The Holy Hand Grenade Arrives ... Just Behind Their Heads

You don't want to be on the other end of this:

U.S. Army Unveils 'Revolutionary' XM25 Rifle in Afghanistan - FoxNews.com: "A potential battlefield scenario, according to Army officials, might go something like this: 

-- A patrol encounters an enemy combatant in a walled Afghan village who fires an AK-47 intermittently from behind cover, exposing himself only for a brief second to fire. 

-- The patrol's leader calls for the XM25 gunman, who uses the weapon's laser range finder to calculate the distance to the target. 

-- He then uses an incremental button located near the trigger to add 1 meter to the round's distance, since the enemy is hiding behind a wall. 

-- The round is fired, and it explodes with a blast comparable to a hand grenade past the wall and above the enemy."

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Is Obama A Keynesian? (Part 86,237)

Video: Why Keynesian policies fail « Hot Air: "The Center for Freedom and Prosperity has another in its Econ 101 video series, this time showing why Keynesian economic policies generally fail to generate sustainable economic growth. The nature of Keynesian interventions target the wrong component of the economy, consumer spending, which AEI’s Hiwa Alaghebandian shows as a consequence of growth more than a specific origin of it. Consumer spending rises when income rises — which can result from enhanced consumer spending, of course, but only if organic in nature. Otherwise, the Keynesian interventions of massive borrowing and government spending not only fail to sustain themselves as we have seen with Porkulus, they also end up reducing future income with heavy debt loads, which will depress spending in the long run:"

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The Hostage President

On purpose, of course:

Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: Wikileaks Completes Obama's Transformation Into Jimmy Carter: "The U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran on November 4, 1979, was the start of 444 days which came to define Jimmy Carter.  The U.S. government was revealed to be powerless and the President weak.  Those among us who were alive and conscious during those days have embedded the feelings of helplessness.

There have been many comparisons of Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter, focused on the economy.  But the continuing leak of documents by Wikileaks has become for Obama what the Iranian hostage crisis was to Carter.

The Wikileaks folks trot the globe with impunity and funnel documents to the press at will, for the purpose of damaging U.S. relations with other countries, our war efforts, and our intelligence capability.  And we do almost nothing about it.

Whether or not someone gets killed as a direct result of a  Wikileaks disclosure, the damage to our country is deep, as allies and sources among enemies will stop cooperating with us for fear of exposure, our diplomats will be hesitant to speak frankly with headquarters, and our intelligence on al-Qaeda and others will be compromised.

We are the laughingstock of the world, an impotent superpower whose response to those who aid our enemies is to write a letter asking them not to do it. "

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They Would Never Do That, Would They?

Power Line - Wikileak: Hezbollah Smuggled Weapons In Ambulances: "This is one of many interesting items in the diplomatic cables that were disseminated by Wikileaks:

Iran used Red Crescent ambulances to smuggle weapons and agents into Lebanon during Hezbollah's 2006 war with Israel, a leaked US diplomatic cable showed on Monday.

The 2008 classified cable which originated in Dubai quotes an Iranian source as saying the Iranian Red Crescent was used as a cover by members of the elite Revolutionary Guard to enter Lebanon during the conflict."

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The King O Junk

RTWT:

Belmont Club » Helplessly Hoping: "William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection argues that the latest Wikileak has shoved President Obama into Jimmy Carter territory. The leaks have shown him to be completely impotent, unable to even protect his own secrets or preserve his allies from embarrassment. The hard Left can push him around and take his money in a political dance apache. The Asia Times makes the same observation, but dryly notes that the loss of respect — AKA the failure of political deterrence — can cause much more serious international consequences. Barack Obama’s allies may already be starting to Finlandize themselves, convinced if proof were lacking, that Obama can’t even keep the deal he won’t honor secret. It is the political capstone of a meltdown. Obama’s credibility — and by extension America’s — has been downgraded to junk bond status."

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5 Sentences

I need to find me one of these:

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Irish (Proletarian) Clowns

In case you were wondering why there wasn't much being reported out of Ireland, this would be why:

Led by little people with little minds and little horizons - Analysis, Opinion - Independent.ie: "This is our tragedy. In extraordinary times, we have been saddled with the most ordinary of leaders. As the historic task facing us got as enormous as it could possibly get, the men and woman tasked with surmounting it showed themselves up to be little people with little minds and little horizons.

The farce was best summed up by Enda Kenny's announcement that he had rung up Brussels and been assured that any incoming government would not be bound by FF's Budget. Basically, the Fine Gael leader stood up and told the Irish people they should vote for a man who has to ring Belgium to get permission to do something in Ballina. It's like putting up your hand in junior infants until Miss says it's okay for you to visit the loo. It would be funny if it wasn't so scary.

If the Taoiseach needs permission from Brussels before making decisions on behalf of Ireland, what does it matter who becomes Taoiseach at all?

Meanwhile, back in the sixth form socialist debating society, Fintan O'Toole in the Irish Times was advocating the suspension of elections in favour of a "technical administration" composed of "people of integrity and competence" until such time as the pesky voters reach the correct level of political consciousness. Dictatorship of the proletariat, anyone?

Are these really our only available options: semi-digested adolescent anarchism, or another rerun of failed party politics? No chance, say, of a genuinely radical, energetically eurosceptic, pro-enterprise, pro-small business alternative? Apparently not.

Seems that the old song was right: "Send in the clowns. Don't bother, they're here.""

Not very pretty and a socialist cesspool to boot. Our horizons stretch barely an inch further...

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Nude-o-Scope Questions

Ace of Spades HQ: "The TSA has been stating that the X-rays used in the back scatter machines use 'soft' X-rays, which are defined as radiation between 0.12-12 keV (or kilo electron volts) and are generally stopped, or absorbed, by soft tissue or low density matter. 'Hard' X-rays are between 12-128 keV and are absorbed by dense matter like bone. According to the TSA safety documents, AIT uses an 50 keV source that emits a broad spectra (see adjacent graph from here). Essentially, this means that the X-ray source used in the Rapiscan system is the same as those used for mammograms and some dental X-rays, and uses BOTH 'soft' and 'hard' X-rays. Its very disturbing that the TSA has been misleading on this point. Here is the real catch: the softer the X-ray, the more its absorbed by the body, and the higher the biologically relevant dose! This means, that this radiation is potentially worse than an a higher energy medical chest X-ray."

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Is Obama A (Cargo Cult) Keynesian?

American Thinker: Cargo-Cult Keynesians: "When the war ended, so did the stream of American goods. But the islanders had a plan. Constructing fake airplanes on the abandoned landing strips, they entered the rickety control towers and spoke into objects similar in form to microphones in order to persuade the Gooney Birds to return with their largesse. It was a concrete example of the ancient magical formula that like begets like, and it worked the same as it ever does. For all I know, they're still waiting.

Fast-forward several steps in civilization to John Maynard Keynes. There exists a misunderstanding about Keynes and his economic theories. These comprise no formula for gross evil or the undermining of democracy. In fact, they are serious attempts to create something on the order of a unified field theory for the economic universe. As such, they are marked by serious flaws, the most critical originating in a profound misunderstanding of human nature. As an upper-class Englishman, Keynes had little grasp of the concept that human beings will use any excuse to act badly, even if it's an abstruse economic theory."

Which reminds me of this absolutely hilarious little ditty:

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Inscrutible

What to Make of China? Let Me Tell You a Little Story - Ricochet.com: "Having a cup of coffee here at Stanford a couple of years ago, I found myself approached by an amiable young Asian man who spoke English with a thick Chinese accent.  He explained that he was doing graduate work in Sino-American relations, then requested my permission to ask a personal question.  'Someone told me you were a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan.  Is that true?'  I allowed that it was.  'And that you wrote his 'tear down this wall speech.'  Is that true, too?'  Again, I said that it was.  'Oh,' he replied, grinning with delight, 'what an honor to meet someone who worked for that great man.  What an honor!'  He kept grinning, and he more or less bowed a couple of times. To change the subject--I can take flattery, but I draw the line at bowing--I asked what he intended to do when he completed his studies.  'Go back to Beijing' he replied. 'You see, I am a member of the foreign ministry.'

I know, I know. An anecdote is merely an anecdote, and there are plenty of aspects of the Communist regime--the one child policy, for example--that remain, simply, inhuman.  But an employee of foreign ministry, enthusing over Ronald Reagan.  That can't have been a bad sign, right?"

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Madison v O Duce (McNaughton Edition)

Have you read Federalist No. 10 lately? It is indeed a classic. And one they're deathly afraid you should ever learn about:

What Does Madison Teach Us About Wealth Redistribution? - Ricochet.com: "Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.

What an eloquent defense of private property and economic liberty and a rejection of communalism. Madison not only doesn’t apologize for differences in capacities among human beings, but celebrates them, going so far as to say that protecting these differences is the first object of government. Wow. Would such a statement not be countercultural on our college campuses, among other venues, today? Not only that, but he seems to connect the government’s protection of these “different and unequal faculties of acquiring property” to the inevitable consequence that men will possess “different degrees and kinds of property.” So he’s saying that differences in outcomes is not a necessary evil, but something to be desired and protected."

That, and America's first Socialist Republic:



Hence the value of this painting:

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Socialist Carbon Fraud

The leaders of the IPCC aren't even trying to hide it any more:

Power Line - Environmentalism A Fraud? Don't Take My Word For It: "That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.

Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet - and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 - there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.

De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy.

First of all, developed countries have basically expropriated the atmosphere of the world community. But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole."

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"Doing Something"

Instapundit » Blog Archive » HOW DOES THIS GRAB YOU? Jim Dunnigan on Airport Security. “The main criticism is that many of the …: "HOW DOES THIS GRAB YOU? Jim Dunnigan on Airport Security. “The main criticism is that many of the security measures adopted since September 11, 2001 have been more for show than for effectiveness. An increasing number of potential passengers are no longer flying because of these new methods, which have, so far, not caught a single terrorist. This is described as a sign of how effective the new measures are. But the new techniques would not have detected the ‘underwear bomber’ of last Christmas, who secreted explosives in his underwear. Moreover, there have been many cases where passengers got weapons past security, usually by accident. . . . Finally, as was demonstrated recently with two airfreight bombs coming out of Yemen, air freight in general is very vulnerable, especially since a lot of this freight ends up in the cargo holds of passenger aircraft. Thus for determined and well organized terrorists, there are more vulnerable areas to get a bomb onto an aircraft than via a passenger. These more vulnerable areas are given less attention partly because they are less visible, and thus provide less visibility for politicians seeking to demonstrate that they are ‘doing something’ about airline security.”"

Time for the "militia" instead.

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Stux

Instapundit » Blog Archive » MORE ON THE STUXNET WORM: Mystery Surrounds Cyber Missile That Crippled Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Ambi…: "MORE ON THE STUXNET WORM: Mystery Surrounds Cyber Missile That Crippled Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Ambitions. With a social-software component, too: “One additional impact that can be attributed to the worm, according to David Albright of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is that ‘the lives of the scientists working in the facility have become a living hell because of counter-intelligence agents brought into the plant’ to battle the breach.”"

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MULLA IOWAHAK MUHAMMADAVI AL-BURJIHAD

Heh:

iowahawk: White House in Talks With Elusive Taliban Leader: "REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

MY MOST DEAR AMERICANSKI INFIDELSKIS, 

FIRST BEFORE I PROVIDE THE DETAILS OF THIS MOST IMPORTANT BUSINESS TRANSACTION PERMIT ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF AND THE NATURE OF MY PREDICAMENT. MY NAME IS MULLAH IOWAHAK MUHAMMADAVI AL-BURJIHAD, TOP MODERATE OFFICIAL OF TALIBAN ARMY. DUE TO THE DEATH OF MY LATE UNCLE GENERAL COMMANDER CHUCK-O AL-BURJIHAD I HAVE BEEN DELEGATED AS A MATTER OF TRUST THE POSITION OF NUMERO UNO PEACE NEGOTIATOR FOR THE TALIBAN.  I AM IN SEEK OF OVERSEAS PARTNERS FOR MODERATE PEACE AND THE SUM $7.25 BILLION DOLLARS IN EXCHANGE. 

I AM NOW IN POSSESSION OF A FULLY VALID MODERATE TALIBAN PEACE AGREEMENT DOCUMENT WHICH I AM TRULY EAGER TO TRANSFER BY WIRE INTO YOUR ACCOUNT. I AM IN URGENT REQUEST FOR YOUR DIPLOMATIC TREATY ACCOUNT AND U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT BANK ROUTING INFORMATION.

YOURS FAITHFULLY,

MULLA IOWAHAK MUHAMMADAVI AL-BURJIHAD"

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Who The Hell?

Power Line - "Just who the hell do you think you are?": "We had the Greek tragedy earlier on this year, and now we have the situation in Ireland. I know that the stupidity and greed of Irish politicians has a lot to do with this: they should never, ever have joined the euro. They suffered with low interest rates, a false boom and a massive bust. But look at your response to them: what they are being told as their government is collapsing is that it would be inappropriate for them to have a general election. In fact [EU Economic and Monetary Affairs] Commissioner [Olli] Rehn here said they had to agree to a budget first before they are allowed to have a general election.

Just who the hell do you think you people are? You are very, very dangerous people indeed: your obsession with creating this European state means that you are happy to destroy democracy, you appear to be happy with millions and millions of people to be unemployed and to be poor."

WTWT:

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9/10s Of The Law

Ace of Spades HQ: "Is Your New Neighbor A Squatter? Now California law allows an individual to acquire title to a property if they've fenced it, openly occupied it without permission and paid property taxes continuously for five years under a provision called adverse possession. However, to qualify for adverse possession, one would have to show good faith and I don't think that's the issue here. Is this just the tip of the iceberg for all those sitting, foreclosed homes and what should be done about it?"

Does the Midwest Academy know what it's doing or what?

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She Didn't Have Enough Time To Do One For Joe Biden...

Heh:

A Thanksgiving Message to All 57 States | Facebook: "My fellow Americans in all 57 states, the time has changed for come. With our country founded more than 20 centuries ago, we have much to celebrate – from the FBI’s 100 days to the reforms that bring greater inefficiencies to our health care system. We know that countries like Europe are willing to stand with us in our fight to halt the rise of privacy, and Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. And let’s face it, everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma and they end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early, and they got some treatment, and ah, a breathalyzer, or an inhalator. I mean, not a breathalyzer, ah, I don’t know what the term is in Austrian for that…  "

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The Lost Lesson Of Thanksgiving

RTWT:

RealClearPolitics - A Lost Thanksgiving Lesson: "Had today's political class been in power in 1623, tomorrow's holiday would have been called 'Starvation Day' instead of Thanksgiving. Of course, most of us wouldn't be alive to celebrate it.

Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. But the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn't happen.

Long before the failure of modern socialism, the earliest European settlers gave us a dramatic demonstration of the fatal flaws of collectivism. Unfortunately, few Americans today know it.

The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony organized their farm economy along communal lines. The goal was to share the work and produce equally.

That's why they nearly all starved."

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End The Permanent Governing Political Class

Bobby Jindal: Make Congress part-time - Jennifer Epstein - POLITICO.com: "Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal wants members of Congress to stay home more often.

“We used to pay farmers not to grow crops, let's pay congressmen to stay out of Washington, D.C.,” Jindal said in an interview with Human Events. “Mark Twain said that our liberty, our wallets were safest when the legislature's not in session.”"

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Happy Thanksgiving To Ponzi Ben

The Beginning Of The Ponzi End: As Of Today, The Biggest Holder Of US Debt Is Ben Bernanke | zero hedge: "Well, folks, it's official - mark November 22, 2010 in your calendars - today is the day the Ponzi starts in earnest. With today's $8.3 billion POMO monetization, the Fed's official holdings of US Treasury securities now amount to $891.3 billion, which is higher than the second largest holder of US debt: China, which as of September 30 held $884 billion, and Japan, with $864 billion."

He now owns you. As if he didn't before.

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COTD: Schizophrenia

Althouse: Matt Bai identifies "the central theme of Mr. Obama’s presidency: America’s faltering confidence in the ability of government to make things work.": "I can't figure out the liberal philosophy. On the one hand, they voice an explicit distrust of the government and authority, yet on the other hand their policy solutions all require an intrusive, big government. It's not a philosophy; it's schizophrenia."

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More Waivering

This is a RTWT:

Government By Waiver: The Breakdown Of Public Administration - Richard Epstein - The Libertarian - Forbes: "The past year has marked the passage of the two most massive legislative reforms in the history of American politics: ObamaCare for health care and Dodd-Frank for the financial sector.  Their size and complexity dwarf those of any New Deal legislation.

These new laws require a stunning acceleration of the longstanding practice of relying on delegated authority to implement statutory commands.  According to its New Deal champions, this welcome division of authority could cure the manifold defects of a market economy by combining the best of democratic politics with the best of administrative expertise. Under the new division of labor, the political branches of government set the broad direction of legislative reform, and then trust skilled administrative agencies to turn general directives into specific commands.

The sheer magnitude of the new legislative ventures has thrown this model–which, in truth, has never worked well–into disarray."

Did you know that more than a million workers -- mostly unionized -- have already been issued waivers to opt out of Obamacare? What, that wasn't the lead story on MSLSD tonight?

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O My G*d, Just Do Whatever!

Obama Outlines Moral, Philosophical Justifications For Turkey Pardon | The Onion - America's Finest News Source | Onion News Network: "President Obama announces plans to deliver a two-hour speech explaining his reasons for granting clemency to Cranberry, the Thanksgiving turkey."

Obama Outlines Moral, Philosophical Justifications For Turkey Pardon

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Looters

Moonbattery: The Free Lunch Myth: "Ask not who the taxman is looting. If you produce any wealth, he's looting you."

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Awww ... lwrighty Then!

Sources: Iran nuke enrichment sees setback - World news - Mideast/N. Africa - Iran - msnbc.com: "VIENNA — Iran's nuclear program has suffered a recent setback, with major technical problems forcing the temporary shutdown of thousands of centrifuges enriching uranium, diplomats told The Associated Press on Monday.
The diplomats said they had no specifics on the nature of the problem that in recent months led Iranian experts to briefly power down the machines they use for enrichment — a nuclear technology that has both civilian and military uses.

But suspicions focused on the Stuxnet worm, the computer virus thought to be aimed at Iran's nuclear program, which experts last week identified as being calibrated to destroy centrifuges by sending them spinning out of control."

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Sucker's Play ... er ... Pay

TaxProf Blog: WSJ: A Sucker's Play -- Each $1 in Higher Taxes Results in $1.17 of New Spending: "In the late 1980s, one of us, Richard Vedder, and Lowell Gallaway of Ohio University co-authored a often-cited research paper for the congressional Joint Economic Committee (known as the $1.58 study) that found that every new dollar of new taxes led to more than one dollar of new spending by Congress. Subsequent revisions of the study over the next decade found similar results.
We've updated the research. Using standard statistical analyses that introduce variables to control for business-cycle fluctuations, wars and inflation, we found that over the entire post World War II era through 2009 each dollar of new tax revenue was associated with $1.17 of new spending. Politicians spend the money as fast as it comes in—and a little bit more. ..."

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Your Testicles, Please

Instapundit » Blog Archive » BOBBY JINDAL ON THE TSA: Feds Shouldn’t Care More About Terrorists’ Rights Than About Ours. “Louis…: "Remember how not long ago the President was so upset about the possibility of people being stopped and asked for “their papers” while going to get ice cream? It was the height of living in a police state. Yet we’ve not heard a peep out of him while TSA goons grope the general public (including nuns and little kids) on the way to grandma’s house.

If we are expected to put up with this, asking to see “your papers” suddenly seems a less onerous request.

“Your papers, please” is disturbing, but “your testicles, please” is worse. . . . ."

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Three Points

Ooof:

George F. Will - The T.S. of A takes control: "The average American has regular contact with the federal government at three points - the IRS, the post office and the TSA. Start with that fact if you are formulating a unified field theory to explain the public's current political mood."

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Norman Thomas Is Beaming

Moonbattery: Communist To-Do List: "The following list of communist goals appeared in the Congressional Record for January 10, 1963. It was taken from Cleon Skousen's 1958 book The Naked Communist. Let's check on communists' progress toward their ultimate objective of enslaving the entire human race:

[REAGAN MESSED THIS UP] 1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
[REAGAN MESSED THIS UP] 2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
[REAGAN MESSED THIS UP] 3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
[CHECK] 4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
[CHECK] 6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
[CHECK] 7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
[CHECK] 8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
[CHECK] 9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
[TRIED] 10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

[CHECK] 11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
[CHECK] 12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
[CHECK] 13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
[CHECK] 14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
[CHECK] 15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
[CHECK] 16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
[CHECK] 17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
[CHECK] 18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
[CHECK] 19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
[CHECK] 20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.
[CHECK] 21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
[CHECK] 22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
[CHECK] 23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
[CHECK] 24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
[CHECK] 25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
[CHECK] 26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
[CHECK] 27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a "religious crutch."
[CHECK] 28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
[CHECK] 29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
[CHECK] 30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
[CHECK] 31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
[CHECK] 32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture — education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
[CHECK] 33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
[CHECK] 34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
[CHECK] 36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
[CHECK] 37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
[CLOSE ENOUGH] 38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
[TRYING] 39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
[CHECK] 40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
[TRYING] 41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
[IN PROGRESS] 42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.
[CHECK] 43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
[CLOSE ENOUGH] 44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
[TRYING] 45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

Any of these goals that liberals haven't already accomplished, they are working on as busily as termites. The supposed fall of communism when the Soviet Union imploded doesn't seem to have set them back very far."

Norman Thomas? You mean the one who said "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."

Yes, that Norman Thomas.

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COTD: An Armed Society Is A Polite (And Sane) Society

Armed and Dangerous » Blog Archive » I join the not-flying list: ">At what point will the public say enough is enough?

I think that’s happening now.

In a backhanded way, I’m actually glad we’ve reached this point. Because the logic of hoplophobia has a kind of fragility to it; once anyone questions the most absurd manifestations, they tend to find that the same questions apply to more “reasonable” restrictions as well. We may have reached the point, after the Heller ruling, where sick-think is being destroyed by its own contradictions.

To wit: if you can’t keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists, criminals, and psychotics even with unacceptably extreme intrusions on liberty and personal dignity, why try to keep anyone from carrying?"

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Gravitas

Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: How's That Gravitas Workin' For Ya?: "Remember, when you hear about how important it is that the next Republican nominee for President have 'gravitas,' the following have been designed by people with gravitas:

* The TSA's scanning and groping system.
* Obamacare.
* Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the mortgage bubble.
* Our tax code.
* Our federal and state budget deficits.
* Our immigration system.
* (feel free to add more in the comments)

We need gravitas, because gravitas has worked so well so far."

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I Never Saw Anything Like That Before

Heh.

Moonbattery: Found: A Republican Politician With a Spine: "Chris Christie describes how he dealt with an insincere apology from the head of a teachers union after the top bureauweenie in the Bergen County Education Association sent around an email praying for Christie's death:"

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Scratched Out

You always knew it looked like this in the White House, didn't you?

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Comply With Me

Moonbattery: Comply With Me: "Iowahawk has a new song suitable for playing over the intercom at airports:"

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Profiling Whitey

RTWT:

How Israelis secure airports--Michael J. Totten - NYPOST.com: "And Israeli officials profile. They don't profile racially, but they profile. Israeli Arabs breeze through rather quickly, but thanks to the dozens of dubious-looking stamps in my passport -- almost half are from Lebanon and Iraq -- I get pulled off to the side for more questioning every time. And I'm a white, nominally Christian American.

If they pull you aside, you had better tell them the truth. They'll ask you so many wildly unpredictable questions so quickly, you couldn't possibly invent a fake story and keep it all straight. Don't even try. They're highly trained and experienced, and they catch everyone who tries to pull something over on them."

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If Sarah Palin Is So Dumb ...

... then how is it that she's at least a couple dozen orders of magnitude smarter than our "smart" neo-communista "leaders":

'Refudiation' of $600 Billion Printed Out of Thin Air - WSJ.com: "Here are some cold, hard facts from the real world: The first is the 8.7% 2012 unemployment rate predicted by the Survey of Professional Forecasters of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. It seems the Obama administration's record spending binge won't result in job creation, but in unacceptably high long-term unemployment. The second fact is that long-term interest rates have actually gone up following the Fed's recent QE2 announcement. The markets took one look at the Fed's pump-priming plans and decided they had to increase interest rates—probably in order to compensate for the expected rise in inflation.

None of this should come as a surprise. Blinders off, common sense engaged, it's time for us to 'refudiate' the notion that this dangerous experiment in printing $600 billion out of thin air, with nothing to back it up, will magically fix economic problems that were caused in large part by the government's interfering with our free market system in the first place, and then made worse by the government's reckless spending experiments with our children's fiscal future."

Refudiation is sweet.

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COTD: Inside Evil With Ronald

I'm betting you missed this one:

Belmont Club » The Last 20 Minutes: "To me, Ronald Reagans’s greatest moment came in August, 1991, when the Communist coup collapsed in Moscow. On CBS’ 24 Hours show, they had live, from Moscow, the Foreign Minister of the Federal republic of Russia, and they eagerly pressed him on what would happen next.

He replied “First I have to say something. We in Russia have been told all our lives that the Western Democracies were our enemies. We know now that they are our best friends. The Soviet Union was not a union; it was an evil empire.”

To hear Ronald Reagan’s most ridiculed words come from one of the highest officials in Russia, right after breaking the back of the Soviet system, really said it all.

The CBS news crew just giggled."

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Stopped Clock Watch At The NYeT

JustOneMinute: Oil And Gas - Not About To Pass The Baton: "Today's Times has a special section on energy.  It includes an article on oil and natural gas which utterly confounds the conventional wisdom of the left (as exemplified by Obama's campaign speech on energy in 2008).

Some snippets:

Just as it seemed that the world was running on fumes, giant oil fields were discovered off the coasts of Brazil and Africa, and Canadian oil sands projects expanded so fast, they now provide North America with more oil than Saudi Arabia. In addition, the United States has increased domestic oil production for the first time in a generation.

Meanwhile, another wave of natural gas drilling has taken off in shale rock fields across the United States, and more shale gas drilling is just beginning in Europe and Asia. Add to that an increase in liquefied natural gas export terminals around the world that connected gas, which once had to be flared off, to the world market, and gas prices have plummeted.

Energy experts now predict decades of residential and commercial power at reasonable prices. Simply put, the world of energy has once again been turned upside down."

Talk about wandering off the reservation. LOL!

And check out this energy production and consumption graphic in case you want to know what the world of U.S. energy usage really looks like.

You eat oil. Literally.

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The Ben Bernank

Drop Everything And Watch This! ROFL!

Just wow...

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They Told Me (Part 78,941)

Or was that 78,942? I lose count:

Instapundit » Blog Archive » FROM A READER: “They told me if I voted for John McCain detainees would be held indefinitely at Gua…: "FROM A READER: “They told me if I voted for John McCain detainees would be held indefinitely at Guantanamo without trial, and they were right!” “Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, will probably remain in military detention without trial for the foreseeable future, according to Obama administration officials. The administration has concluded that it cannot put Mohammed on trial in federal court because of the opposition of lawmakers in Congress and in New York. There is also little internal support for resurrecting a military prosecution at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The latter option would alienate liberal supporters.”

Ah, remember the fierce moral urgency of change? And the obvious illegality and ineptitude of the Bush Administration’s approach? Why, all we needed was to put some really smart people in charge and all the problems would magically disappear! Apparently, the people we elected aren’t that smart. . . ."

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The 2.2% Solution

And speaking O healthcare failure:

HHS falls short of pre-existing coverage prediction by … 97.8% « Hot Air: "255 million: The number of Americans with existing health insurance coverage.

20 million: The number of Americans without any health coverage at all due to economic circumstances.

375,000: The number of Americans with pre-existing conditions HHS said would apply for coverage in the first year of ObamaCare, one of the main political arguments for its implementation.

8,011: The number that actually did."

Including one in North Dakota! A massive ... umm ... epic fail.

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Healthy Waivering

Passed on without comment, he drily noted:

Health Care Reform Group Gets Waiver from… Health Care Reform? « Hot Air: "But in one of the truly delicious bits of irony discovered while browsing the list of those seeking asylum from the health care overhaul, I discovered the name of New England Health Care. No, it’s not an insurance company. It’s a policy institute. Let’s dig into their mission statement a bit and see what they’re all about, shall we?

Founded in 2002, the New England Healthcare Institute – known as NEHI – is a nonprofit, independent health policy institute dedicated to transforming health care for the benefit of patients and their families.

So an institute dedicated to finding ways to reform the health care system had to apply for an exemption from the administration’s reforms to the health care system? Keep your eyes on the news next week, as I’m fairly sure that the heads of some immigration reform lobbying groups will be deported."

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psychO-In-Chief

Buy this and this to understand:

Moonbattery: Obama's Devotion to Trinity United Explained: "Why did Barack Hussein Obama attend Jeremiah Wright's depraved church of race hatred for so long? Robin of Berkeley has a possible psychological explanation — to purge himself of whiteness:

For his adult mentor, Obama picked Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Then Pastor of the Trinity United Church of Christ, Wright is a fan of Black Liberation Theology. BLT teaches that blacks are God's Chosen People, with whites inferior and wicked. Its founder, James Cone, has described the goals of BLT this way:

'…complete emancipation of black people from white oppression by whatever means black people deem necessary… Theologically, Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man 'the devil.''

By choosing this church over all others, Obama made a pivotal life decision. For seventeen years, Obama sat in the pews of Trinity consuming the vitriol of racial hate. In one sermon after another, Rev. Jeremiah Wright invoked the specters of slavery and Jim Crow, resurrecting a war that, for him, had never ended.

In his autobiography, Obama lets slip a fascination with something that the biracial Malcolm X once said. Malcolm was so repulsed by his white ancestry that he daydreamed about draining the white blood from his body.

One must wonder: by Obama's choosing Trinity, a church where his own mother wouldn't have been welcome, was he trying to exorcise the evil white spirit in him? And by joining that church, did he finally leave his repugnant white side behind at Trinity's door?"

Scary stuff. But you can go back to American Idol now ... and soon thereafter wake up in chains.

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The Depth O The Fall

Pantywaist gets his wish:

“Somewhere Men are Laughing”* (The Mighty Obama Has Struck Out): "This is pathetic. No treaty with South Korea. Scoldings about QE2. Little support for his China policy. The final G20 document is meaningless fluff.

This trip should end any doubt that Obama is no longer the international darling. Once there were cheering throngs. Now, failure and embarrassment. This exchange symbolizes the depth of the fall.

Obama and the Chinese Reporter

.

Surprise!, it’s China and China will speak whether the American President likes it or not."

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Still The (Socialist) One

Read Kurtz' book...

Power Line - Is Barack Obama a socialist? Part One: "Third, when Obama went into electoral politics as a candidate for the Illinois state Senate, he did so as the hand-picked successor to the aforementioned Alice Palmer, an avowed socialist. (Palmer, however, decided to fight Obama for the seat after she lost a special election for Congress; Obama kept her off the ballot by successfully challenging her petition signatures). Palmer is the author of such articles as 'Socialism Is the Only Way Forward.' And she attended the Twenty-seventh Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1986.

Palmer picked Obama to succeed her after lengthy conversations with him. Moreover, Palmer, like Obama's other socialist supporters, was well aware of Obama's record as an activist (including the aspects of it described above) and of his political convictions. As Kurtz argues, it's difficult to believe that these savvy socialists would have trusted Obama with their seat in the Illinois Senate unless they were convinced, as Madeline Talbot said she was, that he was one of them.

Obama, then, was a socialist when he left college. As of 1996, there is no good indication that he had abandoned socialism. To the contrary, the best evidence is that he was still a socialist at that time."

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Booosh's Fault?

Umm, in a word ... no:

Power Line - Federal government zealously protects its power to fiddle while the country burns: "We've noted in prior posts that the federal government appears to have ignored clear warning signals during the past few years that banks were not following proper foreclosure procedures. By doing so, the feds helped contribute to the current mess, including the widespread freezing of foreclosures which threatens to undermine the housing market.

Now comes word, via the Washington Post, that the feds affirmatively interfered with state regulators who were trying to deal with the situation. State bank regulators, it seems, suspected irregularities and thus asked the biggest national banks for details about their foreclosure operations. When two banks -- J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo -- declined to cooperate, the state officials asked the banks' federal regulator for help, a letter shows."

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Lewis Again: Dear Curt

Another letter from Hal Lewis to the American Physical Society | Watts Up With That?: "Dear Curt:

When on October 6 I sent you my letter of resignation from APS , I of course expected the Empire to strike back in one way or another. It pleased me however, when I read your response, to find a very minimum of ad hominem attacks, confined mostly to apparently irresistible eruptions of “Lewis is a liar.” (“His statements are all false” is the equivalent.) So I thank you for that courtesy.

What took me by surprise was the pusillanimous, almost puerile, tone of the comment, which reads more like an ad for a used-car lot than as a declaration of a great scientific society. All our products have passed a complete inspection by our factory-trained mechanics. We’re making no money on this, take it and be thankful. Etc. Not a single major issue confronted in any substantive way. Yet everyone knows about the sloppy handling of the 2007 statement; everyone knows about the financial investments of many of the major players; there is plenty of dirt in the public domain, yet you continue to pretend it is all in a different universe.

Curt, you cannot have written such a shabby document."

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Clear O'nuff

Narcissism. But you already knew that:

Power Line - Egotism trumps pragmatism at the Obama White House: "Multiple Democratic sources familiar with Sink's campaign said administration officials were more concerned about the candidate's effort to separate herself from the White House than with helping her win. She needed some distance and the smart thing to do was allow her to have that distance,' said a Democratic operative familiar with the race. 'That would have served their long-term interest.'
But when the candidate criticized the White House response to the oil spill and specifically a summer speech by Vice President Joe Biden in a Politico article, an angry administration official called her to demand she 'walk back' her assessment, said two sources familiar with the situation. Sink didn't deny the exchange.

It seems clear enough that this administration's egotism trumps its alleged pragmatism."

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Unrelated News

Why I call him "Ogabe", part 39261:

The Road to Harare - By Kevin D. Williamson - Exchequer - National Review Online: "With the Federal Reserve set to print $600 billion in order to buy Treasury securities, it is essentially funding the $1.2 trillion deficit for the next six months, according to Ed Yardeni, President of Yardeni Research. It’s even more if you count the reinvestment of proceeds from its mortgage-backed securities portfolio.

“You essentially have the world’s largest hedge fund down the street from the world’s largest prime brokerage,” said Yardeni, who has held positions at both the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury. “I think that QE-2.0 is a very bad idea because it increases the odds of a trifecta of bubbles in stocks, bonds, and commodities.”

Bubbles are what you have when you forgo real productive investments. Here’s some totally, completely unrelated news:

Dollar dives:

The dollar fell against its higher- yielding peers after the Federal Reserve said it will buy an additional $600 billion of Treasuries to boost the U.S. economy."

And yes, Bush was barely any better. Ugghh.

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Hayek vs. Keynes: The Sequel

I don't know how to recommend this highly enough. I implore you to spend the 10 minutes.

Then go here and expand your horizons to a 2 page summary of "The Road To Serfdom" written by Hayek himself. Surely you can survive that?

And did you know that a Reader's Digest version of it exists as well. Can that be too much to ask of you?

But Reader's Digest is gone isn't it?

And only "txt u l8tr" remains.

Sorry. Has my contempt for Gramsci become noticeable at last?

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O Gandhi's "Footsteps"

Moonbattery: Kilometer-Long Air-Conditioned Tunnel to Be Constructed for Obama's Drive to the Gandhi Museum: "The tunnel would be a kilometre long and measure 12ft by 12ft — enough to let Obama's cavalcade pass through. The tunnel would be centrally air-conditioned, fitted with close-circuit television cameras, and will be heavily guarded at every point, including, of course, its entry and exit.
The insolent extravagance of America's worst president will be remembered for centuries.

The reason such an outlandish pageant is being made of Comrade Obama paying homage to Gandhi is the role the latter played in bringing down the British Empire. This is a big deal to the anti-neo-colonialist Manchurian Moonbat, who apparently sees himself as following in Gandhi's footsteps by bringing down America."

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West Is The Best

O Duce's worst nightmare: "If you want to pick a fight with a U.S. Army paratrooper, bring it on!:"

I'm going to sleep like a baby tonight knowing this man has been elected.

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Out Of The Ditch ... And Over The Cliff

Ramirez on the ditch analogy - Hot Air: "Barack Obama has a certain fondness for the analogy of the car in a ditch, which apparently comes with lots of optional accessories, like Slurpees, lattes, and so on. Michael Ramirez decides to take a test drive with a car analogy of his own, and the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for Investors Business Daily discovers that it’s a clunker after all:"

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Short And Sweet

Get out and vote tomorrow today if you haven't already done so. I have already early voted of course ;)

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