I guess that is Orwellian for "government handout." We educate our people for a reason. They are supposed to be smart enough to see through this crap.
◼ A Shameless Obama Snow Job [Reader Post] at Flopping Aces
...“Lives Touched” is a figure that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) uses to track the amount of people who have been positively affected by the Recovery Act funds. This total would include people who have been provided full time employment (i.e. saved and created jobs) through the Recovery Act and people who at some point have supported a project funded by the Recovery Act...."
And let's not forget that "shovel-ready" projects were projects that were ALREADY slated to go forward. He didn't CREATE a damn thing.
Tuesday, August 31
Sunday, August 29
try Peaches and Cream Brûlée
◼ Cook: 15 minutes, Chill: Up to 3 hours.
Ingredients
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup sugar
3 large egg yolks
6 whole ripe peaches
4 to 6 teaspoons sugar
Preparation
1. Place cream in a medium saucepan. Split vanilla bean in half lengthwise, scrape in seeds, and add bean pod; bring to a simmer, and turn off heat.
2. Combine 1/3 cup sugar and egg yolks in a mixing bowl, whisking until smooth. Slowly add warm cream to egg mixture, whisking constantly. Set bowl containing egg mixture over a saucepan of simmering water. (Do not allow bowl to touch water.) Whisk mixture constantly about 9 minutes or until it reaches 180° and coats back of spoon. Remove bowl from heat, and place in an ice bath, stirring occasionally with a spatula; allow mixture to cool completely. (Or cool to room temperature, cover, and chill overnight.) Mixture will thicken slightly while cooling.
3. Cut tops off peaches, and carefully hollow them out, discarding pit. (Slice a thin portion from bottoms, if needed, to help peaches sit upright.) Fill each peach with about 1/4 cup custard, smoothing so mixture is even with top of peach. Refrigerate until ready to serve, up to 3 hours.
4. Sprinkle a thin layer of sugar onto each custard-filled peach; caramelize sugar using a kitchen torch, keeping torch moving at all times for even coloring. Serve within 1 hour of browning sugar.
Jim Anilé, Jim Anilé, MyRecipes, MAY 2005
I first saw this in Cottage Living Magazine, but haven't tried it yet. If you do, let me know how it turns out.
Labels:
Recipes
Blogger's new spam catcher and comments feature is pretty good!
◼ Blogger now filters comments that are likely spam comments to a Spam Inbox - look in your dashboard for the comments tab.
Saturday, August 28
Slanting the coverage
◼ Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin rally for 'restoring honor' on National Mall
Listen to this racist reporting by the AP: WASHINGTON (AP) - Conservative commentator Glenn Beck and tea party champion Sarah Palin appealed Saturday to a vast, predominantly white crowd on the National Mall
That's not from Daily Kos or Little Green Footballs... that from the AP!
Check out the placement of the quotes: ...Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin rally for 'restoring honor' on National Mall, on Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
h/t: Lysol
How many examples can you find?
Listen to this racist reporting by the AP: WASHINGTON (AP) - Conservative commentator Glenn Beck and tea party champion Sarah Palin appealed Saturday to a vast, predominantly white crowd on the National Mall
That's not from Daily Kos or Little Green Footballs... that from the AP!
Check out the placement of the quotes: ...Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin rally for 'restoring honor' on National Mall, on Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
h/t: Lysol
How many examples can you find?
Restore Honor
◼ Open thread at HillBuzz
Recent tweets from our BuzzBoyz:
“There are THOUSANDS of people already camped out at the lincoln memorial. THOUSANDS at 330 am.”
“People singing songs. Praying for America. A giant patriotic slumber party.”
Recent tweets from our BuzzBoyz:
“There are THOUSANDS of people already camped out at the lincoln memorial. THOUSANDS at 330 am.”
“People singing songs. Praying for America. A giant patriotic slumber party.”
Wednesday, August 25
the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.
◼ The Government's New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS
...Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.
That is the bizarre - and scary - rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants - with no need for a search warrant....
It is a dangerous decision - one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.
This case began in 2007, when Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents decided to monitor Juan Pineda-Moreno, an Oregon resident who they suspected was growing marijuana. They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle's underside.
After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA's actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand. (Pineda-Moreno has pleaded guilty conditionally to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and manufacturing marijuana while appealing the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained with the help of GPS.)
In fact, the government violated Pineda-Moreno's privacy rights in two different ways. For starters, the invasion of his driveway was wrong. The courts have long held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the "curtilage," a fancy legal term for the area around the home. The government's intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy....
The judges veered into offensiveness when they explained why Pineda-Moreno's driveway was not private. It was open to strangers, they said, such as delivery people and neighborhood children, who could wander across it uninvited. (See the misadventures of the CIA.)
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month's decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people's. The court's ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.
Judge Kozinski is a leading conservative, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but in his dissent he came across as a raging liberal. ...
And so I say again - where are all those who protested the Patriot Act? Do we have to bring Bush back to get you to care about this?
...Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.
That is the bizarre - and scary - rule that now applies in California and eight other Western states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers this vast jurisdiction, recently decided the government can monitor you in this way virtually anytime it wants - with no need for a search warrant....
It is a dangerous decision - one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell. It is particularly offensive because the judges added insult to injury with some shocking class bias: the little personal privacy that still exists, the court suggested, should belong mainly to the rich.
This case began in 2007, when Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents decided to monitor Juan Pineda-Moreno, an Oregon resident who they suspected was growing marijuana. They snuck onto his property in the middle of the night and found his Jeep in his driveway, a few feet from his trailer home. Then they attached a GPS tracking device to the vehicle's underside.
After Pineda-Moreno challenged the DEA's actions, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in January that it was all perfectly legal. More disturbingly, a larger group of judges on the circuit, who were subsequently asked to reconsider the ruling, decided this month to let it stand. (Pineda-Moreno has pleaded guilty conditionally to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana and manufacturing marijuana while appealing the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained with the help of GPS.)
In fact, the government violated Pineda-Moreno's privacy rights in two different ways. For starters, the invasion of his driveway was wrong. The courts have long held that people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their homes and in the "curtilage," a fancy legal term for the area around the home. The government's intrusion on property just a few feet away was clearly in this zone of privacy....
The judges veered into offensiveness when they explained why Pineda-Moreno's driveway was not private. It was open to strangers, they said, such as delivery people and neighborhood children, who could wander across it uninvited. (See the misadventures of the CIA.)
Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who dissented from this month's decision refusing to reconsider the case, pointed out whose homes are not open to strangers: rich people's. The court's ruling, he said, means that people who protect their homes with electric gates, fences and security booths have a large protected zone of privacy around their homes. People who cannot afford such barriers have to put up with the government sneaking around at night.
Judge Kozinski is a leading conservative, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, but in his dissent he came across as a raging liberal. ...
And so I say again - where are all those who protested the Patriot Act? Do we have to bring Bush back to get you to care about this?
Tuesday, August 24
Sunday, August 22
Philly requires bloggers to pay $300 for a business license
◼ ...Philadelphia bloggers were dispatched letters informing them that they owe $300 for a privilege license, plus taxes on any profits they made....
That's so they could pay for this:
◼ PHA chief plans a 'retreat' to battle stress
CARL R. GREENE, the embattled leader of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, plans to check himself into a "retreat" or "resort" that specializes in helping people cope with emotional distress and other mental health issues.... Earlier this week, Greene dropped off the public radar, his whereabouts unknown. He resurfaced on Wednesday to announce that he was taking a leave from PHA to get his personal and financial affairs in order.
The announcement came on the heels of news that Greene - who earns $306,370 a year - had fallen five months behind on mortgage payments and that his $615,000 condo was headed for foreclosure. He also owed roughly $52,000 in federal taxes and the IRS filed a tax lien, which Greene recently paid off.
On top of that, Greene now faces allegations that he sexually harassed a 29-year-old female employee and other female staffers during his 12-year tenure at PHA.
Greene's financial woes, combined with allegations of sexual harassment, set off a brush fire of speculation among city residents and politicos.
h/t: babes
That's so they could pay for this:
◼ PHA chief plans a 'retreat' to battle stress
CARL R. GREENE, the embattled leader of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, plans to check himself into a "retreat" or "resort" that specializes in helping people cope with emotional distress and other mental health issues.... Earlier this week, Greene dropped off the public radar, his whereabouts unknown. He resurfaced on Wednesday to announce that he was taking a leave from PHA to get his personal and financial affairs in order.
The announcement came on the heels of news that Greene - who earns $306,370 a year - had fallen five months behind on mortgage payments and that his $615,000 condo was headed for foreclosure. He also owed roughly $52,000 in federal taxes and the IRS filed a tax lien, which Greene recently paid off.
On top of that, Greene now faces allegations that he sexually harassed a 29-year-old female employee and other female staffers during his 12-year tenure at PHA.
Greene's financial woes, combined with allegations of sexual harassment, set off a brush fire of speculation among city residents and politicos.
h/t: babes
More on building in New York City...
◼ The real problem with the Ground Zero Mosque…
◼ Council to Review Penn Plaza Tower
Basically, everyone can be hassled EXCEPT the Mosque - that becomes bigotry.
So in reality, like racism, we are now faced with some kind of reverse bigotry.
◼ Council to Review Penn Plaza Tower
Basically, everyone can be hassled EXCEPT the Mosque - that becomes bigotry.
So in reality, like racism, we are now faced with some kind of reverse bigotry.
Saturday, August 21
Chris Hayes, journOlist, not journalist
Dear Nation Friend:So-o-o-o-o - how much did it take to buy the attacks on Sarah Palin?
I've never written a fundraising letter -- and living in a city where everyone is always hitting up folks for donations, I'm more than happy to keep it that way. I'm a journalist. I write articles and books about politics, Washington, and the world around us. And I'm extraordinarily lucky -- I get paid to do so by The Nation... But as you've undoubtedly heard, newspapers and magazines are having a rough time. Journalism is in trouble at the very moment when we can't afford to take our eye off what's happening in Washington and around the world. So I've been asked by our publishing team to ask you for help by becoming one of our Nation Associates.... Here's what your Nation Associates gift helps support:
$35 buys me dinner with a confidential source in New York
($50 pays my internet bill so I can get my talking points without leaving home)**
$75 pays for an interpreter for a reporter researching a story in Afghanistan
$150 covers an Amtrak ticket to Washington so a writer can testify before Congress
$300 buys a labor reporter's ticket to Detroit for a piece on unemployment
$500 (expenses extra) rewards a brilliant article by a young journalist on Tehran dissidents
This year, The Nation is facing a $1,000,000 deficit. And for The Nation that's a lot of money. Believe me, I know. I've been working in the magazine's Washington office as Washington editor for the last three years and the pay isn't great. But there are very few media outlets that allow their writers and reporters the freedom to go beyond the headlines and take on the powers that be -- to ask inconvenient questions and pursue uncomfortable truths. And The Nation is one of them....
...Daniel Levy of the Century Foundation noted that Obama’s “non-official campaign” would need to work hard to discredit Palin. “This seems to me like an occasion when the non-official campaign has a big role to play in defining Palin, shaping the terms of the conversation and saying things that the official [Obama] campaign shouldn’t say – very hard-hitting stuff, including some of the things that people have been noting here – scare people about having this woefully inexperienced, no foreign policy/national security/right-wing christia wing-nut a heartbeat away …… bang away at McCain’s age making this unusually significant …. I think people should be replicating some of the not-so-pleasant viral email campaigns that were used against [Obama].” . . .I guess Soros-type backing isn't enough to keep them afloat, and biased journOlism isn't really selling.
Chris Hayes of the Nation wrote in with words of encouragement, and to ask for more talking points. “Keep the ideas coming! Have to go on TV to talk about this in a few min and need all the help I can get,” Hayes wrote....
Too bad - asking inconvenient questions is reserved for those who have been targeted. The rest of the time it is cover the ass of the people who have been chosen.
Revoke this man's press credentials. Permanently. (**yeah, I stuck this in there)
◼ JournoList Revelations: Attacks on Palin - Volokh
◼ JournoList: They Are Liberals First, Journalists Second - bigjournalism
...The group now exposed is part of the JournoList, Obama’s little secret warriors during the last campaign, made it very clear, they are liberals first... Why did Chris Hayes of The Nation urge his colleagues to ignore Reverend Wright’s tirades against America? Real reporters love this provocative, juicy stuff. Ask Mel Gibson. Instead, Hayes wrote this, ripping the Bush administration so that it would somehow make Obama/Wright look better:...
Labels:
NO JOURNALISTIC ETHICS
Wednesday, August 18
Tuesday, August 17
Elected Politician Using Government Web Site to Mobilize Public Opposition to Private Speech About Politicians
◼ Elected Politician Using Government Web Site to Mobilize Public Opposition to Private Speech About Politicians - Volokh
The Public Advocate for the City of New York (Bill de Blasio) has a site that lists major (nonmedia) corporations’ stands on using corporate money to speak about candidates for political office. Then, for corporations that are so speaking, the site lists contact information with the line:
I'll bet there's no such pressure on the unregulated orgs either - fair game would be to include Unions and orgs. That's not the game here.
The Public Advocate for the City of New York (Bill de Blasio) has a site that lists major (nonmedia) corporations’ stands on using corporate money to speak about candidates for political office. Then, for corporations that are so speaking, the site lists contact information with the line:
Demand that corporations stop taking advantage of Citizens United: Call [corporation name] at [phone number](or gives an e-mail address). For corporations that aren’t so speaking but haven’t pledged not to engage in such speech, the site uses the line “Hold [corporation name] Accountable: Call [corporation name] at [phone number].” The site does not list any such information about unions, who were also freed to speak by Citizens United....
I'll bet there's no such pressure on the unregulated orgs either - fair game would be to include Unions and orgs. That's not the game here.
Sunday, August 15
What about the CHURCH?
◼ White House officials later said that Obama was simply saying that since there is no local ordinance that would prevent construction of the mosque...
Yet rebuilding the CHURCH has been blocked for YEARS. By what?
◼ Taxpayer-subsidized Islamic Outreach Digest - Director Blue
◼ "Just to be clear, the president is not backing off in any way from the comments he made last night. It is not his role as president to pass judgment on every local project." - Althouse
◼ Legitimate Questions for the President - Sarah Palin
◼ http://www.stnicholasnyc.com/
Yet rebuilding the CHURCH has been blocked for YEARS. By what?
◼ Taxpayer-subsidized Islamic Outreach Digest - Director Blue
◼ "Just to be clear, the president is not backing off in any way from the comments he made last night. It is not his role as president to pass judgment on every local project." - Althouse
◼ Legitimate Questions for the President - Sarah Palin
◼ http://www.stnicholasnyc.com/
"PAK-TRAINED KILLERS 'USED FACEBOOK' TO TRACK AID GROUP"
◼ OBAMA'S "PEACE PARTNER" CHILLING HUNT, SLAUGHTER OF AID GROUP SUSPECTED OF CHRISTIANITY BUT SPARES MUSLIM DRIVER - PAK-TRAINED KILLERS 'USED FACEBOOK' TO TRACK AID GROU - Atlas Shrugs
"...This story in today's NY post is so brutal and savage, your blood will run cold..."
"...This story in today's NY post is so brutal and savage, your blood will run cold..."
repairs on the Cloaking Device are well under way
The damage repair crew has hit the weekend talk circuits - repeating over and over, "Obama is not a left-wing ideologue."
This is because the catastrophic failure of the Cloaking Device has revealed Obama's true nature, and it is so unpopular that he is in freefall. The Cloaking Device worked like a charm during the campaign, where Obama pretended to be a centrist.
They're desperately trying to repair the Device in time for the November election. "Look at us, we're moderate!" "Don't look over there! Look HERE, see, no extremism..."
It started with Robert Fibbs denouncement of the "Professional Left", showed up on the talk shows with female pundits (WaPo Columnists, no less) calling them "deranged."
Left-wing supporters. like John Aravosis, stung by being thrown under the bus, have responded in fury. After all, they thought they were part of the trusted inner-circle. JournOlists gave up their prized integrity for Obama - and they know Obama and Fibbs know it.
It's a win-win for Obama, he can trash them all the likes, he knows they will come back to lick his boots, and in the meantime, he hopes the Cloaking Device will be repaired in time for the election.
Listen to the talking points this coming week - see if you can keep track of how many times the pushers repeat the same phrase, al designed to push the meme.
This is because the catastrophic failure of the Cloaking Device has revealed Obama's true nature, and it is so unpopular that he is in freefall. The Cloaking Device worked like a charm during the campaign, where Obama pretended to be a centrist.
They're desperately trying to repair the Device in time for the November election. "Look at us, we're moderate!" "Don't look over there! Look HERE, see, no extremism..."
It started with Robert Fibbs denouncement of the "Professional Left", showed up on the talk shows with female pundits (WaPo Columnists, no less) calling them "deranged."
Left-wing supporters. like John Aravosis, stung by being thrown under the bus, have responded in fury. After all, they thought they were part of the trusted inner-circle. JournOlists gave up their prized integrity for Obama - and they know Obama and Fibbs know it.
It's a win-win for Obama, he can trash them all the likes, he knows they will come back to lick his boots, and in the meantime, he hopes the Cloaking Device will be repaired in time for the election.
Listen to the talking points this coming week - see if you can keep track of how many times the pushers repeat the same phrase, al designed to push the meme.
Saturday, August 14
Friday, August 13
Forget the Mosque. What about the CHURCH?
Rebuilding has been blocked for nearly nine years. Where’s the outrage?
◼ Rebuild St. Nicholas CHURCH at Ground Zero, Not a Mosque - George Demos
On September 11, 2001, over 3,000 Americans, including 168 residents of our community in Suffolk County, were taken from us by the evil acts of Islamic extremists bent on destroying our freedoms. Amid the thick smoke and choking ashes of that fateful day, the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was reduced to dust.
Since 1922, St. Nicholas Church had stood as a quiet sanctuary of prayer and reflection amidst the tumultuous and bustling crossroads of commerce. For nine years the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey has used bureaucratic obstacles and false promises to hinder the rebuilding of the St. Nicholas Church. This must end and it must end now.
What an outrage that our government has put roadblocks in the path of its own citizens trying rebuild their beloved Church destroyed by Islamic extremists, while Saudi Arabia, a nation that prohibits people from even wearing a Cross or the Star of David, now provokes the families of those who lost loved ones by apparently funneling money to build a mosque at the same location.
◼ `Tent' Church at Ground Zero
A church rose up for a day inside a white tent at ground zero.
Hundreds of faithful from the tiny St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed along with the World Trade Center, gathered in a makeshift canvas sanctuary on Wednesday, where they marked St. Nicholas Day and the 90th anniversary of their parish.
Archbishop Demetrios, second from left, the New York-based head of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, leads a ceremony marking St. Nicholas Day and the 90th anniversary of the parish, while standing before a table of communion bread inside a tent at the World Trade Center site in New York, Wednesday Dec. 6, 2006. The site was the location for St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was wrecked along with the World Trade Center in the 2001 attacks. Church deacons Panteleimon Papadopoulos, far left, and Nathanael Symeonides, second from right holds a bible as the Archbishop reads, while Father John Roma, far right, looks on....
As part of the ceremony, Archbishop Demetrios, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, read the names of some Greek-Americans who died in the 2001 terror attacks.
Did you even KNOW there was a church that got destroyed that day? St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at The World Trade Center.
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church on Sept. 11, 2001, minutes before it was crushed by the falling south tower. Seven years later (July 3, 2008), the Port Authority and the church have failed to agree on a land swap needed for rebuilding.
And now - this big contortionistic upheaval, all emotional in favor of this accursed idea of a mosque to honor the killers who flew planes as makeshift bombs into buildings, who destroyed so many families, and ended the lives of the rescuers as well - forget the outrage for a sec - where is the media? Why is this not top billing?
From Wikipedia: On July 23, 2008, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey reached a deal with the leaders of the church for the Port Authority to acquire the 1,200-square-foot (110 m2) lot that the church had occupied for $20 million. $10 million is coming from the Port Authority and $10 million is coming from JPMorgan Chase & Co.[7][8]
and -
◼ God and Man at Ground Zero - HotAir
Labels:
9/11
Wednesday, August 11
in the tank - and then some
◼ What "Dirty Tricks" Did You Do For Obama? - Marooned in Marin
Day By Day
◼ Gibbs: People who are upset with Obama don't live in real America, didn't help get Obama elected - John Aravosis
Then there's all that work we did for the campaign, all the dirty work they asked us to do - and we did it, gladly, and quietly - none of that counted either, apparently.
This interview with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs is really quite remarkable. Not in its substance - President Obama's staff smears the Democratic base, and our issues, on a regular basis. No, what's remarkable is that a senior White House official has finally gone on the record in order to smear the Democratic base.
◼ Confirmed: GE CEO Immelt Scolded NBC Journalists For Reporting Negatively on Obama
Add this to the guy admitting he helped write Obama's speeches, and JournOlist.
Day By Day
◼ Gibbs: People who are upset with Obama don't live in real America, didn't help get Obama elected - John Aravosis
Then there's all that work we did for the campaign, all the dirty work they asked us to do - and we did it, gladly, and quietly - none of that counted either, apparently.
This interview with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs is really quite remarkable. Not in its substance - President Obama's staff smears the Democratic base, and our issues, on a regular basis. No, what's remarkable is that a senior White House official has finally gone on the record in order to smear the Democratic base.
◼ Confirmed: GE CEO Immelt Scolded NBC Journalists For Reporting Negatively on Obama
Add this to the guy admitting he helped write Obama's speeches, and JournOlist.
Labels:
NO JOURNALISTIC ETHICS
Girl quits her job on dry erase board, emails entire office
Another Epic Quit: "HOPA" Gets Vengeance
Ace of SpadesIs it real or is it Memorex? Turns out it is Memorex.
◼ A word from Jenny (16 Photos)
Now it is to Lyndon B. Johnson's unhappy presidency that Democratic strategist Robert Shrum compares the stewardship of Mr. Obama.
◼ The Obsolescence of Barack Obama - Wall St. Journal
...Mr. Obama could protest that his swift and sudden fall from grace is no fault of his. He had been a blank slate, and the devotees had projected onto him their hopes and dreams. His victory had not been the triumph of policies he had enunciated in great detail. He had never run anything in his entire life. He had a scant public record, but oddly this worked to his advantage. If he was going to begin the world anew, it was better that he knew little about the machinery of government.....
Only trouble is...
h/t: Wild
...Mr. Obama could protest that his swift and sudden fall from grace is no fault of his. He had been a blank slate, and the devotees had projected onto him their hopes and dreams. His victory had not been the triumph of policies he had enunciated in great detail. He had never run anything in his entire life. He had a scant public record, but oddly this worked to his advantage. If he was going to begin the world anew, it was better that he knew little about the machinery of government.....
Only trouble is...
h/t: Wild
Tuesday, August 10
Overheard at the Berry Farm
She was telling her friend, he says she has the cleanest house in the county, her house is immaculate, and that was the source of the problem. She didn't want it to be an issue, but... Why was it impossible for him to pull the plug after he gave the kids a bath? Why couldn't he pick up his own socks? And when she came home from bowling, why was he vegged out on the couch without having even washed the dishes from the meal she had cooked for him before she left?
And the therapist told her, why didn't she just let it go, come home, make a batch of popcorn and sit down on the couch next to him, happy. The dishes would take care of themselves.
Like that's gonna happen...
So we quietly move down the row, laughing a bit, that that therapist probably doesn't do the dishes at his house. Funny that we automatically assume it was a he.
And the therapist told her, why didn't she just let it go, come home, make a batch of popcorn and sit down on the couch next to him, happy. The dishes would take care of themselves.
Like that's gonna happen...
So we quietly move down the row, laughing a bit, that that therapist probably doesn't do the dishes at his house. Funny that we automatically assume it was a he.
Monday, August 9
Sunday, August 8
the Race card is maxxxed out
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Race Card Is Maxed Out | ||||
| ||||
More shower pron
◼ An Eco-Shower Equipped with Water Filtering Plants
Simulate living life in the wilds of nature by taking a shower in the Phyto-Purification Bathroom. Using a natural filtering principal, this mix of modern design and nature is a mini eco-system able to recycle and regenerate gray water. A hydraulic system channels wastewater it through a collection of plants, starting the phyto-purification process. Each part of the plant plays a crucial role in cleaning the water — the sand where the reeds are planted provides the initial rough cleaning, and as the water passes through the roots, heavy metals and bacteria are removed. An ingenious concept, this living shower not only aids in water conservation, but also produces additional oxygen. The Phyto-Purification Bathroom is a concept developed by designers Jun Yasamoto, Alban Le Henry, Olivier Pigasse and Vincent Vandenbrouck.
This inhabitat post was dated 8/6/10, so I guess this thing is still around. I first saw it ◼ a year ago. Cool, anyone know of any reviews? Do critters move in? Frogs? Mosquitos? How do you remove soap residue? The plants start out small, do they grow bigger than you could possibly have imagined? Do you need special permits? Will your ecosystem by subject to monitoring?
I love the idea, but if you've ever put in stepping stones with moss between them, another cool thing, you know what happens, if you've ever put in a nice gravel area, you know leaves and debris collect, so what happens here?
Labels:
Just Awesome
Saturday, August 7
Thursday, August 5
Wednesday, August 4
Private Enterprise Does It Better
◼ Private Enterprise Does It Better - John Stossel - HUMAN EVENTS
if private companies don't do things efficiently, they lose money and die. Unlike government, they cannot compel payment through the power to tax.
Even when a private company operates a public facility under contract to government, it must perform. If it doesn't, it will be "fired" -- its contract won't be renewed. Government is never fired.
if private companies don't do things efficiently, they lose money and die. Unlike government, they cannot compel payment through the power to tax.
Even when a private company operates a public facility under contract to government, it must perform. If it doesn't, it will be "fired" -- its contract won't be renewed. Government is never fired.
Labels:
Simple truth
Tuesday, August 3
“Oh, Andy. How Could You?”
◼ “Oh, Andy. How Could You?” - No Quarter
◼ Mayberry Misleads on Medicare
"This year, like always, we’ll have our guaranteed benefits," he says. An announcement of the ad on the White House website reinforces that claim, saying: "Under the Affordable Care Act … Seniors guaranteed Medicare benefits will remain the same." But the truth is, for millions of seniors, benefits won’t remain the same. And millions will be duped by Obama's PR machine.
So how can the Obama administration claim that "guaranteed Medicare benefits will remain the same"? The answer is that the term "guaranteed" is a weasel word — a qualifier that sucks the meaning out of a phrase in the way that weasels supposedly suck the contents out of an egg.
◼ Health Law Augurs Transfer of Funds From Old to Young
◼ Andy Griffith Comes Full Circle
◼ Mayberry Misleads on Medicare
"This year, like always, we’ll have our guaranteed benefits," he says. An announcement of the ad on the White House website reinforces that claim, saying: "Under the Affordable Care Act … Seniors guaranteed Medicare benefits will remain the same." But the truth is, for millions of seniors, benefits won’t remain the same. And millions will be duped by Obama's PR machine.
So how can the Obama administration claim that "guaranteed Medicare benefits will remain the same"? The answer is that the term "guaranteed" is a weasel word — a qualifier that sucks the meaning out of a phrase in the way that weasels supposedly suck the contents out of an egg.
◼ Health Law Augurs Transfer of Funds From Old to Young
◼ Andy Griffith Comes Full Circle
Labels:
ZeroCare
Missouri Anti-Mandate Vote Overwhelming
◼ How unpopular is ObamaCare’s mandate to buy health insurance... with all precincts reporting, it’s 71% to 29% - Patterico
◼ Sissypuss: Gov’t Cheese Not Selling In MO - The Other MCain
◼ Missouri; Reading the Tea Leaves on Primary Day (03Aug10) - ZinOwl
◼ Missouri Voters Oppose Mandatory Health Insurance - Wall St. Journal
With more than half of precincts reporting, 73% of voters supported Proposition C, establishing a state law that says Missouri cannot compel people to pay a penalty or fine if they fail to carry health coverage. Twenty-seven percent voted against the proposition.
◼ KS/MI/MO Primary open thread. - Red State
◼ Prop C passes overwhelmingly - Drudge headline says Blow to O. Mo says NO
Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance, rebuking President Barack Obama's administration and giving Republicans their first political victory in a national campaign to overturn the controversial health care law passed by Congress in March.
◼ Mo. voters reject key provision of health care law
"To us, it symbolized everything," said Annette Read, a tea party participant from suburban St. Louis who quit her online retail job to lead a yearlong campaign for the Missouri ballot measure. "The entire frustration in the country ... how our government has misspent, how they haven't listened to the people, this measure in general encompassed all of that."
Missouri's ballot also featured primaries for U.S. Senate, Congress and numerous state legislative seats. But at many polling places, voters said they were most passionate about the health insurance referendum.
◼ $700,000 of your money paying for that wretched ad
Was it not enough for President Obama to saddle future Americans with billions of dollars in new health benefits and entitlements that they simply cannot afford?
He also had to go and corrupt one of America's most beloved figures of the last half-century. And stick you with the $700,000 bill.
Before Obama started pimping him out last week to sell the highly unpopular health-care law, actor Andy Griffith was about as all-American as you could get.
Grew up during the Great Depression.
Award-winning gospel singer.
As widower Sheriff Andy Taylor, he was thoughtful, big-hearted and always gently right.
As Matlock, he always won his cases.
Yet in a sick deal with the Obama administration, Griffith shatters his credibility, promising all roses with a health-care law that even Barney Fife could tell you is a disaster in the making.
◼ Sissypuss: Gov’t Cheese Not Selling In MO - The Other MCain
◼ Missouri; Reading the Tea Leaves on Primary Day (03Aug10) - ZinOwl
◼ Missouri Voters Oppose Mandatory Health Insurance - Wall St. Journal
With more than half of precincts reporting, 73% of voters supported Proposition C, establishing a state law that says Missouri cannot compel people to pay a penalty or fine if they fail to carry health coverage. Twenty-seven percent voted against the proposition.
◼ KS/MI/MO Primary open thread. - Red State
◼ Prop C passes overwhelmingly - Drudge headline says Blow to O. Mo says NO
Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance, rebuking President Barack Obama's administration and giving Republicans their first political victory in a national campaign to overturn the controversial health care law passed by Congress in March.
◼ Mo. voters reject key provision of health care law
"To us, it symbolized everything," said Annette Read, a tea party participant from suburban St. Louis who quit her online retail job to lead a yearlong campaign for the Missouri ballot measure. "The entire frustration in the country ... how our government has misspent, how they haven't listened to the people, this measure in general encompassed all of that."
Missouri's ballot also featured primaries for U.S. Senate, Congress and numerous state legislative seats. But at many polling places, voters said they were most passionate about the health insurance referendum.
◼ $700,000 of your money paying for that wretched ad
Was it not enough for President Obama to saddle future Americans with billions of dollars in new health benefits and entitlements that they simply cannot afford?
He also had to go and corrupt one of America's most beloved figures of the last half-century. And stick you with the $700,000 bill.
Before Obama started pimping him out last week to sell the highly unpopular health-care law, actor Andy Griffith was about as all-American as you could get.
Grew up during the Great Depression.
Award-winning gospel singer.
As widower Sheriff Andy Taylor, he was thoughtful, big-hearted and always gently right.
As Matlock, he always won his cases.
Yet in a sick deal with the Obama administration, Griffith shatters his credibility, promising all roses with a health-care law that even Barney Fife could tell you is a disaster in the making.
Labels:
ZeroCare
Why does the left love Hugo Chavez? What redeeming qualities does he have?
◼ What I learned about Hugo Chávez's mental health when I visited Venezuela with Sean Penn. Christopher Hitchens at Slate
...Recent accounts of Hugo Chávez's politicized necrophilia may seem almost too lurid to believe, but I can testify from personal experience that they may well be an understatement. In the early hours of July 16—just at the midnight hour, to be precise—Venezuela's capo officiated at a grisly ceremony. This involved the exhumation of the mortal remains of Simón Bolívar, leader of Latin America's rebellion against Spain, who died in 1830.
According to a vividly written article by Thor Halvorssen in the July 25 Washington Post, the skeleton was picked apart—even as Chávez tweeted the proceedings for his audience—and some teeth and bone fragments were taken away for testing. The residual pieces were placed in a coffin stamped with the Chávez government's seal. In one of the rather free-associating speeches for which he has become celebrated, Chávez appealed to Jesus Christ to restage the raising of Lazarus and reanimate Bolívar's constituent parts. He went on: I had some doubts, but after seeing his remains, my heart said, "Yes, it is me." Father, is that you, or who are you? The answer: "It is me, but I awaken every hundred years when the people awaken."...
...Recent accounts of Hugo Chávez's politicized necrophilia may seem almost too lurid to believe, but I can testify from personal experience that they may well be an understatement. In the early hours of July 16—just at the midnight hour, to be precise—Venezuela's capo officiated at a grisly ceremony. This involved the exhumation of the mortal remains of Simón Bolívar, leader of Latin America's rebellion against Spain, who died in 1830.
According to a vividly written article by Thor Halvorssen in the July 25 Washington Post, the skeleton was picked apart—even as Chávez tweeted the proceedings for his audience—and some teeth and bone fragments were taken away for testing. The residual pieces were placed in a coffin stamped with the Chávez government's seal. In one of the rather free-associating speeches for which he has become celebrated, Chávez appealed to Jesus Christ to restage the raising of Lazarus and reanimate Bolívar's constituent parts. He went on: I had some doubts, but after seeing his remains, my heart said, "Yes, it is me." Father, is that you, or who are you? The answer: "It is me, but I awaken every hundred years when the people awaken."...
Labels:
Chavez
Sunday, August 1
Obama is building an imperium of public debt and crushing taxes
◼ Will Washington's Failures Lead To Second American Revolution?
His bullying and offenses against the economy and job creation are so outrageous that CEOs in the Business Roundtable finally mustered the courage to call him "anti-business." Veteran Democrat Sen. Max Baucus blurted out that Obama is engineering the biggest government-forced "redistribution of income" in history.
Fear and uncertainty stalk the land. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says America's financial future is "unusually uncertain."
A Wall Street "fear gauge" based on predicted market volatility is flashing long-term panic. New data on the federal budget confirm that record-setting deficits in the $1.4 trillion range are now endemic.
Obama is building an imperium of public debt and crushing taxes, contrary to George Washington's wise farewell admonition: "cherish public credit ... use it as sparingly as possible ... avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt ... bear in mind, that towards the payment of debts there must be Revenue, that to have Revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised, which are not ... inconvenient and unpleasant ... ."
Opinion polls suggest that in the November mid-term elections, voters will replace the present Democratic majority in Congress with opposition Republicans — but that will not necessarily stop Obama.
A President Obama intent on achieving his transformative goals despite the disagreement of the American people has powerful weapons within reach. In one hand, he will have a veto pen to stop a new Republican Congress from repealing ObamaCare and the Dodd-Frank takeover of banks.
In the other, he will have a fistful of executive orders, regulations and Obama-made fiats that have the force of law.
Under ObamaCare, he can issue new rules and regulations so insidiously powerful in their effect that higher-priced, lower-quality and rationed health care will quickly become ingrained, leaving a permanent stain.
Under Dodd-Frank, he and his agents will control all credit and financial transactions, rewarding friends and punishing opponents, discriminating on the basis of race, gender and political affiliation. Credit and liquidity may be choked by bureaucracy and politics — and the economy will suffer.
He and the EPA may try to impose by "regulatory" fiats many parts of the cap-and-trade and other climate legislation that failed in the Congress.
And by executive orders and the in terrorem effect of an industrywide "boot on the neck" policy, he can continue to diminish energy production in the United States....
His bullying and offenses against the economy and job creation are so outrageous that CEOs in the Business Roundtable finally mustered the courage to call him "anti-business." Veteran Democrat Sen. Max Baucus blurted out that Obama is engineering the biggest government-forced "redistribution of income" in history.
Fear and uncertainty stalk the land. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says America's financial future is "unusually uncertain."
A Wall Street "fear gauge" based on predicted market volatility is flashing long-term panic. New data on the federal budget confirm that record-setting deficits in the $1.4 trillion range are now endemic.
Obama is building an imperium of public debt and crushing taxes, contrary to George Washington's wise farewell admonition: "cherish public credit ... use it as sparingly as possible ... avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt ... bear in mind, that towards the payment of debts there must be Revenue, that to have Revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised, which are not ... inconvenient and unpleasant ... ."
Opinion polls suggest that in the November mid-term elections, voters will replace the present Democratic majority in Congress with opposition Republicans — but that will not necessarily stop Obama.
A President Obama intent on achieving his transformative goals despite the disagreement of the American people has powerful weapons within reach. In one hand, he will have a veto pen to stop a new Republican Congress from repealing ObamaCare and the Dodd-Frank takeover of banks.
In the other, he will have a fistful of executive orders, regulations and Obama-made fiats that have the force of law.
Under ObamaCare, he can issue new rules and regulations so insidiously powerful in their effect that higher-priced, lower-quality and rationed health care will quickly become ingrained, leaving a permanent stain.
Under Dodd-Frank, he and his agents will control all credit and financial transactions, rewarding friends and punishing opponents, discriminating on the basis of race, gender and political affiliation. Credit and liquidity may be choked by bureaucracy and politics — and the economy will suffer.
He and the EPA may try to impose by "regulatory" fiats many parts of the cap-and-trade and other climate legislation that failed in the Congress.
And by executive orders and the in terrorem effect of an industrywide "boot on the neck" policy, he can continue to diminish energy production in the United States....
"So I was right about the BP oil spill…"
So I was right about the BP oil spill…
...I do know a pattern when I see one, as indeed will anyone else who has read Richard North’s and Christopher Booker’s Scared To Death: How Scares Are Costing Us The Earth.
Whether it’s BSE or Sars or Swine Flu or the Millennium Bug or the Exxon Valdez or Deepwater Horizon or – the biggest con of the lot – “Man Made Global Warming”, the trajectory followed by these scares is exactly the same: a vaguely plausible threat gets exaggerated by journalists, publicity- and funding-hungry “experts” and activists to the point where it seems very real and captures the public imagination; in steps the government keen to be seen to doing something to address this urgent new public concern; vast sums of money are squandered to deal with this non-existent threat; the story moves on to a new scare (repeat ad infinitum); afterwards it emerges that the supposed threat wasn’t nearly as great as had been supposed but – yesterday’s Telegraph piece being an honourable exception – this is rarely reported because the story has moved on....
Not to say it is not terrible. It is, but why are we now being told it isn't so bad? And - the question arises again, what if it was Bush in Office and not Obama? It would still be trumpeted to the heavens as the end of the world is the answer, and we all know it.
...I do know a pattern when I see one, as indeed will anyone else who has read Richard North’s and Christopher Booker’s Scared To Death: How Scares Are Costing Us The Earth.
Whether it’s BSE or Sars or Swine Flu or the Millennium Bug or the Exxon Valdez or Deepwater Horizon or – the biggest con of the lot – “Man Made Global Warming”, the trajectory followed by these scares is exactly the same: a vaguely plausible threat gets exaggerated by journalists, publicity- and funding-hungry “experts” and activists to the point where it seems very real and captures the public imagination; in steps the government keen to be seen to doing something to address this urgent new public concern; vast sums of money are squandered to deal with this non-existent threat; the story moves on to a new scare (repeat ad infinitum); afterwards it emerges that the supposed threat wasn’t nearly as great as had been supposed but – yesterday’s Telegraph piece being an honourable exception – this is rarely reported because the story has moved on....
Not to say it is not terrible. It is, but why are we now being told it isn't so bad? And - the question arises again, what if it was Bush in Office and not Obama? It would still be trumpeted to the heavens as the end of the world is the answer, and we all know it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)