Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Two Columns

Two columns in this morning's stack of reading that truly summarize the Magical Mystery Tour of Hopey Change that we've been on this past year plus campaign season.  The first is Victor Davis Hanson's excellent piece: "A Humpty Dumpty View Of The World."  The second is Shelby Steele's missive in this morning's Wall Street Journal: "Obama and our Post-Modern Race Problem."  Both pieces deal with the inability of our young President to, as the Marines would say, "adjust, adapt and overcome" because of a world view that he cannot get past.

VDH rightfully takes him to task for his naivete in thinking that smooth rhetoric and a hearty handshake would somehow make all the bad guys like us.  This sprang from the frighteningly amateurish view that all the problems with foreigners not liking us were because Bush was such a meanie.

Remember, in this reset narrative, there are no such bothersome things as irreconcilable differences, antithetical agendas, or reductionism such as thugs like Ahmadinejad, Assad, Chavez, or Putin, who always interpret magnanimity as weakness in their nonstop quest for more influence and power at the expense of the perceived weaker party.
So here we are after all the apologies, all the bowing, all the trashing of Bush, all the Cairo speeches and al Arabiyainterviews: Putin brags about a new generation of nuclear weapons, bullying his neighbors and doing nothing to stop Iran; Iran kills its dissidents while we sleep and promises a bomb to come.  Chavez wants one too, and Syria does it best to destroy Lebanese autonomy. And that is just the beginning.
It was not supposed to happen that way. (All those adoring crowds in the streets of London, Cairo, and Nairobi were supposed to translate into their leaders’ infatuation with Obama.


As Hanson points out, all Presidents come into office with a "narrative," a campaign line.  One of W's big narratives was that nation-building was a bad thing.  The challenge is that they have to adjust and change the narrative as the world situation demands.  Obama has continued to fail to do this and it is at our peril.  The world is a far more dangerous place now than it was just 12 months ago.

Steele's storyline is similar, only it involves the narrative of race and the election of Barack Obama.  A man singularly unqualified to be in office, who got there because of his race.
Barack Obama, elegant and professorially articulate, was an invitation to sophistication that America simply could not bring itself to turn down. If "hope and change" was an empty political slogan, it was also beautiful clothing that people could passionately describe without ever having seen.
Mr. Obama won the presidency by achieving a symbiotic bond with the American people: He would labor not to show himself, and Americans would labor not to see him. As providence would have it, this was a very effective symbiosis politically. And yet, without self-disclosure on the one hand or cross-examination on the other, Mr. Obama became arguably the least known man ever to step into the American presidency.

As Steele has written before, the beauty of the unknown in BHO gave simple-minded people the chance to project whatever they wanted to onto the beautiful dais with the Grecian columns.  Twelve months later, America now knows what it is stuck with.  Sadly, BHO doesn't realize that we've largely figured it out.

Monday, December 28, 2009

50 Years of Cooling Ahead

A peer reviewed journal out of Canada is reporting that we are most likely in for a cooling trend that began in 2002 and will continue for the next 50 years:

Qing Bin-Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy at Canada's University of Waterloo, is a believer in the value of drawing conclusions from observable data and not from selective data fed into computer models that are based on false assumptions and include "fudge factors."

Read the whole column here.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Whores


Michael Ramirez over at Investor's Business Daily tags it...again! Just like the cartoon, what they voted for today is repulsively illegal. You cannot exempt one state, treat another to a $300 million fete and so on. Equal representation used to mean something.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Shredding the Constitution



This about says it all - hat tip IBD:


Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Friday, December 18, 2009

You Mean It's Cyclical??

Those doofs in Copenhagen could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by watching this video:


Meanwhile, just to add to the fun, Science is reporting that the upper atmosphere is cooling! Ya think??

But then, the Copenhaaagen Shakedown wasn't really about whether the earth is warming or not was it...

Lt. Col. Allen West Reporting for Duty!


This guy is fantastic. He is running for the House in the 22nd District of Florida. Check out his website and support him if you can! He is a conservative and patriot.

Iranians Seize Iraqi Oil Well

Oh brother! Back to the killing fields of the 1980's when the Iranians and the Iraqis slogged it out over this disputed area. Word is they have seized an oil well in a region that both believe is theirs. But the timing of this could not be worse. This is a standard provocation move by thugs testing the mettle of their opponents...guess who the Iranians are sizing up (well, actually they already know...)? If you said the Iraqis, you guessed wrong.

No, this is well timed to coincide with Obama's arrival in freezing Copenhagen. They know he won't do anything, so why not? Hopefully this thing will get worked out diplomatically, but it is one more provocative move by the Iranians in recent weeks - seizing British sailors, firing rockets that can reach Israel, and of course the on-going ignoring of the UN's, EU's and US's pleas to not make nuclear weapons. I would expect continued thuggery and bolder moves. Stand by for heavy rolls!

Thursday, December 17, 2009

New Problem for Counterterrorism






This is a problem that is only going to get worse. Britain is dealing with homegrown Jihad in a major way, and the problem is obviously now on our shores. We have the five Americans from the DC area in Pakistan, the Ft. Hood Massacre, this David Headley case...clearly there's a pattern.

Sadly, we have an administration in power that wants to sweep it all under the rug under the guise of political correctness. I have several Rumblepals that are saying it's going to take another dramatic and horrifying event a la 9/11 before we finally say enough. Tragically, if and when it happens, everyone will be saying "we knew it all along."

I say enough now. Shut down every mosque in this country where there is even a hint of radicalism - the FBI knows where they are. Then, lean on the Saudis to stop exporting Wahadism. Finally, lean on the Pakistanis to shut down their madrassas (many of which are financed with Saudi money.) These will only be the first steps towards ending the madness. In the interim, stop with the "religion of peace" and "world's great religions" nonsense and tell the Muslims of the world that a) you are not going to take over the world, freedom will not go into that dark night and b) reform yourselves from the inside.

Blizzard in Copenhagen!

You can't ask Mother Nature to mock humanity any better than this! "Blizzard Dumps Snow on Copenhagen as Leaders Battle Warming." Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!!!!

Harry the Mathematician

Harry - the numbers don't add up! Not only is your Healthcare "Reform" bill a fiscal disaster, the people that elected you know it. Listen to your folks back home (Per Rasmussen Poll, 12/11/09):

Fifty-four percent (54%) of Nevada voters oppose the plan, while 44% favor it.

More significantly, however, those numbers include 49% who strongly oppose the plan while only 23% strongly favor it.


The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming!

Climategate is turning out to be the gift that keeps on giving! Now the Russians are weighing in with evidence that data they supplied to the CRU was tampered with or suppressed. Remember, their scientists two years ago were laughing at global warming, telling us we ought to be investing in fur coats!

This just as "the One" heads to Copenhaaaaagen to join the freak parade. But as Mark Twain once said: "against a diseased imagination, demonstration goes for nothing."

Hat tip DB.

Wrong Place for a Mosque


Gateway Pundit is reporting a bit of creepy news:

An identified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building steps away from where the WorldTrade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques.

At the moment the building, the old Burlington Coat Factory, already serves as a mini-mosque: an iron grill lifts every Friday afternoon for a little known Imam leading prayers a few yards away from where Osama Bin Laden’s airborne Islamist bombers killed nearly 3000 people back in 2001.

The Imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, told the New York Times — which put the story on its front page Wednesday — that he has assembled several million dollars to turn it into ‘’an Islamic center near the city’s most hallowed piece of land that would stand as one of ground zero’s more unexpected and striking neighbors.’’
The 61-year-old Imam said he paid $4.85 million for it — in cash, records show. With 50,000 square feet of air rights and enough financing, he plans an ambitious project of $150 million, he said, akin to the Chautauqua Institution, the 92 Street Y or the Jewish Community Center.

The origins of such monies are unexplained; neither are the countries or entity advancing such huge donations. Most US mosques, including many in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx are funded directly or indirectly by Saudi Arabia the country to which 15 of the 19 hijackers who bombed the World TradeCenter belonged. The UAE, Qatar and Iran are other major sponsors across the USA.




I am all in favor of tolerance and religious freedom, but there needs to be an exception made here. If they end up building some giant mosque, like the mega-mosque at Abbey Mills in London (cutaway elevation here)
next to the site where over 2,000 Americans perished because of this "religion of peace," that would be grossly inappropriate. Property rights are what they are, and the Imam paid cash for the site, but hopefully the NYC Planning Commission will take a very hard look at any proposed development there.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Building Things

Dan DiMicco, the CEO of NUCOR, a steel company out of Charlotte, North Carolina has an excellent short piece in the Wall Street Journal this morning titled: "A Nation That 'Builds Things.'" Hearty rumbling "woo hoo!" over the three key points:

1. Replace foreign energy sources with our own: amen, brother - think of the CO2 that's being used just to cart the oil to our shores! We have the resources, let's go get them:

It will take decades to transition to a low-carbon economy. But getting there does not require taxpayer dollars. It does require a cooperative effort by government and the private sector that would allow for the necessary increase in domestic exploration and production, and the building of more distribution infrastructure such as natural gas pipelines on a scale that will enable us to replace foreign energy sources, while we transition to a low-carbon economy.

2. Balance the trade deficit - Dan calls a spade a spade:
We need to correct the mercantilist and predatory trading practices of our principal trading competitors—yes, competitors not partners. These countries such as China won't be partners until they stop using opportunistic and illegal trade practices like currency manipulation, illegal subsidies and border-adjusted taxes (especially the value-added tax).
3. Rebuild our crumbling infrastructure: Folks, your humble host serves on a group that is looking at the state of our infrastructure in the United States and to put it bluntly, it's scary:
The American Society of Civil Engineers has stated earlier this year that we need to spend $2.2 trillion over the next five years to improve our country's roads and bridges.

You See Nothing...


Watts Up With That is taking apart New Scientist magazine this morning. New Science has been a shill for the global warming scaremongers - they are even mentioned in the famous CRU e-mails. WUWT is using that thing called "logic" and "truth" to debunk the attempts by New Science to cover up Climategate:

In DenierGate, watch New Scientist closely, as they do the unthinkable and try to defend gross scientific malpractice by saying it’s OK because other people did other things a little bit wrong, that were not related, and a long time ago. Move along ladies and gentlemen, there’s nothing to see…


The big problem for this formerly good publication is that they have decided already what the answer is to any question on climate-change (and the answer could be warm or cold but it’s always ALARMING). That leaves them clutching for sand-bags to prop up their position as the king-tide sweeps away any journalistic credibility they might have had.



Read the rest of the article here.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Circular Firing Squad

The left wing blogs are full of venom this morning with headlines like "No Public Option or Extension of Medicare? That's a NO Vote!" This internecine warfare is exposing a couple of truths that we have been preaching over here at the Rumbler Report:

1. This bill has nothing to do with "reforming" healthcare. It has EVERYTHING to do with installing (at a minimum the framework for) a single payer system. One in which the government bureaucrats and their thug buddies over at SEIU would tell you what you could or could not receive for medical treatment. This of course would lead to liberal nirvana - telling you how to live your life:
"I see you drink a couple of whiskeys each week Mr. Rumbler," says the SEIU screener at the neighborhood clinic, "well we're going to have to cut back on your ration of ibuprofen."
"But I was hit by a car and have a sore back..."
"Case closed, Mr. Rumbler, NEXT!"

2. This bill is ALL ABOUT Obama. He has to show that he has done...something! (Well, other than win the Nobel Peace Prize by dragging American through the gutter in all his travels). Thus the spectacle of dragging all 60 Democrat Senators up to the White House today.

Reasoned legislation cannot come from a process such as this. But stay alert, dear friends, the fight is far from over. They can do whatever it takes to get a bill out of the Senate and then put everything they want back in during the conference committee between the Senate and the House. This monster is far from dead.

No Way to Run a Conference

So you've got two years to plan a conference for 45,000 people - explain to me why the facility you book only holds 15,000? There's some great blogging going on from Copenhagen by the folks over at Heritage...read about this and other funnies over here.

Follow the Money

This is what they showed to open the Copenhagen Conference:


Using children to plead their case is an old Leftie trick - remember this gem from Johnson versus Goldwater:

Yes, indoctrinate the children so that they will lean on the 'rents...Stalin was good at it, so was Hitler. Come to think of it, so are the people behind Obama:

Who can forget that vacant eyed child singing "Obama's gonna lead 'em?"

So, while the Copenhagen Conferees spew their carbon at a rate heretofore unseen for any climate conference, the world keeps chugging along, racking up the fewest natural disasters in a decade - despite what Al Gore predicted would happen.

Follow the money folks - this conference is nothing more than a giant shakedown of the industrialized west for handouts to the Third World. It is not about science - Climategate has broken that myth wide open...it's about money and a bald attempt to redistribute it.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Hanson: America A Deer in the Headlights?

Victor Davis Hanson has a terrific column titled "Is America a Deer in the Headlights?" in which he summarizes the general unease felt across the land. As a good friend of mine sighed in frustration the other day on our weekly call about matters at hand: "I feel like I'm taking f*%$ing crazy pills!"

Hanson accurately tags all the concerns being expressed by Americans that are driving this number to the highest spread to date (Hat tip Rasmussen Reports):



There's no place to turn to feel good. The only thing I would disagree with the good Professor on is the "deer in the headlights" analogy. I think Americans are mad...really mad. We all know interest rates are going to go up, we all know that they are making the numbers up about employment ("jobs created or saved"), we all know that this healthcare debacle is a pig in a poke, and we all know that social security, Medicaid, Medicare and damned near every other Federal program are going broke! We also know that Iran will get nuclear weapons (unless Israel acts), that coddling dictators has done nothing and that our stature has gone down under Obama's apologize and grovel tours. Listening to Robert Gibbs and the other voice boxes crooning about the successes of this White House (cough cough) and Barry O gives himself a "B+" for this first year in office!! What?? For having done...what? This is the visual image I get of these clowns every time they speak about the wonder of O and his many accomplishments:

Take that image two ways - the shark is the American populace getting ready to vent at the polls in 2010...or the shark is reality. Either way, it's bad for the fisherman. Not deer, Dr. Hanson, more like stampeding buffalo...frustrated that next November can't get here fast enough!

Mutiny Among the Mullahs?



Pajamas Media is picking up a a story originally reported in the Dutch magazine, Elsevier, that elements of the Iranian military have issued a statement warning the Revolutionary Guard not to attack Iranian citizens. The statement reads in part:

“Therefore, we warn the Guards who have betrayed the martyrs (from the war between Iran and Iraq) and who decided to attack the lives, the property and the honor of the citizens. We seriously warn them that if they do not leave their chosen path, they will be confronted with our tough response. The military is a haven for the nation. And we will defend the peace-loving Iranian nation against any aggression.”
This is powerful stuff. As the PJM writer notes, this may be why the Iranians have not gone Tiananmen Square
on the protesting students. It could also be why the Israelis have not gone Osirak on the Iranians yet. This will be worth following...

Hat tip DB.

You Can't Make This Stuff

From the "Truth is stranger than fiction" file: Ahmadinejad to address climate summit - along with Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe. Heck, Ahmadinejad is the ultimate "denier," he denies that the Holocaust occurred.

Friday, December 11, 2009

Havel Speaks Out

One of the few sentient leaders left in Europe, Vaclav Havel, the playwright and former president of the Czech Republic, sat down with Susan Glasser over at Foreign Policy for an interview. It is well worth the read, but here are a couple of high-lights:

On whether China and the rise of Asia are dangerous to Europe:
She (China) may sort of inconspicuously, through the use of economic mechanisms, become the owner of a half of the globe over time. But I do not see obvious expansive intentions behind it. Certainly nothing like the Russian Orthodox faith that they are the ones who will save the whole world, which characterizes the Russian regime today.
How about Obama postponing his meeting with the Dalai Lama?
When [French Prime Minister Edouard] Daladier returned from the [1938] Munich conference, the whole nation was applauding him for saving the peace. He made a miniscule compromise in the interest of peace. But it was the beginning of a chain of evil that subsequently brought about many millions of deaths. We can't just say, "This is just a small compromise that can be overlooked. First we will go to China and then perhaps talk with the Dalai Lama." It all looks practical, pragmatic, logical, but it is necessary to think about whether it is not the first small compromise that can be the beginning of that long chain that is no good.
But when do you decide small compromises are worth it?
Because they (the Chinese) respect it when someone is standing his ground, when someone is not afraid of them. When someone soils his pants prematurely, then they do not respect you more for it.
On Obama's decision to add troops to Afghanistan (sadly I agree, though I offer a new course over at Red State Rumblings:
Out of a kind of reluctance, the Taliban has been allowed to flourish and take root, and now it will be much more troublesome. To a certain extent, in my opinion, Obama is harvesting the fruits of the works of the previous presidents. Neither clearing out of there nor sending a million soldiers in there is a good solution anymore.

How about Europe today? (This answer is a little chilling.)

I think that America has not forgotten us, but it should still take into account that the terrain here in Central Europe is somewhat more explosive than other areas of conflict elsewhere in the world. World wars start here, not in Iran or Korea or anywhere else.

Good read from a great man.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Trampling on the Truth

Hat tip IBD.

Al Gore's sacred temple of climate lies is obviously under attack - great piece from down under: "Climategate: Gore Falsifies The Record." When asked about the significance of the hacked e-mails from the CRU, Gore repeats his talking point - "these exchanges took place ten years ago." Umm, Al, oh great inventor of the internet, the most recent one is from last month. Imagine that, Al can't count...or tell time.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Hey Obama! Americans Aren't As Stupid As You Think!

Chilling number over at Rasmussen Reports yesterday: 67% of Americans think that unemployment will be the same or worse than it is today one year from now. How in this wonderful land full of unicorns and hope and change is this possible?

Despite President Obama’s highly-publicized jobs summit late last week and a slight drop in the national unemployment rate to 10%, Americans remain pessimistic about the jobs situation.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 67% of adults think the unemployment rate will be the same or higher a year from today. That includes 29% who believe the unemployment rate will be higher than it is now and 38% who expect it to stay about the same.


First, the unemployment number from last week is in the process of being re-jiggered...I'm beginning to think the "scientists" from East Anglia are running the Labor Department statistics group...turns out they, oops, missed a few numbers. From the NY Post:

The Labor Department is hurrying to correct inaccuracies in its monthly employment statistics that could cause the Obama administration big problems early next year.

Those corrections, however, will probably also eliminate the inevitable -- and unsubstantiated -- employment gains that come during springtime.

We now know that the job gains reported by Washington this past spring were an illusion.

Early in 2010 the Labor Department will subtract about 824,000 jobs from its official count in what is called a "benchmark revision" to more accurately reflect the jobs that weren't created this past spring.


In their guts Americans know it is most likely going to get worse. They know and understand the impact that healthcare "reform," and "cap and trade" will have on the economy. Many are vexed as to why Democrats would take a wrecking ball to the economy, but even if they fail in their schemes, the uncertainty is killing main street.

The non-Koolaid, tingly legged sentient everyday American knows this administration is a train wreck. Even the ones that voted for him are flabbergasted. There's a spirit in the land right now that I sense, and it is this: "let's get to the 2010 election and we can at least roll back the nonsense that has made it through and stymie any further advances of socialism...then in 2012...we can make the 'change' that is needed."

The Republicans have yet to tap into this sentiment, but when the right conservative comes along, they will be met with open arms and this experiment in temporary insanity will come to an end.

The Consequences of Health Care Rationing

Sad story from the UK Times: "Baby P Doctors had 'Excessive Workload." This is our future if this abominable piece of "legislation" passes. Here's the gist of the story: A baby boy, Peter Connelly, was abused by his mother and ultimately killed by the mom's boyfriend. Two days before he was murdered, he was at St. Ann's hospital and the harried doctor OVERLOOKED his BROKEN BACK!!

The independent report, compiled by lawyers, found that “delays in seeing children must have the potential to affect patient safety” at the clinic between 2006 and May 2008.

There had once been four doctors at the clinic, but two posts were cut before Peter’s death. Since the case, the number has risen to nine.

The lawyers also noted complaints of a “very hostile environment” at the clinic, with poor communication between staff and managers.

The report added that Dr Holt, who voiced her concerns a year before the failed diagnosis, was taken seriously by the trust and that its management made “genuine attempts” to address her concerns.

But it concluded that communication between doctors and management needed to be managed more effectively “in the interests of patient care”.


There are two stories here: first, the understaffing. This is due to a) doctors not wanting to practice medicine in a socialized system and b) the necessity to ration care to save money. The second disturbing story is the players: note, it's the doctors dealing with management, not doctors dealing with patients. Now clearly, in this instance, the doctors would have had to get the law involved because child abuse was involved, but this story should send a chilling warning to us over here.

Democrat Sneak Attack

Hat tip IBD.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Science Gone To Bed With Advocacy


Wouldn't do it at a 9th grade science fair!

I tried training earthworms with electric shock for my 9th grade science fair and I am certain it was more "scientific" than this hoax.

Jobless Numbers

They are doing back-flips at the White House today after release of the November jobless report that showed losses had slowed. No, there were no net job gains, we are still headed south and as the above chart illustrates we are doing so at a rate not seen since the Great Depression. Contrast those three lines - which one is the one we have spent over $1 Trillion in ? Oh, that's right, the worst one - the "Recession of O." One piece of good news, they don't seem to be trumpeting that little bit of happy smoke, the "jobs saved or created" number around. Maybe that file got mixed in with the CRU data...

Prickly City Cartoon


Same math they use on global warming!!

Al Gore Cancels Lecture

Just in from the AP:

COPENHAGEN --Climate campaigner Al Gore has canceled a lecture he was supposed to deliver in Copenhagen.

The former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner had been scheduled to speak to more than 3,000 people at a Dec. 16 event hosted by the Berlingske Tidende newspaper group.

The group says Gore canceled the lecture Thursday, citing unforeseen changes in his schedule.

Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider says the decision was made because of "all the events going on with the summit." Dec. 16 is a key date for the meeting because that's when the ministerial segment starts.

Chief editor Lisbeth Knudsen says it's a "great disappointment" that Gore canceled and that all tickets will be refunded.

We're supposed to believe that he had a "scheduling conflict?" C'mon Al, this is Copenhagen, the big show! Remember the "scientific consensus?" I love that part where you said "there can be no debate," especially when you deliver it with that karate chop hand motion! Oh, and then there's this jewel:

...two Hollywood conservatives (yes, there are some) have called upon the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to rescind the prestigious, profitable gold Oscar statuette that it gave ex-Vice President Al Gore two years ago for the environmental movie "An Inconvenient Truth."

How about the Nobel too? Let's face it, everyone that has a brain is waking up to the reality that this has been one giant hoax and that certain folks (like AlGore and a number of university grant recipient types) were going to get rich by perpetrating it. The Third World nations have been going along with it hoping to shake the money tree for doing nothing; beats having to figure out how to do economic development on their own.

Look, the climate gets warmer...the climate gets cooler; it cycles. Those cycles are driven by things like...wait for it...ocean currents and...hold on...what's that big yellow orb we see in the morning...the Sun. This does not mean we should not be good stewards of our planet; clearly we should. But the global warming hoax was about shaking down rich people and nations not about science and not about the environment. Another bastion of the statist religion is crumbling under the weight of facts.

It gets better - here's the cover of Newsweek:



Gotta love the "Thinking Man's Thinking Man" part - this is the left's attempt at elevating their pop-saints - "he's sooooo smart!" Well, let's look at the record shall we? From "Gore's Dubious School Record (Jennifer Braceros) we find:

Gore's undergraduate transcript from Harvard is riddled with C's, including a C-minus in introductory economics, a D in one science course, and a C-plus in another. "In his sophomore year at Harvard," the Post reported, "Gore's grades were lower than any semester recorded on Bush's transcript from Yale." Moreover, Gore's graduate school record - consistently glossed over by the press - is nothing short of shameful. In 1971, Gore enrolled in Vanderbilt Divinity School where, according to Bill Turque, author of "Inventing Al Gore," he received F's in five of the eight classes he took over the course of three semesters. Not surprisingly, Gore did not receive a degree from the divinity school. Nor did Gore graduate from Vanderbilt Law School, where he enrolled for a brief time and received his fair share of C's.

A "D" in Science??? And he wants to lecture us in his haughty sonorous tones?

Somewhere in this I am reminded of Al Pacino's remarks to the jury in the phenomenal movie "And Justice For All." "You're out of order!" he yells at the judge as he is hauled out of the courtroom. We should be yelling this at Al Gore, at all the environmental phonies, at our President who wants to go to Copenhagen (again - had a lot of success there last time), the compliant lackey press and anyone else who threatens our freedom with hyper-moral judgementalism and junk science. Here's the clip:

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Toward Statist Slavery

Excellent short essay over at the Mises Institute titled "On The Road to the Servile State," that is worth the read. The author, Brian Douglas, looks at the thought lines that run from Hilaire Belloc's "The Servile State" to Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" to the current debate on healthcare "reform." Together these three pieces document the horrifying unintended consequences of man's urge to "do good." I have oft quoted Flannery O'Connor's observation that "In the absence of faith, we govern by tenderness, and tenderness leads to the gas chamber."

We are seeing that good steady march now under the banner of hope and change. "Why would you be opposed to poor people getting healthcare," or "you like the status quo because you are taken care of..." are commonly heard "moral" arguments put forth by our statist friends; they dare you to take the morally impure counter - "of course I want poor people to die!" Nonsense. I simply place a higher premium on freedom. And this rampant expansion of benefits, which we cannot afford leads to this obvious consequence:
The problem with this analysis is that instead of helping the poor against the rich, what is really happening is that government is being expanded. Net tax receivers become de facto employees of the State, and thus have no natural incentive to upset the status quo. To do so would literally be to bite the hand that feeds them. In fact, these new net tax receivers, because they are dependent upon the government for at least part of their subsistence, are a slave class as well under Belloc's definition.[
The evil twist in this moralist tone from the left is that their programs are not about taking care of people, any more than the "jobs summit" today was about jobs...hint - photo op, sound bites. No, it is about getting the number of the servants of the state, i.e. the net tax receivers above 50% and forever enfranchising their power. Well, at least till the money runs out. This deceitful calculus is in full swing in Washington right now. If this were a debate about healthcare reform, the process would have begun with an extended review of the problems of healthcare and a study of reform efforts that have been underway in the 50 state laboratories across the fruited plain. Instead, Harry and Nancy and their respective staffs dusted off Clinton era bills and are busy mashing them through.

If this passes, and I still have a high hope that it will fail, the sick will not be magically cured; only about 11 million of the vaunted 43 million will be insured (if you call medical treatment to Post Office standards insurance) and the Treasury will be further depleted. But, if you are a statist, you will be VERY close to your magic 51% dependency. That's really sick.

The Convergence




Hat tip 4-Block World

Green Fakers

Hat tip Moonbattery!

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Al Gore Discredited By The Internet He Invented


If Jon Stewart is reporting this, maybe the wheels really will come off...

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

No Private Sector Experience Please

This is truly an astounding chart - I picked it up at the American Enterprise Institute. If you take the average of all the administrations shown prior to Obama's, it works out to 45% give or take a little. Obama's is LESS THAN 10%.

The real significance of this is it leads to a myopia in decision making that is a little frightening. The benefit of private sector experience is an appreciation of risk. If you have spent your entire career in the public sector, you have never had to face things like budget cuts, belt tightening, not meeting a payroll etc. etc. etc. Without that appreciation, a sense of being "ten feet tall and bulletproof" emerges. The other dangerous trait that emerges from this is a disconnect with regular folk...you know, the kind that actually make the widgets, sell the houses, tend the patients. I am afraid we are already seeing the consequence of this shortfall.

Debt Clock

Want to get mad? I mean REALLY flipping mad? Click on the U.S. Debt Clock and take a look.

"No!" To The Neo-Malthusians

From time to time we get angry posters here at the Rumbler Report screaming about population growth and how we are all going to die because some of us believe in the right to life. "You believe in magic," they scream, "we are running out of resources and we have to regulate who gets to have children!" They are living up to Thomas Malthus's famous quote: "Life is dull, dreary and short." Sad existence really...well this ought to cheer them up. Brendan O'Neill over at Spiked.com has penned a short piece that refutes the neo-Malthusian argument succinctly: "Too Many People? No, Too Many Neo-Malthusians." Enjoy the read and live a little!

Monday, November 30, 2009

House of Cards

More brilliant work from Chris Muir (click to enlarge):


The Arabs Get It, How About Our Press

Faoud Ajami has an excellent analysis of the perception of Obama in the Arab world one year into his presidency titled "The Arabs Have Stopped Applauding Obama." The gist is that the Arab "street" has figured this guy out and they are badly disappointed. The Iranians have him pegged as a weak Jimmy Carter - remember how much fun they had with him?

The key point of this article though is that anti-Americanism is just that. They don't like us very much - it had little to do with W. In fact, as Ajami points out, where the Palestinians were concerned, "Bush offered the Palestinians the gift of clarity—statehood but only after the renunciation of terror and the break with maximalism—Mr. Obama signaled a return to the dead ways of the past: a peace process where America itself is broker and arbiter."

For someone who grew up overseas, Obama has a terrifyingly bad tin ear for culture - the incessant bowing in the Orient is bad enough, but his blame everything on Bush governance has had serious consequences:

Steeped in an overarching idea of American guilt, Mr. Obama and his lieutenants offered nothing less than a doctrine, and a policy, of American penance. No one told Mr. Obama that the Islamic world, where American power is engaged and so dangerously exposed, it is considered bad form, nay a great moral lapse, to speak ill of one's own tribe when in the midst, and in the lands, of others.

The crowd may have applauded the cavalier way the new steward of American power referred to his predecessor, but in the privacy of their own language they doubtless wondered about his character and his fidelity. "My brother and I against my cousin, my cousin and I against the stranger," goes one of the Arab world's most honored maxims. The stranger who came into their midst and spoke badly of his own was destined to become an object of suspicion.

One year into this torturous Presidency our options are badly limited:

There is little Mr. Obama can do about this disenchantment. He can't journey to Turkey to tell its Islamist leaders and political class that a decade of anti-American scapegoating is all forgiven and was the product of American policies—he has already done that. He can't journey to Cairo to tell the fabled "Arab street" that the Iraq war was a wasted war of choice, and that America earned the malice that came its way from Arab lands—he has already done that as well. He can't tell Muslims that America is not at war with Islam—he, like his predecessor, has said that time and again.


And remember those surveys about how much they hated us over there? No change:

Now those surveys of 2009 bring findings from the world of Islam that confirm that the animus toward America has not been radically changed by the ascendancy of Mr. Obama. In the Palestinian territories, 15% have a favorable view of the U.S. while 82% have an unfavorable view. The Obama speech in Ankara didn't seem to help in Turkey, where the favorables are 14% and those unreconciled, 69%. In Egypt, a country that's reaped nearly 40 years of American aid, things stayed roughly the same: 27% have a favorable view of the U.S. while 70% do not. In Pakistan, a place of great consequence for American power, our standing has deteriorated: The unfavorables rose from 63% in 2008 to 68% this year.


So, as we have asked before, how's that "hopey change" working out for you?

The Tingles Are Gone?

Chris Matthews has already compared our Dear Leader to Jimmy Carter, but now it's Neville Chamberlain?? Wow, no more tingles up the leg, eh Chris?


My sense is that at some point, and we have obviously reached it with some in the media, the main stream buffoons will have to ditch this guy and tell the truth in a desperate attempt to salvage some small measure of integrity. Of course they will have to do it in such a way that smokescreens their complicity in his election, but the time is definitely getting closer.

To that point, Peggy Noonan, had a solid piece in the weekend Wall Street Journal titled "He Can't Take Another Bow." Money line:

The Obama bowing pictures are becoming iconic not for those reasons, however, but because they express a growing political perception, and that is that there is something amateurish about this presidency, something too ad hoc and highly personalized about it, something . . . incompetent, at least in its first year.

Waterboarding the Data

A computer scientist in Colorado is digging deep into the data dump just executed by CRU in the wake of (no, the beginning of) the "Climategate" scandal and has found solid proof of how badly the data is being handled to create the desired results. It's a little tedious unless you are a computer nerd, but he is drilling down on the "Read Me" notes that are attached to some of the data and finding pearls like this:
I am seriously close to giving up, again. The history of this is so complex that I can’t get far enough into it before by head hurts and I have to stop. Each parameter has a tortuous history of manual and semi-automated interventions that I simply cannot just go back to early versions and run the update prog. I could be throwing away all kinds of corrections – to lat/lons, to WMOs (yes!), and more.
This is written by one of their programmers! This is a scandal worthy of a congressional investigation if not a grand jury. This will make the Piltdown hoax seem inanely trivial when all is said and done. Read the rest of the post here.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

China Takes Obama To Task


At least the folks at SNL realize what's going on - sad thing, notice how little the audience laughs. Truth hurts!

George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclomation

Here's the actual text: Proclamation

No doubt about the role God had in our founding. We should be grateful for His favor.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Obama Bowing...Again




This time it's the Chinese Premier - at least he's an equal opportunity groveler. O needs to understand that the Presidency of the United States is a symbol of our country, like the flag. This is the same as lowering the flag on our Navy ships...something that is never done.

Global Warming Hoax Revealed

We here at the Rumbler Report have been hollering that the global warming/climate change nonsense was just that - nonsense. Now a hacker/whistle-blower has outed a series of e-mails that document the hoax. These people need to be laughed off the stage, starting with Al Gore and his ludicrous film. Here are some links to fill you in:


Viscount Monckton: They Are Criminals (Monckton is the one who has offered to debate Al Gore anytime anyplace...the idiot coward refuses.)


Rumors are swirling that there may be Congressional hearings. Whole industries and policies have been built around this hoax, now maybe we can return to real science and sanity.


Happy Thanksgiving (PJTV)


Ahh, the benefits of a modern public school education on full display!

Minus Fifteen And Falling (Failing)

The lilly hath no gild left.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Dealing With Iran

What with the Iranians once again playing Lucy to the nuclear negotiators' Charlie Brown, here's a straightforward assessment from George Friedman over at Stratfor:

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Renouncing Islamism

In a series of interviews with ex-Islamo-fascists, British journalist Johann Hari gets to some disturbing realities and interesting opportunities. The article titled "Renouncing Islamism: To The Brink And Back Again," is a long read, but well worth it.

The folks he interviews are home-grown jihadis. Typically they are second generation emigres whose parents came from places like Pakistan, Jordan, Syria and Egypt. Often they were typical naturalized kids, but by their late teens they couldn't fit in and found themselves attracted to the moral certainty of Wahabi Islam. Note - these Imams are Saudi funded...remember, our "friends," whose King Obama likes bowing to. They are actively recruited and turned into active recruiters - just like viruses. The concern over this, of course, is the parallel to Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood killer. We tend to be frightfully naive in the west, thinking our secular openness can convert the most bloodthirsty tribal savage into metrosexual yuppies. The enemy is among us, their numbers unknown. As a recent column by Dan Henninger over at the Wall Street Journal pointed out - the danger is not Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the real danger is Nidal Hasan.

The passions of these jihadis has been inflamed by the actions of the Bush years - Guantanamo, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq - I would add the point of clarification to this: it is not these actions that are the problem, it is the actions of an irresponsible press and a Democrat party so bent on regaining power. Their overstatements and outright lies - remember the flushing Korans - that have created this environment.

The hope in the article is that these people can be converted to rational members of society, but a good deal of this will have to come from the inside of their own faith. A literal interpretation of the Koran will lead to 9/11. An interpretation allowing for nuance and accommodation can lead to a moderated Islam that just might be able to co-exist with other faiths in this world. But in the meantime, their commitment to a new caliphate has to be met head on. Weakness and "wanting to just get along" will only inflame them and allow them a larger foothold in the enormous Muslim population worldwide.