Hell Has Frozen Over: Washington, DC Shuts Down

I guess they have already rammed through enough Commie legislation for this week:

House suspends votes this week, Senate may be out Wednesday
By Tony Romm, Jared Allen, and J. Taylor Rushing – 02/09/10 – The Hill

Washington’s latest snowstorm forced the House to cancel its voting schedule for the rest of the week, while the Senate plowed ahead but was considering canceling votes on Wednesday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) moved up the Senate’s Tuesday vote from 5 p.m. to 4 p.m. to allow senators time to reach their Washington residences, and said he “would rather not” be in session on Wednesday.

“The issue before the Senate today is what we do with Mother Nature,” Reid said on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon. “Mother Nature has been very difficult to deal with… We are contemplating, if we can work out the procedural difficulties, not being in session tomorrow.”

[Promoting your pagan religion, are we Mr. Reid?]

The Senate was sparsely attended Tuesday, with only a handful of senators speaking on the chamber floor about the controversial nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. Aides were scarce and many reporters and chamber clerks were absent as well.

[FYI - Craig Becker didn't get enough votes.  Boo-hoo-hoo, sucks to be you.]

In the House, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said that after consulting with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), it became clear that Tuesday’s snowstorm was preventing too many members from returning to Washington.

[Where the heck did they all go?  Didn't they just have a Christmas holiday and are scheduled for a President's Day break all next week, or something?  Yup, just more proof that the government blows your hard earned tax dollars like it was Monopoly money!]

Hoyer said that the airlines more or less made the decision for House leaders. Airlines have already cancelled hundreds of flights as the second major storm in less than a week made its way eastward.

Forecasts predict another 10 to 20 inches could be dumped on the Capitol Tuesday evening and into Wednesday.

[...]

Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.) tweeted early Tuesday: “Votes canceled today for the House..politicians not in Washington = your pocketbook is safe. You agree?”

[That's kind of along the lines of what I was thinking when I heard the House and Senate were shutting down!]

Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.) tweeted: “Got out of DC last week, but came back yesterday ready to work. I’m from AZ so help me out – is it Snowpocolypse or Snowmageddon?”

[In your case, it's probably "Snowsferatu," you blood sucking vampire!]

And Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) used the snowstorm to make a political jab, tweeting: “It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries ‘uncle.’”

[Keep dreaming, my friend!  Al Gore will NEVER admit he has conned everyone out of hundreds of millions of dollars.]

Drug Use Rampant with Afghan Police Recruits

It’s just so darn hard to find good muzzies these days…  Of course, what do you expect from the land of camel milk and poppies?

NATO frustration as Afghan police flunk drug tests
By Baris Atayman – via SwissInfo.ch

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – When British trainers administered random drugs tests to 25 Afghan police recruits at a base in southern Helmand province, most of them failed.

One recruit was kicked out of the force. The others were given warnings.

Heroin shouldn’t be tolerated, but there is no point kicking out the ones who smoke hashish: there would be too few left, their Afghan commander said.

Training Afghan police is a central part of NATO’s strategy to eventually turn over responsibility for security in the country to Afghan forces so that Western troops — soon to number 150,000 — can begin withdrawing next year.

NATO aims to increase the number of Afghan soldiers and police by 50 percent to a total of 282,000 by mid-2011, when U.S. President Barack Obama says he will begin withdrawing forces.

But commanders acknowledge it is an uphill battle. Afghan recruits are frequently illiterate, many desert soon after joining. Some may be insurgent infiltrators. One policeman killed five British soldiers in November.

And — if the random testing administered in Helmand is anything to go by — many are on drugs.

“So far we’ve found three tested positive for amphetamines and also opiates, approximately 15 for the use of hashish,” British Army Captain Pete Alexander, a police instructor, told Reuters, looking over the results of the 25 tests.

Marvel Comics Turns Tea Party Patriots into Racist Villains

Un-freakin’-believable!  Hey, you can’t make this stuff up!

Since Captain America is most noted for his fight against Nazism, I do believe that Marvel Comics is calling us Tea Party folks, “Nazis.”

(Click on image to enlarge)

Marvel Comics: Captain America Says Tea Parties Are Dangerous and Racist
Warner Todd Huston – Right Wing News

Marvel Comic’s Captain America is the mightiest soldier with the super powerful secret soldier formula that makes him a super man. Sadly, this muscle bound hero that took on the whole Nazi army during WWII seems to be afraid of those American people who’ve joined the Tea Party movement. Not only is Cappy quaking in his little red booties, but he’s sure that the Tea Party folks are dangerous racists, too.

Isn’t it wonderful that a decades old American comic book hero is now being used to turn readers against our very political system, being used to slander folks that are standing up for real American principles in real life — and one called “Captain America” at that?

In issue number 602 of Captain America, a new story line has begun called “Two Americas.” In it the current Captain (there have been a few of them, apparently) is on the trail of a faux Captain America that is mentally deranged and getting chummy with some white supremacist, anti-government, survivalists types going by the name of “the Watchdogs.” While investigating this subversive group, Captain America and his partner The Falcon — a black super hero — have decided to try and infiltrate the secretive organization.

In preparation for the infiltration, Marvel Comics depicts the two super heroes out of costume and observing from a rooftop a street filled with what can only be described as a Tea Party protest. The scene shows crowds of people in city streets carrying signs that say, “stop the socialists,” “tea bag libs before they tea bag you,” and “no to new taxes.” Naturally, the people in these crowds are depicted as being filled with nothing but white folks.

The black character asks the out of costume Captain, “What the hell is this?” And follows that with, “looks like some kind of anti-tax protest.” The Falcon character then snidely tells his partner the Captain, “So I guess this whole ‘hate the government’ vibe around here isn’t limited to the Watchdogs.”

The two then discuss their plan to infiltrate the subversive group that Marvel comics seems to be linking to the Tea Party movement. This discussion culminates in The Falcon wondering how a black man would do such a thing. “I don’t exactly see a black man from Harlem fitting in with a bunch of angry white folks,” he tells the incognito Captain America.

The Captain tells him, “no it’s perfect… this all fits right into my plan.” After this we find that the Captain’s plan is to send the black man into a redneck bar to pretend to be a black man working for the IRS and to get everyone all mad… because… well, you know that every white person is a racist that hates black civil servants, right?

Obama’s Fake Tears of Bipartisanship a Crocodile for Republicans

Here’s a tip for any budding politicians:  NEVER, EVER extend your hand across the aisle when dealing with Commie-Libtard-Progressives, lest you wish to come away with nothing but a bloody stump:

Republicans Beware, It’s a Trap
By Andrea Tantaros – FOXNews.com

Another televised meeting benefits Obama more than it helps Republicans

Break out the bipartisanship. President Obama is ready for another summit. This time he’s invited Republicans to the table later this month to discuss potential compromises on health care reform amid widespread complaints that efforts so far by him, and his Democratic allies in Congress, have been too one sided and secretive.

But Republicans must proceed with caution. This is a trap.

Obama needs to publicly appear more pragmatic and less partisan. And, after Scott Brown’s upset win in Massachusetts last month, he also needs some Republicans to help him get his proposal passed. By letting the bill totally fail, he doesn’t get that glossy narrative in the history books that he so desperately wants. If he can persuade a few moderates in the GOP to reconsider their opposition by co-opting a Republican idea or two, Obamacare becomes law and he can tout bipartisanship. Then, when the massive tax increases hit and problems ensue, he can shift the blame to his enemies. If it sounds shady, it is.

The setting of another televised meeting also benefits Obama more than it helps Republicans. It’s called calculated political window-dressing, and Team Obama has a black belt in the sport.

The President knows he’s the better orator and will make Republicans look like a bunch of stone-walling, puerile jerks in the process – much like he did two weeks ago when he visited House Republicans at their Baltimore retreat. There, he lambasted them for saying no to his policies and chastised them for not cooperating – all in front of the TV cameras, even though Republicans had already put forth ideas and were ignored all along.

Taliban Confirm Leader’s Death by Drone

You just gotta’ love them drones!

Pakistani Taliban confirm leader’s death
LA Times – By Alex Rodriguez – Feb 9, 2010

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan – The Pakistani Taliban confirmed Tuesday that their leader, Hakimullah Mahsud, died from injuries suffered in a U.S. drone missile strike last month, an attack that forces the insurgency to find a new leader for the second time in six months.

The death of Mahsud, engineer of a devastating series of suicide attacks and raids on markets, mosques and security installations across Pakistan in the latter half of 2009, gives the U.S. another major victory in its ongoing campaign of drone missile strikes against top Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders.

A drone strike last August killed Mahsud’s predecessor, Baitullah Mahsud. Missiles fired by drones over Pakistan’s tribal areas along the Afghan border have also killed 15 senior Al Qaeda commanders since 2004.

[...]

After Baitullah Mahsud’s death last summer, the Taliban was able to regroup and launch some of the deadliest attacks against Pakistanis in years, including the Oct. 10 commando-style raid on army headquarters in Rawalpindi, a sprawling, heavily guarded complex. The raid left 14 military officers and civilian workers dead.

[...]

Pakistani authorities initially believed that Mahsud had been injured in a Jan. 17 U.S. drone strike that targeted two cars in North Waziristan, a largely Taliban-controlled district in the tribal areas.

However, Taliban sources said their leader was wounded in a drone strike Jan. 14 in Shaktoi, a village in South Waziristan near the North Waziristan border. The sources said militants were trying to move Mahsud to Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, for treatment, but he died in the southern Punjab city of Multan, 460 miles northeast of Karachi.

The mouse that roared. The Ayatollah and his threats

At one time, an Ayatollah brought respect, now they strut and squeak like widdle mice. Unable to stop growing unrest, economic collapse or contain the disgust of the civilized world, the senior islamic minions have a plan. Do something incredibly stupid and hope for an overreaction from the west. They need a common enemy before their islamic house of cards falls down around them.

08 Feb, 10, AFP
Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Monday that Iran is set to deliver a “punch” that will stun world powers during this week’s 31st anniversary of the Islamic revolution, AFP reported.
-The Ayatollah is the senior shia cleric and head pedophile of iran.

“The Iranian nation, with its unity and God’s grace, will punch the arrogance (Western powers) on the 22nd of Bahman, February 11, in a way that will leave them stunned,” Khamenei, who is also Iran’s commander-in-chief, told a gathering of air force personnel according to AFP.
-Since we stomped the two largest islamic armies and have never lost a force on force battle with any size islamic force he is just blowing smoke out of his ass.

Murtha Dead at 77

I feel that I should say something here.  Hmmm…  I did notice that 77 is God’s number x 11.   In numerology, the number eleven is the “Master number.”  Seems that Johnny has just met his master, which leads me to the following letter:

Dear Mr. Murtha:

Tell Teddy we said, “hello…”

With love and kisses,

— Dr. Bulldog

P.S. – We will never forget the crap you pulled on our troops in Iraq, all for political gain.   Shame on you!  May God have mercy on your soul…

H/T – JMB & ChangedForever

Rep. Murtha Dead at 77
By Chad Pergram – FOXNews.com

Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. John Murtha, the first veteran of the Vietnam war to enter Congress and one of the House’s most powerful lawmakers, died Monday afternoon at Virginia Hospital Center after complications from gallbladder surgery. Murtha was 77.

“Congressman John P. Murtha (PA-12) passed away peacefully this afternoon at 1:18 p.m. at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va. At his bedside was his family,” read a statement from his office.

A native of New Martinsville, W.Va., voters first elected Murtha to Congress in a 1974 special election that spelled impending doom for President Nixon and congressional Republicans. That fall, Democrats wrestled away 49 House seats from the GOP, reeling from the scourge of Watergate and a presidency in shambles.

[...]

A hint of scandal lingered over much of Murtha’s career. The FBI named Murtha an “unindicted co-conspirator” in its ABSCAM sting operation in the late 1970s and early ’80s. ABSCAM resulted in the conviction of six House members and one senator. The FBI recorded Murtha on videotape declining a $50,000 bribe from federal agents posing as Arab sheiks. But the congressman did say he could be interested in future dealings.

Nicknamed “The King of Pork,” Murtha also faced scrutiny for earmarking federal dollars for projects in his district. Numerous news reports lambasted the congressman for steering money to the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport. The facility received $150 million from Washington for upgrades despite limited commercial use. But the airport is also used for military purposes.

The congressman also faced scrutiny for campaign contributions he and other appropriators received from the now defunct PMA lobbying firm. Murtha scored nearly $2.5 million in donations from PMA and its clients over a nearly 20-year period. The feds continue to scrutinize PMA. The Office of Congressional Ethics asked the House ethics committee to drop any inquiries into the dealings Murtha had with PMA.

Murtha also stirred controversy in the fall of 2008 with President Obama poised to become the first African-American president. When asked about Mr. Obama’s chances in his congressional district, Murtha responded, “There’s no question western Pennsylvania is a racist area.”

Even though Murtha won re-election, Sen. John McCain carried the district in the presidential race by about 1,000 votes.

[...]

Open Thread

I have to go make some money to pay the bills, so I won’t be able to post anything until this afternoon.  Feel free to leave any interesting links you come across, here in the comments section.

- Dr. Bulldog

Our Government Just Wasted Millions of Your Tax Dollars on One of the World’s Crappiest Super Bowl Ads EVER!

Leave it to the Federal Government to blow millions of dollars on a lame, boring, retarded commercial that tells us what we already freakin’ know!

I want my money back!

After watching that waste of money, I was reminded of the following E-Trade Super Bowl commercial that aired during the heyday of the Dot Com Bubble:

At least it was entertaining and their monkey wasn’t some old, dried up, tree-humping, Commie actor like Ed Begley, Jr…

The Green Police

Well…  This Super Bowl advertisement—complete with lyrics by Cheap Trick—certainly was a mixed bag;  Is it the future Libtards and Lefturds imagine for all of us, or is it just poking fun at how completely insane and overboard the Eco-Nazis are?  You decide:

Tebow Super Bowl Ad

In case you missed it, here is the Tebow Super Bowl ad that was causing such a commotion in the world of Planned Barrenhood:

Muslim pedophile tells judge boy’s murder was an accident

The pedophile mohammed saw small boys as little pearls and his exploitation of children has inspired hundreds of millions of muslims to abuse children. Many of our troops have seen islamic elders line up small boys to pick their victim for the night.

Awad Mustafa, 7 Feb 2010, the National
DUBAI // The Emirati fishing boat captain sentenced to death last month for raping and murdering a four-year-old boy in a mosque has told an appeals court judge he did not intend to kill the boy.
-Rape is as common in islamic countries as anywhere else, what is uncommon is prosecution, conviction and punishment.

During his first appearance at the Dubai Court of Appeals yesterday, Rashid al Rashidi, 30, told the court that he did homosexually assault the boy and kill him, but unintentionally.
-Sex with minor male children is also common in islam but homosexuality is considered a major sin. As long as the sex is limited to children no harm no foul. The pedophile mohammed participated in this disgusting tradition and although he did condemn male on male relationships he did so only between two adults.

The Government Has Your Child’s DNA on File

I’m sure the government only has your baby’s best interests in mind and will n-e-e-e-ver-r-r-r even think about using that little DNA sample for anything but screening for defects.  Right?  I mean, that whole eugenics and “master race” was just a NAZI thing and had nothing to do with Progressives or  Socialism, right?

/sarcasm

H/T – Memaw

The government has your baby’s DNA
By Elizabeth Cohen, CNN Senior Medical Correspondent

(CNN) — When Annie Brown’s daughter, Isabel, was a month old, her pediatrician asked Brown and her husband to sit down because he had some bad news to tell them: Isabel carried a gene that put her at risk for cystic fibrosis.

While grateful to have the information — Isabel received further testing and she doesn’t have the disease — the Mankato, Minnesota, couple wondered how the doctor knew about Isabel’s genes in the first place. After all, they’d never consented to genetic testing.

It’s simple, the pediatrician answered: Newborn babies in the United States are routinely screened for a panel of genetic diseases. Since the testing is mandated by the government, it’s often done without the parents’ consent, according to Brad Therrell, director of the National Newborn Screening & Genetics Resource Center.

In many states, such as Florida, where Isabel was born, babies’ DNA is stored indefinitely, according to the resource center.

Many parents don’t realize their baby’s DNA is being stored in a government lab, but sometimes when they find out, as the Browns did, they take action. Parents in Texas, and Minnesota have filed lawsuits, and these parents’ concerns are sparking a new debate about whether it’s appropriate for a baby’s genetic blueprint to be in the government’s possession.

“We were appalled when we found out,” says Brown, who’s a registered nurse. “Why do they need to store my baby’s DNA indefinitely? Something on there could affect her ability to get a job later on, or get health insurance.”

According to the state of Minnesota’s Web site, samples are kept so that tests can be repeated, if necessary, and in case the DNA is ever need to help parents identify a missing or deceased child. The samples are also used for medical research.
Video: Government has your baby’s DNA

Art Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, says he understands why states don’t first ask permission to screen babies for genetic diseases. “It’s paternalistic, but the state has an overriding interest in protecting these babies,” he says.

However, he added that storage of DNA for long periods of time is a different matter.

“I don’t see any reason to do that kind of storage,” Caplan says. “If it’s anonymous, then I don’t care. I don’t have an issue with that. But if you keep names attached to those samples, that makes me nervous.”

[...]

CLICK HERE to read this in its entirety at CNN.

Unsurprisingly, Lefturds Have a Poor Grasp of the Constitution

A fun little read that you all might enjoy:

The Constitution, Nazis, and the Corpse Man
By Jim O’Neill – CFP

Recently I’ve noticed several things that the Progressives are having trouble with.  Well, actually a LOT of things, but this article will focus on just a few of them.

First of all, Obama, like most Progressives, seems to have a problem identifying the U.S. Constitution.

In his State of the Union address, Obama stated that “We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal….”

Darn near made me want to stand up and salute, (something our POTUS could use some lessons in, by the way).  There’s a problem here, however.  It turns out that “the notion that we are all created equal” is not “enshrined in our Constitution”—it’s from the Declaration of Independence.

Doesn’t say much for Obama’s grasp of the Constitution, when he confuses the U.S. Constitution, with the Declaration of Independence

This mistaken attribution is an understandable faux pas for your average “Joe six-pack,” but Obama’s supposed to be a Harvard-trained Constitutional lawyer.  It doesn’t say much for Harvard Law School, or Obama’s grasp of the Constitution, when he confuses the U.S. Constitution, with the Declaration of Independence.

(Note to the White House (and Harvard Law School): they are two totally different documents, with different wording, and different purposes.  They are not interchangeable.  I know—bummer).

One can imagine Obama’s final exam on Constitutional Law:

Harvard Law professor:  “Mister Obama, what are the opening words of the U.S. Constitution?”

Obama:  “Uh, ‘When in the course of human events….’”

Harvard Law professor:  “Close enough!  You pass!”

No wonder these folks have so much trouble following the Constitution.

Oh! So Now Obama’s Ego Makes Him Think He’s a Physicist!?!

I somehow missed Obama’s foray into physics with his paper, “The Curvature of Constitutional Space.”  However, now that I have been made aware of it, I think it is best if Obama sticks with something he’s good at, like… Uhm…  Err… Uhm…  Just what is it again that Obama is good at?

Well, in the end, I guess it’s all just relative:

Obama vs. Einstein
February 7, 2010 – by Frank J. Tipler – Pajamas Media

Note: Frank J. Tipler is Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane University. He is the co-author of The Anthropic Cosmological Principle (Oxford University Press) and the author of The Physics of Immortality and The Physics of Christianity both published by Doubleday.

According to the Washington Post, David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s senior advisor, said that the president worked with “[Harvard professor] Laurence Tribe on a paper on the legal implications of Einstein’s theory of relativity.” I’ve read that paper, “The Curvature of Constitutional Space.” It’s complete nonsense. It shows no understanding of Einstein’s theory of relativity, or of the relationship between relativity theory and Newton’s theory.

I — to use Obama’s favorite word — do understand relativity theory. I was trained in relativity theory by the best. I was the post-doc of the late Princeton professor John A. Wheeler, who was himself the post-doc of Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr.  Wheeler’s most famous student was Nobel Prize Winner Richard Feynman. I was also the post-doc of the late Oxford professor Dennis Sciama, who was a student of Nobel Prize winner Paul Dirac. Sciama’s most famous student was Stephen Hawking.

The key thesis of the Obama-Tribe paper is contained in the opening sentences of its abstract: “Twentieth-century physics revolutionized our understanding of the physical world. Relativity theory replaced a view of the universe as made up of isolated objects acting upon one another at a distance with a model in which space itself was curved and changed by the presence and movement of objects. Quantum physics undermined the confidence of scientists in their ability to observe and understand a phenomenon without fundamentally altering it in the process.”

All of these sentences are completely wrong. In Newtonian theory, gravity is space-time curvature just as it is in general relativity. In fact, Einstein’s general relativity is just a special case of Newtonian gravity theory incorporating the ether.  Quantum physics is also just a special case of Newtonian mechanics in its wave-particle formulation (called Hamilton-Jacobi theory) incorporating the very modest requirement that this formulation be mathematically consistent. Hamilton-Jacobi theory is deterministic, hence quantum mechanics is equally deterministic. There was absolutely nothing revolutionary about twentieth century physics. There has been no “paradigm shift” in physics. The magnificent intellectual edifice created by Isaac Newton stands unshaken.

Obama Plans to Break the Law… So, What Else is New?

Considering that everyday Obama is in the Oval Office, he is spitting on the U.S. Constitution, this shouldn’t come as a big shock to anyone:

Orszag Admits Obama Admin Intends to Break Law
2010 February 7 – by Liz Blaine – Newsreel

During questioning last week on Capital Hill, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Peter Orszag admitted the Obama administration intends to break the law and use TARP funds for whatever they desire.

Passed by Congress in 2008 using scare tactics, the $700 billion TARP bailout specifically designated that all monies recouped must be used to pay down the national debt. But President Obama has included the expenditure of TARP funds in his 2011 budget despite its illegality.

It appears the $787 Billion Stimulus package wasn’t a large enough slushfund for the Democrats. They’ve found a golden TARP piggy bank to siphon off monies to purchase votes for the upcoming election.

The law is not just for the little people, Mr. President.

Geithner Living in Fantasyland

Geithner has shown us time and time again why drugs are bad for your head:

Geithner: America’s debt rating not at risk despite mounting deficits
By Silla Brush – 02/07/10 – The Hill

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the country’s debt rating is not at risk because of the trillions of dollars of government spending to shore up the economy.

Asked on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday whether the government would lose its triple AAA sovereign debt rating, Geithner said: “Absolutely not and that will never happen to this country.”

[Uhm, right... Just like Fannie and Freddy, AIG, the banks, Wall Street, etc., we're too big to fail, see?   /sarc.]

The administration has come under heavy criticism from Republicans and some outside observers for the mounting debt. President Barack Obama’s $3.8 trillion budget for 2011 includes a $1.3 trillion deficit. The White House projected more than $5 trillion in deficits over the next five years.

[...]

Geithner said there was less risk now that the economy would slip back into recession, a pattern known as a “double-dip” recession.

“We have much, much lower risk of that today than at any time over the last 12 months,” Geithner said.

[...]

[Just about every economist that isn't on Obama's payroll is screaming about the real possibility of a double-dip recession kicking in sometime soon if Obama continues his failed economic policies, and yet Geithner thinks the risk is somehow magically lower now?   You do know that a double-dip recession makes a "W," right?  Well, right now we are at that peak in the middle of that "W."   Part of the beauty of the double-dip is that when countries hit the middle point, their government thinks they have saved the economy and start spouting out rose colored poo like Geithner is doing.

I do recall something in Proverbs warning about a "haughty spirit" going before the fall... ]

“We had a huge shock to the American economy and we’re still living with the aftershocks,” Geithner said. “You’re seeing the first signs now of business starting to take some risks again.”

Happy Birthday, Ronald Reagan

It was my honor to serve under your command.

<

Ronald Reagan (February 6, 1911– June 5, 2004) - A true Patriotic Conservative

Terror experts wrong again

Folks, if this is what passes for experts, we are in deep poo. Btw, if guvment wants to really know what inspires these dirtbags, hire a ronin.

4 Feb 10, 1011now
Battling terrorism at home and abroad will be a difficult and lengthy task, according to two counter-terrorism researchers with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
-Technically correct, crazy muslims have committed acts of terror everywhere they have lived for almost 1400 years. That was not what the author was referring too, but the statement was correct.

“With the internet and the way information flows in a global society it is very difficult to prevent recruitment of anything,” said Mario Scalora, a professor of psychology at UNL. Scalora said the federal government’s adjustment of the terror alert warning is always a delicate balancing act.
-The internet is a tool, not a cause and effect; the koran is the motivation, any discussion of islamic terrorism should start with recognizing the ideology that inspires it.

“The government is in one of those darned if you do, darned if you don’t situations,” Scalora said. “If they don’t raise the awareness and something happens, there will be all kinds of inquiries as to why they didn’t do that. If they do raise the awareness, then people are going is this political, are you crying wolf, then they’re getting hammered on the other side.”
-Our color coded terror warning system accomplishes nothing.  Education and simple comparisons between cults like islam and authentic religious orders would be a better use of the money.   At least that would let people know who and what to lookout for.

Indonesians Expell Obama from Public Park

Thank goodness the Indonesians aren’t putting up with Obama’s cultish sycophants:

"As Shiva is my witness, with this butterfly, I shall destroy America!!!"

Obama Statue to Leave Indonesian Park

By NORIMITSU ONISHI
Published: February 5, 2010 – NYTimes

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A recently-erected statue of President Obama as a 10-year-old boy will be removed from a public park here, city officials said Friday, bowing to vociferous criticism on Facebook just a month before Mr. Obama is scheduled to visit Indonesia.

The statue will be relocated as soon as possible to an elementary school that Mr. Obama attended during the four years he spent as a child here, the governor of Jakarta, Fauzi Bowo, told reporters.

In December, the city unveiled the 43-inch tall bronze statue in a park in Menteng, the neighborhood where Mr. Obama lived with his divorced mother and Indonesian stepfather in the late 1960s. Financed by $10,000 from Mr. Obama’s supporters here, it depicts the boy known at the time as Barry in shorts and a T-shirt, smiling as a butterfly lands on his left thumb.

But the statue of Mr. Obama — who successfully exploited the potential of social networking sites during the 2008 presidential campaign — soon became the target of intense ire by critics who said Mr. Obama had done nothing for Indonesia and said the public park should be reserved to honor an Indonesian.

[...]

Climategate Fallout: Penn State Whitewashing Michael Mann’s Junk Science

No surprise there.  Or, did Penn State think we were all stupid enough to think they would actually admit to Mann’s manipulation of data when they first announced their intent to investigate him a couple of months ago in the aftermath of Climategate?

Penn State Probe into Mann’s Wrongdoing a ‘Total Whitewash’
By Ed Barnes – FOXNews.com

Penn State’s probe that mostly cleared climate change scientist Michael Mann for any wrongdoing doesn’t begin to scratch the surface, say critics.

How thoroughly did Penn State University investigate a top climate scientist who brought hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to the school? A growing number of critics say they hardly looked at all.

Penn State ended a two-month probe into the work of Michael Mann, a top climate scientist whose “hockey stick” graph of climbing world temperature helped galvanize support for the climate change movement, on Wednesday.

The probe stemmed from the release of thousands of hacked e-mails from a server at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England that showed the internal debate and, some say, the manipulation of data, to support the scientific underpinnings of the case for global, man-made warming of the planet. Mann’s e-mails were among those released and critics charged that he used “tricks” to make his data match studies that confirmed warming trends.

A three-person board of inquiry cleared Mann of three of four charges brought by the university that he falsified or tried to destroy data, and recommended further study on the fourth charge that his methods “deviated from accepted practices” of the scientific community.

They wrote in their report that “that there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy e-mails, information and/or data.”

But the findings and, more importantly, the focus have set off a wave of criticism accusing the university panel of failing to interview key people, neglecting to conduct more than a cursory review of allegations and structuring the inquiry so that the outcome — exoneration — was a foregone conclusion.

On Friday, Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Investigations Committee, charged that the Penn State’s failure to settle all the charges and called into question professor Mann’s work. He is demanding that all grants to the noted scientist be frozen.

Mann, according to published reports, has gotten a grant almost $550,000 in stimulus money to study climate change and is part of a nearly $2 million grant to Penn State to study the impact of climate change on various diseases.

“Until the investigation is completed,” Issa said, “the National Science Foundation should immediately freeze all grants and funding, including the $541,184 stimulus grant, to Professor Mann.”

Criticism directed at the conduct of the investigation is being spearheaded by Steven Milloy, a former Fox News contributor and publisher of Junk Science, a Web site dedicated to debunking global warming research.

“It was set up to be a total whitewash and the panel made no effort to investigate,” Milloy said. “They didn’t even interview the recipients of the e-mails. It is ridiculous.”

Looks Like the Senate Will Have a New Majority Leader…

Good riddance!

Harry Reid Languishes Near the 40 Percent Mark, Trailing All GOP Hopefuls
02/5/10 – Politics Daily

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid continues to languish at about the 40 percent mark in terms of support for his re-election, putting him behind four potential GOP rivals, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Feb. 2.

Former state GOP chair Sue Lowden leads Reid 45 percent to 39 percent with 8 percent preferring another candidate and 8 percent undecided.

Businessman and former college basketball star Danny Tarkanian leads Reid 47 percent to 39 percent with 8 percent preferring someone else and 6 percent undecided.

Assemblywoman Sharron Angle leads Reid 44 percent to 40 percent with 7 percent preferring someone else and 8 percent undecided.

Reid now may draw a fourth challenger in Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki who is being urged by some Republicans in Washington to get in the race because they see the current field of candidates as “second tier,” according to the Las Vegas Sun. Krolicki had been indicted in 2008 on charges of misusing funds when he was state Treasurer, but the indictment was dismissed.

[That tells me that the Republicans still haven't gotten the Tea Party's message.]

However, at this point, Krolicki has the smallest lead on Reid, running ahead of him by 44 percent to 41 percent with 7 percent preferring someone else and 8 percent undecided.

Surveying the field, Rasmussen notes that while Reid’s numbers are weak, the Republican hopefuls “are not doing as well this month, down slightly from the 50 percent high they’ve hit in the previous surveys. This continues to suggest that the race is still about Reid and not about them.”

Reid is viewed unfavorably by 55 percent of voters with 46 percent viewing him “very” unfavorably, which is more than the percentage of all those who regard him very or somewhat favorably.

The poll’s margin of error is 4.5 points.

36 Percent of Americans Fatuously View Socialism in a Positive Light

And, it gets worse:  A full 53 percent of Democrats think socialism is “the bomb.”  I blame the “No-Child Left Un-indoctrinated” policies of the Commies in Government and the brain-dead professors at the Indoctrinate-U’s.

Socialism Viewed Positively by 36% of Americans
Majority of Americans positive on capitalism, entrepreneurs, free enterprise, and small business
by Frank Newport – Gallup

PRINCETON, NJ — More than one-third of Americans (36%) have a positive image of “socialism,” while 58% have a negative image. Views differ by party and ideology, with a majority of Democrats and liberals saying they have a positive view of socialism, compared to a minority of Republicans and conservatives.

CLICK HERE to read the full report at Gallup.

A Little Dry Humor

Saw this floating around a couple of websites and thought you all might get a kick out of  it as much as I did:

Good News: Obama Needs to Get Permission Before He Kills You.

Okay, well…  Maybe that’s not such good news…  Just knowing that he can order the assassination of U.S. citizens is a little unnerving, considering that Janet Nappylatino has a penchant for labeling patriotic Americans as “terrorists,” all-the-while sucking up to CAIR and other terrorist organizations…

‘Permission’ needed to kill U.S. terrorists
By Eli Lake – The Washington Times

The U.S. intelligence community policy on killing American citizens who have joined al Qaeda requires first obtaining high-level government approval, a senior official disclosed to Congress on Wednesday.

Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair said in each case a decision to use lethal force against a U.S. citizen must get special permission.

“We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community,” he said. “If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that.“

He also said there are criteria that must be met to authorize the killing of a U.S. citizen that include “whether that American is involved in a group that is trying to attack us, whether that American is a threat to other Americans. Those are the factors involved.”

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Republican and ranking member of the House intelligence committee, asked Mr. Blair about the policy of targeting American citizens at a hearing. It was the first time there was public discussion about one of the most sensitive U.S. counterterrorism policies.

[...]

Mr. Blair responded that he would rather not discuss the details of this criteria in open session, but he assured: “We don’t target people for free speech. We target them for taking action that threatens Americans or has resulted in it.”

[...]

Uhm, yeah, right.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t trust our current government enough to believe that they can accurately distinguish between “free speech” and “taking action that threatens Americans.”  Case in point?—The recent Supreme Court ruling on the 1st Amendment that struck down the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform legislation.  If you read the dissenting opinion in that ruling, you will come across Justice Steven’s comments: “The court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation.” Call me paranoid, but with 4 out of 5 Supreme Court justices on the cusp of insanity regarding something so basic as free speech and their inability to accurately assess what constitutes a real threat to the nation, I’m not trusting anyone with powers that are better left to God.  Sure, if some freak has a bunch of hostages and a sniper has a clear shot and takes it, that’s acceptable.  But, to have the government deciding to pro-actively assassinate a U.S. citizen?  No thanks!  Not until all the Commies and Libtards are completely out of Our government.

The Long Liberal Tradition of Condescension

This article was so good, I read it three times!

Why are liberals so condescending?
By Gerard Alexander
WaPo

Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots. But American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration. Indeed, all the appeals to bipartisanship notwithstanding, President Obama and other leading liberal voices have joined in a chorus of intellectual condescension.

It’s an odd time for liberals to feel smug. But even with Democratic fortunes on the wane, leading liberals insist that they have almost nothing to learn from conservatives. Many Democrats describe their troubles simply as a PR challenge, a combination of conservative misinformation — as when Obama charges that critics of health-care reform are peddling fake fears of a “Bolshevik plot” — and the country’s failure to grasp great liberal accomplishments. “We were so busy just getting stuff done . . . that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are,” the president told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in a recent interview. The benighted public is either uncomprehending or deliberately misinformed (by conservatives).

This condescension is part of a long liberal tradition that for generations has impoverished American debates over the economy, social issues and the functions of government — and threatens to do so again today, when dialogue would be more valuable than ever.

Liberals have dismissed conservative thinking for decades, a tendency encapsulated by Lionel Trilling’s 1950 remark that conservatives do not “express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.” During the 1950s and ’60s, liberals trivialized the nascent conservative movement. Prominent studies and journalistic accounts of right-wing politics at the time stressed paranoia, intolerance and insecurity, rendering conservative thought more a psychiatric disorder than a rival. In 1962, Richard Hofstadter referred to “the Manichaean style of thought, the apocalyptic tendencies, the love of mystification, the intolerance of compromise that are observable in the right-wing mind.”

This sense of liberal intellectual superiority dropped off during the economic woes of the 1970s and the Reagan boom of the 1980s. (Jimmy Carter’s presidency, buffeted by economic and national security challenges, generated perhaps the clearest episode of liberal self-doubt.) But these days, liberal confidence and its companion disdain for conservative thinking are back with a vengeance, finding energetic expression in politicians’ speeches, top-selling books, historical works and the blogosphere. This attitude comes in the form of four major narratives about who conservatives are and how they think and function.

The first is the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” a narrative made famous by Hillary Rodham Clinton but hardly limited to her. This vision maintains that conservatives win elections and policy debates not because they triumph in the open battle of ideas but because they deploy brilliant and sinister campaign tactics. A dense network of professional political strategists such as Karl Rove, think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and industry groups allegedly manipulate information and mislead the public. Democratic strategist Rob Stein crafted a celebrated PowerPoint presentation during George W. Bush’s presidency that traced conservative success to such organizational factors.

This liberal vision emphasizes the dissemination of ideologically driven views from sympathetic media such as the Fox News Channel. For example, Chris Mooney’s book “The Republican War on Science” argues that policy debates in the scientific arena are distorted by conservatives who disregard evidence and reflect the biases of industry-backed Republican politicians or of evangelicals aimlessly shielding the world from modernity. In this interpretation, conservative arguments are invariably false and deployed only cynically. Evidence of the costs of cap-and-trade carbon rationing is waved away as corporate propaganda; arguments against health-care reform are written off as hype orchestrated by insurance companies.

9.7 Jobless Rate? The Government is Lying its Ass Off!

“Reading out the figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they had more oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones’s day, that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better quality, that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their young ones survived infancy, and that they had more straw in their stalls and suffered less from fleas.”

- George Orwell, Animal Farm, Ch. 9

Alright, I’ve been tracking the weekly jobless claims numbers all last month.   We were hemorrhaging jobs.  Now, the monthly report comes out and it dropped to 9.7 percent?  Give me a break!

I just knew this was going to happen the moment I had read, the other day ,that the Labor Department was going to “adjust” their jobless rate report.

This report is about as accurate as using a crayon to write the bible on a grain of rice!  Be sure to check out all the fudging of numbers and jumping through hoops they had to do to get it down to a still whopping 9.7 percent:

January unemployment rate drops unexpectedly to 9.7 percent; employers cut 20,000 jobs

By Christopher S. Rugaber, AP Economics Writer , February 5, 2010
via YahooNews

WASHINGTON (AP) — The unemployment rate dropped unexpectedly in January to 9.7 percent, while employers shed 20,000 jobs, according to a report that offered hope the economy will add jobs soon.

The unemployment rate dropped from 10 percent because a survey of households found the number of employed Americans rose by 541,000, the Labor Department said Friday. The job losses are calculated from a separate survey of employers.

[Hey, Labor Department, here's a news flash for you;  Homeless people don't have telephones, nor do they have households!!!  Therefore, you survey is useless! ]

Excluding the beleagured construction industry, which shed 75,000 jobs, the private sector added 63,000 positions.

The unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since August. John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo, said the decline wasn’t a result of a shrinking labor force, which has held the rate down in previous months.

“It simply was, people found jobs,” he said. The report is “consistent with continued improvement in the labor market.”

The department also revised its past employment estimates to show that job losses from the Great Recession have been much worse than previously stated. The economy has shed 8.4 million jobs since the downturn began in December 2007, up from a previous figure of 7.2 million.

That’s the most jobs lost in any recession, as a percent of total employment, since World War II.

The figure for November was revised higher, however, to show a gain of 64,000 jobs. That was initially reported as a gain of 4,000.

[...]

So, there you have it.  We had a net loss of 20,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate magically dropped 0.3 percent.   Well, that’s good news, actually,  because now we know for sure that  Obama can magically lower the unemployment rate without another one of those trillion dollar stimulus packages.  Therefore, the new stimulus package…err…”jobs bill” is definitely not needed anymore, am I right?

“Honor Killing” in Turkey: Girl Buried Alive for Talking with Boys

Of course, the Islamic apologists will claim that this is all just cultural and has nothing to do with Islam…

Girl buried alive in honor killing in Turkey
Thursday, February 4, 2010
ISTANBUL – Daily News with wires – hurriyetdailynews

A 16-year-old girl was buried alive by relatives in southeastern Turkey in a gruesome honor killing carried out because she reportedly befriended boys, the Anatolia news agency reported Thursday.

Acting on a tip, police discovered the body of the girl, identified only as M.M., in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a 2-meter-deep hole dug under a chicken pen outside her house in Kahta, a town in the southeastern province of Adıyaman, the news agency reported.

The body was found in December, around 40 days after M.M. went missing. She is being identified by her initials because she was under the age of 18. Her father and grandfather are suspected in the murder.

A subsequent postmortem examination revealed that M.M. had a significant amount of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she was buried alive and conscious, forensic experts told the news agency. “The autopsy result is blood-curdling. According to our findings, the girl – who had no bruises on her body and no sign of narcotics or poison in her blood – was alive and fully conscious when she was buried,” one anonymous expert said.

The girl’s father and grandfather have been formally arrested and jailed pending trial over her killing, according to the agency. The father is reported to have said in his testimony that the family was unhappy that M.M. had male friends.

The girl was reported as missing and no clues about her disappearance were found for 40 days. Her mother was arrested along with the father, Ayhan, and grandfather, Memi, but later released. The two men were sent to prison by a local court and did not speak in the court.

Police had found the body of the girl using an anonymous tip saying that M.M. had been killed based on a decision by a family council and buried under the chicken pen, daily Milliyet reported. The family has nine children, including the girl, and was reported to have told neighbors that she was missing. The girl had made a complaint to police about her grandfather two months before she went missing, saying that he beat her because she talked to boys.

[And, unsurprisingly, no one listened...  Shades of Rifqa Barry?]

Family councils consist of family elders; honor killings are usually decided by such groups.

Virtual Fence Along Border is a Bust as Obama Cuts the Budget

Like we’ve said before (and Glenn Beck seems to have picked up on); a virtual fence is about as effective as a virtual condom:

Mexican ‘virtual fence’ in jeopardy

Glitches, high cost prompt a reassessment
By ASSOCIATED PRESS – via The Washington Times

PHOENIX | An ambitious, $6.7 billion government project to secure nearly the entire Mexican border with a “virtual fence” of cameras, ground sensors and radar is in jeopardy after a string of technical glitches and delays, and this week President Obama proposed cutting $189 million from the venture.

[In a WaPo article just last May,  the Obama administration said they were resuming construction of the virtual fence.  In that article, Broke Insane Obama said of the virtual fence and the "shamnesty" plan, "If the American people don't feel like you can secure the borders, then it's hard to strike a deal that would get people out of the shadows and on a pathway to citizenship who are already here.  The attitude of the average American is going to be, well, you're just going to have hundreds of thousands of more coming in each year."

Well, I don't know about you,  but it sounds to me like Obama has already struck one of those infamous backroom deals...]

Having spent $672 million so far with little to show for it, Washington has ordered a reassessment of the whole idea.

Ultimately, the project could be scaled back dramatically, with the government installing virtual fences along a few segments of the nation’s 2,000-mile southern boundary but dropping plans for any further expansion, officials said.

“The worst that happens is that we have a system which gives us some value but we conclude that it’s not worth buying any more of it,” said Mark Borkowski, the government’s director of the project at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

[...]

No, the worst that can  happen is that some terrorist with an atomic bomb or a biological weapon readily sneaks over the border and kills millions of Americans…

Manhattan: Prison Imam Arrested for Trying to Smuggle in Utility Blades and Scissors

I’m sure he had good intentions.  Uhm, probably just going to give the inmates a shave and haircut for free…  Yeah, that’s the ticket…  /sarcasm

Prison imam is busted – Smuggled blades’
By REUVEN BLAU and DAN MANGAN – NYPost

A Correction Department chaplain who once served 14 years for murder was arrested yesterday for carrying three utility blades and a pair of scissors into a lower Manhattan jail, authorities said.

Imam Zulqarnain Abdu-Shahid had the objects in his duffel bag when he arrived at the Manhattan Detention Complex in the morning, according to the city Department of Investigation.

They were found after an X-ray machine alerted officers to the presence of metal in the bag, the DOI said.

Sources said the blades were 1½ inches long by three-quarters of an inch wide.

Abdu-Shahid, 58, was charged with four counts of first-degree promoting prison contraband — a felony carrying a maximum seven-year prison term.

The Staten Island resident was held in lieu of $30,000 after arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court. His lawyer, James McQueeney, said the blades “were injector blades from an injector razor,” and that the imam was initially admitted into the jail, known as The Tombs, after officers accepted “his explanation that he didn’t know they were in” his bag.

But DOI Commissioner Rose Gil Hearn said, “Thanks to the immediate action of a DOC officer, this potentially dangerous situation was disarmed.”

Correction Commissioner Dora Schriro said Abdu-Shahid was immediately suspended.

“Additional steps, up to and including dismissal, will be pursued consistent with the findings of [the DOI],” said Schriro, who has ordered a review of the imam’s hiring.

Abdu-Shahid was hired as a chaplain by the DOC three years ago, and has an annual salary of $49,471.

Abdu-Shahid, then known as Paul Pitts, and three other men were convicted in 1979 of murder and robbery for the December 1976 holdup of a Harlem supermarket that left 30-year-old customer Philip Crawford dead from a bullet wound. Their trial was the longest in state Supreme Court history — one year, three months and three days.

Abdu-Shahid served 14 years of a 15-year-to-life prison term before being paroled in August 1993. A prior sex assault charge against him was dismissed before the murder case.

“He’s completely reformed,” said McQueeney.

But a city Correction source said, “It’s a disgrace that taxpayers are funding Muslim chaplains who not only have criminal records, but also are promoting violence.”

Abdu-Shahid’s boss — head chaplain Umar Abdul-Jalil — was hired by the DOC despite having done a 14-year prison stint for drug dealing.

[...]