Farting In A Thunderstorm

Hot Air - The stupidity of politics: Green fables, jobs, and the incandescent bulb: "7. “Immense” is a relative characterization. 45 million is a big number, and is especially impressive when it’s written out with a lot of zeros: 45,000,000. 90 billon – or 90,000,000,000 – is even more impressive; but of course, it describes the same weight as 45 million if you change the unit of measurement. Immense, however, in this case means “fart in a thunderstorm.” Double the 45 million to 90 million, to include emission savings for industry and public installations, and you have a slightly bigger fart in a thunderstorm.

So, for the sake of a fart in a thunderstorm, the bulb-makers of Winchester, Virginia are this month joining the other Americans who have lost their bulb-making jobs. The free market never produces this kind of result. It takes politics to do this to people. The lesson in politics is beautifully simple: take a questionable premise; steep it in demagoguery and make unthinking adherence to it a litmus test; assert it repeatedly – preferably using impressive but unparsable adjectives – as established fact; and then, when you’ve killed people’s jobs by acting urgently on your unexamined premise, send Washington Post reporters to write a solicitous puff piece on how sad and ironic it is for them."

And here is the correct graphic in response:

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Monster For Tea

Roger L. Simon � Holocaust Denial: George Soros vs. the Tea Parties:

"How does Soros feel about what he did as a teenager? Has it kept him up at night?

Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes asked him that. Was it difficult? “Not at all,” Soros answered.

“No feeling of guilt?” asked Kroft. “No,” said Soros. “There was no sense that I shouldn’t be there. If I wasn’t doing it, somebody else would be taking it away anyhow. Whether I was there or not. So I had no sense of guilt.”

Somebody else would have done it. Sound familiar? It’s just the kind of excuse you might use when devaluing the British pound. A psychoanalyst might call it “splitting,” taking a part of your personality and splitting it off, as if there were two disconnected parts of you — the monster and the good citizen. The good citizen provides a mask, a disguise for the monster to do his work.

Am I calling Soros a disturbed person? In probability, yes. A man with two sides who is all the more dangerous for having both.

Starting in the 1980s, the good side went to work using his immense funds to help Eastern European countries transition out of the Soviet Union. This culminated in the 1990s with the establishment of the Open Society Institute.

But here in the United States, the same young man who collaborated with the Nazis has trouble as a grown man making moral distinctions or choosing sensible allies. He funded MoveOn.org, whose astonishing conflation of Bush and Hitler was both morally shameful and psychologically sick. (What an insult that was to the memory of the Holocaust.)

Now — and this is the proximate cause of my wanting to write about him in the first place — Soros is going after the tea party movement. "

And in a nutshell:

So now we have a former (allegedly guilt-free) collaborator with Hitler helping fund an attack on the tea parties. An ex-Ku Kluxer in the Senate was bad enough, but this is crazy, if you take even three baby steps backward to think about it.

Unbelievable.

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Have You Been Brainwashed?

Moonbattery: David Barton's US Capitol Tour: "A little history lesson for moonbats who have convinced themselves that the Founding Fathers shared their hostility to Christianity:"

Yep.

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Bye Bye Betsy

And in some good local news:

DEMOCRATS PLAN POLITICAL TRIAGE TO RETAIN HOUSE - Inside Bay Area: "WASHINGTON -- As Democrats brace for a November wave that threatens their control of the House, party leaders are preparing a brutal triage of their own members in hopes of saving enough seats to keep a slim grip on the majority.
In the next two weeks, Democratic leaders will review new polls and other data that show whether vulnerable incumbents have a path to victory. If not, the party is poised to redirect money to concentrate on trying to protect up to two dozen lawmakers who appear to be in the strongest position to fend off their challengers.
'We are going to have to win these races one by one,' said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, conceding that the party would ultimately cut loose members who had not gained ground.
With the midterm campaign entering its final two months, Democrats acknowledged that several races could quickly move out of their reach, including re-election bids by Reps. Betsy Markey of Colorado, Tom Perriello of Virginia, Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio and Frank Kratovil Jr. of Maryland, whose districts were among the 55 Democrats won from Republicans in the last two election cycles."

Good riddance.

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The (Now Airbrushed Away) Surge Is What Happened

Pajamas Media � Majority of Iraqis Oppose Obama’s Withdrawal: "According to the latest CBS poll, nearly 70 percent of Americans approve of President Obama’s decision to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq. In a remarkable turnaround, the Iraqis are the bigger opponents of the president’s plan. Iraqis want American soldiers to stay in their country more than Americans do.

A new poll by an Iraqi company found that nearly 60 percent feel it is the wrong time for U.S. soldiers to leave and 53 percent oppose President Obama’s ending of the combat mission. A little more than half believe the withdrawal will hurt the country and only one-fourth view the development positively. And in a statistic that is sure to bother those that boast of Obama’s worldwide popularity, nearly 42 percent feel the president does not care about the situation in Iraq.

Back in September 2006, the year when Iraq nearly fell to civil war, 71 percent of Iraqis wanted U.S. forces to leave their country in a year or less. There was a widespread perception that U.S. soldiers were the ones responsible for their misery. Most disturbingly, 61 percent of Iraqis felt attacks on U.S. soldiers were legitimate, a 14 percent increase from the beginning of 2006. But by March 2008, only 38 percent wanted U.S. forces to leave immediately and a majority wanted them to stay until the country was secured.

What happened? The surge is what happened."

Oh. And in other news he actually told our troops that our country is safer because of what they did in Iraq. Of course, he couldn't do that in the moonbat media so he thought he could sneak it by on YouTube. Needless to say the lefty loons found out and are going apesh*t about that. So in a rare "stopped clock" moment, I hereby present our moonbat president actually saying the right thing:

Of course, that doesn't mean he's not lying in terms of what he really thinks. He's just lying directly to the troops. So now you know.

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Can We Talk?

iowahawk: Barack, Can We Talk?: "Barack, can we, uh, talk for a few minutes?

Oh, nothing. It's just that it just seems we haven't had a chance to talk for a while. I mean, I know we've both been busy for the past year or so. You with your fundraisers and golfing and stuff, and me with all those appointments at the unemployment office. But you know I think it's important in a relationship like ours to keep the lines of communication open.

So anyway, I've been think that... look, this is really hard. God. Do you remember when we met at that big party in Denver back in 08? I mean when I saw you across that crowded convention floor, it was like, Oh My God. I don't think I ever saw anything like you before. I was on the rebound from a bad relationship and you were so tall and articulate and, well hot. And then I couldn't believe that of all the democracies in the room you picked me out!

Yeah I know my some of my friends warned me you were trouble, and that it was the alcohol talking. But I knew that if we gave it a chance we could make it work. You and me, together. And after you moved in, I really think we did for a while. I mean, you've really helped me get over my inhibitions and hangups, and I like to think I've really helped you grow and discover yourself. Like last year when I lent you $800 billion to pay for your demo tape and new rims for the Cadillac."

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Resurrecting Federalism

Ezra Klein’s rather silly defense of the 17th Amendment (updates) | Questions and Observations: "'But it was not sufficient,' say the adversaries of the proposed Constitution, 'for the convention to adhere to the republican form. They ought, with equal care, to have preserved the FEDERAL form, which regards the Union as a CONFEDERACY of sovereign states; instead of which, they have framed a NATIONAL government, which regards the Union as a CONSOLIDATION of the States.'

So there, in the hand of the man who drafted the Constitution, are the working definitions of the two terms as they understood them. Note how the FEDERAL form is defined. As you read through the rest of Federalist 39, you’ll find Madison discussing both the NATIONAL model and the FEDERAL model and pointing out some of both are necessary. They had a purely FEDERAL form under the Articles of Confederation. It didn’t work well. They knew that had to put some national powers into the hands of the new government, but they feared such a type of government, so they wanted to limit the scope of that power. He specifically addresses the Congress and how it was purposely designed to limit the power of a national government while importantly preserving some federalism"

And yes, the 17th Amendment needs to be repealed -- probably even more than the 18th needed to be. And don't get me started on the 16th...

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Gross

The Truth about That Dishonest Vanity Fair Palin Story, from One Who Was There - Big Journalism: "One more thing among your errors: “the boy” in the excerpted quote above, was not Trig Palin. That was my Samuel, also a beautiful boy with Down syndrome.� No “nanny whisk(ed) the boy away.” I am his mother. I took my son, Samuel from Sarah before she went on stage. I told Mr. Gross that fact, but he didn’t let that divert him from his pathetic narrative.
That is not journalism. That is just gross."

Yep. Gross. A name that pretty much sums up the whole mound of jiggling slime that call themselves our betters.

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Thorium: The New Plastic

Development of Tiny Thorium Reactors Could Wean the World Off Oil In Just Five Years | Popular Science: "An abundant metal with vast energy potential could quickly wean the world off oil, if only Western political leaders would muster the will to do it, a UK newspaper says today. The Telegraph makes the case for thorium reactors as the key to a fossil-fuel-free world within five years, and puts the ball firmly in President Barack Obama's court.
Thorium, named for the Norse god of thunder, is much more abundant than uranium and has 200 times that metal's energy potential. Thorium is also a more efficient fuel source -- unlike natural uranium, which must be highly refined before it can be used in nuclear reactors, all thorium is potentially usable as fuel.
The Telegraph says thorium could be used as an energy amplifier in next-generation nuclear power plants, an idea conceived by Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia, former director of CERN."

Yes, that's right - a "nutjob" like the former director of CERN. LOL! And it's a by-product of rare-earth metals mining. But it won't happen until after the collapse and we put all the politicians in jail of course. They won't allow it until then.

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WrongO

Jamie Stiehm - Oval Office rug gets history wrong: "Yet somehow a mistake was made and magnified in our culture to the point that a New England antebellum abolitionist's words have been enshrined in the Oval Office while attributed to a major 20th-century figure. That is a shame, because the slain civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate [MLK -ed] was so eloquent in his own right. Obama, who is known for his rhetorical skills, is likely to feel the slight to King -- and Parker.

My investigation into this error led me to David Remnick's biography of Obama, 'The Bridge,' published this year. Early in the narrative, Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, presents this as 'Barack Obama's favorite quotation.' It appears that neither Remnick nor Obama has traced the language to its true source.

Parker said in 1853: 'I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.'"

Obama's fact checking machine seems to be down. Actually, it would more likely seem that it's never been up wouldn't it? [Cross posted from WTF]

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Bankrupted Breadbaskets

From the Pen of David Horowitz: September 04, 2010 | NewsReal Blog: "How many poor people have progressives starved since 1917? It’s a good question and somebody should do the research and publish it. Russia was the breadbasket of Europe until progressives seized power in that year and started instituting policies to “share the wealth.” For the next 70 years until socialism collapsed, Russia was a net importer of food always on the brink of famine. In the 1930s, Stalin instigated a calculated famine in the Ukraine to rid himself of approximately 10 million political enemies.

His crime was protected by the progressives at the New York Times and on the Pulitzer Prize Committee (they control both institutions to this day). Because soft progressives cover for hard-line progressives like Stalin, Castro and other political monsters — preferring to demonize George Bush and John Ashcroft instead — these atrocities continue.

The left’s inability to understand the most basic economic fact — that people need an incentive to produce — has caused the unnecessary deaths of tens of millions of people — mostly poor — in the last 75 years. But thanks to a politically corrupted media and educational system, their pig-headed pursuit of socialist fantasies goes on."

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A Fitting Metaphor: Shakedown Stripped

Payne: The irony of Jesse Jackson's stripped SUV | themichiganview.com | The Michigan View: "Following the embarrassing news that Mayor Dave Bing’s GMC Yukon was hijacked by criminals this week, Detroit’s Channel 7 reports that the Reverend’s Caddy Escalade SUV was stolen and stripped of its wheels while he was in town last weekend with the UAW’s militant President Bob King leading the “Jobs, Justice, and Peace” march promoting government-funded green jobs.
Read that again: Jackson’s Caddy SUV was stripped while he was in town promoting green jobs.

Add Jesse to the Al Gore-Tom Friedman-Barack Obama School of Environmental Hypocrisy. While preaching to Americans that they need to cram their families into hybrid Priuses to go shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs to save the planet, they themselves continue to live large."

And then the writer drops the hammer:

Real jobs produced big, profitable SUVs like the one Jesse prefers to ride in. His SUV has been stripped by thugs – a fitting metaphor for what Jesse and his pals have done to the auto industry for the last 35 years.

Perfect.

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Yep

Instapundit - Blog Archive - DER SPIEGEL: Obama’s Misguided Approach: America Has Become Too European. “The nation would be be…: "DER SPIEGEL: Obama’s Misguided Approach: America Has Become Too European. “The nation would be better off embracing traditional American values like self-reliance and small government.” Yep. That’s what they’re writing in Der Spiegel."

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Something Bad Might Happen

Moonbattery: Swing Sets Banned to Ward Off Lawyer Swarms: "Swings are being removed from Cabell County schools in southern West Virginia in part because of lawsuits over injuries.
Cabell County schools safety manager Tim Stewart said Wednesday that a lot of parents are accusing him of being un-American, but he says the cost of maintaining a safe surface is too expensive.
Stewart says a lawsuit in the past year involved a youngster who broke his arm jumping off a swing like Superman. It was settled for $20,000.

Appallingly, Sean Hannity took to the airwaves yesterday proclaiming that banning swing sets is good because children might hurt themselves. Next will be bicycles, then skateboards, then roller skates, et cetera, ad nauseam, until shoes are banned because if children wear them, they'll be tempted to go outside, where something bad might happen."

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The Real Gun Nuts

Gun politics in Switzerland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Recreational shooting is widespread in Switzerland. Practice with guns is a popular recreation, and is encouraged by the government, particularly for the members of the militia.[11] Swiss firearms-related rights are supported by the organization ProTell.
200,000 people attend the annual Feldschiessen weekend, which is the largest rifle shooting competition in the world.[3][12] Hunting rifles have special exemptions under Swiss law. Purchases from dealers of hunting long guns and of small bore rifles are not even recorded by the dealer. In other words, the dealer would not record the sale of a .30-06 hunting rifle, but would record the sale of a .30-06 M1 Garand rifle.[3] According to chapter 2 article 10 of Swiss law, people over the age of 18 do not need a permit to purchase a rifle for use in hunting, off-duty shooting and sport-shooting events.[10]
In addition, there are several private shooting ranges that rent guns. It is possible to go shooting with minimal supervision and without an id-check."

And so violent too. Did I forget to mention that the gun related death rate per capita in Switzerland is somewhere between 1-10% that of the the United States depending on how you count? In fact the rate is so low that statistics are not even kept. And with a gun ownership rate comparable to or higher than the U.S.?

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And A Good Sweeping After That

Instapundit - Blog Archive - UNEMPLOYMENT: “The jobs lost in the 2000-2001 recession don’t seem to have ever come back. The pe…: "“The USA is increasingly not a good place to do business. We need a stiff broom. I worry that the GOP won’t do what it takes.” So do I. I was on Hugh Hewitt’s show last night, and he said that when he talks to Beltway GOP insiders he’s amazed at how out of touch they are. They’re not even sure about passing a ban on earmarks if they take the majority, much less more significant change. If they get the majority back, and blow it, they’ll be looking at a third-party challenge in 2012, and not just at the Presidential level."

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And About To Throw Out Some More Trash ...

Instapundit - Blog Archive - REVOLT OF THE BOURGEOIS: The much-analyzed speeches at the Glenn Beck Lincoln Memorial rally wer…: "REVOLT OF THE BOURGEOIS:

The much-analyzed speeches at the Glenn Beck Lincoln Memorial rally weren’t as notable as what the estimated 300,000 attendees did: follow instructions, listen quietly to hours of speeches, and throw out their trash.

Just as stunning as the tableaux of the massive throngs lining the reflecting pool were the images of the spotless grounds afterward. If someone had told attendees they were expected to mow the grass before they left, surely some of them would have hitched flatbed trailers to their vehicles for the trip to Washington and gladly brought mowers along with them."

... from DC that is...

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Did I Forget To Mention The Unexpected?

Althouse: Christina Romer, mystified.: "Saying her good-byes.
When she and her colleagues [on the Council of Economic Advisers] began work, she acknowledged, they did not realize 'how quickly and strongly the financial crisis would affect the economy.' They 'failed to anticipate just how violent the recession would be.'

Even now, Romer said, mystery persists. 'To this day, economists don't fully understand why firms cut production as much as they did or why they cut labor so much more than they normally would.' Her defense was that 'almost all analysts were surprised by the violent reaction.'

Yes, we've noticed that every damned thing that happens is declared 'unexpected.'"

RTWT. I'm betting it wasn't unexpected to you though...

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O Longing For Fidel's Gulag

Instapundit � Blog Archive � DAVE KOPEL: Obama Is Too A Christian. “Coulter is accurate in calling Jeremiah Wright ‘a racist nu…: "DAVE KOPEL: Obama Is Too A Christian. “Coulter is accurate in calling Jeremiah Wright ‘a racist nut.’ However, that does not prove that Wright (and by extension Obama, to whatever extent Obama believes in Wright’s theology) is not a Christian. Some practitioners of ‘liberation theology’ (including the black liberation theology variant) may simply be Marxists looking for some broadly-appealing rhetoric to add to their political program. Other practitioners, however, may be sincerely and otherwise-orthodox Christians who truly believe in both Christianity and Marxism, and in the liberation theology fusion of the two. . . . Similarly, I would suggest that many of the pastors in slave states in antebellum America who taught that slavery was legitimate because of the slaves’ inherent racial inferiority were also sincere Christians, albeit grossly mistaken in their teachings on this matter.”"

This is too kind to O Duce. Of course I can't know what is in Obama's heart -- unlike he is likely certain he knows what is in mine(!) -- but there is plenty of evidence that he spent his life as a a pure Marxist Socialist and certainly none to contradict it from his actions in office.

But then the next paragraph just sings with truth:

And — to take things beyond the Obama question — on a similar moral plane. In fact, if you look at a Marxist Utopia — say, Cuba — what you’ll see is basically a plantation. At the top, you’ve got the Massa and his family — Fidel, Raul, et al. — followed by various layers of overseers — the Communist Party apparat, the secret police — and House Negroes — e.g., the state-controlled media — all living off the surplus labor of the Field Negroes, whose produce is disposed of not according to their own desires (that would be capitalism!) but according to their betters’. This, we’re told, is for the best, since they aren’t smart enough to make their own decisions anyway, and the Massa looks after them with food, housing, and health care. Slaveholders even defended their system as more humane and less exploitative than atomistic capitalism, conveniently ignoring the role of the lash, just as apologists for Marxism conveniently ignore the role of the gulag.

Perfectly executed analysis as Andrew Wilkow would say...

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The Country Has Fallen Into The Wrong Hands

The Volokh Conspiracy - Obama import ban on rifles confirmed: "Today, Maxim Lott’s reporting for FoxNews confirms that the Korea Times accurately characterized the American government objections:

The Obama administration approved the sale of the American-made rifles last year. But it reversed course and banned the sale in March – a decision that went largely unnoticed at the time but that is now sparking opposition from gun rights advocates.

A State Department spokesman said the administration’s decision was based on concerns that the guns could fall into the wrong hands."

My title comes from one of the comments on the quoted post.

We need to fund a life-long golf vacation for O Duce post haste. Please join me in beginning the process in early November.

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