Shut up and Sing

Or, wait. Never mind. Sting hasn't done anything I've been interested in listening to in ... 20 25 years.

It’s aggressive and violent and full of fear,’ he said of the [conservative] backlash against Obama. ‘They don’t want change, they want things to feel the same because they feel safe there.’”

***
“They came of age during the great abundance, circa 1980-2008 (or 1950-2008, take your pick), and they don’t have the habit of worry. They talk about their ‘concerns’—they’re big on that word. But they’re not really concerned. They think America is the goose that lays the golden egg. Why not? She laid it in their laps. She laid it in grandpa’s lap.

“They don’t feel anxious, because they never had anything to be anxious about. They grew up in an America surrounded by phrases—’strongest nation in the world,’ ‘indispensable nation,’ ‘unipolar power,’ ‘highest standard of living’—and are not bright enough, or serious enough, to imagine that they can damage that, hurt it, even fatally.

“We are governed at all levels by America’s luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they’re not optimists—they’re unimaginative. They don’t have faith, they’ve just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don’t mind it when people become disheartened. They don’t even notice.”

WTF is Sting talking about? Doesn't this dude live in a castle or something?


Let's review Sting's life which must be full of forclosures and anxiety. Sting was born in 1951. By 1978, his band "The Police" were well on their way to being a chart sensation. So after 27 long-hard years of slogging through (was he foreclosed on?) he FINALLY made it.

27.

How many people achieved such wealth and success at that young age? From Wiki:

Sting owns several homes worldwide, including Elizabethan manor house Lake House and its 60-acre country estate near Salisbury in Wiltshire, England, a country cottage in the Lake District, a New York City apartment, a beach house in Malibu, California, a 600-acre (2.4 km2) estate in Tuscany, Italy, and two properties in London: an apartment on The Mall, an 18th century terrace house in Highgate.[15] He also once owned a home in West Hempstead, New York. He also owns homes in the Caribbean, including one in the upscale community of Casa de Campo, Dominican Republic.

Yet, this tool is telling ME that I've lived a life of abundance, free of anxiety.

Conservatives have never had anything to be anxious about? Oh my lord. Stupid and callous.

Pot. Kettle. Honestly, there is so much wrong with Sting's little rant, I don't even know where to begin.

I came of age worrying about everything. Nuclear war. Remember that, Sting? "The Day After" ring any bells? Yep, a nuclear war was going to break out with the USSR and we were all going to die either a horrible fiery death, or a slow and painful one. Used to have nightmares about it.

You know, I've never been foreclosed on. But has money ever - EVER - been easy for me? That would be no, Sting. I took out (a zillion) loans to get through college, then bar-tended nights as a young mom to keep the kids out of day care. My life has been nothing but years and years of anxiety.

You, Sting, can go take a flying fuck at the moon.

Four Reams of Paper

In honor of Pelosi's 1,990 page monstrosity, Dustbury has a brilliant idea.

h/t: RS McCain

Bahaa haa haa

Top story in Yahoo News, by AP "Economics Writer" Jeannine Aversa:

The economy grew at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter, the best showing in two years, fueled by government-supported spending on cars and homes.
The Commerce Department report delivered the strongest signal yet that the economy entered a new, though fragile, phase of recovery and that the worst recession since the 1930s has ended.

Fueled by government-supported spending? WTF kind of crack is this writer on?

Anyway, so I'm a tad interested in this "economics writer" Jeannine Aversa.

I wonder what I'll find ...

Humn. Appears she has quite a history with this stuff.

Gore Vidal is an asshole

In an interview with The Atlantic, Vidal explains it to the rest of you.

ATLANTIC: In September, director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland for leaving the U.S. in 1978 before being sentenced to prison for raping a 13-year-old girl at Jack Nicholson’s house in Hollywood. During the time of the original incident, you were working in the industry, and you and Polanski had a common friend in theater critic and producer Kenneth Tynan. So what’s your take on Polanski, this many years later?
VIDAL: I really don’t give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s been taken advantage of?
Vidal then goes on to blame Polanski’s legal problems on…
“an anti-Semitic and anti-fag thing … The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew, Polacko…”

It's all about transparency

"The way to hold government accountable is to make it transparent so that the American people can know exactly what decisions are being made [and] how they're being made. ... Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known. ... The mere fact that you have the legal power to keep something secret does not mean you should always use it."

Yea, right.

Obama candidate is a far different person than Obama President. Because Obama President is keeping plenty of things "secret." A few examples of things the administration is refusing to make public (from linked article):

1) State Department memo by Harold Koh explaining the administrations analysis of the Honduran situation and why they are backing a dictator.

2) Explanation for AG Holder's decision to drop charges against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation

3) Documentation related to the firing of Gerald Walpin, inspector general for the Corporation for National and Community Service.

4) FOIA requests:
a) refused to release Freddy Mac board minutes from when Rahm Emanuel was a director
b) Ignored requests for White House visitor logs
c) denied requests for documents on a treaty on "intellectual property rights."
d) refused requests for documents related to the TARP bailout

Not to mention that Obama promised to hold the health care reform debates on CSPAN. Not to mention that he promised to post bills on the internet for five days before signing; the "Sunlight before Signing" idea.

I don't want to hear a single "But BUSH" argument here. Not one. If THIS was one of the reasons you voted for Obama (and bashed Bush) than that argument makes no sense. Than that argument means "it bugged me when Bush did it, but now I don't care."

If that's your stance, well ok. Just admit it.

FTR, I'm perfectly happy with a government that is transparent, we need more of it. Obviously, there is classified information that shouldn't be revealed. I don't see how any of the above falls under that category.

Are they coming to Detroit?

UN is launching an investigation into the housing situation in U.S. cities.

Raquel Rolnik is a special "rapporteur" on the right to adequate housing.

PTL the UN is on this. We've got nothing to worry about now.

Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman reports that Raquel Rolnik, a Brazilian urban planner and the UN’s choice for the task, will be investigating issues of concern to the UN vis-à-vis the United States, including public housing, homelessness and foreclosures. As part of her fact-finding mission, she will visit New York City, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Washington, a South Dakota Indian reservation, and Wilkes-Barre, Pa. She will then compile a report on her findings, which will be submitted to the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council in March.

The UN Human Rights Council believes that housing is a human right, and, because housing (especially “affordable housing”) is so tough to come by in places like New York City, there is a strong likelihood that the United States Government is guilty of gross human rights violations.

You see, affordable (and adequate!) housing is a human right. Just like health care.

Apparently, though, this chick isn't coming to Detroit. I guess she's not stupid.

Has anyone informed this lady that you can BUY houses in Detroit for a couple-hundred bucks? Or that we already provide housing for those in need?

Who sees a problem here?

Compare and contrast.

White House pay czar Kenneth Feinberg was the driving force behind the move to order steep pay cuts from bailed-out executives, and did not even seek the president's approval before making his decision.

The Treasury Department is expected to formally announce in the next few days a plan to slash annual salaries by about 90 percent from last year for the 25 highest-paid executives at the seven companies that received the most from the Wall Street bailout. Total compensation for the top executives at the firms would decline, on average, by about 50 percent.

The sweeping decision, though, came from Feinberg and not from President Obama.

One official told Fox News that Feinberg from the start had the independent authority to work with companies and make such a call. Obama was never required to sign off before final decisions were made

And now this:

The White House has told Congress it will reject calls for many of President Obama's policy czars to testify before Congress - a decision senators said goes against the president's promises of transparency and openness and treads on Congress' constitutional mandate to investigate the administration's actions.

Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, said White House counsel Greg Craig told her in a meeting Wednesday that they will not make available any of the czars who work in the White House and don't have to go through Senate confirmation. She said he was "murky" on whether other czars outside of the White House would be allowed to come before Congress.

So ... the Czars are making policy on their own, yet they cannot be called before Congress?

Hope. Change.

Because there are too many updates below ... a new post

VDH spells out the difference between "Candidate Obama" and "President Obama."

Hanson ends the piece asking the question: will Obama pull a Clinton or dig-in and push his radical agenda? Many moderate Republicans voted for the man believing he would govern from the center. I think we all know now that is certainly NOT the case. And, unless he cleans house, he is surrounded by radicals who I cannot see moderating.

If he chooses the former, he might well be a more successful version of Bill Clinton given that his appetites are far more in check.

But if, as is likely, he chooses the latter, he will polarize the country in a way not seen since 1968, set back racial relations to the 1960s, do to the reputation of big government what LBJ did from 1964 to 1968, and, in the manner of what Jimmy Carter wrought, turn voters off liberal foreign policy for a generation.

Hope and Change. A uniter not a divider. Those words seem pretty hallow now.

Just Keeping everyone up to speed ...Updated countless times

-13.

Double digit negative for 7 straight days.


Via Kate who wonders if this has anything to do with the Obama White House's attack on Fox News.

Bonus- For OC! This won't help those poll numbers.



Congrats media! I've never been as proud of my country ...

Krauthammer on the White House's attack on Fox.

At first, there was little reaction from other media. Then on Thursday, the administration tried to make them complicit in an actual boycott of Fox. The Treasury Department made available Ken Feinberg, the executive pay czar, for interviews with the White House “pool” news organizations — except Fox. The other networks admirably refused, saying they would not interview Feinberg unless Fox was permitted to as well. The administration backed down.

This was an important defeat because there’s a principle at stake here. While government can and should debate and criticize opposition voices, the current White House goes beyond that. It wants to delegitimize any significant dissent. The objective is no secret. White House aides openly told Politico that they’re engaged in a deliberate campaign to marginalize and ostracize recalcitrants, from Fox to health insurers to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

And more:

"We're doing what we think is important to make sure news is covered as fairly as possible," a White House official told POLITICO, noting how the recent ACORN scandal story started because Fox covered it “breathlessly for weeks on end.”
“And then you had a couple days of breast-beating from The Washington Post and The New York Times about whether or not they were fast enough on the ACORN story,” the official said. “And it's like: Wait a second, guys. Let's make sure that we keep perspective on what are the most important stories, and what's being driven by a network that has a perspective. Being able to make that point has been important.”

To some media observers, it’s almost the definition of a “chilling effect” – a governmental attempt to steer reporters away from negative coverage – but the White House press corps has barely uttered a word of complaint.

And still more:

With a series of private meetings and public taunts, the White House has targeted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest-spending pro-business lobbying group in the country; Rush Limbaugh, the country’s most-listened-to conservative commentator; and now, with a new volley of combative rhetoric in recent days, the insurance industry, Wall Street executives and Fox News.

Obama aides are using their powerful White House platform, combined with techniques honed in the 2008 campaign, to cast some of the most powerful adversaries as out of the mainstream and their criticism as unworthy of serious discussion.

Apparently they're taking this tact, because they can't win the debate flat-out on merit.

Now, lets rewind things ... remember how Obama was the Candidate for Hope and Change? 'Cause this doesn't seem like a different kind of politics.

This is straight out of the Rahm Emanuel playbook. Opponents are not defeated; they are destroyed. Forget about engaging on the issues; opponents must be vilified and disqualified from being taken seriously.

Aside from the Nixonian quality and unseemliness of the entire approach, this is a trap for those practicing politics in this manner. The White House, whether on Van Jones or health-care opposition or Guantanamo, has failed to appreciate serious policy and personnel errors and correct them. Too busy discrediting opponents, the White House staff missed the soft underbelly of their own decisions and in each of the aforementioned cases found themselves eventually scrambling to catch up and deflect widespread public anger or criticism.

And as a style of politics, over the long haul, this sort of hyper-partisan nastiness takes its toll. Independent voters, already disenchanted with the president’s Left-leaning agenda, tend not to approve of such tactics. Indeed, it was the promise that Obama would rise above Clintonian tit-for-tat politics and leave behind past baggage that made candidate Barack Obama so attractive. The American people are quickly learning that candidate Obama — the model of dignified calm, moderation, and bipartisanship — bears little resemblance to the Obama in office.

And, whether is is Rahm Emanuel's plays, Obama is "the decider."

Limbaugh Hoax

Maggie emailed me this great article on how it is the left fell for the Rush Limbaugh "quotes."

Watching so many serious journalists and leftist political figures fall for the fake Rush Limbaugh quotes tells us something very frightening about what leftists believe true about non-leftist America. I say, “frightening,” because we evaluate the level of threat that others pose based on our understanding of the amorality of their beliefs. Then we rationalize the harshness of the methods we are willing to employ against them based on our threat assessment. We are much more willing to use draconian methods against people we view as extremely evil than we are against people we judge less evil. As a nation, we were willing to employ much more draconian methods to defeat fascism than we employed to fight anyone else. The same basic principle applies to our internal conflicts as well. The more extreme and dangerous we view our political and social opponents as being, the more tolerant we become of extreme measures to oppose them.

For the record, it was believed by the left that Rush, and by extension his tens of millions of fans, was a big fan of slavery and looked at James Earl Ray as a hero. How can the left possibly tolerate us? Why use fair debate? Why allow them to debate at all.

Of course, this was all based on a lie. Rush never said the attributed quotes and the willingness of the left to (easily) believe that he did says more about them than it does about us.

So, we come back to the main question: What methods could these deluded leftists justify using against the rest of us if they really believe we hold such beliefs and values as are inherent in the fake quotes? What couldn’t they justify doing to drive such people from politics or even the nation itself? We even have to ask, what level of violence could they justify using against us?

This isn’t about Limbaugh. They clearly view Limbaugh as just the most visible manifestation of tens of millions of Americans pining for the good old days of slavery. Make no mistake. They aren’t just targeting Limbaugh as someone so evil that they can justify any extremity in fighting him.

They are targeting the rest of us as well.

Viewed through this prism, suddenly it makes a bit more sense why the left yearns to "shut up" the opposition. Close down Fox. Regulate talk radio. You see, "we're" pure evil.

Did you guys catch this yesterday?

Granholm's trying to force the state Senate to raise taxes. Yesterday, she slashed $51 million from 39 Michigan districts, believing that lawmakers would be unwilling to allow that to happen and agree to raising taxes.

Because that would be such a good idea for Michigan. @@

Hopefully, the Senate will stick to their guns:

The vetoes won't bully the Republican-controlled Senate into raising taxes, said Matt Marsden, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop.

"Those lines the governor vetoed will simply be unfunded," Marsden said.

The "Educator of the Year" - slashing education. What a trooper she is!

Granholm said she intends to veto portions of the legislation to put pressure on the Legislature to restore funding to those priorities and approve tax and fee hikes to help pay for them.

In a letter to Granholm, Bishop warned that any vetoed items were likely gone for the year.

"Do not veto portions of these budgets with the expectation that money will be reappropriated. There is not sufficient support in the Senate Republican caucus for tax increases and for you to think otherwise is a mistake."

WOOT!

Inconvenient Logic

So, Bono has this to say:

In dangerous, clangorous times, the idea of America rings like a bell (see King, M. L., Jr., and Dylan, Bob). It hits a high note and sustains it without wearing on your nerves. (If only we all could.) This was the melody line of the Marshall Plan and it’s resonating again. Why? Because the world sees that America might just hold the keys to solving the three greatest threats we face on this planet: extreme poverty, extreme ideology and extreme climate change. The world senses that America, with renewed global support, might be better placed to defeat this axis of extremism with a new model of foreign policy.

Poverty. Ideology. Climate Change. Apparently Bono is all impressed with Obama's "Millennium Goal" of the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.”

And then there's instances such as this:

2005, the couple traveled to Romania with a mission. It was being reported in the European press that a greedy western mining corporation was invading the quaint, idyllic Romanian village of Rosia Montana to extract the regions’ gold deposits and exploit its people. For Phelim and Ann, both experienced documentarians, this seemed like a story worth telling. The problem, as they soon learned, was that the story was a lie. Far from quaint and idyllic, Rosia Montana was a badly impoverished village that modernity had largely passed by. “These people weren’t making a lifestyle choice. They were in deep, deep poverty. They couldn’t wait for the mine to open and inject fresh money and jobs into the local economy. But stopping that were activists from Switzerland and Belgium. These rich western environmentalists didn’t care. They were content to watch people live in misery and view it as a “culture” that needed to be preserved, but if you talked to the local people they viewed poverty as a curse that was killing their children early and needed to be eradicated as soon as possible.”

What Phelim and Ann discovered was a far bigger story – one that would give their film, and their lives, a whole new shape. It was the largely untold tale of western activists advancing Marxist ideology under the guise of environmental protection. “This romantic notion that starving people are ‘poor but happy’ has to stop. Someone needs to tell these environmentalists that humans are actually part of the environment.”

Eradicating extreme poverty and Marxist ideology go hand-in-hand.

It's difficult to reconcile the idea that Al Gore and company really want to save the earth when they continue to jet around the country, spewing more carbon into the air that my family ever will (let's not forget about that endangered Chilean Bass he served at his daughter's wedding), added to the fact that the man stands to personally profit from any Carbon trading scheme.

They hypocrisy is not to be stomached.

Then there was this last week:

Apple today resigned its membership in the Chamber “effective immediately.” That’s a harsher tone than the other departures—three utilities said they’d let their membership lapse at the end of the year, and Nike simply quite the Chamber’s board of directors.

At issue, again, is the Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to the Obama administration’s climate policy, most notably the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions.

Mighty brave and bold stance there for Apple and Nike.

Where do they do all their manufacturing?

Apple - China
Nike- Their majority of their output today is produced in factories in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam, but they also have factories in Italy, the Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea

Despite recent articles that China is going to "get serious" about Global Warming concerns (touted big in the headlines), all they have done is to promise to lower greenhouse gas output. Think they're going to cripple their economy with Cap and Trade schemes? Ha.

Now, back to the issue of eradicating "extreme" poverty:

If free-markets, trade, and employment are the only tools ever used to effectively end poverty, then what would it mean to take those tools off of the table, as the modern environmental movement seems bent on doing? Who will suffer and who will gain? According to Phelim and Ann, who will suffer is everyone, especially the poor. Who will gain is Al Gore and the rest of the multi-billion dollar Big Environmental Businesses. And of course, America loses the most. Says Ann, “China produces more genuine pollution than any other nation on Earth, but none of the international regulations on the table do anything to curb them.China’s cities are badly polluted with dirty fumes. If Greenpeace wanted to stop global pollution they should move all their offices to China. And I’m talking about genuine pollution – not CO2 which is essential for life and one of the elements that keep our crops growing and our children healthy. But Greenpeace is not in China because there is a strong anti-business, anti-capitalist and above all anti-American element to the environmental movement.

Ann McElhinney and her husband Phelim McAleer just produced the documentary Not Evil, Just Wrong. Go here to check it out.

About controlling the costs related to Health Care

'Cause wasn't THAT what this was all about? Didn't OC just explain, down below, that she's going BROKE paying for her health insurance?

And then along came Price Waterhouse Coopers. Nice summary here. Money quote?

Projected premium increases over the next 4 years without health care reform are 26%. With health care reform, premiums will increase by 40%.

Over the next 7 years premiums will increase by 50% without reform and 73% with health care reform.

Isn't 73% more than 50%? I always thought it was.

According to PwC, the cost - OUR COST- of healthcare is going to go up. Up to $25,900 by 2019.

Related. delicious rant. Take note, Bobster, how the rantee is criticizing Republicans, those in power and out. Long story short? Be wary of Republicans on the take.

As the White House dismissed the insurance lobby's critiques of the Senate health care bill as self-serving corporate disinformation, President Obama used his weekly radio address to laud four former Republican officials for supporting the push for "reform." But Obama failed to mention that these pro-"reform" Republicans -- whom he lauded for "ris[ing] above the politics of the moment" -- are all in the pay of the health care industry and could personally profit from "reform."

Those Rinos can STFU.

Why all the hate?

Oh ... I dunno.

The bill certified for “reconciliation” is the Ways & Means version of H.R. 3200 that was passed out of committee before the August break, and before it was read aloud at town hall meetings across the country and blasted by voters across the country.

It contains all of the horrors previously exposed: federal funding of abortion, coverage for illegal aliens, comparative effectiveness, healthcare rationing, deep cuts to Medicare. Everything the American people overwhelmingly reject.

No amendments were allowed at the hearing and no debate. Rangel told Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the ranking Republican on the committee, that he would not have preferred to do it this way, but leadership -- i.e., Speaker Pelosi -- forced his hand.

So, ask me again. Why all the hate?

More government is our ruin.

If there's anything Americans are hankering for in their everyday lives, it's a vast regulatory apparatus. Hey, it's dangerous out there.

That's why the new chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission recently unleashed 100 agency inspectors to investigate whether swimming pools in America were equipped with drain covers to prevent children from entrapment.

Nearly 0.9 children fall prey to this sadistic killer each year. With the compassionate guidance of federal officials, we almost surely will see this number plunge to 0.8 children per year.

It should be noted that in each tragic year that passes, an estimated 300 children younger than 4 drown in swimming pools. Why our government sits idly by as this watery assassin targets the most vulnerable among us is a mystery.

h/t : puppy blender.

Turn Your TV Off is next week

And I want to see everyone participating. As you are all very much aware, television programing sucks donkey balls, and we'd all be much better off spending the time reading a book, interacting with the family, or downloading porn. So, I declare next week (starting Monday the 17) TURN YOUR TV OFF WEEK.

Ironically, it coincides with Dear Leader's "organically" created iParticpate programing.

Oh well.

Srsly, this is important.

The NEA and White House conference calls and *The Corporation’s new iParticipate effort all drive traffic to Serve.gov – a website that provides the infrastructure and mechanism for growth of volunteerism that looks a lot like what Wicks was advocating on the campaign trail. And Wicks, a political activist with a history of organizing people to take political action, is working with The Corporation on this effort.

By itself though, there is nothing nefarious about pushing volunteerism. However, there have been many warning signs that the White House is attempting to politicize national service.

The August 10th conference call is an obvious example. The call was partisan in nature, it led to policy advocacy, the Communications Director of the NEA resigned, the NEA issued a statement acknowledging inappropriate language, and the White House issued conduct guidelines to address the partisan “appearance” issues. The cover-ups and historical revisionism displayed by the White House, The Corporation, the NEA, and the moderator were troubling indicators of the calls intentions. Another example is the May 12th White House briefing, which also led to extreme policy advocating – but that meeting has yet to be fully vetted.

These partisan volunteer efforts along with the expansion of The Corporation are alarming signs. Through expanding the size and power of The Corporation, the Administration is in essence organizing and increasing the pool of resources that helped it acquire power.

*The Corporation for National and Community Service

Honestly, Turn it OFF. List of participating programs found here.

Rap is Crap.

This song is #4 on itunes rap list.

So much stupid, so little time ...

this guy needs to shut up and do whatever it is he does ...

I'm gonna ignore all the bullshit religious mumbo jumbo he spews and focus on the final thought:

Remember, they killed Mahatma Gandhi. They killed John F. Kennedy. They killed Martin Luther King. They killed Malcolm X. They killed Robert F. Kennedy. They killed Yitzhak Rabin. They killed many of the great dreamers. With all of the fearful men running our media, we no longer have to kill the dreamer, it is possible just to kill the dream.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/russell-simmons/the-indictment-of-america_b_317249.html

Who is "they" Mr. Simmons?

Ganhdi - murdered by a Hindu

Kennedy - murdered by a communist

MLK -  murdered by a habitual criminal, likely in collusion with someone else although nothing was ever proven. 

Malcolm X - murdered by black muslims.

Robert F. Kennedy - murdered by an Arab Nationalist, for Kennedy's support for Israel

Yitzhak Rabin - murdered by a  orthodox Jew upset over the Oslo Accords. 

So, who is "they"? There is no collective "they."   The over-simplification of historical facts leads to ignorance and faulty logic.  

As for "the dream"? Well, collectivism isn't MY dream.  It wasn't Jesus's either.   

l

Sign you might be a dipshit asshole.

fI you're flying one of these:

From here via here courtesy of Romy over at H2.

How's that for a hat tip?

Quibble

How come no one told me about this?

It's Fraking Cold

I grow bored of the RACIST charge, so hows about we switch gears for a bit?

You may now commence with the "GLOBAL WARMING DENIER" charge. Right ... now.

I mean, it's really fraking cold and has been all year.

Now, the RULES of this post - or RULE - is that OceanCat is not allowed to call me a racist.

Go!

"That's why we voted for him!"

All over the radio yesterday, but I was busy (so STFU):




I don't even know where to begin to explain how fucked-up this is.

And then I wake up to this:

The first black American president was honoured "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the chairman of the Nobel committee Thorbjoern Jagland said.

WTF? Extraordinary efforts? He's done what, exactly? He gave a speech.

Some sanity:

The 1983 Laureate, Poland's Lech Walesa, was more blunt.

"Who, Obama? So fast? Too fast - he hasn't had the time to do anything yet," Walesa told reporters in Warsaw.

"For the time being Obama's just making proposals. But sometimes the Nobel committee awards the prize to encourage responsible action," said Walesa.

Neither did key US newspaper The Wall Street Journal mince its words, describing the choice of Obama as "completely bizarre."

"It is unclear why. For making peace, of a kind, with Hillary Clinton? For giving up the missile shield and cheering up the Iranians? For preparing a surge of troops and weaponry in Afghanistan?" said the paper in an editorial.

"Of course, traditionally it has been standard procedure that winners of the prize do their peacemaking first... But this innovation sweeps aside such old-fashioned notions of reward following effort."

Ahmadinijad said that if Obama removes the US veto power in the UN Security Council, it will show the prize was justified. Nice.

Bahaa haaa! From Wiki:

On October 10, 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize less than one year after his taking office. While the committee praised his ambitious foreign policy agenda, it acknowledged that he had not yet actually achieved many of the goals that he had set out to accomplish.

Even more:

Myth: Candidates can be nominated until the last minute.
The nomination deadline is eight months before the announcement, with a strictly enforced deadline of Feb. 1.

Feb 1 was how many days after O-Bam-A took office?

h/t Mr. Lauraw in comments.

Heh, from Dan's place:

I didn’t know there was a category for hope-n-change, or for not actually accomplishing anything!

Comments from the Corner are good, go read.

Sampling from Jonah Goldberg:

The only thing that really bothers me is that this comes just days after the Obama administration turned a blind eye to the Dalai Lama and told the world that it's at least considering a separate peace with the Taliban. That's grotesque. Meanwhile, there are real peace activists and dissidents out there whose dungeons will stay just as cold and dark for another year because of this. Indeed, this news comes during a year when the Iranian people rose up against tyranny and were crushed. Surely someone in Iran — or maybe the Iranian protestors generally — could have benefitted more from receiving the prize than a president who, so far, has done virtually nothing concrete for world peace.

Richard Cohen is a tad amused.

Update:

Sorry Bob, thread-winner appears over at Protein Wisdom:

You know the rule: conservatives are judged by their misdeeds, liberals are judged by their good intentions.

This is why I hang out at the Hostages.

Just so you know

I was busy yesterday, but I laughed and laughed about this.

He handed out white coats?

Update!

Velociman cracks me up:

I see our Great Condescendicator rustled up 150 doctors in another gambit to pass his health care abortion via yet another photo op. The doctors were told to wear white lab coats, lest we window lickers fail to notice they were, indeed, doctors of medicine: buy-in from the experts, so to speak.

One of those irony things ...

In the previous post, I mentioned that Michael Moore is informed by his religious faith in his advocacy against capitalism. Jesus was a socialist, you know. We can discuss that another time, because right now i want to focus on the whole "religions informs my economic views" dealo.

I find it funny that libs see no ideological conflict with picking and choosing when they decide it's OK to be informed by their religion. It was bad when Bush was moved by his God. Can we declare Moore and "equal" nutjob?

This "religious" battle over economic systems, though pales in comparison to the more serious religious battle taking place.

This war in Afghanistan is a case study in such arguments. It provides us with two protagonists in a religious war that will redefine the world as we know it and as it has been defined by recorded history. Make no mistake; this is a religious war. The first great mistake made in prosecuting this war has been the lack of political courage in identifying the enemy. The second was the lack of wisdom in correctly identifying the conflict as religious. Our delicate American sensibilities don't allow us, as a nation, to even conceive of the possibility of two nations fighting over religious ideological differences much less being party to it. We are not given a choice however. For if this war was thrust on us by the intrusions of Islamic forces from abroad over the past 30 years, we must also recognize the reasons for their attack. They have given us the reasons for their attacks over, and over again. We are the enemy to Islam and therefore to them. The fact that there are apostates in their midst and around the world that choose not to agree with that statement does not remove the fact that there are larger numbers of them who do.

But we can't discuss the battle in the ME in religious terms. Michael Moore can inform us (and probably win another Oscar in doing so) that Jesus wants us to be socialists, but we cannot even consider the fact that radical muslims hate because the rest of us are apostates?

Heh

According to Althouse and her commenters, Michael Moore's new movie advocates socialism because that's what Jesus wanted. The ironies of that make my head spin.

I can't say, though, if that is an accurate representation of the film's view, because I let my capitalist-loving dollars speak truth-to-power: I went to see Zombieland.

Which - I think- advocates that we all ARM ourselves heavily on the off-chance we have an outbreak.

Remember Rule 4, peps. Always doubletap.

October