Friday, April 09, 2010

I have to take a minute to point out another reason I consider Rep. Charles Rangel(Corrupt NSD-NY)

such a vile bastard:
Controversy exists regarding the validity of the amendment's inclusion into FOPA. The vote to include the amendment took place at night, when many of the lawmakers who would be opposed to its inclusion were not present. Despite an apparent defeat of the amendment by voice vote, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), at the time presiding over the proceedings, declared the amendment approved. Hughes and Rangel were longtime "gun control" supporters.[4]

Amuse yourselves while I'm tied up

Fairly busy next couple of days, so don't look to me for entertainment

by the way, next time you want an effing beer...

Every once in a while, you hit a concrete example of the level of change

that's occurred.

Few days ago, while digging out some stuff, ran across an ammo can I hadn't opened in a long while. Inside were three bricks of Federal Lightning .22 ammo.

The bricks were priced $7.90.

Yeah, it's been there a few years, but not that many.

Ok, let's start off with a politician who's really full of crap

At the meeting, Rep. Al Baldasaro, R-Londonderry, said the New Hampshire Budget Office estimated the health care bill would cost the state $1.2 billion in Medicaid expenses over the next 10 years.

Shea-Porter said the bill would be funded, in part, by savings from the preventative care and by taxing the top 2 percent of income earners
.
Yeah. And the gold-pooping unicorn will be running through my front yard tomorrow morning.

Remember the way Congress exempted itself from Obamacare? Specifically killing amendments that would have made Congress get rid of what they have now and use Obamacare? Shea-Porter lies about it:
He went on to say that what "you are trying to force on us was not good enough for Congress."

Shea-Porter said he was misinformed.

She said Congress would be part of the same marketplace for insurance as other Americans covered by the bill in 2014.
Notice the wording: ANYTHING rather than openly say what she voted for: Congress gets to keep gold-plated health care, does NOT have to submit to Obamacare.

I'll move from other obvious bullshit(the top 2% don't have enough money to pay for this, etc.) and move to another statementlie from another National Socialist Democrat:
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) recently told an incredulous town-hall crowd that ObamaCare does not, in fact, require you to purchase health insurance.

Rep. Wasserman Schultz’s announcement came as a surprise to those of us familiar with the bill, which added to Subtitle D of the Internal Revenue Code a new Chapter 48, whose first section (Section 5000A) is titled, “REQUIREMENT TO MAINTAIN MINIMUM ESSENTIAL COVERAGE” (see p. 126; all-caps in original). Subparagraph (b)(3) even provides for “PAYMENT OF PENALTY” if you don’t comply with the “REQUIREMENT.”
Lies, lies and more lies.


Oh, and the only reason a lot of us support Israel? Solely because we hate muslims, according to one more effing idiot progressive. And the whole church/state separation idea? Completely gone according to this moron:
The whole south shifts to the Republican Party over one issue, they don’t like black people…so you have the racism thing, the fact that we’ve eradicated the separation of church and state essentially, which started I have to say when Jimmy Carter was first elected. As a Jew I noticed it — first president who talked about Jesus Christ, and that was sort of like, “whoa, presidents don’t talk about Christ!”…and now you have the modern Republican Party that has to cater to these racists and that gets me to my fundamental point, it is not that they are pro-Israel. They are anti-Muslim. They do not like Muslims. They are on the side of Israel because Israel is — they don’t like Jews that much to start out with, either — but compared to Muslims, they like Jews fine.
No time right now to search for specific examples, but I rather doubt that Carter was the first President ever to mention God, Jesus, etc.; so why such a lie?
Added: ran across this just now:
Washington concluded his address with a ringing phrase from Scripture: “Let each sit under his own vine and fig tree and let there be none to make him afraid.” (I Kings 4:25)
Hey, Rosenberg, does this count as 'starting before jimmy Carter'? As 'a President making religious references'?(no, he didn't mention God, but I think a quote from the Bible counts), you miserable bigoted little progressive bastard?


She do annoy all the right people, do she not? Even the traitor Fonda is talking her down; Palin 'worries her', she says. Got news for you, Fonda: when a treacherous bitch like you doesn't like her, that's considered a plus by most people.


So Stupak(Backstabbing Liar Democrat-MI) is retiring. As Ace says, be kind of happier to see him stomped in the election, but at least the turncoat bastard will be gone.


I think the way the Catholic Church 'dealt with' the pedophile and sex-with-underage-kids priests was a fucking disgrace, and the people involved rightly need raking over the coals; but there's been an awful lot of BS thrown about, in many cases by people trying to hurt the church in any way possible.
No formal comparative study has ever broken down child sexual abuse by denomination, and only the Catholic Church has released detailed data about its own. But based on the surveys and studies conducted by different denominations over the past 30 years, experts who study child abuse say they see little reason to conclude that sexual abuse is mostly a Catholic issue. “We don’t see the Catholic Church as a hotbed of this or a place that has a bigger problem than anyone else,” said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “I can tell you without hesitation that we have seen cases in many religious settings, from traveling evangelists to mainstream ministers to rabbis and others.”


Richard Trumka, you're a lying sack of suck-up-to-Obama-and-progressives union shit.


I'll finish this with some law enforcement weenies in northern Virginia who really don't want the peasants to know what they've been doing:
There exists dash-cam video of Masters' shooting. There are also police interviews of other witnesses, and the police report itself. But the public and the press are as unlikely to see any of those as they are to learn the officer’s name. That's because the Fairfax County Police Department—along with the neighboring municipal police departments of Arlington and Alexandria—are among the most secretive, least transparent law enforcement agencies in the country. And local political leaders don't seem particularly concerned about it.

Fairfax County hasn't charged a police officer for an on-duty shooting in 70 years. Perhaps that's because no officer there has ever merited charges through a use of force. But it could also be because local cops and prosecutors have too cozy a relationship. The point is, we don't know. Fairfax police have cut off inquiry and second-guessing by simply denying public access to any relevant information.
...
In a state with comparatively favorable open records laws (the professional journalism association Investigative Reporters and Editors ranks Virginia the fifth most transparent in the country), the police departments in Fairfax, Arlington, and Alexandria have managed get away with interpreting that law in a way that allows them to remain almost completely opaque.

"Part of my daily routine when I worked in Florida was to drive to the police station and get a copy of the previous day's incident reports," Pope told me in a phone interview. "I was just dumbfounded when I started working in Virginia. They rejected all of them." The police agencies even rejected requests for incident reports about arrests for which the same department had put out a press release.

Well, if I was misusing SWAT teams the way these clowns have been, and otherwise crapping on the people who pay the bills, I might not be wild about opening up either. Which means these records NEED to be opened up.

Thursday, April 08, 2010

It should be noted that Canada has a bunch of professors

at LEAST as bad as a lot of the jerkwads we have here:
Fifteen professors from the University of Regina have signed a letter which opposes a scholarship program for the children of soldiers who died in war. The letter reads, in part;

This program, which waives tuition and course fees, and provides $1,000 per year to “dependents of Canadian Forces personnel deceased while serving with an active mission”, is a glorification of Canadian imperialism in Afghanistan and elsewhere. We do not want our university associated with the political impulse to unquestioning glorification of military action.

In our view, support for “Project Hero” represents a dangerous cultural turn. It associates “heroism” with the act of military intervention. It erases the space for critical discussion of military policy and practices. In signing on to “Project Hero”, the university is implicated in the disturbing construction of the war in Afghanistan by Western military- and state-elites as the “good war” of our epoch.

Dear professors:
When your dearest wish comes true and the barbarians are at the gates, don't whine for the people you've slandered and insulted to protect you. In a proper world, they'll throw your worthless, whining ass over the gates to distract the bastards while the troops and civilians who care about civilization prepare the counterattack.

If Obamacare is like a refrigerator,


Mmmmmm, flamethrower...

A Palestinian teenager, reported to have been shot "by Israeli forces"

and "left bleeding for hours" before Israel allowed paramedics to evacuate him, has emerged, alive and (more or less) unharmed.

The discovery that the boy, Muhammed Faramawi, was in fact
held by Egyptian police after entering Egypt through a tunnel from Gaza forced a number of news outlets, including the BBC and New York Times, to backtrack from earlier reports about the "killing." But disturbingly, other mainstream news organizations that reported the boy had died have failed thus far to update readers.

Good thing all those professional journalists and layers of fact-checkers were on the job, huh?

What. The. BLEEP?

(Joshua Pundit)- NRG/Maariv (Hebrew link only, sorry) reported today that the Israeli government was stunned when every nuclear technician at Israel's Dimona reactor who had submitted visa requests to visit the United States for ongoing university education in Physics, Chemistry and Nuclear Engineering had their visa applications summarily rejected, specifically because of their association with the Dimona reactor.

This is a new policy decision of the Obama administration. Up until now, it was routine for Israeli nuclear scientists and technicians to receive such visas and to study at US universities.

Israeli security officials have confirmed that these technicians are being denied visas solely because of their employment at the Dimona reactor.

That's our Obama & Co.: fuck over any ally possible- especially if they're Jews- while giving aid and comfort to people like the Ahmadogcrap in Iran, and Chavez, and... hell, it'd almost be easier to list the allies he HASN'T crapped on.

By the way, if you've left a comment with a question

and I haven't answered it:
You expect organization or something? From ME?
I'll try to find any I've missed later

Remember the twit who was all broken up because Ann Coulter

made a camel joke? Who was all bent out of shape about 'sensitivity to others'?
It took the blogger Blazing Cat Fur to discover that Fatima Al Dhaher, the poor wee thing traumatized by Ann Coulter’s camel joke at the University of Western Ontario, was a member of a Facebook group called “It’s Called Palestine Not Israel,” committed to the elimination of the Jewish state and regarding its present occupants as “subhuman” “zionazis/kikeroaches.”
Anybody think the Canadian 'Human Rights' Commission will haul her in for investigation for saying such incindiary, unfeeling, insulting things?

I don't think so either. Because they're a bunch of cowardly PC-at-any-cost bigots.

I'm going to start off this morning by repeating 'Screw you' to Wikileaks

Part of that claim is based upon the fact that two Reuters employees, embedded with a band of armed militants, were destroyed by 30mm cannon fire from Apache helicopters. The Apaches were providing support for ground forces that had been under sporadic rifle and RPG fire throughout the morning. Wikileaks would have us hold the pilots responsible for not discerning the armed militiamen from the identically dressed Reuters employees that so comfortably moved with them.

WikiLeaks would also have us believe that the presence of camera equipment should have stayed the guns of the American aircraft. Dishonestly, WikiLeaks does not mention the well-known fact that cameras are an integral part of the war for both sides, and that video and still cameras are commonly carried by militants. A few seconds of searching on the Internet would reveal militants filming attacks, from IED strikes to the alleged sniping of American and Iraqi soldiers and police.

We aren’t attempting to establish that these Reuters employees were terrorists — despite their “relaxed” behavior with the armed militants, which even WikiLeaks is forced to recognize. It is enough to note that even if the presence of cameras had been detected earlier, it in no way suggested that the armed men were anything other than terrorists.

As to the two kids wounded, the question is "What kind of lousy bastard brings a couple of kids along on something like this?" But apparently Wikileaks doesn't worry about that; it's easier to blame our troops.


Speaking of women and children and other noncombatants,
...When terrorist leaders do travel, they use public transport, surrounded by women and children. The terrorists know that American ROE (Rules of Engagement) discourage "collateral damage" (civilian casualties), so the terrorists try to have women and children around at all times.
...
...The main obstacle to using all this information was the Pakistani president (Pervez Musharraf), an army general who did not want to anger the tribesmen by letting the Americans launch a lot of Hellfire missiles from their UAVs. Musharraf insisted on personally approving each Hellfire strike, and he did not approve very often. Musharraf lost his job two years ago. The U.S. and the new civilian Pakistani government agreed that it was now open season on al Qaeda. The new Pakistani government asked the Americans to be as discreet, and accurate, as possible, and then hunkered down for the public outrage over this American "attack on Pakistan." But in fact, the Hellfire attacks were killing men who were responsible for terrorist attacks that had killed thousands of Pakistanis.
And the Pakistanis know it. Do they like us whacking terrorists on their soil? Not much; even less do they like the terrorists and radical islamists who support them.

Both the above found at Insty



Among the consequences of the Government Motors bailout(i.e. 'buying union votes with other peoples money'),
GAO notes the complicated role played by the federal government, which guaranteed those pensions and now owns GM and Chrysler. GM and Chrysler bought union peace by overpromising pension benefits, knowing that the taxpayers stood behind those promises. Now what should the government do, take it out on the auto workers or hit the taxpayers to benefit the auto workers? Your elected officials will have little difficulty making this decision, invariably hitting future taxpayers to benefit favored constituents, like the auto workers.



The California Democratic Party has arbitrarily decreed that all the duly qualified primary election opponents of Sen. Barbara Boxer are not "viable"--and that therefore only Boxer will be allowed to speak to the state Democratic party convention.

"This is the natural reaction of a dying party machine. They don't want any debate at all," says Mickey Kaus, who is on the June 8 ballot as Boxer's opponent in the Democratic primary.

"It's a perfect illustration of why I'm running. Boxer and the machine don't want a discussion about the effects of an illegal immigrant amnesty on American wages. They don't want a debate on how public employee unions are bankrupting the state, or how teachers' unions have helped destroy the public school system.," he says.

"We intend to give it to them anyway."

"They must be very scared of anyone who brings up these issues. After all, voters might agree."

Hehehehehe


Lesson to the Stupid Party: the tea party people aren't automatically going to support you; you're going to have to earn it.
Update: just round this at Michelle Malkin:

Update:
The questioner, unfortunately, is a 9/11 Truther. Sigh. Well, even Truthers can expose real truths once in a blue moon…

Twitter reader Paul Stagg quips: “…so a crazy 9/11 truther has a better understanding of the Constitution than a congressman? I’m not really surprised.”



A lot of people have remarked on the latest idiocy/insult/bullshit that came out of Pelosi's mouth; I'm going to give you a polite version from Neoneocon:
What an oily, condescending, manipulative, lying piece of work she is. Referring to the HCR bill, Pelosi says:

It’s like the back of the refrigerator. You see all these wires and the rest. All you need to know is, you open the door. The light goes on.

I don’t mean to be anti-female, but Pelosi’s suggestion strikes me as something only a woman could have come up with. I have that attitude myself to most mechanical and/or electrical gadgetry and appliances, including computers: don’t tell me how it works, just make it work.

But for a supposed servant of the people to use such a metaphor to refer to a bill that affects us all in such important ways is outrageously and offensively paternalistic (or should I say “maternalistic?”) and flies in the face of what the relationship between the citizens and Congress in this country is meant to be.


Oh, for God's sake, this crap came from a science advisor?!?


On that note I must go hook my brain up to a charger. Or something. Damn.

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Chester Kulis seems to be a former Only One, a sockpuppet

and a liar.
He is also either ignorant or a liar. He makes the claim:
Under Chicago's gun ordinance, about 15,000 guns are seized and then melted down each year from individuals who were illegally carrying them in their cars or on the street.
Yet according to the IL UCR, less than 7,000 are traced each year, about 7,400 confiscated and about 6,000 collected in 'gun buy backs'.

Another fabrication:
"homicides -- are mostly committed by family members or friends in the course of an argument
Not according to the FBI. Most are committed by 'acquaintances' ie someone you happen to know. In the case of Chicago, 90% of the offenders have a criminal past and 70% of the victims do. 60% are directly affiliated w/ gangs or gang activity.

Never mind that he ignores the fact that, even according to him, the numbers of privately owned firearms has increased yet didn't equal an increase in crime w/ them.
Etc.

Is anybody surprised at all by this revelation?

The extraordinary correspondence began on March 12 with a routine question from Mr Stroilov to Mr Stevenson about his personal website, which gives a history of the Communist Party in this country.

Mr Stroilov asked: 'How is the class struggle going? Observing it from some distance, it looks like the spectre of Communism is rising again in the British Labour Movement, isn't it?'

This unleashed a flurry of emails from the Unite official, who wrote: 'Yes, things are very busy - the struggle goes on! And yes, the [ Communist] Party is very much in the thick of a great deal.'

I repeat, anybody surprised?

I want, no, I demand that my readers understand the significance of this activity. I will not call it a revelation for it is anything but; what was at one time a pair of conjoined twins, Marxists and the Labour Party, are now one and the same. There has never been a shred of doubt that these activities have long been in the making; the 1960s simply solidified and strengthened what was once an obscure political ideology in western Europe.

Pointed to by Kevin

Some lines just call for a poster

Uncle pointed over here, and from some lines I get

Silver American eagle - $19.62
Gold Krugerrand - $1136.89
Platinum Bar, 1 oz Suisse - $1652.10
Lead, 185 grains, slicing through a criminal – PRICELESS!

By the way, remember when this sign was just supposed to be funny?
"I asked my broker what to invest in. He said ammunition and canned goods."


(Ok, so I changed 155 to 185; it's what I like)

And yet more National Socialist Democrats wanting to buy union votes

with other peoples' money.
Legislation introduced last week could shift costs of union pension plans to taxpayers in an attempt to stave off organized labor’s pension funding crisis.

Senator Bob Casey, Pennsylvania Democrat, introduced the Create Jobs & Save Benefits Act of 2010 to address the funding problems faced by union-administered multi-employer pension plans
.
Which would lead to OTHER pension plans that were mismanaged demanding other people be robbed to pull their ass out of the hole they got themselves into. And on, and on.

Screw you Casey, you want to buy votes try using your own damned money for your illegal acts.

Oh, and Wikileaks?

Fuck you. You threw any integrity you had in the toilet and flushed.

Been wondering about it myself: Isn't it amazing how the media

doesn't much talk about rising oil and gas prices now that Obama is President?

Let's see, Spitzer bullied people into leaving companies-

not because they'd broken any law, just because he didn't like the way they worked- and was 'cracking down' on prostitution same time as he was seeing high-priced hookers, and other sleazy actions; and he still wants to control other peoples' lives:
The excerpt adds, "Spitzer muses with friends and advisers about political targets. He views New York's U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand as a lightweight. In the office of New York state comptroller, he sees a chance to become a national force, wielding the billions held in public pension funds to force corporate reform in a way that even lawsuits and regulation cannot. ('It is the great underutilized position in government right now,' says Spitzer.)"
'Force corporate reform' from Spitzer means "Go back to bullying companies and ruining lives if they don't do what I want."

And a bunch of people want this bastard back in power. Isn't it just wonderful?

What? Obama hasn't been telling the truth about himself?

Wow! Isn't that just amazing?

And anybody who's actually surprised... just wasn't listening before

Let it be noted that when some abused-by-politicians guy

does something drastic, Maxine Waters(Socialist Moron-CA) has already made excuses for him.
The anger that you see expressed out there in Los Angeles, in my district this evening, is a righteous anger, and it's difficult for me to say to the people, "Don't be angry." When people are angry and enraged, they do do senseless things, they do act even sometimes out of character, and that's why it is the responsibility of America to try and avoid putting people in these kinds of situations.
...
By May 1, when she gave another interview to Couric, she was referring to the riots as "the insurrection." A 2007 Los Angeles Times article quotes her as having said in 1992, "If you call it a riot, it sounds like it was just a bunch of crazy people who went out and did bad things for no reason. I maintain it was somewhat understandable, if not acceptable. So I call it a rebellion." On May 4, 1992, the L.A. Times quoted her as saying, "Riot is the voice of the unheard."

And so on. And you know KNOW the miserable little jerk will be seriously bent out of shape if anyone does anything(which will mean anything) she doesn't approve of, and her words will either not be acknowledged, or "But that was different!"

So: under pressure from enviroweenies and 'community activists',

a county spends more than it has, the bill comes due and "Ohmygodwe'reinTROUBLE!" And it's the fault of capitalism...

From Rolling Stone there's apparently not a word of blame for the weenies and activists pushing for what couldn't be afforded, no blame for county officials without the balls to say 'no', oh no, all the blame is really for those evil bastards on Wall Street.

Yeah. Right.

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Wow

In short, anyone who wishes others stripped -- of clothes or privacy or arms -- is merely acting as a rapist by proxy. They might not yet violate others bodily but their purpose and motive is the same: control and psychological subjugation of others. So even if you go unarmed by choice, be sure to reject those who would make your way of life compulsory.

The rest is at Oleg's

So Obama's latest appeals court pick is not only a way-to-hell-out-there leftist,

he's got lots of stuff he's either ashamed of or just wants to hide as well.
We write regarding the voluminous supplement to Professor Goodwin Liu's Questionnaire that we received from the Justice Department today. The supplement lists numerous additional items that Professor Liu omitted from the Questionnaire he submitted to the Committee on February 24, 2010. These glaring omissions were provided only after Committee staff continued to locate other additional items not disclosed by the nominee. At best, this nominee's extraordinary disregard for the Committee's constitutional role demonstrates incompetence; at worst, it creates the impression that he knowingly attempted to hide his most controversial work from the Committee. Professor Liu's unwillingness to take seriously his obligation to complete these basic forms is potentially disqualifying and has placed his nomination in jeopardy.

In the weeks since we received Professor Liu's original Questionnaire, Committee staff has repeatedly discovered missing items, including: (1) Professor Liu's commencement speech to UC Berkeley Law; (2) his participation in a panel entitled "What the 2008 Election Will Mean for the Supreme Court"; (3) his participation in a presentation entitled "The Fate of Affirmative Action from the O'Connor Court to the Roberts Court"; (4) his participation in an event co-sponsored by La Raza and the Center for Social Justice at Berkeley entitled "Mendez v. Westminster: 1946--A California Look at Brown v. Board of Education"; and (5) his participation in a conference on school funding. In addition
,
and it goes on. And on, like with so many of the people Obama wants in positions of power.

The key point, I think, are that the number of documents Liu did not disclose -- 117 of them, as I understand it -- coupled with their controversial and non-obscure nature, make it highly likely that Liu was attempting to conceal the material. Liu surely understands, for example, that his radical positions on issues relating to race in general, and affirmative action in particular, are high on the list of those Senators will wish to explore. This makes it extremely difficult to believe that his failure to disclose much of this work was inadvertent.

Thus, the case against confirming Liu no longer rests solely on his leftist ideology and lack of experience, though these factors certainly constitute sufficient grounds to block him.
Damn right they do.

And you'll love the update they added:
UPDATE: Liu plainly has written and said much he would rather not have to explain to the Senate. For example, he believes that non-blacks owe "reparations" to the descendants of slaves. The debt is owed, according to Liu, not just by the descendants of slaveowners, but by the descendants of "everyone who inherits this nation." Does this mean that the debt is owed by the descendants of slaves to whom the reparations would be awarded, or did they not inherit this nation?

For Liu, the key question, which he asks several times in the two minute clip below, is what are "we" going to have to give up to "make things right." With any luck, the answer in Liu's case will be a seat on the Ninth Circuit
.

"Hey, there were other traitors, why do I get all the attention?"

Because you're a dirtbag traitor who spent years screwing over our troops, that's why.

And let's not forget the dirtbag John Effing Kerry:
June, 1970 – John Kerry joins Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), a national veterans group that is part of the Peoples Coalition for Peace and Justice. The PCPJ is a broad coalition of local and national organizations, including the Communist Party, USA, “committed to conducting demonstrations aimed at ending the war in Indochina, and poverty, racism and injustice at home.” The VVAW, CCI and PCPJ all have headquarters at 156 Fifth Avenue in New York City. VVAW Executive Secretary Al Hubbard, a former Black Panther, is also on the coordinating committee of the PCPJ. Hubbard soon appoints Kerry to the VVAW’s Executive Committee, bypassing the normal election process. (Winter Soldier- Free Republic)

Translation from IRS statement: "We don't have the authority

(or the balls) to actually come after you if you don't obey The Obama's orders, so we'll just steal your money."
IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman told reporters yesterday at the National Press Club that the government plans on punishing those who don’t purchase government health care by confiscating their tax refunds.

"Transparency! I mean it!! It's just that there's nothing there

to see!!!"
Google the IARDC site and you come up with a record ID ending in 136.
Now that record is blank.
In 2008 a CNN website showed Obama's record with an ID ending in 456.
Now that record is blank
.
And on, and on... Pageshots at the link.

And more here.

And here.
From the last:
From Steve Clemons at The Washington Note:
What I have learned after discussions over the last several days with several journalists who either have regular access to the White House or are part of the White House press corps is that there is a growing sense that access is traded for positive stories -- or perhaps worse, an agreement that things learned will not be reported in the near term.
What, exactly, is meant by 'things learned?' What information could a journalist uncover while having close access to the President that would be deemed so damaging, embarrassing, or even worse, that the White House is exhibiting a near-paranoia in making sure such information is not reported?

And more importantly, why would any true journalist who is worth his/her salt agree to such a scheme?
The answer to that last is that a true journalist, a real reporter, would not. Which tells us an awful lot about the journalists who do.

And just because it's never a bad day to whack on the PETA squirrels,

But Chelsea Handler may not realize that she falls afoul of multiple PETA commandments herself, such as:

* Posing for the December 2009 cover of Playboy in over-the-knee leather boots. (So she got it half right: PETA is cool with nudity, but not with the lambskin.)
* Calling Katsuya in Brentwood her favorite restaurant: “It’s got sushi, and it’s fresh, and the service is great, and I know God loves sushi. He told me once in a dream I had.” (She’s right, by the way — I’ve been to Katsuya in Brentwood and the sushi truly is heaven-sent.)
* Wearing the gorge camel leather Christian Louboutin Pique Platform Sandals to the launch of her latest book on March 17.

And finally, Chelsea’s food diary from her book, Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea:

FRIDAY

Breakfast: Scrambled egg whites with spinach and jack cheese

Lunch: Chicken Caesar salad

Dinner: 2 crab enchiladas and 2 margaritas

And so on.

By the way, I take objection to the line Now granted, Kelly Bensimon is a hypocrite in her own right. thrown in because this Bensimon both wears fur and says she likes animals; unless Bensimon calls herself an animal-rights wacko or a vegan or whatever, there's nothing 'hypocritical' about it. May seem a nice throwaway like to make the libs happy, but it's bullshit.

So the Norks are eating their own officials now

NORTH KOREA executed two senior finance officials last month after the impoverished communist country redenominated its won currency, a move that wiped out millions of residents’ savings and caused social unrest.
In other words, SOMEBODY'S head had to roll; you can't expect the Dear Leader to take responsibility for the mess.

Notice something missing in this paragraph?
North Korea’s economy has been suffering from sanctions imposed by the UN over its nuclear weapons programme and inflation has become a problem. The redenomination also wiped out much of the value of the money used in the country’s growing market economy, which the government disapproves of but which is thriving nonetheless.
No mention of the fact that it's a communist tyranny, no personal freedoms, etc., just 'suffering from sanctions'. From which stems the redenomination, etc.


Pointed to by K in comments; thanks

The status of ownership of arms in India

Ministers in Madhya Pradesh love their guns and love to flaunt them. Nearly half the ministers in chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan's cabinet own a gun. The chief minister himself is no exception...Not surprisingly, out of his 31 Cabinet colleagues 17 own firearms with some of them owning more than one guns.

"Owning a gun here is considered to be a matter of prestige," we are told, "where it is equated with a person's status in society."
Remember the Hollywood weenies who bitch and moan that guns need to be banned/registered/restricted while they have private ranges on their ranches and land? The politicians who don't want peasants to have arms while THEY and their friends can get permits? Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

[L]egislation was...formulated based on the Indian Government's innate distrust its own citizens [and] gave vast arbitrary powers to the "Licensing Authorities", in effect ensuring that it is often difficult and sometimes impossible for an ordinary law abiding Indian citizen to procure an arms license.

...Limits on the quantity and type of arms that could be produced by private manufacturers were placed...A citizen wishing to purchase a decent firearm depended solely on imports...

[T]he Government, citing domestic insurgency as the reason, put a complete stop to all small arms imports...The prices of (legal & licensed) imported weapons have been on an upward spiral ever since - beating the share market and gold in terms of pure return on investment...since the Government now had a near monopoly on (even half-way decent) arms & ammunition for the civilian market, they started turning the screws by pricing their crude public sector products (ammunition, rifles, shotguns & small quantities of handguns) at ridiculously high rates..
.
And that's worked out just as well as the idiot laws in Chicago and DC:
"Delhi lives in terror as gun crimes rise," Rajeshree Sisodia of The National tells us.

But what about the pricing and licensing impediments?

[T]he problem stemmed from a rise in the number of guns, both licensed and unlicensed, flooding the Indian market, many of which are smuggled in from Pakistan and Myanmar...India is the second most heavily armed country in the world after the United States for both licensed and illicit weapons with an estimated 46 million unlicensed guns in circulation, research by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies (CAFI) has shown.

So let's work this out...You can do everything legally, submit yourself to a permission process that may deny you, then pay an exorbitant sum for a registered piece of junk with ammunition purchase limits, or...

Say, if you're a criminal or terrorist, there's really not much to stop you from getting what you want and doing what you will with it, is there?
Just like gangs and other thugs have no problem getting guns illegally, while honest citizens are disarmed by the law.

And yet more idiocy out of Canada, both from the attackers

and from one of the people upset by it.

The attackers specifically target and go after two guys because they're 'zionists and Jews'. Various illegalities without getting into thought-crime bullshit. But then we get this idiocy:
Len Rudner, director of the Ontario chapter of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said being a Jew or Zionist in Canada should not prompt such an attack.

“Maybe we should consider the impact that words can have in accelerating the argument to the point where people feel that this kind of behaviour is acceptable,” Rudner said.

“If you permit a constant invective and demonization of the Jewish state and people who support the Jewish state, some people will feel that this gives them the permission or responsibility to carry out this kind of attack.”

The problem is not words and constant invective: it's that anti-Jewish actions have been either excused or tolerated for so long that these clowns figure they can get away with this kind of crap, whereas for a Jew- or anybody else- to say anything 'upsetting' to or about muslims gets the 'Human Rights Commission' on their ass threatening fines and jail.

And people being able to carry for self-defense wouldn't hurt matters, either.

Our President is a friggin' idiot

It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the cold war. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.
From what I've read/been told, it can be worse trying to clean up after a chemical attack than after a small nuke; and after a serious biological attack... But hey, no worries! Even if we KNOW you set off a Sarin or VX attack in DC or NYC or Los Angelas, or popped a smallpox attack in Houston, if YOU don't have nukes, the worst we'll do is pop some cruise missiles and go to the UN to ask for sanctions. Wonder how well THAT'LL work?

Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with “a series of graded options,” a combination of old and new conventional weapons. “I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” he said in the interview in the Oval Office.

White House officials said the new strategy would include the option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack, if the development of such weapons reached a level that made the United States vulnerable to a devastating strike
.
So, assuming we KNOW someone is developing the chemical or biological, we'll RECONSIDER the use. Friggin' wonderful. Note he doesn't say he'll reconsider AFTER someone has used such a weapon on us.

Monday, April 05, 2010

Also found thanks to Breda,

Officers should place their weapons safely in the car BEFORE driving away...

Number one: wind turbines

are hard on birds.

Number two:


The latter found at Breda's place.

The pope was slowly awakening one morning,

just about ready to rise, shuffle out of his bedchamber and into his private kitchen for a cup of coffee, when his chief aide burst into the room in a state of high anxiety.

"Your Holiness, He's back! He's back!"

"Excuse me, Legate?" the pontiff replied, quite alarmed by his aide's demeanor.

"He's back! Just as He promised! Today is the big day!" the aide stuttered out.

The aide could not express himself more clearly, owing to his excitement and fear, so the pope rose from his bed, donned a robe and slippers, and followed his aide to the papal audience chamber. Before the final turn to the chamber, he halted his aide and peered cautiously around the corner.

And indeed, He was back! Jesus Christ Himself, glowing like the Sun, with a retinue of angels around Him, stood before the Throne of Saint Peter in His full glory. The Son of God was looking hither and thither, obviously waiting for someone to enter, recognize and greet Him.

"Dio mio," the pope whispered as he retreated into the corridor. "It is Him! All the prophecies have been fulfilled at last!"

The papal aide, who by that time was approaching apoplexy, whispered, "But Your Holiness, what should we do?"

The pope, eyes wide, spread his hands in bewilderment and uttered a single, all-important command:

"Look busy!"


stolen liftedBorrowed from Eternity Road

Just as an excuse to post this again,

in a discussion at James' place involving surplus firearms, a guy asks "Are all M-N safeties this hard to operate?", which brought to mind "What's a safety?"

PC racial idiocy at its finest

Moreover, I was guilty of "democratic racism" -- by which we apply ostensibly race-neutral principles such as "due process," constantly demanding clear "evidence" of wrongdoing, rather than confronting prima facie instances of racism head-on. "It seems we're always looking for more proof," said the instructor, an energetic left-wing activist who's been teaching this course for several years. "When it comes to racism, you have to trust your gut."
(in other words, "If somebody feels offended, you have offended. Even if you actually haven't.")
...
Most of the other 13 students were earnest, grad-student types in their 20s -- too young to remember the late 1980s and early 1990s, when political correctness first took root on college campuses. The jargon I heard at the bookstore took me back to that age -- albeit with a few odd variations. "Allyship" has replaced "solidarity" in the anti-racist lexicon, for instance, when speaking about inter-racial activist partnerships. I also heard one student say she rejected the term "gender-neutral" as sexist, and instead preferred "gender-fluid." One did not "have" a gender or sexual orientation; the operative word is "perform" -- as in, "Sally performs her queerness in a very femme way."

The instructor's Cold War-era Marxist jargon added to the retro intellectual vibe. Like just about everyone in the class, she took it for granted that racism is an outgrowth of capitalism, and that fighting one necessarily means fighting the other. At one point, she asked us to critique a case study about "Cecilia," a community activist who spread a message of tolerance and mutual respect in her neighbourhood. Cecilia's approach was incomplete, the instructor informed us, because she neglected to sound the message that "classism is a form of oppression." The real problem faced by visible minorities in our capitalist society isn't a lack of understanding, "it's the fundamentally inequitable nature of wage labour."

Absolute fucking idiocy. These people are so tied up in being 'anti-racist' they can't even talk to other people of the same race without either apologizing for themselves or insulting the others. Or both. God only knows what groveling they do around blacks or latinos or whatever.

Strongly disagree with this:
In fact, I felt sympathy for just about everyone in that class. In private conversation, they all seemed like good-hearted, intelligent people. But like communist die-hards confessing their counter-revolutionary thought-crimes at a Soviet workers' council, or devout Catholics on their knees in the confessional, they also seemed utterly consumed by their sin, regarding their pallor as a sort of moral leprosy. I came to see them as Lady Macbeths in reverse -- cursing skin with nary a "damn'd spot." Even basic communication with friends and fellow activists, I observed, was a plodding agony of self-censorship, in which every syllable was scrutinized for subconscious racist connotations as it was leaving their mouths.
At this point, no sympathy at all. These bastards want to shove this down all our throats, and I've got no sympathy left for them.

First: until Mexico can actually do something about this crap

I don't want to hear another damned word from their government blaming us for their problems:
Last week, at least 30 Mexicans from the town of El Porvenir walked to the border crossing post at Fort Hancock, Texas, and asked for political asylum. Ordinarily, their claim would be denied as groundless, and they would be turned back. Instead, they were taken to El Paso, where they expect to have their cases heard.

No one doubts that they have a strong claim. Their town on the Mexican side of the border is under siege by one or more drug cartels battling for control of the key border crossing. According to Mike Doyle, the chief deputy sheriff of Hudspeth County, Texas, one of the cartels has ordered all residents of the town of 10,000 to abandon the city within the next month.

"They came in and put up a sign in the plaza telling everyone to leave or pay with their own blood," Doyle said. Since then there has been a steady stream of El Porvenir residents seeking safety on the American side of the border, both legally and illegally. Among them are the 30 who are seeking political asylum.

In recent days the situation in the impoverished, dusty border town has grown worse. According to Jose Franco, the superintendent of schools in Fort Hancock, the cartels have threatened to execute children in school unless parents pay 5000 pesos in protection money
.
The cartels are making open attacks on Mexican Army posts, they're openly taking over towns and cities, and the Mexican government seems to prefer to blame us for as much of it as they think they can get away with.

For the honest officials, the honest cops and judges and troops in Mexico I have a huge sympathy; that doesn't mean I think we should accept guilt for crap we're not guilty of. You folks have a real damned big problem, and YOU'RE going to have to solve it. Asking the UN to save you won't cut it(take a look at the UN record in a lot of places; not real confidence-inspiring, is it?)

Second, this idiocy needs to stop:
Authorities fear that an incident might spark a mass exodus by the residents of El Porvenir that might cause them all to surge across the border at once.

Doyle says there are no plans yet to set up camps for an influx of refugees. "There is just no way to plan for that," he said. "We are waiting to see what happens. We will use the standard natural disaster procedures if it happens -- the Red Cross and housing at the schools, and if it gets worse, the state and the federal government will have to step in."

The hell you can't plan for it. And you know it, jackass. Step 1: GET CONTROL OF OUR DAMNED BORDER. And that does mean Napolitano needs to stop her 'tea party terrorists' bullshit and start worrying about REAL threats. And the only thing that'll do that is state officials taking action and making it plain that they won't stop, and demanding- in plain and uncompromising words and actions- that the feds need to do their part. That just might get it done. We'll see.

Found thanks to Rodger

Let's begin this with an idiot statement from the Consumerist

about food:
Last August, we wrote about the "Double Down," a mysteriously tempting (and potentialy lethal) new food item being tested by KFC. For those coming late to the story, it's bacon and cheese sandwiched between two pieces of fried chicken. And now, many months later, I'll finally be able to get my hands on one.
Hey, guys? If you're that bothered, don't eat one.


My friend spends half the year in Florida along with his similarly ancient friends. He's predicting a "Republican sweep" in November, although his dissatisfaction with Obama is not the result of a conversion to conservatism. He feels that Obama broke so many promises, and "he's just another politician."

If Obama has lost my friend, the Frank Rich-loving, Sarah Palin-hating greedy Democratic geezer that he is, the Democrats are in deep electoral trouble.


Well, that answers that question:
Giant isopods are of little interest to most commercial fisheries owing to the typical scarcity of catches and because ensnared isopods are usually scavenged beyond marketability before they are recovered. However, in northern Taiwan and other areas, they are not uncommon at seaside restaurants, served boiled and bisected with a clean lateral slice. The white meat, similar to crab or lobster in texture, is then easily removed.


From the "There is no 'death panel' people:
PAUL KRUGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: Think about people on the right. They’re simultaneously screaming, they’re going to send all of the old people to death panels and it’s not going to save any money. That’s a contradictory point of view.

TAPPER: Death panels would save money, theoretically.

KRUGMAN: The advisory path has the ability to make more or less binding judgments on saying this particular expensive treatment actually doesn’t do any good medically and so we’re not going to pay for it. That is actually going to save quite a lot of money. We don’t know how much yet. The CBO gives it very little credit. But most of the health care economists I talk to think it’s going to be a really major cost saving. I have to say, I’m wearing an FDR tie in honor of the fact that we have gone from the New Deal to the Big Biden Deal, I guess we’re allowed to say.

TAPPER: Big bleeping deal?

KRUGMAN: Yes.



And this is what Obama & Co. are telling the Israelis to give in to:
The Palestinian Prime Minister sent out this greeting today, “Next year we will celebrate the Holy Fire vigil in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.”
The Jerusalem Post reported:

The Palestinian people plan on celebrating the Holy Fire vigil next year in Jerusalem, the “capital” of the Palestinian state, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said Saturday.

“Next year, Inshallah (God willing), we shall celebrate in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in east Jerusalem, the capital of the Palestinian state,” Fayyad was reported as saying. “Our people, joined by all humanity, will celebrate the creation of the Palestinian independent state according to 1967 borders, a state whose capital shall be Jerusalem.”

Makes it pretty plain, doesn't he? They plan to take over Jerusalem and convert the church into a moslem site. Think they'll allow Jews to live in the city after that?

If you're not familiar with it, in Britain the Victoria Cross

is equivalent to our Medal of Honor; being awarded it generally means you've done something of the sort that may cause someone to ask "Excuse me, can I get you a wheelbarrow to help carry your testicles?" Courageous, disciplined, 'get the job done no matter the cost'-type soldiers. So to piss off a VC holder enough to make him do this... well, that's gotta really sting.
Johnson Beharry, Britain's highest decorated serving soldier, refused to shake Gordon Brown's hand in a protest during a state ceremony.
...
He said that Mr Brown had not looked him or any other servicemen in the eye at a reception in Downing Street in November 2008.

Then in Westminster Abbey during the Remembrance Day service last November he said the Prime Minister was “fidgeting and moving” during the two minute silence.

“I've got head and back injuries that put me back in hospital in a lot of pain quite regularly, so if I could do it there's no reason he couldn't," he said. "It was very rude.

“I was absolutely furious with him. All that was going through my head was to knock him out.

“So on the official line-up that time, I decided I'd get his attention and let him know how I felt
.
Well, I think he knows now. As to whether he actually cares, that's a different matter, but he knows.


Found at Theo's

Number 1: Michael Steele, screw you

Steele was asked if he felt he has a smaller margin of error than others because he's black.

"The honest answer is yes. It just is," the former Maryland lieutenant governor said. "Barack Obama has a slimmer margin than others."

"But you take that as part of the nature of it," Steele added. "It's more because you're not somebody they know. ... Not old-boy network oriented. ... My view on politics is much more grassroots oriented ... so I tend to, you know, come at it a little bit stronger, a little bit more street-wise. That's rubbed some feathers the wrong way."

I'll let Ace answer that bullshit:
I don't give him a smaller margin because he's black. I give him one because he's a whiney bitch who cannot seem to focus his energies on his actual job, raising money and getting Republicans elected, because of his personal distractions and hyper-sensitivity to criticism.

So we've got a bunch of National Socialist Democrats who've sold their credibility so they can scream "RACISM!!" and play victim, and we've also got Steele pulling this crap; wonderful.

Time for Steele to go. Past time.

Sunday, April 04, 2010

In the news about Ann Coulter being shouted at and threatened

at her speech in Canada there was one horribly 'concerned' student' who got lots of publicity. Guess what?
A little late, but a tiny bit of digging found that Ellen Ocran – the psycho-looking spaz from all the Ann Coulter protest pics in Ottawa – is on the government payroll!

Countless news stories last week referred to her as a concerned University of Ottawa student. A simple GEDS search however reveals that she works for Pat Martin – NDP member for Winnipeg Centre!

Greenpeace is most cordially invited to kiss my ass,

and if they come to my home the welcome will be warm indeed.
The proper channels have failed. It's time for mass civil disobedience to cut off the financial oxygen from denial and skepticism.

If you're one of those who believe that this is not just necessary but also possible, speak to us. Let's talk about what that mass civil disobedience is going to look like.

If you're one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:

We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.

And we be many, but you be few
.
And, after that Juliette spends lots of time saying things like
Dear policraticus,
I don't believe anyone had mentionned a gun fight so far. I'm sorry to say we won't be joining you in it - this is not what civil disobedience and non-violent direct action is about.
Juliette

Except that doesn't exactly fit well with
We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.

And we be many, but you be few
.

How about
Hi,
I'm sorry to see we don't have the same definition of non-violent direct action, though I hope that we can come to a compromise and say that "the power of our votes, our taxes, our wallets", as Gene put it in the blog above, applies under that definition.
Peace,
Juliette

'Peace', she says. Y'know, Juliette, nice words about 'non-violent direct action' don't exactly cover up for
We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.

And we be many, but you be few
.

And there's this at one point from their web producer:
Hi all,

I had a chat with Juliette and we decided to re-open the comments (they were closed for about an hour).

She was understandably freaked out by the violent tone of some of the people posting.

While we encourage and appreciate discussion in the comments, do stay polite and don't incite violence. (Not towards our staff, not towards people we disagree with, not towards anyone. Please be nice people. Thanks.)

-- Andrew (Greenpeace web producer)
Hey, dumbass: you're the ones who ended your little piece with
We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.

And we be many, but you be few
.
and you're 'freaked out' that people catch the threat? And react to it? You're either damned liars or effing idiots.

'Course, you may well be both.

Looks like the American Automobile Association is off my list

of companies to do business with.
I e-mailed him a link to the post and invited him to comment. He did so, but basically did nothing more than dance around the issue without answering the question.

I again e-mailed Mr. Townsend and asked him to clarify. He has, to date declined. I also CC'd another AAA Mid Atlantic Public Affairs official on that thread and invited clarification or a statement from him as well.

Nothing.

Finally, I placed a call to the national AAA Public Affairs Office (202-942-2050). The person I spoke to told me that the individual who could answer my question, Mr. Troy Green was out of the office that day but assured me that he would call me back. I left my number, but also got his direct number as well (202-942-2082).

Having not heard anything from him as of early this week, I called Mr Green's direct number but only got his voice mail. I left a message outlining my question, left my number and requested a callback.

Alas, I've heard nothing.
Dumb anti-gun owner statements and refusing to answer; people I don't want to give money to.

The Mesa AZ Police Department: it has its full share of dirtbags

who shouldn't be wearing a badge.

Rep. Phil Hare(Socialist Democrat Oathbreaker-IL) is even more

of a dirtbag than previously thought. Which is really something.
... Same here with Phil Hare: As predicted, his spin is that he said he doesn’t worry about the Constitution on this, i.e. ObamaCare — not that he doesn’t worry about the Constitution generally. Basically, he wants you to believe that he looked into the constitutional issues surrounding the mandate, etc., and is satisfied that O-Care passes legal muster. The only problem? It’s a transparent lie. Follow the last link and watch the original video again. He flatly says (with clear irritation) that he doesn’t know which parts of the Constitution empowered Congress to pass this thing, and the whole thrust of his shpiel during the clip is that he doesn’t care. People need coverage and that’s enough of a moral imperative to him to trump any constitutional concern. Nor is there anything “out of context” about the clip. It picks up with the cameraman injecting a question about the Constitution and rolls until Hare leaves. QED.

Further commentary on his dirtbagginess from Moe Lane.

Damn, even more reason to think Myrna Loy was hot

An agitated Paramount representative met us: “You didn't go into Germany, did you?”
“No,” Arthur told him, “we flew over it on our way to Sweden. Why?”
The representative turned to me. “Don't you know you're in Mr. Hitler's little black book? You're right at the top of his backlist—he's banned your pictures.” It seems that my wire to Masaryk had appeared in the London Times, and that, along with my support of an economic boycott of Nazi Germany and my outspoken defense of German Jews, had reached the Fuhrer. Well, as far as I was concerned, my pictures damned well should be banned. Why should I be entertaining the Third Reich? The bigwigs of Loew's, Inc., MGM's parent company, saw it differently. I received a letter later on from Arthur Loew, the founder's son, who ran foreign distribution.

It should be noted that in the 1930's 40% of Hollywood revenues came from foreign distribution, and Germany was Hollywood's most lucrative foreign territory. Thus, losing German distribution was a huge financial blow to the American studios. In fact, Greta Garbo was far more popular in Europe than in America and the war effectively ended her career.

The company's international greeter approched me on the set. “I've been carrying this letter around for a long time,” he told me. “I just haven't had the nerve to give it to you. I still don't, but I must and you can tell me what to do with it.”
The letter started out very nicely before making the point that I should beware of mixing my “politics” with my “career.” I handed it back to that man, suggesting, “You know what you can do with this.” He replied, “Yes, that's what I thought you'd say.” Oh, Lord, this still makes me so mad I could spit. Here I was fighting for the Jews and they're telling me to lay off because there's still money to be made in Germany. Loew and many of the company's executives were Jewish, but they condoned this horror. I know it's incredible, but it happened.”

Chris Matthews is like a lot of leftists: has a very selective memory

that always remembers only what he wants.
Apparently some people didn’t get it. On MSNBC, Chris Matthews appeared deeply troubled by the word. “I’ve never seen language like this in the American press,” he said, “referring to an elected representative government, elected in a totally fair, democratic, American election—we will have another one in November, we’ll have another one for president in a couple years—fair, free, and wonderful democracy we have in this country…. We know that word, ‘regime.’ It was used by George Bush, ‘regime change.’ You go to war with regimes. Regimes are tyrannies. They’re juntas. They’re military coups. The use of the word ‘regime’ in American political parlance is unacceptable, and someone should tell the walrus [Limbaugh] to stop using it.”

Matthews didn’t stop there. “I never heard the word ‘regime,’ before, have you?” he said to NBC’s Chuck Todd. “I don’t even think Joe McCarthy ever called this government a ‘regime.’”

It appears that Matthews has suffered a major memory loss. I don’t have the facilities to search for every utterance of Joe McCarthy, but a look at more recent times reveals many, many, many examples of the phrase “Bush regime.” In fact, a search of the Nexis database for “Bush regime” yields 6,769 examples from January 20, 2001 to the present.

It was used 16 times in the New York Times, beginning with an April 4, 2001 column by Maureen Dowd—who wrote, “Seventy-five days into the Bush regime and I’m a wreck”—and ending with a March 6, 2009 editorial denouncing the “frightening legal claim advanced by the Bush regime to justify holding [accused terrorist Ali al-Marri].”

A thought from Insty on one of Rep. Waxman's(National Socialist Democrat-CA) idiocies

"What AT&T, Caterpillar, et al did was appropriate. It's earnings season, and they offered guidance about , um, their earnings."So once Obamacare passed, massive corporate write-downs were inevitable.

They were also bad publicity for Obamacare, and they seem to have come as an unpleasant shock to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who immediately scheduled congressional hearings for April 21, demanding that the chief executive officers of AT&T, John Deere, and Caterpillar, among others, come and explain themselves.

Obamacare was supposed to provide unicorns and rainbows: How can it possibly be hurting companies and killing jobs? Surely there's some sort of Republican conspiracy going on here!

More like a confederacy of dunces. Waxman and his colleagues in Congress can't possibly understand the health care market well enough to fix it. But what's more striking is that Waxman's outraged reaction revealed that they don't even understand their own area of responsibility - regulation -- well enough to predict the effect of changes in legislation.