Sunday, July 31, 2011

Greetings, fellow terrorists!

Pat Austin analyzes the new civility. Sounds a lot like the old incivility, to me.

Update: Haw! Rep. The Right Reverend Emanuel Cleaver - leader of the Congressional Black Caucus - calls the proposed new debt deal a "sugar-coated Satan sandwich". I'll have mine with spicy fries, Rev!

Update II: Join the Tatler for the great Satan Sandwich Contest!!!

Monday movie

Josey Wales shows how you negotiate.

Anybody know what this is?

Something completely new sprang up in one of the flower beds this year. It appeared among the snapdragons, but it's a different flower altogether. The plant has several small flowers of an amazingly deep blue. Does anyone have an idea what this thing might be? Click to enlarge.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Nancy, Nancy, Nancy...

Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi knows very little, and nothing new, which is why, when she reached into the dusty pantry of her mind, looking for a witty phrase, she pulled out a 35-year-old pop-cultural reference to hurl at Republican John Boehner, accusing him of going over to the "dark side".

Now, Nancy! You know that comment is inconsistent with the new civility we've all been hearing about. It was provocative and offensive, and I expect you to tell John that you're sorry.

And, John, when Nancy apologizes, you know what to do.


"Apology accepted."

Sunday funnies

Bulldog determination.




Grouchy Old Cripple brings the dumb blonde joke.

Still searching for Obama's debt ceiling plan

Well, seems like it ain't here.

(Via Are we Lumberjacks?)

Assortment

Paul Ryan: Congressman and…comedian.

I find Scott Brown’s increasingly obnoxious RINOism… disturbing.

Whoa! Smurf this!

A gallery of nonsense.

Would you buy a car from this president?

The Busted Nut gently chides Nancy Pelosi.

Did President Obama know about the notorious gun running operation in Mexico? Three Beers Later has the photographic evidence.

Dan Collins has the comic/bizarre post title of the week.

No matter how bad things get, one can never truly despair as long as our country produces courageous young people like this.

Friday, July 29, 2011

"Gollum McCain"

James Robbins has some fun with Maverick, and, in the process, provides some fascinating details about the provenance of some of Tolkien's inspiration.

You kids stop making all that noise and do your homework!

This was the essence of yet another pointless Obama speech today. Here is the president, demonstrating his firm grasp of the obvious:
There are plenty of ways out of this mess but we are almost out of time.
And why are we out of time, Barry? Could it be that you have shown absolutely no leadership? Sure, you proposed a budget back in February – and it was perceived by everyone as such a joke that it got voted down in the senate 97-0. And yes, there are “plenty of ways out of this mess”; for one thing, you might take five minutes out of your unending demagogic mega-rant to actually try a little compromise.

And as for your Democratic Party colleagues…well, where’s their plan? The Democrats held the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives for two years before the watershed congressional Republican victory last November. Maybe if they hadn’t all been so busy industriously undermining our health care system, they might have found some time to pass a sensible budget (but then, being Democrats, that’s probably physically impossible).

However the debt-ceiling negotiations turn out – whether we manage to put off calamity for another six months or a year, or whether we wind up running for the root cellar – the media will try to spin the whole business as a Republican failure. Maybe they’ll succeed, maybe they won’t. One thing’s for sure, though: I don’t see any way that Obama comes through this looking like anything but a corporate climber who, having finally obtained the coveted key to the executive washroom, decides that sitting on the can and reading the newspaper is all he ever wanted to do in the first place.

Oh, and sorry, Barry, but when you’ve lost Harry Belafonte…

OMG! It’s like an H.P. Lovecraft story or something!

Iowahawk peers into the abyss.

I’m beginning to doubt Nasser Abdo’s Christian bona fides

And how much you want to bet that he’s not even Norwegian?

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Amazing color photos of London during the Blitz

At the Daily Mail (H/T: NRO).

Happy Feet Friday

It must be jelly, ‘cause jam don’t shake like that (North Carolina boy Johnny Long and his orchestra).

Well, that’s good, I guess (unless you’re a seal)

Far from facing a dearth, we seem to be practically overrun with polar bears.

We now return to our regular programming

Yet another jihadist plot on American soil discovered.

Although, as Tim Blair says, “Until we know otherwise, it’s probably safest to assume that this fellow is a Norwegian Christian.”

Go, Nads!

Interesting, er, freedom of speech issue in South Carolina.

Also in the news: if you’re into cryonics, there’s apparently no need to wait ‘til the last minute.

Happy Birthday, Preshizzle!

Kate at Small Dead Animals reminds us that Barry has a birthday coming up! She issues an invitation to her readers – which I now issue to mine: how do you plan to celebrate this Huge Event?

Michele Bachmann also strangely silent on muggings, burglaries, jaywalking and spitting on the sidewalk

A taste of how ugly the leftist hive is going to fight in 2012.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The EPA cancels a seminar

I guess Obama's too busy to teach it that day.

Big H/T to friend, commenter and blogger in his own right, Isophorone.

Yet another benefit of a Palin presidency

We might see a Hollywood depopulated of pretentious ignoramuses. George Lopez, for example, who says he’ll move to Canada. Savor the unwitting irony:
I like my politicians to actually have a political background, to know politics…Do we elect somebody by their smile? Instead of by their content?
You mean like President Empty Suit, who seems to have been elected primarily because of his costume halo and gaseous oratory? Oh, and because he fraudulently positioned himself as a centrist?

Let me know how your comedy routine works out in Medicine Hat, George.

(Note to Canadian friend Captain Heinrichs: better alert border security. They might want to double the guard).

Is Harry Reid trying to sabotage a deal?

Perhaps after having his little chat with Obama the other day? Boehner and Reid had come pretty close to reaching a budget and debt agreement a few days ago, when the White House apparently told Reid “no dice”. Now Reid is employing particularly inflammatory rhetoric in what appears to be an attempt to drive a wedge between establishment and Tea Party Republicans (or, rather, to drive an existing wedge even deeper; btw, thanks, John McCain, for being your usual helpful self). My guess is that Reid thinks he’s got a chance to peel off enough panicky Republicans to support his own plan as the clock runs out.

My opinion is that Obama’s got to go, and any outcome that improves the odds of his being defeated next year is ok with me. Voting for Reid’s plan is not acceptable (the cuts are too plainly bogus). Boehner’s? Maybe - although, at best, the Speaker’s plan looks more like a wash than a gain for conservatives (at best, mind you). Is a wash the best we can hope for? Could be, considering that Republicans only control one half of one branch of government. I'd feel better about it if establishment Republicans didn't have such a long history of being rolled.

Which underscores the importance of clearing out the Democratic rot. Frankly, whatever deal we wind up with, however good, bad or indifferent, is not the biggest issue we have before us. The great challenge of our age is to defeat the steady encroachments of the nanny state into our everyday lives, which means we start by defeating the Democrats next year; above all, it means removing Barack Obama from office - lock, stock and Napoleon complex.

The tangible impact of over-regulation

Apparently you can’t make an environmental justice omelet withoutbreaking a few job-creating private-sector eggs.

Also see this article by Paul Chesser at The American Spectator on the incestuous relationship between the EPA and the Environmental Defense Fund.

The littlest conservative

Smitty and the missus are the parents of a brand new baby boy! And judging by that first photo, the little fellow is not pleased with the current political environment.

Congratulations and God’s blessings!

I guess it's easier to find him if he runs off at night

Not sure what other reason you'd have for creating a glowing beagle.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

For what doth it profit a man, that he gain the whole world…

…and still be Al Gore?

Al has grown rich peddling the modern-day equivalent of Dr. Pierce’s Extract of Smart Weed, and, even though the climate change hysteria gives some evidence of having abated, he has feathered his nest sufficiently to see him comfortably through an extended dotage. And yet I suspect that, in his heart of hearts, Al is disappointed. In spite of the lucre, the worshipful following of Cli-Fi groupies, the Nobel Peace Prize - in spite of all this, there is almost certainly the haunting fear that the mention of his name, far more often than not, triggers a response among the multitude that consists not of applause and hosannas, but of laughter and that form of vocal derision technically known as “the raspberry”. How frustrating it must be for him, to have trod the stage of world events, and even to have written and performed part of the script, only to have to live with the possibility that future generations – and perhaps this one, as well – will remember him mainly as a failed and bitter presidential aspirant, or for his strange, nocturnal “massagynistic” adventures in hotels far from home and the restraints of spousal scrutiny.

How odd, therefore, that Al, burdened as he must be by troubled thoughts of his shaky legacy, should do the one thing that can only make matters worse – to wit, open his mouth and say something. Ed Driscoll catches him opining on, of all things, the federal deficit and the debt ceiling negotiations. What Al says is eminently forgettable, save for the rich irony of the following (Ed quotes from The Hill):
Gore wrote there is an epidemic of “encouraging ideological extremists to construct their own alternative version of reality and defend it against fact-based reasoning.” Gore said that as an activist he has seen a similar response to climate change arguments.
I’m sorry, I really don’t mean to snicker so, but “ideological extremism” and the construction of an “alternative version of reality” constitute the very foundation of Al’s whole apocalyptic vision of climate change. And it seems foolhardy for Al to drag his hobby-horse with him into an argument on unrelated subjects – rather like wearing an old strait-jacket loosely around the shoulders in chilly weather, in lieu of a sweater, years after one has been released. Why...you know...remind people of all that? Particularly if what you’re saying on the matter at hand isn’t all that convincing in the first place.

In his post, Ed also helpfully cites an extremely odd line from Al’s book, Earth in the Balance. It is a sentence I remember having seen before, but, for some reason, it had a greater impact on me the second time around: “today the evidence of an ecological Kristallnacht is as clear as the sound of glass shattering in Berlin.”

Now, surely, even Al Gore must occasionally awaken in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, sit up abruptly in bed, and say to himself in a trembling voice, “My God! Did I actually write that?” It is practically a condensation of all his shortcomings, weaknesses and failures in one fatal phrase: intellectual mediocrity, insensitivity, hysteria, monomania, a narcissistic urge to be heard above the noise of the crowd even if one has to play Pop Goes the Weasel on the kazoo (all this, and Godwin’s Law, too!). Let us connect the spots floating in front of his eyes and derive a summary of his argument: Earth=Jewish shopkeepers; Humans=Nazis.

I like to imagine that that one sentence, if nothing else, gives Al pause to worry about his future reputation. Although, alas, it’s probably more likely that he goes to bed every night filled to the brim with the satisfaction of knowing that he has at least rid the world of the incandescent light-bulb – and then sleeps the sleep of the just.

I think he was serious

When Roger Daltrey sang “We won’t be fooled again”, I guess he really meant it.

If stupid was gold…

…Chris Matthews could buy MicroSoft out of petty cash. Per Matthews, Tea Party=apartheid.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Obozo speaks

We must halt this "3-ring circus".


"No, c'mon, guys. Seriously. I mean it."

Saul Alinksy in Hell

Saul Alinsky is sitting at a table in the Beelzebub Bar in Hell, sipping from a flaming kerosene daiquiri. The Devil comes over and drops into a chair beside him.

Devil: Mind if I join you, Saul?

Alinsky: By all means, your Excellency!

Devil: Whew! Hot enough in here for you?

Alinsky: Meh. It’s not much worse than the heat wave over the U.S. right now.

Devil: Yeah, that’s true. Say, I’ve been watching one of your acolytes, this Obama fellow. He seems to really have taken your philosophy to heart.

Alinksy: I have to say, I’m pretty proud of him. He’s almost single-handedly turned Rules for Radicals from a revolutionary treatise into his personal biography. This latest business with brinksmanship on the debt ceiling and an all-out attempt to characterize Republicans as heartless assassins of old ladies and sick kids – I mean, the sheer chaos he’s likely to cause in the financial markets, alone, could well trigger the kind of crisis that could force Republicans, in desperation, to let him have his way. I don’t think there’s anything more I could teach Barack Obama. My hat’s off to him – or would be, if it hadn’t burned up during orientation. But forgive me, Excellency, I’m forgetting my manners. Would you like something to drink?

Devil: No, no thanks. I’m trying to watch my triglycerides. So, you think Obama can ultimately succeed in transforming the U.S. into a socialist hell-hole? To coin a phrase.

Alinsky: Well…it won’t be easy. He’s run into an unexpected bump in the road.

Devil: The Tea Party.

Alinsky: Exactly. One of my rules is that an organizer has to rub raw the resentments of the community. Unfortunately, there is that vast community of bourgeois Americans for whom the political philosophy of the Founding Fathers is something quite tangible and desirable, and their resentments are not against the existing society and its traditions – far from it! They see the country they know being seriously threatened, and have awoken to the danger and are banding together. If Obama has made one mistake, it is perhaps that he has overplayed his hand and revealed his true motives too early in the game. Doubtless he erred in taking his own propaganda too seriously during the presidential campaign and has clearly overestimated his long-term appeal.

Devil: But can the Tea Party stay united? There doesn’t seem to be any central command, and our side still controls a lot of the funding. Soros, for example. By the way, you wrote something about these fat cat progressives didn’t you?

Alinsky: I did, indeed. I think I can still repeat it verbatim: “I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday.”

Devil: Ha-ha-ha! Very good, that! Still, the Tea Party has an enormous amount of energy, even if it lacks structure and money. And there’s…you know…

Alinsky [angrily slams his glass on the table]: Sarah Palin!

Devil: Just so.

Alinsky: To think that everything I worked for finally comes to a head in the form of the perfect transformative presidency, only to run the very real risk of being thwarted by that snowbilly!

Devil: Mm-hm. And there’s Michele Bachman and maybe Rick Perry. Ah! And that youngster from Florida, waiting in the wings. What’s his name? Marco Rubio, I believe.

Alinsky [covering his ears and rocking violently back and forth]: Please, sir, don’t! I know this is part of my assigned punishment, but can’t you impose another torture? Maybe sliding down a giant razor blade in a tank of alcohol? Or doing ten thousand jumping jacks with a bowling ball strapped to each arm? If for no other reason, how about for old times’ sake? You remember, don’t you, another thing that I wrote: “The first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom was Lucifer”?

Devil: Yes, I remember; and very flattered I was, too. W-e-l-l…I’ll have to think about your request. Let’s see how your pupil makes out, shall we? Oh, look at the time! I’ve got to run and make sure Bin Laden is taking his daily bath in the flaming jacuzzi of pork fat. Ciao!

Happy days are…where, exactly?

The Blogprof has a video of Timmy Geithner, unicorn whisperer.


“Welcome to the recovery! Want some peas?”

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Moo On

Marion D.S. Dreyfus treks into the heart of darkness.
In the spirit of ecumenism, and convinced that there is too much one-sidedness in the political discussion now riving the country, I attended my first (and probably only) meeting of MoveOn.org, the radical progressive organization that, backed by the billions of Richie Rich radical mover and shaker George Soros, has spearheaded so much dissension since the advent of Bush 43, and now continues to fulminate against those on the right who stand against the dubious programs of President Barack Obama.

* * * * * *

The location promised a swank coop, perhaps, or at least a brownstone with antiques and sky-high views of the UN, but no. The actual venue was down a dark alley, with a cage in the rear for two straining-at-the-leash doberman pinschers. It was a basement bunker that evoked the hideouts of the Partisans during WWII, with space for some 25 to 30 people of varying ages and incomes.

* * * * * *

What was remarkable, in the drum-roll of incessant calls for union strength and punish the "rich" and the "obscene pay of CEOs" of those rich corporations, was that President Obama was not mentioned even once in three hours. Either he is deemed irrelevant or his performance is so weak that mentioning him is considered a compromising element in a group-think aiming at strength.
Do read the whole thing.

Monday Movie

John Garfield is smitten by Lana Turner, in The Postman Always Rings Twice.

For something more up-to-date: Jason Apuzzo at Libertas reviews Captain America.

The Republicans' circular firing squad

Never mind, for a moment, Obama's lack of good faith and dangerous brinksmanship. What the hell were three so-called conservative Republican senators doing offering the president a bigger tax hike than the one the president himself had asked for?

Listen up, blockheads. Are you purposely trying to improve the odds of a genuine insurrection? Do you not see that the political and economic landscape is shifting beneath your feet? If you can be played by an amateur like Obama, can you even begin to grasp how utterly worthless you are?

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Sunday Funnies




Steve Burri discovers how Barry suppresses any urges to actually feel pride in his country.

Two Texans embark on Homeric trek.

World's biggest dog

I almost took this for a photoshop, but it seems legit.

President Bean

Andrew Klavan on the growing incivility of the Left:
...there does seem to me to be one thing worth saying about Maher and the others. Their ugliness seems to be escalating day by day, and with it the dishonesty, distortions, and bullying anger of their mainstream-media fellow travelers. There’s a reason for this, I think. It’s the increasingly apparent failure of Barack Obama. With the notable exception of Osama bin Laden’s execution, the Obama presidency has resembled nothing so much as an episode of Mr. Bean, one slapstick misadventure after another. The stagnant economy, the rising unemployment, the staggering, soon-to-be-crippling debt—hiked more under Obama than under every president from Washington to Reagan combined—these can no longer be blamed on his predecessor but are his to own.
H/T: IOwnTheWorld - which also has this great video clip of Charles Krauthammer excoriating Obama's insufferable arrogance.

Update: Heh. "The Primal Scream President".

Madness in Norway

More than 80 people dead in what (at this point) seems to be the bloody work of one psycho.

Our prayers go up for the souls of the dead, and for their friends and families.

Friday, July 22, 2011

And Rahm Emanuel heaves a sigh of relief

“Many Summer School Students Going Without A/C”. Public school students, that is. Er, in Chicago.

Service Employees International Intimidation Union

The SEIU seems like it’s trying to model itself on Lee J. Cobb’s character, Johnny Friendly, from On the Waterfront - and, of course, Obama’s National Labor Relations Board is glad to oblige. F. Vincent Vernuccio reports.

Killer mushrooms

Mark Steyn makes another wise, yet funny, observation, this time about amorphous legislative bills (from a transcript of a recent discussion on the Hugh Hewitt Show):
When you have 3,000 page bills, your legislators are voting on stuff they haven’t got a clue what’s in them. Often, those bills are actually unwritten at the time of passage, and you only find out what’s in there when it emerges afterwards. Republicans get suckered, because the ratchet effect on government is that whatever you think you’ve passed, once it goes downstairs to the permanent bureaucracy beavering away in the basement, the whole thing is like some giant, toxic, killer mushroom growing there in the basement, and it turns into something way beyond whatever some twerp of a rhino, reach across the aisle Senator thinks he signed onto.



The likely outcome of debt-ceiling negotiations.

Update: Stacy McCain and Smitty also have some interesting takes on our latest plunge into the theatre of the politically absurd.

Update II: You gotta love the last half of this headline at The Hill: “Progress seen in debt talks, but outrage from Dems over lack of tax hikes”. I swear, they’re like bandits who’ve successfully robbed trains for years and then get pissed off when the railroad goes bankrupt.

Terrorist attacks in Oslo

At least one bomb has exploded, seriously damaging government buildings in Oslo. Many injured; at least two confirmed dead. Also, a youth camp on the island of Utoya has come under fire by a man described as wearing a policeman's uniform ( live coverage).

Happy Feet Friday

The King Sisters jump start the “Irish Washerwoman”.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

MSNBC gets serious

Nah, not really. It looks like they’re hiring Al Sharpton. Can’t wait for the interview with Allen West!

I think I feel one coming on, too

Michele Bachmann occasionally gets migraine headaches, so she is obviously unfit to be president. I mean, what if she were missing in action during, say, vitally important government debt negotiations? At least Obama can always be counted on to be available during a crisis. Right, Mr. President?...Right?...Mr. President?


“Government debt? Yeah, whatever. But forget that s**t; did you see my last drive?”

Rahm Emanuel: “I’m fine with public schools…

“…but send my own kids to one? What, are you nuts?” Truthfully, I don’t blame him at all for wanting his kids to get the best education they can. Where the hypocrisy comes tromping in, like an unwelcome neighbor in great muddy boots, is when politicians exercise their right to choose private schools for their children, but are perfectly content to prop up a corrupt and ineffective public school system for the children of other people, stubbornly resisting changes that could in any way be construed as reducing the power of teachers’ unions.

Never a borrower or lender be

From what I’ve been reading about the amorphous plan from the so-called “Gang of Six”, I think it’s a loser; there don’t appear to be any genuine cuts, or, rather, credible promises of cuts, in government spending, and although marginal income tax rates would be reduced, apparently tax revenues from other sources would reflect a net increase. Some conservatives like it in a qualified way, others condemn it categorically.

Now, just like Contessa Brewer, I’m no economist, but it seems to me that we’ll never restrain the expansionist appetite of the federal government if we don’t truly begin to starve the beast (although, as Tim Blair says in another, but not entirely non-analogous, context, it depends whose side you’re on). I invite readers to weigh in with their own observations and opinions.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Why we blog

Fishersville Mike has some excellent links to other bloggers who have reacted to the John Hawkins article I referenced the other day.

Assortment

Stacy McCain takes a few whacks at one of his favorite piñatas, the terminally jejune David Brooks.

Is it physically possible for Chris Matthews to become more idiotic? Why, yes, yes it is.

Mark Steyn opines on the debt-ceiling debate. Great observation: “We are sending a consistent message to the world that the political structures of the United States do not allow for meaningful course correction. That does far more damage to the “full faith and credit” of America than failing to hike the debt ceiling.”

Those green jobs blues.

Obama’s Office of Propaganda.

Meet some of the members of the Millionaire Idiots Club.

Boy on a Bike reveals that Australia has its own version of the RINO.

Update: From Col. Milquetoast (click to enlarge).

Big (st)Inca

Another evil clown has popped up in Latin America’s commie circus: Ollanta Humala, Peru’s president-elect, who is demonstrating his priorities by making a pilgrimage to Havana.


“We must all make sacrifices. Let’s see…We’ll start with you, and you, and you over there, trying to hide behind the llama…”

He’s back!

The great Dale Peterson, former candidate for Alabama Agriculture Commissioner, has established a PAC.

The gloves come off

And so does everything else. The Paco for President Committee is taking a page out of Vladimir Putin's playbook.

Hmmm...m'yes...makes for some very interesting campaign literature.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

De blogustibus

Many bloggers seem to be getting out of the business these days, and John Hawkins has written an article about the shrinking of the dextrosphere.

Hawkins’ points seem valid, but, really, so what? They are more pertinent to bloggers who dreamed of becoming the next Instapundit than to a lot (possibly the majority) of us who got involved because it seemed to be a fun thing to do. I think success depends on what the blogger wants to accomplish. Those who expected to seriously monetize their blogs have largely been disappointed because there are simply too many bloggers focusing on the same content, and the market for paid philosopher kings, however elegant and witty their prose, however singular and attractive their style, is extremely limited. For the same reason, bloggers who wanted to have a significant impact on public policy, and were willing to provide advice for free, have been frustrated in their aims – I mean, let’s face it: very few of us are Andrew Breitbart, and genuinely original content – i.e., content that your own participation and personal investigatory efforts create – is beyond the reach of most of us.

I started a blog for one reason, and one reason only: Tim Blair closed his old personal blog site. I began commenting over there in – what, 2005, 2006? The interaction with other commenters was highly entertaining, and I got much-needed practice in writing comic fiction. When Tim went with the Daily Telegraph, I started Paco Enterprises, mainly as an outlet for my desire to continue doing creative writing. The press of work and family issues has cut into the time I have for doing purely imaginative writing, plus the times have grown perilous with the advent of Obamanism, so my posts have grown shorter and more topical; there is more emphasis on politics, and even though my blog occasionally resembles a link dump – as I’ve said before, like Instapundit without the traffic – hundreds or perhaps thousands of small fry such as I might still be of some service in getting the message out (call it the “cloud of gnats” theory of political blogging: if there are enough of us out there buzzing around, we’re bound to annoy the right people every now and then).

But getting the message out, for me, has always been secondary to maintaining the close-knit relationship I have with my small circle of regular readers. Since I am, for the most part, of sunny disposition, it is highly gratifying to me to be able to make people laugh from time to time – whether it is one person or ten – and I am pleased that my blog has enabled me to do so. And I have frequently profited from my interaction with my cyber friends: from learning of authors who were previously unknown to me, to experiencing the pleasure of meeting several readers in person, to (perhaps most spectacularly) finding someone to publish my future book (or, if I’m lucky, books).

So, whether my blogging has made a difference to anyone else or not, it has made a huge difference to me, and I’ll be here for the foreseeable future. God willin’ an’ the crick don’t rise.

A tragic anniversary

Bob Belvedere recalls the murder of the last Czar and his family.

Sharing of sacrifice is good

But there's no need to be a fanatic about it (H/T: Captain Heinrichs).

Monday, July 18, 2011

Borders faces liquidation

I'm genuinely saddened to hear about this. I've bought books there for years - in the stores and online - and have been getting some pretty good discounts (maybe that's their problem - all those discounts).

Another famous Paco!

Actually, considerably more famous than yours truly (via friend and commenter Isophorone).

Fateful year

With the federal debt approaching 70% of GDP, and federal spending at levels not seen since WWII; with existing entitlements programs splitting at the seams, and new ones of unknown but certainly enormous cost being added; with regulatory expenses skyrocketing and a foreign policy in complete disarray; with class-warfare rhetoric reaching fever pitch, and socialist ideology making a comeback like a vampire that won’t stay buried; above all, with a president whose monstrous ego has blinded him to the vastness of his own ignorance, while hardening the intensity of his contempt for compromise and fair play, and encouraging the complacency with which he views all opposition as the personification of wickedness – 2012 will obviously be a watershed year. More than a watershed, in fact; I’m convinced that we are rapidly closing in on the tipping point of America As We Know It.

And one very important test will be whether we reelect Barack Obama. There can be no excuses for harboring illusions concerning his temperament and ideology. He is the first punk ever elected to the presidency - a swaggering, arrogant, destructive ignoramus, a perpetual rebel against a society from which he has been alienated since his youth. And it is a mark of the decrepitude of our political system that the one organization around which Obama’s foes should be able to coalesce – the Republican Party – is hamstrung by dinosaurs of privilege whose opposition to the wilder excesses of the tax-and-spend mentality is now based more on inertia than on principle. It is a mark of the corruption of the fourth estate that even the relative handful of senior Republican congressmen and senators who are fighting the good fight can barely make themselves heard above the talking heads parroting the administration’s canned views. Finally, it is a mark of the cupidity and pusillanimity of Wall Street that its denizens continue to pay protection money in the form of campaign contributions to Obama and his party for the absurd distinction of being able to dine at the captain’s table aboard the Titanic.

It is no surprise that, against this backdrop of fiscal irresponsibility and an aggressive attempt at not-so-surreptitious revolution from above, the Tea Party has arisen. When political institutions fail, it is inevitable that a free people will find their own means for protecting their traditional rights, pushing nominal leaders aside and installing new ones not besotted with the smugness of a false and baseless elitism, nor sunk in the idle luxury of useless sinecures. We hear much about the dangers of populism, the risks associated with directionless and inchoate passion, the futility of trying to change policy without organization. We are told by fearful men to be cautious, by insiders that we don’t understand, by time-servers that patience is a virtue and that all will be well down the road – in short, we are told to keep our mouths shut and to swallow the fantasy that the rabbit hutch that is the establishment is going to magically transform itself into a pride of roaring lions (at some future date, to be determined).

Well, none of that will do in 2012. We The People are the surest guardians of our own liberty, and in this time of clear and present danger, the market for leaders who don’t lead has turned decidedly bearish.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

This week in photoshop

Via Are We Lumberjacks?




Via Moonbattery.




It's all that carbon dioxide

The vegetation has been pretty lush this year at the Paco Command Center, as record heat and humidity have settled over Northern Virginia.

My favorite flowers are snapdragons, and the ones I've planted over the last couple of years have either come back or reseeded, with numerous hybridizations.



That photo really doesn't do justice, however, to the diversity of colors. They're not all pink and red, by any means. Some of the nicest hybrids, in fact, feature orange and russet/yellow combinations, such as these little fellows.





I'm not sure what these are, but they're stand-outs.



And as I was backing down the driveway, this combination of crape-myrtle blossoms and black-eyed Susans caught my eye.



Kinda makes me hate to go to work.

Monday Movie

Glenn Ford is a tough cop in The Big Heat (and Lee Marvin is a psychopath).



Bonus: Joe Bendel at Libertas reviews Ironclad, a new film about King John's bloody attempt to nullify the Magna Carta.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Sunday funnies

Family photos (not mine, incidentally).

Steve Burri conducts a post-surgery interview.


Dude, if that's how you like it

Marc Maron, a comedian I've never heard of, appeared on the execrable Bill Maher's television program and said this about Michele Bachmann and her husband:
I don’t want to be crass [epic fail, btw - Paco] but I just hope that Marcus Bachmann takes all that, you know, rage that comes from repression and denial and brings it into the bedroom with her. I hope he f–ks her angrily because, because that’s how I would.
Careful, Marc! Your date may have overheard you.


"C'mon, Porky! Let me hear you squeal like a fifth-rate comedian doing stand-up at the Kenmore Lanes Bowling Alley cocktail lounge in Buffalo, New York!"

The Return of Rule 5 Saturday!

It's been a while since I've posted some Rule 5 action, and today I've got one especially for the ladies (quite possibly NSFW).

Friday, July 15, 2011

Padding the payroll

The federal government is leaning on the Commonwealth of Virginia - a right-to-work state - to use union labor (or, alternatively, union pay scales) for the second phase of the Dulles Metrorail extension.

Hurry sundown 2012.

Related: Even death will not release you from the coils of Obama's National Labor Review Board.

Jimmy Obama

Two peas in a pod.


You may need to click a couple of times on the embed. If the video doesn't start, go here for the original.

Surging!

How do I spell “anybody-but-Obama”?

P-a-c-o

Assortment

“Open Blogger” over at Ace of Spades does an excellent fisking of a hit-piece by Laurie Kellman on Rep. Eric Cantor.

Angelo Codevilla has written a lengthy, but outstanding, essay on Barack Obama, centered on the theme of various biographies (including Obama’s own two books) that have sought to document and explain the life and adventures of Mr. Enigma (or, in the case of the autobiographies, to avoid documenting and explaining). Just a taste:
The lack of first-hand material for a proper intellectual portrait of Barack Obama forces any who approach the subject to note, first, what information we do not have: not even a senior thesis (or any other paper) from his college days, nor even a single signed article in the law review which he formally edited. He simply never produced stuff that qualified for that academic level. All we have is a signed screed in the Columbia student paper Sundial imputing America's refusal to embrace nuclear disarmament to structural social flaws, and a six-page fragment in the Harvard Law Review attributed to him by researchers but unsigned and unacknowledged by him, which asserts an absolute right to abortion. Neither bespeaks a serious mind. We have no academic records. His "autobiographies" are of uncertain parentage.
Pat Austin notes a sign of the end times.

Bob Belvedere contemplates several aspects of Obama’s latest mood swings.

The shy and retiring Ted Nugent has a few soft words for our liberal elite.

Alex Castellanos takes a clue-by-four to Chris Matthews.

Jeff Goldstein to Republican establishment: “Watch and learn”.

Be sure to catch the hilarious gif of Obama at Gateway Pundit.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Not so dead language

Troglopundit draws attention to the fact that the Google translation tool has added Latin to its list of languages. Let's see how that works out.


Hmmm. May need some tinkering.

Great analogies

The irresistible Smitty.

Happy Feet Friday

Leggy Mabel Lee does the Chicken Shack Shuffle (mislabeled on the video as Chicken "Shake").

“Search raped”

An excellent description, coined by a wheelchair-bound woman referring to a TSA “pat-down” that she and her husband – also in a wheelchair – experienced at the Greater Rochester International Airport.

Hey, but everything’s ok. The couple got an apology in an email. On the other hand, they also got another email:
In another email, a TSA official says, "We believe these security measures are necessary and appropriate for ensuring the security and confidence of all air travelers. Just because you’re some crippled old geezer from Florida doesn’t mean you’re not a terrorist threat."
I may have amended that quote to make the TSA’s view more transparent.

Related: “Airport security breached 25,000 times since 2001”.

But not by anybody in a wheelchair. Good work, TSA!

Wait ‘til the boils kick in

Nancy Pelosi, Democratic congresswoman and noted lay theologian, commends President Obama’s patience during the debt limit negotiations, comparing him to another much put-upon figure:
Job is no place compared to this president in terms of patience…
I think what she meant to say was that jobs have no place in this president’s list of accomplishments.

Seriously, I’m with Bertie Wooster: I can stomach a certain amount of rot, but not absolute rot. Whatever virtues Obama may possess – and if one has the time and energy to look, I’m sure some paltry few could be uncovered – patience is not one of them.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Obama's modeling himself on a Hollywood president

Unfortunately, it's Henry Fonda in Fail-Safe.

Oh, BTW. I think I've found something that Obama did indisputably write - although he's using the pen name "Stephen Marche".

Update: Great catch by Instapundit.

Update II: Hey, how's that Muslim outreach workin' for ya, Barry?

Dare to dream

Recently I linked to an article that described an effort by a Republican in California to create a breakaway state (to be known as “Southern California”). Jim Geraghty at NRO says it will never happen, but I dunno. True, under current law, both Congress and the state legislature would have to agree, and there’s no way a Democrat-controlled state house is going to let all those taxpayers get away. But laws can be changed, and the governing authority (our old friend, the U.S. Constitution) could conceivably be amended to facilitate the creation of new states on a different basis, perhaps based on county referendums (since, according to Fareed Zakaria, we ought to have a new constitutional convention via Twitter, anyway, let’s change the clause concerning the admission of new states while we’re tuning up the original document).

I’m thinking that we could cut out a slice of, say, Oregon or Washington state – or maybe a dozen or so counties in both states– which might be named…ohhh…”Pacovia”, or something similarly euphonius. In conjunction with a rejuvenated 10th amendment (Tweet: “10th Amendment reconfirmed; and this time we really mean it!”), why, it could become another Hong Kong, a veritable laboratory of economic freedom. The residual liberal state could continue to go on its merry way, taxing and spending and regulating, staggering like a drunk hobo into the path of an oncoming freight train. The beauty of my system is that we leave the hobo to his inevitable fate, while avoiding being dragged along with him.

More Hong Kongs, fewer drunk hobos. That’s the ticket.

Border blues

There’s a new wrinkle in gun smuggling to Mexico. Looks like the cartels are taking over towns on the U.S. side: “New Mexico town dissolves police dept after gun smuggling scandal”.
[Columbus, New Mexico] has been upended since federal authorities arrested Police Chief Angelo Vega, Mayor Eddie Espinoza, Village Trustee Blas Gutierrez and nine other residents for conspiring to smuggle hundreds of guns to drug cartels over the border in March. All of the accused have pleaded not guilty, and their trial is expected in October…
Border security, anyone?

In a world gone mad?

Yeah, you'd pretty much expect Al Gore to be the reality czar.
The campaign will begin with a large-scale, global event called “24 Hours of Reality.” This happening, scheduled for September 14-15, will be presented in numerous languages and in 24 time zones.
How do you say "what else is on?" in Norwegian?

It’s not me, it’s you

Woman, going through divorce proceedings, makes unilateral decision on, er, property division.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

ATF: Hey, running guns into Mexico for drug cartels was such a good idea...

...let's repeat our success in Honduras.

Ain't it jus' a big, fat shame?


Ah, retirement’s great, ain’t it? Youse jus’ sit dere on da porch in yer rockin’ chair, takin’ it easy, no worries. Be a real shame if yez all had yer dough cut off ‘cuz dere wasn’t nuttin’ in da national bank account to back up doze social security checks, an’ nuttin’ to pay da goombas who cut da checks even if dere was.

Hey, but it ain’t da boss’s fault, see? It’s dat cross-town gang a’ Republicans what don’t care if yez have to eat dog food or sleep under a’ overpass in a Maytag washing machine box. I mean, it ain’t like da boss ain’t out dere pullin’ for youse ol’ geezers a hunnert percent. An’ all dat malarkey about da huge government debit? Get outta here! Dat’s jus’ a lotta scare talk. Da government ain’t spendin’ nuttin dat a little arm-twistin’ on da fat cats can’t fix, see? So, all youse ol’ farts out dere? Don't let dem GOP punks push yez around. Jus’ leave everyt’ing to us. It's in da bag.

Update- From Bruce, in the comments: "In this case, against the usual laws of caricature, parody softens the shock of hearing the leader of the free world play such dirty sectarian politics (holding pensioners hostage) to such a dubious end - throwing the nation into a quicksand of debt, and the dollar-dependent world into a potential crisis."

Some folks get wagyu steak with their peas

Special interests - corporate interests, mind you – are taking advantage of a legal loophole to pump millions of dollars into the capacious pockets of our (or rather, “our”) elected officials:
Federal law limits how much corporate political action committees (PACs) can give to members of Congress, but high-powered K Street lobbyists have found a loophole that enables them to give an estimated $50 million to senators and representatives.

The gifts are in the form of dinners honoring the congressmen, according to the Sunlight Foundation, which released a report today describing how lobbyists are using the loophole to direct millions of dollars to influential members of Congress. Executive branch officials, including the president, can also be honored by such events.
And once again, we find capitalists standing in line to sell rope to the socialist hangman:
The biggest spenders were Chevron and Wal-Mart, which donated $2.9 million and $2.2 million respectively. And the biggest recipients were the Congressional Black Caucus with over $6 million, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus with over $4 million and President Barack Obama with over $1 million.

Nine of the top 10 recipients were Democrats, or in the case of the two ethnic caucus groups, heavily oriented to the Democratic Party.
The “partnership” between government and the private sector is rapidly becoming nothing but a protection racket ultimately paid for by the taxpayer. The unprivileged citizenry needs to recognize that it is fighting a war against the nanny state on numerous fronts.

Related: Jeff Immelt, complete Obama stooge.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Monday movie (Tuesday edition!)

Edward G. Robinson in one of his greatest roles as Johnny Rocco in Key Largo.

Sounds like a good idea to me

Southern California (minus Los Angeles) to become the 51st state?

Our American Demosthenes (Part I of an occasional series)

“We might as well do it now. Pull off the band aid. Eat our peas.”

David Brooks (again)

Stacy McCain experiences sensations very like my own whenever David Brooks starts bloviating.

We both probably need to calm down. After all, Brooks’ worldview is pretty much the rutherfordium of political punditry.

Looking presidential

Matt Lewis catches Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart tut-tutting over Sarah Palin’s cover photo for the most recent Newsweek:
Folks want to be able to envision someone sitting in the Oval Office. They don’t necessarily want to envision them in the pages of Esquire magazine’s “Sexiest Woman Alive 2011” or Maxim. She can’t possibly be taken seriously as a presidential contender dressed like that, especially since this is the second time she has graced Newsweek in a less-than-presidential pose.
Can’t be taken seriously. You mean, like this?


Capehart then moves on to take issue with what Palin actually has to say in the Newsweek interview, and what Capehart has to say could have been written for him by Tim Geithner – in fact, it practically was.

Personally, I think Sarah Palin would be the best-looking president we ever had, and a great president, period. Yet for all her virtues, I have to confess that the main reason I’d like to see her win is the prospect of witnessing, close-up, the mass apoplexy that would strike all the inside-the-beltway types – e.g., Jonathan Capehart – who eagerly swallow this administration’s talking points in the delusion that these endless liberal placebos represent the gospel truth and are not only delicious but good for what ails us.

Religious bigotry or just plain common sense?

The headline for this story on the Yahoo home page reads, “Proposed new anti-Muslim law causes stir in Australia”. In a nutshell, the law requires Muslim women to remove their veils for the purpose of identification by police on request.

How is this “anti-Muslim”, exactly? Wouldn’t a law, or even a procedural guideline, prohibiting police from making a visual I.D. of veiled women be an instance of rather extravagant favoritism? How else are police to do their jobs when a positive identification is essential? Besides, I didn’t think veils were a hard and fast rule in Islam. The clamor against the law strikes me as another attempt by Muslims – aided and abetted by their non-Muslim fellow-travelers – to fight assimilation and expand and strengthen their cultural ghettos in western countries.

Reach for the sky, mes amis!

Old-school outlaws rob a train in France.

Memo to all Republicans

It's Free Slurpee Day!

(Why Republicans? See background here).

Sunday, July 10, 2011

It's all about Barry



(H/T: Ricochet)

Update: Hope and change=class warfare. I would say the issue is now settled beyond reasonable doubt.

Brit Hume still in there punching

This time, pegging Obama and Eric Holder on "Fast and Furious":
“This Obama Justice Department reminds me of nothing so much as the Nixon Justice Department,” he said. “You have the scent of high-level knowledge of serious wrongdoing and you have the smell of cover-up and I think the stench of cover-up on this gun-running operation is very strong indeed.”



I could swear I've seen this guy somewhere before.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

The only thing Jon Huntsman's candidacy is good for...

...is providing inspiration for a typically witty column by Andrew Ferguson:
Covering political campaigns can be a dull, remorseless duty, but at least the reporters who gathered in Liberty State Park, New Jersey, on June 21 to see Jon Huntsman announce his presidential candidacy have this compensation: Someday they’ll be able to chuck their grandchildren under the chin and tell them, “Yes, kids, I was there when the Huntsman campaign peaked.”
(H/T: Ed Driscoll)

Sunday funnies



Plus: The solution to all your problems (H/T: Gavin Atkins).

Update: Al Gore, home-wrecker.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Assortment

Something else from Down Under: In a marriage of tradition and innovation, two Australians have invented an iPhone case that includes a bottle opener (the product is called the Opena). Beer and wireless communications: synergy, baby!

If only the guy had been carrying his expired boarding pass in his shorts, the TSA might have caught him before he got on the plane.

Are establishment Republicans about to find themselves being herded toward the elephant graveyard? Could be, if Bill Kristol is right.

Stacy McCain is all over the 36th-District congressional election in California, and the controversy surrounding Democrat Janice Hahn’s attempts to play sugar-momma to L.A. gang leaders.

Barbarians at inside the gates: flash mobs becoming a nationwide problem.

Jeff Goldstein – than whom there is no one more skilled in felicitously combining snark and deep thought – provides an economic rundown of our rundown economy.

New Jersey governor Chris Christie obviously has friends in high places.

One Minute Rant


What the hell is it with CVS drug stores in D.C.? They never have enough clerks, the air conditioning systems don’t seem to be working in any of them, and I always get stuck behind some bozo who’s either got a problem (expired coupons, credit card gets rejected, etc.), or who thinks it’s a swell idea to purchase fifty gift cards and pay for them, separately, in batches of ten (today’s episode), or thinks a drugstore with one lousy clerk makes a dandy substitute for a supermarket, and lumbers to the counter laden with everything from giant boxes of Cheerios to “family-sized” packages of toilet paper to six-packs of Coca-Cola. Add to the mix a customer base consisting of purchasers who are just now finding out about D.C.’s stupid new 5-cent charge for each plastic bag, and who decide to argue about it after they’ve already paid for their stuff. If my smokes were available anywhere but CVS, I’d never set foot in the place again.

We now return you to your regular programing.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Koch Brothers to Sen. Patty Murray

Get bent.

Happy Feet Friday

The Vocalettes provide a fine rendition of “Beat Me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar”.



Update: Mojo's wish is my command.

Man, they don’t make stonewalls like they used to

The Fast and Furious scandal may turn out to be something that is unraveling so quickly that it’s likely to burn up Eric Holder’s information spindle. Looks like some of those guns destined for Mexico – which, I should point out, was a bad idea in its own right – are now turning up on the streets in Phoenix.

Update: It just keeps getting worse.

Things about Australia that I love (part of an occasional series)

Every red-blooded American considers Australia a kind of spiritual “second home”. It’s the place where we would live if we couldn’t live in the U.S. There’s the same sense of rugged individualism, outspoken honesty, love for adventure, and stiff-spined courage that animated our own forefathers. Here are a few things that strongly appeal to me.

Lovely sheilas! New Miss Universe Australia crowned.

Interesting animals! Friendly wombats.

Lethal warriors! Aussie commandos.

Great bloggers! Tim Blair.

Inscrutable headlines! “Mal Meninga’s Willie Tonga-inspired war-cry lifted Maroons to victory in State of Origin decider”.

Why, indeed?

Jim Treacher has a great comment today in his daily roundup: “Hey, remember when [Obama] said ATMs are taking jobs away from hardworking Americans? Then why is he letting Twitter take jobs away from people who raise carrier pigeons?”

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

The Swiss have run out of political issues

They are really stretching.
Few of us truly love PowerPoint, the extremely-accessible and infamously-bland presentation software published by Microsoft. But then again, few of us dislike the program enough to start a political party dedicated to a PowerPoint ban and freeing the world from its insidious grip. That's right, folks – earlier this week, a band of Swiss citizens gathered under the banner of the Anti-Power Point Party, or APPP, in hopes of "decreasing the number of boring presentations worldwide."
On second thought, this may catch on.

Fast and Spurious (Continued)

What happens when your fall guy decides, instead of throwing himself on his sword, to talk to congressional investigators with his personal lawyer in attendance? And without your prior knowledge? Well, Attorney General Eric Holder just found out, as acting chief of the ATF Kenneth Melson proves to be a whistleblower in his own right.

And here's the letter that Senator Grassley and Rep. Issa sent to Holder as a result of their little chat with Melson. They are not amused.

Troglopundit says we can all have pi

Pi vs. tau.

David Brooks, our national naïf

Democrats? Sure, you can trust 'em.


"Many important Democrats are open to a truly large budget deal."

(Image found at Picture is Unrelated)

Update: More from Da Tech Guy on the phony budget compromise.

Awkward

Burglar breaks into "adult" store, is caught by police, er, in flagrante delicto.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Is barbecue racist?

History professor Ken Albala is highly skeptical of the theme of Andrew Warnes’ Savage Barbecue: Race, Culture and the Invention of America’s First Food. A sample:
Perhaps there is just some fundamental methodological difference between the way historians and literary scholars interrogate sources. Random associations appear to be perfectly legitimate here. Even worse, sources are cited for what they do not say. Because Thomas Jefferson doesn't mention barbecue in his notes on Virginia, this "suggests he finds its barbarity, its stark racial alterity, hard to stomach" (112). Maybe he just didn't have anything to say about barbecue?
Frankly, I wouldn’t care if barbecue had been invented by the Hitler Youth or the KKK. Its appeal is universal. And it’s delicious.

Only vaguely on-topic, but are there things that strongly distinguish Australian barbecue cooking from American? Are there various "schools" of barbecue-ology in Australia, as there are in the U.S. - e.g., Kansas City, Memphis, Texas, North Carolina (eastern and western styles), etc?

The campaign slogans practically write themselves

Obama is chauffeured around in a heavily-armed limo nicknamed “the Beast”. So what better logo to use for the 2012 campaign than this?



(Image gratefully swiped from Moonbattery, which blog cheerfully lifted it from stuff girls like)

The Constitution under siege

We are seeing an ominous uptick in criticisms of the utility, and, by extension, of the continuing validity of the U.S. constitution, one of the most recent being Time magazine’s disingenuous and agenda-driven attack. One of CNN’s talking heads, Fareed Zakaria, has even proposed rewriting the thing from scratch, employing Facebook and Twitter to get input from the public (Would that include the growing portion of the public that consists of illegal aliens? Just askin’.)

Ok, fine. Let’s rewrite it. But here are a few things to keep in mind.

With respect to maintaining the present federal union of fifty states under the umbrella of a centralized government, all bets are off. The original constitution was adopted voluntarily by representatives of all the then-existing states at a constitutional convention, and subsequently ratified by all of the states. Any state that decides not to ratify the proposed new and improved constitution becomes a sovereign nation, or is free to combine with other like-minded states in an alternative union. Want to keep your union-dominated kleptocracies, California and Illinois? Great. Like ObamaCare, Massachusetts? Swell. But include Texas and Virginia out.

But let’s assume, for a moment, that all of the state governments have agreed beforehand to be bound by the final result of the great Facebook and Twitter Constitutionalpalooza (presumably having dismissed any fears of insurrection and even civil war). What happens if the majority of participants decide that the new constitution should include things that would bruise progressive sensibilities? Maybe the majority opines that freedom of speech is all well and good, but flag-burning is beyond the pale. And while freedom of religion is nice in theory, Islam, say, is held to be so flagrantly inconsistent with the ideals of a modern state that its practice should be banned. Or – horrors! – conservatives should be equally represented in the professoriate at all state-supported schools. Illegal aliens? Mass deportations to begin the first Monday in October. Just how, exactly, do you get those troublesome worms back into the can?

Oh, but wait. You constitutional revisionists aren’t really talking about a plebiscite, are you? What you really intend is for the process to be “guided” by “experts” who will vet the vox populi, weeding out all of the embarrassing anti-progressive sentiments, leaving us with a government of forward-looking technocrats whose sole benchmark will be eliminating “red tape” (currently known by the soon-to-be archaic words, “individual liberty”) in order to facilitate the imposition of the provider state on a grand scale, unhampered by anything more restrictive and rigorous than the situational philosophizing of ideologically-compliant politicians, bureaucrats and judges.

Make no mistake. The revisionists object not only to the framework for self-government, but to the very idea of self-government. In short, what they want is an all-powerful central authority that can do whatever it wants – as long as what it wants to do is consistent with leftist ideology. And how to preclude deviations from that ideology? There’s really only one way.

Anybody else smell despotism?

Update: Linked by paisan Bob Belvedere.

Barack Obama and his thanes: continuing to make Jimmy Carter look like Talleyrand

Or maybe even Metternich. U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. skips ceremony honoring Ronald Reagan.
…what could the Ambassador to England have on his schedule that is more important than attending a celebration and commemoration of a US president? Isn’t this, in part, part of the job? When a foreign country goes out of its way to honor your country, doesn’t that give you a unique leverage that should be capitalized on? Doesn’t it follow that the only way to capitalize on it is to actually be there?

From all reports, Susman was not sick, stricken with illness or involved in a really intense game of Farmville. He simply didn’t show up, as the representative of the United States, to an event honoring one of the greatest presidents in US history. Susman didn’t show up to honor the long standing relationship that the US and Great Britain have; one that solidified in World War II, and was made stronger through the Cold War and its eventual end…
(H/T: Instapundit)

Head of nail, squarely hit

Jedediah Bila of The Daily Caller interviews Republican Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, who doesn’t mince words:
JB: What actions by the Obama administration do you see as the biggest threats to our growth and/or liberty?

TM: His seeking re-election.

Monday, July 4, 2011

Crock a' Barack



Every day that this awful man is not ridiculed is a day wasted.