"Nobody has ever been successful by himself, right?

Innominatus outdoes himself! What an imagination! Read the whole thing here: http://innominatus87.blogspot.com/2012/07/barry-batty-campaign-strategy.html
I think my favorite character was Chris Matthews.

Rubber banding watermelons (in slow motion)

Who says grown men can't act like boys? http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2012/07/23/rubber-bands-destroy-watermelon-in-super-slow-motion-video/
I'd rather eat them.

Wow!

Marth E. McSally is running for Congress in Arizona. Her experience? She is the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat, and first to command a fighter squadron in combat in United States history. Watch this video!
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/07/martha-mcsally-wins-support-from-entire-az-gop-congressional-delegation/

Depravity

How much depravity can we take? Three teens in Chicago murdered a disabled man as part of a game called "Knock Out," then posted the video on Facebook.
via http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/07/chicago-thugs-kill-disabled-father-in-knock-out-game-post-video-on-facebook/

Immigration and rape in Denmark

Immigrants from Iraqis, Iranians, Turks and Somalis are dramatically overrepresented in Danish rape verdicts.

More than every other time that judges in 2010 found a felon guilty of rape, the convict was an immigrant or Danish-born to immigrant parents, reveal the official numbers from Statistics Denmark. Specifically, 32 with Danish background, 27 immigrants and 7 children of immigrants were convicted in 2010.
Read more here:  http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/07/danish-girls-must-learn-to-behave.html

Divided loyalties?

Hillary Clinton's very close associate at the State Department is Huma Abedin, who is also the wife of disgraced Congressman Weiner of New York. Abedin's mother is a professor who published a book on the rights and obligations of women in Islam. It endorses the following Islamic shariah justifications:

• Stoning for Adultery when Married; Lashing for Adultery when Unmarried
• No Death Penalty for the Murder of an Apostate
• Freedom of Expression Curtailed to What Benefits Islam
• Women’s Right to Participate in Armed Jihad
• Social Interaction Between the Sexes is Forbidden
• Women Have No Right to Abstain from Sex with their Husbands
• A Woman Should Not Let Anyone Into the House Unless Approved by Her Husband
• Female Genital Mutilation is Allowed
• Man-Made Laws “Enslave Women”

She is also chair of an organization that is currently advocating for the repeal of Egypt’s Mubarak-era prohibitions on female genital mutilation, child marriage, and marital rape, on the grounds that such prohibitions run counter to shariah.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is one of five members of Congress asking for Inspector General investigations of Muslim Brotherhood influence operations within the U.S. government. Read more here: http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-state-departments-divided-loyalties.html#more

Update: In the comments section of the Gates of Vienna piece is this on Hillary Clinton:  "She is also about to sign the U.S. onto the U.N. small arms treaty which will eventually see the confiscation of firearms belonging to ALL American citizens by their own government."

Update 2: John McCain has attacked Bachmann for her efforts to investigate the Muslim Brotherhood.

A history of the Muslim Brotherhood

The Gates of Vienna blog presents a history of the Muslim Brotherhood, by Prof. Dr. Johannes J.G. Jansen. "Now to believe that Jesus is the son of God is a perfectly respectable belief that has been held by millions of respectable people for the past two millennia. If, however, the Koran were to be the law of the land, there would be a problem for these people, because the Koran explicitly curses and damns these people (9:30), and the Koran even expresses the wish that people who believe that Christ is the son of God shall be killed in battle, qaatalahumullaah. May I remind you: The Brotherhood wants this document, the Koran, to be the law, and this document, the Koran, contains many, many more passages that are similar, or worse, or much worse.

 In practice, though not in theory, Jihad means keeping up the military pressure on the non-Muslim world, in order to expand the domain of Islam by whatever means possible. In happier days, the duty to wage Jihad was carried out exclusively by Muslim states and Muslim governments. This type of Jihad, carried out by states, came to an end on September 11, 1683, when the Turkish siege of Vienna was lifted by the Polish army. Sayyid Qutb refers to this millennium of Muslim military supremacy as ‘the first round’ (al-gawla al-uulaa, Zilaal 3, 1.560, Sura 8). Jihad against the West was, however, resumed on September 11, 2001, with a spectacular but senseless attack on America. However — and this is an important distinction — in this the ‘second round’ Jihad has become a private affair for which no sane government in the world wanted to be held responsible — even if they secretly were.

Read more here:  http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-history-and-ideology-of-muslim.html#more

Looting the future

More Foseti selections from the Dark Enlightenment: "Looting the future, through currency debauchment, debt accumulation, growth destruction, and techno-industrial retardation is especially easy to conceal, and thus reliably popular. Democracy is essentially tragic because it provides the populace with a weapon to destroy itself, one that is always eagerly seized, and used. Nobody ever says ‘no’ to free stuff. Scarcely anybody even sees that there is no free stuff. Utter cultural ruination is the necessary conclusion."

Equality?

Foseti selects this piece on equality from the Dark Enlightenment series: "People are not equal, they do not develop equally, their goals and achievements are not equal, and nothing can make them equal." Read more here: http://foseti.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/selections-from-the-dark-enlightenment/

Austerity defined

Foseti understands what "austerity" governments actually are:
"Austerity is when more than half of a country’s working age population has to . . . wait for it . . . seriously, I hope you’re sitting down for this . . . go to work at an actual job every day.*

Bonus definition!:
“Crippling austerity” is a special case of austerity in which those people who actually have to work have to do so for more than 25 years (meaning that someone who starts working at 25 years old may have to work beyond their 50th birthday).

Obviously this is intolerable. I wonder if there’s somewhere I can go to donate money to the people undergoing this terrible hardship.

* This of course excludes six weeks of holiday."
Read more here:  http://foseti.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/defining-austerity/

Today's Court Hearing

Here is the video of today's court hearing for Mr. Orange Hair. The video is being transmitted into a cell phone, so it has interruptions, because the cell phone cannot easily handle this much data. 

Willful Blindness

Andrew McCarthy, author of Willful Blindness, writes today at PJ Media about "the Obama Left, the Republican establishment and their complicit media." Yes, you read that right; he lumps together the Obama left, the Republican establishment and their complicit media under one banner. What is he talking about? He is talking about the way those groups misunderstand the religion of Islamic supremacy, as adhered to by the Muslim Brotherhood. National security conservatives such as McCarthy "take the Muslim Brotherhood at its word that it is seeking to destroy the West and destroy Israel, and that it is doing so based on a divine injunction that is easily traceable to Islamic scripture." Coming in for criticism by McCarthy are Condi Rice and John McCain for their failure to understand Islamic Supremacy.

McCarthy was the lead prosecutor of the "Blind Sheik": "Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and his cohorts in 1995. The overarching charge was that all 12 defendants, plus dozens of unindicted coconspirators, conspired to wage a war of urban terrorism against the United States. Beyond the Trade Center attack, this campaign included a more ambitious plot to bomb New York City landmarks (e.g., Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, UN complex, FBI’s lower Manhattan headquarters, some U.S. military installations, etc.), as well as sundry schemes to kidnap or assassinate current and former government officials, murder the president of Egypt, and the like."

McCarthy actually dares to assert, "if GOP leaders can no longer tell the difference between hostile anti-American operatives and benign political actors, then the Republican Party has become an obstacle to liberty and security, not a vehicle for their preservation. As is the case with crushing government debt and out-of-control government spending, it appears that the GOP is choosing to be part of the problem, rather than the solution, when it comes to the threat of Islamic supremacism. Certainly, that is a choice party leaders are entitled to make. But if it is the one they have made, why should conservatives concerned about liberty and security bother with the Republican Party?

I am indebted to Rush Limbaugh for mentioning this piece on his program today. It may be one of the most important essays anyone has written in quite a while.
Read the whole thing here: http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/07/23/the-wages-of-willful-blindness-is-it-time-for-defenders-of-liberty-to-abandon-the-gop/?singlepage=true

Enemies lists

This image of Nixon morphing into Obama is from a blog post at Powerline, which examines Obama's enemies lists and his use of the I.R.S. to intimidate donors to Romney. Read the whole thing here: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/07/the-enemies-list-now-and-then.php

A example of how a concealed carry permit enabled a good person to thwart criminals

Have you seen this video? Two armed men try to rob people at an internet restaurant in Florida. A 71-year-old man draws his gun and shoots them as they flee. He has refused to talk with the media. This video was posted on You Tube on July 18.Update: "Instead of seeing it as an example of the need for more gun control, most Americans have interpreted it as a powerful indictment of gun-free zones and an example of the need for further liberalization of carry laws." from a post by Vox Day about the Aurora massacre: http://www.wnd.com/2012/07/the-lone-gunmen/

Should we all be armed?

Instapundit linked to this post about countries who ban guns.

"During the same time period, all other violent crime indices increased in Australia: assault rose 49.2 percent and robbery 6.2 percent.
Sexual assault -- Australia's equivalent term for rape -- increased 29.9 percent.
Overall, Australia's violent crime rate rose 42.2 percent.
At the same time, U.S. violent crime decreased 31.8 percent: rape dropped 19.2 percent; robbery decreased 33.2 percent; aggravated assault dropped 32.2 percent.
Australian women are now raped over three times as often as American women.

So, if the USA follows Australia's lead in banning guns, it should expect a 42 percent increase in violent crime, a higher percentage of murders committed with a gun, and three times more rape. One wonders if Freddy even bothered to look up the relative crime statistics.

The International Crime Victims Survey, conducted by Leiden University in Holland, found that England and Wales ranked second overall in violent crime among industrialized nations. Twenty-six percent of English citizens -- roughly one-quarter of the population -- have been victimized by violent crime. Australia led the list with more than 30 percent of its population victimized. The United States didn't even make the "top 10" list of industrialized nations whose citizens were victimized by crime. http://voxday.blogspot.com/2012/07/mailvox-aussie-logic.html


In fact, I wonder what would happen if all Americans were required to own a gun and take gun training classes when they reach a certain age.

Who invented the internet?

Who invented the internet? Was it Al Gore? Nope. Was it the government, as President Obama recently asserted? Nope. It was Vinton Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, and a company called Xerox. Instapundit links to this post by Gordon Crovitz in the Wall Street Journal, where you can read the history: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577539063008406518.html
I found the image here: http://grimbeorn.blogspot.com/2012/07/building.html

Update: Here is a much more accurate post on the subject:  http://erratasec.blogspot.co.nz/2012/07/who-invented-internet-evolution-or.html

Why Colorado?

The Denver Post featured an article on page one of its Sunday edition by someone named 
William Porter. He was asking, "Why Colorado?" He pointed out that there have been three successful attempts at mass murder or massacres in thirteen years, and at least one other that was not successful.

We in Colorado have incredible natural beauty to look at every day, with abundant sunshine. We don't feel the need to constantly look over our shoulders to see what danger lurks, as we would if we were in places like New York City or Washington D.C.. We are not expecting it. I would be, though, if I were in Chicago or New York.

Porter's article is here: http://www.denverpost.com/lifestyles/ci_21129878/wake-another-mass-shooting-question-why-colorado

Whom does God look after?

I was having a brief conversation with a colleague at work today. She told me that she knew someone who had bought tickets to the movie premiere where the massacre occurred. He had purchased tickets for himself and his son. His son got sleepy, so they didn't go. My friend said she asked the man, "Doesn't that tell you that God is looking after you?" He answered, "Yes," I asked her, "Does that imply that God did not look after the 71 people who were shot?" Before she could answer, we both had to get back to our jobs of tending to the needs of customers.

Apartment diffused

The killer's booby-trapped apartment has now been entered by Aurora police, with the use of a robot first to diffuse a trip-wire. The robot dropped something resembling a water bottle on the trip-wire, then exited the apartment. A small explosion occurred. The remaining explosive devices were loaded onto a truck loaded with sand, and driven to a field out east on the prairie, where they were detonated. How would you like to be the driver of that truck?

Profiles of the twelve murder victims can be found here: http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_21127706/stories-victims-killed-emerge?nstrack=sid:5513539|met:300|cat:0|order:4

Falling through the cracks of our system for treating the mentally ill

Dr. Helen Smith writes about the Aurora massacre from this standpoint: it is not easy to get help for adults who are mentally ill, and they are not closely monitored: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/07/21/some-thoughts-on-the-colorado-shooting-massacre/

Politicizing a massacre

Will Brian Ross at ABC News lose his job for trying to tie the Aurora killer to the Tea Party? Here is one blogger who thinks he should: http://www.chicagonow.com/publius-forum/2012/07/brian-ross-of-abc-news-politicizes-colorado-shooting-illicitly-blames-tea-party/

The Aurora Massacre

From reading today's Denver Post, here is some additional information about yesterday's massacre in Aurora, and some of my thoughts and questions.

About the suspect:
"A quiet man" (Aren't they always?)

Never acknowledged neighbors in his apartment hallway (all wrapped up in himself; no connection to others)

Died his hair red to look like Batman's archenemy, the Joker, (this detail supplied by New York City Police Chief Ray Kelly, with whom the Aurora Chief Oates previously worked). Oates admitted talking with Kelly, but refused to confirm the report.

Holmes' father flew to Denver Friday afternoon from San Diego. His mother remains in San Diego, where the killer grew up.

After graduating from college with a degree in neuroscience, obtaining "highest honors," the best job Holmes could find was at McDonalds. That, or something similar, seems to be a common experience among today's college graduates.

If he graduated with highest honors, then it should be a no-brainer that he is "competent" to understand court proceedings, shouldn't it? Those proceedings begin Monday.

Where does he get the money to buy the expensive weapons and ammo, pay his rent, buy a Hyundai?

He was a graduate student in neuroscience at the University of Colorado. Those medical school professors did not notice any mental problems? Just like the rest of us, those medical school professors apparently are good at ignoring people with psychiatric problems.

Other significant details:
The theater has a posted "no guns" policy, so not even persons with concealed-carry permits could have guns in the theater. Of course, this prevents the only possibility of stopping the criminal murderer, and it ensures our vulnerability.

Police smashed a window to the apartment and with a camera attached to a long pole, took pictures of the apartment, which revealed wires, trip wires, jars and liter-sized soda bottles filled with liquid and attached to the wires.

Gun control advocates like New York Mayor Bloomberg are jumping on this tragedy. Will the NRA and other advocates of gun ownership back down, like they did after Columbine? If so, they can't be too confident of the righteousness of their position, but the gun control advocates are absolutely sure of the righteousness of their position.

Psychotic episodes

This morning I pondered for a moment to decide whether to listen to a book-on-tape or talk radio as I was getting ready for work. I decided on talk radio, and soon learned about the massacre that occurred in nearby Aurora. I was riveted by the developing story, and drove to work with the radio on. A person claiming to be a "psychotic schizophrenic" called into the program. He said that many of his acquaintances who also have "mental problems" have been having a hard time since the new phase of the moon began. He said he, himself, was having problems, and recently ran out of the pills he takes to control his psychosis. He said he was a veteran of Desert Storm, and gets his meds at the V.A. Hospital in Aurora. He said when he is not on his meds, he wants to hurt himself, not others. Voices that sound like his own, his dead mother's, or his grandmother's tell him to hurt himself. He said he was abused by his father as a child, but did not elaborate. The talk show host urged him to get to the V.A. It was riveting radio.

As for the moon, don't laugh about that. I worked as a valet in front of a hospital emergency room. Whenever there was a full moon, there was always a parade of women coming to the emergency room with labor contractions.

Later that morning I was in Wal-Mart. A young teen girl, 12 or 13-years old, was screaming at the top of her lungs. She was hearing voices, and holding her hands over her ears to try to stop the voices. The words coming out of her mouth were jumbled and unintelligible. There was a kind adult female with her (her mother?) who kept holding her hand, preventing her from running through the store. The adult kept calm and patiently talked to the girl. I thought about what the caller to the talk radio program said about the effect of the new moon. The woman bought the girl a small toy monkey, put it in her hands, and escorted her out of the store. The girl stopped screaming.

Update: Faithful Christian reader of this blog, Trinka, has this to add:  "A friend is in charge of a nursing home with an Alzheimers' unit. She also notices the changes in people's mental state along with the phase of the moon.

I can't tell you how many times, I've seen those signs at the door to an establishment, I think, "the people who would pose are danger are NOT going to obey that sign."

I saw a beautiful testimony by a woman who was in that theater with her two teens": http://aminiatureclaypot.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/so-you-still-think-god-is-a-merciful-god/

Another mass murder in Colorado

An horrendous act of mass murder was committed in Aurora at the premier last night of the new Batman movie by a white guy with no previous criminal charges. What are his thought processes? "I get to do whatever I want to do, and nobody else matters?" No prior models. What happened? Anamoly? Grudge?

Update: Killer is 23. Came into theater with four weapons and threw tear gas, then just started murdering people. Was wearing black, bullet proof vest.

Update 2: The killer's mother lives in San Diego. She is on her way to Colorado, and purportedly told the police, "You've got the right man." James Holmes is in custody. Only prior is a traffic incident. Was wearing a black mask, and black outfit when he kicked in the emergency exit door, threw something like tear gas, and started shooting.

Update 3: Police and F.B.I. say that the entire apartment building where the guy lived is booby-trapped from the inside.

Update 4: My first four paragraphs were written early this morning.I have now gone to work and returned home. Here are some additions and corrections. Radio news says Holmes is not talking, not cooperating with police. Twelve people are dead. 59 more are injured from his gunfire.

Police have not decided what to do about the booby-trapped apartment. Apparently it is the apartment, not the whole building, that is booby-trapped. Five buildings have been evacuated.

Killer is 24. He was wearing armored ballistic protection all over his body and a gas mask. He purchased a ticket, then went out the back exit, went to his car to get the weapons, came back in the back door, and threw tear gas or some kind of gas into the crowded theater after the movie started, and opened fire as people tried to escape the tear gas and shooting.

Holmes graduated with bachelors degree from the U. of  California in Riverside. Graduated with highest honors. Currently a PhD candidate at U. of Colorado Medical School in Neuroscience, but had started the process of dropping out of the program.

What about the victims? Will we learn anything about them? Or is this just about Holmes?

Update 5: Earlier in the night, before the movie premier, loud "techno-music" was playing in the Holmes apartment on the third floor of the apartment building. The person who lived below his apartment called the police. They could not respond, because they were dealing with other calls. If they would have responded, they would have found an apartment that was trip-wired with explosives.

Update 6: Killer's father also cooperating with police.

Law-breaking

The Obama campaign is saying that Romney may have committed a felony by staying on at Bain longer than he had previously claimed. Obama writes about his use of marijuana and cocaine in his earlier years. Any criminal laws broken in those days, do you suppose?

Times have changed

What would Cosmopolitan Magazine's cover have looked like in the 18th century? I found this here: http://fkclinic.blogspot.com/2012/07/way-back-machine.html

The way it works

Via an Instapundit link, here is a post about how the Obama team rewards big donors with government funds: http://freebeacon.com/cronyism-built-that/

Fellow blogger loses home to fire

One of my favorite blogs to visit is The Poor Farm, written by Jeff Borland. Jeff is a truck driver who writes about his experiences and much more. He recently lost his home to fire. He has set up a Pay Pal account for donations. I have donated, and I know one other person who has, too: Glenn Reynolds. Check out Jeff's blog, and donate if you are able. His blog is at http://crazedpw.blogspot.com/

Sexual encounters

Boinky brings to our attention research on high school students. Take a look at table 55! http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6007a1.htm?s_cid=ss6007a1_x#Tab55
Boinky also has some interesting things to say about sexual abuse at Penn State: http://fkclinic.blogspot.com/2012/07/depressing-stories-below-fold.html

Inheritance

I found this at Doug Ross @ Journal

Suicide of western media

Robert Spencer says journalists are committing suicide. Why? By supporting calls for authoritarian restrictions on the freedom of speech. Read more here: http://pjmedia.com/blog/suicide-of-the-western-media/?singlepage=true

Observations of VDH

Victor Davis Hansen writes about the presidential campaign, noting that Romney is doing better than McCain in fundraising, the importance of Romney staying within 1 or 2 points in the polls, the inevitability of racism charges, the wild card of Michelle Obama, and an October surprise. He also writes about how his beloved central valley of California has changed.
http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/beware-the-ides-of-october/?singlepage=true

Results

Please click on the chart on this post to see the difference on civilian employment ratio between the left and the right after a recession. Read the whole thing here: http://www.theloudtalker.com/2012/07/10/economic-opinion/

Rasmussen polling

Here is an interesting daily summary by Rasmussen of the polling on Obama v. McCain. It appears that voters made up their minds for Obama on about the 19th of September. If that carries forward to this year, we've got about two more months.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections/election_2008/2008_presidential_election/general_election_match_up_history

"A hero is a sandwich"

No, a hero is this man who saved this little girl's life. Watch this video.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/17/man-catches-girl-falling-from-third-story-window-video/

Who is afraid of the big bad bear?

This  series of photos of a cat chasing a bear does not surprise me. I have a cat who I am sure would do the same. Here is the video:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2175103/Video-captures-massive-bears-fright-startled-chased-cat.html

Why are they in prison?

When I saw this chart showing why people are in federal prisons, I was surprised. Drug crimes are by far the most common crime resulting in a federal prison sentence. However, I disagree with those who say drug crimes are victimless crimes. I worked too many years as a child protection caseworker to accept that fallacy.
Read more here: http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2012/07/chart-of-day-federal-drug-prisoners.html
via Coyote Blog

Thanking America

The town of Pilzen, in the Czech Republic continues to celebrate the town’s liberation by the American Third Army under General George Patton on May 6, 1945.Please go to the Conservatives on Fire blog to read about it and see many photos: http://conservativesonfire.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/american-exceptionalism-celebrated-in-pilzen/

Unemployment and "out of work"

Abbot and Costello discuss unemployment and "out of work" at the Feed Your ADHD blog: http://feedyouradhd.blogspot.com/2012/07/bud-abbott-and-lou-costello-on.html

COSTELLO: I want to talk about the unemployment rate in America.

ABBOTT: Good subject. Terrible times. It's about 9%.

COSTELLO: That many people are out of work?

ABBOTT: No, that's 16%.

COSTELLO: You just said 9%.

ABBOTT: 9% Unemployed.

COSTELLO: Right 9% out of work.

ABBOTT: No, that's 16%.

COSTELLO: Okay, so it's 16% unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, that's 9%...

COSTELLO: WAIT A MINUTE!! Is it 9% or 16%?

ABBOTT: 9% are unemployed. 16% are out of work.

COSTELLO: If you are out of work you are unemployed.

ABBOTT: No, you can't count the "Out of Work" as the unemployed. You have to look for work to be unemployed.

COSTELLO: But ... they are out of work!

ABBOTT: No, you miss my point.

COSTELLO: What point?

ABBOTT: Someone who doesn't look for work, can't be counted with those who look for work. It wouldn't be fair.

COSTELLO: To who?

ABBOTT: The unemployed.

COSTELLO: But they are ALL out of work.

ABBOTT: No, the unemployed are actively looking for work. Those who are out of
work stopped looking. They gave up. And, if you give up, you are no longer in the ranks of the unemployed.

COSTELLO: So if you're off the unemployment roles, that would count as less unemployment?

ABBOTT: Unemployment would go down. Absolutely!

COSTELLO: The unemployment just goes down because you don't look for work?

ABBOTT: Absolutely it goes down. That's how you get to 9%. Otherwise it would be 16%. You don't want to read about 16% unemployment do ya?

COSTELLO: That would be frightening.

ABBOTT: Absolutely.

COSTELLO: Wait, I got a question for you. That means there are two ways to bring down
the unemployment number?

ABBOTT: Two ways is correct.

COSTELLO: Unemployment can go down if someone gets a job?

ABBOTT: Correct.

COSTELLO: And unemployment can also go down if you stop looking for a job?

ABBOTT: Bingo.

COSTELLO: So, there are two ways to bring unemployment down, and the easier of the
two is to just stop looking for work.

ABBOTT: Now you're thinking like an economist.

COSTELLO: I don't even know what I just said!

And now, you know why Obama's unemployment figures are improving.

"Devastating study on the devastating impact" of Obama's proposed tax hikes

The accounting firm Ernst and Young estimates that Obama's proposed tax hikes will cost the nation 710,000 jobs and cause a 200 billion dollar hit to the economy. Read more here:  http://www.coloradopeakpolitics.com/diary/1482/12200-colorado-jobs-lost-new-study-finds-obama-tax-hike-to-kill-employment

Pusillanimous

Michael Walsh, at The Corner, wrote a scathing indictment of Chief Justice John Roberts for his cowardice on the Obamacare decision. Pusillanimous and John Roberts may be forever linked in dictionaries of the future. Who can forget Obama's whining in his State of the Union address, and Sam Alito shaking his head and mouthing the words, "Not true."

Michael Walsh entitled his piece, "Well, it worked, didn't it?" http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/304535/well-it-worked-didnt-it-michael-walsh

Too many barney Fifes, too few Andy Taylors

Mike at Cold Fury notes that "the trouble with America begins with the sad fact that we have way too many Barney Fifes, and way too few Andy Taylors." The link is to an Atlantic article by Hampton Stevens, which is well worth reading.
Read more of the Cold Fury post here: http://coldfury.com/2012/07/05/barney-fife-nation-2/

Have you no decency?

Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds seldom uses language this strong: "Let me be clear: All you people who were playing the have-you-no-decency card under Bush, but who aren’t screaming just as loud now – which is pretty much all of you people who were playing the have-you-no-decency card under Bush – were and are miserable lying hacks." He then links to a New York Daily News columnist who notes that the same people who excoriated Bush's war on terror are letting Obama do as he pleases: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/liberals-ignore-obama-guantanamos-article-1.1106633?localLinksEnabled=false
via Cold Fury

Keep him, or let him go?

By midnight tonight, we will know if the New York Knicks have matched the Houston Rockets offer for the services of guard Jeremy Lin. Here is one sports writer who thinks they should let him go: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/jason-kidd-dwi-hamptons-ny-knicks-letting-jeremy-lin-walk-houston-article-1.1115404

Negative rights versus positive rights

Cogitating Duck wrote a blog post recently about negative rights versus positive rights. "Negative rights–government’s promise to do no ill–and positive rights, government’s guarantee to ensure good outcomes.  The sum of human experience and the duration of America’s Constitutional enterprise both attest to this: that it is practical and necessary for government to extend negative rights, but impractical and immoral to extend positive ones." The writer traces this back to Roosevelt's State of the Union speech in 1941, when FDR promoted Four Freedoms:
1. Freedom of speech and expression
2. Freedom of worship
3. Freedom from want
4. Freedom from fear
Read the whole thing here:  http://cogitatingduck.com/2012/07/15/two-trons-four-freedoms/

Gone: MSNBC.com!

Maybe there is hope for Microsoft after all. They have successfully negotiated a split with NBC. If you click on MSNBC.com, you will now get NBCNEWS.com!

"Microsoft, in particular, had grown frustrated by contract terms requiring it to exclusively feature MSNBC.com content on its own websites. That exasperation was exacerbated by the MSNBC cable channel's strategy to counter Fox News Channel's appeal to conservative viewers by tailoring its programming for an audience with a liberal viewpoint.

The strategy fed a perception that material from MSNBC's website was politically slanted, too."

Read more here:  http://cnsnews.com/news/article/microsoft-nbc-dissolve-msnbccom-joint-venture-0

"You didn't build that! Somebody else made that happen!

Rush Limbaugh today gave his broadcast engineer full authority to play this snippet from Obama's Roanoke speech any time the engineer saw fit during today's broadcast. That is because from the day America elected Obama President, Rush has been at war. Democrats silence Republicans by shaming them with words like racist, trying to get them to be "fair-minded." Rush has not been having any of that, because he knows how the Chicago boys play. Democrats have their war room. Republicans have Rush Limbaugh.tells crowd in swing-state Pennsylvania, "I'm convinced he wants Americans to be ashamed of success

Rush noted that while Obama took another executive act this week to gut welfare reform, by allowing for the work provision to be waived as a condition of getting benefits, The Washington Post and Politico both did hard-hitting investigations that revealed that Obama prefers "Thin Mint" Girl Scout cookies.

Update: John Podhoretz, writing in Commentary points out that there are 25 million Americans who run businesses with ten or less employees. "A man running for national office just said of their own businesses that they “didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” This statement is a colossal opportunity for Mitt Romney and will prove a suppurating wound for the president, who revealed a degree not only of condescension but of contempt for the very people who are going to decide this election.

And if there’s one thing people recognize, it’s when they are being viewed with contempt."

Update 2: Romney tells cheering crowd in swing-state Pennsylvania, "I'm convinced he wants Americans to be ashamed of success!" http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/17/romney-jumps-on-obamas-you-didnt-build-that-comment-video/

Update 3: Doug Ross provides us with a gallery of Obama entrepreneurship here: http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2012/07/you-didnt-build-that-gallery-of-obama.html

Update 4: Doug Ross also links to Neil Boortz, who writes that Obama is a fascist:  http://www.boortz.com/weblogs/nealz-nuze/2012/jul/16/obama-revealed/

In a Nutshell

The annualized rate of growth of the GDP is now just 1.1%. However, the total U.S. marketable debt has more than doubled in the last four years to 21%! That, in a nutshell tells the story of where our country stands under Obama's lack of leadership on the economy. Read more here:  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/problem-nutshell-annualized-gdp-growth-1-annualized-us-debt-growth-21
via Instapundit

Drought, corn, and Governor Walker

The Denver Post had this map of the U.S. this morning on the front page. It shows how the worst drought in 55 years is affecting many states, but it looks like Colorado is among the hardest hit. We soon should be going into "monsoon" season, which would bring relief. My family in New Mexico have been experiencing daily rains, so maybe some of that will drift northward.

The article in the Post says the corn crop has been "devastated." 38% of the corn crop is in "poor" or "very poor" condition. You know what that is going to mean for food and gas prices! Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin "declared a state of emergency in 42 counties last week to speed up the issuance of permits for temporarily using stream or lake water for irrigation." Why isn't Scott Walker's name at the top of the list of people being considered for Romney running mate?
Read more here: http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_21089894/high-and-dry

The Post-Employment economy

Are we in the Post-Employment economy? Have technological advances made employees less important? Conor Sen writes about these issues in The Atlantic, and also about the end of consumption. What?
Read it here: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/07/the-post-employee-economy-why-sky-high-profits-are-here-to-stay/259564/
via Instapundit

Update: The Denver Post has a story this morning reporting that hiring is up in Colorado, but wages are declining an average of 2.9 percent over a year ago.

Voting rights

Voting rights. Yes, voting is one of our most precious rights. Voting is also one of our most precious responsibilities.We have to show i.d.s in many areas of every day living. Showing an i.d. to exercise our most precious right should be a responsibility we all gladly undertake. Ditto for taking the time to become informed about candidates and issues, so we know who and what we are voting for, and why.

Sununu is on a roll

John Sununu has emerged as one of Romney's guys who stands up to liberals in the media.
via http://chicksontheright.com/2012/07/15/john-sununu-wasnt-content-to-own-andrea-mitchell-next-on-the-owned-list-juan-williams/

Obama administration fails to meet deadline for scanning cargo shipments before entering the U.S.

From the Washington Post: "The Obama administration has failed to meet a deadline imposed by Congress to scan all shipping containers for radioactive material before they reach the United States, a requirement aimed at strengthening maritime security and preventing terrorists from smuggling a nuclear device into any of the nation’s 300 sea and river ports.

“I personally do not believe they intend to comply with the law,” Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), co-author of the 2007 law, said in an interview. “This is a real terrorist threat, and it has a solution. We can’t afford to wait until a catastrophic attack.”

The Government Accountability Office has warned that a nuclear device could be detonated while at a port — containers often sit for days awaiting radiation checks — causing billions of dollars in damage in addition to the loss of life. Estimates of damage caused by a nuclear detonation at a major port range from tens of billions of dollars to $1 trillion.

Shipping containers are potentially ideal for smuggling weapons, people and other illicit cargo; ensuring the integrity of the contents is difficult and costly. The standard container is 40 feet long and 8 feet high and holds more than 30 tons of cargo. A large vessel carries 3,000 or more containers from hundreds of different shippers and many ports. And a single container can hold cargo from many customers.

Counterterrorism experts have worried about port vulnerability since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the attacks, reportedly told interrogators he had considered sending explosives to the United States hidden inside a shipment of personal computers from Japan.

The DHS says monitors scan 99 percent of the containers for radiation after they arrive at U.S. ports. But experts say the monitors at U.S. ports are not sophisticated enough to detect nuclear devices or highly enriched uranium, which emit low levels of radiation."

Read the whole thing here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/port-security-us-fails-to-meet-deadline-for-scanning-of-cargo-containers/2012/07/15/gJQAmgW8mW_story.html
via Instapundit

iPhone dematerialization

Marian L. Tupy at CATO asked her readers to send her examples of materials they no longer need, now that they have iPhones. Here is what they came up with. You may have to zoom in a few times to be able to look at all the items. She calls it the principle of dematerialization.  http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/dematerialization-update/

The Man at the Supreme Court

In my opinion, there is one Supreme Court Justice who stands head and shoulders above the rest. Moreover, he does so by avoiding the spotlight of media speculation, preferring to let his written opinions speak loudly and clearly. That Justice is Clarence Thomas. Read more about him and his writings here: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/ht-justice-clarence-thomas/

Frying uniforms on Harry Reid's bonfire

Senator Harry Reid, presiding over a U.S. Senate whose work is disapproved of by 86 percent of the U.S. citizens, is outraged that the privately funded U.S. Olympic Committee, seeking to live within their budget, has outfitted our athletes with uniforms made in China. Daniel Ikenson, writing at CATO, has this to say,
"If you are still not convinced that our policymakers’ objections are inane, consider this: As our U.S. athletes march around the track at London’s Olympic stadium wearing their Chinese-made uniforms and waving their Chinese-made American flags, the Chinese athletes will have arrived in London by U.S.-made aircraft, been trained on U.S.-designed and -engineered equipment, wearing U.S.-designed and -engineered footwear, having perfected their skills using U.S.-created technology.

Our economic relationship with China, characterized by transnational supply chains and disaggregated production sharing, is more collaborative than competitive. The real competition will be happening in the gyms, pools, and on the fields. Let the games begin."
Read the whole thing here:  http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/bonfire-of-the-inanities/

Smashing the Roberts Taxon

Okay, you want to read something that is laugh-out-loud hilarious satire? Iowahawk writes about the attempt by DNC scientists to disprove the existence of the Roberts Taxon. This is obviously equal in importance to the recent work done by scientists to find the God particle. However, 
"In order to disprove the Taxon, scientists at the HSWC devised a test experiment in their enormous CarneyLab bullshit accelerator. This test involved speeding a small mass of Facton - theoretically containing Roberts' Taxon - and smashing it at near-light speed against a flaming super-dense ionized clod of purified bullshit."

 "We were careful to shroud the collision within the Beltosphere, which is protected with a thick sheath of inert, pliable media," he noted. "As additional protection, we surrounded it with a negatively-charged gaseous squirrel field."

Read the whole thing here:  http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2012/07/dnc-scientists-disprove-existence-of-roberts-taxon.html
 

Conservatives and Libertarians: The trees that fall in the forest and do not make a sound!

Sarah Hoyt writes from experience about the failures of socialized medicine. She wonders why the message isn't getting out about the fact that free health care is worth what people pay for it. Read more here: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/07/14/if-a-conservative-speaks-in-the-forest/?singlepage=true
via instapundit

Economic principles made simple

From The Bookworm blog: http://www.bookwormroom.com/2012/07/12/economic-principles-made-simple/

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

The Obama legacy

Victor Davis Hansen is asking questions again. "Why would the president not release subpoenaed documents to the US Congress while he leaked national security secrets to the world? Why was grilling Alberto Gonzalez not racism, but doing the same to Eric Holder supposedly is? From where did “Shut the f— up” [11] National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon appear? Fannie Mae and K Street? Do Commerce secretaries usually drive Lexuses as they promote US industry?"

He raises many more questions and makes many more solid points, but he ends on a positive note.  "And what happened? In less than 40 months, Obama destroyed the greatest bipartisan good will that any recent president has enjoyed, and has done more to discredit Keynesian neo-socialist politics than have all of talk radio, Fox News, and the internet combined. In just two years, he took a Democratic Congress and lost the House in the largest midterm setback since 1938. In other words, the people — fifty percent of whom either do not pay federal income taxes or receive some sort of state or federal entitlement or both — saw the best face of modern neo-socialism imaginable, and they were not quite sold on it.

Second, it is hard to screw up America in just four years. Look at it this way: gas and oil production has soared despite, not because of, the federal government. The rest of the world — the unraveling European Union, the Arab Spring, Putin’s Russia, aging Japan, authoritarian China, the recrudescent Marxism in Latin America — reminds us of American exceptionalism. The verdict from Wisconsin is that the statist model is over [12]. The public union, big pension, non-fireable employee model is left only with an “après nous, le déluge“ [13] sigh. The private sector is not doing fine, but shortly will be when it is assured taxes won’t soar, energy will be cheaper, and Obamacare will cease. The irony is that the last four years have reminded us of what we still can be, and how we differ from most other places in the world."

Please read the whole thing here:  http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson070412.html

A dog, a dolphin, a man, and a woman

Very, very sweet.
from http://www.theospark.net/2012/07/friendship-or-love.html

A brave sixteen-year-old

Led by this sixteen-year-old, women in Afghanistan protested this week the execution of a woman by the Taliban. The sixteen-year-old refused to marry a man, who then threw acid in her face. Let's see, the Taliban: aren't those the people Obama wants to "partner" with?
Read more here: http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/07/voiceless-march-women-against-sharia-march-in-afghanistan.html

"Poor Me!"

What kind of person are you drawn to? I like a person with a great sense of humor, who shows good balance between their own concerns and a genuine interest in other people.

Do you know people who are ALWAYS going to make the conversation about THEM? To make matters worse, it is invariably something negative, something they are angry about, something in which they portray themselves as victims of something unfair. These individuals are one hundred percent predictable! If you could get somebody to accompany you to the site of the conversation with Mr. or Ms. "Poor Me," and place a bet with your companion about the likelihood of "Poor Me"going into the victim mode, you could be as rich as Barack Obama!

Spot-on satire

Readers of the Obama Diaries soon realize that author Laura Ingraham has closely studied the Obamas. Laura imagines what each really thinks about subjects such as America, religion, food, fitness, partying with celebrities, and much more. She has them write their "real" thoughts in diary entries. Then, Laura gives her own views on the same subjects, which starkly contrast with the views of the Obamas and their associates. My favorite is Laura's depiction of Michelle, but all the characters are spot-on.

On Principles, ideology and rigorous thinking

Jonah Goldberg talks about ideology. Obama pretends to have no ideology. So do others on the left. Goldberg encourages people to think rigorously about principles, and string those principles into an ideology.
via American Power:  http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/jonah-goldberg-on-ideology.html

So true, isn't it? I do not relate!

Thanks to Gerard Vanderleun, who posted this in his the way we live now American Studies segment here: http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/american_studies/the_way_we_live_now.php

Do we appreciate those who do the dirty jobs?

"Take the time...learn a skill...master a trade. C'mon America, roll up your sleeves. let's get going!" Mike Rowe, of Dirty Jobs, speaks with passion about the lack of appreciation in America for the "trades."
I am proud that I have two stepsons in the trades. One is a truck driver, the other a diesel mechanic.
Thanks to Gerard Vanderleun for posting this at http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/american_studies/mike_rowe_america_has_a_d.php

Christmas in July

Ann Voskamp writes about God dreams and American dreams. There are many photos of Haiti and its people and Christian love here: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/07/how-the-american-dream-becomes-christmas-in-july/

Man beheaded because he converted to Christianity

"Video footage of a convert from Islam to Christianity being murdered by Muslims has been shown on Egyptian TV, according to the Barnabas Fund.
The graphic incident, which is reported to have taken place in Tunisia, was aired on a program called Egypt Today.
The footage shows a young man being held down by masked men with a knife to his throat. One man chants a number of Muslim prayers in Arabic, mostly condemning Christianity. The man holding the knife to the Christian convert’s throat begins to cut, slowly severing the head amid cries of “Allahu Akbar” (“god is great”).
The story continued by saying that the Egypt Today presenter was visibly distressed by the scenes. Then, referring to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis, who together hold the majority of seats in the country’s parliament, he asked, “How are such people supposed to govern?"
Read more here:  http://weaselzippers.us/2012/07/12/tunisian-convert-from-islam-to-christian

When wearing a cross has consequences

This woman's face was disfigured, after an acid attack on her by a man who saw she was wearing a small cross around her neck. He asked her if she was a Christian, and she said, yes. Read more here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172338/They-wanted-hang-

Waiting to provoke a global jihad

A former CIA operative in Iran, who now teaches at the Department of Defense's Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy, has written a post at Human Events revealing that more than 40,000 of the Iranian regime’s security, intelligence and propaganda forces successfully have been placed over time in Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Venezuela.

These forces consist mostly of former interrogators, torturers and security forces along with the members of the Quds Forces.

Many of them, according to the source, are other nationalities, such as Afghans, Lebanese, Iraqis and Somalis."
Please read more here:  http://www.wnd.com/2012/07/army

Allowing men to be serially sodomized

Could it be true that more men are raped each year in the U.S. than women? Velociman writes about our "disgusting rape epidemic" in our prisons. He writes in a July 6 post, "Here's the thing: as a smart society you want that man walking out of that prison to be a better man than the one who walked in. By allowing him to be serially sodomized I don't think you are going to get a better man walking out of those gates. The good news is he will be domiciling in a neighborhood near you."
Read the whole thing here:  http://www.velociworld.com/

Credibility

Few things are more important than one's credibility. When I am reading blogs, I am wanting to learn something, but I want it to be credible. When I re-post something to my blog, I want to be sure it is from a credible source. Our enemies really believe they are better than we. They love to mock us. If we out-work them, and do the digging required to know the truth, we will have the last laugh in the end.

I have removed from my blog yesterday's item about Barack and Michelle losing their licenses to practice law. I thought about it overnight, asking myself why had I never heard of this before. I decided to go to Snopes.com, where I learned that they both no longer have licenses, because they both no longer practice law!
Here is the Snopes review:  http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/lawlicenses.asp

Here is more from a blog with which I am unfamiliar: "He did not resign his license to practice law until AFTER a complaint had been filed with the ARDC." http://polination.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/why-did-barack-obama-surrender-his-il-law-license/


FactCheck.org confirms the findings at Snopes: http://www.factcheck.org/2012/06/the-obamas-law-licenses/

Studying the invisible

Here is a video that helps us understand Higgs boson, also known as the "God particle."

A lost cause

Can you believe I just turned down a free cruise for two to the Bahamas? All I would have had to do is complete a "short political survey" over the telephone. What's wrong with me? Have I become so skeptical that I actually believe all that conservative rhetoric about self-reliance and working for what I earn? I am obviously a lost cause!

The power of courts to strike down legislative acts

At the Volokh Conspiracy Orin Kerr writes, "
There are two basic positions in the American legal tradition about the power of courts to strike down legislative acts. The first position envisions the power of judicial review as an unambiguously positive thing. It is a Constitution we are interpreting, and we should strive to get it right. If that means that statutes must be struck down, then good: It means that the wayward legislature has strayed from fundamental law, and we are lucky that the wise judges can keep the other branches in check. The ideal judge should try to get it right, based on whatever understanding they have of what the Constitution truly means.

The second position envisions the power of judicial review as important but also potentially dangerous. We live in a democracy, and statutes represent majority will. Judges often confuse their view of the constitution and their view of sensible policy, which creates a significant danger that courts will overturn legislatures when they like the results rather than when the constitution truly demands it. Given that legislatures are majoritarian and the judiciary is not, we should be wary of judges using dubious theories to trump the will of the people. The ideal judge should approach judicial review with these institutional concerns in mind, and should rely on established doctrines such as stare decisis and canons of constitutional avoidance."

"How about the present? Right now both conservatives and liberals are divided on these questions. There is disagreement in both camps. Partly that reflects old habits. But partly it reflects the fact that since 2006, the median Justice has been Justice Anthony Kennedy. Justice Kennedy’s views generally are pretty libertarian, His views of the law are to the right of existing precedents in some ways and to the left of them in others. To oversimplify a complex pattern, Justice Kennedy’s positions on the law tend to be to the right of existing precedents in areas like federalism, criminal procedure, and campaign finance, while they tend to be to the left of existing precedents in areas like the Eighth Amendment and gay rights. Justice Kennedy’s position as the median Justice makes this a good time for libertarian constitutionalists. But because the median vote isn’t clearly on one side, we’re seeing a lot of shifting rhetorical positions on the role of the Supreme Court. We’ll probably see this in the next year or two as the Supreme Court takes on gay marriage and revisits affirmative action. Gay marriage will bring out the old alignments; affirmative action will reverse them."
Read more here:  http://www.volokh.com/2012/07/10/will-the-health-care-cases-cause-liberals-and-conservatives-to-switch-positions-on-the-role-of-the-supreme-court/

Science and God

From the Spirit of Truth blog:

"It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us." - Stephen Hawking, 'A Brief History of Time', p.127

“Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. Fred Hoyle, the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if "a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics". 

To see the problem, imagine playing God with the cosmos. Before you is a designer machine that lets you tinker with the basics of physics. Twiddle this knob and you make all electrons a bit lighter, twiddle that one and you make gravity a bit stronger, and so on. It happens that you need to set thirtysomething knobs to fully describe the world about us. The crucial point is that some of those metaphorical knobs must be tuned very precisely, or the universe would be sterile. 

Example: neutrons are just a tad heavier than protons. If it were the other way around, atoms couldn't exist, because all the protons in the universe would have decayed into neutrons shortly after the big bang. No protons, then no atomic nucleuses and no atoms. No atoms, no chemistry, no life. Like Baby Bear's porridge in the story of Goldilocks, the universe seems to be just right for life.” ― Paul Davies

Read more here:  http://thespiritoftruth.blogspot.com/2012/07/why-belief-in-god-is-reasonable.html

"Incompetent forest management and lawsuit happy green thugs"

This summer I have read at least one book from each of the big three. The big three are the big three conservative women authors and bloggers: Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, and Laura Ingraham. I just finished Michelle's Culture of Corruption. She covers in great detail the Clintons, the Obamas, and all their corrupt cronies.

Recently Michelle's family had to be evacuated from their home in Waldo Canyon west of Colorado Springs. Thanks to recent rains, they have now been allowed to return. She writes about it and fights back against hucksters like Al Gore, who claim the fires were caused by global warming.

She writes, "Radical green efforts to block logging and timber sales in national forests since the 1990s are the real culprits. Wildlife mitigation experts point to incompetent forest management and militant opposition to thinning the timber fuel supply.

Another symptom of green obstructionism: widespread bark beetle infestations. The U.S. Forest Service itself reported last year:
“During the last part of the 20th century, widespread treatments in lodgepole pine stands that would have created age class diversity, enhanced the vigor of remaining trees, and improved stand resiliency to drought or insect attack — such as timber harvest and thinning — lacked public acceptance. Proposals for such practices were routinely appealed and litigated, constraining the ability of the Forest Service to manage what had become large expanses of even-aged stands susceptible to a bark beetle outbreak.”

Capitulation to lawsuit-happy green thugs, in others, undermined “public acceptance” of common sense, biodiversity-preserving and lifesaving timber harvest and thinning practices.

Local, state and federal officials offered effusive praise for my fellow Colorado Springs residents who engaged in preventive mitigation efforts in their neighborhoods. The government flacks said it made a life-and-death difference. Yet, litigious environmental groups have sabotaged such mitigation efforts at the national level — in effect, creating an explosive tinderbox out of the West.

Stoking global warming alarms may make for titillating headlines and posh Al Gore confabs. But it’s a human blame avoidance strategy rooted in ideological extremism and flaming idiocy."

Read more here:  http://michellemalkin.com/2012/07/06/global-warming-blame-ologists-play-with-fire/

I'd vote for this young man!

 
 http://althouse.blogspot.com/2012/07/sometimes-when-people-ask-what-do-you.html
(via Instapundit)

A blog friend loses his home to fire

One of my favorite blog friends has lost his home to fire. Please go here to view the photos and read his account of it. Contribute if you can.http://crazedpw.blogspot.com/2012/07/its-definitely-poor-farm-right-now.html

Just a quick trip around the Earth

Want to take a trip around the Earth in just a couple of minutes? Here we go!
http://politicsandfinance.blogspot.com/2012/07/time-lapse-video-of-space-thats-out-of.html

Ten Ways Obama is Wrecking the Economy

Pirate's Cove links to a post listing ten ways that Obama is wrecking the economy. Then he adds two more:
Executive Branch over-reach: on a constant basis we find that executive branch agencies continuously go beyond their Congressional mandates, taking power for themselves. Under Obama, we see the EPA, the BLM, and a host of other alphabet soup agencies act well beyond what their duties are without response to the legislative branch.

Creating uncertainty: Obama creates uncertainty within the private marketplace by continuously pushing policies that leave businesses wondering just what will happen. This dovetails into taxes, free trade, wasting money, regulations, and Obamacare, among others.

How many others can you name?

 The Pirate's Cove post is here: http://www.thepiratescove.us/2012/07/06/10-ways-obama-is-killing-the-american-economy/

With his tongue planted firmly in his cheek

One of the commenters at Innominatus made me laugh when he recommended to Grandpa Innominatus to keep the kids on the porch, and hose em down every few days. I went to his blog, and got many more laughs, so he is now on my blogroll. Read more here: http://lionskip.blogspot.com/

Losing toes to frostbite at Valley Forge

Innominatus ponders the subject we have all been wondering about: what is worth losing toes to frostbite? He answers the question, and has this request: "How 'bout more divine Providence and more sacred Honor?  And maybe go a little lighter on the Hope and the Change, OK?" He also explores the differences between the slobber of dogs and the slobber of babies. Read the whole thing here: http://innominatus87.blogspot.com/2012/07/happy-birthday-america.html

You have been warned!

Roger Kimball reports on the latest rulings from the religion of peace. If you slice open a tomato, you will find that in its heart there is a shape of a cross. Therefore, you are warned not to eat it. Also, if you were wondering what size instrument you should use in beating your wife, Islamic authorities recommend one about the width of your thumb. 122 million people have looked up this latter recommendation on Google. Read Kimball's whole post here, including a translation of the Arabic text accompanying the picture of the tomato:  http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2012/07/05/further-those-christian-tomatoes/

Unique in American history

Randy Barnett writes about the uniqueness of Judge Roberts' decision on Obamatax: "Which brings me to the remarkable nature of the legal analysis of Chief Justice Roberts opinion. He appears to have been the first person in the United States to have adopted this two-part legal analysis: (a) The individual insurance mandate is unconstitutional as beyond the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses, and (b) the meaning of the “individual responsibility requirement” can only be upheld if given a “saving construction” to eliminate its character as a requirement, and render it an “option” to buy insurance or pay the tax, such that no one is actually bound or mandated by the requirement."

He was apparently against it before he was for it.  http://www.volokh.com/2012/07/05/the-unprecedented-uniqueness-of-chief-justice-roberts-opinion/

"Incompetence is its saving grace!"

Well, here is a novel way to look at the Obama presidency. Charles Krauthammer asserts that the only saving grace is its incompetency.

"And now immigration. Obama adopts a policy of major non-enforcement of the immigration law — a variant of the very Dream Act he could not get through even a Democratic Congress — and promulgates it unilaterally, while his Justice Department claims the right to invalidate state laws that might in some way impinge on that very non-enforcement.

The Republican presidential campaign centers on the ineffectiveness of this administration: failure at home, passivity abroad. A fine electoral strategy. But as citizens we should be grateful. Given the administration’s extravagant ambitions, incompetence is its saving grace."

Read more: http://www.heraldnews.com/newsnow/x478683828/Charles-Krauthammer-The-imperial-presidency-revisited#ixzz1zsSCjEwp

Is he waging a war against women?

The number of women who are unemployed has risen since Obama began his presidency. 780,000 more women are unemployed than when he took office. Is he waging a war against women? http://cnsnews.com/news/article/780000-more-women-unemployed-today-when-obama-took-office

Hawkings loses a bet

Scientists in Europe and America believe they may have discovered "The God Particle." Called the Higgs boson, it is a theorized subatomic particle that holds together the electrons, protons, and neutrons that make up atoms. The theory is that without it, nothing could exist.

Stephen Hawkings said, "This is an important result and should earn Peter Higgs the Nobel Prize. But it is a pity in a way because the great advances in physics have come from experiments that gave results we didn't expect. For this reason I had a bet with Gordon Kane of Michigan University that the Higgs particle wouldn't be found. It seems I have just lost $100."

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/327963#ixzz1zs45UOGs

Are blog posts protected by free speech rights?

Are your blog posts protected by our rights under the Constitution? Not according to some judges: http://www.openmarket.org/2012/07/06/maryland-court-dissolves-injunction-against-blogger-massachusetts-judge-orders-blogger-to-take-down-blog-posts/

When we stopped being foster parents, the director of the foster care agency demanded that I take down all posts I had written about our foster children, even though I had never used their real names. My wife had been traumatized by the actions of a local caseworker, so I deleted the posts in deference to her well-being. I strongly regret that we caved in.

Satan's allies

Grasshoppers are Satan's chosen representatives in the summer. Our record-shattering heat (also from Satan?) is bad enough for plants' survival, but the grasshoppers then come in and finish them off, About the only native plants that survive are the grasses, whose stems are just too spindly for the grasshoppers' tastes (pun intended). In the mountains beetles have come in and decimated native pines, making them vulnerable to wildfires.

Thankful for being with loved ones

The kids are back in New Mexico. One lonely basketball sits in the driveway, waiting for someone to pick it up and throw it somewhere near the hoop. I call them every night, but it is not the same as being with them physically. Not even close. It was wonderful being with them, and I hope they feel the same.

Obama's Fabrications

The Investors Daily Business publication wonders if Obama is a pathological liar. It lists thirteen outright lies Obama has told. If the press were truly independent, they could no doubt uncover many more. Read the list here: http://news.investors.com/article/615581/201206201901/obama-tells-stories-to-support-radical-agenda.htm?p=full

What to do about newspapers

Recently I realized that I had five days of unopened newspapers. Yet, I had been staying informed by reading news stories on the internet. I started wondering if I should cancel my subscriptions. I pulled one newspaper out of its plastic sleeve, and, lo and behold, there was fodder for not one, but two, blog posts to counteract the liberal bias of the newspaper!

I guess I'll hang in there a while longer with the subscriptions, much the same as I do with NPR, which produces some good stuff here locally, in between the left-leaning biases so apparent in their national newscasts.

Newspapers still employ large enough staffs to cover a wide variety of news stories. I have noticed that the Denver Post is trying to make a niche for itself as an organ that covers local stories. Those stories are appearing on the front page more often than national stories. They used to have something from the New York Times as the main story. Now they are decreasing their dependence on the Times, just like the rest of us!

Can you trust kids to think their own thoughts, or are you so insecure that you insist on them thinking only the thoughts you want them to have?

In preparation for surgery on July 10 to remove a cataract from my right eye, I had a pre-surgery appointment on July 5. The kids were with me. We had gone to Denver's famous Tattered Cover bookstore, where I bought each of them a book to read, but a large screen t.v. was on in the waiting room of the doctor's office, with CNN's anchor Wolf Blitzer and some very pretty anchor babe talking to each other. When I returned from the exam, the kids were nowhere to be seen. I found them playing out in the large lobby of the swanky building.

As we drove to our next stop, Jon asked me if I planned to vote for Romney. I said yes, and I was glad I had kept my mouth shut to the extent that Jon did not know who I was going to vote for (although he surely must surmise that I will not vote for Obama). Jon had recently said, "Do you know what I hate?" "No, Jon, what?" "I hate it when kids talk politics, and you just know they are just parroting what they have heard their parents say. They haven't really thought about it in depth, and then made up their own minds. I want to make up my own mind after asking questions and thinking about it." I want to respect that independent thinking on the part of my son, and be ready to ask the questions that get him thinking about things.

Then Jon said this, "I was watching CNN in the lobby of the doctor's office. CNN is trying to make people believe that Romney will outsource jobs overseas, while Obama will create jobs for people right here in America!" Then Jon went on to tell me how his teachers in Santa Fe constantly preach about global warming and other facets of liberal theology. I love how this kid sees through the b.s.!

A Governor who has the guts to practice common sense!

Instapundit links to a post at The Foundry featuring a governor who is on the cutting edge of bursting the higher education bubble. The governor? Scott Walker of Wisconsin! Here is his idea: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/07/05/morning-bell-governor-walker-breaks-new-ground-in-higher-ed/

Happy Freedom Day!

The Independence Eve celebration in downtown Denver was definitely worth the trip. Thousands of people gathered to watch and listen to the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and a few fireworks. When the orchestra played the 1812 Overture, the buildings lit up and fireworks exploded in the sky. The color guard presented the flags as the performance began with the Star Spangled Banner. Of course, the kids and I were in the front row right next to the orchestra. No self-respecting blogger would settle for less, especially when it is a free event! The tunes? My favorite was Born in the USA, although I am not too sure how many of the crowd were actually born in the USA. It is a song that encourages one to belt out at the top of one's lungs, which I did, happily.

The skies here are full of smoke. There is a state-wide fireworks ban, as new wildfires are raging in the mountains.

Celebrating America on July 3rd!

The kids and I are at the Denver Library. Next door the Colorado Symphony Orchestra is tuning up for a Fourth of July concert (on July 3rd) to be followed by fireworks. It is one of the few places in the state where fireworks are being allowed, so there will no doubt be a large crowd. It won't be easy to pull these kids away from their computer games, but I will think of something.

Culture of Corruption

Can someone please tell me how con-artist sociopaths can rise to the presidency of the United States? With Obama, you can know exactly who he is, if you listen to what he says he believes, then realize that often what he does is exactly the opposite! Michelle Malkin has done a superb job of giving examples of this in her book Culture of Corruption. She digs into the backgrounds of everyone from Eric Holder to Barack and Michelle Obama and their political appointees as czars and close associates of Obama. We are so fortunate to have Michelle Malkin as a blogosphere colleague.

Brave

How do you mend a torn relationship? That is the theme of a new animated movie entitled Brave. It is certainly a worthwhile subject for a movie, and the movie gives it a wonderful effort. The animation is superb. It provided me with a wonderful teaching opportunity with my three kids as we made the long drive home to the high plains.