Saturday, March 31, 2012

Sunday funnies

Several years ago, Conan O'Brien had this schtick in which he insulted other countries to see if any of their citizens were watching his show (he had done a bit on Ukraine, and was suprised to see how many postcards he got from people in Ukraine). This is a more or less definitive list of O'Brien's jabs. A handful of my favorites:

Algeria - It took you eight years to beat France.

Burundi - All that coffee in a country with no reason to wake up.

Estonia - Home of the European flying squirrel, the only Estonian mammal that's not an alcoholic.

Finland - You've had over 5,000 years of culture, and the world's most famous Finn is still Huckleberry.

Georgia - Where Europe meets Asia and says "Hey, why don't we both dump our crap here?"

Vietnam - Come and reunite your sneakers with the eight-year-olds who made them.

(H/T: Ace of Spades)

* * * * * * * * * * *

Ah, so that's what it's for!

Escalate we much

If Al Sharpton starts another race riot, I hope he's the first one killed in it.

Ok, now I'm starting to panic

"Could the Appetite For Chocolate Exceed the World's Supply?"

Friday, March 30, 2012

Classy network ya got there, Al

"Keith Olbermann fired from Current TV, replaced by Eliot Spitzer"
In 2011, Olbermann left MSNBC for Current, but apparently things weren't going so smoothly. Current founders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt released a statement that reads:

We created Current to give voice to those Americans who refuse to rely on corporate-controlled media and are seeking an authentic progressive outlet. We are more committed to those goals today than ever before.

Current was also founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it.

We are moving ahead by honoring Current's values.
And those values are reflected by...Eliot Spitzer?

Now we’re talkin’ real money

The MegaMillions lottery is up to $640 million. While that trifling sum might not interest a titan of industry like J. Packington Paco III, I do believe I could scrape by on it for the foreseeable future (even after taxes). For the first time in many years, I have actually purchased some tickets. If I win, I think I’ll rush out and buy those chrome-plated screw-caps for the air valves on the tires of my ageing Chevy Suburban that I’ve always wanted. Or is that too utterly profligate?

Related: Most unconvincing news item of the day (if not in history).

Like shooting spitballs at a battleship

Rush Limbaugh’s ratings are higher than ever.

Keep up the good work, Media Matters!

Ein Volt, ein Thermostat, ein Warmenführer

Glowball warmists propose a new master race.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Happy Feet Friday

Jerry Wald and his orchestra with “Mad About Him Blues”.

Maybe a tad premature

The IRS wants to spend over $300 million to enforce ObamaCare.

You just might want to hold off on that, guys.

Related: Bill Clinton’s genius of a Supreme Court nominee, Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, was apparently talking in his sleep during oral arguments on Tuesday (no, really, please; somebody tell me he wasn’t actually conscious).
I look back into history, and I think if we look back into history we see sometimes Congress can create commerce out of nothing. That's the national bank, which was created out of nothing to create other commerce out of nothing. I look back into history, and I see it seems pretty clear that if there are substantial effects on interstate commerce, Congress can act.

And I look at the person who's growing marijuana in her house, or I look at the farmer who is growing the wheat for home consumption. This seems to have more substantial effects.
Ummm’y-e-s…yes, indeed. That’s some prime, lawyerly eloquence, there, your honor. And the thought behind it? Deep. Mighty deep.

Quick question, judge, about that woman who’s “growing marijuana in her house”: this wouldn’t be a neighbor, would it? If it is, you haven’t…you know…dropped by lately, have you?

That’s not a yacht…

THAT’s a yacht.

ObamaCare Comics!

Courtesy of Jim Treacher.

Obama's budget, er, narrowly defeated

It only lost by 414 votes.
President Obama's budget was defeated 414-0 in the House late Wednesday, in a vote Republicans arranged to try to embarrass him and shelve his plan for the rest of the year.

The vote came as the House worked its way through its own fiscal year 2013 budget proposal, written by Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan. Republicans wrote an amendment that contained Mr. Obama's budget and offered it on the floor, daring Democrats to back the plan, which calls for major tax increases and yet still adds trillions of dollars to the deficit over the next decade.

"It’s not a charade. It’s not a gimmick — unless what the president sent us is the same," said Rep. Mick Mulvaney, a freshman Republican from South Carolina who sponsored Mr. Obama's proposal for purposes of the debate. "I would encourage the Democrats to embrace this landmark Democrat document and support it. Personally, I will be voting against it."

Mark Levin: National Treasure

Doug Ross has the epilogue to Levin's new book, Ameritopia. Timely and important.

In case you were wondering about Liechtenstein's military history

"In Liechtenstein’s last military engagement in 1866, none of the 80 soldiers sent were injured, and that in fact 81 returned, including a new Italian 'friend'".

That's what I call peacekeeping!

If you like mantyhose...

...you'll love stiletto heels for men.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Another Hero of TSA

"TSA Manager Arrested for Running Prostitution Ring".

Best wishes

The estimable Mr. Bingley recently went under the knife, displaying his customary stoical fortitude.

Get well soon, old top. There are few enough of your stamp in this time of need.

Casanova was a cad

But a far more learned and interesting one than contemporary specimens (compare and contrast with Bill Clinton and John Edwards).
[Casanova’s] memoir teems with fantastic characters and incidents, most of which historians have been able to verify. Apart from the more than 120 notorious love affairs with countesses, milkmaids and nuns, which take up about a third of the book, the memoir includes escapes, duels, swindles, stagecoach journeys, arrests and meetings with royals, gamblers and mountebanks. “It’s the West’s Thousand and One Nights,” declared Madame Prévost.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Anybody know Spike Lee's address?

Maybe somebody ought to write to him and tell him about his mistake.

Filmmaker Spike Lee, in an apparent attempt to recapture his social relevance, thought it would be a good idea to tweet George Zimmerman's home address. One small problem: the address he tweeted is for a property owned by an elderly couple who have no connection with Zimmerman.


So, just exactly who is the dumbass vigilante?

In related news, I’ve been cast as Catherine the Great in George Lucas’ new flick, Czar Wars

That would make only slightly less sense (but would be considerably more tasteful) than casting Jane Fonda as Nancy Reagan.

The Not-So-Great generation

The Obama reelection campaign, once again displaying the overarching chutzpah that serves in lieu of genuine accomplishment, has christened Obama’s supporters, “Gen44”. So, all you true socialist believers, liberal dreamers, cli-fi enthusiasts, race-firsters, anti-constitutionalists, hard-wired Democrats and just plain, uninformed nincompoops who turned an obscure senate backbencher into the 44th president of the United States now have your own very special category. No doubt, a few years from now, when we’re pushing our wheel-barrows full of currency to the Government Grocery to purchase a loaf of moldy bread, while entertaining the futile hope that the Government Hardware store next door may have finally acquired a few rolls of tar paper that we can buy to waterproof our wretched little shanties, the membership of that formerly august order will have dwindled down to a paltry few, possessing less influence than, say, the Rosicrucians or the Daughters of the Confederacy – at which point, the rest of us may take a stab at starting the long march back to public sanity.

Yale professor denounces Che statue in Galway

Carlos Eire writes an impassioned letter (which went unpublished by the Irish Times, but was picked up by the Galway Advertiser). A sample:
To praise Che, one must overlook mountains of evidence concerning his crimes. But why would anyone do that, willingly? Because some people — especially those who see all of history as nothing but class struggle — need a saint to venerate, someone who they think embodies the cause of the downtrodden. Ironically, though most Che lovers tend not to admit it, they act very much like religious zealots: As they prefer to see it, Che was a saintly crusader for the poor, so everything he did must have been good, and anyone harmed by him must have deserved it. So what if he killed Cubans willy-nilly, without trials, including plenty of poor peasants? Or helped establish one of the most repressive regimes on earth? Or built concentration camps for dissidents and gays, including one with a sign over the front gate that read “Work will make real men out of you”? It’s what needed to be done. It was just. And in this warped religious view of Che the idol, and of politics in general, we who call that false history into question are worse than heretics. We are the unjust cretins who still deserve to be killed by the likes of Che.
Update: Professor Eire gets some hate mail.

Contrary to the tenets of liberalism, not every change is irreversible

Ed Driscoll has written a wonderful short essay on the liberal lie that not being able to go back means you can’t go forward differently, either.
No wonder the MSM and the left (but I repeat myself) wadded their panties into such a tight bunch when the Tea Party emerged — they know better than anyone that while it’s not easy, how entirely possible it is to reshape society and how fragile their own hold on power could ultimately be.

Hey, Barry, care to comment on this one?

Suspect arrested for the murder of a University of Mississippi student.

Update: Yeah, this looks like justice.

Sweet!

Chocolate can help you lose weight.

Monday, March 26, 2012

He sure will

Have more flexibility, that is. If things turn out the way I want them to in the upcoming election, Obama will have the whole rest of his life to do whatever he wants to do: practice law, host a radio talk show, create a line of organic food products, start up a solar panel manufacturing concern, while away the hours in the executive offices of some non-profit foundation named after himself, take up permanent residence in France. He can be anything he wants to be: just not president of the United States anymore. Here’s to Obama having the maximum amount of flexibility come November!

BTW, here’s the relevant exchange between Obama and Russian President Medvedev from the article linked above:
President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.
I will transmit this information to Vladimir. Weird. Comes across as something out of a Le Carré novel. Kind of makes Medvedev look like Obama’s…handler, doesn’t it?

Elsewhere: Gee, it’s like birds of a feather or something.

They told me if I voted for John McCain…

…that we’d see an increase in militia activity, and they were right!
Black Panthers offer $10,000 bounty to catch Trayvon killer

Group also hopes to form militia as racial tension soars after killing of black teenager in Florida
Plus: the curious appearance in press reports of a new ethnic sub-group – the “white Hispanic”.

ObamaCare on the docket

The Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments this week on the single gravest internal threat to individual liberty that I have seen in my lifetime: the now notorious piece of legislation generally referred to as ObamaCare. National Review Online has a good rundown on the constitutional issues.

It is a good time, perhaps, to recollect that a Supreme Court ruling is not like a law of physics: we are not inextricably bound by a SCOTUS interpretation of the Constitution in anything like the same way that we are subject to the law of gravity. If the justices do not overthrow ObamaCare – or the main props without which it would collapse of its own weight – then a conservative congress may toss out the legislation, or refuse to fund its implementation. With respect to the greater danger – that the SCOTUS may interpret the Commerce Clause or other parts of the Constitution in such a way as to effectively rewrite both the document and the traditional relationship between the American citizen and the government - there is always the path of a constitutional convention open to us for crystalizing the concept of liberty and stripping the offending clauses of their capacity for being abused by the state. I’m sure there are other alternative strategies, as well, that may ultimately come under consideration in proportion to the failure of our elected representatives to halt and reverse our country’s march toward socialism. We shall see in the fullness of time.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Monday movie

Really, you shouldn’t mess around with Gort.



But if you can’t avoid him, be sure to remember the magic words.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Finis?

Can America stop short of the cliff edge? Mark Steyn is not optimistic.
But these comparisons tend to understate the insolvency of America, failing as they do to take into account state and municipal debts and public pension liabilities. When Morgan Stanley ran those numbers in 2009, the debt-to-revenue ratio in Greece was 312 percent; in the United States it was 358 percent. If Greece has been knocking back the ouzo, we’re face down in the vat. Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute calculates that, if you take into account unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare versus their European equivalents, Greece owes 875 percent of GDP; the United States owes 911 percent — or getting on for twice as much as the second-most-insolvent Continental: France at 549 percent.

"Pull her by the ears"

One of the disciplinary options recommended to husbands for their wives in this book.

Sunday funnies

The Caped Crusader gets pulled over by police in Maryland.

Brake problem.

Humor at the molecular level.

Assortment

Secret witness in the Martin shooting?

The New Black Panther Party isn’t waiting for the results of the investigation. Update - Correction: that would be the the New Black Pussies.

Chapter 417 in that long-running series, “Obama doesn’t know what he’s talking about”.

Jeff Goldstein underscores some of the important work being done by Mark Levin and the Landmark Legal Foundation in combating Obamunism.

Bill Frezza reveals the real problem with Goldman Sachs: “No, Goldman Sachs is not a law breaker. With all the former executives and cronies it has parachuted into the halls of government and all the money it showers on politicians running for office, it is actually a law maker. And that is the problem.”

Dolph Lundgren (one of Rocky Balboa’s foes) hates socialism.

Are you willing to risk jail in the fight against Democrat-sponsored socialism? It may come to that.

The all-seeing Eye Of Polyphemus takes a look at some Sci-Fi girls.

Friends of Carbon Dioxide weighs in on the latest in global warming.

Randy G: “Mr. President, what about Solyndra?”
Obama: Who?

Down under, the Labor Party is getting thrashed in Queensland elections (H/T: Captain Heinrich). Much more from Tim Blair.

Elsewhere in Australia, Steve at the Pub reports on a race hate crime.

Good question at Et Cetera.

Advice to lefties

The best way to get rid of Rush Limbaugh is to stop lying.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Hope and Stupid

It's all in how you look at it.

Jon Corzine confuses "mine and thine"

Sticky fingers covers an overdraft.
Jon Corzine inappropriately ordered the removal of $200 million from customer funds while serving as the head of MF Global, according to a memo released Friday by a House Financial Services subcommittee - a finding that appears to contradict the former New Jersey governor’s congressional testimony.

Why do you like Obama Care?

Conservatives (including Iowahawk) take over #ILikeObamaCare.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Haw!


H/T: Moonbattery

Well, now, there's an interesting headline

"Fluorescent Millipedes Discovered on Alcatraz".

It gets better:
In an odd twist, the creatures were discovered during a nighttime rat census.

Happy Feet Friday

Jack Teagarden was such a fabulous trombone player, he didn’t even need the “bell”. Watch, and listen, to him play some low-down blues with just the slide and a mouthpiece.

That and absolutely no more?

I got a spamvertisement today in my personal email advising me of an opportunity to make “up to $603.98/day”. I guess the odd dollar amount and change were intended to convince me that the deal was legit. FAIL (Anthony Morrison – “If,” the judge cocked a cynical eyebrow at the defendant, “that is your real name, which this court is seriously disposed to doubt” - should have just said up to $600 even; then he would have had me).

We are governed by these fools

Nancy Pelosi believes the Declaration of Independence supports Obama Care.

It’s not just the stupidity, but the sheer hypocrisy that I find maddening. As a member of the undead, Pelosi doesn’t need health care, and there’s probably some provision buried in the law that exempts zombies from the coverage mandate.

From the Iowahawk archives

"Why I am a Democrat".
I am a Democrat because I believe in helping those in need. All of us, you and I, have an obligation to those less fortunate. You go first, okay? I'm a little short this week.
H/T: Doug Ross

Time to wander around in a fog, wondering what the motive was

Mark Steyn ponders the recent murder of the French rabbi and three children in Toulouse by, as we now know, a Muslim extremist.
What’s left of Jewish life in Europe is being extinguished remorselessly, one vandalized cemetery, one subway attack at a time. How many Jewish children will be at that school in Toulouse a decade hence? A society that becomes more Muslim eventually becomes less everything else. What is happening on the Continent is tragic, in part because it was entirely unnecessary.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Welcome to the Cankles and Tent Pants International Airport

“Little Rock renames airport to honor Bill and Hillary Clinton”.

I hear they’re going to put up a statue, too: a bronze group featuring Bill Clinton taking cover behind Monica Lewinsky, while Hillary prepares to pitch an ashtray. Class.

The “weirdness” of Rick Santorum

Mark Steyn explains Rick.
Let's take it as read that Rick Santorum is weird. After all, he believes in the sanctity of life, the primacy of the family, the traditional socio-religious understanding of a transcendent purpose to human existence. Once upon a time, back in the mists of, ooh, the mid–20th century, all these things were, if not entirely universal, sufficiently mainstream as to be barely worthy of discussion. Now they're not. Isn't the fact that conventional morality is now "weird" itself deeply weird? The instant weirdification of ideas taken for granted for millennia is surely mega-weird — unless you think that our generation is possessed of wisdom unique to human history. In which case, why are we broke?

Biden has been using WD-40 on his larynx again

The VP talks about lubrication.

I wonder, though, if the Caller is right in referring to this as a dirty joke. “Lubrication” can also mean drinking, particularly alcoholic beverages, so, since the speech was an introduction for the Irish prime minister, maybe it was just an abysmally inappropriate ethnic joke.

Blogging may be light today

I want to work on getting out some job applications.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

National treasure

I wish he were running for president, but Rep. Paul Ryan is a tremendous asset to the cause of fiscal sanity wherever he serves.


Best congressman in the last 500 years!

Drool, Britannia

Is it possible that Prime Minister David Cameron is an even bigger suck-up than I thought he was?

Why, yes, yes it is.
British Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday revealed he was "tucked up in bed" by US President Barack Obama during the pair's recent trip on Air Force One.
Hope you held out for the warm milk and bedtime story, Dave. And did he check under your bed for Republicans?

Food Fascist

In his own special way, Michael Bloomberg is one of the worst public officials in the country.

Elsewhere, Smitty celebrates one of the best, and certainly the coolest: Thad McCotter.

I’m afraid this is the only way I’ll ever get to ride a Harley

"A German motorcyclist aims to help fellow enthusiasts arrive at their final resting place in style - in a sidecar hearse fitted to a Harley."

“May Hell’s Angels waft Brother Paco to his eternal reward.”

President Tin Ear

Note: I wrote the post below last night, put it up, took it down, and am now putting it up again, with the updates that I also wrote last night. Because the story kept getting scrubbed (see updates), I initially thought that maybe the disclosure of the vacation trip represented a mistake on the part of the White House communications people, and that perhaps this isn't the kind of thing one should draw attention to, for security purposes; after all, why else would everybody, including Drudge, be taking the piece down? However, the original story has now been swamped by one far more interesting: why did the story disappear so rapidly, without explanation, from so many different news outlets? And if security really is a concern, why would the Obamas let one of their children go to Mexico in the first place? Oaxaca is not one of the places subject to a State Department travel advisory, but still - it's MEXICO, dude! Possibly the story isn't true at all; at least one person noted that Malia's school doesn't let out for spring break until next week. But then why flush it, without explanation, down the memory hole rather than formally retract it?

President Obama has been consistently criticized for his family's frequent and expensive vacations in a time of considerable economic woe; to me, that's only mildly interesting. The employment of 25 Secret Service personnel for this trip, however, is, in my opinion, newsworthy - as is the scrubbing of the story from the web.


The President’s been banging the drum for exports lately, but in exporting one of his daughters to Mexico, he may have gone too far.
Barack Obama’s eldest daughter is spending her spring break in the historic Mexican city of Oaxaca in the company of 12 friends – and 25 Secret Service agents.
Maybe I’m behind the times, but it used to be that, when you talked about “students” and “spring break”, you’d be talking about college students (ok, maybe high school students, too). Since when do 13-year-olds go to Mexico on spring break? Perhaps more to the point, with a bad economy, high unemployment, an anemic recovery, trillion-dollar deficits, is it good optics for the president to send yet another member of his family on an expensive vacation? With 12 friends and 25 freakin’ Secret Service agents?

Oh, and I’m sure this is just one of those crazy things: this story was one of the lead items on Yahoo News earlier today, and when you clicked on the link, you got the story about Malia’s trip to Mexico; however, very shortly after the story appeared, when you clicked on the link, it took you to an absolutely un-newsworthy story about a singer in Senegal taking part in local (Senegalese) politics. Now the headline has disappeared altogether, and the story isn’t listed in the expanded list of today’s headlines.

Update: Here's another coincidence; the Huffington Post piece that I had originally linked has also vanished. The headline still comes up when you Google "Obama's daughter", but the link just leads to HP's home page.

Update II: The link in the main post above is to a post at Pat Dollard's blog; he provides a link to the original story in the Telegraph, and if you hit that link, you now get a 404.

Update III: Why, the whole thing is an internet phenomenon! The Tatler has more.

Update IV: The Daily Caller has picked up on both the vacation and the vigorous internet scrubbing.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Memo to those who think they can simply rent their souls to the devil

Stacy McCain assesses the true state of play in modern American politics:
Anyone who thinks today’s Democrats are interested in “compromise” or “bipartisanship,” is a fool. You cannot negotiate with them. You cannot expect fairness from them. You can either defeat them, or else be subjected to their absolute authority.
Too true. There is a far greater tendency for Democrats to coalesce around a “message” – no matter how stupid, dangerous or mendacious – and to see it translated into policy by whatever means necessary, because their will to power, in the sense of wanting to control and expand government along statist lines, is more intense than that of most Republicans (at least, the non-establishment variety), and certainly than that of the majority of conservatives, who desire nothing so much as to be let alone, and to dwell happily within the “little platoons” described by Edmund Burke.

It is, however, the earnest desire of the Democratic Party to dissolve those little platoons and press their members into state (and party) –managed mass groups, to be kept in line with the carrot of government largesse, and the stick of the police, tax and regulatory power of the state. To the Democrats, this ideal requires the relinquishment of something they consider paltry and outdated, but that conservatives rightly view as the cornerstone of our nation’s reason for being – to wit, individual liberty. Given the single-minded zealotry with which the Democrats’ approach their self-imposed mission, aided and abetted in their grand scheme by their auxiliaries in the media, the unions and academe, and shamelessly schooled in the tactics of fraud, slander and incitement to violence, in most matters of significant import, compromise becomes quicksand and bipartisanship becomes betrayal. Let us remember that the handshake originated as a gesture to show that the hands bore no weapons – a ritual that should give us no particular assurance of safety in times when the weapons we ought most to fear take the form of pernicious ideas.

Epidemic

I think there’s an awful lot of Dunning-Kruger going around. R.D. Brewer at Ace of Spades puts the syndrome in context.

Rest in Peace

Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two sons, and an eight-year-old girl were gunned down in a motorcycle drive-by shooting in Toulouse, Monday morning.

Our prayers go up for the repose of their souls, for the comfort of their families, and for the speedy apprehension of the murderer.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Rutherford B. Hip







Fine arts

Really? A U.S. president who's into this kind of strutting vulgarity?

I'm not surprised, myself. Oh, and same to you Cee Lo (a/k/a Thomas DeCarlo Calloway) - and to you, too, Bee O.

Be thankful for small favors

We've had a very mild winter here in the environs of the Paco Command Center, and I ain't complainin'. In the wake of this non-arctic winter has come an early spring: early daffodils, forsythia blossoms and even my snapdragons have mostly survived.

I saw these beautiful trees down the street - I believe they're weeping cherries - and captured them on my cell phone camera (click to enlarge):

Monday movie

A scene from the The Lost Battalion, a fine film about the 308th Battalion of the 77th Division of the U.S. Army, and its desperate struggle against German forces in the Argonne Forest in 1918.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

The eternal moral posturing of the Left

Theodore Dalrymple considers the vacuous maunderings of novelist Chin Miéville, who believes that the sentences handed out to rioters in London’s most recent spasm of social collapse were too “severe.”
One cannot say often enough that the victims of crime are, like the perpetrators, more likely to be poor than rich. For example, single-parent households in Britain have a more than one-in-20 chance of being burgled in any given year; and since most burglars are recidivists, indeed multiply so, it follows that the class of victim is much larger than the class of perpetrator. Leniency toward criminals is not therefore a form of sympathy for the poor, but a failure to take either their lives or their property seriously. For Miéville to talk of “panicked reaction” in these circumstances is a form of moral exhibitionism. He is showing off in front of his peers.

Awkward

Matt Shaner, owner of the Pittsburgh Power of the arena football league, fired his whole team during a pregame dinner.

This puts me in mind of one of coach John McKay's wonderful lines (possibly apocryphal, but still funny). Once, when he was coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, he was asked after a loss what he thought of his team's execution. McKay reportedly responded, "I'm all for it."

Sunday funnies

You don't see this every day (good thing, too; I wonder if the guy lost a bet?).

President Genius and his list of presidential facts.

Update: Oops!



Update II: "Dumb things people have said during job interviews"

Update III: Dog years.

Gosh, Wally, I guess President Obama was serious about shutting down the coal industry

The EPA Misery Index.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has dangerously underestimated the impact of its back-door mandates on affordable coal-based electricity generation. Instead of the 4.8 to 9.5 gigawatts(GW) of electric plant retirements predicted by EPA, 57 power plants with 25.1 GW of generating capacity have already gone on the chopping block due to U-MACT and CSAPR. That means more than 29,000 workers are losing their jobs, millions of consumers will be paying more for their electricity and the reliability of our electricity supply is being compromised.
Not to worry. There are alternatives...


"Eureka! Looks like a gusher, Jed!"

He who laughs last

Yuk it up while you can, Barry. We'll get our turn in November.

The dark side of pork

"Authorities in southern New Jersey say a convenience store customer attacked a store clerk after learning there were no fully heated sausages ready for purchase."

Why should I use Spell Check?

The U.S. Senate doesn't.

(H/T: Mrs. Paco)

Smitty seems upset that his congressman got arrested

Actually, "upset" is probably not the mot juste; "highly amused" is more accurate.

Friday, March 16, 2012

This is how it’s done

Obama speechwriter, Jon Favreau, demonstrates how to treat women respectfully.


I wonder if he dates any women who aren't made out of cardboard.

(H/T: Instapundit)

Assortment

Ah, won’t it be sweet if he loses by one vote! RINO Senator Dick Lugar isn’t eligible to vote in the Indiana Republican primary.

I just stumbled across Friends of CO2, a blog that specializes in puncturing the Cli-Fi movement’s balloons. Lovely graphics, great posts. Check it out.

Scrooge Steve at the Pub begrudges an employee a perfectly, er, legitimate sick day.

Dr. Krauthammer pours (increasingly expensive) fuel on the flames.

Governor Bobby Jindal takes on the education establishment in Louisiana.

Mr. G lauds my favorite Democratic president. Plus, President Hayes strikes back at Obama.

What if Bill Maher hosted Sesame Street?

On the subject of “reality” shows, I’m with Swampy.

If you don’t want to look like a dork while out cycling, be sure to read Boy on a Bike regularly.

I’m beginning to think that at least 50% of the people who go into politics are motivated primarily by the carnal opportunities afforded.

TimT: not just a poet, but also a connoisseur of cheese.

When you’ve hit rock bottom, I guess there’s nothing to do but let your awfulness spread out, as MSNBC has done in hiring voluble, semiliterate demagogue, Al Sharpton.

Meet Joe “Everyman” Biden. And the really great thing is, he’s not an embarrassment.

Free speech: these guys get it.

Three notable films on terrorism, admirably summarized by Robert Avrech.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Happy Feet Friday

Bob Chester and his orchestra back up Ida James in "Shoo, shoo, shoo, baby".

Perspective

Tim Blair's got it.

Scaly. Undeniably scaly.

Dear Prime Minister Cameron:

It has come to our attention that you recently made a speech during a state dinner in which you claimed that President Obama "has pressed the reset button on the moral authority of the entire free world." Inasmuch as this statement has set a new standard in unctuous, lickspittle toadyism, we have no alternative but to demand that you hand in your Man Card instanter.

In fact, we are far from certain that you are even in possession of an authentic card; it defies belief that anyone capable of engaging in such shameless flattery could ever have come by a Man Card legitimately, and so we suspect that it may well be a forgery. Nonetheless, you are notified herewith that any attempt to pass yourself off as a man, instead of the oleaginous invertebrate humanoid that you have revealed yourself to be, will have the sternest consequences.

Govern yourself accordingly.

Sincerely,

Paco
President, Man Card International


Cameron thought bubble: "I do hope I don't get mustard on his arse."

Visual artistry

As everyone knows, one of the great strengths of the Drudge news aggregation site is the positioning of headlines (and frequently, the photos used to highlight particular headlines) in such a way as to make a point.

This afternoon, I noticed several headlines positioned exactly as follows, below a photo of Afghan leader Karzai pointing an accusatory finger:

Afghan president wants U.S. troops out of villages...
U.S. moves massacre soldier to Kuwait; Afghans furious...
Thousands protest, chant anti-American slogans...
Taliban suspends peace talks with U.S....
Obama Fills Out NCAA Basketball Bracket...


A brilliant dig at President Unserious.

Hard to figure

How does a film that focuses on Obama's accomplishments last for an entire 17 minutes? Unless stuff like this and this are considered "accomplishments"; in which case, the movie could easily have been twice as long.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Yumpin' yimminy, I t'ink I got dat!

Foreign accent syndrome.

One of ten odd medical syndromes.

New service from Paco Financial!

Money laundering!

H/T: Jill

Not just a job, an adventure



H/T: Gateway Pundit

Happy Pi day!

Almost missed it! (I'd better mark Fermat's Last Theorem Day down on my calendar; anybody remember when that is?)

Among other things communism destroys is a sense of irony

Humberto Fontova writes a movie review and discovers that the Castro regime has turned its meaning inside out.

And Ireland may be in bad shape, financially, but it's interesting that the city of Galway can find the money to erect a statue of Che Guevara.

Question

I'd like to think that President Obama would be embarrassed by something like this, but I'm not at all sure he would be. What do you think?

If you're moving from California to Texas...

...you need to learn the lingo.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Inquiring minds want to know

Presidential press conference, the Rose Garden.

Obama: Ok, I’ve got time for one more question. You, sir…No, wait! I didn’t recognize…Ugh! All right, go ahead.

Reporter: Good morning, Mr. President. Brad Smilo, here, from Paco World News Daily. Sir, as you know, gas prices are skyrocketing. Going back to December of 2008, your soon-to-be Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu, said higher prices would be a good thing. But now, you – and he – are saying you’d like to see lower prices. What has changed in the intervening period to cause you and Dr. Chu to alter your views? I mean, besides the increasingly likely prospect of your being a one-term president?

Obama: Besides the prospect of me being a one-term president? Isn’t that reason enough? Well, let me think a minute. Ok, how about this? When Dr. Chu started talking about ratcheting up gas prices, he meant over a period 15 years. My expectation was that I would have served out my second term of office and been long gone by the time the price got this high. I guess these price increases are just another example of our, er, faster-than-expected progress. Anyway, my administration is doing everything it can to develop energy conservation measures, as well as alternative energy sources.

Smilo: You mean like spreading the gospel of properly-inflated tires? And algae?

Obama: Hey, never underestimate pond scum!

Smilo: Oh, I won’t, Mr. President, never again.

Obama: Now, with respect to…S-a-y... Was that a dig?

Smilo: One follow-up question, sir…

Obama: *Sigh*…If you must.

Smilo: Isn’t that a Chevy Volt burning over there by the West Wing? And the man in the smoldering suit, rolling on the ground; isn’t that GE’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt?

Obama [snapping head around in horror, but then quickly relaxing]: What!?! Oh…Whew!…I thought I’d lost a campaign donor there for a minute. No, that’s not Jeff; it’s just Transportation Secretary LaHood. Some of you folks go douse him, will you? [Scowls at Smilo] Anything else, Brad?

Smilo: This business between you and the Catholic Church…

Obama [Tearing his suit jacket off and leaping from the podium]: Sorry, out of time! Hold on, Ray! I’ll save you!

Bring out the reinforced remainder tables!

Arlen Specter has written a book.

Elsewhere, pointing out Obama’s flawed policies is so easy, even a semi-literate snowbilly can do it.

Bumper sticker of the week

Courtesy of Moonbattery.

Moonbattery also has the poster of the week.

Schmidt happens

Stacy McCain has a few choice words for Steve Schmidt, a former aide to John McCain who is making something of a career attacking Sarah Palin.

Reminds me of the old saying: some are born douchebags, some achieve douchebaggery, others have douchebaggery thrust upon them. With respect to Schmidt...I'm thinking born.

Monday, March 12, 2012

Hey, Barry, where's my free coffee?

I mean, you know, how about it? And can I pick it up here?

Our fearless leader blazes a new trail

Tim Blair in Palau (note the unrestrained joy visible on Tim's face as he ruthlessly crushes endangered animals and plants beneath the wheels of his Polaris Global Warm Master).

You know about high tech...

...but are you ready for hip tech? The inventor of the internet opines:
To fix what he called a no-longer functional U.S. government, [Al]Gore urged the audience to begin a new "Occupy Democracy" movement. He pushed for the creation and implementation of digital tools and social media to "change the democratic conversation."

Gore talked of a "Wiki-democracy" of "digital flash mobs calling out the truth" and "a government square that holds people accountable."
Since blogging counts as "social media", I'd like to take advantage of Gore's new forum to make a motion: all in favor of declaring Al Gore our Dweeb Laureate, raise your hands (or tweet or "like" on Facebook or something).


"Dang! NaughtyMasseuses has crashed again."

Lost Leonardo?

"In what some art experts say would be one of the biggest discoveries of the century, researchers in Italy think they may have discovered a long-lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci behind a 16th century fresco in Florence."

You want to be careful with that. I once owned an original Jackson Pollock, and some expert told me he thought there was a Raphael beneath it. I considered the risk, and had Pollock's work carefully stripped away. You know what the first picture turned out to be?

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...



Meh. I still like it better than the Pollock.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Sunday funnies

How to spot an Obama supporter.

Beware the Wisconsin cheesehead haberdashery; it's the top of a very slippery slope.

Just in case you're not really dead...

A lifetime supply of ipecac syrup from Paul Glastris

ArthurK at Ace of Spades has the link to a preposterous puff piece on Obama by the editor in chief of the Washington Monthly. It's kind of like Chuck Norris Facts, except more over the top.

The amount of bilge that is going to be pumped out of the White House, and the MSM, during this election cycle is going to stink to high heaven (already is, obviously).

Not on Gloria Allred's radar, for some reason

Bob Belvedere introduces us to Mike Wallace, cad.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Rev. Barack Obama calls for prayer vigil in support of ObamaCare

Divine intervention may well be the only thing that will save ObamaCare.

Question: to what god will these prayers be addressed? Zeus? Moloch? Mictlancihuatl?

Obama's private air force

Good to see the preshizzle's got his priorities in order:
The U.S. Air Force is pulling nine cargo aircraft from military operations to support President Barack Obama’s stepped-up visits to campaign events.

The five medium-capacity C-130s and four heavyweight C-17s will be used to ferry security vehicles, armored limousines and communications gear into cities ahead of Obama’s campaign appearances.
Update - Jonah, in the comments:
On the first Air Force transport
the taxpayers paid for me
My wife's staff of hundred ninety three...

On the ninth Air Force transport the taxpayers paid for me,
nine marble columns,
eight by-o-graphers,
seven rock stars grov'ling
sixty virgins fainting
five pizza chefs...
forty journalists
fed by forty chaperones
My two little girls
And my wife's staff of hundred...
Ninety...
Threee!

Assortment

Roger Kimball asks a first-rate question: “Why is Jon Corzine still at liberty?”

Very interesting correlations.

36 chambers says “get off my lawn”.

Tree Hugging Sister spots some Sharia family values – in Phoenix, Arizona.

A Yahoo news lead – “Secret Militias on the Rise in the U.S.” – doesn’t really have much to do with militias, at all. It leads to an ABC video on “extremist” groups, which is sourced from that rock-solid bastion of objective research, the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Once again, the White House demonstrates how attacking Rush Limbaugh is like setting off a bottle rocket in your own living room.

Stacy McCain highlights one of Derrick Bell’s “I’m not an anti-Semite, but” moments. More on Bell from Ben Shapiro, and DON’T MISS Kurt Schlicter’s review of Bell’s racist space-fantasy movie (Move over Plan 9 from Outer Space, there’s a new “worst movie ever” in town).

The government, in bailing out GM, apparently left the stupid intact.

Funny how bureaucrats at all levels have so much trouble keeping track of enormous amounts of money.

Congress, the UN…Meh. What’s the difference?

Oh, and about those burned Korans, and what an insult that was to the Islamic world? Never mind.

Some of the great things that have come out of Wisconsin: Steve Burri, Lance Burri and…Ralph Bruno.

Big Hollywood is all over Tom Hanks’ anti-Palin propaganda movie.

Dogs

Gotta love 'em.

H/T: Mrs. Paco

Thursday, March 8, 2012

The Warren Buffet Enrichment Redundancy Act clears the Senate

The Senate narrowly defeated an amendment to a highway bill that would have authorized construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

And, since the only capitalists to benefit from any of Obama's economic decisions are of the crony variety, Warren Buffet will be happy.

Update: Here's an inspirational story about a real entrepreneur.

Happy Feet Friday

A young Leon Russell performs his version of “Roll Over Beethoven”.

Life is like a box of arugula

Tom Hanks lends his support to the Obama reelection campaign. This is quite possibly the least surprising news you will hear today.

They told me if I voted for John McCain…

…that we’d be talking about selling black people to aliens - and they were right!

H/T to Professor Reynolds for the “They-told-me-if-I-voted-for-John-McCain” schtick.

Update: “Why Professor Derrick A. Bell Matters”.

Better to live (maybe) on your knees, than to die (possibly) on your feet

Or so says Washington, D.C.’s Deputy Mayor for – get this - Public Safety and Justice, Paul Quander. He thinks groveling victimhood should be perfectly acceptable to all those citizens who, unlike Paul Quander, don’t have bodyguards.

The subtext of this “philosophy” is that, once law-abiding citizens accept the role, carved out for them by government hacks like Quander, of helplessness in the presence of street criminals, it softens them up to accept helplessness when faced with the encroachment by the state on the rest of their freedoms. In this way, small-time hoods serve as artillery for the much larger army of oppressive statist bandits who won’t be satisfied with anything so paltry as your wallet, but will demand your mind and soul, as well.

On a related note, down the road in infinitely saner Virginia, I completed my basic pistol course at the NRA’s national headquarters and am now ready to submit an application for a concealed carry permit. The course included four hours of classroom lecture (all very useful), and an hour on the NRA’s indoor range, where I employed my trusty Ruger Police Service Six revolver to burn up a hundred rounds of .38 Special ammo. My lovely female instructor was extremely knowledgeable and patient, and by the time I ran out of bullets, I was giving a very creditable accounting of myself. I ain’t no Doc Holiday, but it’s amazing (and kind of thrilling) the way that, with concentration, the pistol becomes an extension of your arms and eyes; toward the end of the session, I was putting the shots exactly where I wanted them, and the human-form target – which, for reasons that should be obvious, I have named “Che”– was shot to doll rags. The whole thing was so much fun, I’m thinking of taking some additional courses. It’s also relaxing; in fact, for me, the effect was similar to golf. I only played golf a few times, when I lived in Florida, but I found that the game completely took my mind off my troubles, and stress just melted away. Same thing with shooting.

The perils of pandering

Legal Insurrection gets into the weeds on Carbonite, its shaky start as a publicly-held company, its recent stock performance, and the Limbaugh factor in this highly informative post.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Tom Brokaw and the heartbreak of white guy's tight ass

Happens all the time. Some staid, button-down white guy experiences an unaccountable, yet irresistible, urge to be hip and score some political correctness points by playing up a stereotype of his own race and sex - which, in this case, he invents out of whole cloth. Result? Dude makes a fool of himself.

What the hell does Tom Brokaw mean when he talks about Mitt Romney's "white man's overbite"? Is there something characteristic about a white man's overbite that differentiates it from that of a black man's or an Asian's? If so, this is a physical phenomenon that is strangely unremarked in the entire annals of dentistry. Is Brokaw just pandering to non-whites? Or is he jealous because his own teeth are perpetually hidden behind a tight-lipped smirk (does he, in fact, even have any teeth)?


C'mon, Tom, I wanna see you gum some crow.

A little late to do much good, but I guess we should be grateful for small favors

"Barney Frank banned from speaking for day".

“Greeks aren’t Germans”

Why does the painfully obvious so often elude the grasp of otherwise intelligent and well-educated people? Theodore Dalrymple explores the phenomenon as it manifests itself in the context of the current economic and political situation in Europe.
In short, the incontinent spending of many European governments, which awarded whole populations unearned benefits at the expense of generations to come, has—along with a megalomaniacal currency union—produced a crisis not merely economic but social, political, and even civilizational. The European Union that was supposed to put an end to war on the continent has resuscitated antagonisms that might end in bellicosity, if not in outright war. And the European Project stands revealed as what any sensible person could have seen it always was: something akin to the construction of a massive, post-Tito Yugoslavia.
Of course, we in the U.S. certainly have little or no right to look down our noses and scoff at the Europeans. Given our own fondness for the mirage of something-for-nothing, and our persistence in electing politicians who believe reality is like a set of Tinker Toys that can be put together any way we like, it’s no wonder that we’re now facing the prospect of economic and social collapse. In the last few national political contests, it seems as if we’ve only been one election away from disaster; now we’re one election away from actually committing national suicide. Except, perhaps, it’s not really suicide because the intent is not self-destruction; unfortunately, there are just large numbers of idiots who think that sitting in Obama’s closed garage with the car engine running is a great idea. I hope that they can be spared this fate – not from altruistic sentiments, but because I don’t want to be trapped in there with them.

Now is the time for all good men…

The suave and intellectual Smitty of the Other McCain has not always seen eye to eye on sartorial matters with yours truly; for example, readers may recall the Neck-Wear Skirmish.

Yet I believe that Smitty and I – and all right-thinking people, for that matter – can join together in rejecting this fashion blight, this stench in the nostrils of masculine elegance, this sign of the end times.

I can’t quite make “Buffet” rhyme with “hypocrite”…

But you get the picture.
Berkshire Hathaway-owned NetJets Inc. spent more than $2.5 million on a squadron of lobbyists who successfully crafted tax legislation to benefit a handful of private jet companies, according to a HuffPost analysis of lobbying disclosure records.

Democrats don’t give a rodent’s gluteus maximus about civility

But getting Rush Limbaugh off the air, that would be something to get excited about.

Don’t believe it’s gonna happen, Libs; in fact, you might be setting yourselves up for some nice backlash. Nice try, though. Oh, and in case I need to make my position more explicit: I support Rush Limbaugh, his program and the great service he has performed, and will continue to perform, for American conservatism. And, not that it was needed, but Obama’s attempt to manipulate the Limbaugh/Fluke controversy for his own political advantage has given me another reason to vote against the Incredible Shrinking President in November.

Update: As usual, when there’s a bad smell in the air, you can be sure that the liberal fascists from Center for American Progress have been in the neighborhood. For some interesting background on Obama’s favorite “think tank”, see here and here. Look for their brand; these are the people who are helping Obama to “transform” America.

Patriotic nugget

Woman sells chicken McNugget that resembles George Washington for over eight grand.

I'm going to have to stop wolfing down my food and look at the stuff more closely.

Update - Rinardman, in the comments:
Must have been from McDonald's Presidents Series. All the Presidents but the Big O.

They couldn't make McNuggets big enough to include his ears.

Dennis no longer a menace

Democrat Rep. Dennis Kucinich has been beaten in Ohio by Marcy Kaptur, the longest-serving woman in the House of Representatives, in a primary battle arising from a 2010 redistricting.

I don't know if this makes much of a difference in the grand scheme of things; perhaps someone from Ohio (that's right, I'm looking at you, Rebecca), can fill us in on the relative awfulness of the two donks. In any event, Kucinich has been such a grandstanding, left-wing clown that it's good to see him go.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Har!

"WhiteHouse.gov hosts petition calling for Obama’s resignation".

I'm on board!

Mr. President, do the right thing

The only weapons we have, in a free society, with which to combat coarse ad hominem attacks against citizens by media types who enjoy the privilege of national exposure via radio and television programs are denunciation and ostracism. Therefore, Mr. President, I call upon your Super Pac to return the $1 million donation it received from Bill Maher, and I call upon you, personally, to publicly distance yourself from the misogynistic comments of this vulgar cretin.

And while you’re at it – you know, doing the right thing – you should call up Mike Malloy and chastise him for making vile remarks about the people who recently suffered so grievously from the tornadoes that recently swept the South and Midwest.

Just a mo – we’re not finished. How about contacting Rep. Paul Ryan and telling him how disgusted you were when the Agenda Project – which, interestingly, is managed by people from your own Party - ran that ad showing a Ryan look-alike reprising the famous Richard Widmark scene in Kiss of Death?

You might also give Debbie Wasserman-Schultz a ring, and inform her that her demonization of the Tea Party is beyond the pale of acceptable polemics.

Doing the right thing. Any time, now, Mr. President…

Is there such a thing as a Chevy Volt bus?

Just askin’.

Yo, Barry

Your rhetoric's on "empty". From Wes Pruden:
Mr. Obama, with his high regard for his reputation as a man with singular gifts of pretty speech, no doubt imagines he has discharged his obligations to an ally with words (and a few notes of the music). If he were a true student of the Muslim mind, instead of being merely an admirer of the cultural gifts of Islam (such as they are), he would understand that the hard men in Tehran hear his rhetoric not as kindly sentiment but as evidence of weakness and flaccid impotence. That’s why they so eagerly get on with the pursuit of the weapons needed to “wipe Israel off the map.” The Islamic despots understand a thing or two about empty rhetoric.

Hey, what ever happened to this sport?

Automobile polo.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Must-read stories

Powerline brings us the inspiring story of boxer Billy Miske.

Daniel Knauf talks about his move from left to right, the modern Hollywood blacklist, and his debt to Andrew Breitbart (the post is far more enthralling than that; really, do read it). H/T: Hot Air.

Change


From Professor Jacobson's bumper sticker collection.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Good weekend

Mrs. Paco and I visited the National Firearms Museum on Saturday. Terrific collection, including almost every conceivable type of gun (really, you name it, they've probably got it: matchlocks, Gatling guns, Colt dragoons, Mausers, M-1s, shotguns, cannons, ad infinitum). The admission is free (that's also a plus!) Take a cyber-tour through their galleries when you have time.

Come see it soon, before Obama beats all that weaponry into wind turbines and flower trellises.

Meanwhile, Steve Burri carries Sandra Fluke's argument to its logical conclusion.

Big talk

From a small man.

Seraphic Secret has the new documentary that explores just how unreliable Obama's friendship with Israel really is.

Monday movie

Gangster Cary Grant learns to knit for the war effort (from Mr. Lucky, 1943).

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Sunday funnies



* * * * * * * *

I’m sure we could all use one of these.
Japanese researchers have invented a speech-jamming gadget that painlessly forces people into silence.

Kazutaka Kurihara of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, and Koji Tsukada of Ochanomizu University, developed a portable "SpeechJammer" gun that can silence people more than 30 meters away.


Update: Are you ready for......Kevin Rudd: the Opera?

H/T: C.P.

Another view from Georgetown

Angela Morabito speaks out (H/T: Legal Insurrection).

Update: Setup.

Update II: BTW, this is what real courage looks like.

A gross miscarriage of justice

Why hasn’t James Wolcott received a Bulwer-Lytton award? I know, it’s for fiction, but surely there should be a category for non-fiction that is this bad.
Beginning as a rock critic explains a lot about James Wolcott’s overwrought prose—that old air guitar—which he slathers lavishly on all subjects. “Being facile is harder than it looks,” he writes. To which I would reply that finding a paragraph in his memoir free of heavy injections of false energy and sloppy phrasing isn’t any easier. Wolcott will strike off a straight arresting sentence, then follow it up with two or three clotted ones, usually larded with sexual metaphors, similes, and allusions: “I had too much altar boy in me to seize the bitch goddess of success by her ponytail and bugger the Zeitgeist with my throbbing baguette” is but one example among scores. In writing about punk rock, he alerts us that this was a time before “the gold medallions and furry testicles of disco descended” (get that metaphor to a urologist!). “A date movie for the damned, Looking for Mr. Goodbar looked as if it had been coated from floor to ceiling with contraceptive jelly.” “Niche journalism hadn’t yet whittled too many writers into specialty artists, dildos for rent.”

Such prose is beyond mere editing; it requires Drano.

Friday, March 2, 2012

The Koch brothers refuse to be pushed around

Philip Ellender, President, Government and Public Affairs for Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC, responds to another scurrilous attack by the Obama administration.
Your letter never addresses the fundamental issue I raised concerning the impropriety of a sitting President and his campaign publicly attacking two private citizens for exercising their free speech rights. While we encourage and welcome a principled and civil debate about the important issues our great nation faces, it is inappropriate and beneath the office of the President to denounce an American company like ours that employs 50,000 people here in the United States, malign its owners with repeated misstatements and distortions, and harass our effort to speak out just because you disagree with our consistent support for the principles of a free society.
And speaking of private citizens, let’s make sure and return Obama to that status this November.

H/T: Powerline

Is Sandra Fluke a slut?

I've no idea. But she's definitely a plant.

H/T: The Other McCain.

Cringeworthy

Obama does his appalling regular-guy impersonation on ESPN.

The only pleasure I take from this is the knowledge that he must hate having to shed his demigod status from time to time in order to bond with the masses. At heart, I think he’s like Coriolanus (without the courage and military experience).

“What Would Breitbart Do?”

Zombie at PJ Media shows the way: The Million Breitbart Project.
And so I mark Breitbart’s death by announcing The Million Breitbart Project. It has no official membership, no organizers, no infrasructure. The Million Breitbart Project is instead a state of mind. Every blogger and activist and citizen journalist must henceforth strive to emulate Breitbart’s verve and attitude in everything we do.
Don’t ask permission. Don’t take “No” for an answer, either from your inner pessimist or from anyone else.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Dude, I hope it works out better for you than it did for Joe Biden

"Doctors rebuild man’s dented forehead using his own body fat".

Update: Speaking of fatheads, Little Timmy Geithner has been subpoenaed - again.

Happy Feet Friday

Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell! It doesn’t get much better than this.

Cli-Fi Thuggery

Connecticut division.

Moderates are part of the problem

The MSM frequently celebrates moderates as domestic diplomats, bridge builders and level-headed navigators of the ship of state. No doubt, some are; but not necessarily so, and certainly mere "moderateness" does not convey virtue. Timothy Carney points out that many are simply crap weasels.
Specter's career, meanwhile, is a good example of the rudderlessness of the standard moderate. Specter became a Republican in the 1960s because the GOP bosses in Philly promised him campaign cash, Specter tells in his memoirs. He became a Democrat in 2009 -- again, in his own words -- because he wanted to "get re-elected." And in his whiny farewell address to the Senate complaining about how senators now occasionally campaigned against senators (in other words, the Senate was becoming "less and less insular," as Brooks might put it), Specter praised a handful of the Rockefeller Republicans whom Brooks grieves. While Specter omitted the names of the disgraced moderate senators (Ted Stevens and Bob Packwood), he named a handful of men who turned their bipartisan pragmatism into a lucrative lobbying career, such as John Warner, Warren Rudman, Jack Danforth, and Slade Gorton.



Typical fate of a fanatical middle-of-the-roader.

We are adrift under an evil star

Or so it seems, in this year 2012. The fearless New Media genius, Andrew Breitbart, who proved to be such a substantial thorn in the side of the liberal establishment, has suddenly died. His work, and his example, will be sorely missed. God rest his soul, and comfort his family, friends and admirers.

Update: Michelle Malkin has some examples of the leftist graciousness we have all come to know. And, yes, I’m including David Frum in that group of yawping jackals.

As the editors of National Review wrote, back in the early 70s, against the background of the seismic moral and cultural shifts of the preceding decade, we are now two nations. That is so today. Whether the civil war be cold or hot, and whether our prospects for victory be good or ill, I don’t intend to stand by and idly watch as my side loses. That is the lesson of Andrew Breitbart.


1969 - 2012. Rest in peace.