Blatant Barack

on Jan 6, 2009:

"We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by which individual members insert pet projects without review"

on Feb 5, 2009, justifying earmarks in the "stimulus" bill:

"When was the last time that we saw a bill of this magnitude move out with no earmarks in it? Not one."

Jim Geraghty famously said

All Barack promises come with an expiration date. Every single one of them.

I recall candidate Barack repeatedly promising to go "line by line" through bills, to cut out the fat and pork. Now Barack says "Everything in this bill is not perfect. It never is".


Stolen from Darleen Click, who also linked to this:

Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic

Jay Nordlinger met Klaus in a small group of reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland:

Klaus: "I don’t think there is any global warming. I don’t see the statistical data for that.” (Klaus, incidentally, is a professional economist and statistician.) “I don’t believe in the results of the IPCC” (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

When it comes to the climate, “there are competing theories. I’m very sorry that some people, like Al Gore, are not ready to listen to competing theories. I do listen to them.”

Klaus has published a book called Blue Planet in Green Shackles: What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? He tells us that the answer is freedom—freedom is endangered—adding, “I imagine National Review would understand what I mean.” I reply, “Actually, there are differing views about global warming at National Review.”

A different journalist says, “What freedom do you mean? What freedom is endangered?” Klaus points to her and says, “Yours, mine, [turning to the WEF representative] the moderator’s. The freedom of publications like National Review.”

Still another journalist, with high-pitched indignation, says, “Are you saying that Al Gore is threatening freedom?” Klaus answers, “More or less. Environmentalism and the global-warming alarmism are challenging our freedom; Al Gore is an important person in this movement.”

About the financial crisis, Klaus says, “I am more afraid of the ‘reforms’ that will result from the crisis than I am of the crisis itself. I’m afraid that the current crisis will be misused for radically constraining the functioning of the markets and market economies all around the world. I’m afraid of the potential consequences of overactivity by politicians,” as those politicians “try to win votes by pretending that they are coming to the rescue.”

Klaus later says that, as a rule, “it’s difficult to make a good regulation”—a regulation that is helpful rather than harmful.

And a couple of more points about the global-warming debate: There is a difference between believing something and knowing something, he says. Make sure that you make this distinction between “to believe” and “to know.” Knowing, of course, is better than believing. And, at the end of our session, someone asks whether he will attend the big climate-change confab in Copenhagen. He says no. He says he is getting more confrontation-averse, all the time, and doesn’t like to be in full protest or opposition mode. So he will probably send the prime minister instead!

Let me ask you something ... : Is there a world leader you admire more than Václav Klaus?

Crossing the scariest bridge

link

I'm a bit shaky about heights, and couldn't pull my eyes away from this. Nightmares in future?

They say bridges are masculine art. If so, this is art about terror.

Halfway across, the camera begins shaking. I'm unclear if that was from the bridge shaking, or from the cameraman shaking in fear.

The "O" TEAM

Macho Sauce composes song: "Right Wingin Woman". It's pretty good, actually, and pretty funny, in a right wing Barry White kind of way.

"To get down to how deep our love is baby
you know what we have to do...
We gotta drill baby drill baby drill baby drill"

Bonus: Macho Sauce, i.e. the greatest musician/video blogger in America, delivers a magnum opus: "The A TEAM (Actually the 'O' TEAM)"

Related: Archie Bunker on the Democrats. The more things change...

Just because: MKH recent genius comment on Neil Cavuto:

ACORN is the Rod Blagoyevich of advocacy groups: they are shamed; they are being investigated; yet they still show up in Washington and get handouts.

Just because #2: Sweet retribution re Tom Daschle

On O'Reilly, Linda Chavez recounted how Daschle promised to filibuster her nomination in 2001. Daschle said: "If the proposed Labor Secretary cannot follow the law, we've got problems."

Chavez had not broken any laws. She had, a decade previously, knowingly given shelter and sustenance to an abused woman who was an illegal alien. Her actions were not illegal, yet Daschle mischaracterized and exploited them.

Slumdog Millionaire's Freida Pinto

photo by Frederick M. Brown/GettyImages.com

at the Director's Guild Awards.

Her dress is age appropriate, daring, fun, sexy. I love it.

God designed 24 year old women to be irresistible. Freida's dress celebrates the wonder of Freida at this moment of her life, and does so with both taste and elan, and focuses observers on the girl underneath the fabric.

Sport as expression of love

Nice local story:
Grapevine Faith organizes half their fans to cheer for fanless Gainesville State School kids during football game. link Grapevine fans email organize; form long pregame tunnel for Gainesville kids; cheer Gainesville kids by name. Gainesville kids wowed and touched. Other Gainesville opponents hear of story and follow suit.


Another nice story:
U.S. Sprinter gives Olympic Medal to disqualified Netherlands Antilles sprinter. link

Another nice story:
Patrick, a Down Syndrome Senior on his high school basketball team, gets into a game on Senior Day and scores 6 points - legit points. link Do you ever get enough of this kind of stuff? I don't.

Another nice story:
Georgia church makes wholesome movies which go national and earn big bucks. link First movie cost $20K and sold 200,000 DVDs. Second movie cost $100K, earned $33M in theaters.

Hello? Hollywood? Anyone home in Hollywood? Anyone still interested in profit over political statement? Or is that sooo antiquated?

Now that Barack is POTUS, I expect Hollywood will feel free to make some Iraq/Afghan war movies where Americans are heroes. I expect those movies will make significant profits. America hungers for heroes like

Major Troy Gilbert
1st Lt. Travis Mannion
Pfc. Monica Brown
Capt. David Powell and Staff Sgt. Raul Torres
Marine Sgt. Philip A. Bocks
Jeanne Assam
Marcus Luttrell

Integrity of U.S. Soldier in Iraq

Shot by sniper; saved by body armor.

Immediately chases down sniper. Does not kill sniper, but instead captures sniper, then treats sniper's wounds. Must see video, imo.

Repubs should roast Barack's derriere on the flames of his own hubris

Barack, inside a vehemently delivered teleprompted speech, just said:

"The American people didn't vote for the false theories of the past, and they didn't vote for the phony arguments."

Barack is saying low taxes and small government amount to "false theories".

Polling shows the nation is center right, and that voters largely did not disagree with GWB about low taxes and small government, but rather believed GWB and Repubs were ineffective managers. Barack/Harry/Nancy do not have a mandate for big spending. They have a mandate to manage the nation more effectively.

Barack is saying Repubs - when they advocate lower taxes and shrewder spending - are making "phony arguments".

This is hubris and projection. Barack doesn't believe lower taxes work. He doesn't believe growing out of a recession can only come from the private sector. He goes too far: he hubristically believes anyone who purports to disagree with him does not actually disagree, but rather is a liar, a deceiver, a "phony".

Repubs should roast Barack's logic re "false theories", and his hubris and projection re "phony arguments". He deserves it. It would be a winning tactic.

Note:
Barack also said there are imperfect provisions in the bill, yet the Senate should ratify it anyway. Horse manure. If there are imperfect provisions: cut them out! Rework them, improve them, then pass them at a later date.

This is red meat for Repubs, if they seize the opportunity.

Note #2:
Repubs, running scared of Barack's approval ratings*, have been careful to pick their fight with Nancy and Harry, and have avoided criticizing Barack. Is Barack calling Repubs out as some type of strategy(?), and therefore should Repubs avoid roasting him? I say roast away - but I'm not a political professional.


*Barack's approval ratings have dropped to 60%, and are now a tiny bit lower than GWB's approval ratings were 60 days into GWB's administration, and a tiny bit higher than other recent new Presidents. The media slobber over Barack. The nation approves heartily, but not at an unprecedented rate for a new President.

It's On! Palin vs. Judd: Wolf fight 2009!

Sarah counterattacks(!): accuses Ashley of of promoting "extreme fringe organization" via manufacturing false outrage. Sarah is all about offense. She is all about having nothing to hide and going on offense - where she is formidable.

Ashley's reasoning is supported by the thinnest of threads. She's in some trouble.

Sweet, sweet possibilities. Ed Morrissey

Air Traffic Control tape of Hudson River plane

Listen to the concise professionalism of the air traffic controller. He's moving through a normal day; suddenly a plane is in trouble; he handles it as well as it could be handled within a limited time frame. He has only seconds to effect proper decisions. Impressive.

I find this, and video of the boats rushing to rescue the plane, quite moving. The professionalism, excellence, and courage of all participants, as they rise to the moment, is moving.

Former Guantanamo detainee speaks

of difficulties during imprisonment.

Bedtime notations

Most nights, after getting into bed and before turning out the light, I write lightweight doodle stuff into a notebook for a few minutes. It's semi obsessive, completely unintellectual (too sleepy to be intellectual), mostly uninteresting stuff (to anyone but me). I doodle football plays, football offenses, Dallas Mavericks roster vs. San Antonio Spurs roster, Texas Rangers lineups, lists of things I will get done, drawings of houses I would build if I had the money, lists of things I would teach a child if money for lessons were no object, locations of homes or condos I would own if money were no object, lists of favorite movies or books, and sometimes I try to work out deep thoughts or conundrums (but not too often). The following is a neatening of many previous lists of Texas Rangers pitching. Spring Training approaches!



Double click if you wish to decipher. The circled players are semi-sleepers whom I have positive hunches about. "x" = LH. I can write a bit prettier (smoother) when not laying in bed.

I buy a couple dozen notebooks at WalMart every fall when school starts. They sell them, at that time only, for 10 cents apiece (as loss leaders). I prefer College Ruled.

I don't recommend my habit. It's more obsessive than productive, and it costs me some sleep. I sort of doodle until my eyes fall closed, then I awaken and put out the light. A few times, I've awakened when my head drooped and my nose hit my pen. Were I directing a movie, I would have a character die like this: they fall asleep writing, their head droops, the pen accidentally goes perfectly up their nose and into their brain, and they are killed by gravity pulling their brain onto the pen. Future doodle: movie scenes I would direct...

inspired by Mad Housewife
(except the sports parts, the accidental death part, and the ruled notebook part)

Gay Penguin Love Birds

Nature over nurture? Nice outfits.

Atheism is dead; The Big Bang killed it

Frank Turek:

Once there was no time, no space, and no matter and then it all banged into existence out of nothing with great precision.
[...]
Dr. Robert Jastrow ... [former] director of the Mount Wilson observatory once led by Edwin Hubble:

the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.

In an interview, Jastrow went even further, admitting that

“Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover. . . . That there are what I or anyone would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.”

[...]
General Relativity expert Arthur Eddington admitted the same when he said,

“The beginning seems to present insuperable difficulties unless we agree to look on it as frankly supernatural.”

Why couldn’t natural forces have produced the universe? Because there was no nature and there were no natural forces ontologically prior to the Big Bang—nature itself was created at the Big Bang. That means the cause of the universe must be something beyond nature—something we would call supernatural. It also means that the supernatural cause of the universe must at least be:

· spaceless because it created space

· timeless because it created time

· immaterial because it created matter

· powerful because it created out of nothing

· intelligent because the creation event and the universe was precisely designed

· personal because it made a choice to convert a state of nothing into something (impersonal forces don’t make choices).

Those are the same attributes of the God of the Bible (which is one reason I believe in a the God of the Bible and not a god of mythology like Zeus).

I mentioned in the debate that other scientists who made Big-Bang-related discoveries also conclude that the evidence is consistent with the Biblical account. Robert Wilson—co-discoverer of the Radiation Afterglow, which won him a Noble Prize in Physics— observed,

“Certainly there was something that set it off. Certainly, if you’re religious, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis.”

George Smoot—co-discoverer of the Great Galaxy Seeds which won him a Nobel Prize as well—echoed Wilson’s assessment by saying,

“There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the Big Bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing.”

[...]
Dr. Jastrow, despite his agnosticism, told us where the evidence leads. He ended his book this way:

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

h/t

Daschle w/draws; Dems don't care about raising taxes b/c they don't pay them?

I count three Barack nominees who had tax payment problems; two have w/drawn: Daschle and newly created "Performance Czar" nominee Killefer. Her taxpaying performance was subpar. Just to round out the Dems overall, add in Charlie Rangel: he heads the House Committee which writes tax law, he loves to impose new taxes; he did not pay his taxes.

Maximum irony and early smarm alert: old Daschle campaign ad

I'm embarrassingly happy Tom Daschle withdrew. His passive aggressive fake humility grated on me for years. Further, he had the political know how and the political connections to actually accomplish something - and that something was government takeover of large parts of health care. Therefore, it seems a blessing he is out. We'll see. Feelings-wise: this makes up for the pain of the Steelers victory.*


*speaking of: Cowboys have zero playoff victories in the last 13 years. That is a sorry record of futility. Jerry Jones is proving himself maximally inept. On the business side, it doesn't get much better than Jerry. On the football side, it doesn't get any worse. Bill Bidwell is superior. It doesn't get any worse.