Blue Man Crying

I enjoy the penultimate blue man Joel Kotkin's writing on urban development and architecture. This is an interesting piece he has posted on Blue State Demographics. A couple of tidbits to inspire you to read it:

When the recovery comes, job growth also is most likely to resurge first in the red states, while the blue states continue to lag behind. For reasons as diverse as regulatory policy, aging infrastructure, and high levels of taxation, blue states continue to be more susceptible to recessions than their red counterparts.

Hmm, "high levels of taxation" are bad?

These demographic and economic trends will have a long-term political impact. The net in-migration states—almost all of them red—will gain new representatives in Congress after the next census while New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and perhaps even California could see their delegations shrink.

In fact, amidst the Blue Man’s current political ascendency, the devolutionary process is likely to continue. Its roots are very deep, and will prove more difficult to reverse than media and policy claques suggest. In historic terms, blue states’ relative decline represents one of the greatest shifts of political and economic power since the Civil War.

Look, as a proud resident of a staunchly red state, I want to see all the states do well. But if you need an example of what works in economic policy, the contrast of economic health between the two regions is stark.

Blowing in the Wind

Good article over at Commentary this morning:

The political winds have shifted in fairly dramatic ways. Republicans are far from in the clear; they still have significant problems they need to repair. But they do have an opening most pundits didn’t think they’d be presented with, and far sooner than anyone could have imagined.

Go read the rest of it here. The problem the Republicans have is a lack of leadership right now. There are a lot of good young guns though, so if they will stick to conservative principles and sign pledges that they will never spend like they did the last time they were in power, Obama's presidency might get extended beyond one term.

We Miss You Milton

The maestro, Milton Friedman, would have been 97 today. Sadly, he left us at 94 in 2006. It's just as well - the inanity of Obanomics would have slayed him anyway. I miss his pragmatic, smooth diction. Here's a great piece from an interview he did with the poofy haired Phil Donahue...it's a Ginsu knife demonstration in logic:

Here's another nice piece on the power of choice. Would someone please play this for the Democrats in Congress?? Everyone else is figuring out that freedom works and we are busy heading the opposite way.

To the Woodshed!

This is awesome - Conservatives desperately need more folks like this speaking truth to this awful conspiracy to take over our health system.

The Forgotten Revolution

O's boys are still trying to get the foiled tyrant back in power in Honduras while he remains totally silent on Iran. Do you think those signs were in English for the benefit of the Iranians? Why were they not written in Chinese? Russian? French or Spanish? No, they were written in English as a cry for help from the United States. Obama looked the other way.

Who Pays?

Huge hat tip to Carpe Diem - I shamelessly lifted his charts from two different posts of his. But they make a stunning point: who the hell is going to pay? Maybe the real question needs to be "where's the money going to come from?" This first graph that really lays it out plainly: the awful "rich" already pay WAY more than their fair share of taxes.

Yeah, let's "tax the rich" some more!! OK, how about we tax those greedy corporations that don't pay their fair share?? Let's go gettem!!!

The point is - as Dan Henninger so brilliantly points out, there aren't a lot of places left to go. What kind of a country do we want to have? One in which we have driven every corporation and entrepreneur that creates jobs overseas and the government prints money to give to those that are left behind? Or do we want to go back to good old capitalist market driven America and get the government out of the way - it's put up or shut up for the "Blue Dog" Democrats. Where do we go now?

Glub, glub

Another Shot Fired at Freddie Med

If you are like me, you are sick and tired of the Trojan Horse argument. "Oh, the government run option just increases competition..." Here, Paul Ryan skewers the lie.

Words versus Actions

Sonja Schmidt has a powerful video over at PJTV looking at Obama's words versus his actions. Worth the watch.

Public Vs. Private

The Inhumanity of Obamacare

Excellent article by Dr. Katherine Schlaerth in the San Francisco Chronicle this morning that is well worth the read:

My problem, as a physician who has practiced medicine for decades, is that I just can't predict with certainty what is end-of-life care, nor can I determine for another individual the meaning of "quality of life."

I recall cases like that of the nonagenarian WWII veteran, comatose for days with multiple organ failure, who with the help of a loving family and dedicated ICU nurses walked out of the hospital, brain intact, to live a few more years.

I've seen "terminal" cancer patients kept alive long enough to hold a new grandbaby, and a 2-year-old's cancer-ridden body sustained for the weeks it took for his heartbroken parents to finally come to peace with his passing.

This current legislation, however, seeks to prevent such costly overuse of health resources through a program of "advance care planning consultation," wherein those on Medicare, or their families, could meet with a "practitioner of advance care planning" every five years, or sooner if illness supervened. Such an adviser need not be a physician, either.

There is a reason they call it "practicing medicine." We are dealing with so many unknowns. Under the proposed "reform!" all those unknowns are stuffed in a box and a bureaucrat gets to decide who stays and who gets voted off the island of life.

This stuff is Orwellian and needs to be stopped. I am always amused by liberals who claim, in the name of compassion, (and they are so much more compassionate than anyone of a conservative bent could ever be! snuff snuff) who can calmly endorse this type of legislation as social progress and not see how close this puts us to Hitler's gas chambers.

"Show Me" State is "Showing 'em!"

Great post from Gateway Pundit about a town hall meeting that Senator Claire McCaskill's staff had in St. Louis recently - here's a sample:

There is genuine dislike, distrust and passion out here in the heartland folks. Pitchforks anyone?

Skepticism from Down Under

Ian Pliner, a geologist from Australia is mincing no words in calling out the inanity of the global warming cult. As a geologist, he doesn't deal in faulty, small scale models, but rather in the geologic records going back millions of years:

The dynamic and changing character of the Earth's climate has always been known by geologists. These changes are cyclical and random, he says. They are not caused or significantly affected by human behaviour.

Carbon dioxide is "plant food," according to Plimer not a "toxic substance" as the EPA has defined it. Good on ya mate!

Excellent if Scary Analysis

We had some of the pieces of this puzzle called out on the corvettes and the submarines, but this puts the whole thing together.

The Professor Speaks...

Well, actually he's observing. Great post about how the MARKET handles health care issues with innovation and aplomb. This is exactly the type of initiative that will be killed by the Obeaurocrats.

Betsy McCaughey Exposes Obama Healthcare Lies

In an interview with Fred and Jeri Thompson, Besy McCaughey really lays it out.

Truth in Housing

Excellent article over at the American Enterprise Blog, an interview with Thomas Sowell about his newest book, The Housing Boom and Bust. Rumbler has always been a huge Sowell fan and greatly respect his research...this one will be on the nightstand shortly. Some clips from the interview:

NS: What is the greatest popular misconception about the boom and subsequent bust?

TS: The biggest popular misconception about the housing boom and bust is that it was due to a lack of regulation. In reality, it was precisely the intervention of federal regulators that caused traditional mortgage lending standards to be reduced, leading to sales of homes to many people who either could not or would not pay for them.

NS: What if anything has surprised you about this whole episode?

TS: What most surprised me about this episode has been the utter gullibility of the media in accepting Washington politicians’ attempt to put blame on everybody except themselves.

Evil

Howard Kunstler is not someone I typically agree with politically as much as I like his writings on urban development and planning. But he has an excellent column this week titled Evil Syndicated, and it is worth the read...whet your appetite:

As we turn the corner toward autumn, President Obama looks increasingly like a dupe, a tool, or a co-conspirator of Goldman Sachs. If he doesn't instruct the Justice Department to commence investigations of the company, and if he doesn't dissociate himself from their alumni hanging around the White House, the Treasury Department, and elsewhere in the government, he's going to become the object of an awful public wrath. Obama has no other choice at this point except to clean house - to fire Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, Tim Geithner, and all other former Goldman Sachs employees in positions of power and influence around him.

"Reform" does not mean "Improvement"

I noticed in the daily "Pravda on the Cumberland," aka The Tennessean the recurring theme this week: Everyone wants healthcare reform! Today's pulp was about county commissioners wanting "reform," complete with a nice picture of Kathleen Sebelius on a giant screen TV talking to the huddled masses in convention here in Nashvegas. The commissioners are concerned about the rising costs of healthcare, particularly indigent and prisoner care. Fair enough...the bills being bantered about in Congress, all touting "reform," do nothing for these issues.

C'mon people, "REFORM" does not mean "IMPROVEMENT!" This is a case where words can literally kill. Congressional fear of voting against "REFORM!" could kill the finest health care system in the world. The system being proposed will kill senior citizens, or at least guaranty an earlier grave. Is this the "REFORM!" Americans want? Gallup reported last week that by 50% to 44% Americans DISapprove of the way Obama is handling health care. Only 23%, according to Rasmussen, believe costs will go down. The sentiment seems to be there to do something, but not what is proposed.

Here's a starting point: agree on what the proposed legislation should achieve, then apply that metric to whatever gets proposed. The Iowa Committee, a group formed by the non-partisan Concord Coalition has a good starting point. Here are their "principles:"

Principle #1: Fiscal sustainability: The Committee feels strongly that rapid health care cost growth makes our current health care system fiscally unsustainable. We cannot pretend that resources are unlimited or that sure and swift savings will come from investments in comparative effectiveness research, health care technology and prevention programs.

Principle #2: Innovation through Collaboration: The Committee feels strongly that the future of health care will require a new level of innovation that can be best achieved by high-levels of formal and informal collaborations among all health care stakeholders.

Principle #3: Primary Care Transformation: The Committee feels strongly that elevating the role and use of primary care—and the ability to more effectively coordinate with acute-care specialty services and long-term or community-based care—is essential for the transformation of our health care system.

Principle #4: Societal Commitment to Prevention and Wellness: The Committee feels strongly that prevention and wellness must be included in governmental and business policy reform and third-party coverage arrangements.

Principle #5: Engaged and Responsible Health Care Consumers: The Committee feels strongly that health reform initiatives should encourage and set expectations for a more active role for the health care consumer.

I would add a few other principles:

#6: If you are happy with your health care, you do not have to do anything.

#7: No one can force you to change doctors, plans etc.

#8: Health care plans should be portable and should allow for pre-existing conditions.

#9: As it relates to the REALLY uninsured, i.e. not the people who choose not to have health care insurance, the illegal aliens, the self insured, a low cost catastrophic health coverage plan should be the goal.

#10: Minimize the costs of Doctor's malpractice insurance through tort reform.

Consensus on a starting point could lead to genuine health care reform that solves legitimate issues like higher costs and tends to the needs of those that truly cannot help themselves. Noble aims for a noble society, NOT a Federal takeover of an enormous (and growing) part of our economy. The current legislation being proposed is designed to put politicians and their cronies in charge of an enormous piggy bank from which to reward those that tend to them. That is truly sick.

Rumble on!

Cross Posted at Red State Rumblings

The Uninsured

The Painful Reality of TENNCARE

Folks, the good people of Tennessee have been your lab rats. Trust us, Obamacare WON'T work! Good piece over at the Weekly Standard with the sub-head, "Tennesseans are especially skeptical of Obamacare--and with good reason."

The Death of NASA

Tom Wolfe has a superlative column over at the Sunday NY Times (yes, the Grey Lady actually prints something worthwhile every now and again), titled "One Giant Leap to Nowhere." He makes the compelling case that the American space program began it's long descent the moment that Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon:

NASA’s annual budget sank like a stone from $5 billion in the mid-1960s to $3 billion in the mid-1970s. It was at this point that NASA’s lack of a philosopher corps became a real problem. The fact was, NASA had only one philosopher, Wernher von Braun. Toward the end of his life, von Braun knew he was dying of cancer and became very contemplative. I happened to hear him speak at a dinner in his honor in San Francisco. He raised the question of what the space program was really all about.

It’s been a long time, but I remember him saying something like this: Here on Earth we live on a planet that is in orbit around the Sun. The Sun itself is a star that is on fire and will someday burn up, leaving our solar system uninhabitable. Therefore we must build a bridge to the stars, because as far as we know, we are the only sentient creatures in the entire universe. When do we start building that bridge to the stars? We begin as soon as we are able, and this is that time. We must not fail in this obligation we have to keep alive the only meaningful life we know of.

Unfortunately, NASA couldn’t present as its spokesman and great philosopher a former high-ranking member of the Nazi Wehrmacht with a heavy German accent.

As a result, the space program has been killing time for 40 years with a series of orbital projects ... Skylab, the Apollo-Soyuz joint mission, the International Space Station and the space shuttle. These programs have required a courage and engineering brilliance comparable to the manned programs that preceded them. But their purpose has been mainly to keep the lights on at the Kennedy Space Center and Houston’s Johnson Space Center — by removing manned flight from the heavens and bringing it very much down to earth. The shuttle program, for example, was actually supposed to appeal to the public by offering orbital tourist rides, only to end in the Challenger disaster, in which the first such passenger, Christa McAuliffe, a schoolteacher, perished.

Wolfe is right. We are missing that "vision thing," that once unified a nation. He makes the compelling, and I think accurate, argument that the whole Apollo program was a case of "single combat..." we had to beat the Soviets to the moon!

Perhaps it is time for a new vision, as Wolfe suggests:

For 40 years, everybody at NASA has known that the only logical next step is a manned Mars mission, and every overture has been entertained only briefly by presidents and the Congress. They have so many more luscious and appealing projects that could make better use of the close to $10 billion annually the Mars program would require. There is another overture even at this moment, and it does not stand a chance in the teeth of Depression II.

It disturbs the eco-freaks and statists to no end when you say that man has a "destiny," beyond the Earth. We are supposed to be insignificant little squeeks undeserving of anything more than the next snail or ant...just another life form, only mildly more sentient. Obviously, I disagree. In the famous words of Buzz Lightyear - "to the Universe and beyond!"

-11, but back up to -10

Looks like that hopey-change thing is starting to wear off. American Thinker has a great column with the Obama performance numbers - reality sucks!

Health care that Rumbler Can Support!

Five Freedoms You Will Lose

CNN Money has a piece on the five freedoms you will lose if the current health care legislation gets passed in a form near to where it is:

1. Freedom to choose what's in your plan.

2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real cost.

3. Freedom to choose high deductible coverage.

4. Freedom to keep your existing plan.

5. Freedom to choose your doctors.

Can someone please tell me where, oh where, does the Constitution give these Mandarins in Washington the power to do this?

Damn...sure is quiet out there.

Add "Victory" to the list along with "Terrorist"

I am not sure what you tell the 4,000 young Marines pushing through Helmand Province are supposed to think of this:

"I'm always worried about using the word 'victory,' because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur," Obama told ABC News.

The enemy facing U.S. and Afghan forces isn't so clearly defined, he explained.

"We're not dealing with nation states at this point. We're concerned with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, Al Qaeda's allies," he said. "So when you have a non-state actor, a shadowy operation like Al Qaeda, our goal is to make sure they can't attack the United States."

Having had the privilege of carrying Marines to troubled spots in the world back in my "brown water" Navy days, I know that they are trained to seek "victory"...beats the hell out of "losing." We are rapidly approaching the point we were at under Jimmy Carter where the military couldn't train with real ammunition - we had to flash signal lamps at each other to pretend we were firing weapons. I guess the Marines had better get used to yelling "bang, bang, bang" at the enemy in the hopes of scaring them off. God forbid we engage them, kill them and prevail on the field...it might hurt their feelings!

Two Democrats on an escalator

$8.5 BB to ACORN - Thanks Donks!

Gateway Pundit has an infuriating piece on how the Democrats have funneled $8.5 BILLION to ACORN this year alone. I have posted a number of times on this blog about ACORN's outrages. This is simply disgusting. Not surprising, but disgusting.

Sub-Continental Drift

India has laid down a marker with the Gorons in the West by "rejecting key findings on global warming." The theory held by the Enviro-Nazis is that the Himalayan Glaciers are melting all because of humanity. The Indian Environment Minister, Jariam Ramesh disagrees:

Mr Ramesh said the rate of retreat of glaciers in the Himalayas varied from a “couple of centimetres a year to a couple of metres”, but that this was a natural process that had taken place occurred over the centuries. Some were, in fact, growing, he said.

Oh no! A disagreement with what is "irrefutably true?" Well, the global warmings has brought my fair home town the coolest weather since 1877 and the second coldest July on record. Stay tuned - the next full scale panic will be that we are headed for a new ice age.

Which Blue Pill?

Great column over at The Washington Examiner this morning - "Take the Red Pill, Mr. President." Fans of the Matrix know about this...with a few subtitles, now you can too:

It does seem to me that this whole White House is living in some kind of a parallel universe:...spend more to prevent going bankrupt...spend more to save!

It is some kind of bad sci-fi movie:

53% ...and Rising

Rasmussen is reporting that 53% of those polled are now AGAINST socialized...err, Obamacare. Victor Davis Hanson explains why in a post over at National Review Online:

It’s clear that Americans are mad at Wall Street crooks and corporate elites who took mega bonuses despite falling profits. But why does that mean the government, in its quest for more regulation, now targets job-producing small and family businesses with steep new taxes and health-care regulations?

In other words, the medicine of big government is even worse than the original disease on Wall Street, and the falling polls for the president’s initiatives show the American people are catching on to this.

Jumpsuits

Wow, I don't know who Hillary's fashionista is these days, but there's a striking
resemblance in what she is wearing to....hmmm, let me think about it...where else have I seen orange jumpsuits? Daggum it, it's coming to me...oh yeah! Here:

Projections

This chart, lovingly provided by www.gop.gov illustrates the projections that Obama's team of geniuses had for what would happen to unemployment if the stimulus was not rushed through IMMEDIATELY!!! Hmmm...the red line is the actual performance.

Now the same brilliant mathematicians and forecasters are telling us that we have to have cap and trade and health care reform IMMEDIATELY!!! We are all going to DIE!!!! PASS IT NOW!!! It does occur to me that if we are going to die without the cap and trade legislation, we shouldn't pass it - that will save money on health care!

One gets the sense that the wheels may be coming off over there at the White House...the American people are waking up to a very naked Emperor.

Kopechne

We have rightfully been fixated on the 40 year anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, it is the 40 year anniversary of another event:

The American Spectator has an excellent column on this sad subject. Mary Jo Kopechne would be 68 years old now had she not taken her ill-fated ride with Ted Kennedy. Now, the "Liberal Lion" of the Senate wants to drive us ALL off the bridge with this health care legislation. Ironically, all the advanced cancer treatments that Teddy is receiving now would NOT be available for us under the Congressional plan being advanced. American Thinker has a great piece on that subject this morning:

Is Senator Kennedy's life valuable enough to dedicate millions of dollars to extending it another month, another day, another year?

Because Barack Obama and Ted Kennedy agree with each other that they of all people are entitled to make that decision. Your decision to live or die will now be in their hands.

Take a hard look at this picture, then ask yourself this: "by what moral authority does Ted Kennedy OR ANY OTHER bureaucrat have to tell you what you can or cannot do with your health care?"

Doctor...

Maybe Obama can get some of these "Doctors" to come work for him in his wonderful statist scheme:

GMC

I know Fox was told by the White House not to film the first pitch by Barry, so the film wasn't clear. The MLB film looked like he grounded it, but again, I wasn't going to say anything. Well, here's the proof - Pulholz is obviously set up on top of the plate, not in the usual catcher's position and even with that, he's having to reach. I thought he threw the ball like a girl, kind of had that wrist bent back at the top of the pitch...here's the proof. Embarrassing, our Commander in Chief has established his metrosexuality beyond a shadow of a doubt. An official member of the "G.M.C.," "Girly Man Club."

He needs some new training hints:

More Health Care Fodder...

Thomas Sowell and Rich Lowry have a great one-two punch pair of columns on health care over at National Review. From Mr. Sowell:

Here, the advocates of government-run medical care say that we all end up paying, one way or another, for the free medical care that hospitals are forced by law to provide in their emergency rooms. But unless you think that any situation you don’t like is a reason to give politicians a blank check for “change,” the relevant question becomes whether the alternative is either less expensive or of better quality. Nothing is cheaper just because part of the price is paid in higher taxes.

Such questions seldom get asked, much less answered. We are like someone being rushed by a used-car dealer to sign on the dotted line. But getting stuck with a car that is a lemon is nothing compared to signing away your right to decide what medical care you or your loved ones will get in life and death situations.

And from Mr. Lowry:

As with the stimulus package, Obama’s health-care plan depends on speed. More important than any given provision, more important than any principle, more important than sound legislating is the urgent imperative to Do It Now.

Do it now, before anyone can grasp what exactly it is that Congress is passing. Do it now, before the overpromising and the dishonest justifications can be exposed. Do it now, before Obama’s poll numbers return to Earth and make it impossible to slam through ramshackle government programs concocted on the run. Do it now, because simply growing government is more important than the practicalities of any new program.

One of the big reasons for the rush is the poll numbers dropping...Obama is now polling 10th out of the last 12 Presidents at this stage of his administration...lower than Jimmy Carter.

The Father of American Socialized Medicine

Hat tip: Director Blue.

It's Coming...

This is grim news...more:

Wage hikes always cause a spike in the unemployment rate, and this year, with the country in the middle of a recession, businesses are already struggling to make ends meet. The economy will continue to hemorrhage entry level jobs unless legislators stop this summer’s minimum wage hike from happening.

Economists are nearly unanimous in pointing out that unskilled workers bear the brunt of minimum wage hikes. According to a 2007 survey from the American Economic Association at the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, 73 percent of labor economists believe increases in the minimum wage will lead to employment losses, which will fall disproportionately on the least skilled workers.

Teens get hit especially hard by wage hikes. Research from the University of Georgia (2006) found that for every 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, teen employment at small businesses decreased between 4.6 to 9 percent. Last summer’s 12 percent minimum wage hike contributed to a 5 percent drop in teen employment and the losses continued this year. Since Congress began implementing the 2007 wage hike, over 480,000 teen jobs have disappeared across the country.

Ahh, to heck with it - Congress passed it, it must be good!

WTF? No Seriously, WTF???

Would someone please inform the "smart, articulate one" that we don't have this kind of money and to please stop NOW. This little gem of a report gets released tomorrow...

Open Government?

So BO promised us the most open and ethical government in history...don't they all? Now the Bamster refuses to release the reality of the state of the budget until after O'Care gets passed. Gateway Pundit has got the details over here.

Was ACORN Working in Honduras?

No mention of this in the State Press, especially since Barry appears hell bent to restore Zelaya to Honduras...to satisfy his new pal, Hugo? Don't know. But, lookee what we found in Zelaya's quarters:

The National Directors of Criminal Investigation seized various computers from the Presidential Palace that had recorded the supposed results of the referendum to reform the constitution that the deposed leader, Manuel Zelaya, was planning to conduct on July 28, the day he was removed from office.

The official investigation now deals with the possible crime of fraud and falsification of documents due to the fact that some of the certified voting results had been filled with the personal information of individuals that supposedly participated in the failed referendum that did not take place because of the coup.

One of the district attorneys that participated in the operation that took place this Friday showed reporters an official voting result from the Technical Institute Luis Bogran, of Tegucigalpa, in which the specific number of people that participated in table 345, where there were 550 ballots, 450 of which were votes in favor of Zelaya's proposal and 30 were against, in addition to 20 blank ballots and 30 ballots, which were nullified.

He must have taken a page from ACORN tactics in Chicago! Read the rest of the article over here at the American Thinker.

Town Hall

Interesting to see a bunch of Delawareans get worked up about Barry Hussein's birth certificate...

American Exceptionalism 7/19

Day 7 of the Apollo 11 mission, forty years ago today. The combined LM and Command Module enter lunar orbit. Earth Rise is seen for the first time.

I am handing off this daily post to a new blog, "America the Exception." Looks like he's taking the idea and running with it!

Change the Terms

As an old debater, I remember well our Coach, Father Henry, telling us to "never allow the terms of the debate to be set by your opponent...challenge the premise!" Bob Berg picks up that theme in an excellent post over here. A snippet:

The next time someone presents the argument as the false choice of two, simply tell them (with no defensiveness): “We don’t have a free market healthcare system.”

They will say, “Of course we do; how can you say that we don’t?”

You respond: “There are 133,000 pages of health care regulation in the U.S. Federal Register. Please tell me why you would consider that to be free market.”

Here's a snippet of sanity for Washington: how about we do the following:

1) Determine what the top five problems are with the NUMBER ONE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IN THE WORLD.

2) Discuss possible solutions to those problems...

3) Illustrate how the legislation being proposed SOLVES those five problems.

Once we've done that for the first five problems, we can move on the next five. Either way, it will prevent the total destruction of a system that actually works VERY well for the VAST majority of Americans. The other thing that is for DAMNED sure is the current legislation proposed doesn't fix anything - it merely takes America one giant leap towards full statism.

Please Tell Me You Are Kidding Larry!

So Larry Summers, AKA the White House Economic Advisor Tsar, AKA "WHEAT," says the stimulus is working because fewer people are searching for "economic depression" on Google. Leapin' Lizards Larry, maybe they are using Bing!

Bad Idea!

What is with O and the Donks? They keep bringing legislation to the floor that has failed dismally in every country it's been tried...you've heard all about the failures of socialized medicine. Here's some gouge on "cap and trade." Pull up a chair and learn you sumpin' this is another dagger poised at the heart of the American economy. You really have to ask yourself "why?" These are smart people...what on earth is the objective? Why pass laws that will obviously wreck an already wobbly economy? Most of all, what's the friggin' hurry? My guess is they know EXACTLY what they are doing. This is the most liberal, kook fringe bunch of socialists ever to control the levers of power in Washington - they didn't get there by being honest. They will not achieve their objective by being honest either...OK, here's the link to the video: CLICK HERE!

Nailed it!

Writing in this morning's Tennessean, local guy Vijay Kumar nails other local guy, Rev. Kenneth Locke in a column titled "'Secular Islam' is a Contradiction in Terms." The good Reverend wrote a column last week reflecting on a trip he made to Turkey courtesy of a local Islamic outreach group. The gist of his observations was that Islam and Democracy co-exist just fine in lovely old Turkey. Kumar takes the Rev to task:

Turkey is secular in spite of Islam, not because of it. Turkey's powerful military is what keeps it secular.

Exactamundo! And they have a hard time keeping the lid on it, just look at the protests that occurred around the last election two years ago. Kumar continues:

Turkey wants to be secular now because it benefits its people. It wants full membership in the European Union so that it can export surplus Turkish population to Europe and the Americas.

Exactly - they have enough sane people in the country that don't want to go down the Iranian path and take a country that is progressing towards modernity back to the 5th Century so they would be isolated from the rest of Europe. Here's the kicker, and ALL Americans should read this and think hard about our immigration policy:

The hard fact that Locke attempts to waltz around is that Islam cannot assimilate into American society for the very simple reason that the Quran is the antithesis of the U.S. Constitution.

The U.S. Constitution is of the people, by the people and for the people. Americans delegate power to the government to manage their affairs. In stark contrast, the Quran is considered by its adherents to be the literal world of Allah, the Arabic God, and the final arbiter of the law and the affairs of man. Muslims are slaves of Allah, whereas America was founded as a haven and harbor for free and independent people.

The Quran is simply incompatible with the Constitution; therefore, the assimilation of Islam into American society, in the long run, is highly unlikely if not categorically impossible.

Now all you diversificators out there who want to believe that everyone can just get along and that "diversity is our strength," take heed. There are some folks who do not want to be part of your diversity - they want to convert you, subjugate you and if you don't like it...they want you dead. I love how it takes a native of India to appreciate what we have going for us here and to call out the silliness of accommodation.

American Exceptionalism 7/18

The view of Earth from Apollo 11 as she left Earth orbit to head to the Moon. July 17, 1969.

Inside the Landing Module, "Eagle," after LM extraction on July 18, 1969.

For a fantastic recreation of the Apollo 11 mission, go to "We Choose the Moon."

American Exceptionalism 7/17

Big Mo

Interesting post over at the National Journal: "The Big Mo Slows:"

"Washington Democrats have been noticeably nervous for the past two weeks. They seem to have a sinking feeling that things aren't going well, that Republicans have begun to land telling blows on climate change and health care."

Couple that with an editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Ted Van Dyk, who worked for LBJ, titled "Obama needs to 'Reset' his Presidency:"

Your strategy, by contrast, has been to advocate forcefully for health-care and energy reform but to leave the details to Democratic congressional committee chairs. You did the same thing with your initial $787 billion stimulus package. Now, you're stuck with a plan that provides little stimulus until 2010. A president should never cede control of his main agenda to others.

This tactic has already had negative consequences. Frightened by the prospective costs of your health-care and energy plans -- not to mention the bailouts of the financial and auto industries -- independent voters who supported you in 2008 are falling away. FDR and LBJ, only two years after their 1932 and 1964 victories, saw their parties lose congressional seats even though their personal popularity remained stable. The party out of power traditionally gains seats in off-year elections, and 2010 is unlikely to be an exception.

Yipes! And that's from a Democrat.

Well, I don't know that "Big Mo" is gone entirely from the Donks...they managed to get that abortion of a cap and trade bill passed a couple of weeks ago, but even they have self-preservation instincts and marching to the socialist drumbeat of Barry Soweto and the Rahm gang has got to be tiring! Going home and facing your constituency after putting the Federal Government on a wicked combination of steroids and growth hormone drugs might not look too good.