the records because you have to say where you work when you contribute:

You might like need to zoom in a bit, but I'll give you the highlights:

#1, University of California, with SIX universities on the list.

4 either "US Government" or specific agencies.

Microsoft, Google, and IBM in that order.

The only reason that the left hates Citizen's United so much is that it gives conservatives a CHANCE to even up the spending a TINY bit ... but they STILL have to counteract NPR, NYT, NBC, CBS, CNN. MSNBC, etc. Do you REALLY think that the IRS even cares for an instant how much money comes from where on the left? Good gravy, the people working at the government gave $1.7 M  JUST TO BO!!! On the record ... and how hard do you think any limits are being enforced on that side?

We now KNOW that the IRS does specific political targeting against conservative groups (how many times must Lois Learner take the 5th before you believe that if you don't by now?). So we KNOW that the IRS targets conservative groups, AND we know that they are going to completely walk on it! Frankly, not enough people care enough to make it even a MINOR issue!

Would you bet that they are going to "go after" left leaning groups that funnel too much money into the coffers of candidates that are on their side?? It is for this reason that we ought not have ANY restrictions on campaign money and abolish the IRS meddling with a FLAT TAX.

Powerline has reported on the MANY New York Times slurs on the Koch Brothers.

Amazingly, it has gotten so over the top that NURSES in NYC are demonstrating AGAINST the Koch's giving $100 MILLION to a hospital!!

There are people that STILL claim to not understand "how could Germany have killed 6 million Jews"?

The hatred of the Jews didn't happen overnight. The blood of the French Revolution wasn't some "spur of the moment" random happening. When the Communists took over in Russia, the "wealthy" had to be suitably demonized before people were willing to see them killed. (and having them afraid was helpful too)

I wonder how many people on the left mispronounce the name Koch to be like Ed "Kaatch", the former Jewish mayor of NYC??? Apparently the "Coke" brothers are not Jewish, but the level of demonization of them makes one wonder if there isn't a desire for confusion. Democrats go in for "southern strategy", "racial codewords", etc on FAR less of a connection!

The left is going for "closure" here. They want Fox shut down, they want the Kochs to SHUT UP, and they want conservatives everywhere to get the message that they need to lie low an MAYBE nothing bad will happen to them (for now).

Mostly, we are all standing around while any semblance of political  thought diversity is rooted out and destroyed before our very eyes. Communism and Socialism ( including National Socialism) can only win when the opposition is silenced -- and they are willing to do anything to make that happen!

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Liberty, Equality, Efficiency

Liberty, Equality, Efficiency - NYTimes.com:

So does reducing inequality through redistribution hurt economic growth? Not according to two landmark studies by economists at the International Monetary Fund, which is hardly a leftist organization. 

So "left" is statist control by small groups of experts, and "right" is distributed liberty of control by everyone. It is obvious that a small international organization of "experts"  that controls money on a world wide bases is NOT "leftist"? Well, if it isn't, then what WOULD a "leftist organization" be? Also recall that the IMF thinks that global wealth confiscation from the savings of the middle class is "the only way out" of the current GLOBAL economic crisis that includes Europe ... who Paul thinks we STILL need to emulate. 



Paul prattles on about how if you are one of the "40 million children living in poverty", equality of opportunity is a "cruel joke". What he doesn't say is that this is after 50 years of "war on poverty" which has primarily given us a vast number of single parent homes, drug addiction and urban violence. So far the "liberal" policies that were supposed to improve lives for the poor have made things worse -- but never mind, the ONLY "reasonable thing to do" is to double down on those policies!



Ah, "efficient" -- somehow those experts are ALWAYS certain that they can be "efficient". Tyranny IS a highly efficient form of government, but one needs to check if the "trains" are on time running to the amusement park or to the crematorium!











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Rspect for BO

Obama Misspells 'Respect' While Honoring Aretha Franklin, CNN Covers for Him | National Review Online:

I'm quite certain we are due to see a firestorm of late night comedians and people howling in the street in derision of an idiot that can't spell R E S P E C T ... even when it is set to music. I mean, we heard it of Dan Quayle misspelling P O T A T O in a spelling bee when it was written as P O T A T O E on his queue card. Right?

BO has now had "57 states so far", "10K dead in Kansas tornado", and "Hawaii is in Asia" among a good many others. "Some Village in Texas is Missing an Idiot" was popular when W was President, "Some Village in Kenya is Missing and Idiot" would be a hoot now, right?

But this won't happen, nor should it. It shouldn't have happened to Quayle, Bush or Palin either. But it did, and it will keep happening to conservatives.

Why? Because humans are prejudice. They always have been and they always will be. Christians who believe that they ought to love others as themselves with all their hearts are still prejudiced, because their hearts are human.

But "liberals" believe they are different. They have no higher power over them at all. In fact, their group DEMANDS that they CONSTANTLY deride conservative thought -- not only as "stupid", but as "evil" as well. If they don't, they will lose their "liberal card" -- and depending on where they work, (say government, teaching, more "enlightened" companies), that may well mean the loss of upward mobility in their position, or even their job. There is no "separation of church and state" to a liberal -- the state IS their church!

So they protect their own and attack those heretics that "bitterly cling" to things like The Constitution, The Bible, the Protestant Work Ethic, respect for parents and elders -- basically anything other than the latest "advanced new thought" that showed up last week.

Anything else is just stupid!

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Shooting in Zamboni Driving, Molson Swilling Paradise

CTV Toronto | News Video - Latest Toronto News Headlines, Breaking News and Live Reports:



How could it happen? I thought they had laws against things like this up there!



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Is This the "Flexibility" ?

Daniel Henninger: Putin Carterizes Obama, Totally - WSJ.com:

We may quibble over the timeline. Some might say it began when Mr. Obama whispered to then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev he'd have "more flexibility" after the 2012 election; others that it set in when the U.S. president took Mr. Putin's offer to let Bashar Assad escape the bombing of his airfields for using WMD against his own people.

As BO bumbles Carteresquely around Putin, I for one have wondered whatever happened to that off-mike comment. 

The US MSM remains completely incurious of course, I doubt a Republican could even have been re-elected after obviously indicating intent to fraudulently mislead the American people to be re-elected and to then allow a rival nation "more flexibility". Let alone having the comment "forgotten". ("misunderestimated?)


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Crimea River (Ann)

Crimea River - Ann Coulter - Page 1:



The title just makes me jealous. When she is right, she is right -- one may as well just relax and let what happens happen when there is Democrat behind the foreign policy wheel.



I did notice that the JFK, Bobby, Marilyn "three way"  will not be adding to the Kennedy legacy for at least a while.



Man, I'm jealous about her title! As Ann almost always is, a "guilty pleasure" entertaining read.



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I'll Take the Camera Vehicle!

The Factory’s “Camera RZR” » UTVUNDERGROUND:





The video at the end is pretty cool ... amazing what it takes to shoot some of these promo kinds of material.



The degree of constant innovation and advancement in the outdoor power-sport industry is incredible.



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Ghostbusters Caused Reagan

Baby boomer humor’s big lie: “Ghostbusters” and “Caddyshack” really liberated Reagan and Wall Street - Salon.com:



I'm not going to quote you a lot out of this, you need to read it. Thomas Frank is very well respected in liberal circles, and this is not on Salon's humor page.



Certainly a conservative or libertarian is going to read this and be very tempted to just laugh completely out loud. Go ahead and do this, but then realize for a moment that this guy is SERIOUS! He is pretty pissed that someone is willing and ABLE to make movies that he sees as espousing "the common man" standing up and most of all SNEERING at his BETTERS! Frank strongly believes he is one of those betters! He sees himself as "Dean Wermer", "The EPA Guy",  Ted Knight (Mary Tyler Moore) as the judge in Caddyshack.



OK, so I pretty much agree with him on that ... short laugh break here.



BUT. Consider Orwell's pigs; "some are more equal than others". Frank is absolutely certain that HE is "more equal".



Frank utterly forgets the hundreds (thousands?) of movies, rock songs, books, TV shows, plays, etc, etc that provide a myriad of extremely negative portrayals of business, wall street, the rich that earned their money, etc. He also forgets that this small bevy of movies was very clearly HUMOR, and it is HIGHLY unlikely that they had any sort of effect even REMOTELY strong enough to counteract the 12-20 years of hard left wing education forced indoctrination, the MSM, the entire media culture, and the effects of constant left wing economic disincentives ... why not just stay on your parents healthcare until 26 and maybe live off the government dime for a while like the "kids" (formerly adults) in Europe?



No, Frank's lefty thought utopia is very safe until it crashes into the evil abutment of reality -- which even BO can't decree to cease and desist. But why is he so pissed?



Because Frank's universe must be PURE! His world doesn't allow for someone "flipping him the bird" ... especially if that someone might be armed! Frank wants them on the ground, cuffed, and thrown into the Gulag where he can  INSURE that they "get their mind right". Fealty is INSUFFICIENT! It has to be GENUINE you swine!!



Naturally the idea of Frank walking over and accosting any red blooded American over flipping him the bird  in reality an extremely funny thought. One doesn't need a weapon to have guys like Frank wetting themselves in the real world, but there is the rub.



Frank has no intent or predilection to a "fair fight". He HATES real merit, he hates real strength, he obviously even hates real humor. His anger at those things forces him to show his true colors -- just a bit, and just to his friends at Salon, but due to the internet, perhaps a glimpse can get out??



There is NO DOUBT that his goal ... and the unstated goal of MANY on the left is CONTROL at a level that would stamp out the kind of "subversion" of the Ramis movies evening HINTING at targets like "government". Subversion would still be very much encouraged in that world -- against business, family, church, wealth, etc, but NEVER against government.



So Mr Frank, even when you walk by me in my cell, you are right! There ARE those of us willing to flip you the bird (even though only an extreme paranoid thinks it has anything to do with Harold Ramis movies)! Even WORSE, it is just fine that we live in a country that is free enough so that others can flip me off (although I may walk over and have a nice chat with them).  That is their RIGHT, and I CELEBRATE IT!



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Ocean Rise Threatens Lady Liberty

Sea-level rise threatens to drown Statue of Liberty | Science Recorder:

Sea-level rise threatens UNESCO World Heritage sites, including such internationally famous sites as the Statue of Liberty in New York City, 

according to a report from the Institute of Physics. The Statue of Liberty is just one of many sites that could be compromised if current global warming trends are maintained over the next two millennia. MILLENNIA! Got that? This is a "science news" item for TWO THOUSAND years from now!

Plus, it is from the "Institute of Physics" ... noted climatologists that they are!

It showed up under "science" under my Google News, so it is popular enough to make that cut.

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Endless War

Paul Ryan wages war on the War on Poverty - CNN.com:



The Democrats have been at war with poverty for 50 years, and by every measure, it seems that poverty is winning.  Right now there are 44M people (men women and children) living in poverty and we are spending $800B a year on them, or about $18K each. If one assumes that MOST of these are "families" of some sort ... mother with one or more kids in most cases, if we just mailed them a check they would have $36K for a family of two and up from there.



Of course the $800B has to support a vast "poverty infrastructure". Lots of departments, programs, bureaucrats, secretaries and undersecretaries of this and that. All good solid Democrat voters though, as are at least 90% of the 44M that they can get to go out to vote (or count as having voted by some means). Why would a Democrat NOT want to keep $800B flowing into their constituency? It's close to 1/4 of the budget for goodness sakes ... and the % of people in poverty in '09 was basically the same as the day that LBJ declared war!



Ah yes, $800B in graft that has not moved the ball in 50 years!



The old anti-W sticker back when Democrats cared about "war" was "Endless War". How many Trillions down the "War on Poverty" rat hole in that 50 years? No doubt more than enough to have moved the US GDP a NUMBER of TRILLIONS up had they not been squandered keeping a set of Democrats on the poverty plantation!



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The 58th? State

Putin's Cynical Choice | RealClearPolitics:



Back when BO claimed he had been in 57 states with one more to go (not including Alaska and Hawaii, which his staff didn't let him go to), the few of us aware of his statement pretty much assumed it was just a gaffe. You know, the kind of thing that would have been on every comedy show for 8 years if W had made it.



I think we were wrong. Apparently in the alternate universe of the left, Iraq became a US state after W's "war of aggression" ... because it is completely legitimate to compare the removal of Saddam Hussein with the US action in Iraq, Not only that, but Afghanistan, Panama and Grenada.



When I went through the Panama Canal a couple years back, I failed to see any US flags flying. They normally stand out, red white and blue being somewhat bright and contrasting colors, but I must have missed them since apparently we acquired Panama as a state.



I guess the acquisition of all those new states by the US pretty much makes it unreasonable for us to question Putin.



One really can't legitimately criticize a person unless one travels a few parsecs in their universe!









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End of Days Preview

Scale of suffering at Syrian refugee camp is revealed by photo of huge queue for food | World news | theguardian.com:

There has not been a lot of coverage of this picture in the US, but some pictures are worth many thousands of words.

Can you even imagine what our news would look like now if W had done a proud "reset" on Russian relations after Slick, Gore, Lieberman, Kerry or Edwards had mentioned that "Russia was a likely adversary" and been smugly derided by W. Remember, Putin "bailed out" BO and Kerry on the "red line" in Syria!

The surrealism just marches on and on ... and then at some point you find yourself in a queue like one pictured and your realize that while BO, socialism, "settled science", "you can keep your healthcare", "it is good that less people have to work", etc etc were all lies, but lies that have a very real effect on the lives of real people!

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Bill Clinton, Racist Extremist!

Kirsten Powers Demagogues on Religious Liberty, Again:



Another little marker on how far we have "progressed" as a nation. When Clinton signed a similar bill in '93, there was no outcry. Many states already have very similar laws on the books and nothing like the shrill howlers would indicate "might happen" has happened.



So if you are a Christian you MUST photographs at a gay "wedding" if you are in the photography business, or a baker must do the cake ... etc, etc. I think we all know that a Muslim, or likely any other person or church that refused their facilities or whatever will get a pass. We don't call things ANTI-Christian in the MSM **YET**!



The simplest idea would be "private businesses can serve whatever customers they decide to serve for whatever reason" ... you see these signs all the time "we reserve the right to refuse service for any reason".  Perhaps the potential customer is filthy stinking dirty, perhaps they are loud mouthed and obscene, perhaps they don't meet some standard of attire. The operative situation in a country that supported personal liberty would be that the business owner is forgoing a customer, and if he cuts out certain groups of customers that reduces his potential market, thus costing HIS bottom line!



There used to be a country called the United States of America that held this view.



I'd argue the situation is EXACTLY the same for smokers! I happen not to smoke, and I very much like the fact that I'm not bothered by smoke, however I firmly believe "today they came for the smokers, but I was quiet because I was not a smoker".  I believe that the cornerstone of the nation that was once America was that we respected the rights of others to hold views THAT WE DIDN'T AGREE WITH!



We clearly are no longer that nation. So much so that in '93, Slick Willie himself would have been a "racist extremist"!

Now I'm sure that the Slickster has fully "evolved" to whatever way "progress" is blowing today, so the only thing he would stand up for is whatever is in the best interest of he or his "wife" (political partner) getting the most money and power. For the rest of us though, the very few remaining that want to believe that our lives have more value than the excrement that the flies seem to be buzzing to today, we need to at least give the facts as to how fast we are sliding a look!



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Keeping the Communist Faith

Hearken to Harkin | Power Line:



One of the things I loved about NPR in the '80s was their breathless reporting of the joys of life in Cuba or the USSR. From their descriptions, it is hard to imagine how any USSR residents would ever think of taking down the wall.



In the linked articles we have a US Senator espousing the results of healthcare in Cuba as stated by THEIR figures! Why, what could go wrong? When a Socialist tells you "If you like your healthcare, you can keep it", why would one not believe them??



Here is an pictoral example with N Korea in the Tyrannical role:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/north-korea-shrouded-in-darkness-in-stunning-new-photo-from-space-station/



Does a visual do it?



I find China to be the most chilling modern state -- sort of totalitarianism with a curtsey to Communism, taking the competitive parts of Capitalism, and leaving out most of the Nanny State aspects of Socialism and Communism. It remains to be seen if they have arrived at the economic and political stew that works in the 21st century. Right now it would appear so!



There is a broad set of the electorate and the elected that will pine away for the great dream of Socialism and Communism no matter how the disastrous results pile up. True leftist faith is never swayed by the deaths of 100's of millions of people or anything else.



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5 Ways Socialism Destroys Societies - John Hawkins

5 Ways Socialism Destroys Societies - John Hawkins - Page full:



Short, sweet, excellent and correct!



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Weimar Amerika

Articles: Our Weimar Republic:

 "As Weimar Germany slid to Nazi Germany, another disturbing trend was the reduction of the national legislature to irrelevance.  In the last years of Weimar Germany, President Hindenburg began ruling Germany by emergency decree.  On the pretext that the Reichstag could not operate, the executive branch of Weimar Germany simply began acting without legislative consent."

Excellent article. Just because you are not paranoid doesn't mean everyone ISN'T out to get you!



Just because comparisons with Nazi Germany are often wrong doesn't mean they are ALWAYS wrong!





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Mammograms Not Settled Science

Charles Krauthammer: The myth of ‘settled science’ - The Washington Post:

"Now we learn from a massive randomized study — 90,000 women followed for 25 years — that mammograms may have no effect on breast cancer deaths. Indeed, one out of five of those diagnosed by mammogram receives unnecessary radiation, chemo or surgery."

The news that mammograms may not really help isn't all that shocking for anyone that has been around for a few turns of the earth. We have seen coffee, wine, various fats, grains and a host of other food items shift back and forth from being identified as near certain causes of early demise to being proverbial fountains of youth. If your product is on the outs, just wait around, it may be an elixir soon ... or vice versa.

The proud claim of science was once that it was not, nor could be "settled". The settled was the domain of religion, which held claims on that which is eternal, vs science which was confined to the physical, the temporal, that in which change is certain and "there is nothing new under the sun". (or at least REALLY new ... each generation and each new fad is SURE that what they have found is "new")

On mammograms, our haste to "do something" is entirely understandable -- we all have at least a mother who we love dearly, and breast cancer is a very real risk. We WANT to be able to do SOMETHING to feel more secure, and if cancer does come to call, we want to be able to say "we did all we could".

Is that motivation the same with climate? "Well, we HAVE to do SOMETHING!"??

I don't believe so, I believe it is more the case that having a religion is critical to man, and post 60's, a lot of younger folks have been looking for a "new one", so in Charles words, they have gone "whoring after new gods".

But whoring is whoring, and the gods must be appeased. So if California burns, you send your high priest (in carbon -belching Air Force One, but never mind) to the bone-dry land to offer up, on behalf of the repentant congregation, a $1 billion burnt offering called a “climate resilience fund.”

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Reality Wrong Again

The 'Fairness' Fraud - Thomas Sowell - Page 2:

"In other words, the fact that reality does not match the preconceptions of the intelligentsia shows that there is something wrong with reality, for which somebody must be blamed. Apparently their preconceptions cannot be wrong."

"First, do no harm" is a good  short conservative maxim.



"Who is to blame" may be similar for the "progressive".



Sowell covers "fairness" yet again in his inimitable style. "Progressives" assume that they know how things SHOULD be, so when reality doesn't meet their preconceptions it MUST be somebody elses fault.



"It's not my fault" is another classic liberal line. In fact, one pretty much just needs to listen to a pre-school playground to understand liberal thought:



-- "It's not fair"!



-- "I'm going to tell"!



-- "Gimme" !



-- "She/he is cheating"!



-- "I can't"!



Perhaps understanding "liberals" is much easier than it sometimes seems?



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How Leftists Fly

GOP Crocodile Tears Over Jobs | RealClearPolitics:

Since natural laws don't apply on the left, they simply grab their bootstraps and pull ... and then they fly! If you don't believe they fly, you are obviously a "denier" and should perhaps have your taxes audited!

See, the Republicans are complaining that the CBO says that raising the minimum wage will cost 500K jobs. They believe in the old time economics where each person employed has to bring in enough money to cover their wages, government mandated taxes, possible government mandated benefits or fines like BOcare, PLUS add enough profit to the bottom line to make it worthwhile to hire them.

In the modern Democrat universe however that is "foolish". Even though we have been following their policies since '09, and really '07 when they took over congress, we have 8 million LESS people employed than we did in '07!!!

But here is how they propose to "improve the economy" via the bootstraps from here:

The first thing to do is extend the long-term unemployment benefits that expired at the end of last year. According to the CBO -- whose word, apparently, is now holy writ among Republicans -- this simple measure would add 200,000 jobs, perhaps as many as 300,000. 

Then ... 

The CBO has estimated that canceling the across-the-board reductions in federal spending known as "sequestration" would preserve 900,000 jobs a year. 

and top it all off ...

That gives us more than 1 million jobs to replace the 500,000 lost from hiking the minimum wage. But Republicans wouldn't want to stop there. To maximize employment, putting as many people to work as possible, the GOP should obviously begin designing a new economic stimulus package, much like the stimulus Obama convinced Congress to approve five years ago. 

According to the CBO, the $800 billion stimulus -- much maligned by Republicans as a waste of money -- created or saved an average of 1.6 million jobs per year from 2009 through 2012. Now that most of the money is spent and the impact of the stimulus is waning, clearly it's time to give job-creation another boost.

Got that??? We have EIGHT MILLION LESS people employed than we did at the top of the last cycle, with millions more americans in the workforce, at least partially due to the policies that Democrats think are "helpful", and the way to get more jobs is to just spend more and more government money! You CAN fly by pulling on your bootstraps!! 

If only Democrats would become so convinced of their wisdom that they would jump off a cliff tugging on their bootstraps one by one until somebody had a "learning moment"!

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Chutzpah and Economic Numbers

 US Constitution, Article 1, Section 7:1

"All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."

I've seen a few "facts" floating about about how great a job BO is doing! All sorts of numbers about deficit reduction, economic improvement including jobs, etc. It reminds me of how he has the chutzpah to take credit for oil production going up on his watch. In the real world, our increased oil production is 100% the result of hydraulic fracking in shale which BO has much to do with as I do. Actually less, since he has tried to stop it, regulate it, and has stopped the Keystone pipeline.

If you have been listening a little too credulously to MSM outlets (it is easy to do, we ALL soak in it!), you may need to refresh your memory. Bill Clinton for example DID NOT "balance the budget". A short perusal of the Constitution plus a slight remembrance of the howling as Republicans "cut" (reduced the rate of GROWTH) in Medicare, plus took other "mean, hard hearted and cynical" actions on the budget that overall SLIGHTLY reduced the rate of GROWTH in government spending, PLUS (and most importantly) releasing the productivity of the American people and creating growth in the economy. One of the things I loved about Reagan was that he constantly reminded us that the engine of all good things is economic growth, not government!

The combination of the MSM controlling the story line, and the general poor memory and natural desire to believe the current narrative allows 90% of the population to live in an MSM wonderland where Slick Willie or BO fights valiantly against the evil Republican forces trying to CUT TO THE BONE (reduce the rate of GROWTH) in spending on Medicare, Military benefits, Food Stamps, Head Start for wonderful innocent little children, all because of their inherent evil and the fact that they are beholden to awful profit seeking business!

Then, when nothing bad happens because of the "cuts", "sequester", "shutdown", etc, and the economy starts to show signs of life, who pops up like a Jack-in-the-box saying "I did it, I did it!!" but the President. Naturally, if the president has a "D" next to his name, the media gets all gushy about HIS success!

If it is an "R" however, they have usually already been pushing hard on an economic and tax agenda that the media found "draconian", so when the economy improves, "it just happened" ... which in BOTH cases is more true than not, since the best thing government can generally do is get the hell out of the way!

Both Slick Willie and BO ought to be INCREDIBLY grateful for their Republican Congress. Without it, Slick would never have had what he and the MSM trumpets as his singular achievement -- BJs with pizza in the Oval Office, oh wait, I meant "his" balanced budget!

BO would not have had the impressive feat (for him) of seeing the unemployment number below 7%!! WOW!! (it was under 5% in '07). Of course we are not talking about the labor participation rate that is the worst now that it has been since the '70s!

Don't expect the MSM (or BO) to be applauding the results of the Republicans feeble attempts to slow the rate of growth in the federal spending juggernaut anytime soon.

Florida 2014, Carnival Paradise Cruise

FL 2014 - Photo Stream:

Sitting on our balcony at the Lani Kai in Fort Meyers Beach Florida trying to capture a bit of our 2014 "spring break".

We left Rochester and West Bend last Friday, Feb 14 with Marla's mother Evie along. I had a rough day driving through sketchy road conditions with a Buick with not so good summer tires. We saw a semi and a number of cars and trucks in the ditch or worse, but we made it through to about 70mi N of St Louis where Marla took over on better roads. We made it to Cape Girardeau Missouri. When we got up in the AM it was 16 degrees, and we still saw some snow until about 70 miles N of Memphis. 

We stopped in Memphis for some killer BBQ at Tom's ... ribs, brisket, pork, the works. Very solid, featured on DDD. We made it all the way to Tallahassee Sat night and I was glad we didn't have to do the trip down in 2 days. Had a nice seafood meal at Barnacle Bills. 

Made the easy run to Tampa Sunday. Had a great PM meal at Bahama Breeze sitting on the deck in 72+ degrees -- third time I've eaten there. Business to Verizon at Temple Terrace, stayed across the road on a previous winter retreat. I love their plantain. 

Hopped on the Paradise Monday and had an easy and fun ride to Grand Cayman ... mostly 80s, sunny, just soaking it up. Picked up some Glenrothes scotch for $45 a bottle ... $90+ in Rochester. We ended up getting 4 liters of alcohol on the trip, declared it (along with a cuban cigar), but customs just put the declaration on a spindle and said "Welcome Home". We must not have that smuggler look!

We did a tour of the Mayan ruins in Cozumel with a driver that made Mexico sound like a socialist paradise while we were driving through neighborhoods that reminded me of the Bronx in the early '80s ... they looked like there was a war and Mexico lost. Guess there was. The Socialists won!! He also had an infinite respect for the Mayans -- did his best to make human sacrifice and killing any kids born that were less than perfect as "culturally advanced". Perhaps Hillary will bring him in to head HEW. 

Marla then let me retire to the "Owl Sanctuary" (Hooters) since even she was put off by getting accosted by the hawkers at the Mexican restaurants nearby. The girls didn't speak english very well, but they seemed to have sort of a universal communication capability -- plus free wi fi, which for old guys is about as important as anything. Marla stopped by a couple times to dump more items, and when the table collapsed it was time to head for the ship. 

Nice run back to Tampa, slow port entry due to fog in the AM, but no big deal since we were not catching a plane. Picked up the rental and headed down here to our Lani Kai. 

The hotel is sort of stuck in the 1950s ... not fancy at all, but reasonably clean. 40 yds to the beach on sand that is like talcum powder. The sun can beat on it but your feet don't burn. $2.50 Bloodys from 8 - noon, killer rum runners for $5 during happy hour 4-6. Great wings, shrimp, crab omlet, etc up on the swinging hammock dining deck on the 6th floor. Lots of laid back live and XM oldies rock and Jimmy Buffet ... with a little Chili Peppers, Cheryl Crow, etc thrown in. 

Marla is working this week ... and I'm DEFINITELY NOT! One of the benefits of IBM remote work these days. 

Three more days in Paradise and then it is back to the reality of sub-zero nights. Oh well, we DO miss the kitties, and no doubt there will be some level of excitement to get back home!
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Ice Age Preview

Stunning Ice-Covered Great Lakes Seen from Space (Photo) | LiveScience:

The picture in the linked article gives a nice visual of  one of the reasons why ice over most of the planet is the standard earth climate (it's white), and the last 7-10K years is a somewhat unusual warm period relative to the last 500K and likely last 3.5 million years.

This link gives a bigger picture with the salient image being:

Note that in this NOAA graph:

1. The cyclical nature of solar impact on the N hemisphere is shown. Note what is happening to it now. 
2. The cyclical nature of one of our best proxies for global temp (antarctic ice cores) shows that about 130K years ago the globe was likely close to where we have been in the last 10K years on the warm side. With like 100K years of relatively cold between, being our "normal climate". 
3. The chart shows that increase in CO2 in roughly 100K cycles is also normal, so we are appear to be where one would expect the next cold cycle to begin. 

I'll admit, I want to see the slip into the next ice age happen. Selfish? I suppose, but the set of people that are around for that event is very select -- you have to have your <100 year lifespan hit a 100K year target. Some may say that I should "care about all the people that will die", but my view is that there is absolutely nothing that we can do to prevent this cycle, it is as natural as birth and death themselves, so it is GOING to happen at some point. Why not in my lifetime?

Certainly my biases are affected by looking at such data in the 70's, when "90% of the scientists" thought were WERE at that point, but it wasn't nearly so politicized.

What we have seen the past couple of years COULD be a harbinger of that slip. The record late spring snow, shivering the last weekend in July with a high failing to reach 60, ice building at both poles, and now cruising toward a record number of below zero nights here in N America with massive snow cover.

The solar cycle is heading down, and it appears that every 100K years it goes especially low. The amount of white in the N hemisphere goes up (as the Great Lakes picture shows) and as that article mentions, that has wider effects -- later spring, cooler summer.

It tends to build on itself, and since our natural climate is NOT "1951-1980", but rather those squiggles you see on the chart between the yellow band anomalies, it is a fairly quick move to cold. We could well be strongly into it in the 30ish years a lucky me would have to still be around.

But I could well be wrong. That chart is just "more data". Even if my theory is correct, we could well be a few thousand years away, since even though the yellow bands are pretty regular, a lot of that ice core data only goes back 500K years, which means THAT yellow band must have been warmer and longer. Data is a cruel thing -- our human perspective and our time perspective in particular is so inappropriate to many aspects of our world, that humility is the primary element of scientific wisdom.

Perhaps "97% of scientists" need a bit of a cool down to recall that overarching fact?

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