“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Cheney Strikes Back at Pelosi-Obama
Right on. (I hate that affected Britishism,"spot-on")
UPDATE: Cheney cleaned Obama's Mickey Mouse watch. The press is in high gear defending Obama, but they know Cheney nailed his skinny ass. The beat goes on.
Roger Cohen seems to have invented a genre. At the very least he has imitators. Olivia Sterns just published a piece at the Huffington Post decrying Syria’s “misrepresentation” in the media and arguing that President Barack Obama “embrace” Damascus’s tyrant Bashar Assad as a peace partner because the locals were nice to her when she visited Syria on vacation.
I Love Cheney. He would be my second pick, but his heart could, probably, never make it through a year-long campaign. If it did, I'm not sure he could stand the stress of the job for 4 years.
Here on the home front, I've had my 'one and only' John Galt moment.
I've told the city planner to go chuck it.
This--the first time I've gone against the good advice of my Jewish lawyer.
But, if the man just cannot, cannot, cannot provide a rationale for demanding that I connect via a street to another property that is zoned for apartments, 30 acres of it in fact, while denying me the very same zoning, on the basis of traffic flows, which is all a bunch of shit anyway, as we built an arterial street just for that, fuck him.
I've scaled my project down to the first one third.
We'll see if that flies.
The rest can stay in alfalfa.
It's this kind of shit that scares 'the very life out of me' if we put YOUR MEDICAL DECISIONS in the hands of some beauracrat.
Some Ash type for instance.
Who might well have a mental problem. Who knows?
He is getting a certified letter asking him to put into writing the reasons why he demands what he demands.
I don't think the guy is corrupt. I doubt he has been paid off by the guy in California.
But, I want the reasons. I want to see them in writing.
FIGHT BACK
and, if you see a wolf in Idaho, shoot the son of a bitch on sight
Unfortunately, Bob (in my best Rat impersonation), there would be so much vilification (is that a word?) from the liberal nazi media they would have no chance for victory.
TONY EASTLEY: The US President Barack Obama and former vice president Dick Cheney have gone head to head in a very public slanging match over the future of Guantanamo Bay and the interrogation methods used on detainees.
...
Washington correspondent Michael Rowland reports.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: It was the heavyweight bout many in Washington had been eagerly awaiting.
BARACK OBAMA: Good morning everybody. Please be seated.
DICK CHENEY: Good morning, or perhaps good afternoon.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: In duelling speeches Barack Obama and Dick Cheney slugged it out on the best way of dealing with detainees and keeping Americans safe.
...
BARACK OBAMA: I know some have argued that brutal methods like water boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more.
...
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Mr Cheney hit back, insisting the tough interrogation techniques were effective in extracting information from those he described as "hardened terrorists".
DICK CHENEY: To call this a program of torture is to libel the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives, and to cast terrorists and murderers as innocent victims.
...
MICHAEL ROWLAND: And Mr Cheney declared he'd do it all again.
...
BARACK OBAMA: As we make these decisions, bear in mind the following fact: nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal super-max prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Dick Cheney argues this is no guarantee at all.
DICK CHENEY: I think the President will find upon reflection that to bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: In the end there were no knock-out blows, ensuring this gruelling political slug-fest will continue as the President grapples with some increasingly tricky national security challenges.Clash Over Policy
The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was down 12.13 points, or 1.38 percent, to 869.31. The Second Section also lost ground.
Declines were led by real estate, iron and steel, and auto issues. Pulp and paper, foods and air transport issues were the only gainers.
The dollar fell briefly into 93 yen territory in early morning trading in Tokyo, after hitting a two-month low in New York overnight. A weak dollar erodes overseas profits for Japanese exporters, most of which set their average exchange rate assumption for this fiscal year at 95 yen.US Credit WorriesWho called that greenback drop, again?
Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said he hopes to meet with White House officials today to discuss changing Chrysler's bankruptcy plan and GM's future. Conyers did not outline what he wanted, but a nine-person panel he assembled for a hearing yesterday offered a hint.
Liberal consumer advocate Ralph Nader, a conservative Heritage Foundation analyst and minority auto dealers all criticized the automakers' restructuring.
Conyers and other committee members attacked the administration for abusing bankruptcy laws, unfairly eliminating dealerships and jeopardizing consumer safety.Steering GM Towards Bankruptcy
In fact, F. A. Hayek, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who did more than anyone in the 20th Century to fight socialism and revive the cause of liberty, urged conservatives nearly half a century ago in his essay, "Why I Am Not a Conservative," to find another name--one that emphasizes liberty--to describe themselves. There is an inherent tension between conservatism and liberty, he pointed out, which in a "conservative" party can't reliably be resolved in favor of liberty.
Conservatives of course dismiss this tension. America's institutions are built on principles of liberty, they claim, therefore defending them means defending liberty. But labels shape self-understanding--and the term conservatism shifts the emphasis from defending America because it is the land of liberty to defending liberty because it is American.
This has profound consequences for the conservative psyche, putting it fundamentally at odds with liberty whenever it threatens the conservative conception of America. It is not a coincidence that nativists who hyperventilate about immigration's effect on American language and attitudes, isolationists who fear that trade agreements will dissolve American sovereignty, culture warriors who regard gay marriage and evolution as a mortal threat to American values, and technological Luddites who rail against advances in bioengineering because they tamper with their idea of nature have all found a comfortable home within the conservative party. It is hard to imagine, say, the Freedom Party becoming a ready forum for such ideas.
The 19th century French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out that there are essentially two grand themes around which political life can be organized in America: equality and liberty. Democrats already have a lock on the first and so, unless Republicans want to once again become tax collectors for the welfare state, as they were from 1933 to 1980, they will have to offer something radically different.
Starting today, Shikha Dalmia, a senior analyst at Reason Foundation, will write a bi-weekly column for Forbes.
The Governor of Utah looks interesting, he won't be around in '12, as he is off to China, but the '12 GOP candidate will be a sacrifical offering, regardless.
18 months form the 2010 election, there is no cohesive GOP strategy. bob seems ill disposed to start campaigning against Walt Minnick, doug does not even want to acknowledge he has a Congressperson.
All the most obvious trends will continue in Obama's and the Dems favor, through '10. Just their ACORN funding will provide an advantage that the GOP will not be ready to counter, until after the '12 loss brings a real refocus to the GOP establishment, whom are still in denial about how badly they've been routed.
While Team Obama is still canvasing America, drumming up support, keeping in touch with the people of that historical battleground State, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, at least.
It is good to see that Californians still have a strong aversion to tax increases, just as it was good to see so many people attend anti-tax tea parties across the country last month.
But we have yet to see a true revolt against the endlessly growing size and scope of the government, and we are unlikely to see such a thing until necessity compels us to start paying for the government we have.
...we are unlikely to see such a thing until necessity compels us to start paying for the government we have.
Betcha that Obama does not make the Bush mistake of ignoring the succession question. Hell, Bush prided himself, as did Mr Cheney, in not acting politically, from '04 to '08. Mr Cheney's not wanting to be President was touted as an asset. That there was no other heir apparent, no one to campaign for the Bush Administration in the last election, not even in the Primaries, a liability for US.
Obviously it appears as behaviour indicating that they did not think that continuing their policies was important to their policies. That ensuring, or at least working towards a continuity of strategic policy was important.
Behaving as if their responsibilities ended when their authority did. Now, to late to matter, Mr Cheney tries to defend the Bush policies. A day late and dollar short, except as a feel good moment.
It is to late, now, to debate Gitmo and effect the decision made by President Obama to close it. A decision that both he and John McCain were in agreement on, during the campaign. So no debate as to why it was, and still may be, needed.
A strategic political error made by Team43, to ignore the issue of succession so completely, proudly, with knowledge and forethought.
So, amigos, who will be the Democratic VP candidate, in '12? Who will become their heir apparent?
...and if DC was a reflection of the will of the VOTERS of this country, taxes and spending would not have to wait to be cut, as CA shows with their 20 percent turnout results. ie, a majority in CA want a free lunch, but the motivated overcame all the public employee unions in a very blue state.
...but now Obama will bail out the Unions as he has done w/o exception so far. A Mirror Image of Reagan and the Controlers.
Cheney worked for the Wuss then, 'Rat, not much he could do really. Free man now, glad he brings light amidst the all-encompassing darkness of Dems and the MSM.
"In my long experience in Washington, few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralizing as the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists"- Darth
Reminds me of something that happened to my brother recently.
Left the 4runner unlocked but backed all the way up to the garage door. Golf clubs and watch in bag. Bag gone the next day. Break-in. Stolen. Gets a call from the neighbor at the top of the hill. Found his bag underneath his motorhome. Everything still there. Relieved. Weird.
Sri Lanka's top diplomat in Canberra says his country is providing for Tamils displaced by the recently ended civil war and none should have to seek refugee status.
...
Meanwhile, UN chief Ban Ki-moon is due in Sri Lanka today to visit camps for thousands of Tamils displaced by the civil war.
...
Victoria Forbes-Adam from a group called the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers says many children have been separated from their families and the military has a duty to protect those in the camps.Sri Lanka Doing Enough
The Bank of Japan on Friday raised its assessment of the nation's economy for the first time in two years and 10 months amid emerging signs of improvement in such areas as industrial output, signaling that the worst may be over for the world's second-largest economy.
...
The BOJ has taken a series of unconventional measures to make ample funds available to cash-strapped financial institutions, and encourage them to lend more to businesses.
The BOJ aimed at supporting the slumping economy with the emergency measures, including the outright purchase of corporate bonds and commercial paper from financial institutions, as there is little room for adjusting conventional monetary policy with its key interest rate at a rock-bottom 0.1 percent.BOJ Raises Economic Assessment
The Cheney speech contrasts remarkably with the vacuous blather of the increasingly shrinking affirmative action president. I have listened to it twice. It deserves greater exposure, but will not get it from the traitorous left.
Contrast the nonsense of Obama saying that water-boarding caused increased Islamist recruitment.
You want Islamic recruitment, go to any US prison and you will find it in the form of an African-American fifth column of black muslims. that is recruitment. Bringing the terrorists from Cuba to US prisons will elevate the terrorists to rock star status. That is recruitment.
Obama, a truly un-American pretender, bright but unaccomplished in meaningful life experience except the rhetoric and dogma of the hard marxist international progressive anti-American left, contrasts with a solid pragmatic Cheney.
Andy McCarthy says the most effective recruitment tool is a successful mass casualty terror attack. Artful Obama did not say enhanced interogation did not provide critical Intel, he merely contends there are better ways to get said Intel. ...no need to cite evidence, The One should never be questioned.
Latino gang accused of targeting blacks near LAHAWAIIAN GARDENS, Calif. (AP) - A Latino street gang waged a racist campaign to eliminate the city's black residents through attempted murders and other crimes, according to federal racketeering indictments unsealed Thursday. Five indictments charged a total of 147 members and associates of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang, and federal and local agencies arrested 63 of them by early Thursday, U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien said at a news conference.
Another 35 defendants were already in custody on unrelated charges. Weapons and drugs worth more than $1 million also were seized in what O'Brien called "the largest gang takedown in United States history."
The indictments detail attempted murder, kidnapping, firearms, narcotics and other charges related to attacks by the gang, which is predominantly Latino and mainly operates in Hawaiian Gardens, a city of about 15,000 in southeastern Los Angeles County.
"(Varrio Hawaiian Gardens) gang members take pride in their racism and often refer to the VHG Gang as the `Hate Gang,'" the main indictment said. "VHG gang members have expressed a desire to rid the city of Hawaiian Gardens of all African-Americans and have engaged in a systematic effort to achieve that result by perpetrating crimes against African-Americans."
The indictment alleges a string of attacks on black residents, including a shooting into a home with eight people inside.
Largest Gang Takedown in US History Raids by about 1,400 local, state and federal law enforcement officers targeted members and associates of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang.
Authorities charge 147 members and associates in a massive racketeering case with racially motivated attacks designed to drive African Americans out of Hawaiian Gardens.
Federal authorities Thursday accused a south Los Angeles County street gang of a litany of crimes, including the murder of a sheriff's deputy and racially motivated attacks designed to drive African Americans from their town.
The charges, part of a massive racketeering case dubbed Operation Knock Out, were outlined in several indictments charging 147 members and associates of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang with murder, attempted murder, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and witness intimidation.
Federal agent John Torres Gang territoryThe gang, also known as VHG, is so pervasive in Hawaiian Gardens that one in 15 people living in the square-mile city just north of Long Beach has ties to it, said Sal Hernandez, the FBI's top agent in Los Angeles.
"VHG gang members have expressed a desire to rid the city of Hawaiian Gardens of all African Americans and have engaged in a systematic effort to achieve that result by perpetrating crimes" against them, the document states.
And if a student today proposed a pro-democracy protest?
“People would think he was insane,” said one Peking University history major in a recent interview. “You know where the line is drawn. You can think, maybe talk, think about the events of 1989. You just cannot do something that will have any public influence. Everybody knows that.”
Most students also appear to accept it. For 20 years, China’s government has made it abundantly clear that students and professors should stick to the books and stay out of the streets. Students today describe 1989 as almost a historical blip, a moment too extreme and traumatic ever to repeat.
But whether democracy still inspires them is a more complex question.
I do not think that, as our host said in the update, that Cheney nailed the skinny ass of the President to the wall, but even if he did, what of it?
As a private ciizen Mr Cheney is unhappy with the President, just as AlGore was unhappy with GW Bush, and nailed Mr Bush to the wall, in 2002 and 2003.
To no short term posituve effect. It taking another 4 to 6 years for the public's rejection of the policies of Bush/Cheney, to be felt decisively, in an election.
2014 at the soonest, if the GOP has developed a strategy, other than being a more effective tax collector for the welfare States, by then.
Savor the thunpin', if a thumping it was, because Obama is the President, he decides who won, the Obama/Cheney debate.
The policies of the US, they are not Cheney's to chart. He lost, failing to effect the current captain of the Ship of State.
Here's to hoping the six stars over Afghanistan does the trick.
Support for Obama may be a mile wide, but it is inches thick.
Cheney has done a service for the US in getting the thought planted in the public mind that Obama for reasons of doctrine is playing fast and loose with facts and American security, and that is exactly what Obama is doing.
Obama now owns any breech of security. He has foolishly exposed himself to a secular problem that if it occurs will have it with his brand stamped all over it.
That is neither smart nor the sign of a strategic thinker.
I'd have to say, duece, that the only minds that Mr Cheney has planted a seed in, that the President for "... reasons of doctrine is playing fast and loose with facts and American security..." is the terrorists'.
I'm afraid you misjudged Obama's support in 2008, you do so now, too.
I'm here in the Heartland of the GOP, where "Maverick" McCain won the day, in November of 2008, there are more and more Obama bumper stickers to be seen, each day. Not less.
McCain was the worst operational candidate for president since Mike Dukakis. Obama lanced the racial boil and a significant part of that support can move on since they have experienced racial redemption.
Poor Bristol Palin, who literally brings tears to my eyes if I allow myself to think about her for too long, is on the cover of the new People magazine. She’s there with a big smile, and her new baby, and her sad eyes, and a quotation — “If girls realized the consequences of sex, nobody would be having sex. Trust me. Nobody.” — that is now making the laugh rounds and mercifully bringing the Meghan McCain snark cycle to an end.
The public prominence of Bristol Palin, Meghan McCain’s erstwhile opponent in the young Republican sex wars, raises the same problem for me: What is this 18-year-old, who recently became a “teen ambassador” promoting abstinence for the Candie’s Foundation, doing speaking out on anything?
By what perverse excesses of opportunity are these far-from-ready-for-prime-time young women being empowered to embarrass themselves on the national stage?
Golden (State) Opportunity California voters sent a blunt but welcome message Tuesday about runaway government. By rejecting by nearly two-to-one the political establishment's $16 billion in higher taxes, spending gimmickry and more borrowing, the voters said it's time government faced the same spending limits that the recession is imposing on everyone else.
Teachers unions, business leaders and the politicians outspent initiative opponents by six-to-one, and they still lost. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had warned that if these initiatives were voted down, government services would have to be slashed, criminals released early and public employees furloughed. But voters decided that as painful as these cuts may be, the alternative of letting the state's tax-and-spend machine continue was worse. How right they are.
The response so far from Sacramento is typically short-sighted. Mr. Schwarzenegger, legislators and public-worker unions are now conspiring to roll out plan B: a federal bailout. The Governor was in Washington on Tuesday and, sounding like a Detroit auto executive, declared: "We need assistance." As a starter he wants a federal guarantee on California's next $6 billion bond offering.
But a federal bailout is an injustice to the residents of other states, especially those that run their governments responsibly...
Tuesday's vote was a voter cry that the state needs more such restraints, and now is the time to push them. First, California needs a sturdy cap on the rate of spending growth. Thirty years ago this November, when California's economy was in a similar rut, three-quarters of the voters approved the famous Gann Amendment. That limited the annual growth rate of spending to population growth and inflation.
The result was that California's annual average rate of spending growth after inflation fell to 2% through the 1980s from 9% in the 1970s.
California's state per-capita expenditures fell to 16th in the nation in 1990 from 7th in 1979.
The economy soared, growing by 121% -- 14% faster than the U.S. average.
The Gann limits were effectively neutered in 1988 and 1990 by initiatives that exempted education and transportation from the cap.
By the time Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearings came around, Mr. Biden's modus operandi was well known. In his book, "My Grandfather's Son," Justice Thomas recalls that before the Anita Hill inquisition began, Mr. Biden called him and said "Judge, I know you don't believe me but if the allegations come up I will be your biggest defender." "He was right about one thing," Justice Thomas wrote, "I didn't believe him."
Anh Duong has different advice: Try Squid. Ms. Duong directs a small unit in the Department of Homeland Security charged with adding a little whiz-bang wonder to the drudgery of desert patrols and vehicle checkpoints.
Her engineers scour the nation to find crazy-yet-promising concepts -- like the Safe Quick Undercarriage Immobilization Device, or Squid -- then team up with private entrepreneurs to turn them into working prototypes. They're not ashamed to admit that they draw inspiration from comic-book superheroes and science-fiction novels as they dream up the gizmos and gadgets they hope will keep bad guys at bay.
The Squid is designed to stop a car by using 'tentacles' to foul its drive train. The Squid, a lightweight disc about the size of a manhole cover, lies on the road and ejects rubbery tentacles on command to ensnare fleeing vehicles and drag them to a stop.
MartÃn MartÃnez came up with the idea one evening in late 2005, over beers. Several beers. "Light up a nice El Rey del Mundo cigar, start pouring Guinness, and you can get pretty creative," he explains. He had been watching a car chase on TV, thinking, "I could find a way to stop that guy." He still has the napkin with his squid scrawls.
Mr. MartÃnez, who is 48 years old, runs a small engineering shop, Engineering Science Analysis Corp., from his home in Tempe, Ariz., so he hardly expected his riff on Spider-Man's web to get serious attention from Homeland Security. But as it happened, the government had just put out a call for ideas on stopping "uncooperative vehicles...using nonlethal methods." Mr. MartÃnez sent in his sketches. Among 29 entries, the Squid stood out -- and Mr. MartÃnez found himself with $850,000 in grant money, a team of federal advisers and a chance to bring his invention to life.
The Puke RayOfficially, it's a Light Emitting Diode Incapacitator, or LEDI, and no, it doesn't always make its targets vomit. But it does disorient them -- and can cause nausea -- with a strobe light that flashes in a pattern and spectrum the brain simply cannot process.
It's the best way to secure the U.S. border with Mexico? "It's extremely uncomfortable," says Bob Lieberman, president of Intelligent Optical Systems Inc., the Torrance, Calif., firm that developed the device with grants and advice from Homeland Security.
Resembling a large flashlight, the LEDI works, night or day, at a range of up to 25 feet and is designed to make a belligerent suspect close his eyes just long enough for authorities to get the advantage. It will be field-tested this year by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
The puke ray and other gizmos-in-development are on display this week at a Homeland Security technology conference in Washington. Science-fiction author Greg Bear is hosting the event. On Monday, he and other writers led a workshop: "Science Fiction in the National Interest."
Ms. Duong says she counts on the futurists to help her team imagine the impossible.
heh, I was just writing a formal letter to Dear City Planner (which I will mail today after letting it cool a bit, and checking it over, as the sane do) sticking the fire stick up his ass (in very polite language) requesting that he put in writing the reason(s) why he is insisting I connect to the fellow next door who has 30 acres of R-4, when I was denied that same zoning on the basis of traffic flows.
He's got a problem here, and he knows it.
heh, then he calls and the upshot is we go ahead on the first third of the project. I've agreed to that. So he has in effect backed down. This gives him time to put his car in reverse on the other, or maybe, head to the call of Alaska, as our last City Planner did.
Kind bosses that I have, they are letting us out of work early to avoid the holiday traffic here in the People's Republik of Massachusetts. I just wanted to wish you all a good Memorial Day weekend. I will return to my lurking post on Tuesday, God willing.
BTW, one of the reasons mentioned for opposing the US torture of captured scum is that the US had prided itself on its moral superiority, and torture was a huge blemish on its record.
That led me to start thinking: who in the US ever used that kind of stupid language? Looking at you guys, I'm pretty sure moral superiority was just about the last thing you'd be worried about when survival's at stake.
Who the heck started this image of the US being some kind of morally endowed and empowered juggernaut who had to conform to every stupid restriction in the name of human rights and whatnot?!?
I wish Mat were still around, and I wish I could put up the layout for you folks to look at.
I'd like to get a little input from some folks other than the community organizing folk, like th 'city planner'.
What is a 'city planner'?
And where in hell did he get his degree, if he has one, and what was he taught, and by whom, exactly?
And why is his ass in my face in the first place?
Do we really need a 'city planner' at all?
I've learned, the market plans.
Does he know something that I don't know? That my engineer Jack H and myself don't know?
Why do we have a 'planning and zoning commission'?
And, who are they?
The only requirement is you got to have been here for a few weeks, then, wander in off the street, put your name on the list.
Why is it mandated that I have to host two 'neighborhood meetings' hosted at ol' bobs expense, to visit, shit and moan about all this stuff?
Everybody hates developers.
I've been called a greedy 'out of town' developer by some of these assholes on 20/20, a local blog, where anyone can spout off about anything, knowledge unrequired, where everyman is a king.
All the while drinking the good cool clean water dad provided for the city 50 years ago.
Water that is 20,000 years old, seeping under.
I laugh and cry both.
How anything ever gets done is not for me to say, the Lord and the drift of the stars seem regnant.
If your friend wants to just remove the restiction plug on the 500 he can just remove the barrel and point the rest at the ground and jiggle . The plug is a small piece of wooden dowel that will come out the threaded hole on the forward end of the magazine tube. If he want to remove the magazine tube , they are screwed into the reciever - right hand threads. Some require a strap wrench or simular to break loose if they are tight. __________________
What is the bet, that the four "brothers"picked up the jihad in a US prison?
ReplyDeleteWell, the one fellows parents lived in Afghanistan. The one that instigated the investigation with his talk of the WTC.
ReplyDeleteSo, maybe, he was not prison influenced. Bet two Ameros on that perp not being prison affected.
Pass on the others.
The only place I can find a transcript of the Obama speech, today is at the Huffington Post, and for that, my sincere apologies.
ReplyDeleteWatched them both, Obama is smooth ...
He is now the Decider, he's decided that much.
He was great..
ReplyDeleteto those that dont like him? LISTEN to the MESSAGE not the messenger...
Those that dont like the message?
find a bucket of sand to bury your head in...
I like Cheney.
ReplyDeleteHe does look a little like a Darth Vader.
But, he's a good guy.
But, a real poor shot.
Yep, my first choice as "debate" partner.
ReplyDeleteHunting Partner? Hmmmm . . . . .
Maybe, 2nd, or 3rd choice for Prez; but, I don't want him near the gun rack.
ReplyDeleteOk, Rufus:
ReplyDeleteLet's hear your two nominees.
I'll Stick w/Dick.
(in my dreams)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm Doublin Down on Rat's Huffpo with this Weiner:
ReplyDelete-
Totten's Tactful Response to the work of a Genuine Airhead:
The HuffPo’s Lonely Planet Foreign Policy-
Roger Cohen seems to have invented a genre. At the very least he has imitators. Olivia Sterns just published a piece at the Huffington Post decrying Syria’s “misrepresentation” in the media and arguing that President Barack Obama “embrace” Damascus’s tyrant Bashar Assad as a peace partner because the locals were nice to her when she visited Syria on vacation.
Olivia Sterns - Syria's Softer Side The Obamas Should Embrace The AssadsRemember Rick Warren's Excellent Syrian Adventure?
I like Cheney, and I'd go hunting with him too. The 4 brothers? F... them, hang them from a yard arm, publicly.
ReplyDeletePresident Teleprompter Names Bill Gates Secretary of Defense.
ReplyDeleteRomney.
ReplyDeleteMaybe, Mitch Daniels (Indiana.)
I Love Cheney. He would be my second pick, but his heart could, probably, never make it through a year-long campaign. If it did, I'm not sure he could stand the stress of the job for 4 years.
ReplyDeleteHere on the home front, I've had my 'one and only' John Galt moment.
ReplyDeleteI've told the city planner to go chuck it.
This--the first time I've gone against the good advice of my Jewish lawyer.
But, if the man just cannot, cannot, cannot provide a rationale for demanding that I connect via a street to another property that is zoned for apartments, 30 acres of it in fact, while denying me the very same zoning, on the basis of traffic flows, which is all a bunch of shit anyway, as we built an arterial street just for that, fuck him.
I've scaled my project down to the first one third.
We'll see if that flies.
The rest can stay in alfalfa.
It's this kind of shit that scares 'the very life out of me' if we put YOUR MEDICAL DECISIONS in the hands of some beauracrat.
Some Ash type for instance.
Who might well have a mental problem. Who knows?
He is getting a certified letter asking him to put into writing the reasons why he demands what he demands.
I don't think the guy is corrupt. I doubt he has been paid off by the guy in California.
But, I want the reasons. I want to see them in writing.
FIGHT BACK
and, if you see a wolf in Idaho, shoot the son of a bitch on sight
SAVE THE ELK
Join the ELK LIBERATION FRONT now.
ReplyDeletefreedom for the elk is our motto
a 30/30 is our means
I'd be for a Palin/Cheney ticket.
ReplyDeleteShe's got real style, grace and good sense/he's got experience, steel, and a real determination.
Unfortunately, Bob (in my best Rat impersonation), there would be so much vilification (is that a word?) from the liberal nazi media they would have no chance for victory.
ReplyDeleteWolves were killed off in the lower 48 for a reason. The tree huggers want it both ways.
ReplyDeleteDoves don't fly through darkness, bob. They're pigeons and as such, fly by sight.
ReplyDeleteHome By Sundown is the dove/pigeon motto.
Just sayin.
ReplyDeleteA monstrous mangling of a great metaphor, is what I say.
ReplyDeleteThe Great Henry James would have thought thought so too. The Wings of the Dove.
Take wing, O my friend.
Your friend,
Greg
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ReplyDeleteYou're thinking of Minerva.
ReplyDeleteThe Wings of the Dove--hold that thought, O Noble Lady, Nobly Born, otherwise you will be shopping at Albertson's, clipping coupons.
ReplyDeletemetaphorically speaking
ReplyDeleteWell I always like clipping coupons metaphorically speaking.
ReplyDeleteClip thy unforegivingness from thy wings, O Nobly Born, lightness is all.
ReplyDeleteI'm not joking. With 8 years of a family fight, some of the Old Masters sound damned good to me.
Alaska and Wyoming, together can put together 6 electoral votes.
ReplyDeleteThe smallest States, by population, in the Union.
Not a snowballs chance in hell of either obtaining the White House.
From Oz radio:
ReplyDeleteTONY EASTLEY: The US President Barack Obama and former vice president Dick Cheney have gone head to head in a very public slanging match over the future of Guantanamo Bay and the interrogation methods used on detainees.
...
Washington correspondent Michael Rowland reports.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: It was the heavyweight bout many in Washington had been eagerly awaiting.
BARACK OBAMA: Good morning everybody. Please be seated.
DICK CHENEY: Good morning, or perhaps good afternoon.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: In duelling speeches Barack Obama and Dick Cheney slugged it out on the best way of dealing with detainees and keeping Americans safe.
...
BARACK OBAMA: I know some have argued that brutal methods like water boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more.
...
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Mr Cheney hit back, insisting the tough interrogation techniques were effective in extracting information from those he described as "hardened terrorists".
DICK CHENEY: To call this a program of torture is to libel the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives, and to cast terrorists and murderers as innocent victims.
...
MICHAEL ROWLAND: And Mr Cheney declared he'd do it all again.
...
BARACK OBAMA: As we make these decisions, bear in mind the following fact: nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal super-max prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: Dick Cheney argues this is no guarantee at all.
DICK CHENEY: I think the President will find upon reflection that to bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come.
MICHAEL ROWLAND: In the end there were no knock-out blows, ensuring this gruelling political slug-fest will continue as the President grapples with some increasingly tricky national security challenges.Clash Over Policy
And there I was sailing around the seas of forever, cast back to earth by a desert rat.
ReplyDeleteAlas.
The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was down 12.13 points, or 1.38 percent, to 869.31. The Second Section also lost ground.
ReplyDeleteDeclines were led by real estate, iron and steel, and auto issues. Pulp and paper, foods and air transport issues were the only gainers.
The dollar fell briefly into 93 yen territory in early morning trading in Tokyo, after hitting a two-month low in New York overnight. A weak dollar erodes overseas profits for Japanese exporters, most of which set their average exchange rate assumption for this fiscal year at 95 yen.US Credit WorriesWho called that greenback drop, again?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteJudiciary Committee chairman Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said he hopes to meet with White House officials today to discuss changing Chrysler's bankruptcy plan and GM's future. Conyers did not outline what he wanted, but a nine-person panel he assembled for a hearing yesterday offered a hint.
ReplyDeleteLiberal consumer advocate Ralph Nader, a conservative Heritage Foundation analyst and minority auto dealers all criticized the automakers' restructuring.
Conyers and other committee members attacked the administration for abusing bankruptcy laws, unfairly eliminating dealerships and jeopardizing consumer safety.Steering GM Towards Bankruptcy
"Clip thy unforegivingness from thy wings..."
ReplyDeleteForgiveness is giving up hope for a better past.
In fact, F. A. Hayek, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who did more than anyone in the 20th Century to fight socialism and revive the cause of liberty, urged conservatives nearly half a century ago in his essay, "Why I Am Not a Conservative," to find another name--one that emphasizes liberty--to describe themselves. There is an inherent tension between conservatism and liberty, he pointed out, which in a "conservative" party can't reliably be resolved in favor of liberty.
ReplyDeleteConservatives of course dismiss this tension. America's institutions are built on principles of liberty, they claim, therefore defending them means defending liberty. But labels shape self-understanding--and the term conservatism shifts the emphasis from defending America because it is the land of liberty to defending liberty because it is American.
This has profound consequences for the conservative psyche, putting it fundamentally at odds with liberty whenever it threatens the conservative conception of America. It is not a coincidence that nativists who hyperventilate about immigration's effect on American language and attitudes, isolationists who fear that trade agreements will dissolve American sovereignty, culture warriors who regard gay marriage and evolution as a mortal threat to American values, and technological Luddites who rail against advances in bioengineering because they tamper with their idea of nature have all found a comfortable home within the conservative party. It is hard to imagine, say, the Freedom Party becoming a ready forum for such ideas.
Dear GOP: Please Choose Liberty
Shikha Dalmia, in Forbes.
The 19th century French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out that there are essentially two grand themes around which political life can be organized in America: equality and liberty. Democrats already have a lock on the first and so, unless Republicans want to once again become tax collectors for the welfare state, as they were from 1933 to 1980, they will have to offer something radically different.
ReplyDeleteStarting today, Shikha Dalmia, a senior analyst at Reason Foundation, will write a bi-weekly column for Forbes.
The Governor of Utah looks interesting, he won't be around in '12, as he is off to China, but the '12 GOP candidate will be a sacrifical offering, regardless.
ReplyDelete18 months form the 2010 election, there is no cohesive GOP strategy.
bob seems ill disposed to start campaigning against Walt Minnick, doug does not even want to acknowledge he has a Congressperson.
All the most obvious trends will continue in Obama's and the Dems favor, through '10. Just their ACORN funding will provide an advantage that the GOP will not be ready to counter, until after the '12 loss brings a real refocus to the GOP establishment, whom are still in denial about how badly they've been routed.
While Team Obama is still canvasing America, drumming up support, keeping in touch with the people of that historical battleground State, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, at least.
ReplyDeleteAt NRO
ReplyDeleteIt is good to see that Californians still have a strong aversion to tax increases, just as it was good to see so many people attend anti-tax tea parties across the country last month.
But we have yet to see a true revolt against the endlessly growing size and scope of the government, and we are unlikely to see such a thing until necessity compels us to start paying for the government we have.
...we are unlikely to see such a thing until necessity compels us to start paying for the government we have.
Betcha that Obama does not make the Bush mistake of ignoring the succession question. Hell, Bush prided himself, as did Mr Cheney, in not acting politically, from '04 to '08. Mr Cheney's not wanting to be President was touted as an asset. That there was no other heir apparent, no one to campaign for the Bush Administration in the last election, not even in the Primaries, a liability for US.
ReplyDeleteObviously it appears as behaviour indicating that they did not think that continuing their policies was important to their policies. That ensuring, or at least working towards a continuity of strategic policy was important.
Behaving as if their responsibilities ended when their authority did. Now, to late to matter, Mr Cheney tries to defend the Bush policies. A day late and dollar short, except as a feel good moment.
It is to late, now, to debate Gitmo and effect the decision made by President Obama to close it. A decision that both he and John McCain were in agreement on, during the campaign. So no debate as to why it was, and still may be, needed.
A strategic political error made by Team43, to ignore the issue of succession so completely, proudly, with knowledge and forethought.
So, amigos, who will be the Democratic VP candidate, in '12?
Who will become their heir apparent?
I'd settle for Freedom Loving Federalist, 'Rat.
ReplyDelete...and if DC was a reflection of the will of the VOTERS of this country, taxes and spending would not have to wait to be cut, as CA shows with their 20 percent turnout results.
ie, a majority in CA want a free lunch, but the motivated overcame all the public employee unions in a very blue state.
...but now Obama will bail out the Unions as he has done w/o exception so far.
A Mirror Image of Reagan and the Controlers.
Cheney worked for the Wuss then, 'Rat, not much he could do really.
ReplyDeleteFree man now, glad he brings light amidst the all-encompassing darkness of Dems and the MSM.
"In my long experience in Washington, few matters have inspired so much contrived indignation and phony moralizing as the interrogation methods applied to a few captured terrorists"- Darth
ReplyDeleteForgiveness is giving up hope for a better past.Excellent.
ReplyDeleteI'd never heard that before. Had to sit and think a minute.
I think that is really good.
Did you make that up, or get it from some reading?
Where'ver it came from, that is really good.
Giving up hope for a better past.
Dang, that's good.
My daughter, bob.
ReplyDeleteForgiveness is giving up hope for a better past.--
ReplyDelete-/
Dang, that is so good it should be used in a sermon.
Maybe it has been.
Trish, please, where did you get that?
(Not original to her, but I can ask if you want.)
ReplyDeleteah, thanks.
ReplyDeleteTell your daughter I said that is one of the best things I've read in years.
Tell her I mean it.
I will.
ReplyDeleteI forgive 'O' for snorting cocaine, being a member of an anti-American church, and having and anti-American bomber as a best friend.
ReplyDeleteI'm giving up hope.
“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”- Twain
ReplyDeleteSam, just give up O, not hope.
ReplyDeleteMy faith in our race has been raised a little tonight, when I received a call from the Casino saying my wallet is at the security desk.
Thank Christ.
How that fell out of my pocket I'll never know.
I did not win the camper. Alas.
What is forgiveness?
ReplyDeleteDang tough question.
Kinda rising above, and looking down and back at a situation maybe.
Forgiveness is giving up hope for a better past--
-/
That is so good it almost sounds like it might be a French adage.
You know, one of those French sayings that hits home once in a while. Once in a long while.
Maybe it's layered into a lot of folklore for all I know.
Dang, that's good, I will never forget it.
Reminds me of something that happened to my brother recently.
ReplyDeleteLeft the 4runner unlocked but backed all the way up to the garage door. Golf clubs and watch in bag. Bag gone the next day. Break-in. Stolen. Gets a call from the neighbor at the top of the hill. Found his bag underneath his motorhome. Everything still there. Relieved. Weird.
I'm sending that saying off to my friend Dale.
ReplyDeleteDamn, what an excellent thread.
ReplyDeleteSri Lanka's top diplomat in Canberra says his country is providing for Tamils displaced by the recently ended civil war and none should have to seek refugee status.
ReplyDelete...
Meanwhile, UN chief Ban Ki-moon is due in Sri Lanka today to visit camps for thousands of Tamils displaced by the civil war.
...
Victoria Forbes-Adam from a group called the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers says many children have been separated from their families and the military has a duty to protect those in the camps.Sri Lanka Doing Enough
The Bank of Japan on Friday raised its assessment of the nation's economy for the first time in two years and 10 months amid emerging signs of improvement in such areas as industrial output, signaling that the worst may be over for the world's second-largest economy.
ReplyDelete...
The BOJ has taken a series of unconventional measures to make ample funds available to cash-strapped financial institutions, and encourage them to lend more to businesses.
The BOJ aimed at supporting the slumping economy with the emergency measures, including the outright purchase of corporate bonds and commercial paper from financial institutions, as there is little room for adjusting conventional monetary policy with its key interest rate at a rock-bottom 0.1 percent.BOJ Raises Economic Assessment
Forgiveness is giving up hope for a better past----
ReplyDelete-/
Sitting here thinking about this, I put it out for general discussion, might not that be one of 'attributes of God'?
God, the forgetfull One?
Some of the theology I've read says God = The Great Memory.
ReplyDeleteWhat if God = The Great Forgetfullness?
Which is the more compassionate?
Which is the more creative?
ReplyDeleteAlways stewing about the past, or getting off your ass and doing something?
The Cheney speech contrasts remarkably with the vacuous blather of the increasingly shrinking affirmative action president. I have listened to it twice. It deserves greater exposure, but will not get it from the traitorous left.
ReplyDeleteContrast the nonsense of Obama saying that water-boarding caused increased Islamist recruitment.
You want Islamic recruitment, go to any US prison and you will find it in the form of an African-American fifth column of black muslims. that is recruitment. Bringing the terrorists from Cuba to US prisons will elevate the terrorists to rock star status. That is recruitment.
Obama, a truly un-American pretender, bright but unaccomplished in meaningful life experience except the rhetoric and dogma of the hard marxist international progressive anti-American left, contrasts with a solid pragmatic Cheney.
If you need to read the complete Obama tele-prompted drivel dive in here.
ReplyDeleteAndy McCarthy says the most effective recruitment tool is a successful mass casualty terror attack.
ReplyDeleteArtful Obama did not say enhanced interogation did not provide critical Intel, he merely contends there are better ways to get said Intel.
...no need to cite evidence, The One should never be questioned.
Latino gang accused of targeting blacks near LAHAWAIIAN GARDENS, Calif. (AP) - A Latino street gang waged a racist campaign to eliminate the city's black residents through attempted murders and other crimes, according to federal racketeering indictments unsealed Thursday.
ReplyDeleteFive indictments charged a total of 147 members and associates of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang, and federal and local agencies arrested 63 of them by early Thursday, U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O'Brien said at a news conference.
Another 35 defendants were already in custody on unrelated charges. Weapons and drugs worth more than $1 million also were seized in what O'Brien called "the largest gang takedown in United States history."
The indictments detail attempted murder, kidnapping, firearms, narcotics and other charges related to attacks by the gang, which is predominantly Latino and mainly operates in Hawaiian Gardens, a city of about 15,000 in southeastern Los Angeles County.
"(Varrio Hawaiian Gardens) gang members take pride in their racism and often refer to the VHG Gang as the `Hate Gang,'" the main indictment said. "VHG gang members have expressed a desire to rid the city of Hawaiian Gardens of all African-Americans and have engaged in a systematic effort to achieve that result by perpetrating crimes against African-Americans."
The indictment alleges a string of attacks on black residents, including a shooting into a home with eight people inside.
Largest Gang Takedown in US History Raids by about 1,400 local, state and federal law enforcement officers targeted members and associates of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang.
ReplyDeleteAuthorities charge 147 members and associates in a massive racketeering case with racially motivated attacks designed to drive African Americans out of Hawaiian Gardens.
Federal authorities Thursday accused a south Los Angeles County street gang of a litany of crimes, including the murder of a sheriff's deputy and racially motivated attacks designed to drive African Americans from their town.
The charges, part of a massive racketeering case dubbed Operation Knock Out, were outlined in several indictments charging 147 members and associates of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang with murder, attempted murder, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and witness intimidation.
Federal agent John Torres Gang territoryThe gang, also known as VHG, is so pervasive in Hawaiian Gardens that one in 15 people living in the square-mile city just north of Long Beach has ties to it, said Sal Hernandez, the FBI's top agent in Los Angeles.
"VHG gang members have expressed a desire to rid the city of Hawaiian Gardens of all African Americans and have engaged in a systematic effort to achieve that result by perpetrating crimes" against them, the document states.
Tiananmen Now Seems Distant to China’s StudentsDisinclined to protest, students also lack the economic grievances that motivated their predecessors in 1989.
ReplyDeleteAnd if a student today proposed a pro-democracy protest?
“People would think he was insane,” said one Peking University history major in a recent interview. “You know where the line is drawn. You can think, maybe talk, think about the events of 1989. You just cannot do something that will have any public influence. Everybody knows that.”
Most students also appear to accept it. For 20 years, China’s government has made it abundantly clear that students and professors should stick to the books and stay out of the streets. Students today describe 1989 as almost a historical blip, a moment too extreme and traumatic ever to repeat.
But whether democracy still inspires them is a more complex question.
I do not think that, as our host said in the update, that Cheney nailed the skinny ass of the President to the wall, but even if he did, what of it?
ReplyDeleteAs a private ciizen Mr Cheney is unhappy with the President, just as AlGore was unhappy with GW Bush, and nailed Mr Bush to the wall, in 2002 and 2003.
To no short term posituve effect. It taking another 4 to 6 years for the public's rejection of the policies of Bush/Cheney, to be felt decisively, in an election.
2014 at the soonest, if the GOP has developed a strategy, other than being a more effective tax collector for the welfare States, by then.
Savor the thunpin', if a thumping it was, because Obama is the President, he decides who won, the Obama/Cheney debate.
The policies of the US, they are not Cheney's to chart. He lost, failing to effect the current captain of the Ship of State.
Here's to hoping the six stars over Afghanistan does the trick.
We've gone from Team43, the Team that could not find a message, let alone manage it, to Team Obama, who not only manages the message, they create it.
ReplyDeleteAs reported by the ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper.
Against this juggernaught the best that can be fielded is the retired Congressman from WY?
We're well and truly fucked
It has taken the Law Enforcement community of LA well over a year to come to terms with this Mexican gang that doug refers too.
ReplyDeleteWell over a year of carnage and death. In South LA.
Of course Anbar and Gitmo are still the premier policy priorities.
Support for Obama may be a mile wide, but it is inches thick.
ReplyDeleteCheney has done a service for the US in getting the thought planted in the public mind that Obama for reasons of doctrine is playing fast and loose with facts and American security, and that is exactly what Obama is doing.
Obama now owns any breech of security. He has foolishly exposed himself to a secular problem that if it occurs will have it with his brand stamped all over it.
That is neither smart nor the sign of a strategic thinker.
Remembering that 3 years after the Dems first beat the GOP, the anti-war policies that propelled the Dems to power, still have not been implemented.
ReplyDeleteTeam Obama still following the course charted by Team43 in Iraq, using the same crew.
So even if, in 2016, the Dems were to suffer the loss of the White House, the programs they will have established, will live on, forever.
I do not see a 2012 Democratic lock on the White House.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to say, duece, that the only minds that Mr Cheney has planted a seed in, that the President for "... reasons of doctrine is playing fast and loose with facts and American security..." is the terrorists'.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid you misjudged Obama's support in 2008, you do so now, too.
I'm here in the Heartland of the GOP, where "Maverick" McCain won the day, in November of 2008, there are more and more Obama bumper stickers to be seen, each day. Not less.
Never seen such a thing, before.
You did not see Obama taking PA, either.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP has no candidate that can unite their disparate factions. Certainly not Mitt Romney, who was less popular the McCain, last go-round.
There is no one 'new" and the old team has no bench.
McCain was the worst operational candidate for president since Mike Dukakis. Obama lanced the racial boil and a significant part of that support can move on since they have experienced racial redemption.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP now being represented by Mr Cheney and Newt.
ReplyDeleteOld war horses that are well past their electoral prime.
The GOP is not ready for prime time, won't be by 2012, either.
Evidenced by their lack of leadership, now.
McCain beat every other GOP contender. He was the best of their lot. As decided in SC and FL.
ReplyDeleteSad commentary, but true.
Mr Bush abdicated on succession, the results of that decision are clearly evident.
ReplyDeleteRather than find the ONE to beat Obama...
ReplyDeleteTalk of the pattern of cover up about obama...
release the birth certificate...
release the college records....
dont jam budget thru without showing the public...
release the waterboarding INTEL that showed how many terrorists were captured...
time to destroy the slick liar's lies...
I just gave Deuce credit for your Tapper link, 'Rat:
ReplyDeleteMust be bedtime.
Tapper produces more decent product than the rest of them combined.
Bristol confirms the wisdom of BHO not wanting to have his daughters
ReplyDelete"Punished with a Child".
-
Lordy, lordy.
Poor Bristol Palin, who literally brings tears to my eyes if I allow myself to think about her for too long, is on the cover of the new People magazine. She’s there with a big smile, and her new baby, and her sad eyes, and a quotation — “If girls realized the consequences of sex, nobody would be having sex. Trust me. Nobody.” — that is now making the laugh rounds and mercifully bringing the Meghan McCain snark cycle to an end.
The public prominence of Bristol Palin, Meghan McCain’s erstwhile opponent in the young Republican sex wars, raises the same problem for me: What is this 18-year-old, who recently became a “teen ambassador” promoting abstinence for the Candie’s Foundation, doing speaking out on anything?
By what perverse excesses of opportunity are these far-from-ready-for-prime-time young women being empowered to embarrass themselves on the national stage?
Golden (State) Opportunity California voters sent a blunt but welcome message Tuesday about runaway government. By rejecting by nearly two-to-one the political establishment's $16 billion in higher taxes, spending gimmickry and more borrowing, the voters said it's time government faced the same spending limits that the recession is imposing on everyone else.
ReplyDeleteTeachers unions, business leaders and the politicians outspent initiative opponents by six-to-one, and they still lost. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had warned that if these initiatives were voted down, government services would have to be slashed, criminals released early and public employees furloughed. But voters decided that as painful as these cuts may be, the alternative of letting the state's tax-and-spend machine continue was worse. How right they are.
The response so far from Sacramento is typically short-sighted. Mr. Schwarzenegger, legislators and public-worker unions are now conspiring to roll out plan B: a federal bailout. The Governor was in Washington on Tuesday and, sounding like a Detroit auto executive, declared: "We need assistance." As a starter he wants a federal guarantee on California's next $6 billion bond offering.
But a federal bailout is an injustice to the residents of other states, especially those that run their governments responsibly...
This must be that
ReplyDelete-
"Small Govt Lie"
that Trish says I'm a victim of:
Tuesday's vote was a voter cry that the state needs more such restraints, and now is the time to push them. First, California needs a sturdy cap on the rate of spending growth. Thirty years ago this November, when California's economy was in a similar rut, three-quarters of the voters approved the famous
Gann Amendment. That limited the annual growth rate of spending to population growth and inflation.
The result was that California's annual average rate of spending growth after inflation fell to 2% through the 1980s from 9% in the 1970s.
California's state per-capita expenditures fell to 16th in the nation in 1990 from 7th in 1979.
The economy soared, growing by 121% -- 14% faster than the U.S. average.
The Gann limits were effectively neutered in 1988 and 1990 by initiatives that exempted education and transportation from the cap.
Support for Obama may be a mile wide, but it is inches thick.--
ReplyDelete-/
That's the feeling I get. A mile wide, inches thick.
I get the feeling we've got a juggler for President.
Sooner or later, the pins are not in the air, but bouncing on the floor.
How Honest Joe Wrecked the Judicial Confirmation Process.-
ReplyDeleteBy the time Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearings came around, Mr. Biden's modus operandi was well known. In his book, "My Grandfather's Son," Justice Thomas recalls that before the Anita Hill inquisition began, Mr. Biden called him and said "Judge, I know you don't believe me but if the allegations come up I will be your biggest defender." "He was right about one thing," Justice Thomas wrote, "I didn't believe him."
"He was right about one thing," Justice Thomas wrote,
ReplyDelete"I didn't believe him."
Gotta Love Clarence
Joe even had his own hair, and his stroked out brain had yet to be botoxed.
ReplyDeleteAbout that secret bedroom, Joe...
AT WAR: OBAMA VS. CHENEY-
ReplyDelete• THE EDITORS: Obama Wants You to Know that Nothing Is Ever His Fault
• ROMNEY: Two Speeches, Two Very Different Men
• McCARTHY: Obama’s 9/10 Mindset Tries to Come to Grips with 9/11 Reality
• HEGSETH: Obama the Juggler vs. Cheney the Grown Up
• PERINO: A Fake Duel
• NORDLINGER: A Few Criticisms of Obama
• GERAGHTY: Cheney Had the Easier Case to Make
• LEVIN: Obama Mixes Arrogance and Naiveté
• RUBIN: Obama's Defensiveness
In the Spirit of Spider-Man, the Border Patrol Casts Its Web - With drug-related violence on the rise in Mexico, there has been a lot of talk lately about putting more boots on the ground at the border.
ReplyDeleteAnh Duong has different advice: Try Squid.
Ms. Duong directs a small unit in the Department of Homeland Security charged with adding a little whiz-bang wonder to the drudgery of desert patrols and vehicle checkpoints.
Her engineers scour the nation to find crazy-yet-promising concepts -- like the Safe Quick Undercarriage Immobilization Device, or Squid -- then team up with private entrepreneurs to turn them into working prototypes. They're not ashamed to admit that they draw inspiration from comic-book superheroes and science-fiction novels as they dream up the gizmos and gadgets they hope will keep bad guys at bay.
The Squid is designed to stop a car by using 'tentacles' to foul its drive train.
The Squid, a lightweight disc about the size of a manhole cover, lies on the road and ejects rubbery tentacles on command to ensnare fleeing vehicles and drag them to a stop.
MartÃn MartÃnez came up with the idea one evening in late 2005, over beers. Several beers. "Light up a nice El Rey del Mundo cigar, start pouring Guinness, and you can get pretty creative," he explains. He had been watching a car chase on TV, thinking, "I could find a way to stop that guy." He still has the napkin with his squid scrawls.
Mr. MartÃnez, who is 48 years old, runs a small engineering shop, Engineering Science Analysis Corp., from his home in Tempe, Ariz., so he hardly expected his riff on Spider-Man's web to get serious attention from Homeland Security. But as it happened, the government had just put out a call for ideas on stopping "uncooperative vehicles...using nonlethal methods." Mr. MartÃnez sent in his sketches. Among 29 entries, the Squid stood out -- and Mr. MartÃnez found himself with $850,000 in grant money, a team of federal advisers and a chance to bring his invention to life.
The Puke RayOfficially, it's a Light Emitting Diode Incapacitator, or LEDI, and no, it doesn't always make its targets vomit. But it does disorient them -- and can cause nausea -- with a strobe light that flashes in a pattern and spectrum the brain simply cannot process.
ReplyDeleteIt's the best way to secure the U.S. border with Mexico? "It's extremely uncomfortable," says Bob Lieberman, president of Intelligent Optical Systems Inc., the Torrance, Calif., firm that developed the device with grants and advice from Homeland Security.
Resembling a large flashlight, the LEDI works, night or day, at a range of up to 25 feet and is designed to make a belligerent suspect close his eyes just long enough for authorities to get the advantage. It will be field-tested this year by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
The puke ray and other gizmos-in-development are on display this week at a Homeland Security technology conference in Washington. Science-fiction author Greg Bear is hosting the event. On Monday, he and other writers led a workshop: "Science Fiction in the National Interest."
Ms. Duong says she counts on the futurists to help her team imagine the impossible.
heh, I was just writing a formal letter to Dear City Planner (which I will mail today after letting it cool a bit, and checking it over, as the sane do) sticking the fire stick up his ass (in very polite language) requesting that he put in writing the reason(s) why he is insisting I connect to the fellow next door who has 30 acres of R-4, when I was denied that same zoning on the basis of traffic flows.
ReplyDeleteHe's got a problem here, and he knows it.
heh, then he calls and the upshot is we go ahead on the first third of the project. I've agreed to that. So he has in effect backed down. This gives him time to put his car in reverse on the other, or maybe, head to the call of Alaska, as our last City Planner did.
Wasilla, the last frontier for City Planners!
FIGHT BACK
Kill a wolf, keep grandma safe
Kind bosses that I have, they are letting us out of work early to avoid the holiday traffic here in the People's Republik of Massachusetts. I just wanted to wish you all a good Memorial Day weekend. I will return to my lurking post on Tuesday, God willing.
ReplyDeleteGod be with you, and peace also.
ReplyDeleteIn my pursuit of supporting the American Way I have acquired my 1st shotgun...
ReplyDeleteMADE IN AMERICA
12 gauge Mossberg Persuader
Awesome. Just a freakin awesome speech.
ReplyDeleteBTW, one of the reasons mentioned for opposing the US torture of captured scum is that the US had prided itself on its moral superiority, and torture was a huge blemish on its record.
That led me to start thinking: who in the US ever used that kind of stupid language? Looking at you guys, I'm pretty sure moral superiority was just about the last thing you'd be worried about when survival's at stake.
Who the heck started this image of the US being some kind of morally endowed and empowered juggernaut who had to conform to every stupid restriction in the name of human rights and whatnot?!?
Torture has value? Why not use it at home?
ReplyDeleteThe US, did, wobbly.
ReplyDeleteMr Reagan took torture at face value, not understanding the nuances of language that Mr Cheney and George W. would require to keep the US terror free.
He believed the US was a shining city on a hill, and codified that belief, in the Law.
Team43 saw US in an existental battle with border bandits from the ISI training grounds in Afghanistan.
Playing right into part of the Alinsky Program.
The loyal opposition read the "Rules" then demanded that they are followed and lived up to.
It is a totally American thing.
the 4 terrorists arrested for planting bombs in nyc?
ReplyDeletewater board for fun and play...
then quarter them...
then stitch them in a pig's skin and feed them to catfish
One of the things I like about WiO is there ain't do doubt where he stands.
ReplyDeleteUnlike, say, our City Planner here in Moscow, Idaho, who struggles to get a straight sentence out of his mouth, and we end up doing things by thirds.
heh :)
I wish Mat were still around, and I wish I could put up the layout for you folks to look at.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to get a little input from some folks other than the community organizing folk, like th 'city planner'.
What is a 'city planner'?
And where in hell did he get his degree, if he has one, and what was he taught, and by whom, exactly?
And why is his ass in my face in the first place?
Do we really need a 'city planner' at all?
I've learned, the market plans.
Does he know something that I don't know? That my engineer Jack H and myself don't know?
Why do we have a 'planning and zoning commission'?
And, who are they?
The only requirement is you got to have been here for a few weeks, then, wander in off the street, put your name on the list.
Why is it mandated that I have to host two 'neighborhood meetings' hosted at ol' bobs expense, to visit, shit and moan about all this stuff?
Everybody hates developers.
I've been called a greedy 'out of town' developer by some of these assholes on 20/20, a local blog, where anyone can spout off about anything, knowledge unrequired, where everyman is a king.
All the while drinking the good cool clean water dad provided for the city 50 years ago.
Water that is 20,000 years old, seeping under.
I laugh and cry both.
How anything ever gets done is not for me to say, the Lord and the drift of the stars seem regnant.
My aunt may have been right--
'
Bob, vhat ve need iisss a Good KING'.
This thought drifts through my brain:
ReplyDeleteDread ASH should be on the planning and zoning commission.
A PERFECT SPOT FOR ASH.
No experience, no knowledge, no history necessary.
Just walk in off the strreet, tanned and fit, with an attitude.
Just like ASH wants to rework the medical system, tell us what we must do, never having himself gone to medical school, like, say, my better brother.
When did actually 'knowing something' ever get in the way of Dread Ash?
very entertaining, Bob...I needed it. thank you.
ReplyDeleteI'm not happy with the mossberg...
ReplyDeleteonly holds 3 shells...
back to the store tomorrow
Take the plug out, WiO.
ReplyDeleteEvery shotgun I've ever bought had that plug in.
I'm betting that one does too.
Mossberg 500--
ReplyDelete-/
I'm betting that if you bought the pump, you will find you can take the plug out and put about 7 or 8 shells in there.
Rat, you opinion, please, you know guns better than I.
ReplyDeleteMy old Ithaca 20 guage holds seven, after taking the plug out. Counting the one in the chamber.
ReplyDeleteThe worst shotgun I ever knew about was dad's old Browning 12 gauge automatic.
ReplyDeleteBig, heavy sucker that f####d up every time, trying to eject those shells.
He finally said the hell with it and got rid of it.
Right on. (I hate that affected Britishism,"spot-on")--
ReplyDelete-/
Right on. I can't stand it when they say, he went to hospital--
-.
He went to the hospital, dammit.
thanks all..
ReplyDeletei found this
If your friend wants to just remove the restiction plug on the 500 he can just remove the barrel and point the rest at the ground and jiggle . The plug is a small piece of wooden dowel that will come out the threaded hole on the forward end of the magazine tube.
If he want to remove the magazine tube , they are screwed into the reciever - right hand threads. Some require a strap wrench or simular to break loose if they are tight.
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yep i will work on it tomorrow!
You might be in violation of some Fish and Game regs, if Ohio is like Idaho.
ReplyDeleteSays in the book, on ducks and geese, upland game birds too I think, ONLY SHOTGUNS WITH THREE SHELLS, or some such nonsense.
Never paid any attention to it, myself.
You might, technically, be in violation of something or other.