Friday Night News & Notes

How y'all doing?

Here's what's new:

-I knew that if I stuck to my ways science would eventually catch up with me:

Drinking alcohol every day cuts the risk of heart disease in men by more than a third, a major study suggests.

The Spanish research involving more than 15,500 men and 26,000 women found large quantities of alcohol could be even more beneficial for men.

Hey, the liver might fall out but I'll be healthier. Via Instapundit.

-The leading global warming swindle purveyors have been busted fudging the data.

-Irony. It took the most liberal administration with the most socialist economic policies in years to get Berkeley radicals to take over buildings again.

-Obama alienates another long-time ally. Is there anyone we want to be friends with he hasn't pissed off?

-It's fish in a barrel easy but busting on Harry Reid is always fun:

The Anti-Palin Media Has Only Made Her Stronger

The onslaught of anti-Palin pieces has been awesome to behold. never has this much ink been spilled on one person with the sole aim to discredit someone with the possible exception of Bush heading toward the 2004 election.

The end result for the scumbag media horde? Try 300,000 books sold on the first day, dickheads. How about Oprah earning the highest ratings in two years for Palin's appearance or even this Fox poll that shows her approval rate soaring.

People in general like Palin; her good looks, normal life with the requisite ups and downs and her calm demeanor but strong personality appeals to many. The left hates her because she is an accomplished woman of the right who is against abortion (even when told her unborn child would be a Down Syndrome child) and believes in God and country. Hell, she even has a son in the military in a combat zone...how blue collar.

Suck it losers, she's getting a fat payday and you morons in the MSM have helped her beautifully. Thanks.

Exit question: I ask again; is there anyone whose ass you want to beat more than Levi Johnston?

Obama: World Loves Us Again Because of Me

America has always been thought of as exceptional. When Europe was ablaze and a dictator was destroying everything in his path, we entered the fray and brought Hitler to his knees and his demise. After the war we fought the Soviet scourge for four decades and eventually toppled the ideology that killed millions and spread misery all over the planet.

Most people admired America for our military, our unstoppable economy and our pride in the Great Melting Pot. They also were jealous of us and worked against our best interests constantly yet, every time they got in trouble the first call they made was to us and we responded.

Many around the world wanted us cut down to size because they hated the fact that we were the sole surviving superpower. American liberals must be ecstatic as they've prayed for us to be taken down a peg since the first Gulf War. Their collective dream has been realized. Even if they don't get socialized medicine and cap and trade, they'll always have the vision of us as a second-class power to look back on in their old age.

They finally got their wish as Obama not only has lowered our standing in the world but is as proud as a two-year old who just took their first dump on the potty:

Beijing, China (CNN) -- A little more than a year after his election, President Obama said his administration has laid the groundwork for success on global and domestic matters.

"I think that we've restored America's standing in the world, and that's confirmed by polls," he told CNN's Ed Henry in a wide-ranging interview this week during his trip to China.

"I think a recent one indicated that around the world, before my election, less than half the people -- maybe less than 40 percent of the people -- thought that you could count on America to do to the right thing. Now it's up to 75 percent."

Yeah us, the world loves us again. Especially Vlad Putin who got Obama to give the finger to ally Poland and remove the missile shield or how about Ahmadinejad who is playing us like a yokel from Cedar Rapids visiting NYC for his first time? Or the Chinese who now not only own us but can lead us around like a puppy dog.

Obama must have missed the day they taught Teddy Roosevelt in history. Instead of walking softly and carrying a big stick, it's more like tip-toeing slowly and bowing to everyone. God, I can't wait until 2012.

Chinese Smarter Capitalist's Than Obama, Pelosi and Reid

The Chinese want some reassurance that Obama isn't going to destroy their investment:

Guess what? It turns out the Chinese are kind of curious about how President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform plans would impact America’s huge fiscal deficit. Government officials are using his Asian trip as an opportunity to ask the White House questions. Detailed questions.

Boilerplate assurances that America won’t default on its debt or inflate the shortfall away are apparently not cutting it. Nor should they, when one owns nearly $2 trillion in assets denominated in the currency of a country about to double its national debt over the next decade.

Nothing happening in Washington today should give Beijing any comfort or confidence about what may happen tomorrow. Healthcare reform was originally promoted as a way to “bend the curve” on escalating entitlement costs, the major part of which is financing Medicare and Medicaid. That is looking more and more like an overpromised deliverable.

For instance, a new study from the U.S. government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finds that the healthcare reform bill recently passed in the House of Representatives would increase healthcare spending to 21.3 percent of GDP by 2019 compared with 20.8 percent under current law. That’s bending the curve the wrong way. The study also questions the “long-term viability” of the $500 billion in Medicare cuts meant to help pay for expanded insurance coverage.

When even the ChiComs are questioning our slide toward socialism, perhaps we as a nation should stop and take notice. Several things can happen here and they're all bad; the Chinese can call in the IOU's and cause us to default. The Chinese can say they will no longer buy our paper and we run out of funds unless we grovel to the Saudi's or Russians. Thirdly, the ChiComs realize they have us over a barrel and start their ambitious plans to become the dominate player in the region and start to threaten Japan (whom they will never forgive for the rape of Nanking), South Korea (who would lean toward the Chinese and also owe Japan one from WWII) and strategic ports like Singapore (the busiest port in the world).

Tax revenues are in the sewer and jobs are becoming more scarce by the month. The Chinese have to be feeling a bit edgy about the ability of Obama to lead us out of this. Hell, maybe we can give them GM and Chrysler to stave them off for awhile, they buy alot of those inferior brands anyway and they can send the UAW over with them.

This is where Obama has brought us and wants nothing more than to go ever farther and implement every social policy the Democrats have dared dream about since LBJ bowed out.

Porkulus $ Go to Phantom Congressional Districts

When Obama was pushing the stimulus package, he claimed that unemployment would not exceed 8% and he claimed the money would be spent in a transparent way with strict guidelines governing where the money went and if it was being spent in accordance with what it was earmarked for. Unemployment is over 10% and the porkulus money is quickly disappearing down the rabbit hole with the administration even at the point where they are claiming jobs were created by stimulus funds in congressional districts that don't even exist:

Just how big is the stimulus package? Well for one, it has doubled the size of the House of Representatives, according to recovery.gov, which says that funds were distributed to 440 congressional districts that do not exist.

According to data retrieved from recovery.gov, nearly $6.4 billion was used to “create or save” just under 30,000 jobs in these phantom congressional districts–almost $225,000 per job. The web site operates on an $84 million budget and is tasked with monitoring the distribution of the $787 billion stimulus package passed by Congress–which, for the record, counts 435 members–in early 2009.

The site’s monitors, however, are not too savvy about America’s political or geographic landscape. More than $2 million was given to the 99th District of North Dakota, a state which has only one congressional district. In order to qualify for 99 districts, North Dakota would have to have a population of about 60 million people, almost 24 million more people than California.

The response from the administration? Not comforting at all:

“People make errors, and we’ve found people are making errors in these reports,” Pound said…

Recipients file their reports on a password-protected site. That information is then relayed to officials who oversee the recovery.gov website to post, Pound said. Unless an egregious error is noted, Pound said they post the information exactly as it is received.

“Our job is data integrity, not data quality,” he said.

No sir, an error is putting an extra zero in or typing a w when you meant to type a q. Creating congressional districts where they don't exist is pure and simple incompetence. The 99th District of the North Dakota? They don't even have a 2nd District because they have only one district with congressional representation.

More made up stimulus BS here.

The entire stimulus sham was designed by Obama to pass insanely regressive socialist policies while giving money to the states who supported him. It has done nothing but put us in such a debtor situation that we pay China $50-billion in interest alone. Dude, when even grouchy David Obey is pissed, it's a black eye for the Dems.

This is something the American people can understand and if the the GOP had any sense they would pound this for months. I'm not hopeful however.

Thursday Night News and Notes

Here's what's new in this crazy-ass world.

-Ace is kinda, sorta putting out feelers for a Kos-like right-wing summit. Kinda like Yearly Kos (now netroots) with more beer and jokes and less merlot and whining. Frank J. has ideas for the shindig and I have to say I like them. Here's a few of my favorites:

* A panel on hippie punching led by Fred Thompson.

* Guns, guns, and more guns. And then other guns than those.

* Top rocks bands from around the world. And if any of them object to playing for conservatives, we punch them for being hippies.

* Ninja assassins guarding the doors making sure no liberals get in.

Dude, based on that; I'm in.

-Is there any dude in the world you'd want to see get their ass severely kicked or whose ass you'd want to kick than Levi Johnston. Yo asshole, real men stay home and raise their kids. They don't go to Hollywood and pose with their full 3-inches swingin out for Playgirl. Just saying.

-A chart showing competitive House raises. Adler (NJ-3) should most-definitely not be in the "likely Democrat" category. He won simply because of huge Obama turnout and the district was owned by Republican Jim Saxton for decades. Look for Chris Myers to run again.

-The feds moved on Iranian assets in the US.

-One thing a military man or woman hates is dithering and unsuredness from their commanding officer or even platoon leader. It signals weakness and generally dispels all notions of good morale. It's much worse when it comes from the Commander-in-Chief. They want a mission--regardless of what it is. They want a straight-forward assessment and direction will carry the mission out.

-It's good to hear W speaking out on the issues of the day. Of course, he has too much class to criticize the current president as Clinton did as he believes it below the office he held.

-Finally, speaking of George Bush; Hillary supporters finally have figured out what many of us knew: George W. Bush is and was a genuinely kind and caring individual who did things because he thought they were the right things, not for politics.

-Pic at right is my boy throwing out a kid at 2nd at the USSSA World Series in Pace, FL over the summer.

When Terrorism Isn't Terrorism

It's downright Orwellian that the actions of Army officer Nidal Malik Hasan are not called terrorism by any Democrats. The definition of terrorism according to Dictionary.com is as follows:

ter·ror·ism (těr'ə-rĭz'əm)
n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

Hasan killed 14 people in cold blood and the daily revelations emerging show that he did it for ideological reasons--the supposed war against his fellow Muslims (and potentially in conjunction with radical elements). That by the definition above is pure and simple terrorism.

Of course, we all know that Obama won't call it terrorism because he would be admitting that we were attacked again after 8-years of George W. Bush stopping another one after 9/11. Obama's essentially putting his hands over his ears and screaming loudly so he can't hear the mean people saying bad things and can right on ignoring what the country knows. He's voting "present"...again.

We are still in a war that all the hopey-changiness will not stop. Many Muslims wish us dead or submissive; a pretty simple concept. Instead of Democrats and Liberals worrying about a backlash that won't happen, perhaps they should do what the country elected them to do and that's protect us from acts of fundamentalist terror from loosely connected Muslim elements.

Instead their policies have neutered us to the point that a guy with the abbreviation for Soldier of Allah actually had it on his Army business card and no one wanted to offend his sensibilities and be un-PC and report this little fact. Lord help us over the next 3+ years; I hopee we make it.

Obama's Scary Infringement on Freedom of Speech

In a What If Bush Had Done it scenario, the Justice Department subpoenaed numerous documents of the vile Indymedia site(s):

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site "not to disclose the existence of this request" unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

Kristina Clair, a 34-year old Linux administrator living in Philadelphia who provides free server space for Indymedia.us, said she was shocked to receive the Justice Department's subpoena. (The Independent Media Center is a left-of-center amalgamation of journalists and advocates that – according to their principles of unity and mission statement – work toward "promoting social and economic justice" and "social change.")

The subpoena (PDF) from U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison in Indianapolis demanded "all IP traffic to and from www.indymedia.us" on June 25, 2008. It instructed Clair to "include IP addresses, times, and any other identifying information," including e-mail addresses, physical addresses, registered accounts, and Indymedia readers' Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, and so on.

Why Indymedia would have Social Security Numbers and bank account numbers is beyond me but that's not the point. The federal government asked for physical addresses of people who read a website including times and other identifying info. That is one scary step towards violating the 1st Amendment rights of a great many people. They also forced them to be quiet about it which I find incredibly chilling.

But wait, it gets much better worse:

A Justice Department official familiar with this subpoena just told me that the attorney general's office never saw it and that it had not been submitted to the department's headquarters in Washington, D.C. for review. If that's correct, it suggests that U.S. Attorney Tim Morrison and Assistant U.S. Attorney Doris Pryor did not follow department regulations requiring the "express authorization of the attorney general" for media subpoenas -- and it means that neither Attorney General Eric Holder nor Acting Attorney General Mark Filip were involved. I wouldn't be surprised to see an internal investigation by the Office of Professional Responsibility; my source would not confirm or deny that.

Am I to believe that these underlings acted on their own in the midst of a transition and while working under an interim boss? If so, why haven't they been fired and why did we not hear of this before now?

The Obama administration is turning into one of the most secretive since Nixon and acting like the shadiest since Tricky Dick as well.

Here's the EFF post on the legal issues. Thank goodness for those who are protecting us when real rights are violated by the government unlike the ACLU who makes shit up.

Monday Night News and Notes

I'm back in a more limited role. The Phillies lost to the hated Yankees and the Eagles lost to the vile Cowboys so I'm in a foul mood.

Here's what's new:

-A boycott against Obama by his gay supporters. Kind of half-hearted but the beginnings of a schism none the less.

-"The jihadi's will return"

-Yo Sammy, WTF.

-Remembering the victims of communism:

Obama Cedes to McChrystal; Will Send 40,000 Troops to Af/Pak

Credit where it's due: Obama apparently agreed to trust his general and send the troops needed to win a war that was under control a year ago but has spiraled since:

(CBS) Tonight, after months of conferences with top advisors, President Obama has settled on a new strategy for Afghanistan. CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that the president will send a lot more troops and plans to keep a large force there, long term.

The president still has more meetings scheduled on Afghanistan, but informed sources tell CBS News he intends to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking for.

McChrystal wanted 40,000 and the president has tentatively decided to send four combat brigades plus thousands more support troops. A senior officer says "that's close to what [McChrystal] asked for." All the president's military advisers have recommended sending more troops.

Obama had to have thoughts of LBJ going through his brain but he has got to learn that we developed strategies in Iraq that can work well in Afghanistan. If he just gives our boys and girls what they need, they will prevail. Bush authorized The Surge when things were bleak and the country was wary of the war and it worked out better than even I dared hope. Is McChrystal of the same caliber of Petraeus? We shall see but I have faith in our troops and given strength and firepower, they will prevail.

This is a bold move by Obama and one that may end up sinking his hopes for a second term but it was the right one. I suspect the Veterans for Peace-type radicals will hold off...for now. The difference between LBJ and Obama is there was a draft when he committed the troops. Should the death count increase, things could change dramatically. Here's to hoping we can succeed at the cost of very few casualties.

Godspeed to my brothers and sisters there or on their way.

Exit question: Would Rangel still support a draft?

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

The ultimate finger was given to the oppressive Soviet Union twenty years ago today when Germans and the rest of the world said enough:
Our president couldn't bring himself to attend such a momentous event because it would have overshadowed his greatness I guess.

Spitting Venom

I'm pissed.

I'm pissed that I haven't had the time to post anything.

I'm pissed that the media spun a monumental electoral shift in New Jersey that was directly attributable to Obama and his policies into a story where it wasn't. I am happy I won't have to look at Corzine's fucking face anymore.

I'm pissed that the Stupak amendment was a big friggin' joke to the Dems and one GOP'er actually was cajoled to vote for the healthcare monstrosity that will forever burden us with heavy debt and poor medical choices.

I'm pissed that the FBI and other arms of the government had information that a Muslim soldier was potentially in contact with our enemies and did nothing resulting in numerous innocent people dead. I'm happy that one brave woman--Sgt. Kimberly Munley (pictured with her kids at right)--took down the terrorist scumbag while heroically putting her life on the line.

I'm pissed that the stimulus bill was passed and we now have 10% unemployment while it resulted in no significant job creation; only the padding of union leader's pockets.

I'm pissed that we have a president who is so insecure that he could not even mention Ronald Reagan when discussing the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I'm f-ing pissed.

More posting later if I can find the damn time.