Thursday, December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Whether you celebrate this day when Christians remember the birth of Jesus or not, I hope that you have a very good day, and that we all can look forward to a Happy New Year.

Here are two very different interpretations of the 12 Days of Christmas



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Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Christmas Not Just for Christians

In the U.S., Christmas Not Just for Christians reported Despite the fact that only a little more than 80% of Americans identify with a Christian faith, 93% of those interviewed in a recent USA Today/Gallup poll indicate that they celebrate Christmas.

56% are Protestant or other Christian, 25% Catholic, 2% Jewish, 0.4% Muslim, 3% other non-Christian religion, 13% None/Atheist/Agnostic, 2% no response.

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Brit Hume

Brit Hume finished his tenure as "Special Report" anchor. He will remain a senior political analyst at the network, and will appear frequently on "Fox News Sunday", "Special Report", and elsewhere. I am glad he will continue to be on Fox News.

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Muslims Erect ‘Allah Has No Son’ Banner in Nazareth

CNSNews reported As Nazareth’s Christians prepare to celebrate Christmas, they are playing down the appearance of a confrontational Islamic banner that challenges an elemental Christian belief. Journalists visiting the city saw two large banners--one in English, one in Arabic--hanging in the plaza in front of the Basilica of the Annunciation, with a verse from the Koran (112:1-4) contradicting the New Testament proclamation that Jesus is the “only begotten” of God.
Only if you assume Allah is God. The more I hear about Islam, the more I think the Angel that appeared to Mohammad was not Gabriel, but Lucifer (Satan) in disguise, or from one of his other fallen angels, and that the Koran did not come from God, but from Satan.
“In the name of Allah, the most beneficent, the most merciful, Say (O Muhammad): He is Allah, (the) One and Only. Allah, the Eternal, the Absolute. He begetteth not, nor was begotten, and there is none like unto him,” the banner reads.

Nazareth Mayor Ramiz Jaraisy played down concerns that a banner effectively denying Jesus’ deity was provocative to Christians,
People don't worry about offending Christians. But post a sign that offends Muslims, and all Hell breaks loose.
although he did question its position, in front of Nazareth’s most prominent landmark.

“I don’t think that it’s provocative against anyone,”
If it was not intended to be provocative, then why not add another sign quoting John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
he said. “My point of view [is] that it’s not the right place to put it and it’s not the right way to do that.”

But Jaraisy said he would not remove the banner because some Islamic fundamentalist groups were looking to provoke a confrontation in order to promote their cause. He did not want to provide them with that opportunity.


And I certainly would not do as one Catholic Priest did, and put a mosque in Nativity scene

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Monday, December 22, 2008

This is going to tick the LGBTs off

Pope likens "saving" gays to saving the rainforest - Yahoo! News reported Pope Benedict said on Monday that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behavior was just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction.
Rick Warren just said they should not marry each other. The Pope now raises the issue to something on the level of AGW.
"(The Church) should also protect man from the destruction of himself. A sort of ecology of man is needed," the pontiff said in a holiday address to the Curia, the Vatican's central administration. "The tropical forests do deserve our protection. But man, as a creature, does not deserve any less."

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexuality is not sinful, homosexual acts are. It opposes gay marriage and, in October, a leading Vatican official called homosexuality "a deviation, an irregularity, a wound."
I agree.
The pope said humanity needed to "listen to the language of creation" to understand the intended roles of man and woman. He compared behavior beyond traditional heterosexual relations as "a destruction of God's work." He also defended the Church's right to "speak of human nature as man and woman, and ask that this order of creation be respected."

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Thursday, December 18, 2008

Fantastic idea

Bloomberg reported Credit Suisse Group AG’s investment bank has found a new way to reduce the risk of losses from about $5 billion of its most illiquid loans and bonds: using them to pay employees’ year-end bonuses.
Fantastic idea. They are responsible for buying them. Make them eat them. The only thing better would be to fire them and put these illiquid securities in their Golden Parachutes.
The bank will use leveraged loans and commercial mortgage- backed debt, some of the securities blamed for generating the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, to fund executive compensation packages, people familiar with the matter said. The new policy applies only to managing directors and directors, the two most senior ranks at the Zurich-based company, according to a memo sent to employees today.

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Wouldn't Chapter 11 be better?

Did you ever wonder why the Big 3 are in trouble. Maybe it is because of decisions like this: Autoblog reported Chrysler is shuttering all of its plants for one month, beginning December 19.... Chrysler plant workers will have a really, really long Christmas break at 95% pay. So they stop making cars, but keep paying their workers 95% of what they would pay them if they were making cars. And they wonder why they are losing money. And want the government to give them a lot of money while they try to figure out why they are losing money. Wouldn't Chapter 11 be a better idea?

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Obama Selects Rick Warren for Inauguration Pulpit

The far left is upset that Obama Selected Rick Warren for Inauguration Pulpit. Firedoglake reported President-elect Obama chose eliminationist
What is eliminationist? Orcinus says
Eliminationism describes a kind of politics and culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas for the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through complete suppression, exile and ejection, or extermination.
Since when has Rick Warren done any of that. He supported Prop 8 in California, to define marriage as between a man and a woman, as it has been for thousands of years, as the people of California had called for before a group of judges overruled them and authorized gay marriage. If anything was undemocratic it was what the judge did, not what the people of California did.
hate preacher Rick Warren to give the invocation at Obama's Inaguration. With this choice, Obama sends three destructive messages. Number one: In Obama's America, equal rights and reproductive freedom aren't for everyone.
How does reproductive freedom enter into things. Gays can't reproduce, but it has nothing to do with whether they can marry or not. It has to do with biology. Their complaint should be with God, not Rick Warren.
Number two: President-elect Obama likes sharing the national stage with hate.
This apparently stems from this article which says
Dr Rick Warren has said he supports the decision by Ugandan bishops to boycott the forthcoming Lamebth conference in England, United Kingdom.... "The Church of England is wrong and I support the Church of Uganda(CoU) on the boycott,"Dr Warren said on Thursday shortly after arriving in Uganda. The Bishops are protesting the Church of England's tolerance a homosexuality. Announcing the boycott in February, Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi said that Uganda's action had been prompted by the invitation of bishops of The US Episcopal Church (TEC) who in 2003 elected as bishop, Gene Robinson, a divorced man living in an active homosexual relationship.
So Rick Warren is a hate preacher because he supported bishops that were upset by the US Episcopal Church selecting a practicing Gay Bishop? Rick was quoted as saying homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. It is not a natural way of life, and I don't know why it should be called a "human right." Persecuting homosexuals by depriving them of things that are human rights is not good, but homosexuality itself is not a human right.
Number three: While Obama enjoys his equality before the law, LGBT Americans can go to Hell.
It is the Old Testament of the Bible that says homosexuality is bad. Not Rick Warren. He just reads the Bible.
Literally. Gee. Is this change we can believe in?
Do you think Obama is going to change what the Bible says?
Does Obama's America include GLBT's, along with the fundamentalists who want to take away their rights?
Take away rights, or just not grant special rights?
John Hawkins blogged Although Rick Warren takes his Christian beliefs seriously, he has always come across as a centrist politically. In other words, he can fairly be called "religious," but he's not really a member of the "religious right."
He is much more a mainstream preacher, with some liberal tendencies.
Since that's the case and since Barack Obama has spent much of his adult life surrounded by ultra-left wing, pseudo-Christian wackadoodles like Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger, Warren seems to be a sensible choice to do his inaugural invocation.
He certainly does not want to involve his former preacher to damn AmeriKKKa.
However, Obama's selection of Warren is flipping out the left side of the blogosphere, which is generally appalled by people who hold mainstream Christian beliefs.

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Wednesday, December 17, 2008

DARPA Blood Pharming

Popular Mechanics reported New research from DARPA could open the door to on-demand blood-cell manufacturing on battlefields and in hospitals. All medics need is a machine that uses a nanofiber that mimics bone marrow to turn a handful of stem cells
And it uses umbilical-cord stem cells, not Embryonic stem cells, so rather than killing babies, they need to be born.
into gallons of blood. Who needs blood donations when you have blood pharming?

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds

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Advent Conspiracy

I am not a Catholic, so I don't know a lot about Advent, but I liked what I saw at The Anchoress about the Advent Conspiracy

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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Americans Losing Confidence in Teachers Unions

Rasmussen Reports™: The most comprehensive public opinion coverage ever provided for a presidential election. reported two-thirds of U.S. voters (66%)
Just 2/3? The other 1/3 must be asleep (or teachers).
say the teachers’ unions – the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers – are more interested in protecting their members’ jobs than in the quality of education.

Jazz Shaw blogged This brings up two related issues: unions in general and education policy in specific. I’m not one of the “destroy the unions” types and I recognize the important role they played in our nation’s early days of industrialization and the useful purpose they can continue to serve today.
I agree with the fact that they did serve an important role in the early days of industrialization, but seeing how the UAW was not willing to compromise any in the efforts to save the Big 3 Automakers, I wonder if they have not passed the point of being useful, and I certainly hope congress does not pass the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act
However, as the economic battleground shifts, I have become increasingly aware that some unions have grown into self-feeding beasts which can - in the wrong hands - grow into positions where they cease helping their own members and begin to damage the industries providing the jobs their workers need. While this has been more apparent in the auto industry of late, the current state of education in this country certainly warrants some attention to their policies and practices.

Unions seem to fight any change to the status quo, such as charter schools, vouchers, home schooling and other alternative theories.
Because they all offer to do a better job than the public school system.
With the sad state of affairs in American education, it would seem that anything might be worth a try. I’m not terribly surprised that voter confidence in the unions may be on the decline and this may be a well timed wake up call to union leadership. If we are truly moving into a “post partisan” age of new politics, here’s one opportunity to get started.

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Pelosi lays down the law with Rahm

Politico.com reported In talks with Emanuel and others, sources say, Pelosi has “set parameters” for what she wants from Barack Obama and his White House staff — no surprises, and no backdoor efforts to go around her and other Democratic leaders by cutting deals with moderate New Democrats or conservative Blue Dogs.
I wonder how the moderate New Democrats and conservative Blue Dogs feel about knowing the radical left will not allow them to try to cut any deals. Maybe they should find someone else to be speaker.
Specifically, Pelosi has told Emanuel that she wants to know when representatives of the incoming administration have any contact with her rank-and-file Democrats — and why, sources say.
The why is they have a right to represent the people that elected them.
... Pelosi “is not going to allow Obama to triangulate her,”
Like Clinton did.
said a Democratic source close to the leadership. “It’s not going to happen to her.”

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Saturday, December 13, 2008

Republican blow at unions

Los Angeles Times reported The congressional push to help U.S. automakers was generally cast in terms of protecting the reeling national economy from another body blow -- the collapse of one or more of Detroit's Big Three.
Chapter 11 will have the unions complaining, but it will not destroy the company, and the workers will still have jobs, just not cushy jobs.
But in killing the stopgap rescue plan worked out by President Bush and congressional Democrats, conservative Republicans -- many from right-to-work states across the South -- struck at an old enemy: organized labor. "If the [United Auto Workers], which is perceived as one of the strongest unions in the country, can be put under control,
That is never going to happen.
that may send a message across the whole country," said Michigan State University professor Richard Block, a labor relations expert.
Hopefully it will send a message that they should make sure the workers have reasonable working conditions, but they should not kill the company by making demands that bankrupt the company.

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Beliefs

Hot Air reported More Americans believe in the devil than in evolution

That is reasonable. They have seen things Satan has created; they have not seen a species created by evolution.

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Rescuing GM

National Journal Magazine reported Maybe GM could enter bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11, restructure, and emerge stronger.
Many companies have. That is the purpose of Chapter 11.
But maybe not. If customers and creditors fled, bankruptcy protection might quickly bring about GM's collapse.
If the company is in that bad a state, then throwing good taxpayer dollars into that black hole will only delay the inevitable.
"I think it is very risky," says Maryann Keller, a respected automotive analyst. A few years ago, in a stronger economy, the industry might have absorbed a body blow, but if GM were liquidated today, Keller says, it would take down much of the supplier base.
Are they not capable of making parts that stable car companies can use?
Then the failure "spreads out all over the place."

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Friday, December 12, 2008

Robotic Self Healing Chair

This is just what the world needs, a chair that can fix itself:

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$14B auto bailout dies in Senate

Yahoo! News reported A bailout-weary Congress killed a $14 billion package to aid struggling U.S. automakers Thursday night after a partisan dispute over union wage cuts derailed a last-ditch effort to revive the emergency aid before year's end.
Wonderful. Now let us hope the Treasury Secretary does not do an end run around the Senate and give them money from the bailout that is supposed to fix the financial system.
Republicans, breaking sharply with President George W. Bush as his term draws to a close, refused to back federal aid for Detroit's beleaguered Big Three without a guarantee that the United Auto Workers would agree by the end of next year to wage cuts to bring their pay into line with U.S. plants of Japanese carmakers. The UAW refused to do so before its current contract with the automakers expires in 2011.
So why should we continue bailing them out until then?
The breakdown left the fate of the auto industry — and the 3 million jobs it touches — in limbo at a time of growing economic turmoil. General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC have said they could be weeks from collapse.
Chapter 11 will protect them, and allow them to emerge in a form where they can be truly competitive.
Ford Motor Co. says it does not need federal help now, but its survival is far from certain.

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Thursday, December 11, 2008

Political Quiz

Take the World's Smallest Political Quiz and find out where you fit on the political map!

My PERSONAL issues Score is 50%.
My ECONOMIC issues Score is 100%.
It says I am a Conservative. Gee, am I surprised.

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A Christmas Story

I thought this was funny when I read it at Kiss My Gumbo

A Christmas Story for people having a bad day:

When four of Santa’s elves got sick, the trainee elves did not produce toys as fast as the regular ones, and Santa began to feel the Pre-Christmas pressure.

Then Mrs Claus told Santa her Mother was coming to visit, which stressed Santa even more.

When he went to harness the reindeer, he found that three of them were about to give birth and two others had jumped the fence and were out, Heaven knows where.

Then when he began to load the sleigh, one of the floorboards cracked, the toy bag fell to the ground and all the toys were scattered.

Frustrated, Santa went in the house for a cup of apple cider and a shot of rum. When he went to the cupboard, he discovered the elves had drunk all the cider and hidden the liquor. In his frustration, he accidentally dropped the cider jug, and it broke into hundreds of little glass pieces all over the kitchen floor. He went to get the broom and found the mice had eaten all the straw off the end of the broom.

Just then the doorbell rang, and irritated Santa marched to the door, yanked it open, and there stood a little angel with a great big Christmas tree.
The angel said very cheerfully, ‘Merry Christmas, Santa. Isn’t this a lovely day? I have a beautiful tree for you. Where would you like me to stick it?’

And so began the tradition of the little angel on top of the Christmas tree.

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Friday, December 05, 2008

Dems Give White House Ultimatum on Auto Bailout

ABC News reported The White House and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have rejected the notion of using money from the so-called TARP - a $700 billion package passed by Congress in October to stabilize the financial industry.
Good for them. I hope they stick to it.
But in a letter Thursday night, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate told President Bush he must commit funds from either the TARP or the federal reserve or they will be unable to pass anything in Congress.
That is very good news. Congress is passing way too many bailouts now. If they can't pass any more. GM will enter Chapter 11, and that will not be nearly as bad as they are trying to frighten people into thinking. Some management may have their golden parachutes withdrawn, and bonuses canceled, and some bad union contracts may be reversed, but that is what the Big 3 need to become competitive.

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Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Sarcasm

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Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Hillary's Senate seat

Ann Althouse loves the idea of Bill Clinton getting Hillary's Senate seat.

  • She wanted his old job, but he'd be getting her old job. I love the narrative arc.
  • I love the idea of a former President going on to another government position -- instead of going about giving speeches or attempting to perform good deeds or playing the elder statesman role. Get back in there and do something.
  • It would be so entertaining having Bill in there mixing it up with the other Senators. Will his narcissism allow him to submit to it? Come on! Show us how your brilliant skills can transform the Senate.
  • It would be nice to have a Senator who you absolutely know isn't dreaming of becoming President.


Unfortunately he is not interested. He can't imagine sharing the limelight with 99 other senators, all with more seniority, and hence power, than him.

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Monday, December 01, 2008

A Muslim criticizes the killing in Mumbai

Mustafa Akyol wrte in Hurriyet It has become tough to watch the global breaking news as a Muslim. Once in a while a bomb goes off, or gunmen fire their weapons, in some part of the world killing innocent people. And the people who do this butchery very often act in the name of Islam. For a more than a billion Muslims who, like me, think that human life is sacred and invaluable, this evil committed in the name of our faith is a big disgrace.
I appreciate you saying so.
The recent attack on Mumbai, the financial capital of India, once again gave me that feeling of shame.
Thank you for saying so.

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Mumbai killers to be denied a muslim burial

Scotsman.com News reported A Muslim graveyard today refused to bury nine of the gunmen who terrorised Mumbai.
Good for them.
The men were not true followers of the Islamic faith, according to the influential Muslim Jama Masjid Trust, which runs the 7.5-acre Badakabrastan graveyard in central Mumbai. "People who committed this heinous crime cannot be called Muslim," said Hanif Nalkhande, a trustee. "Islam does not permit this sort of barbaric crime."
I wish more Muslims would take that position.
Ten gunmen laid siege to India's financial capital. One was captured and the rest killed. The bodies of the nine now lie in a morgue awaiting last rites,
I thought "last rights" was a Catholic sacrament
while the lone surviving militant is in police custody. Normally, unclaimed bodies thought to be Muslims are given to the nearest Muslim graveyard for burial after three days, leaving police unsure what to do now.
Soak the bodies in pig fat, and burn them. Their souls are in Hell right now, looking for their virgins.
Police do not believe anyone will claim the gunmen's corpses since they are thought to be from Pakistan. "The gunmen must be buried because we are bound to see that their last rites are performed according to the religion they follow,"
Hang them up in a firing range, and fill them with lead. That seems to be the religion they follow.
said Jain Sirmukadam, a senior police inspector. "We have heard the trust's decision. We are considering what to do now."
How about taking them to the city dump?

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Sunday, November 30, 2008

Reject Medicare and lose Social Security, too

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported The first wave of baby boomer retirees will soon turn 66 and get their first Social Security check. But they won't get Medicare without signing up, soon. That's one Medicare requirement worth knowing. Here's another: Opting out of Medicare is possible – if you don't mind losing your Social Security, too.
I am on both, and happy for both, because I am disabled, and unable to work, and I lost my insurance when the insurance company pulled out of Oklahoma. That is why I liked McCain's idea that you should be able to buy insurance from any company in the country. But I did not realize I had to take both, or none.
Three seniors have sued to change that. They want to pay their own medical costs, and they would abandon the Medicare taxes they've long paid. They don't want, however, to abandon Social Security. Their suit would sunder the two programs, allowing seniors to cover their own medical care without losing Social Security.
If people have the money to pay for their own medical care, r choose to have their own health insurance coverage, why not let them
That, say the three plaintiffs, would ensure the privacy of their medical records and spare them bureaucrats' second-guessing whether every lab test and office visit are “medically necessary.”
My personal experience is that I have never had Medicare say I can't get some test or office visit, but some friends who were foolish enough to signup for a Medicare Advantage plan have found they can't get some things I can get with straight Medicare.
If not, Medicare doesn't pay and the physician, by law, can't bill the patient. Don't wonder why many elderly have difficulty finding a doctor.
I have not experienced that problem. I did encounter one prospective doctor that had a limit on the number of Medicare patients he would accept, but the next one was open to new Medicare patients
No law mandates participation in both programs or none. The Clinton administration instituted that regulation, buttressed by Congress' ban on seniors venturing outside Medicare for any service it provides. These actions make sense only to critics who abhor “two-tier” health care pitting Medicare against private care.

Medicare is universal health care, the same care for all, adequate or not. And as Washington moves toward it, Canada moves away. In 2005, its Supreme Court voided Quebec's rule against buying private health services even if the national health service couldn't provide them in time.
That was smart on Canada's part, and not being allowed to buy outside the system is one problem I see with Universal Health Care.
Medicare, of course, is oversubscribed and underfunded. If a mere 1 percent of seniors left Medicare, within nine years the program would save some $3.5 billion a year. Yet bureaucrats dictate that seniors give up control of their health care or give up Social Security altogether. A lawsuit to stop that is worth pursuing.

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Bill Clinton to Name Donors as Part of Obama Deal

NYTimes.com reported Former President Bill Clinton has agreed to disclose publicly the names of more than 200,000 donors to his foundation as part of an accord with President-elect Barack Obama that clears the way for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to become secretary of state, Democrats close to both sides said on Saturday.
It's about time. What do we have to do to find out the details of Obama's donors; wait until a futuree president appoints him or Michelle to some post?
... The disclosure of contributors is among nine conditions that Mr. Clinton signed off on during discussions with representatives of Mr. Obama; all go beyond the requirements of law. Among other issues, he agreed to incorporate his Clinton Global Initiative separately from his foundation so that he has less direct involvement.
Why? What is needed is visibility on finances, not separation of his involvement.
The initiative, which promotes efforts to fight disease, poverty and climate change, would no longer hold annual meetings outside of the United States
Any conference on climate change should be in Cyberspace so no one has to travel. Conferences on disease and poverty should be held where the problem is.
or accept new contributions from foreign governments.
The important thing is not the source of the money, but publically revealing the source and amount.
Mr. Clinton also agreed to submit his future personal speeches and business activities for review by State Department ethics officials and, if necessary, by the White House counsel’s office.
I don't see why that should be necessary.

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Saturday, November 29, 2008

Toby Keith has a remedy for the “War on Christmas”

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Friday, November 28, 2008

Murdoch "absolutely despises" O'Reilly

Politico.com reported In Michael Wolff’s forthcoming biography of Rupert Murdoch, “The Man Who Owns The News,” the author writes that the media mogul has seemed to turn away lately from his cable news network, and isn’t fond its top-rated personality, Bill O’Reilly.

But he is fond of being the top network, and Bill O'Reilly brings in the viewers.
"It is not just Murdoch (and everybody else at News Corp.’s highest levels) who absolutely despises Bill O’Reilly, the bullying, mean-spirited, and hugely successful evening commentator," Wolff wrote, “but [Fox News chief executive] Roger Ailes himself who loathes him.
Poor babies.
Success, however, has cemented everyone to each other."
Precisely.

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Born Believers

Telegraph reported Dr Justin Barrett, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, claims that young people have a predisposition to believe in a supreme being because they assume that everything in the world was created with a purpose.
Maybe it is because they saw and spoke with Him before He sent them to Earth.
He says that young children have faith even when they have not been taught about it by family or at school, and argues that even those raised alone on a desert island would come to believe in God.
Secularism has to be taught into them.

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Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

I wish each of my readers a very Happy Thanksgiving.

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Tuesday, November 25, 2008

250 Taliban ambush 30 marines

50 Taliban sent directly to Hell to ask Allah for their virgins; none of our guys were seriously injured. The rest of the Taliban ran like Hell.

Military.com reported In the city of Shewan, approximately 250 insurgents ambushed 30 Marines and paid a heavy price for it.... “I didn’t realize how many bad guys there were until we had broken through the enemies’ lines and forced them to retreat. It was roughly 250 insurgents against 30 of us,” the corporal said. “It was a good day for the Marine Corps. We killed a lot of bad guys, and none of our guys were seriously injured.”
It makes me think of the town that wired for "a company of Texas Rangers. One Ranger showed up, and proceeded to clean up the town."

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Saturday, November 22, 2008

Stupid idea #39827 - Time for Him to Go

Gail Collins, Op-Ed Columnist wrote in NYTimes Thanksgiving is next week, and President Bush could make it a really special holiday by resigning. Seriously. We have an economy that’s crashing and a vacuum at the top. Bush — who is currently on a trip to Peru to meet with Asian leaders who no longer care what he thinks — hasn’t got the clout, or possibly even the energy, to do anything useful. His most recent contribution to resolving the fiscal crisis was lecturing representatives of the world’s most important economies on the glories of free-market capitalism.
And do you think that is not a good idea.
Putting Barack Obama in charge immediately isn’t impossible.
Have you ever read The United States Constitution
Do you know anything about Order of Presidential Succession? If the president resigns, the next inline are:
* The Vice President Dick Cheney
* Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
* President pro tempore of the Senate Robert Byrd
* Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
* Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson
* Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
* Attorney General Michael Mukasey
* Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne
* Secretary of Agriculture Edward T. Schafer
* Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez (born in Cuba and is ineligible)
* Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao (born in Taiwan and is ineligible)
* Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt
* Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Steven C. Preston
* Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters
* Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman
* Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings
* Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake
* Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff
I don't see Obama's name there anywhere
Dick Cheney, obviously, would have to quit as well as Bush.
And do you think he is as tired as Bush, or wouldn't he love a couple of months in the top chair.
In fact, just to be on the safe side, the vice president ought to turn in his resignation first. (We’re desperate, but not crazy.)
Then to be safe, maybe Bush should stay.
Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would become president until Jan. 20. Obviously, she’d defer to her party’s incoming chief executive,
Really????? She and Obama have been having battles as to who is top dog. Don't you think she would adjourn the house and hope she could take over the White House for a two month emergency, and stil figure out a way of staying Speaker of the House in January. I know there was a movie about that, but I don't know whether the examined all of the loopholes involved.
and Barack Obama could begin governing.
No then you have Robert Byrd, who is so old they want to take him out of the order of succession, and you then have 15 cabinet officers, all Republicans, and only two ineligible, and even if you could talk all of them into not wanting some time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Obama still is not in the Order of Presidential Succession. Maybe you need to talk to your doctor and see if he will just sedate you until January 20. And if Obama loses in 2012, are you going to be as eager to see him go and his replacement take over? What if he is a Republican? Or if Obama is reelected in 2012 he will be term limited. Are you going to be as eager to see him go before January 20, 2017 and his replacement take over? What if he is a Republican?

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Gen. Kevin Chilton: Sounding the Nuclear Alarm

WSJ reported Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. nuclear weapons program has suffered from neglect. Warheads are old. There's been no new warhead design since the 1980s, and the last time one was tested was 1992, when the U.S. unilaterally stopped testing. Gen. Chilton, who heads U.S. Strategic Command, has been sounding the alarm, as has Defense Secretary Robert Gates. So far few seem to be listening. The U.S. is alone among the five declared nuclear nations in not modernizing its arsenal. The U.K. and France are both doing so. Ditto China and Russia. "We're the only ones who aren't," Gen. Chilton says. Congress has refused to fund the Department of Energy's Reliable Replacement Warhead program beyond the concept stage and this year it cut funding even for that. Gen. Chilton stresses that StratCom is "very prepared right now to conduct our nuclear deterrent mission" -- a point he takes pains to repeat more than once. But the words "right now" are carefully chosen too, and the general also conveys a sense of urgency. "We're at a point where we need to make some very hard choices and decisions," he says. These need to be "based on good studies that would tell us how we would modernize this force for the future to incorporate 21st century requirements, which I believe are different than in the Cold War."
It looks like we should be modernizing our force just to stay even, but can we trust Obama to do that. Didn't he oppose it during the election. And The Wall Street Journal talks about liberal Democratic obstruction of military ties with Indonesia. Since the 1960s, the U.S. has worked with Indonesian officers in exchanges ranging from short courses at military colleges to joint training exercises. These programs help Indonesians gain technical expertise as well as learn key values, such as observing human rights and respecting civilian control. In return, the U.S. develops relationships with the officers who lead the military of the world's largest Muslim-majority democracy. But these programs have fallen victim to liberal interests in Washington, which object to offering military assistance to countries with bad human rights records.

If we refuse to upgrade our nuclear response capability to just keep it operational (not increase it), if we let Iran get atomic weapons if we won't cooperate with the officers who lead the military of the world's largest Muslim-majority democracy, and if depend on reports like this one in the NY Times Al Qaeda could soon be on the decline, having alienated Muslim supporters with indiscriminate killing and inattention to the practical problems of poverty, unemployment and education.
So their poll numbers are down. They are not trying to win elections, they are trying to use fear of death to put them in power, and they have plenty of young men with raging hormones listening to promises of 80 virgins if they get killed, they have plenty of recruits ready to die. They don't know it is Hell they are headed for, and there in no way for the first one down to notify his brothers the Mullahs and Imams were lying.

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Liberal messiah sending his daughters to ritzy private school

Allahpundit blogged at Hot Air Michelle believes very strongly in the value of public education, mind you. Just not for her kids.

Lelyveld said that while public schools were considered, the Obamas felt that a private school was in the best interest of their children.
Children of elite parents used to an elite private school should not be exposed to the riff raff in the public school system, especially in the poor Washington DC system. School Choice is a good thing there. Why can't the other blacks in Washington DC get the same right? Would this be because they might go to the private Sidwell Friends School, alma mater of former first daughter Chelsea Clinton, and now Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, will be attending the Quaker school. I know the Obamas left their church of 20 years, but did they become Quakers?
The two girls currently attend the private University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where Michelle Obama is on the board. Michelle Obama went to public schools on Chicago’s South Side, and undestands the importance of strong public schools, Lelyveld said, and the administration plans to work hard on that issue…
For everyone else's kids.
The quality of the school and its extra security make Sidwell Friends a good choice, said Letitia Baldrige, who was Jackie Kennedy’s social secretary and chief of staff during the Kennedy administration. Caroline Kennedy attended first grade in a makeshift third-floor classroom inside the White House.
I’d say something snarky but I’ve been informed by my betters
President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle “have every right” to send their children to public or private school, and no one should “criticize” their decision, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), said in an interview with CNSNews.com on Monday at the National Press Club.
Does that apply to everyone, i.e. do you now support School Choice, or does that only apply to rich Black parents?

Wall Street Journal reports Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the Washington, D.C. schools, who is speaking truth to teacher-union power to shake up one of the nation's worst education systems said "Tenure is the holy grail of teacher unions, but it has no educational value for kids; it only benefits adults." Do you agree with Rhee?

The Christian Science Monitor said Barack Obama needs to .... be as a "science president," supporting basic research and science education that will benefit the public good long after he leaves office. What good will that do if we keep graduating kids not qualified in Science and Mathematics?
Democratic Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack echoed Weingarten’s comments at the conference, telling CNSNews.com that “it’s a very personal decision” that the president-elect and his wife need to make and the issue “should not be subject to criticism or comment.”
We have just been through 8 years of criticism about Bush for everything he did, did not do, said, or did not say, and a very long election season when pot shots were fired at many other Republicans. Why is it no longer our place to criticize. If Obama had truly opposed School Choice all the time, rather than supporting it when talking to people that wanted it, and opposing when talking to teachers, it would be one thing. But he was a true politician when running for office.
The AFT endorsed Obama for president in July. On the campaign trail, Obama spoke out against school choice and vouchers for children in households of any income level.
Sometimes, and other times spoke out of the other side of his mouth.
that it’s wrong to criticize The One for hypocrisy on this point because, and I quote, “none of us knows what it’s like to be a president of the United States of America or a president-elect.” There’s video at the link; do bear it in mind the next time you get the urge to object to anything he says or does.

Chelsea Clinton went to this same school, incidentally, which is perfectly in keeping with the blueprint Obama’s followed thus far. Here’s an actual e-card I sent to our favorite liberal a few days ago. Share it with a Democrat you love.

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Fox News

Los Angeles Times reported Roger Ailes, the savvy and hard-charging television executive who transformed the Fox News Channel from an upstart enterprise to the top-rated cable news network said "Democrats tend to go over there and watch," Ailes said, then paid his rival a rare compliment, noting its high-tech set: "I think CNN did a good job, also. They bought enough equipment to outfit all the movie theaters in America."

Maybe they are going in the Left Wing movie business. They slant their news to much for me. I like mine "Fair and Balanced".
Still, he said he was confident that Fox News, known for its outspoken conservative commentators, would fare well in an Obama administration. While all the cable networks saw large audience drop-offs in the week after the election, Fox News retained 70% of its prime-time viewers, while CNN held on to 42% and MSNBC kept 60%.
Good for Fox News.
"If we keep doing what we're doing, which is tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may, I think we're going to be fine," he said.
The TRUTH is always the best policy, unless your wife asks how a dress fits.
Ailes said he had not given any orders about how the network should treat Barack Obama, despite a recent report that he had instructed Fox News hosts to show deference to the president-elect.
Deference is proper.The election is over, and Fox News treated both candidtes in a "Fair and Balanced" fashion. We should now give Obama a chance to do things, but keep a close eye on what he is doing, and as the Loyal Opposition we should speak up if we think he is going down thw roung road. And maybe we can hold him as close to the center as the position he took before the election, rather than off the ragged left edge as many on the left will be pulling him. And we should see soon whether he is his own man, and if so which of the two Obamas he will be, or whether he will just be Reid and Pelosi's lap dog.
Rather, he said he told staffers at a meeting that "all presidents deserve time to get their team on the ground and get organized."
They are supposed to be doing that before Jan 20, and if he is making mistakes there, we have both a right and an obligation to let our thoughts be heard, but we should not bundle in theings said during the campaign unless his actions go against what he said then.
"As American citizens, we all believe we are innocent until proven guilty," he said. "I think we should extend that same rule to our leaders in our country.
I don't think we have to expect a jury trial on every thing they do, but a trial in the court of public opinion is fine, and if a jury trial seems justified the constitution does provide for Impeachment, which is like a jury trial, although it should be used only in extreme conditions, and only if you know you have enough opposition votes to get the required 2/3 vote in the Senate if the charges are true. The Republicans should not have impeached Clinton, because while he was technically guilty of a crime they knew they could not get the Democratic votes to convict, and if they had not done it to Clinton, the Angry Left might not have screamed Impeachment every time Bush did something they do not like. We should be able to complain about things the president does, and have the mdeia report fairly both sides of the argument, without having to draw up Articles of Impeachment in the House.
And therefore we have some obligation in a new presidency not to attempt to destabilize it.
But we don't have the obligation to withhold information or lie about it to prop up an unstable President. The stability we should be worried about is the stability of the Country, and to the Constitution which defines how the country should be run.
It does not mean we wouldn't cover something that came and it was new information."
I hope not.
Whether the network's hosts will heed his advice remains to be seen, he said, adding wryly: "Who knows? Most of them do whatever the hell they want."
And that is why we watch them.

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A little humor

As Allah Pundit blogged I can’t make up my mind on this one. Either it’s Obama trying to enact his economic policies with free-market capitalism in the way or it’s Hillary trying to run America’s foreign policy with Obama himself in the way.
I guess either is possible. Certainly someone's nose must hurt.
Your call.

17 seconds in, right after the lad pulls up his socks:

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e=mc²

Yahoo! News reported It's taken more than a century, but Einstein's celebrated formula e=mc² has finally been corroborated, thanks to a heroic computational effort by French, German and Hungarian physicists.
This is the way science should work. Other scientists try to prove someone else's theory They don't just form a consensus and find a number of scientists willing to say they can't disprove a theory, and call that consensus PROOF of something like Anthropogenic Global Warming, and then by denial of tenure or persuading governments that have political reasons for wanting to pretend the science is true to withhold scientific grant money to doubters seeking to disprove the theory.
A brainpower consortium led by Laurent Lellouch of France's Centre for Theoretical Physics, using some of the world's mightiest supercomputers, have set down the calculations for estimating the mass of protons and neutrons, the particles at the nucleus of atoms.

According to the conventional model of particle physics, protons and neutrons comprise smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons.

The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks is only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent?

The answer, according to the study published in the US journal Science on Thursday, comes from the energy from the movements and interactions of quarks and gluons.

In other words, energy and mass are equivalent, as Einstein proposed in his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905.

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Youngest Viagra User

Viagra was originally developed as a remedy for high blood pressure – and its use as a sex drug was only discovered by accident. I am happy to see it is able to save the life of Britain's Youngest Viagra User. The Sun reported Calvin Muteesa was first prescribed the impotence remedy aged just three months. Now he is believed to be Britain’s youngest regular Viagra user, having taken the drug — for up to six times a day — for the past 30 months. Calvin has pulmonary arterial hypertension, a rare condition which means his blood pressure is dangerously high. This starves his lungs of oxygen-rich blood.
I hope the doctors can find a better way to treat his conditions, but with Britain's Nationalized Health Service that is not likely, but I am glad they found this will work, and may God watch over Calvin.
The youngster struggles for breath and his heart has to work twice as hard to force blood to his lungs. Viagra relaxes his pulmonary artery, which carries blood to the lungs, and allows more blood and oxygen through.

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Tulsa Residents

KOTV reported The city courts now have a website that can tell you which tickets require a court appearance and which ones don't along with other valuable information, like how to get a friend out of jail.
I don't support breaking the law, but sometimes we do it unintentionally, and this can eliminate some of the hassels of paying what you owe.
You can also pay up to seven tickets at one time with a credit card on the secure site.

"Most tickets you get in the City of Tulsa have a dollar amount on the front. They're not crimes of violence or drugs or alcohol and there's no reason to come to court and miss four hours of work when you can pay online in 90 seconds and avoid that," said Judge Crawford.

75% of the 90,000 tickets issued could be handled this way. You can also mail the fine or pay at the cashier's window outside the courtrooms. It's all about saving you time.

"Every day we have people in court who didn't have to come, had they known the answer to a simple question they could've found online," said Judge Crawford.

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Sunday, November 16, 2008

Obama throws Israel under the bus

Caroline Glick blogged it appears that as his critics warned, Obama's moves toward the center on issues relating to the Middle East were little more than campaign tactics to obscure his true policy preferences.
I am afraid many of his moves to the center were the same thing.
Two days after his election, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius gave a sense of the direction in which Obama will likely take US foreign policy.... Obama, he claimed, will want to push hard to force Israel to come to an agreement with the Palestinians as soon as he comes into office.
Like forcing them back to the indefensible pre-67 borders.
... WHAT IS most alarming about Obama's emerging foreign policy toward Iran and its proxies on the one hand and Israel on the other is that it will cause actual harm to the Jewish state.
I wonder what the 77% of Jews that supported bama will have to say about that.
... As for direct talks with Iran itself, the question immediately arises, what could Obama offer Teheran in exchange for an end to its nuclear program that Bush hasn't already offered? What it can offer is Israel.
And it appears he is perfectly willing to throw Israel under the bus. Despite what Genesis 12:3 says.
... The Obama team's pre-inaugural signals indicate strongly that Israel's next government will need to strike Iran's nuclear installations before two rapidly approaching deadlines.
Thankfully they took out Saddam's reactor, and now it looks like they will have to deal with Iran's, since they can't count on us to help them.
The strike will have to occur before the mullahs enrich sufficient quantities of highly enriched uranium to produce nuclear bombs. And Israel will need to neutralize Iran's nuclear program before the Obama administration begins implementing America's new foreign policy.

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The answer is Chapter 11

TCS Daily reported Total compensation per hour for the big-three carmakers is $73.20. That's a 52 percent differential from Toyota's (Detroit South) $48 compensation (wages + health and retirement benefits). In fact, the oversized UAW-driven pay package for Detroit is 132 percent higher than that of the entire manufacturing sector of the U.S., which comes in at $31.59. I don't care how much money Congress throws at GM. With that kind of oversized comp-package they are not gonna be competitive. It's throwin' bad money after a bad cause. What a way to start the new Obama era.

Professor Bainbridge blogged Is the UAW the Problem? "The” problem? No. The automakers have lots of problems. But the UAW is “A” problem.... I have no beef with unions per se. To the contrary, I believe that collective bargaining is both economically rational and morally desirable. I do have a problem with using tax payer dollars to bailout the auto industry so long as their UAW contracts leave them unable to compete either financially or in product quality with the US factories of German and Japanese automakers.

The answer to the Auto problem is the clensing effect of Chapter 11. I agree with JorgXMcKie who commented I’ll only be happy with a bailout that cuts both union and management pay and benefits to the average level in the industry (US), trims work force at both levels to the industry average, and brings rationality to the dealership mess.

As Gateway Pundit pointed out Titan Trader at Power Line Forum asked today:
Why should a taxpayer making $50 grand per year be expected to bail out NON-Skilled Union laborers making $152,256.00 per year. SKILLED Union Electricians who went through two years of day school and four years of night school - paid for by themsleves- make only half as much as the United Auto Workers.
UAW Contracts Put Detroit On Road to Ruin, and A $50B Bailout Would Only Be The Down Payment



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Friday, November 14, 2008

Don't bail out the car companies

Rich Lowry wrote in New York Post reported US consumers have long been voting against US automakers. Now, they'll be asked to put their tax dollars at risk to preserve the very companies from which they don't want cars.
Why protect and industry whose products Americans will not buy.
The bailout would be of the United Auto Workers as much as of the automakers. It's the UAW that saddled the Big Three with unsustainable labor costs and obligations to retirees. Detroit has desperately been trying to get out from under this burden, but Ford still lost $1,467 per vehicle in 2007, while GM lost $729 and Chrysler lost $412.
Let one of them go into Chapter 11, breaking the union contracts, and the union will be a lot more willing to renegotiate the other two.
Where the UAW doesn't reign, the industry thrives. Toyota and others profitably manufacture almost 4 million cars in nonunionized states in the South.

Betsy Newmark blogged We should not be rewarding the Big Three's shoddy management. If we continue down this road, where will we stop? Are we going to be bailing out every large company that makes bad decisions and then goes under? Is Circuit City next? Will the only companies that we don't bail out be the small mom and pop businesses that are small enough to fail?

I hope Bush resists the pressure to sign onto some auto bailout now. And perhaps the Democrats can push it through after January 20, but the Republicans should resist as much as possible. As Lowry said, why should taxpayers be on the hook for cars they decided they have decided that they don't want to buy?

Stephen Bainbridge has a good analysis of the problems plaguing GM the other American auto companies and concludes that bankruptcy would be the best outcome for them to restructure themselves.

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Thursday, November 13, 2008

Don't just do something, stand there

Noemie Emery wrote in The Weekly Standard Refusing to take Ronald Reagan's famous advice--don't just do something, stand there--conservative machers are all in a swivet, reading the leaves of the 2008 verdict, plotting to pick off this or that set of voters, opining on what it all means. Actually, just standing there seems like a pretty good option, at least for the moment, and perhaps for the next few weeks and months. Plans made right now may turn out to be useless. There are too many things we don't know.
I agree. And the Dems are going to over react and over extend themselves. We just don't know whether Obama will be blamed, or whether Congress will, or both.
We don't know yet what happened on Tuesday, and what kind of win it will be: a pivotal one, like 1932 and 1980; or a transient success--1964, 1976, 1988, 2004--that at the moment appeared monumental, but four years later had turned out not to be.
I tend to think it will be the later, but the Dems will think it was the former.
How much of the glow now surrounding the Democrats is due to themselves, and how much to the nature of Barack Obama, who has a personality that comes along twice in a century, and how long will this last? Which Obama will turn up to govern, the man of moderate temperament, or the functional liberal, whose record is way left of center?
His advisors are urging him to stay in the center, but will he have the intlligence, and the gonads, to do so.
When the phone rings for real at three in the morning, who will pick it up: the oh-so-cool cat who was so self-possessed while campaigning, or the neophyte who, outside of campaigning, has never faced a real test in his life?
And will he set the phone to call forward to Hillary or Biden?
How big will the recession be, and will he prolong it?
I am afraid we are talking Depression.
Will he gain or lose ground in the war on terror? Will we have a new terror attack?
As Biden said, within the first 6 months. A year at the most.
If he governs well, he will win again in the next go round, and nothing done now will change it; if he blows a big test on the world stage, then nothing will save him. No grand schemes hatched now will change that.

Gaius blogged Remember, the Democrats won big in 2006 in Congress. They proceeded to drive the approval rating of Congress into the sewer. Yes, Obama won by promising things he has no way of delivering. It is only a matter of time until people realize they bought more snake oil. Wait for the right moment.

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Taliban suddenly opposed to executions

Reuters AlertNet reported Afghanistan's Taliban, notorious for summary public executions, urged the United Nations on Thursday to press the Afghan government to stop executing prisoners on death row, citing concern about fair trials.
Are they opposed to anyone being executed, or only Talibans.
Afghanistan resumed executions this week after a break of more than a year, with three Taliban sentenced for deadly attacks among nine people put to death in the past few days.
Now we know why they suddenly don't like executions.
Those executions followed a public outcry over rising crime. About 120 other people have been sentenced to death and their fate rests with President Hamid Karzai, who has to approve any execution order. The United Nations and European Union have called on Karzai to halt the executions, citing concern about the standards of judicial fairness.
Does te EU have a recommendation how it can be done fairly, or are they just opposed to executions generally.
The United Nations says Afghanistan's law enforcement and judicial systems fall far short of internationally accepted standards. The Taliban leadership council said it too was worried about fair trials.
Do the Taliban provide FAIR trials before they execute people? Should Afghanistan trials be as fair as Taliban trials?
"We strongly request the U.N., the EU, the Red Cross and human rights groups to earnestly prevent this barbaric act," the Taliban said in a statement on their website, accusing Karzai's government of corruption.

The Taliban, fighting to overthrow Karzai's pro-Western government, have executed dozens of captured soldiers and civilians since U.S.-led forces ousted the militant Islamist movement in 2001.
But surely they gave them fair trials first, didn't they.
During their 1996-2001 rule in Afghanistan, the Taliban executed dozens of people, occasionally staging killings in public at Kabul's main sports stadium. In their statement, the Taliban warned the government against more executions, saying the officials responsible for them would be punished.
How? Are you going to shoot them in the head in a stadium, or is that procedure reserved for women wearing burkas?

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Don't bailout the auto industry

TIME reported The latest wave of bad news came out of Detroit Friday morning as both GM and Ford reported heavy losses for the third quarter of 2008. Ford lost $2.75 billion, pretax, from operations; GM fared even worse, losing $4.2 billion, excluding a one-time gain.
So we exclude gains to make it look like they lost more, so they get a bigger bailout.
Both companies are also burning through cash at an alarming rate — Ford used up $7.7 billion during the third quarter and GM burned through $6.9 billion. Concerns intensified about GM's ability to stay afloat.
Let them go through the clensing of Chapter 11. The reason they are losing so much money is they have given into the demands of the labor unions for ridiculously high benefits (health care and other). It makes their cars too expensive to compete. Go through Chapter 11, get the courts to cancel the contracts, and maybe the unions will not be so greedy.
The losses added yet another note of urgency to auto industry leaders' discussions with Washington, which were in the spotlight on Thursday when the chief executives of GM, Ford and Chrysler met with House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid on how to increase the size of Washington's aid package to the Big Three. Though details are still being worked out, the push is for an additional $25 billion in federal loan guarantees for Detroit in addition to the $25 billion already promised to assist the industry's shift to green technology.
There should ne NO bailout for the Big 3 Automakers.
And now the City of Detroit has its hand out too. Stop the bailouts.

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Money Hole


In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

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Freedom of Choice Act

LifeNews reported Meeting on the second day of their annual conference, the nation's Catholic bishops urged an aggressive campaign to oppose the pro-abortion bill expected to be the centerpiece of the Barack Obama administration. They also mentioned concerns about Catholic hospitals being forced to do abortions.
No doctor and no hospital shuld be forced to do a procedure they don't want to do.
The FOCA bill, known as the Freedom of Choice Act, is the number one goal of abortion advocates, who feel emboldened by Obama's election.

It would not only make unlimited abortions throughout pregnancy a national law but it would overturn the laws in all 50 states designed to reduce abortions.
The states should be able to decide for themselves.
... The bishops also expressed concern about FOCA because it could overturn protections for Catholic hospitals that don't want to do abortions. Some of the bishops, during the discussion, went as far as saying the Catholic Church should be willing to close some health facilities rather them allow them to be subject to a mandate to do abortions from the Obama administration.
Good for them. Many Catholic hospitals provide health care for the poor. It would be interesting if Congress makes it harder for the poor t get Health Care just because they want to kill more babies.
Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Chicago spoke up about the threats to Catholic health care under the bill. “It could mean discontinuing obstetrics in our hospitals, and we may need to consider taking the drastic step of closing our Catholic hospitals entirely,” Paprocki said. “It would not be sufficient to withdraw our sponsorship or to sell them to someone who would perform abortions. That would be a morally unacceptable cooperation in evil.”
I hope they have the balls to do just that.
“I do not think I’m being alarmist in considering such drastic steps,” he said. “We need to respond in a morally appropriate, responsible fashion.”
God Bless you, Bishop.
During the campaign, Obama promised the bill would be the first he would sign as president. The FOCA measure would overturn state laws such as bans on taxpayer-funding of abortion, parental notification and consent, informed consent for women, and conscience protections for medical facilities and personnel.
Those are all reasonable restrictions, and they are things the residents of those states want. Why should the federal goverment override their wishes.
Experts say FOCA could increase abortions as much as 125,000 per year.
There are too many now.

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Baucus Health Care

NYTimes reported Without waiting for President-elect Barack Obama, Senator Max Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, will unveil a detailed blueprint on Wednesday to guarantee health insurance for all Americans by facilitating sales of private insurance, expanding Medicaid and Medicare, and requiring most employers to provide or pay for health benefits.... “Every American has a right to affordable, high-quality health care,” Mr. Baucus said.
That is fine, but they should pay for it, and not expect their government to provide it, or their employer.
...Mr. Baucus would create a nationwide marketplace, a “health insurance exchange,” where people could compare and buy insurance policies. The options would include private insurance policies and a new public plan similar to Medicare. Insurers could no longer deny coverage to people who had been sick.
Then why should anyone pay for insurance until they get sick and need it?
Congress would also limit insurers’ ability to charge higher premiums because of a person’s age or prior illness.
Then why would insurers write health insurance policies?
People would have a duty to obtain coverage when affordable options
Who determines whether something is "affordable" and why do we give them the power to decide it is our "duty" to buy something they decide is "affordable" for us.
were available to all through employers
Why are employers involved. If people were responsible to buy their own insurance, outside of their employment, then they would not have to worry about quitting their jobs to get a better one because they had a preexisting condition that might not be covered. And if people were expected to have their own insurance they kept all their lives, preexisting conditions would not be a big problem. If someone insisted on going without insurance until he got sick, and developed that preexisting condition would just be considered a fool.
or through the insurance exchange. This obligation “would be enforced, possibly through the tax system,” the plan says.

Ed Morrissey blogged What could possibly go wrong with this scenario? For one thing, Medicare could collapse — and it’s about to do just that. In three years, Medicare will spend more than it gets in Part A (hospital coverage) premiums from Social Security, and this is just the beginning of the long twilight of the Baby Boomers. That will create a deficit in Medicare that will either have to be absorbed from the general fund or alleviated by cost reductions.

Instead of looking to restore some sort of stability to the already-failing Medicare structure, Baucus wants to hang more cost onto it.
This is not good news to me, because after a lifetime of paying into Social Security and Nedicare, I am now 65 and having to depend on them, so I do not appreciate Baucus threatening my Medicare by putting more people in it.
He doesn’t stop at Medicare, either. His program will put the same burden on states through Medicaid.
I am not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, but I know plenty of people that are, and I hate to see it bankrupted either.
That will create even more instability in benefit plans and force more public funds on that level to get spent on coverage.

The result? Taxes will go up at both the state and federal level across the nation, and it won’t just be the “rich” that feels the pinch. Tax rates will necessarily rise as deficit spending explodes. The dollar will weaken once again, thanks to the enormous debts that this will generate, and the capital needed to restore the economy will get lost in the monumental expansion of government control this will require. Baucus thinks that magically insuring people will eliminate costs, but it just transfers it instead to the least-efficient model: government bureaucracies.
That is why conservatives want smaller government, because government bureaucracies just make things worse.
Instead of reforming entitlements, the Democrats plan an expansion of them.
That is what Dems always do.
The collapse will come quicker than anyone predicted. I guess that qualifies as “change”, and you’d better believe it’s coming.

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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Was Obama there?

Caracas Journal - Chávez’s Venezuela Positions Itself as a Salon for the World’s Leftist Thinkers - NYTimes reported Some 200 other leftist thinkers from around the world convened here (Caracas Venezuela) for a few days in October to discuss transitions toward socialism, even as many people in advanced Western countries were losing sleep over the spreading financial crisis of global capitalism.
Was Obama there, or did he have to miss it because he was busy with the campaign.

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Sunday, November 09, 2008

I can't believe this stupidity

Topeka Capital-Journal reported Plans are being made to promote a national holiday for Barack Obama, who will become the nation's 44th president when he takes the oath of office Jan. 20.
The man has not even taken the oath of office. What holiday do they want to get rid of: President's day which is Washington AND Lincoln, or MLK
"Yes We Can" planning rallies will be at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. every Tuesday at the downtown McDonald's restaurant, 1100 Kansas Ave., until Jan. 13. The goals are to secure a national holiday in Obama's honor, to organize celebrations around his inauguration and to celebrate the 200th birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, who was born on Feb. 12 1809.

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Nothing to talk about


Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

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Obama Positioned to Quickly Reverse Bush Actions

Washington Post reported Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues, according to congressional Democrats, campaign aides and experts working with the transition team.
He can do that, and quickly show he is catering to his extreme left wing, and does not intend to govern as a centrist.
.... Obama himself has signaled, for example, that he intends to reverse Bush's controversial limit on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, a decision that scientists say has restrained research into some of the most promising avenues for defeating a wide array of diseases, such as Parkinson's. Bush's August 2001 decision pleased religious conservatives who have moral objections to the use of cells from days-old human embryos, which are destroyed in the process
Bush's action was made after a deliberatively way to try to protect life while allowing research, but since the embryos are being destroyed anyway the only bad thing about this is that it may pull some research money away from the very promising discoveries that are now being made in adult stem cell research, and move to to embryonic stem cell research, where even if a cure is found, it would face rejection by the body, something that might not occur if the patient's own adult stem cells could be used for the cure.
.... lift a so-called global gag rule barring international family planning groups that receive U.S. aid from counseling women about the availability of abortion, even in countries where the procedure is legal
If doing this will remove the pressure for federal legislation to block all state restrictions, even for partial birth abortion, then I can live with the executive order
.... reverse the Bush administration's decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles
If he really wants to tick off Detroit and the auto unions, and at the same time allow California to cause great pain to its own citizens, then go for it.
.... A book titled "Change for America," being published next week by the Center for American Progress, an influential liberal think tank, will recommend, for example, that Obama rapidly create a National Energy Council to coordinate all policymaking related to global climate change
O joy, rapture, thrill, and bliss. Another Government Agency.
....The center's new book will also urge Obama to sign an executive order requiring that greenhouse gas emissions be considered whenever the federal government examines the environmental impact of its actions under the existing National Environmental Policy Act. Several key members of Obama's transition team have already embraced the idea.
More bureaucracy trying to stop an imagined Global Warming. I wonder how many more years the average temperature has to drop, or how much more ice needs to build up, before that foolishness stops, and if the same things that are causing Global Warming will be blamed for causing Global Cooling.

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Saturday, November 08, 2008

President Obama To Bring Back Slavery

Sweetness & Light reported From President-Select Obama’s new website Change.gov

“Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year.”
Someone should tell Mr. Obama that Mr. Lincoln freed the slaves. While they are at it, they should also tell this Constitutional scholar that the Constitution now forbids involuntary servitude:
Amendment XIII

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The Republican Party got rid of slavery 143 years (and a bloody Civil War) ago.

And the Democrats have been working ever since to bring it back.
The closest they got, before now, was welfare, which kept blacks in a continual second-class citizen status. Republicans, with Clinton's help, got rid of welfare in the 90s, but it looks like the Democrats may want to reinstate it with their Share the Wealth programs.
It should be noted that when this “service” program was mention during the campaign it sounded quite “voluntary.”

Indeed, there was even a financial incentive promised.

From the Obama campaign site
“Obama and Biden will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year, and will establish a new tax credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year.”
What a difference an election makes.


But they realized they got caught, and as Allahpundit noted:
If one day of carping in the blogosphere is enough to get The One to reverse himself, maybe we can work with this guy after all.... the Change.gov plan as of this afternoon:
Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free.
Interesting that he suddenly decided to slap a number on the program, too.

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Blue Dogs threaten to bite

TheHill reported Blue Dog Democrats Friday called on the Democratic Caucus to support “moderate voices” in the slew of leadership decisions the party will be making this month.
"Moderate voices" in the Democratic Party leadership???
The release did not name any of the races or contenders, but Blue Dog sources say it can be seen as preliminary support for Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) in a brewing bid for vice chairman of the caucus and Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) in his fight to stave off a committee chairmanship challenge from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).

Ed Morrissey blogged I’m not sure that anyone would have described John Dingell as a Blue Dog Democrat before now, but he’s certainly more moderate than Henry Waxman. Waxman wants Dingell out of the Energy and Commerce Committee so that Waxman can pursue more radical solutions on global warming. Dingell wants to protect the auto industry from excessive regulation, and has fought back against Waxman’s attempt to wrest control of the committee away from him.

The Blue Dogs see this kind of leftward tilt as a threat to their seats. If the 111th Congress runs hard to the left, voters in their more conservative districts will punish them by replacing them with Republican challengers in 2010 — and Democrats will lose their majority just as they did in 1994.
Just a the blue dogs were elected from conservative districts because Republicans forgot their small government roots.
Their need for self-preservation pushes them to get more of their members into leadership.
They also need to join with Republicans in blocking some of the extreme left legislative attempts.
This leadership fight will give voters a clear indication of how radical the upcoming single-party government will get. If the Blue Dogs get their committee chairs and their leadership positions, they may help keep the worst excesses of Pelosi and Barack Obama in check. If not, we can expect major overreach, and Republicans can start getting ready to take back these conservative districts in two years.

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Pelosi said CA voters were stupid

San Francisco Chronicle reported In a wide-ranging interview with The Chronicle, Pelosi said she believes some voters might not have fully understood the initiative, which overturned a state Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage
That ruling overturned an earlier proposition when voters said they did not want same-sex marriages.
The measure was approved 52 to 48 percent. "Unfortunately, I think people thought they were making a statement about what their view of same-sex marriage was," the San Francisco Democrat said. "I don't know if it was clear that this meant that we are amending the Constitution to diminish freedom in our state."
Which was necessary because otherwise the Supreme Court would have overruled their wishes again.

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Wednesday, November 05, 2008

At least CA had some sense

As the Los Angeles Times said, California voters approve Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriages

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Sad

It looks like if you can't win it honestly, voter fraud is the way to get the White House. I am certainly not happy right now, but I like the way The Onion put it: Black Man Given Nation's Worst Job

African-American man Barack Obama, 47, was given the least-desirable job in the entire country Tuesday when he was elected president of the United States of America. In his new high-stress, low-reward position, Obama will be charged with such tasks as completely overhauling the nation's broken-down economy, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, and generally having to please more than 300 million Americans and cater to their every whim on a daily basis. As part of his duties, the black man will have to spend four to eight years cleaning up the messes other people left behind. The job comes with such intense scrutiny and so certain a guarantee of failure that only one other person even bothered applying for it. Said scholar and activist Mark L. Denton, "It just goes to show you that, in this country, a black man still can't catch a break."
I am happy to hear Oklahoma voters approve 4 state questions but sad to hear Tulsa streets proposals pass.

I am sorry to see Franken apparently tied with Coleman in MN, and that Murtha did not go down in PA. I am sorry to see that William “Cold Cash” Jefferson cruised to victory, and while I don't want the Dems to have a filibuster proof Senate, I am sorry to see that convicted criminal Sen. Ted Stevens is in a dead heat and may yet win re-election in Alaska. Happy to see Inhofe and Sullivan win over Rice and Oliver, Sorry to see Karen Keith prevailed over Sally Bell. It looks like the judges survived. I always vote on rejection of all of them, and Michael Bates said some of them should have gone down.

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