Tuesday, January 03, 2012

WARNING ... Off By One??

Iran warns U.S. over aircraft carrier - CNN.com:

BO assured us he would just sit down and talk with Iran. Gee, I wonder why they would issue us a warning??? Did they forget that "The One" was our leader??? Oops, perhaps we were "off by one" and we are being led by "B ZERO" ???

Perhaps he could just apologize to them?

Monday, January 02, 2012

Purple Cow New Year

Seth's Blog: The chance of a lifetime:

Seth has written a bunch of books -- a number of which I've read. "Purple Cow" is just a memorable name.

I read his blog most days on NewsFire -- I think his New Years advice is worthy of a wider audience.

'via Blog this'

Sunday, January 01, 2012

329K or 27K??? PANIC!!

KNIGHT: Voter ID terrifies Democrats - Washington Times:

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson rejected Mr. Perez’s math and explained on Fox News why the law is necessary. The stateDepartment of Motor Vehicles audited a state Election Commission report that said 239,333 people were registered to vote but had no photo ID. The DMV found that 37,000 were deceased, more than 90,000 had moved to other states, and others had names not matched to IDs. That left only 27,000 people registered without a photo ID but who could vote by signing an affidavit as to their identity.

So Mr Fast and Furious, Eric Holder bandies about 239K voters that MIGHT be "disenfranchised", and the real number shows 302,333 potential fraudulent votes -- still registered, but no longer eligible -- and DUH, had no photo ID!!

There can ONLY be ONE single reason that Democrats are foursquare against photo ID. They are well aware that they run at least 10s and probably 100s or thousands or more illegal votes through key areas of the country that are high percentage Democrat!!! If voters have to have a photo ID, something around 5% of "the vote" in many key areas will suddenly "disappear", and it could be FAR worse than that!!!

At present we have NO IDEA how big the number of fraudulent voters are out there, but every number that I'd seen looks like it is at least 100's of thousands in most states!!

It is little wonder that Democrats are in COMPLETE PANIC on this one!!

Oh, I bought a new iPhone 4 this weekend -- guess what? I had to produce a state provided photo ID!! Hear any complaints about cell phone companies requiring photo ID?? Know anyone with a cell phone?? I rest my case!!

'via Blog this'

BO Death Penalty vs Life

Obama signs defense bill 'with reservations' - CNN.com:
"I want to clarify that my administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens," Obama said in a statement Saturday. "Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation."
However he WILL kill US citizens abroad, and HAS already done so .... at least with drones.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/30/national/main20113853.shtml

Do we have a press in this country at all?? They raised holy hell about W detaining FOREIGN fighters at Gitmo. Now they are silent as lambs on Gitmo, and on BO KILLING US CITIZENS abroad ... but are completely willing to support complete BO gibberish that he is somehow holier than thou because he won't hold them "indefinitely". I bet he doesn't claim he supports endless Trillion $$$ deficits as well, but they look pretty darned "indefinite" to me!!!

I guess in this case he is "moral" because he ONLY supports the death penalty.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Change is Constant

Even the Warmists Don't Believe In Global Warming - Forbes:

Good little summary of the weakness of the warmist position. The most damning to me is that the group would blatantly oppose technology that allowed carbon to be sequestered, even though it may be vastly more effect. Pretty clear that their agenda is "control of fossil fuel use" ... or just "control". Climate related outcomes would be incidental.

'via Blog this'

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Some Americans Still Moral?

Kickbacks Don’t Always Work | Power Line:

Good little PL post. Democrats are sure that everyone can be bought. Maybe there are still some people with a little more moral fibre than that left in America??

'via Blog this'

Friday, December 23, 2011

Physics = Faith

The accidental universe: Science's crisis of faith—By Alan P. Lightman (Harper's Magazine)

Man lives by faith -- we can't even really choose our faith. We can reject God, in which case Satan helps us believe we have no faith at all. Oh, but we do -- we are all play the eternal faith game at the price of our immortal souls.

As I've commented in other blogs, it has become quite well accepted in theoretical physicists that our goldilocks universe is WAY too precise to be anything but directly "created for us", or a happenstance in something like 10 to the 500th universes. So you get to have faith that our universe was the random accident in a huge number of existing universes, and then you believe that over billions of years with no intelligent selection, we happened to evolve here with consciousness, a built in desire to know our origins and a randomly selected meme to postulate an infinite God. You can either believe in that, or you can believe in God ... either way, you have faith in what you believe.

That same uncertainty disturbs many physicists who are adjusting to the idea of the multiverse. Not only must we accept that basic properties of our universe are accidental and uncalculable. In addition, we must believe in the existence of many other universes. But we have no conceivable way of observing these other universes and cannot prove their existence. Thus, to explain what we see in the world and in our mental deductions, we must believe in what we cannot prove.

We're Doomed

The GOP’s Payroll-tax Debacle - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online

Good coverage of the way politics has trumped any sense of intelligent policy or propriety in the interest of pure politics. Certainly a two month extension makes no sense at all -- but that is the beauty of it-- if all you care about is political theatre and raw political power. Republicans just never quite understand Machiavelli !!! It makes NO DIFFERENCE how foolish, damaging, inconsistent, evil, counterproductive, or any other negative something is. If it wins politically, IT WINS!!

The fact that Charles feels the House Republicans are like the Animal House band shows that in his heart of hearts, he would rather be politically savvy and thus "a winner", than right. I'd like to think that I would stand for the right and allow my self to be fed to the lions as the early Christians did while the Romans laughed and hooted, but I don't know -- the pain of being torn to shreds vs the joy of at least imagined intellectual superiority?? It isn't hard at all to follow the arrow of human nature on that one.

The thing that needs to be remembered is always the longer run. In the long run we are ALL "torn to shreds" (dead) ... and if we continue to follow the kind of behavior of BO, the Democrats, and now capitulated by the House Republicans, we are dead as a nation -- if not already, very very soon.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

"Coarseness"??

Newt Gingrich Called 'F-cking A--hole' By Man At Campaign Stop

Nah, Gingerich is as Republican!!! You can call them whatever you want -- er as long as it isn't positive, the MSM tries to avoid publishing that.

BO??? He says he thinks he is the 4th greatest President in US History during a CBS 60 min interview, and they CUT IT!!! How often does the MSM tell us that Gingerich is arrogant??

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, we're not done yet. I've got five more years of stuff to do. But not only saving this country from a great depression. Not only saving the auto industry. But putting in place a system in which we're gonna start lowering health care costs and you're never gonna go bankrupt because you get sick or somebody in your family gets sick. Making sure that we have reformed the financial system, so we never again have taxpayer-funded bailouts, and the system is more stable and secure. Making sure that we've got millions of kids out here who are able to go to college because we've expanded student loans and made college more affordable. Ending Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Decimating al Qaeda, including Bin Laden being taken off the field. Restoring America's respect around the world.

The issue here is not gonna be a list of accomplishments. As you said yourself, Steve, you know, I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president -- with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln -- just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we've got a lot more work to do. And we're gonna keep on at it


Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/pj-gladnick/2011/12/16/60-minutes-broadcast-edits-out-laughable-obama-claim-4th-greatest-presi#ixzz1hBJMuYAw

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Modernizing Conservatism

Breakthrough Journal: Issue 2 : MODERNIZING CONSERVATISM

Generally well written but longish.

Three major points I tend to agree with:

1), "Victory" in an ideological sense is impossible in the US given our political structures

2), Liberals and Conservatives have fundamentally different world views -- we will not "finally get educated and all get along"

3). Entitlements are not going away -- so we better figure out how to reform, restructure, innovate, etc on them


I worry about #1 the most ... with the MSM, the SCOTUS and legal system in general being basically liberal, the education system being liberal, the ever increasing number of government workers both liberal and unionized, and the "minority" birth and legal/illegal immigration rate turning those "minorities" into future majorities, it seems that the Statist Re-Distributionist movement MAY have a shot to "win" at some point.

Lie of the Year

"Lie of the year": Dem take on GOP Medicare vote - CBS News

Wow, the generally left-leaning "politifact" has picked the constant Democrat claim that Republicans "voted to end Medicare" as the lie of the year.

I love the runner up, Michelle Bachman saying "A woman came up to me and said .." ... the "LIE" is not that "no woman came up to her" ... it is that the woman's claim about a vaccine causing retardation is wrong.

Lovely. I suspect we ALL know one or more people that believe that some vaccines cause illness. Do they? Well, almost certainly not nearly as often as people claim, but in some cases it is admitted that the vaccines CAN cause disease. Much like "plane crashes do happen" ... but we worry about them far more than is warranted. I have a VERY tough time calling this a "lie" in the same way as the winner. If we make politicians responsible for the correctness of what they pass on when "a guy on the campaign trail told me ..." they will need to be a lot quieter.

How about Eric Holder testifying he had no knowledge of Fast and Furious, then sending a memo with the same statement, then having to withdraw both because it came to light he had been briefed on it multiple times?

How about the constant claims about "The Bush Tax cuts for the wealthy", when by BO's own definition, "the wealthy" are people that make $250K or more, and over 10 years they got $700B and the rest of the income levels got $3T out of the Bush cuts.

For extra credit, when the DEMOCRATS failed to even try to raise taxes in 07-08 when they had both houses of congress, then proceeded to not bring it up in 09-10 when they had both houses, 59-60 votes in the Senate, plus the WH they never took action until they were lame ducks at the end of 10, and then THEY EXTENDED THEM!!!! Could there POSSIBLY be any bigger lie then to still complain about the cuts "for the wealthy"????

Monday, December 19, 2011

The Right to Rise

Jeb Bush: Capitalism and the Right to Rise - WSJ.com

Very well done. The choice between the false hope of the "straight line of Statist progress" that is really a FLAT LINE, and the very statistically real, but never certain hope of "the jagged line of market progress".

In short, we must choose between the straight line promised by the statists and the jagged line of economic freedom. The straight line of gradual and controlled growth is what the statists promise but can never deliver. The jagged line offers no guarantees but has a powerful record of delivering the most prosperity and the most opportunity to the most people. We cannot possibly know in advance what freedom promises for 312 million individuals. But unless we are willing to explore the jagged line of freedom, we will be stuck with the straight line. And the straight line, it turns out, is a flat line.


Thursday, December 15, 2011

Jon Stewart and Muslims

Kabulvision - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 12/13/11 - Video Clip | Comedy Central:

Jon Stewart is a very intelligent and very smug guy.

It is so strange that Muslims hold virtually all the social beliefs that Stewart would normally hate, only on steroids -- young earth, need for wives to be submissive (even covered), very anti-gay, anti any sort of nudity, no extra-marital sex, no booze, no drugs, no respect for the snotty elite, etc. In fact, they hold these beliefs SO strongly that under Shariah law, many of these offenses are punishable by death. Fornication and homosexuality for example. While these "American Muslims" may not hold to a death penalty for those offenses HERE, it is nearly certain that they would STRONGLY support the right of Saudi Arabia (location of Mecca) to continue hold to strict Sharia Law that the holy sites not be defiled by the infidels.

An equivalent analogy to what Steward is laughing at here would be a world in which Mel Gibson, a Fundamentalist Catholic,  supported the right of Italy to put Jews, Homosexuals, Muslims, Fornicators, etc to death, since Rome is the center of the Catholic Church and can't be defiled! In the analogy, Mel would have a show on how normal he and Fundamentalist Catholics were -- but said nothing about what was happening in Italy.

Since Saudi Arabia -- location of Mecca, DOES do those things today, I'm really not joking.  The folks he feels are "ok" ... laudable even, support that, but he is A-OK with that!! It is nice they don't directly do or support terrorism, but in the Mel case, I don't think Jon would be so sanguine even if none of the analogized fundamentalist Catholics in the US blew things up.

In comparison to a current "Moderate Muslim", a current "Fundamentalist Christian" is as cosmopolitan as Stewart believes himself to be in comparison to those backward hick Christians doing the boycott.  

Where Jon would normally feel hatred of "ignorance, closed mindedness, lack of respect" toward a Christian he feels very different toward a Muslim. Why??

Some thoughts:

- Ignorance. He may just not know. We are ALL ignorant, just about different things.

- He sees Muslims as a "minority" vs Christians, or "the underdog", so he naturally feels he wants to support them.

- He just really hates Christians -- so someone that is generally an enemy of Christians is his "friend". It is Christians that bug him, not Muslims -- it matters not to him that Muslims hold most of what he would see as the "bad" views of Christians -- only much more so. His hatred of Christians makes him blind.

- Nobody says "Muhammad H. Prophet!!", or "Buddha Damn" -- the Judaeo -- Christian deities really ARE special. Cleave onto that which the "wise" spit upon!!! Man is a servant --- of either God or Satan. Rejecting God makes your choice for you. Are you more free in God's church yard or on Satan's leash?

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Liberals and "Lying"

A Fast & Furious state of mind | Power Line:

From Eric Holder's Fast and Furious testimony this week:
That the recently withdrawn letter from the Justice Department to Congress denying federal responsibility for the program was not a lie, “because it all has to do with your state of mind and whether or not you had the requisite intent to come up with something that would be considered perjury or a lie.”
Remember Slick Willie? "That depends on what your definition of is is".

Remember W? He "lied" because we didn't find the WMDs that essentially everyone in the world was certain that Iraq had -- including all the prominent Democrats of the day. Both Clintons, Gore, Kerry, Pelosi, Reid, etc, etc.

Remember Scooter Libby? He "lied" because he recalled a date which he talked to Tim Russert about Valerie Plame wrong. He was NOT responsible for the actual leak, that was determined to be Richard Armitage, and since he wasn't close to Cheney or Karl Rove, nobody cared. Scooter was CONVICTED of "perjury" for giving the wrong date even when he wasn't the leaker!!!

I don't believe it is possible for a liberal to either lie or tell the truth, except accidentally. Their world seems to be completely ideologically based so that truth/falsehood, right/wrong, and many other concepts are completely fluid depending on ideology.
  • Public unions spending vast amounts of money are no issue whatsoever -- but corporations spending even much less money is a horror beyond horrors. 
  • George Soros spending millions on MoveOn.org and many other left causes is a complete non-issue. The Koch brothers spending any money at all on politics??? Major league problem!!
  • Following Campaign Finance limits and rules? Completely critical until Obama thumbed his nose and spent 100's of millions more than ever before, and then no issue at all. 
  • Deficits that maxed at $400B and smallest was $165B under Bush were a HORROR. Deficits a TRILLION higher (and more) PER YEAR as far as the eye can see under Obama? They aren't high enough!!!
  • Gitmo under Bush? A stain on the nation, critical to be closed IMMEDIATELY, etc, etc. Under Obama? Still open, no problem. 
Why are our politics sharply divided? Because one side has completely moved to thinking in terms of ideology vs reality. The difference between reality and an ideologically conjured universe are always larger than the differences that would be found if we were all in the real world!!

Hope To Resentment

Obama’s Campaign for Class Resentment - Charles Krauthammer - National Review Online:

A great one by Charles.

How often it is the case that people (especially the young) set out aflame with hope -- yes, hope for some largely unstated "change" that indeed can be "believed in" because it is so non-specific.

And then -- specific reality meets imagined hopes, wishes, and beliefs, and not only is it a disappointment, there is a tremendous sense of loss. Where did that wonderful feeling that we all shared together go?? How could it happen?

Well, it is GOING to happen when you hire a "leader" that accepts responsibility for NOTHING!! To be young and foolish is somewhat expected. To be supposed leader of the former greatest nation on earth and have no more sense of responsibility than a baby dirtying it's diaper is simply unconscionable!!
In Kansas, Obama lamented that millions “are now forced to take their children to food banks.” You have to admire the audacity. That’s the kind of damning observation the opposition brings up when you’ve been in office three years. Yet Obama summoned it to make the case for his reelection!