Vocal Minority

In Case We Ruin the Planet by Causing Global Warming ...

A friend emailed this article to me from a site called Wired Science. It’s a couple years old but it might be a nice place to visit, in case this Earth thing doesn’t work out …

Potentially Habitable Planet Discovered Outside Our Solar System
By Kristen Philipkoski
April 24, 2007 

Astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that’s so similar to Earth it might sustain life. Its temperature runs between 32 and 104F. It’s 14 times closer to its star (a red dwarf) than we are to the Sun, but the star, Gliese 581 (shown at right), is smaller and dimmer. The star is 20.5 light years from Earth and located in the Libra constellation.

“Liquid water is critical to life as we know it and because of its temperature and relative proximity, this planet will most probably be a very important target of the future space missions dedicated to the search for extra-terrestrial life. On the treasure map of the Universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X,” added Xavier Delfosse, a member of the team from Grenoble University, France.

But we won’t likely be meeting the planet’s residents, should they exist, any time soon. As one commenter points out: “At 1 million miles an hour it would take over 15,000 years to get there.” Unless its inhabitants have figured out a way to travel faster than the speed of light. […]

100 Nightmares, Oops, I Mean Days

100 Days + A Self-Aborbed Left-Wing Ideologue as President + A Fawning, Totally-in-the-Tank Media = A Very Screwed United States of America

Did I watch President Golden Calf on the tube last night? Of course not. Why should I watch a person who clearly things he’s infallible stand up there in front of a TelePrompter lob grenades at the previous administration, the private sector, bitter gun-and God-clinging Americans, and Tea Party participants?

My friend Mike at the Politics and Finance blog says:

In prime time, yet again. And still mopping up the mess created by the "failed policies of the last 8 years." Change and hope. No mention I am sure of all of the miscues and foibles committed, such as the recent buzzing of lower Manhattan for a photo-op at the expense of a traumatized public and on the taxpayers dime. […]

The Obama Administration is like the students in college that get an A on the first assignment, so the teacher assumes anything they do is A work. This administration had an A in the media's eyes during the primary season, and receives an A no matter what they do. If something is so bad that it deserves a lower grade, it will just get ignored. […]

Given The Control Of The Left Leaning Media, Could The First 100 Days Be Viewed As Anything Other Than A Rousing Success? It Wouldn't Be Allowed!

Re: First Obama prime time press conference - "He seated a left-wing radio host in the coveted front row. He called on a liberal blogger from the Huffington Post. He even brought far-left columnist Helen Thomas out of the wilderness and let her ruminate about “so-called terrorists.” (Foxforum)

At least not all of the media has drowned in the Kool-Aid. The New York Post has a list of “100 Days, 100 Mistakes.” Not impressive at all for the nation’s best, smartest, wisest, most unifying, most intellectual, most accomplished president.

1. ”Obama criticized pork barrel spending in the form of ‘earmarks,’ urging changes in the way that Congress adopts the spending proposals. Then he signed a spending bill that contains nearly 9,000 of them, some that members of his own staff shoved in last year when they were still members of Congress. ‘Let there be no doubt, this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business, and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability,’ Obama said.”—McClatchy, 3/11

2. ”There is no doubt that we’ve been living beyond our means and we’re going to have to make some adjustments.”—Obama during the campaign.

3. This year’s budget deficit: $1.5 trillion.

4. Asks his Cabinet to cut costs in their departments by $100 million—a whopping .0027%!

5. ”The White House says the president is unaware of the tea parties.”—ABC News, 4/15

6. ”Mr. Obama is an accomplished orator but is becoming known in America as the ‘teleprompt president’ over his reliance on the machine when he gives a speech.”—Sky News, 3/18

7. In early February, the 2010 census was moved out of the Department of Commerce and into the White House, politicizing how federal aid is distributed and electoral districts are drawn.

8. Obama taps Nancy Killefer for a new administration job, First Chief Performance Officer—to police government spending. But it surfaces that Killefer had performance issues of her own—a tax lien was slapped on her DC home in 2005 for failure to pay unemployment compensation tax on household help. She withdrew.

9. Turkey tried to block the appointment of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as new NATO secretary general because he didn’t properly punish the Danish cartoonist who caricatured Mohammed. France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany’s Angela Merkel were outraged; Obama said he supported Turkey’s induction into the European Union.

10. . . . and he never mentioned the Armenian genocide.

11. The picture of Obama and Hugo Chavez shaking hands.

12. Hugo Chavez gave him the anti-American screed “The Open Veins of Latin America.” Obama didn’t remark upon it. At least it wasn’t DVDs.

13. Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega went on a 50-minute anti-American rant, calling Obama “president of an empire.” Obama didn’t leave the room. “I thought it was 50 minutes long. That’s what I thought,” he said.

14. Executives at AIG get $165 million in bonuses, despite receiving an $173 billion taxpayer bailout.

15. ”For months, the Obama administration and members of Congress have known that insurance giant AIG was getting ready to pay huge bonuses while living off government bailouts. It wasn’t until the money was flowing and news was trickling out to the public that official Washington rose up in anger and vowed to yank the money back.”—Associated Press, 3/18

16. ”After pushing Congress for weeks to hurry up and pass the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, President Obama promptly took off for a three-day holiday getaway.”—New York Post, 2/15

17. MEGHAN CLYNE ON: “I WON” AND THE DEATH OF BIPARTISANSHIP […]

18. ”The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today.”—Department of Homeland Security intelligence report

19. Nixes a “buy American” provision in the stimulus bill.

20. ”Yes, Canada is not Mexico, it doesn’t have a drug war going on. Nonetheless, to the extent that terrorists have come into our country or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it’s been across the Canadian border. There are real issues there.”—Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The 9/11 hijackers did not come across the Canada border

21. ”The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system. The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as ‘the largest middle-class tax increase in history.’ “—New York Times, 3/14

22. JOE SCARBOROUGH ON: PROMOTING FEAR […]

23. Sanjay Gupta was in discussions to become Surgeon General, but the TV personality withdrew after he was criticized for his flimsy political record.

24. Rasmussen finds 58% of Americans believe the Obama administration’s release of CIA memos endangers the national security of the United States.

25. Only 28% think the Obama administration should do any further investigating of how the Bush administration treated terrorism suspects.

26. ”Obama thanked CIA employees for their work and said they’re invaluable to national security. He explained his decision to release the memos, then told everyone not to feel bad because he was now acknowledging potential mistakes. Theirs, not his. ‘That’s how we learn,’ Obama said, as though soothing a room full of fourth-graders.”—The Oklahoman, 4/23

27. By releasing the torture memos, Obama opened American citizens up to international tribunals. A UN lawyer said the US is obliged to prosecute lawyers who drafted the memos or else violate the Geneva Conventions.

28. In their first meeting, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave Obama a carved ornamental penholder from the timbers of the anti-slavery ship HMS Gannet. Obama gave him 25 DVDs that don’t work in Europe.

29. TIM CARNEY ON: PICKING BILL RICHARDSON AS SECRETARY OF COMMERCE […]

30. Timothy Geithner nomination as Secretary of Treasury was almost torpedoed when it was discovered he had failed to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes. He also employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper. He was confirmed anyway.

31. . . . Not so lucky, Annette Nazareth, who was nominated for Deputy Treasury Secretary. She withdrew her name for undisclosed “personal reasons” after a monthlong probe into her taxes . . .

32. . . . or Caroline Atkinson, who withdrew as nominee for Undersecretary of International Affairs in Treasury Department, with a source blaming the long vetting process. Geithner still has a skeleton crew at Treasury, with no one qualified—or willing—to take jobs there.

33. ”Barack Obama has been embroiled in a cronyism row after reports that he intends to make Louis Susman, one of his biggest fundraisers, the new US ambassador in London. The selection of Mr. Susman, a lawyer and banker from the president’s hometown of Chicago, rather than an experienced diplomat, raises new questions about Mr Obama’s commitment to the special relationship with Britain.”—Telegraph, 2/22

34. Obama’s doom-and-gloom comments and budget bill push the Dow below 7,000, from which it’s only recently recovered.

35. ”You’re sitting here. And you’re—you are laughing. You are laughing about some of these problems. Are people going to look at this and say, ‘I mean, he’s sitting there just making jokes about money--’ How do you deal with—I mean: Explain. Are you punch-drunk?”—Steve Kroft, “60 Minutes,” 3/22

36. ”We have begun to modernize 75% of all federal building space, which has the potential to reduce long-term energy costs by billions of dollars on behalf of taxpayers. We are providing grants to states to help weatherize hundreds of thousands of homes, which will save the families that benefit about $350 each year. That’s like a $350 tax cut.”—Obama, describing something that doesn’t cut taxes.

37. ”The Obama administration has directed defense officials to sign a pledge stating they will not share 2010 budget data with individuals outside the federal government.”—Defense News, 2/19

38. Backtracking on a campaign promise he made to black farmers, Obama significantly lowered the amount of money they could claim in a discrimination settlement against the Agricultural Department. “I can’t figure out for the life of me why the president wouldn’t want to implement a bill that he fought for as a US senator,” said John Boyd, head of the National Black Farmers Association.

39. ”I’ve been practicing bowling. I bowled a 129. It was like the Special Olympics or something.”—Obama on “The Tonight Show”

40. Obama lifts travel and remittance restrictions on Cuba.

41. Obama considers dropping the embargo on Cuba.

42. After warming signs from Raul Castro, Fidel Castro says Obama “misinterpreted” his brother’s words, and that Cuba would not be willing to negotiate about human rights.

43. Obama is considering dropping a key demand to Iran, allowing it to keep nuclear facilities open during negotiations.

44. In a letter to Dmitri Medvedev, Obama offered to drop plans for a missile shield in Europe in exchange for Russia’s help in resolving the nuclear weapons issue in Iran.

45. Medvedev said he would not “haggle” on Iran and the missile shield.

46. Obama asked Congress for an extra $83.4 billion to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a special funding measure of the kind he opposed while in the senate. As a candidate, Obama promised to cut the cost of military operations.

47. After trying to woo Europe as the “anti-Bush,” Obama made an impassioned plea for more troops in Afghanistan. “Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone,” he said. “This is a joint problem it requires a joint effort.” Only the UK offered substantial help, most others refused.

48. ”While the online question portion of the White House town hall was open to any member of the public with an Internet connection, the five fully identified questioners called on randomly by the president in the East Room were anything but a diverse lot. They included: a member of the pro-Obama Service Employees International Union, a member of the Democratic National Committee who campaigned for Obama among Hispanics during the primary; a former Democratic candidate for Virginia state delegate who endorsed Obama last fall in an op-ed in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star; and a Virginia businessman who was a donor to Obama’s campaign in 2008.”—Washington Post, 3/27

49. Obama bows to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a G-20 meeting in London.

50. ”It wasn’t a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he’s taller than King Abdullah.”—An Obama aide

51. DANA PERINO ON: REMAINING IN CAMPAIGN MODE […]

52. ”We can’t afford to make perfect the enemy of the absolutely necessary.”—Obama, describing the stimulus bill

53. Three candidates for ambassador to the Vatican—including Caroline Kennedy—were turned down by the Holy See because they supported abortion, according to reports.

54. After saying he wouldn’t have lobbyists in his administration, Obama made 17 exceptions in the first two weeks in office.

55. . . . including Tom Daschle, who worked as a top lobbyist yet was going to be appointed Secretary of Health and Human Services—until his failure to pay income taxes derailed his nomination.

56. For an April 14 speech at Georgetown, the administration asked the university to cover up all signs and symbols—including the letters “IHS” in gold, a symbol for Jesus.

57. Samantha Power, who resigned from the Obama campaign after calling Hillary Rodham Clinton a “monster,” was hired to a position on the National Security Council.

58. ”Chicago has yet to recoup the $1.74 million cost of President Obama’s victory celebration in Grant Park—despite a burgeoning $50.5 million budget shortfall that threatens more layoffs and union concessions.”—Chicago Sun-Times, 2/20

59. Firing Rick Wagoner as president of GM.

60. Threatening to fire Vikram Pandit as CEO of Citigroup.

61. Threatening to fire anyone the administration doesn’t like from any company.

62. Not adopting a dog from a shelter.

63. ”The GAO study asserts that officials from most of the states surveyed ‘expressed concerns regarding the lack of Recovery Act funding provided for accountability and oversight. Due to fiscal constraints, many states reported significant declines in the number of oversight staff—limiting their ability to ensure proper implementation and management of Recovery Act funds.’ “—ABC News, 4/23

64. ”The National Newspaper Publishers Association named Obama ‘Newsmaker of the Year.’ The president is to receive the award from the federation of black community newspapers in a White House ceremony this afternoon. The Obama White House has closed the press award ceremony to the press.”—Los Angeles Times, 3/20

65. ”Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.”—Attorney General Eric Holder

66. ”I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances.”—Obama, on consulting with only “living” presidents

67. Obama quietly announced that he would not press for new labor and environmental regulations in the North American Free Trade Agreement, going back on a campaign promise.

68. NICOLE GELINAS ON: MISSPENT STIMULUS […]

69. ”The Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to overrule Michigan v. Jackson, the 1986 Supreme Court decision that held that if police may not interrogate a defendant after the right to counsel has attached, if the defendant has a lawyer or has requested a lawyer. This isn’t the first time the Justice Department, under President Obama, has sought to limit defendants’ rights.”—TalkLeft blog

70. ”By any measure, my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster.”—Obama

71. ”Ahh, see. I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can’t end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I’m going to get grilled every time I come down here.”—Brushing off questions from the White House press corps

72. On Earth Day, Obama took two flights on Air Force One and four on Marine One to get to Iowa, burning more than 9,000 gallons of fuel.

73. ”President Obama’s plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs for the treatment of troops injured in service has infuriated veterans groups who say the government is morally obligated to pay for service-related medical care.”—Fox News, 3/17

74. ”And I believe the nation that invented the automobile cannot walk away from it.”—Obama during his first State Of The Union address. A German invented the automobile

75. RALPH PETERS ON: FUMBLING IN AFGHANISTAN, FAKING IT IN PAKISTAN […]

[? typo here - there's no 76 or 77 in the original]

78. Adolfo Carrion was confirmed as Director of White House Office of Urban Affairs, but is serving under a cloud after allegations that he accepted thousands of dollars in cash from developers whose projects he approved.

79. KYLE SMITH ON: GOING AFTER RUSH LIMBAUGH

80. Forced banks that didn’t want TARP money to take it, then added on stipulations about pay and government control after the fact. Secretly forced Bank of America to buy Merrill Lynch, then allowed the bank to be criticized for overpaying.

81. ”More than 90% of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States,” Obama said in Mexico, yet factcheck.org says, “The figure represents only the percentage of crime guns that have been submitted by Mexican officials and traced by U.S. officials. We can find no hard data on the total number of guns actually ‘recovered in Mexico,’ but US and Mexican officials both say that Mexico recovers more guns that it submits for tracing. Therefore, the percentage of guns ‘recovered’ and traced to US sources necessarily is less than 90%.”

82. Obama: “[Jim Owens, the CEO of Caterpillar, Inc.], said that if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off.” Jim Owens: “I think realistically no. The truth is we’re going to have more layoffs before we start hiring again.”

83. ”In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world. Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.”—Obama in Strasbourg, France

84. Joe Biden: “If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, if we stand up there and we really make the tough decisions, there’s still a 30% chance we’re going to get it wrong.”

85. Joe Biden: “You all worked for change. You wanted to see change. Well, that wasn’t a hard thing to try to communicate to the American people. Obviously, obviously, we needed a change almost no matter who was running.”

86. Joe Biden: “You know, I’m embarrassed. Do you know the Web site number? I should have it in front of me and I don’t. I’m actually embarrassed.”

87. ”There are more than 6.5 million trucks in the United States. The program Congress terminated allowed 97 Mexican trucks to roam among them. Ninety-seven! Shutting them out not only undermines NAFTA. It caused Mexico to retaliate with tariffs on 90 goods affecting $2.4 billion in U.S. trade coming out of 40 states.”—Charles Krauthammer, 3/20

88. DAVID M. DRUCKER ON: BOWING TO CONGRESS […]

89. ”It has become apparent during this process that this will not work for me as I have found that on issues such as the stimulus package and the Census, there are irresolvable conflicts for me.”—Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who became the second failed Commerce Secretary nominee

90. In the third sentence of his first speech as president, Obama said, “44 Americans have now taken the presidential oath.” The correct number is 43, as Grover Cleveland served twice.

91. The $49 million inauguration—triple what taxpayers spent at Bush’s first inauguration.

92. Giving the Queen of England an iPod full of his own speeches.

93. Three prime-time briefings in his first 100 days, eating into television revenues and this Wednesday pre-empting “American Idol.”

94. ”The United States government has no interest in running GM. Your [GM] warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it’s ever been, because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warranty.”—Obama

95. GM is given $15.4 billion in loans from the government.

96. The Obama Administration is trying to scuttle a lawsuit filed in federal court against Iran by former US embassy hostages. The lawsuit alleges that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was one of the hostage-takers who interrogated the captives.

97. GLENN BECK ON: BAD ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS […]

98. ”Education Secretary Arne Duncan has decided not to admit any new students to the D.C. voucher program, which allows low-income children to attend private schools ... For all the talk about putting children first, it’s clear that the special interests that have long opposed vouchers are getting their way.”—Washington Post, 4/11

99. Obama enrolled his daughters in a DC private school.

100. ”Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother.”—Obama to Rep. Peter DeFazio, after the Democratic congressman voted against the stimulus bill.

Ask yourself how many of these you didn’t even know about, and then thank the supposedly “What liberal bias?” mainstream media for keeping you in the dark.

Let’s make no mistake here: Barack Obama was a liberal media-created cult figure from the get-go. He is, by every measure, one of the most unqualified individuals to occupy the White House. His anti-American rhetoric, his outward repulsion toward the Constitution and our founding, his formative years soaking in the poisonous baths of Marxism-communism-socialism, and his inability to string two comprehensible words together without a TelePrompter, spell only one thing.

We are one screwed nation.

Diversity Lane (4/29/09): Winging It, Missed Congeniality

A double dose from Zack R. at the integral Diversity Lane.

Bada bing ...

 

Bada boom ...

Article of Note: Questions for Terrorist Torture Opponents (D. Prager)

This is why I consider Dennis Prager to be one of the most intelligent and morally grounded humans on the planet:

Nine Questions the Left Needs to Answer About Torture
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, April 28, 2009

… 1. Given how much you rightly hate torture, why did you oppose the removal of Saddam Hussein, whose prisons engaged in far more hideous tortures, on thousands of times more people, than America did—all of whom, moreover, were individuals and families who either did nothing or simply opposed tyranny? One assumes, furthermore, that all those Iraqi innocents Saddam had put into shredding machines or whose tongues were cut out and other hideous tortures would have begged to be waterboarded.

2. Are all forms of painful pressure equally morally objectionable? In other words, are you willing to acknowledge that there are gradations of torture as, for example, there are gradations of burns, with a third-degree burn considerably more injurious and painful than a first-degree burn? Or is all painful treatment to be considered torture? Just as you, correctly, ask proponents of waterboarding where they draw their line, you, too, must explain where you draw your line.

3. Is any maltreatment of anyone at any time—even a high-level terrorist with knowledge that would likely save innocents’ lives—wrong? If there is no question about the identity of a terror suspect , and he can provide information on al-Qaida—for the sake of clarity, let us imagine that Osama Bin Laden himself were captured—could America do any form of enhanced interrogation involving pain and/or deprivation to him that you would consider moral and therefore support? […]

7. Will you seek to prosecute members of Congress such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who were made aware of the waterboarding of high-level suspects and voiced no objections?

8. Would you agree to releasing the photos of the treatment of Islamic terrorists only if accompanied by photos of what their terror has done to thousands of innocent people around the world? Would you agree to photos—or at least photo re-enactments—of, let us say, Iraqi children whose faces were torn off with piano wire by Islamists in Iraq? If not, why not? Isn’t context of some significance here?

9. You say that America’s treatment of terror suspects will cause terrorists to treat their captives, especially Americans, more cruelly. On what grounds do you assert this? Did America’s far more moral treatment of Japanese prisoners than Japan’s treatment of American prisoners in World War II have any impact on how the Japanese treated American and other prisoners of war? Do you think that evil people care how morally pure America is?

If you do not address these questions, it would appear that you care less about morality and torture than about vengeance against the Bush administration.

Then & Now: Rev. Kenneth Himes, Theology Dept. Chair of Boston College

Then:

“On the levels of both moral principle and practical moral judgment, Secretary [Condoleezza] Rice’s approach to international affairs is in fundamental conflict with Boston College’s commitment to the values of the Catholic and Jesuit traditions and is inconsistent with the humanistic values that inspire the university’s work.”

— Rev. Kenneth Himes, Chairman of Theology Department at Boston College,
In a letter of protest titled “Condoleezza Rice Does Not Deserve a Boston College Honorary Degree,” written by Rev. Himes and signed by nearly 100 BC faculty members.
May 3, 2006 (cited in the Boston Globe)

Now:

“There are some well-meaning people who think Notre Dame has given away its Catholic identity, because they have been caught up in the gamesmanship of American higher education, bringing in a star commencement speaker even if that means sacrificing their values, and that accounts for some of this. But one also has to say that there is a political game going on here, and part of that is that you demonize the people who disagree with you, you question their integrity, you challenge their character, and you brand these people as moral poison. Some people have simply reduced Catholicism to the abortion issue, and, consequently, they have simply launched a crusade to bar anything from Catholic institutions that smacks of any sort of open conversation.”

— Rev. Kenneth Himes, Chairman of Theology Department at Boston College,
April 28, 2009 (cited in the ... hey, whaddaya know ... Boston Globe)

[h/t WSJ’s Best of the Web Today, 4/28/09]

Just to clarify, up until now I had never heard of Rev. Kenneth Himes and really don’t care whether he’s a hypocrite or not. But he’s clearly influential enough for the Boston Globe to cite more than once. It’s too bad the folks at the Globe never thought to check his past positions regarding the protesting of honorary degree recipients.

Which is why media outlets like the Boston Globe are teetering on the precipice of bankruptcy, while those like the WSJ are flourishing.

I'm Just Aksin'

Yahoo News/AP reports this morning:

NEW YORK – Fox became the first broadcast network to turn down a request by President Barack Obama for time, opting to show its drama "Lie to Me" on Wednesday instead of the president’s prime-time news conference.

All I wanna know is: How would one tell the difference? Seriously, could one come up with a more apt title for an Obama news conference?

I’m just aksin’.

Sour Notes: Even Classical Artists Apparently Feel the Need to Bash the U.S.

Stories like this from the L.A. Times Culture Monster blog just steam me. For those of you not familiar with classical music, Krystian Zimerman is a renowned Polish pianist. As a classical music neophyte, I have a number of his recordings on my iPod—Brahms, Liszt, Rachmaninov.

At least I did until this article came out yesterday. When Zimerman appeared Sunday at Walt Disney Concert Hall, he stunned a half-cheering, half-booing audience when this occurred:

Poland’s Krystian Zimerman, widely regarded as one of the finest pianists in the world, created a furor Sunday night in his debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall when he announced this would be his last performance in America because of the nation’s military policies overseas.

Before playing the final work on his recital, Karol Szymanowski’s “Variations on a Polish Folk Theme,” Zimerman sat silently at the piano for a moment, almost began to play, but then turned to the audience. In a quiet but angry voice that did not project well, he indicated that he could no longer play in a country whose military wants to control the whole world.

“Get your hands off of my country,” he said. He also made reference to the U.S. military detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

About 30 or 40 people in the audience walked out, some shouting obscenities. “Yes,” he answered, “some people when they hear the word military start marching.”

Others remained but booed or yelled for him to shut up and play the piano. But many more cheered. Zimerman responded by saying that America has far finer things to export than the military, and he thanked those who support democracy.

Um, wouldn’t that be the United State that support democracy, Mr. Zimerman? It certainly wasn’t any other country! So who exactly were you thanking? Who the hell has spilled their blood and expended more treasure to support democracy than the country you just chided? To paraphrase several commenters at the LA Times blog, if it weren’t for the U.S., you’d probably be a nobody in still-Communist Poland. What an ingrate!

Do you ever notice it’s only the U.S.? When’s the last time you saw a famous personality get in front of a mike and bash Mexico for drug trafficking, the Middle Eastern Islamic countries and China for suppression of women, Zimbabwe for being the one of the most oppressive and destitute nations in modern history, or France for … well, just being France?

Besides, isn’t Mr. Zimerman happy that George W. Bush is out of office and Mr. Hope&Change is the new president? I thought that was supposed to make the “world community” love us again.

Incidentally, Zimerman is not the first classical artist to publically castigate the United States for Bush-era policies. Last February, NY Philharmonic conductor Loren Maazel made statements suggesting the U.S. had no right to be judgmental about North Korea or other oppressive countries. Why? Because of Abu Ghraib.

Get it? The world’s biggest concentration camp (as Dennis Prager aptly calls North Korea) vs. a prison in Iraq full of terrorists that a handful of idiot troops abused and which our own government investigated ...

Don’t worry. I don’t see the parallel either.

In an editorial about Maazel’s comment, the (now-defunct) New York Sun wrote:

It’s quite a contrast with of 1984, when the Philharmonic had been scheduled to play in Kuala Lumpur but wound up canceling its appearance when the Malaysians asked the musicians not to play “Schelomo, A Hebrew Rhapsody” by Ernest Bloch. Imagine how people would have reacted had the Philharmonic shrugged and said, “Hey, there are plenty of anti-Semites in America; who are we to judge?” The fact is that not even the worst abuses in the isolated cases where there have been abuses of prisoners in American custody come anywhere near the routine mistreatment of prisoners by the North Korean communists. In the American case, the abusers — at Abu Ghraib, for example — have been investigated, tried, and punished by our own government. The investigations were initiated by our own government.

In North Korea, by contrast, the abusers are the government. If Mr. Maazel means to put official American prison conditions such as solitary confinement or Guantanamo on par with North Korean concentration camps, it is a different argument, but one in which his case is just as weak.

Amen.

So it appears the mind-numbing poison of moral equivalence reaches well beyond the pop music Barbra Streisand, Bruce Springsteen, and the Dixie Chicks. It extends to the classical music world as well.

What a shame.

So, do zobaczenia, panie Zimerman. Best of luck. I guess now I can delete your Brahms Piano Concerto #1 from my iTunes. Just as well; Nelson Freire’s recording with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra is so much better anyway.

And Now for Something Completely Different ...

Alan Veingrad becomes the first former NFL player to become ultra-Orthodox rabbi [h/t The Vicious Babushka]:

Hmm, today Veingrad. Tomorrow maybe this guy.

Diversity Lane (4/27/09): The Worst 100 Days

The latest from Zack R. at the infamous Diversity Lane:

Teleprompter Gets Way Ahead of Obama ... Again

The smartest president in the nation’s history (he went to Harvard Law, remember!) has been tripped up yet again by his Teleprompter this morning. Politico [via Conservative Xpress] reports:

Laying his plan for a President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Obama began to name the members of PCAST listed in his prepared remarks – before realizing he’d already introduced them, earlier in his speech. “In addition to John – sorry, the – I just noticed I jumped the gun here,” Obama said, pausing for several seconds as he looked at the prompter. “Go ahead. Move it up. I had already introduced all you guys.”

The audience, which gave the president a warm reception, responded with a quiet laugh.

For some reason, I’m not laughing. This isn’t funny; it’s pathetic.

If I had a nickel for every smug lib/Democrat who has said since 2007 what a genius, a true intellectual Barack Obama is compared to his word-mangling predecessor, I’d be able to pay back the stimulus package pork bill.

To my Obama-worshiping lib/Dem friends, lemme quote Cher from Moonstruck: Snap out of it!

After 4 Years of Obama, How Many Towns Will Look Like Greenwood, S.C.?

This past weekend kicked off lots of stories pertaining to Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office. Naturally, the left-wing mainstream media outlets have been propping up President Can’t-Do-No-Wrong, while the right-leaning internet sites and radio have been critical.

So how is Obama really doing? Let’s ask the folks in Greenwood, S.C. It probably was not the intention, but this article from yesterday’s Washington Post [h/t/ Drudge] almost makes me weep for my country. It’s a telling anecdote about this economically disadvantaged Southern town which was gung ho for Obama on January 20, now not so much. Why? Their plight has not changed. What’s really sad is that they don’t realize it’s not going to. These citizens drank the Kool-Aid, just as many easily duped Americans have since LBJ’s Democrat-benefiting Great Society scheme.

The piece is mainly from the perspective of a councilwoman, Edith Childs, who is working around the clock to help her struggling town. Unfortunately, she’s looking for that help in all the wrong places, starting with a certain messianic figure who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. Here are significant parts of the long, depressing piece. I feel bad for Ms. Childs, because writer Eli Saslow makes this clearly decent and well-meaning woman look like a real dupe ... because she is:

A Hundred Anxious Days
In a South Carolina Town Where the Downturn Has Deepened Since the Inauguration, Two Obama Supporters Have Struggled, Going From ‘Fired Up’ to Tired Out

By Eli Saslow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 26, 2009

GREENWOOD, S.C. Her cordless phone stores 17 voice messages, and tonight the inbox is full. Edith Childs, 60, grabs a bottle of water, tosses her hat on the living room floor and scowls at the blinking red light. A county councilwoman, she spent the past 12 hours driving rural roads in her 2001 Toyota Camry, trying to solve Greenwood’s problems, but only now begins the part of each day that exhausts her. Childs slumps into an armless chair and steels herself for a 13-minute confessional.

“Hi, Ms. Edith, this is Rose, and I’m calling about my light bill. It’s $420. . . . There’s no way I can pay that.”

“Edith, it’s Francine. . . . They stopped by my house again today, talking about foreclosure. I don’t know what to do. Can you call me?”

Childs leans her head back against the wall and closes her eyes. Her hair is matted down with sweat, and thin-rimmed glasses sink low on her nose. Every few minutes, she stirs to jot notes on a to-do list that fills most of a notebook. She has to remind herself that she ran for county council in 1998 because she coveted this role: unofficial protector, activist and psychologist for her home town. Back then, the hardships of Greenwood—22,000 people separated from the nearest interstate by 40 miles—struck Childs as contained. Now she sometimes wonders aloud to her husband, Charles: “When does it stop?”

“Yes, councilwoman, this is Joe Thompson calling. Uh, I’m having a bit of an emergency.”

Across the dark living room, one of Childs’s favorite pictures is displayed on a worn coffee table. It shows Childs with her arms wrapped around Barack Obama, his hand on her back, her eyes glowing. They met at a rally attended by 37 supporters on a rainy day in 2007, when Childs responded to Obama’s sluggishness on stage with an impromptu chant: “Fired up! Ready to go!” She repeated it, shouting louder each time, until Obama laughed and dipped his shoulders to the rhythm. The chant caught on. “Fired up!” people began saying at rallies. “Ready to go,” Obama chanted back. He told audiences about Childs, “a spirited little lady,” and invited her onstage at campaign appearances. By the day of his inauguration, when Childs led a busload of strangers bound for the Mall in her now-iconic chant, her transformation was complete. She was Edith Childs, fired up and ready to go.

But now, as Obama nears the 100-day milestone of his presidency, Childs suffers from constant exhaustion. In a conservative Southern state that bolstered Obama’s candidacy by supporting him early in the Democratic primaries, she awakens at 2:30 a.m. with stress headaches and remains awake mulling all that’s befallen Greenwood since Obama’s swearing-in.

On Day 4 of his presidency, the Solutia textile plant laid off 101 workers. On Day 23, the food bank set a record for meals served. On Day 50, the hospital fired 200 employees and warned of further job cuts. On Day 71, the school superintendent called a staff meeting and told his principals: “We’re losing 10 percent of our budget. That means some of us won’t have jobs next year, and the rest should expect job changes and pay cuts.” On Day 78, the town’s newly elected Democratic mayor, whose campaign was inspired partly by his admiration for Obama, summarized Greenwood’s accelerating fragility. “This is crippling us, and there’s no sign of it turning around,” Welborn Adams said.

On Day 88, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that South Carolina had set a record for its highest unemployment rate in state history, at 11.4 percent. Greenwood’s unemployment is 13 percent—more than twice what it was when Childs first started chanting.

“We have a lot of people who live in cold houses, with no jobs and no food,” Childs says.

Hundreds of them call her, and the most desperate travel to Childs’s single-story house on Old Ninety-Six Highway outside of town and knock on her front door. A retired nurse living with her husband on modest savings, she makes $725 a month for serving on the county council and uses that money to pay other people’s bills: $240 for her brother’s electricity, because he can’t find a job; $300 for a young family’s rent in a two-bedroom apartment, because they have a 5-year-old boy and no income; $168 for a friend’s water bill, because the county threatened to shut it off. When the $725 runs out—and it always does—Childs dips into savings and tells Charles she spent the money on a new outfit.

“Always a fighter.” That’s how Childs describes herself. She disapproved of how her first husband wasted money on liquor, so she called him into the living room and lit a $20 bill on fire to emphasize her point. She disliked Greenwood’s plans to build a road between her neighborhood and a new housing project, so she filed a lawsuit and dragged it out for five years until she won. She thought Obama would make a good president, so, she says, “this mouthy black lady knocked on doors in the whitest, most Republican neighborhoods in town and told them what was on my mind.”

Now Obama is president, and she still believes he will help rescue Greenwood County. But her enthusiasm has faded into a wary optimism. “He’s only one man, and there’s a lot to get done,” she says, a predicament she knows all too well.

“I never used to get tired, but I’m running out of energy,” she says. “It’s stressful. Maybe one problem gets fixed, but it’s not fixed for long, and while you’ve been doing that, four other people have called asking for help.” […]

Working on her daily to-do list one April morning, Childs visits an unemployed friend in Promised Land, a town of trailers 10 miles outside Greenwood, and then drops off a bag of food for a 92-year-old woman whose cupboard has emptied of everything but grits.

“Somebody probably needs something in every house we pass,” Childs says as she drives. “A lot have problems too big to solve.”

Just before 1 p.m., she pulls into Greenwood’s normally deserted downtown for a few more errands and notices a large crowd gathered in front of the courthouse. More than 200 people are dressed in red, white and blue and are waving miniature American flags. Childs asks a friend for details and learns that it is a “tea party” to protest Obama’s economic policies, one of about 1,000 similar events coordinated on Tax Day across the country.

“Of course it’s going to be a lot of white Republicans, and mostly men,” Childs says as she walks through the crowd and finds a spot alone at the rear of the plaza. “I want to see this, but I’m keeping my distance.”

In a state that voted 54 percent for Republican presidential candidate John McCain, Childs has heard plenty of anti-Obama rhetoric. “Most people around here know where I stand and let me be,” she says. “People are too polite to be nasty.” So she shakes her head in disbelief as she reads the angry messages scrawled on the poster boards in front of her.

“Say NO to Obama and Socialism!”

“OBAMA’NATION.”

“Who cares what Obama says? America IS a Christian nation.”

Childs puckers her lips and listens as Greenwood residents take turns stepping to the podium and shouting through a megaphone. Their speeches revolve around the same themes Childs hears in her phone messages, except what she identified as the solution to Greenwood’s problems is what these speakers now disparage as the cause.

“We all know this president is the major problem,” David O. Davis III says. “I’ve got friends with families who are losing their jobs, getting laid off.”

“We’re struggling to pay our bills and get by,” Cathy Heitzenrater says. “We’re feeling disenfranchised from our own country and disappointed about who’s running it.”

“Vote the bum out,” R.J. Fife says.

After each speaker finishes, Childs retreats a few steps farther from the crowd. A part of her would like to go grab the bullhorn and tell these people to “keep their mouths shut and give Obama a little time,” she says. But she woke up at 3 a.m. again this morning, and she can’t go home for a nap until she pays $100 on a constituent’s bill at the water company and stops by a city office to inquire about possible job openings for Hackett.

“Let them have their tea party,” Childs says. “They’re just looking for somebody to blame. My ears are full.”

She walks away from the courthouse as the crowd joins into chorus to sing the national anthem.

Sure, Mr. Saslow, bash tea partiers even two weeks after, why don’t you? Real classy.

Ms. Childs, I appreciate where your heart is and applaud your efforts. You’re a person who clearly means well but you are a salmon swimming against a tide you yourself helped make stronger. Your anger at the “tea partiers” is misdirected. Your anger should be directed where theirs is. The tea partiers refused to drink the Kool-Aid, and are now angry that the man you were warned not to vote for is now in the White House, where he won’t be able to do a single thing to help your town’s situation. Indeed, President Obama’s demonstrably unsustainable economic plans will most likely make your situation worse.

I’m not saying towns like Greenwood, S.C. are in their situation because of Obama (and as much as a liberal//Democrat might want to believe, they’re not there because of eight years of Bush either). They are a town whose citizenry has been brainwashed for apprently quite a while that government is the answer to their problems: Government will help them, save them, find them a job, help pay their bills, and put their kids in college.

It’s been a hundred days and no sign of President Obama on his white horse handing out great paying jobs with health benefits. The only ones who can do that are those whom Obama has specifically targeted for punishment: Businesses. Companies. Employers. But employers are Public Enemy #1 to President Obama. As one WaPo reader commented:

Gee … Sounds to me like what Greenwood needs is some of those evil corporations and privately held companies that offer, you know, JOBS. But of course, anyone who employs people is rich, greedy and not paying “their fair share.” It is any wonder why there are no jobs? The people who create jobs are cast as the bad guys. It’s also obvious government cannot give jobs to very many. Government produces nothing. It doesn’t create wealth. Ms. Childs is impotent to help people.

It’s so damn obvious that only a writer for the Washington Post like Eli Saslow would be incapable of realizing it.

President Obama isn’t coming to help you any time, Ms. Childs. In fact, your town is right where Obama and the Democrats want you: Poor, embittered, angry at white men (as depicted by Saslow’s gratuitous dig at the tea partiers), and wholly dependent on government.

Liberal Hypocrisy: Global Warming Hysteric Henry Waxman Accuses Critics of Scare Tactics???

Dennis Prager has often noted that liberals have very little sense of self-awareness. That astute observation entered my mind when I read this AP article:

Gore pleads for unity on climate, despite divide
By DINA CAPPIELLO and H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writers – Fri Apr 24, 4:43 pm ET

OK, first things first. Gore is calling for unity? This is what liberals mean by unity, folks: My position is right and warrants no debate. And if you dare not agree with me, prepare to be (1) silenced or censured, (2) slandered or libeled, or (3) accused of being stupid, ultra-religious, or bought off by supposedly environment-hating energy corporations, or (4) all of the above.

In other words, the liberal/Democrat call for unity is when they best exhibit their trademark “open-mindedness” and “tolerance.” It’s a load of B.S.

Think I’m being hyperbolic? Climate change skeptic Lord Christopher Monckton (who was Margaret Thatcher’s science advisor) wanted to appear alongside Gore at a Congressional hearing scheduled for this past Friday. After Monckton’s plane landed in the U.S., he was informed that the House Democrats denied his request. This is not the first time Gore weaseled out of debating Monckton either. [h/t Brutally Honest and others]

But let’s get back to the topic at hand:

But former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., argued that the Democratic proposal to reduce greenhouse gases would “punish theAmerican people” by imposing higher energy costs and threatening jobs.

“This bill is an energy tax,” Gingrich said. “An energy tax punishes senior citizens, it punishes rural Americans, if you use electricity it punishes you. This bill will increase your cost of living and may kill your job.”

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee that is writing the bill, shot back that Gingrich was resorting to “the old scare tactics” designed to undermine any congressional effort to address the problem.

“When American people hear the statements you have made today, they get scared, which I think is exactly what is intended,” a visibly angry Waxman told Gingrich, a potential presidential contender in 2012 and a leading voice of the GOP.

What??? Is this not rich? Enviro-radical Leftists like Henry Waxman are hell-bent on convincing the American people—from the guilty aging senior to every last impressionable schoolchild—that the earth is warming at an alarming rate, that it’s all our fault by burning fossil fuels and propagating farting cows, and that we’re going to be roasted by the sun, drowned by the oceans, and whisked away by powerful tornadoes unless we immediately turn in our SUV’s for Priuses, replace our incandescent light bulbs for curly mercury-filled ones, reuse our bathroom tissue, and toss our plasma TV’s out in the trash. 

This is a man who has contributed to the fact that a significant percentage of American children actually fear the planet will not be here by the time they are adults, and here he is accusing Newt Gingrich of using “old scare tactics” and making statements intended to frighten the American people?

Does this guy have chutzpah or what!?

He wouldn’t have a “D” next to his name if he didn’t! What a sick, sick man.

Liberal Media Bias: AP Fixes Poll by Polling Twice as Many Dems than GOPers

Question: What do you do when you conduct a poll, the results of which you want to benefit a Democrat president?

Answer: You use a polling sample comprised of way more Democrats than Republicans.

This is what AP (yes, AP!) has done this weekend in a poll to determine how many Americans think the country is “on the right track.” 

This poll has been conducted roughly once a month since September and for the first time in quite a while, the April results reveal a majority that believes the U.S. is in fact on the right track (48%, compared to 44% who disagree.)

Only one problem. An observant reader of Gateway Pundit read the background information of the polling more throroughly and noticed that the polling sample consistently comprised of more Democrats than Republicans. And in the April poll, in which a majority believed we were on the right track, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans was 2-to-1: 36% (strong+moderate) Democrats vs. 18% (strong+moderate) Republicans.

The April data was not a fluke. Notice that in January, the polling sample was 37% D vs. 20% R. In November, the polling sample was 40% D vs. 24% R. 

Most fascinating, however, was the October poll (i.e., right before the election), according to which only 17% thought the country was going on the right direction, compared to a whopping 78% who disagreed. That’s a margin of over 60 points!

In order to find the political-affilation data for this poll, you had to go to AP-GFK Poll website. The following data comes from the October 2008 poll (page 19):

In October, the total respondents were 35% strong+moderate Democrat, but only 22% strong+moderate Republican. Add those respondents leaning one way or the other, and you get 52% D vs. 40% R. (In AP’s defense, once you take into account Likely Voters, however, the ratio is significantly more balanced: 48% D and 44% R. Still, Likely Voters in the September poll were 51% D vs. 42% R.)

I was intrigued that even though there was a 12-point margin between Democrats and Republicans, you still got the cavernous 60+ point spread between those who believed America was on the right track and those who disagreed. 

That’s when I noticed the numbers on page 20, showing the political ideology (liberal, moderate, conservative) of those polled. In October, only 25% called themselves liberal vs. 38% conservative: 

How the heck can that translate to 52% Democrats and 40% Republicans? Here’s how I explain it: 

Toward the end of Bush’s second term, a lot of conservatives—including myself—thought he was taking the country in the wrong direction. But before you liberals start thinking, “Ya see! Even conservatives hated Bush and wanted to see ‘change’,” consider this. They thought Bush was being too liberal (e.g., with TARP and the bailouts). It wasn’t because they wanted an Obama-type president to take Bush’s place; to them Obama would be taking the country even further in the wrong direction.

Another interesting factor is that a massive 35% called themselves “moderate.” These self-described moderates must have been Democrat voters and didn’t realize—or, mostly likely, didn’t want to admit—just how radical left the Obama-Biden ticket was. 

What is a moderate anyway? Really, someone too wishy-washy to pick a side and stick to it, or someone who’s just simply apolitical. So what do they most likely do? Vote Democrat by default. (‘Cuz Democrats are the party of the “nice guys.” Republicans are the “cold-hearted ones.” At least that’s the story we get pounded into our heads by the media, academia, and Hollywood.) 

I’ll admit to having a personal bias toward this description, for this was me before my pre-9/11 wake-up call. I was completely uninformed and apolitical. All my friends and relatives voted Democrat, so I did too. (Yes, in 2000 I voted for Al Gore.)

As a final note to this jacked poll, even AP “journalists” Ron Fournier and Trevor Thompson are shocked by the numbers. Making no attempts at objectivity, they effervesce gleefully about the citizenry’s supposedly improved outlook about the country:

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Millions of people jobless. Billions of dollars in bailouts. Trillions of dollars in U.S. debt. And yet, for the first time in years, more Americans than not say the country is on the right track. In a sign that Barack Obama has inspired hopes for a brighter future in the first 100 days of his presidency, an Associated Press-GfK poll shows that 48 percent of Americans believe the United States is headed in the right direction — compared with 44 percent who disagree. The “right direction” number is up 8 points since February and a remarkable 31 points since October, the month before Obama’s election.

What’s remarkable is that liberal hacks with journalism degrees like these still think we conservatives are making up this whole “liberal media bias” thing. “A sign that Barack Obama has inspired hopes for a brighter future”? “Up a remarkable 31 points”? This is an objective news article? Don’t think so.

So, in a nutshell, you have a poll heavily weighted to favor the Democrat, accompanied by an article that resembles an Obama White House press release. That’s the current state of the freaking Associated Press.

Oy, I can’t take three more years of this garbage.

NY Jets Player Kvetches About Game Conflicting with Jewish Holidays

Funny clip from Jimmy Kimmel Live:

Loving Our Country As a Parent Loves a Child

Here is a guest post prepared by reader LoudLion, which I’d like to call “The Weekly Roar.” (Of course, this would require him to write something on a weekly basis. Hint hint). Enjoy.

I think of my country as parents think of their children. There are times you are unhappy with their actions, but you will always love them. You always want to see them succeed, but sometimes you need to see them fail to hope they learn from the experience. This is how I am thinking and feeling about the United States of America right now.

As parents we try to teach our children not to play the “gotcha” game. You know this game; you played it as a child and as an adult, and you still do it with your partners when you are upset with them. You catch them doing the very thing that they blasted you for doing in the past. And, when you catch them you say “gotcha” or some derivative. As a parent you hate it, but you realize that you should not be doing the whole “do as I say, not as I do” thing that we hated our parents for doing when we were younger.

As a conservative, I would like to tell my fellow thinkers to cut it out. It looks babyish and immature, and draws away from the actual arguments. The current one, which gave me a chuckle, is how Obama did not get U.N. backing for the killing of the pirates. Or that by having them shot is causing more pirates. Yes, the Democrats are doing what they blasted Bush for doing.

But, and this is why the continuation of this has bothered me. What right thinking American could be upset with what was done to the pirates? While we may not agree with our current president’s methods, and we should be yelling about them till we are blue in the face, we should stand behind him because in this one instance, he acted in the best interest of the country. I am presently reading a book on the history of the United States in the Middle East, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present by Michael B. Oren, which traces the role of the Barbary Coast Pirates and the formation of the country from independent states to the nation of the United States of America.

I would have liked to see this event help bring the widening divide between Democrats and Republicans—‘cause until something better comes along these are the two camps we fall into— little closer as it did in the late 18th century. Instead, everyone is pouncing on the double standard. We make our arguments weak when we play the same game they did. It makes their arguments more valid and worth the effort of disputing.

As a parent, you come to understand that your child will fail. Not at everything, and not repeatedly, but they will fail. Your child will fall off the bike when learning, and will fall when walking, and even get hit when playing in the park. Nothing we do, no amount of praying and wishing will make this not so. And, just like a child, your country, my country, our country will fail. The hope is that, just like your child, they will learn. You will hope that your child will learn to balance themselves on that bike, while all the while cringing in terror. So to I watch in horror as my country tries to right itself. The principles that founded and guided our country for 233 years are being discarded as quickly as a one hit wonder on the radio (I sure miss A-Ha).

While the general public was fawning over the coronation of the future king of America—‘cause, you know, bowing is what kings and queens do—I was learning about who his influences were during his childhood. His upbringing is littered with radicals and self-proclaimed enemies of the state. The warning signs were there, but no one wanted to yell, “The Emperor has no clothes.” I would repeatedy have the same conversation with a coworker about the rise of Obama, the decline of conservative values, and the path this country was headed on. I remember during the primaries a friend asking me (he and his wife are ultra-liberal, which causes other problems in their lives) why I was not a devotee of Obama (OK, so I am paraphrasing). I said I wanted to believe in him; I really did. I mentioned that during the 2004 Democratic National I said to my wife that I see him being a rising star on the national scene and that with seasoning he could be presidential, little did I know that National Political Seasoning only took 2.5 years. I said I wanted to believe in change. As a child of Reagan, I was disillusioned by Bush (oddly enough, that is what happened after I voted for H.W. Bush the first time in 1988) and his free spending ways, and was ready for change. And lets be honest, the election of a black man is a great story.

But, as I asked my friends, what was the actual change we were being asked to vote for? This was during the Pennsylvania primaries late in the primary season when we should have been able to recite our candidate’s platforms forwards and backwards, not just “Change You Can Believe In.” Not surprisingly, my friend could not tell me what the change was beyond “Not Bush” mantra favored by many people.

When Sara Palin was chosen to be Senator McCain’s running mate, I got into a heated argument with my parents over their beliefs that what was being written in US Weekly and People magazine, and “reported” by Keith Olbermann was true. I could not believe this. My parents are very intelligent and have risen to the top of their fields, yet they were willing to believe celebrity mags and a raving lunatic who has in the past called for the death of a sitting president. I realized that I was angry at that fact that my mother—who is a strong woman; a woman who dominated in a male profession; who was world-renowned in her field—was bashing someone who could very well be her sister. Sarah Palin, behind whom every member of NOW should have been marching, was being bashed for all the things that they stood for except her stance on abortion. Not only could she say it was her stance, it was her actions as well.

I like Sara Palin, always will, but I also understand that she will not be the national candidate in 2012, and we will need to have her voice, but not as the leading voice of the conservative movement.

So in the day that I put this article aside I have come to think that President Obama and the liberals want to actually tear this country down and rebuild it in the glorious and utopian society of their dreams. While this is all well and good, and even admirable it does not account for the fact that most of the world hates us!!! No amount of acting contrite and accepting blame will do that. The world is not single minded, not single belief.

While in theory communism is great, it does not work in the real world (see USSR, Cuba, N. Korea and PRC). People get jealous, people feel slighted, and people are by most part lazy. Is it no coincidence that the Industrial Revolutions in the world have been fueled by the Puritan Work Ethic? Is it a coincidence that the great civilizations of the Middle East started to fade when they embraced Islam?

So, by pushing our society towards socialism and closer to anarchism (any wonder why the massive demonstrations are organized by Anarchist...is that in its very nature anti-anarchic) our way of life will fall into malaise. People will realize that they do not need to work hard to get ahead, since everyone is the same in the eyes of the Anointed One. People will become wards of the State, and the State will take care of all the ills that befall them … just like a parent.

I do not have the answers; I wish I did. I do know that I fear for my country, and for the citizens in it. May God in his infinite wisdom and hope save and protect us all.

Diversity Lane (4/24/09): Earth Daze

The latest from Zack R. at the infallible Diversity Lane: 

I Saved 10 Cents on My $3,500 Guitar and My Wife Is So Happy!

My wife is very loyal. She agrees with everything I say and trusts everything I do. She is completely devoted to me and in her eyes I can do no wrong.

Recently I had the need to visit the music store. Waiting there was a sweet classic Gibson solid-body electric guitar that I’ve been eyeing for years. I told my wife it was crucial, even vital, for the success of my music career, that I own that guitar. I also explained that the music store was a wonderful place and really depended on my patronage. It helped by bringing beautiful music to all the children of the community, so my purchasing the guitar would help them a great deal.

When my wife asked me how much this vital guitar was, I answered, “$3,500.” A lot of money to be sure, especially with two kids, a mortgage, car payments, college loans, and bills to keep up with.

But, my wife is very loyal. She agrees with everything I say and trusts everything I do. She is completely devoted to me and in her eyes I can do no wrong.

And so she borrowed money from our children’s college fund, my wife’s siblings and their children’s college funds. They weren’t too happy about this, though. For some reason, my wife’s family never liked me. And when she asked to borrow money, the intolerant bastards had the nerve to stand in my driveway for several hours and complain.

Anyway, once my wife was able to hand me $3,500, I immediately headed off to the music store. This was an emergency, after all.

When I returned home, I had no guitar. I remembered having the money in my hand and paying it at the register, but I was a little fuzzy on taking the guitar home, or even being handed it to begin with. When my wife asked, “So, let me get this straight: You paid $3,500 for a guitar that you do not have?” I replied, “Yes, but I was very conscious about our financial situation and was very much affected by your family’s displeasure that I borrowed money from them. So I made sure I saved some money on the deal. You see, the guitar had a set of expensive strings on it, but I told them I was concerned about my finances, so I demanded they put on a cheaper set of strings.”

“So how much did you save?” my wife asked.

“Ten cents,” I answered proudly.

“Ten cents?”

“Ten cents.”

And that made my wife happy. Ecstatic even. True, her family was extremely ticked off when they found out, but she vowed to stand by me ‘til the end, no matter what those hateful ignoramuses say.

Because my wife is very loyal. She agrees with everything I say and trusts everything I do. She is completely devoted to me and in her eyes I can do no wrong.

*     *     *     *     *

By now you’ve probably surmised this is a made up story. But, substitute some characters, add nine zeros to the dollar amounts, and it becomes terrifyingly true:

For me, substitute Barack Obama.

For my wife, substitute the Obama-worshiping Democrat Party and the mainstream media.

For the music store, substitute any of Obama’s favorite lobbyists: ACORN, unions, or whoever.

For my wife’s family, substitute the American taxpayer (which constitutes approximately only 60% of the American population, not 95%+, as Obama would have you believe).

Oh, what’s with the $3,500 and the 10 whopping cents? That’s easy: Move the decimal point nine digits to the right and here’s what you get: $3.50 trillion, i.e., President Obama’s proposed FY2010 budget, and $100 million, i.e., the amount of money that Obama has pledged to cut from the budget. And the mainstream media, portrayed in the above scenario by my wife, has been supportive, unsuspicious, and even complimentary of this seemingly messianic accomplishment!

For instance, here’s the U.S. News and World Report’s headline:

Obama to Cabinet: Cut $100 Million from Budget
The president says the cut, while small compared with the overall budget, sets a new tone

Just like saving 10 cents on a $3,500 guitar would be small compared to its overall price and would set a new tone, right?

From the L.A. Times:

Obama asks Cabinet chiefs to start cutting
He wants $100 million in trims from a budget expected to exceed $3.5 trillion. Outraged Republicans say it’s a drop in the bucket.

Ya get that? It’s not that $100 million (or 10 cents) isn’t empirically a drop in the bucket compared to $3.5 trillion (or $3,500). It has to be “outraged” Republicans saying this. 

By Christi Parsons
April 21, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- President Obama called his full Cabinet together for the first time Monday and instructed the department heads to cut enough money from their budgets to set a new tone in Washington.

There’s that “new tone” thing again. Gee, you think these incestuous liberal media types aren’t getting spoonfed some press release from Rahm Emanuel or something? Naaaaah!

Even the AP states it matter-of-factly:

Obama orders Cabinet to cut spending by $100M
By STEVEN R. HURST

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Monday ordered his Cabinet to find ways to slice spending by $100 million, but acknowledged it’s a “drop in the bucket” and said there’s a “confidence gap” that he needs to overcome. Just back from a Latin America summit, Obama told the first formal Cabinet meeting of his administration that vast spending to combat the economic crisis was “the right thing to do.” But he also said taxpayers still need to know that every dollar they give the government is being spent wisely.

Just like saving 10 cents on the strings of a $3,500 guitar would be “the right thing to do.” That, according to the media apparently, is equal to spending money wisely. And I wonder when was the last time a mainstream media outlet quoted George W. Bush as saying one of his decisions was “the right thing to do” without injecting some sort of criticism?

To summarize: Cutting $100 million from a $3.5 trillion budget is the same as saving 10 cents on a $3,500 guitar. It means nothing. Nothing. And Obamaniacs are so much in the tank for this guy they don’t even realize that when he talks of “a new tone in Washington,” he’s just pissing on their leg and telling them it’s raining.

Oh, one last substitution: For the guitar, substitute the benefits/success/results of Obama’s economic plans: Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, ничего.

What idiots they must think we are.

P.S. For those visual learners who had trouble wrapping their heads around $100 million vs. $3.5 trillion, this graphic from the Heritage Foundation blog should help (they use $3.69 trillion):

The Liberal Code of Beliefs

This was posted on my friend Mike's Politics and Finance blog. It’s probably been around the cyber-block a few times, but it still rings true:

The Liberal Code of Beliefs

I’m a Liberal because I’m way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.

I’m a Liberal because I love the fact I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my horse.

I’m a Liberal because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene, but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.

I’m a Liberal because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

I’m a Liberal because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it. [Which means anything uttered by anyone to the right of Hillary Clinton – ETR]

I’m a Liberal because when we pull out of Iraq I trust the bad guys will stop what they’re doing because they now think we’re good people.

I’m a Liberal because I believe people who can’t tell us if it will rain on Friday, CAN tell us the polar ice caps will melt away in 10 years if I don’t start driving a Prius.

I’m a Liberal because I believe business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as THEY see fit.

I’m a Liberal because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who could NEVER get their agendas past the voters.

A Liberal has to believe the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.

A Liberal has to believe that the same teacher who can’t teach 4th-graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex.

I’m a Liberal because my head is so firmly planted up my own butt, it’s unlikely I’ll ever have another point of view.

“A Liberal is a person who will give away everything they don’t own.”

Any questions?

UPDATE: Congrats to Politics & Finance for getting this post linked at the Jawa Report!

Diversity Lane (4/22/09): Dog & Phony Show; Patriautism

A double feature from Zack R. at the incessant Diversity Lane:

It's Earth Day? Bah Humbug!

Well, kids, it’s another Earth Day, that wonderful day that has become woefully politicized and capitalism-bashing (while simultaneously over-commercialized). And, whereas Wednesday’s Tea Parties were crapped upon by a hopelessly leftist mainstream media, get ready for nothing by glowing coverage of whatever environmental rallies might be taking place today.

As I sit here in my idling SUV (just kidding), I’d like to mark this day by honoring those individuals who have made actual positive differences in the world. These people have made indelible marks on human life. Yet, due to the new world radical religion of “environmentalism” which has infiltrated our schools, stores, media, and government, their contributions have been minimized, ignored, condemned, or denounced.

First and foremost, I’d like to recognize is a brave Polish Catholic woman named Irena Sendler. A nurse in Nazi-occupied Poland, Ms. Sendler rescued 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi death camps by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto and transferring them to Catholic families to raise as their own. Even though Ms. Sendler was ultimately arrested by the Gestapo for her actions and suffered bone-breaking beatings, she did not give up her struggle. Even though most of their parents were exterminated in the camps, the children she saved grew up, most likely, to become parents themselves. Irena Sendler’s story is so compelling that this past Sunday CBS aired a movie about her, starring Anna (“X-Men”) Paquin and Goran (“E/R”) Visnjic.

You might be thinking at this point what the heck a nurse from WWII Poland has to do with Earth Day. I’m getting to that.

In 2007 Irena Sendler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Surely, few would disagree that this prize was tailor-made for a person who exhibited this level of bravery and moral courage during one of the darkest eras of world history. But Ms. Sendler went to her grave last year at age 98 without the Nobel Peace Prize. The person she lost to was none other than … wait for it … Al Gore. The Nobel Committee decided to award the prize to Gore instead, for his efforts “to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

Hmmm, Irena Sendler … Al Gore. Irena Sendler … Al Gore. I dunno, seems like a no-brainer to me.

This American Thinker article by Marc Sheppard provides more background about Ms. Sendler and the story behind the Nobel committee’s choice of the Goracle over her.

April 21, 2009
Movie Honors Holocaust Hero Robbed of Nobel Prize
By Marc Sheppard

Sunday night, CBS aired the Hallmark Channel presentation of The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, the amazing story of the Polish Roman Catholic nurse and social worker who smuggled thousands of Jewish children to safety from the Warsaw Ghetto. If the name sounds familiar, it should—her failed 2007 nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize created quite a stir, particularly in light of who took the honor instead. Then again, you may already be quite familiar with this woman’s incredible accomplishments. After all, before being captured by the Nazis, Irena Sendler managed to deliver 2,500 children and infants to Polish Catholic families who kept them from the gas chambers by raising them as though their own. She even supplied the false documents necessary to sustain the new identities. Hopelessly optimistic, she actually buried records associating each child’s assumed and birth identities in glass jars, hoping to one day reunite children with parents.

But in 1943 she was arrested by the Gestapo, who tortured and beat her to the point of breaking her arms and legs, but never her loyalty to her humane cause. Refusing to betray accomplices, she was sentenced to die. Fortunately, by bribing a few German guards, Sendler’s underground organization managed to rescue her while keeping her name on Nazi bulletin board execution lists. Believed dead, she managed to live in hiding until the fall of Berlin, reportedly continuing her work keeping Jewish children out of Hitler’s ovens.

After the war she stuck to the plan and unearthed the jars, hoping to return the children to their parents. But as nearly all of the Ghetto’s 400,000-plus population had perished from starvation, disease, random sadistic killings, or mass deportations to the extermination camp at Treblinka, few, if any, such reunions ever took place. Nonetheless, the fact that she risked her life daily to save thousands from Hitler’s Final Solution is nothing short of gallant and that she did so under the scrutiny of the Gestapo is nothing short of momentous.

In 2007 and at the age of 97, the brave and selfless hero was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Unfortunately, that was the year the award committee reaffirmed its status as political tool of Europe’s left, and opted to recognize an American for his work “to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

Of course, that man also suffered tremendous hardships for his work. During an April 2008 60 Minutes interview with Leslie Stahl, it was revealed that after losing the 2000 presidential election, “his friends said they were worried about him and his state of mind, especially after he gained a lot of weight and grew a beard.” And his wife described the relief she felt when he “lifted himself and our family” from his funk by, as Stahl described it, “turning his old slides that were gathering dust in the basement into that mega-hit documentary.” Such Bravery.

How exactly his “work” or error-ridden sci-fi flick serves to “disseminate greater knowledge” about or “lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract” climate change remains a mystery. But by naming the United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change as his co-honoree, any doubt that the selection was made with the left’s cause du jour in mind rather than the intentions of prize founder Alfred Nobel was surely allayed. According to the 1895 will of the Swedish scientist, the Peace Prize is to be awarded “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

And who better fits that description, the female equivalent of Oscar Schindler or the bloated equivalent of Chicken Little? One saved the children, the other indoctrinates them. You be the judge. [...]

Last May, Irena Sendler died of pneumonia in a Warsaw hospital at the age of 98. And surely the Prize was of little or no consequence to this gentle soul. Nevertheless—Hallmark’s movie reminds us that the charlatan who stole the Nobel Peace Prize from her is truly unfit to have his name mentioned in the same breath as hers.

Or, for that matter, in the same commentary.

That Al Gore won the 2007 Nobel Prize for his ever more unsubstantiated climate theory was a shame in and of itself. But considering who lost out to Mr. Gore due to an environmentalist movement that has turned our world leaders’ brains to liquid dung, it’s worse than a shame; it’s a crime. Because praising Al Gore with this prize is tantamount to thumbing your nose at Irena Sendler. That, in my mind, is exactly what the Nobel Committee did, and that’s abominable.

Next I honor individuals who have made such a significant mark on human life that we take their contributions for granted. To do this, I reprint for you today’s daily Morning Update by El Rushbo:

Today is Earth Day, folks. So in my official role as America’s Anchorman, let me lead the nation in a solemn tribute to some of the pioneers who’ve contributed to the well-being of planet Earf and its inhabitants—us.

First, we salute a group that’s unmarked by history: the first coal miners in America—farmers, selling it by the bushel. Their efforts grew into an industry that fuels America’s energy needs. To the coal miners of America, past and present: Happy Earf Day.

Next: two little-known men—Charles and Frank Duryea. On September 20, 1893 they constructed and tested the first gasoline-powered automobile. They were also the first to incorporate into an American automobile business. Now we travel the Earf in gas-powered cars; we owe these two a debt of gratitude.

Next we honor, this Earth Day, an inventor whose legacy has spread all over the Earf: Gordon Dancy. He invented the first high-density plastic grocery bag, which can handle up to 40 pounds of stuff. That singular invention has benefited our daily life on earth in multitudinous ways.

And, lastly, perhaps America’s greatest inventor of all time: Thomas Edison, whose incredible inventions defined our modern world. Among them, the incandescent light bulb, so that we can see Earf at night. A hero to America and all of mankind. And on this Earth Day, we salute him and so many other capitalist inventors whose efforts have brought so much joy—and progress—to us, the inhabitants, of Mother Earf.

So, have a happy Earth Day, folks. But while celebrating, don’t forget to thank your lucky stars for the individuals who gave you the car to drive around in, the coal to keep your ass warm during this unseasonably (for the Mid-Atlantic states) cool April, the plastic bags to schlep your crap in, and the lights without which we’d be even more in the dark than many people seem to be right now.