Obama Likes Booty

So does Sarkozy.

The Secret Service might want to put a new threat on its watch list: the mad-as-hell mama of the 17-year-old Brazilian beauty ogled by President Obama and French leader Nicolas Sarkozy at the G8 summit last week.

"If I were there, I would have boxed their ears," said Lucia Rodrigues, 37. "They should be ashamed of themselves."

Patriarch Eduardo Tavares, after finally getting around to seeing the famous photo of his daughter from behind, quickly changed his tune from proud papa to furious father.

"My daughter is not a model and she is not a sex symbol," he told The Post. "That photograph has ruined my whole family."

At the Italy summit last week, daughter Mayara Rodrigues Tavares, her long locks flowing over her curvaceous frame, became the momentary focus of the leering leaders as she took her place for an official group photo.

Wanted for Bretraying Republican Principles!

A Berkeley Liberal Wakes Up

I've been thinking about learning how to fire a gun, maybe even buying one. Now if you are a lifelong conservative, Red State dweller, and NRA member, you might be thinking, "Big yawn. What's next? She'll be telling us what she had for breakfast?"

So let me try to convey to you the enormousness, the Alice in Wonderland quality of my even posing the question, something I've never, ever considered in my life. No one I know owns a gun. I've never seen a gun (well on a holster of a police officer but I never wanted to get up close and personal with it). I have given lots of good money over the years for gun control. Learning to fire a gun seems as ludicrous as deciding to take up brain surgery.

But, I am rethinking absolutely everything. There is not a single thing that I believed, that I held absolute and holy, that is not up for grabs. My brain is in a tizzy 24/7 and I don't know if up is down, or if east is west.

* * *

As a good, loyal liberal, I always expected others to take care of me. If I gave my unqualified loyalty to the system, I could sleep well at night. But now, with victims left bleeding, a dangerously naive government, and sheep like masses, I see the absurdity of my thinking.

* * *

As I continue on the path to independence and personal responsibility, perhaps looking to myself for protection is another step on my journey.

Why Do Liberals Bleed?

Tax Increases Could Destroy Recovery

The barrage of tax increases proposed in President Barack Obama's budget could, if enacted by Congress, kill any chance of an early and sustained recovery.

WSJ article here

Just Make Stuff Up

Victor Davis Hanson hits it again.

In the first six months of the Obama administration, we have witnessed an assault on the truth of a magnitude not seen since the Nixon Watergate years. The prevarication is ironic given the Obama campaign's accusations that the Bush years were not transparent and that Hillary Clinton, like her husband, was a chronic fabricator. Remember Obama's own assertions that he was a "student of history" and that "words mean something. You can't just make stuff up."

Yet Obama's war against veracity is multifaceted.

The rest of the article here

NOW Adds Letterman to it's Media Hall of Shame

Finally!!! The National Organization of Women steps to the plate and condemns David Letterman's sexist, misogynistic and abusive attempt at humor on Wednesday night. Whether his "joke" was focused on 18-year old Bristol Palin, as Letterman claimed in his semi-mea culpa (I don't buy it) or 14-year old Willow, his remarks were beyond the pale.

NOW Media Hall of Shame

Other liberals are beginning to sign on with their objections to Letterman's sophomoric attempt at humor. Read Amanda Fortini's remarks at Salon.

Who's to Blame for Insanity

John at Powerline addresses those who refer to the Holocaust Museum murderer as "right wing."

Various media sources are referring to von Brunn as a "right wing" murderer, more or less as they refer to people like us as "right wingers." This is a dubious characterization, to say the least: anti-Semitism is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of the Left in today's world, and Leon Wolf, at RedState, points out that Mr. von Brunn's political views are typical of those commonly expressed at the Daily Kos. No surprise there.

Top 10 Most Absurd Time Covers

From William Randolph Hearst's ginned up hysterical stories about marijuana to the "10-cent plague" comic book scare of the 1950s to The New York Times warning of "cocaine-crazed Negroes" raping white women across the Southern countryside, the media has always whipped up anxiety and increased readership via thinly sourced exposes of the next great threat to the American way of life.

And since the British sociologist Stanley Cohen defined the moral panic phenomenon in the early 1970s as hysterical overreactions to imagined threats to social order, no publication has done a better (by which we mean worse) job of scaring the crap out of post-baby boomer America than Time, the top-selling newsweekly that's dropping subscribers like the mythical meth mouth drops teeth. (Hot tip to Time: If you're looking for a cutting-edge panic to get those ad rates up again, we hear people have been freaking out about "sexting" lately.)

Reason offers this Top 10 list of the most horrifying, silly, irresponsible, or downright ridiculous Time cover panics from the past 40 years.

Obama Against the Way of the Universe

Another insightful piece from Victor Davis Hanson.

I wish the President well, but he is butting up against human nature. And that is a fight one cannot win. If one runs up nearly a $2 trillion annual deficit, and then persists in such red-ink to the point of adding another $9 trillion, all to reach an aggregate $20 trillion national debt, there are not too many options. If there were, everyone-both states and individuals-would simply spend, call it stimuli, and then find academics to offer contorted explanations why it was OK and the money need not really have to be paid back. Does Obama think his debt is like buying a house in a down market with an up market inevitable?–that is, we borrow to the max and then count on our equity to come to bail us out? But houses do not always go up, and we can't quite sell off the US to capture our speculative profit.

* * *

Obama will come to his senses with his 'Bush did it', reset button, moral equivalency, soaring hope and change, with these apologies to Europeans, his Arab world Sermons on the Mount to Al Arabiya, in Turkey, in Cairo, etc., his touchy-feely videos to Iran, his "we are all victims of racism" sops to Ortega, Chavez, and Morales. It is only a matter of when, under what conditions, how high the price we must pay, and whether we lose the farm before he gains wisdom about the tragic universe in which we live.

A sojourn at an elite university, you see, can sometimes become a very dangerous thing indeed.

Ronald Reagan, Point-du-Hoc, Normandy, 6/6/1984

"Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their value and born for their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died."

D-Day in One Sentence

From Rossputin -

As we remember those who suffered and died on D-Day for the liberation of nations which now offer insufferable anti-Americanism, it offers a chance for reflection not only on the valor of those soldiers but on the repugnant state of our society and electorate that the nation could (for some voters proudly) elect as president a man whose views seem more in tune with our competitors or enemies than with the heroic spirit of D-Day heroes and the American founding.

Ghost Baskets

Images of an abandoned German colliery. The hanging cages, or Kaue, were individually numbered and used as storage lockers for miners’ belongings.

From David Thompson Blog

Every Aspect of our Lives Subject to Inventory

Esteemed Speaker of the House of Representatives, speaking in China, makes a Green Appeal, saying "Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility."

If that doesn't scare you, nothing will.

Pizza Crime

Who'd have thought it? Pizza by the slice is thought by some to be a cause of street crime in Washington, D.C.

Adams Morgan Councilman Sets Sights on Single-slice Pizza Sales

Ward 1 D.C. Councilman Jim Graham, who represents Adams Morgan, says the pizza parlors selling single slices along 18th Street, some of which are open until 4:30 a.m., are part of the problem when it comes a recent rash of street fights, stabbings, muggings and even a shootout involving two plainclothes police officers.

Pump Problems

Last week was the first time we used the Palouse Caboose for camping. We've always had an issue with the water pump that prevented leaving the pump switch on the entire time we were using the trailer. Last year, about once a minute the pump would cycle, as if it had a loss of pressure due to a leak. I couldn't locate a leak, however, and dealt with the issue by just switching the pump on whenever we wanted to use the water (sink, flush toilet). Last weekend, however, the problem was noticeably worse. The pump would try to cycle ever 5 seconds or so. Very annoying, especially if the toilet was used at night, since the pump is located directly beneath my head, and Lynne's turning the pump switch on would invariably wake me up.

I spent a little time today troubleshooting the system and, voila!, I located the problem. When the pump is switched on, I found water leaking down the side of the trailer from the fresh water inlet valve. So, now that the problem is isolated, I can set about fixing it. Unfortunately, it's Memorial Day and I'm sure the local RV Emporium, Smiley's RV, is closed, so the repair will have to wait until next weekend.

Hat tip to Maggie's Farm

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.

Friedrich Hayek

Wiki has a good entry on Hayek.

Revolver on Hand Painted Stonewear

I kinda like this image. Taken from Home on the Range blog.

Hot Tubbin' with the Grizz

From TMZ, Expedition Grizzly host Casey Anderson gets wild in the hot tub with Brutus, an 800 lb. Grizzly Bear.

Obama Announces 20,000 New DOD Jobs

Great!!!

Soon the Pentagon will have 1,220,000 civilian employees.
Meanwhile the US Army has 550,000 soldiers.

That is why America has not won a war since the Pentagon was built.

Hat Tip to Unclewest at Politics for Pros.

Poker Run for the Vets

Map Link


View Larger Map

Tea Party Smackdown of CNN

Founding Bloggers has a video showing the smackdown of clueless CNN reporter Susan Roesgen, who clearly does not understand the Tea Parties are a broad based movement, and not some Fox News inspired, right wing events.

California on Track to Ban Black Cars

Has the country gone collectively insane? The California legislature is considering regulating the color of cars and reflectivity of paint to reduce the energy requirements to cool them.

More here.

Dude, I Want My Country Back!!!

It Is No Longer Our Country

Monday , March 30, 2009
By Neil Cavuto

Before you celebrate Rick Wagoner getting his just desserts, think about who just heaved him: the government. More to the point: the president of the United States.

Think about that. The leader of a country firing the leader of a business. Arguing since taxpayer dollars were involved, the leader of the country had perfect right firing the leader of the business getting those tax dollars.

Just like he had the same right to force Chrysler to merge with Fiat. And U.S. companies that have operations abroad to pay dearly for it here.

Justifying these Chavezian grabs for power on the notion that it is our money, misses an even greater point: It's no longer our country.

Not when the government routinely rescues businesses, then can justify running those businesses, what folks get paid at those businesses, whether they get bonuses at those businesses, and even -- in the case of the GM chairman -- whether they should be removed from those businesses.

It's no wonder Goldman Sachs wants to give back bailout dough it never wanted, but now isn't even permitted to return.

I see a pattern here: First, setting salary guidelines for executives at companies rescued by the government, then slipping in language extending such guidelines for companies that deal with companies rescued by the government.

This isn't a dash to lash. This is a dash for cash.

I cannot believe even the most fervent Obama supporter voted for this because — hear me out on this — when those in government who have a tough enough time policing their own books, start policing others' books, what new chapters have yet to be written?

Drug prices get out of whack; whack the drug companies.

Gas prices move up as demand moves up; heave the gas guys out.

No, this isn't about doing what is right for America. This is about destroying everything that is America.

Mark Steyn on Government "Investment"

Two Wheels on my Wagoner [Mark Steyn]

Incidentally, the government "overhaul" of GM is a useful shorthand for where we're heading:

The first quid pro quo for the government giving you money (or "investing", as President Obama and David Brooks say) is that it gets to regulate your behavior. Not just who sits on your board or (see Sarkozy last week) where your factory has to be. When the government "pays" for your health care, it reserves the right to deny (as in parts of Britain) heart disease treatment for smokers or hip replacement for the obese. Why be surprised? When the state's "paying" for your health, your lifestyle directly impacts its "investment."

The next stage is that, having gotten you used to having your behavior regulated, the state advances to approving not just what you do but what you're allowed to read, see, hear, think: See the "Canadian Content" regulations up north, and the enforcers of the "human rights" commissions. Or Britain's recent criminalization of "homophobic jokes."

You'd be surprised how painlessly and smoothly once-free peoples slip from government "investing" to government control.

National Review

Democratic Congress's Popularity at New Low

John at Powerline remarks on Rasmussen's new report that Sixty percent (60%) of U.S. voters now have an unfavorable opinion of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, including 42% Very Unfavorable.

Too bad many voters in last November's election were so uninformed they thought the Republicans still controlled the Congress.

Nadine Nails It, Pt. II

Nadine Carroll, a frequent poster on Silicon Investor's Politics for Pros thread, hits another home run.

Just comparing Obama to Bill Clinton, I am struck by little semblance of logical coherence there is in Obama's utterances. Now Bill Clinton was no stranger to spin! But you could tell he knew what logical coherence was, and made efforts to simulate it in his pronouncements, or to obtain it altogether if possible. With Obama, I am not certain if he knows how slippery and dishonest he is being. He seems to regard this kind of slipshod structure of arguments as acceptable. Certainly, even pushing the program he is pushing, you could imagine a more honest argument for it.

To continue with this idea, I am toying with a very simple idea that seems to have occurred to almost none of our punditocracy -- that Obama is incapable of logical thought, having spent his whole life preferring cleverness to coherence.

I know, I know, the One is supposed to be so very bright, so everybody assumes that his hole-filled arguments must be that way on purpose. Even Bill O'Reilly sounds genuinely impressed with Obama. But the One has always operated in environments where quick, deft and slippery count for much more than logical, factual and coherent. Could it be that Obama and all his hearers have simply mistaken the first set of adjectives for the second?

Why else is this so-called great orator unable to muster a real argument for anything? Why can nobody quote line from the supposed great speeches he gave during the campaign or the inaugural, even those who swooned over them at the time? Why are none of his speeches memorable once they have been written down?

I think Obama is strictly Performance Art. Behind all the performance there is only a junior machine pol from Chicago.

In which case, we ain't seen nothin' yet, in terms of the general disillusionment.

Over a year ago, Charles Krauthammer predicted Obama's spell would burst shortly after Inauguration. He predicted a rude awakening. I think he was absolutely right, and we are seeing the process in motion.

Link Here

Mob Rule in Washington

In the last three months, we've been reduced to something like the ancient Athenian mob — with opportunistic politicians sometimes inciting, sometimes catering to an already-angry public.

The Greek comic playwright Aristophanes once described how screaming politicians — posing as men of the people — would sway Athenian citizens by offering them all sort of perks and goodies that the government had no idea of how to pay for.

We need [. . .] a Socrates in Washington right now, who would dare tell the American mob the truth of how we are descending into financial serfdom. But in this present mood, the aroused mob would first make him drink the hemlock.

Full Article

Teleprompter Obama

What's behind Obama's Teleprompter addiction?

President Obama's Teleprompter dependence has become so extreme that the little gadget has decided to enter the blogosphere with its own tell-all story.

Yes, it's good for a joke or two. But more serious discussion of the Teleprompter reliance of our new Orator-in-Chief mostly focuses on the irony and apparent contradiction that a president known for being an articulate graduate of Harvard Law School, and for the soaring rhetoric of his inspiring oratory, appears remarkably tongue-tied and awkward without his trusty Telly.

More at Obama's Teleprompter Addiction

Dems Can't Resist Being Dems

Paul, posting on Powerline has an interesting observation.

If our curent economic woes continue for, say, two years or if the economy crashes to new depths, a populist backlash is almost inevitable.

* * *

Michael Lind senses the danger, and captures it well in this possible epitaph for the Dems: "First they came for the bankers; then they came for the CEOs; then they came for the liberals." * * *

Throw in a depression or prolonged recession on their watch, and there will be hell for the Democrats to pay.

Lind urges the Democrats to "stop the suicide." But the Dems can't be expected to stop being Dems, particularly in the midst of the "we won" euphoria.

Link here.

At the Medici Palace -- Firenze

 

mph on the Porkulous Bill

This courtesy of mph on Politics for Pros:

1. High IQ doesn't necessarily correlate with wisdom or real smarts.

2. My original comment had to do with *believing* what Obama said, and I ascribed that to basically stupid people. *Belief* in his campaign promises is not the same thing as deciding to vote for him or supporting him.

3. The high I.Q. individuals who voted for him had the *audacity* to *hope* that he meant what he said on the lefty issues so near and dear to their hearts. They didn't necessarily believe he'd do everything he said he would do, which half the time was unclear because Obama shaped his message for the audience, resulting in many contradictions.

4. Other high I.Q. individuals who voted for him did so with the *audacity* of *hope* that, despite his leftist background and words, he really didn't mean what he said, and that he would actually govern from the middle.

5. Then you have the people who voted for him because he was a Democrat and not Bush, regardless of what Obama had to say.
I.Q., smarts or wisdom don't have much to do with that group.

But, anybody who actually believed the campaign promises and really expected him to follow through....well, what can I say.

To the extent Obama was not a cipher, he was, by background, a person with poor judgment in associates, who chose them for what they could do for him; a legislator who kept his options open by voting *present* instead of taking a stand, and who, on the rare occasion he did take a stand, did so on an extreme abortion issue; a law professor, who never published and who confined himself to boutique Constitutional law courses that dealt with victimology; a community organizer who taught the rabble how to take their case to city hall, and who later, during his brief stint as a lawyer, actually worked for the kind of slumlords he used to oppose as an organizer.

So, it should have surprised no one that he was merely *present* on the stimulus package when he bounced it to San Fran Nan and her cohorts to draft instead of providing the contours and footprint as a President who is a leader would do.

And the least surprise at all was the fact that he didn't have the final bill on his website for 5 days before he signs.

Yeah, right.

$20 says he himself will not have read any significant portion of it by the time he signs a bill the entire contents of which no one really knows. He was only able to tout it and to get away with outright lies about the contents because of a fawning and compliant press.

So I ask you: the press is surely composed of many high I.Q. people, but where Obama is concerned, does anyone actually think they're very smart?

LeRoi Moore

LeRoi Moore, the saxophonist for the Dave Matthews Band, died August 19, 2008, as a result of complications from an ATV accident in Virginia. He had broken ribs and a punctured lung. My motorcycle accident, on May 25, 2008, resulted in 5 broken ribs and a broken clavicle that very nearly punctured a lung. I recovered, but easily could have gone the way LeRoi Moore did. I thank the Lord for giving me more time on earth. RIP LeRoi Moore.


Dave Matthews Band - #41 - Funny bloopers R us

Perfect Storm of Liberalism Dissipated to Scattered Showers

Jonah Goldberg, over at the National Review shares his views of the stimulus bill.

The stimulus bill has failed. Barack Obama has failed. The Trojan Horse of Hope and Change crashed into the guardrail of reality, revealing an army of ideologues and activists inside.

* * *

Obama and his party were undone by their hubris. There was just too much muchness in the bill. The once impressive support from conservative economists evaporated. Right-wing radio has been having one long tailgate party celebrating Obama’s overreach. According to the polls, voters are souring on the whole thing.

Anne Wortham - No He Can't

No He Can't

by Anne Wortham

Fellow Americans,

Please know: I am black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul's name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a black president to love the ideal of America

I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival – all that I know about the history of the United States of America, all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the "change" that Obama asserts has come to America .. Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend.

I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared "progressive" whites who voted for him because he doesn't look like them. I would have to be wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration E2 political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

I would have to believe that "fairness" is the equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that man who asks me to "go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice" is speaking in my interest. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the "bottom up," and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force.. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.

Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting "Yes We Can!" Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead – and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.

So you have made history, Americans.. You and your children have elected a black man to the office of the president of the United States , the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over – and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a black person. So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America . Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton , Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley.

You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to – Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine – what little there is left – for the chance to feel good. There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.

[Anne Wortham is Black, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University and continuing Visiting Scholar at Stanford University 's Hoover Institution. She is a member of the American Sociological Association and the American Philosophical Association. She has been a John M. Olin Foundation Faculty Fellow, and honored as a Distinguished Alumni of the Year by the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. In fall 1988 she was one of a select group of intellectuals who were featured in Bill Moyer's television series, "A World of ideas." The transcript of her conversation with Moyers has been published in his book, A World of Ideas. Dr. Wortham is author of The Other Side of Racism: A Philosophical Study of Black Race Consciousness which analyzes how race consciousness is transformed into political strategies and policy issues. She has published numerous articles on the implications of individual
rights for civil rights policy, and is currently writing a book on theories of social and cultural marginality. Recently, she has published articles on the significance of multiculturalism and Afrocentricism in education, the politics of victimization and the social and political impact of political correctness. Shortly after an interview in 2004 she was awarded tenure.]

Nadine Nails It

Nadine Carroll, Posting on Politics for Pros, nails it:

On second thought, Pelosi run amok is a time bomb to expose Obama's weakness, which is weakness, as Dick Morris observed during the campaign.

Who is in charge of the Democratic party right now? Who calls the shots? Results so far say Nancy Pelosi, and that's bad news for the Dems as well as Obama, because she is ultra liberal, power mad and dumb as a sack of rocks, imo. Only a matter of time before the political center of both parties says, whoa, where the heck is she going with all this? When they say that, they will look to President Obama to establish order. If he pretends not to notice, they may draw the conclusion that he does not establish order because he cannot.

Now maybe President Obama will surprise me yet. But so far I see him taking a political win on the cheap by going along to get along. His original talk of 60% stimulus and 40% tax cuts, what happened to that? Nancy Pelosi happened to it, that's what.

Dreaming Tree

My current favorite Dave Matthews Band Song. A very high quality video. Put on the headphones and turn up the audio.


Dave Matthews Band - The Dreaming Tree (Official Music Video) - Click here for funny video clips

Bush Hatred and Obama Euphoria

Peter Berkowitz has an excellent piece in today's Wall Street Journal on the phenomenon of Bush Hatred and its obverse, Obama Euphoria. The entire article is well worth a read.

In fact, Bush hatred and Obama euphoria -- which tend to reveal more about those who feel them than the men at which they are directed -- are opposite sides of the same coin. Both represent the triumph of passion over reason. Both are intolerant of dissent. Those wallowing in Bush hatred and those reveling in Obama euphoria frequently regard those who do not share their passion as contemptible and beyond the reach of civilized discussion. Bush hatred and Obama euphoria typically coexist in the same soul. And it is disproportionately members of the intellectual and political class in whose souls they flourish.

Zombie Warning

Courtesy of Tiger-Hawk.

Second Annual Northwest Motorcycle Roundup at Starkey

Meet the New Boss... Same as the Old Boss

John Stewart nails it. The more we change, the more things stay the same.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Changefest '09 - Obama's Inaugural Speech

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Michael Cummings on the Transition of Power

This post is worth remembering and preserving. It was posted by my friend, Michael Cummings, on Politics for Pros, a discussion forum on Silicon Investor.

It's remarkable to witness how easy so many are persuaded and manipulated by the media to think a certain way, when the drum beat is constant.

When you ask people why they hate Bush so much, the response you often see is some general statement about how he squandered this or that. How he didn't reach out etc.

The truth is no President has been despised by the left and media as much as Bush has. He dared to do what he said he would do in response to the war on terror. He said it would be a long battle and we would have to be steadfast in our determination, yet many thought they were living in a two hour movie, where the bad guy would be killed in an instant.

The simple truth is whatever President Bush did as Commander in Chief, kept terrorists from our shores for over 7 years. If someone had said a week after 9/11 that was possible, most would have called them extreme optimists.

If there is one thing Bush can be criticized for, it's trying to get along with Pelosi, Reid, Kennedy, Clinton and the other extreme partisan Democrats who care for power far more than they do our country.

So now they have total power - Congress and the Presidency with near super-majorities in each. Let's see how quickly the children running around Obama, who have become accustomed to blaming everything in the world on Bush and accepting no responsibility for themselves, manage the government. And let's also see how the media stays entertained without being able to blame every problem in the world on Bush/Cheney.

Day 1 of the Democrat party war in Iraq starts tomorrow. There is no reason Democrats can't bring the troops home immediately with control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency. Now, let's see how many protestors from the far left will be marching in the streets demanding the troops come home. Let's see how many far left demonstrators will be marching on the Capital when the first error occurs in the war zone. Let's see how the media reports an American casualty in Iraq. And let's see the anti-war SI participants twist their logic in circles, finding every excuse under the sun for Obama to maintain an "occupation force" in the Middle East for another year, when they've been clammering Bush is Hitler and one more death is akin to murder for years.

The British Called - They Want Their Guns Back

Incredible Landing on the Hudson

US Coast Guard Vessel Traffic Service caught this video of the landing of a US Airways jet on the Hudson River and the first minutes of the rescue. It's amazing there was no loss of life. My hat is off to the pilot of that plane. The Plane appears at approximately 2:03 into the video.

Hope for Even a Mutt

Artist Shepard Fairey, widely known for creating the Barack Obama "Hope" image, designed a poster for a new Adopt-a-Pet.com campaign that seeks to shed light on the animals up for adoption at shelters across the country.

The nationwide effort features a poster created by Fairey -- the man TIME magazine named "Icon Maker" of the year -- that's modeled on his Obama "Hope" poster. "The image I created for this print reminds me of a dog I had as a kid, a mutt named Honey," Fairey said. From Pet-Product News.

Sheesh. What's next? Are folks going to dictate what kind of breakfast cereal the Obama kids should eat? As the owner of a papered standard Poodle, I have no problem whatsoever if the Obamas want to get a purebred dog.

How Do You Like to Travel?

This, courtesy of The Agitator. It seems Eric Massa (D-NY) wanted to make a point about the merits of electric cars. He wanted to drive an electric car from his district to his swearing in at the Capitol. The problem? The car didn't have sufficient charge to get all the way to D.C. Representative Massa came up with a unique solution.

Massa drove one fuel cell car while a hybrid SUV towing an additional SUV followed along. Once he got half way, he switched to new fuel cell car. The empty fuel cell was then towed back by the first SUV. As he continued on his journey, the second SUV followed. Once Massa arrived in DC, the second SUV then towed the second fuel cell car back to NY.

We’re too tired to do the math, but even Al Gore might agree that the emissions released into the air for this stunt were far more than they would’ve been had he strapped on a hard hat and drove a bulldozer to DC.

In the fashion of politicians everywhere, he failed to recognize the absurdity of his stunt.

Squirrel Crisps?

Ann Althouse calls attention to the latest dining craze in the U.K. This takes the reputation of British food to a new level.

Cajun squirrel is the brainchild of Martyn Wright, 26, who said he was inspired to enter when he saw squirrel on a restaurant menu.

"This gentle Cajun flavouring will be delicious for the public and although the idea might sound bizarre, it really works," he said, while underlining that no squirrels were harmed in making the crisps.

PETA will surely be happy.

Train to Brig

Shortly after arriving an hour late in Geneve due to a delayed takeoff at Heathrow, Kelsey and four friends from WSU were on the train for the 2 1/2 hour ride to Brig. Click on "View Larger Map" at the bottom to see the full route.


View Larger Map

Kelsey is Off to Switzerland!

After much planning on her part, Kelsey left Walla Walla Thursday, January 9, 2009, for a semester of study at the University Centre Cesar Ritz, in Brig Switzerland. I'd planned on driving her to Seattle to catch her British Airways flight to Heathrow, but all mountain passes were closed due to avalanches and mudslides, and the longer route through the Columbia River Gorge was impossible as I-5 in Lewis County was flooded and under water. She flew out of Walla Walla on the 11:20 am Horizon flight, and connected to BA048 leaving at 6:40 pm for Heathrow. After a short layover in London, it was on to Geneve and then the train to Brig.

Bon Voyage Kelsey!!!

The Stone

Turn up your speakers...

Palouse Winter

The winter wheat lies under the snow, ready to resume its growth. Meanwhile, the motorcycle is tucked away, safe in the garage, waiting for spring. Deep winter is here.

Photo courtesy of visualdetail.smugmug.com

The City Where the Sirens Never Sleep

I grew up in a smallish town near, Ann Arbor, Michigan. My little town was 45 miles from Detroit. My father grew up in Detroit, graduating from Cooley High School. His parents, my grandparents, lived between Seven and Eight Mile Road, just off the John Lodge freeway. As a child, I visited them often. At Christmas time, my mother took us to J.L. Hudson's Department store, where an entire floor was dedicated to a fantasy world, the walk through which ended wit a visit with Santa (that's Hudson's on the upper right, when the historic building was demolished in 1998). The Detroit I knew as a child is gone now, replaced by vacant lots, decaying buildings and a deeply dysfunctional local government that featured Coleman Young and recently-convicted Kwame Kilpatrick as mayors.

Matt Labash of the Weekly Standard has written a simply exceptional piece on the City. The link to the article at the Weekly Standard website is here. However, they may move it to archives so a link to where I found the article on my favorite "metablog," Politics for Pros, is here in case the Weekly Standard link goes down.

From the article:

"Precisely what caused all this mess is perhaps best left to historians. Locals' ideas for how it happened could keep one pinned to a barstool for weeks: auto companies failing or pushing out to the suburbs and beyond, white flight caused by the '67 riots and busing orders, the 20-year reign of Mayor Coleman Young who scared additional middle-class whites off with statements such as "The only way to handle discrimination is to reverse it," freeways destroying mass transit infrastructure, ineptitude, corruption, Japanese cars--take your pick.

"What's clear, though, is that Detroit has failed, that it's broken and cracked. It is dying. But it's not yet dead. Although it has lost over half its population since 1950, 900,000 people still live there. I went to Detroit to experience a cross-section of those who live between its cracks, who either choose or are stuck with living among the ruins."

The article got me thinking, so I dug further. Anyone interested in the decline of this once great city and the lessons that might be learned from might want to check out Detroitfunk.com, which includes links to some incredible sites, including Fabulous Ruins, a site that features photos of deserted auto plants and formerly great but now ruined architectural landmarks. For an interesting look at how Detroiters view their city, read some of the forums at Detroityes.com.

Lebash came to Detroit as a result of his friendship with Charlie LeDuff. LeDuff was a successful journalist with the New York Times, who went back to his hometown to report on the battles there. He produces videos that can be found on YouTube and the Detroit News Web Site. An example, featuring the heroes in the Detroit Fire Department who battle fires, often in vacant buildings, and who recently lost one of their own in one such fire, is below. Walter Harris, who is featured in the concluding seconds of the video, was killed when the roof of an abandoned house collapsed on him as he fought an arson fire.



As we throw billions of dollars at a failed US Auto Industry, with no assurance that the team of management and labor comprehend the reasons for the problems that face the industry, it would be well to consider the lesson of Detroit with an eye to averting future similar disasters.

Pandora

Several days ago, my college age daughter introduced me to Pandora. Anyone who enjoys music should check into this incredible website. The site is the result of the Music Genome Project, an assembly of musical attributes or "genes" that make music similar or dissimilar. From the Pandora website:

"Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.

Since we started back in 2000, we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world."

The Pandora site does for music what Neflix does for movies (ever notice how Netflix suggests films you might like based on your prior rental history?) This is much the same.

More on Pandora from Wikipedia.

People's National Radio had an interesting piece on the Pandora and Netflix algorthims. Find the sound file Here.

Check it out. You won't be disappointed.