Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Good Feed

There's been some fun defining of liberals in the past few days...Missouri Congressman Todd Akin stated bluntly that "at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God..."  Which of course led to howls from HuffPo and other organs of the left for him to apologize!!  How dare he!  I would assert that liberals are, by nature, bullies.  They can't win arguments with the facts, so they resort to intimidation and innuendo.  One popular meme is that you don't "care" enough if you don't like your taxes being raised - quickly followed up with images of starving children or old people being chucked off a cliff in a wheelchair.  Fortunately, there is a growing chorus of conservatives who arent' going to take it any more.  At the speartip of this movement is Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, who had the following exchange:



We are in the same boat here - we pay property taxes in Davidson County, but choose to send them to private schools instead - shudder, religious ones at that!  But the reality is that the bulk of our County schools are moribund brainwash tanks who encourage their graduates to attend leaky liberal colleges and major in "women's studies" and "africana."

Here's another Governor speaking out with the truth -Bob McDonnell from Virginia laying out the case that the Republican governors are doing the heavy lifting.  This effort will add credence to the Presidential and other conservative candidates come next November.

Can I say "Elephant in the Room" when referring to the spendthrift addiction of our political class?  Our boy President goes on the air today to chastise us, the American people, for not giving enough to government.  There's some logic for you - the problem that got us where we are today was government spending.  The solution?  Take more away from the people so the spending can continue.  The sad reality is that there is spending that needs to occur in this country - a lot of which was supposed to come from the "stimulus" and "TARP."  According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the state of our infrastructure in the United States earns us a "D," with $2.2 Trillion needed just to get us up to an acceptable standard.  The problem is that the functions that government is supposed to be involved in per the Constitution like defense and infrastructure, get crowded out with "feel good" programs that should be handled by the states, local municipalities and civic organizations and churches.  The indisputable chain of logic goes like this:

1. Compassion leads to...
2. Funding leads to...
3. Dependence which leads to...
4. Power over the dependent which leads to...
5. More funding, expanded benefits and greater dependence which leads to...
6. Greater power, less freedom, provider making decisions for the dependent...
7. The non-dependent give up more and more of what they earn to provide for the dependent BUT
8. It is never enough.  The powerful take what they need or are finally removed from office.

We are at Step 8 in the process right now.  Eudora Welty said it succinctly: "Compassion leads to the gas chamber."

The Urban Dictionary defines "Barack Obama" as a "Chocolate Jimmy Carter."  But Michael Barone asserts that this is not fair...to Jimmy Carter.  He compares him to Chauncey Gardner, the brilliantly portrayed Presidential advisor in "Being There."  (RIP Peter Sellers)  Barone may be on to something:



You can project what you want to hear onto Chauncey's sayings...sound familiar?

That's it for today.

Rumble on!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Good Feed

We spend a lot of time on these pages criticizing the folks in power - from Hanes snapping Congressmen to  diaper checking TSA agents - it does seem at times that we are truly at "the mercy of idiots."  Take a step back for a second and the picture is disturbing: we the people put the idiots in power.  Either through our ignorance, our complacency or our sheer lack of interest, we are being ruled by a level of incompetence that is truly frightening.  Thomas Sowell in a piece in the Investors Business Daily makes the case in "Careless Voters Cast Doubts On The Future Of The U.S."   I am always sobered by the realization that a completely untested and unknown individual named "Barrack Hussein Obama" became our Commander in Chief.  The lightest scratching on the surface sniff test would have revealed to the sentient being that this guy was trouble.  As Sowell observes:
In our own times, however, voting has been seen as just one of the many "rights" to which everyone is supposed to be entitled. The emphasis has been on the voter, rather than on the momentous consequences of elections for the nation today and for generations yet unborn.
What all of this tells us, is that it it up to us - do I dare call us a "remnant," to fix the solution.  We have to be visionaries and educators in our communities that sound the alarm and encourage a more active and engaged populace.  The American people aren't stupid - they can obviously be lazy.

OK, enough self loathing...on to the matters at hand.  What is the function of a State Department?  Yes, you in the back row with your hand up..."to represent our nation abroad, to negotiate trade and defense agreements, to ensure smooth immigration and travel..."  Excellent answer!  But you are apparently wrong.  Just as we learned that the mission of NASA was to enlighten Muslims around the world about their contributions to space travel, turns our the mission of our State Department is to help Lady Gaga get a gig in Rome:  "Hillary: State Dept Instrumental In Sealing The Deal"    Proudly stated at the "Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs ...oh, Agency, or GLIFAA Conference.  Glad to know our nation's finest - sent overseas to lie for their country are doing such admirable work!


In the "so they got it from us" category - an excellent essay on the "Divided State of Europe,"  from our friends over at STRATFOR.  With the daily images of Greece in flames or Angela Merkel chewing her nails over another bail-out for her Mediterranean buddies, this is a thoughtful read.   The model to consider in both it's weaknesses and attributes is our Articles of Confederation:

The best analogy for the contemporary European Union is found not in European history but in American history. This is the period between the successful Revolutionary War in 1783 and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788.

Well, we all know how that turned out - hint, hint...history does repeat itself.  The only question will be if they will go the route we chose of a "Republic, Madam if you can keep it!" or break back into member states with autonomous governments.  Good thing our State Department is on the job!

Well, if the are borrowing bad ideas from us, we are apparently doing the same from them:  "Obamacare's Unsavory East German Links."  When I was active duty Navy, we used to brag that one of the things that set us apart from the Soviets was that we didn't have "Zampolit's" or "Political Officers" on our ships.  The zampolit structure was an integral part of the KGB and Stasi world to ensure ideological purity and total obedience to the party and the state.  So now, our tax dollars get to hire "secret shoppers" to check in on Doctors to see if they can catch them in a flub up.  "Practicing" medicine is hard enough without having to deal with ideology.  If you want to know where this leads - you need to watch the movie "The Lives of Others."  Here's the trailer:



So, now that Obama and the boys took over GM, Chrysler et al, I'm going to bet you think those cars are "all American now," right?  Wrong!  The winner for top American-made car based on the percentage of parts made domestically are the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord.  Thanks for saving all those jobs BHO.

Yoni Netanyahu
Finally, I wanted to close today with a little tribute to Operation Entebbe.  On June 27, 1976, an Air France plane heading from Athens to Paris was hijacked and forced to land at Entebbe Airport in Uganda (home of the always hungry Idi Amin).  The hijackers, Palestinians err "Muslim Extremists" had a set of demands and the Israelis told them to go pound sand.  Then, on July 4th,  they snuck a commando force under the command of Jonathan (Yonatan) Netanyahu, the older brother of the current PM of Israel, into Entebbe and rescued the hostages.  Yonatan was the only casualty of the IDF that night.

He died leading his men from the front.  A true hero.

That's it for today.

Rumble on!

Monday, June 27, 2011

Good Feed (Special Edition)

I apologize for not giving you a meaty Friday Feed Bag.  The duties of fatherhood had me on a round trip to Atlanta this Friday last.  Over the next two weeks, we will be on the road as well.  We will be heading up through the "Breadbasket of the Confederacy"  (the Shenandoah Valley) to points close to New York.  We shall be returning via our old haunts in D.C.  I encourage you to subscribe to the Twitter feed - a new feature here on the Rumbler Report, from where I am able with a few thumb-strokes to provide thoughts and links to the events of the day.  A poor substitute for the Feed, but perhaps some gruel to see you through these next couple of weeks.

Let's start off with a review of the Law of Unintended (but to be expected) Consequences.  As we discussed last week, our boy President has decided upon the Goldilocks solution in Afghanistan.  As the Wall Street Journal points out, this has led all the other "allies" to re-evaluate their positions: "The Crush at the Afghan Exits."  Wherein France, Poland, and the British are bugging out.  Reminds one of that scene from Monty Python's "Holy Grail:"



In a telling piece, "Planned Parenthood Takes On The States," we learn of the efforts of the Obama administration to keep the lifeline of funding up to the Planned Parenthood abortion mill.  They are doing it the old fashioned liberal way: in the courts.  If you can't win in the realm of public opinion, SUE. One of the tremendous upshots of the election last November is that the citizens of the various states (all 57 of 'em, Barry!) have begun taking their governments back.  We are seeing main stream American thought at the state capitols - exactly the way our Republic was supposed to work.  The wise old gnomes in Washington will have none of that though - see you in Court.  The reality is that there is no rational, nor moral reason for the taxpayers of the United States to prop up this vile institution.


Hot button item with me as I prepare to stroke the checks for the next round of college tuition and fees for middle Rumblespawn, is the incredible appreciation of tuition costs.  I find it intriguing that liberals in our government go ga-ga over increases in gasoline prices with shouts of "gouging" and angry shaking of pitchforks and policy, but remain mum over college costs.  Mind you - I WANT them to remain mum - their involvement could only make a bad thing worse.  Creepy thing is the Feds have taken over all the student loan programs now... will they tell us what to study next?

More to the point, however, is the question of whether everyone in fact needs a college degree.  I question the utility of a BA from NoName U when, in fact, it is little more than a glorified high school diploma from NoName HS where the faculty was too afraid to flunk or discipline students.  I would be very much in favor of a system of trade schools that focused intensively on life skills that would ensure gainful employment.  Some authors across the pond are re-examining the role of colleges in their economies and offer some instructive insights in "Hollowing Out The Ivory Tower."

It has been said that the veneer of civilization can be frighteningly thin.  OK, I added the "frighteningly" part, but witnessing the mob behavior from Peoria ("Kill All The White People") to Philadelphia ("Editor Attacked by Mob") to Chicago ("Chicago's Violent Flash Mobs") leaves one feeling a little uneasy.  The premise of Anne Coulter's new book "Demonic," is that liberals work in mobs to achieve their aims, an assertion that is hard to refute.  Is it possible, however, that we are missing the point?  That what is really at work here is tribalism; that as civilization decays, we fall back into tribal units?   An excellent review of the book by Robin Fox, "The Tribal Imagination: Civilization and the Savage Mind," summarizes that point.

Well at least Obama finally has a financial plan for the future of our nation:


Obama Befriends Rich Elderly Widow In Hopes She'll Put Nation In Her Will

That's all for now.

Rumble on!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Good Feed

This is one of those days where you start to feel like the Spartans at Thermopylae - the bad news has us surrounded:

1. JOBS - the economy shed another 9,000 jobs last week, yet the Obama administration continues to brag about what a great "job" they are doing.  News flash: they are lying to you...blatantly. As this piece from Investors Business Daily points out: "Fudging the Jobs Data."  As the article points out, O and the boys are touting "2.1 million new jobs since they took office..." they conveniently forgot the 4 MILLION lost in the first year they took office AND as the chart at the right demonstrates, even without that figured in, the growth is pathetically anemic and does not keep up with population growth.  Jobs are not being created because of uncertainty over healthcare and taxation costs, overregulation and general - what was the term Jimmy Carter liked - malaise.

We're not there yet.
2. OIL - so we are going to release 30 million barrels of oil out of our strategic petroleum reserve.  That coupled with another 30 million, coming from International Energy Agency stocks, is supposed to stabilize oil prices.  Oil prices that are roiled because of the situation in LIBYA (more on that anon).  That's about 4% of the total in the SPR.  But, what is the purpose of the SPR?  Well the name "strategic" gives us a hint - it's there in the event that we get cut off from the rest of the world.  The country (and most importantly our military) could continue to function till we (the military) got the spigots turned on again.  But all this is silly...we have the oil!  It's in Alaska, it's off our shores, it's in our shale and our coal.  If this situation is so dire, let's get after it and declare our independence from the tinhorns and crackpots at OPEC.  Sadly, that solution is too sane, too simple, to good to ever be considered by this tribe of amateurs residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  They continue to seek Goldilocks solutions to problems that do not involve bears returning home.

3. LIBYA - Speaking of Goldilocks solutions...what on earth are we doing there?  We wouldn't implement the no-fly zone when it could have mattered, we won't commit to win, the alternative to Khadafi  could be a lot worse (aka Al Qaeda)...this is senseless.  Worse, it's un-Constitutional, in my humble opinion, and I didn't need to shop for lawyers to get an answer: "Top Lawyers Lost To Obama On Libya Policy." The language of the War Powers Act is pretty straight forward - Congress is supposed to be notified within 48 hours of the committal of U.S. Forces and they can't remain there for more than 60 days without approval from Congress.  Now we can argue, correctly I think, that the War Powers Act is, in and of itself, unconstitutional...but that is a fight you take up when bullets are not flying.

4. BUDGET DEFICIT - Oy!  The Congressional Budget Office just released it's latest analysis...(remember, the CBO is who we were supposed to trust on Obamacare and they missed that one badly on the low side) says of the budget: "Without Action Debt Will Exceed the Budget by 2021." Lookee at this chart - it represents the percent of the budget that the debt represents...truly scary stuff.


5. AFGHANISTAN - think Goldilocks again.  I have argued on these pages before that once we get got
bin Laden, we should declare victory and GET OUT.  We would leave behind an ominous warning - "mess with us again, and we will send you even further back into the stone age."  The alternative is the Petreus solution - full out surge and defeat the enemy.  That strategy will win the war in the short term, I just don't know how you hold after victory.  Things have not ended up well in Afghanistan for the Soviets or the British before them (throw in Alexander the Great and a few others too).  We are the furthest away from where we are fighting than any of our predecessors.   So last night, Obama goes on the air and delivers a policy campaign speech wherein he is going to bring 30,000 troops (1 troop for every 1,000 barrels of oil from the SPR) home by next summer.  Once again, the Goldilocks solution.

Well, on the good news side, my alma mater stayed alive in the College World Series last night.

That's it for now.

Rumble on!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Good Feed

This is a video intensive post today - for some reason Blogger is having issues uploading pictures...waah!

Let there be light!  If ever there was an "Exhibit A" for Nanny State overreach, it is the Federal Law that extinguishes Thomas Edison's incandescent bulb in 2012.  In exchange, we get the mercury laden squiggly bulb that lets off a greenish-garish light instead of the warm glow of the gentle bulb.  God bless my birth state Texas - they have taken a stand (again) for independence:  "Texas Light Bulb Bill Will Skirt Federal Plan."

Illustrative of how perverse this whole idea was, look no further than the people that brought this madness to our doors: the EPA - this is from THEIR website on how to clean up one of those squiggly CFL Bulbs:


Before cleanup 
  • Have people and pets leave the room.
  • Air out the room for 5-10 minutes by opening a window or door to the outdoor environment. 
  • Shut off the central forced air heating/air-conditioning system, if you have one.
  • Collect materials needed to clean up broken bulb: 
  • stiff paper or cardboard;
  • sticky tape;
  • damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes (for hard surfaces); and
  • a glass jar with a metal lid or a sealable plastic bag.
During cleanup
  • Be thorough in collecting broken glass and visible powder.
  • Place cleanup materials in a sealable container.
After cleanup
  • Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of properly. Avoid leaving any bulb fragments or cleanup materials indoors.
  • If practical, continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the heating/air conditioning system shut off for several hours.
You can download the THREE PAGE INSTRUCTIONS by clicking here.  How many bureaucrat gnomes worked on these jewels.  What comes next Mommy State - instructions on how to properly use papel de toilette?

Speaking of the government selling a bill of goods - I've been revisiting some of the movie reels of the 1930's when FDR's administration was doing it's best "Remain calm, all is well" stance:



Here's a doozy about how "old man depression" had the black folk down - why "one in six" didn't have a job  (among blacks 18-30, the number is now 1 in 4).  Think you could ever get this one to press now?



It wasn't true then, and the bi-polar whipsaw between fear-mongering and all is well isn't true now either.

Hey, speaking of fear mongering, we haven't heard from our good ol' grinnin' gruntin' Algore lately.  He doesn't allow his talks to be filmed anymore - you are about to see why - but someone snuck a Flip camera in to catch some more of his tomfoolery:



Hat tip Watts Up With That.

What is up with the all brown look?  Is this a brown version of Dr. Evil? Or an earth toned Kim Jong (Mentally) Il?  But the bigger issue is this - how's that population control working out for China?  They now have a rapidly aging population that will not have a younger cohort to finance their pensions.  How about Europe?  The only folks producing there are the Muslims - welcome to the new Caliphate.  The reality is that as population groups become prosperous, they naturally have fewer children.  We don't need Uncle Al to show us where to put the IUD.  For now, in the words of a certain massage therapist: "Get off me you big sex poodle!"

That's it for now.

Rumble on!

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Good Feed

Ben Bernanke really should dust this one off and have it played in movie theaters...how about some good old Democratic propaganda circa 1933 - this one is titled "Inflation," wherein we learn that if we flood the system with paper currency, the cost of living will go up, the purchasing power of the dollar will go down and (of course) employers will pay employees more to make all the pretty graphs match:



Hat tip VV over at Casey Research.  Shame they hadn't thought up such cute sayings like "TARP" and "QEII."  I have never been one of those that believed our government would intentionally lie to us, but when you see stuff like this it makes you wonder.  What will the efforts they are putting out now via all the Obama websites and organs of the Democrat party look like in 78 years?

It is fun to watch this stuff - Keynesianism was in full flower.  JMK married a Russian ballerina and everyone gushed: "Never was there a marriage of such beauty and brains as that of Ludovica and John Maynard Keynes."  Oh, did I mention that he was a big proponent of eugenics?  Yup, that same brilliant liberal intellectual (aren't they all intellectuals - smarter than us regular schlubs?) was a big proponent - head of the British Eugenics Society - of eugenics!  That's right folks, that wonderful social philosophy the Nazis were so in favor of, the "self directed evolution of the human species."



So, if inflation is good, then more of it should be better - right?  Oops - apparently inflation in China isn't going to help matters:  "U.S. Faces Costlier Chinese Goods."No worries - I am sure those slave laborers will just increase the "salaries" so their folks can get those curves to meet.  Over here?  Guess Ben will have to print more money.

Of course one of the great stumbling blocks of the Keynesian inflation theory is depicted graphically here:

Why that would be the state unemployment map provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for May - 27 down, 22 flat or slightly up, 1 unchanged.  Sooo, if employers can't hire, what happens to that fancy theory, Mr. Keynes?  Mr. Keynes? ...crickets.

I'm in such a cheery mood - how about we wrap up today's reading with a fine piece from The American Thinker:  "Twenty Nine Reasons to Be Angry or Scared."  I might add one or two items to this list, but it's a darn good start.

That's it for today.

Rumble on.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Good Feed

Let's start the week off on a high note - how about a quick walk down nostalgia lane:



Sigh.  We just don't have politicians that can joke like that anymore. Speaking of which,  received a delightful e-mail this morning decrying how the quality of insulting people has gone down the tubes.  A couple of examples from the good old days:


“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” –
Mark Twain 
“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” –
Oscar Wilde 
“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play. Bring a friend… if you have one.” –
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.” –
Winston Churchill, in response
As I have said before on these pages, I am not overly worried about the Chinese "threat."  We do need to keep our eye on them, like we need to keep our eye on the Soviets, err Russians, the NORKS, the Pakistanis, the Saudis...well just about everyone. A little tidbit of Chinese news was a piece I read over the weekend was about how the Chinese are buying up U.S. assets: "The Chinese Government Is Buying Up U.S.  Economic Assets."  The author is a little over the top, but certainly raises concerns if the assets being bought up are strategic in nature.  I have no problem with foreign investment in U.S. real estate - it gets capital back into our system and remember - they can't take it anywhere!  Remember the hysteria over the Japanese buying Pebble Beach and Rockefeller Center?  They lost their shirts.

Now one thing we had better be watching is those darned Christian terrorists - any day now they could take down our government:



Yup - the people who rule this country are that bright.

Say, following up on that story we reported on Friday about the lack of "Muslim" as an identifying characteristic of the foiled Pentagon bomb plot.  Our good old "Pravda on the Cumberland" aka "The Tennessean," said he was a "misguided young immigrant."  As we say down South: "How nice!"   None of the MSM noted his religion.  Guaran-damned-tee you though if he had been a "Christian" it would have been headline news.

More from the "Emperor has no clothes" department: "UN Climate Propaganda Exposed."  Wherein we learn that the UN report on renewable energy is a hoax with "data" gleaned from Green Peace and others:

The study’s conclusion was such a blockbuster that the panel issued a press release last month previewing the finding. “Close to 80 percent of the world’s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies a new report shows,” it proclaimed.
Since this statement was supposedly based on actual scientific research,Steve McIntyre, editor of the Climate Audit blog, did what the IPCC must have assumed nobody would bother doing. He checked the sources cited in the report. He discovered the IPCC’s banner claim was not the work of prestigious and disinterested scientists toiling away in a laboratory, but of hacks with a political agenda and direct financial stake in the issue.


In the ever expanding news of the weird and useless, the Tennessean breathlessly trumpeted the following over the weekend:  "UN Backs Gay Rights For First Time Ever."  The article had the sub-head: "African and Muslim Nations Decry US Led Effort."  Soo, Obama and his band of braniacs tell us that they hate us for our culture but then we push for this??  The article cited Hillary Clinton, our very own Secretary of State:

 “This represents a historic moment to highlight the human rights abuses and violations that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people face around the world based solely on who they are and whom they love.” 
Can you imagine Henry Kissinger, John Foster Dulles, James Baker, George Shultz or Al Haig saying this.  It's times like these that you realize what a useless bloated waste of damned good real estate the United Nations has become.  It exists for promoting bizarre initiatives like this one - where good little Turtle Bay bureaucrats can tell everyone in the world how to live their lives.  They want to tell Muslim nations that their morality is flawed for viewing homosexuality as an abomination as badly as they want to tell the United States that we shouldn't have hand guns.  The only other purpose it serves is to condem Israel.  There's another place to cut the budget.

That's it for now.  Ninety seven globally warmed degrees outside with about 90% humidity...wish Al Gore would shut up so things would cool off.

Rumble on!

Friday, June 17, 2011

Friday Feed Bag

Raining golf balls
We're heading into the weekend here in Tennessee with overcast skies and more storms looming.  That's OK with me, as long as we don't have any more of the hail we had the other day...testimonial on the right.

Snow in Mid June?  Nope - hail storm
Let's begin our Friday feed with some observations by Victor Davis Hanson.  In a piece titled "The Art of Appreciating America From Abroad," Hanson lays out some sound advice on how to manage the overflow of information we receive daily.  Having lived abroad a good chunk of my formative years, I believe I still have a vision of America unlike many of my peers.  My observations of her flaws are tempered by the realization that there are few no other places on the planet that offer the promise that this country does.  To Mr. Hanson's fine list I would add one final rule - one taught to me by a former partner: "When listening to someone's opinion, always remember how they are compensated."  Apply that rule to anything from real estate deals to political discourse and you will arrive at the nub of the argument - and frequently, the source of their poor logic.  Consider Al Gore...when the global warming "climate change" nonsense is finally relegated to the ash heap of atrocious ideas, his net worth will plummet as he will be painfully exposed to be the fool he is - rich fool, no doubt, but whose fault is that?

A couple of breaking news stories:  "U.S. Dismisses Charges Against Bin Laden."  Dang, I was sure looking forward to his testimony on the stand.  He'd have to plead insanity because he's lost his mind.  (OK, sorry about that one!)  And, this just in: "Muslim Marine Arrested In Pentagon Bomb Scare."  Which part of "Muslim Marine" sounds wrong to you?  When will we cease and desist with the political correctness that is our suicide?

When we start to see local imams, muslim scholars and the rest of their ilk come out and openly condemn terrorism, condemn suicide bombings, condemn "jihad" instead of preaching to us that we misunderstand the concept, THEN we might be able to start offering them positions in our Armed Forces, government and vital infrastructure locales.  Until then, they have to be treated with enormous caution.  Al Qaeda has said that the next waves of attacks would come from within.  They have already begun:  Fort Hood, Times Square, Little Rock, and numerous others no doubt foiled.  Now add this Pentagon plot which, by the way, if you were watching CNN you would know nothing about it.  ABC, NBC and CBS don't mention "Muslim" in their coverage and the latter network assures us that "he acted alone."

Charles Krauthammer has gotten some heat from conservatives, but he still writes a spot-on column in Investors Business Daily this morning:  "A White House Union Owned And Operated." You mean the same union thugs that say things like this:



New Jersey = Nazi Germany?  Where is the condemnation from the White House for this kind of repulsive hate speech?  Aside from the fact that this man's history is terribly wrong.  Hitler and the Nazis used the Unions to gain power.  What is truly disgusting is watching a bunch of public employee union thugs who have prospered through the dark days of this continuing redepression courtesy of the taxpayers...these leeches...protesting because they aren't being given enough from the public dole.

One place we know this White House had been more than willing to ignore has been our military.  Despite continually expanding commitments, our military has continued to shrink under budgetary pressure.  Here's a stark warning from one on the front lines:  "Investing In The Undersea Future."  In my days as a Surface Warfare Officer, we jokingly called these fellows "Bubbleheads," they more accurately referred to us as "Targets."  The warnings in this article should be heeded.


There are dangers in over-spending, but we have to have our priorities.  The Greeks, Portuguese, Irish and most of Europe are in deep financial trouble because of their social spending - none of the above are exactly military powers.  The consequences of profligate spending are readily apparent right before our eyes:  "The Greek Example."

OK, I'm done for now...have a great weekend.

Rumble on!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Good Feed

Rumblewife posed an intriguing question last night: "What about a Perry/Rubio ticket?"  Upon reflection, I think it might be a real powerhouse option.  You get the executive experience of a successful governor coupled with the conservative ideology and wonderful personal story of the Senator from Florida.  Browsing the Wall Street Journal this morning, I see that Mr. Henninger is pondering similar lines - at least about the potential top of the ticket:  "Rick Perry Ready For Prime Time?"

Of course I would be happy with any of the candidates over the current administration.  Grumbling from the left suggest that the incumbent has the edge - I tend to think that if unemployment - even as it is falsely reported by the government - stays above 9%, the Republicans could run Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite and have a better than even chance of winning.
"Napoleon, you know we can't afford the fun pack!"
Jon Stewart may lean hard left, but he still has some of the funniest gags going on the air.  Last night he skewered Obama for his performance in Puerto Rico:



The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
West Wing Story
www.thedailyshow.com
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There is a fine line between politicking and patronizing.  If you don't speak the language, don't parrot the locals is a good rule of thumb.  They will appreciate a phrase or two in the native tongue, but this obviously crosses the line.  Interesting point about Florida though...good reason to get Rubio on the ticket!

Oh, and how did the Puerto Ricans greet Mr. O?  Well in a way that Hugo Chavez would love:



Puerto Rico is a beautiful place.  I spent some time there in my Navy days and have several dear Puerto Rican friends...but if they want out, there's one place we could cut and be done.  I suspect that they do not, because right now, the benefits from the mainland are too great.  But I actually agree with Obama on this one - put it to a vote.  With little to no indigenous industry outside of rum and tourism, it wouldn't stand very long on it's own if it followed the model of so many other island kleptocracies.  But we should not stand in the way.

Finishing up an extraordinary treatise: "This Time It's Different."  The book is a data/statistics heavy book looking back over 800 years of information on government defaults, liquidity crises, uber-inflation and the like.

We so often look at fairly narrow time windows when trying to understand events - especially economic data sets.  As the authors point out it's analogous to "having a one in four chance of seeing a hundred year flood in a twenty five year period."

It's worth the read - click on the link above or the book-jacket at right to get yourself a copy!

No big surprise - Anthony Weiner has resigned.  My guess is the cross-dressing pix were the final straw.  It's one thing to run around and chase skirt - even in a kinky weird tweety way.  Heck, if you are a Democrat you revel in characters like that:  "that ol' Bill Clinton, you couldn't keep that dog on the porch! Yuck, yuck, yuck. "  But when you show up oiled like a English Channel swimmer wearing a brasier and tights...OK, now we are into the downright weird.  True, a vast chunk of the left's coalition would actually find that appealing, but they have to continue to con enough people in the middle to stay competitive.  He had to go.

That's it for now.

Rumble on!

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Shovel Ready

Glad someone out there can laugh about it...

Good Feed

I keep hearing folks on the Left comparing Obama with Reagan.  "Why, he has the same communications skills," they gush.  And "he is sooo Presidential!" they swoon.  How about we look at the facts?  Peter Ferrara over at Forbes Magazine has done just that:  "Reagonomics versus Obamanomics" - it is a chilling indictment of the predicament we find ourselves in.  But there's more - let's compare the "stature thing"...compare and contrast:






Let's say you are Mr. Foreign Leader Tyrant...which of these two are you going to want to deal with?

"I'm a scorpion, what did you expect, I'd kiss you?"  An allegory inside a well crafted assessment of the northern border of Israel: "The Frog And The Scorpion."  Israel's situation with Hezbollah reminds of Jefferson's observation about the Constitutional problem with slavery: "it's like holding a wolf by the ears - you don't like it much, but you dare not let him go."

"Anagnorisis" - this is the term in Greek tragedy where a character makes a startling discovery about himself.  We are seeing that played out on the streets of Athens right now:



Apparently, the anagnorisis they have discovered is that they like being on the government teat and, thank you, will fight to not be taken off.  The Greek government's austerity measures - to save the country- are throwing a lot of people off the government gravy train and they are fighting back.  These folks would rather tear the whole thing down than sacrifice for their children and grandchildren.  Can you say "Madison," anyone?

State House in Madison, WI taken over by Union thugs.

Here's the bad news: "Greek Contagion Spreading Fast."  Portugal and Spain and Ireland, oh my!


Market is heading south again...Weiner has yet to resign even as images of him cross-dressing emerge...

At least it has cooled off outside.

That's it for now.

Rumble on!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Good Feed

Every now and then I stumble on an article that after I read it, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry.  A weekend book review did just that: "Thinking Inside The Box."  It is a review of the book "Adventures Inside the Orgasmatron; How The Sexual Revolution Came To America," by Christopher Turner.  I just downloaded this title onto my Kindle App, so you may hear more about it later, but the review was enough to really pique my interest.

Apparently in the 1940's and '50's, the intellectual elite of this country ( the Anthony Weiner, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Moore, Michelle Obama crowd of fifty years ago) fell under the thrall of another psyche explaining German named Wilhelm Reich (unfortunate last name given the timeframe) who hawked a product called the "orgone box" that accumulated the vaporous orgone.  When one sat in the box, all clarity came to you as you experienced the "apocalyptic orgasm."    Apparently once the gild was off the lilly of communism, Dr. Reich's solution to nirvana took hold.  What is it today?  Global Warming "Climate Change?"No, really, I am not making this stuff up.  If you are interested, I linked Amazon to  the picture and title above.  I'm going to read my copy in my cozy chair, perhaps watching Woody Allen's "Sleeper."

If only Anthony Weiner had had one of these...
Well, when not fantasizing that we can all be cured with giant doses of orgone, the left continues to destroy the economy.  Here's some cheery news from Forbes:  "Good Bye Recovery, Hello Recession."  The author points out, correctly, that everyone from businesses to individuals is paying off debt (oops, the government is NOT doing that) and hoarding cash.  The reason?  Fear and uncertainty.  The economic policies of Obama and his team have left us all wishing we had one of those little balls in our house.

And they still don't get it - this just in...it takes 887, 624 hours for banks to comply with the new Federal regulations.  That's 110,000 days or roughly 395 years worth of man hours in cost that the banks now bear thanks to Dodd-Frank.  And we wonder why the economy is slow.  And where do you think that cost of compliance will fall?  Still, you talk to some Simplibs, and they will tell you that the real problem with the economy is that there isn't ENOUGH regulation: "Cass Sunstein: "The Obama Administration's Ambivalent Regulator."

Well, there is hope.  Maybe some reality is starting to sink in.  There's this: "Obama Fundraiser Underwhelms" - apparently the swooning and fainting numbers are way down.  And there is this:


Now that's some real hope for change!

RumbleDad forwarded the following pic - allegedly a gas station sign in Alaska...works for me!



That's it for today.

Rumble on!

Monday, June 13, 2011

Good Feed

Time for the Monday edition of "Good Feed."  Had some time over the weekend to catch up on some reading.  If you are an avid Internet Miner like me, let me recommend the "Read It Later" app.  It comes as a button on Firefox, but if you are like me and use Chrome or Safari, you have to add it as a button.  Nice thing is it synchs to your smart phone, so if you have some downtime...or, like me you have to spend 8 hours in a car driving back and forth to Atlanta, it comes in handy!

In the late 1980's, Tom Clancy, fresh off his breakthrough success with "Hunt for the Red October," produced a book that became required reading at both the U.S. and Soviet War Colleges.  The book was titled Red Storm Rising, and the premise was that the Soviets would stir up insurrections in different corners of the earth in order to thin out, confuse and deplete U.S. military strength and will.  Then, the main attack would come screaming through the Fulda Gap.

I was thinking about the parallels between Red Storm Rising and the situation we find ourselves in now.  We (our military) are heavily deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We are operational in Yemen, Libya, off the Somali coast and numerous other brush fires in North Africa and the Middle East.  And we continue with our regular stands in Europe and Korea along with a regular rotation at sea of our Navy.

All of this activity and we are shrinking our Navy and Marine Corps, cutting our Defense Spending and not replacing what is being used up in the course of combat and regular operations.  With the exception of Europe and Korea, ALL of these operations have one thing in common: Radical Islam.  There are enough variants and nut jobs to go around, that I seriously doubt it is a coordinated effort but if you stand back and look at it from a satellite's world view, it may be achieving the same objective as if it were a coordinated attack.  All the more reason we need to be extremely cautious, Constitutional and prudent about how we deploy our force - lest we end up like - well, err, this:


What is the economic impact of Freedom?  I am asking that rhetorically, but take a look at this recently released study from the Mercatus Institute at George Mason Institute, and you get some hints.  One piece of correlation - the states that are considered the "least free," New York, New Jersey and California are the ones closest to insolvency.  My great state of Tennessee comes in 16th - a lot of room for improvement!  Here's the video:



"Too many people in America think that other people need to be regulated..." - for those that continue to be in this mindset, I have two words for you:  Anthony Weiner.  THAT's the type of person that wants to regulate YOU.

Islamic Mob burning a Coptic Church in Aina, Egypt
Speaking of freedom, one of the most fundamental freedoms is the freedom of religion - to worship who, what, where, when and why we want to.  Unfortunately, that right is under assault across the globe - from the free reign Islamic mobs now have over Egypt's Coptic Christian community to the outright suppression of all other religions in Saudi Arabia - it ain't pretty.  Here's a good read on the matter: "Targeting the World's Worst Religious Persecutors."

Finally, continuing wisdom from Victor Davis Hanson who is apparently galavanting around Europe right now as I noticed this column is post-marked "Rome:" "We Have Seen Our Sad Future And It Is Europe."

That's it for now.

Rumble on!

Friday, June 10, 2011

Friday Feed Bag

OK, it's hot outside thanks to La Nina, but this little bit of video really got me steamed:



If this doesn't show the selfishness,  crassness and outright thuggery of the unions, I can't imagine what would.  It also shows a level of desperation which is a hint that Walker's policies are working.

As you're driving past the orange barrels this summer you might want to have a look behind the scenes - here's the story from James Bovard who worked for the Virginia DOT: "My Summer Job To Perdition."
I can tell you that I worked two summers for a grocery distribution company in Northwest Florida.  We unloaded boxcars in 105+ heat and there weren't many breaks...private versus government contrast and compare.  In Bovard's story, there was no incentive to move faster; in mine, it was called unemployment.

My own horror story, and I am sure each of you has one, was on I-75 in Georgia where it took us four-and-a-half hours to get over a bridge.  As we finally reached the "construction," there were fourteen guys standing around - one had a shovel - the others were...watching.  But the orange barrels had constricted the four lanes to one.  Madness!



Two perspectives on energy policy that are worth a look.  The first is a piece in the Investor's Business Daily: U.S. Goes On An Energy Starvation Diet.  Coal? Got it.  Natural Gas? Got it. Oil? Millions of Barrels.  But we are not allowed to touch it thank to our own Government.  Guess that price of electricity will skyrocket, eh Mr. O?  The second is a piece noting the monster find Exxon made a couple of days ago in the Gulf, "A Gulf Drilling Revival,"  which points out that the PRIVATE sector in natural gas and oil is the one making all the advances for energy independence.  The PUBLICLY subsidized sources of wind, solar, ethonol et al are doing butkus for us.  Please, Mr. Government, just get out of the way!



Read a review in the American Spectator yesterday about this one and downloaded it to my Kindle app for Mac and Blackberry:

Click here to buy the book.

The article "Fanniegate: Gamechanger for the GOP?" implies that the information in this book will destroy the Democrat party.  Probably wishful thinking, but if people like Barney Frank, are finally brought to heel, it will be a good thing.

That's it.

Have a great weekend.

Rumble on!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Good Feed

Among the many urban myths we have worked hard to debunk is the one that says China will eat our duck...they are the new superpower, we need to figure out how to accept our second place status etc. etc.  Unfortunately, some of the biggest proponents of this wrong strain of thought are in high places in the current administration.  Facts are troubling things though, and along comes a census - this dings not only China, but India too: China and India's Demographics Getting In The Way Of Growth.  The report is interesting, but only peripheral.  There are numerous demographic and sociological troubles with the Middle Kingdom - coast versus interior, Han versus everybody else, growing Muslim problem in Western China and on and on.  The real question is whether they'll go Maoist on us and implode into a super-dense dark star or (scary scenario) decide that the only way out is to start an old fashioned war.  Given the odds and their history, I'm betting on the first option.

Hey kids, dress groovy like me!

Obamacare is in court again - this time int the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, where once again, our robed scions will peer into the bowels of our Constitution to try to find where it says Congress can make the citizens of this country purchase anything.  We know it's legally flawed - here's a short analysis on it's economic faults: ObamaCare's Economic Flaws.




News of the Obvious: So, the government says they'll pay for healthcare if an employer doesn't provide that benefit...what do you THINK might happen?  "Huge Number of Businesses to Drop Health Insurance."

History lesson: "A Short History of Political Suicide."  And we let these people tell us what our healthcare should be, what kind of light bulb we should use, what kind of toilet we can install...




Finally, some answers from the mainstream media - about time they figured this out:

That's it.

Rumble on!