Not Your Average Rockets Red Glare

Rocket launch from Gaza, aimed at Israeli civilians.

Imagine living in a tiny strip of land, where some parts are only about 10 miles wide.

Then imagine in the part where you do have a lot of space, raving lunatics shoot off randomly targeted semi-pro rockets at you. One or two of you might die every once in a while. But you'll have to head inside in case there is a barrage coming.

How long would you put up with that? For those psychos that are bombing you - would you want to provide them with electricity? Water? Imports to let their economy run so they can build more rockets and buy more machine guns? Again, these madmen live only miles away from you, sometimes not even behind a big cement wall. (Israel does just that - provides electricity, water, and allows Gaza to carry on commerce with the outside.)


Visualize this - you are the small blue part below inside California.

And all of the rest of California wants you out of that blue part.
And, even inside the blue part there are vast swaths where those enemies live.
In the rest of the blue part, one in five or so of the citizens are friends with those who want to kick you out. Not exactly comfy. And all that yellow California part are states controlled by dictators, proxies for Iran (who wants you wiped off the map), and outright terrorist-controlled countries. 30 years ago they tried to wipe you out - not politically. Really. As in all of you dead, and all of 'we' take your land.



Such is the state of Israel today.

Zippy The Foregin Minister Speaks

And she's livid...

actually, she's so boring you don't even need to watch it.





Sorry for the stupid name puns.

But why is it liberal governments, like that which currently runs Israel, just love bombing? Sending in the troops they can't stand - but bombs? You betcha. Remember Clinton and his bomb-lobbing at Al-Qeada camps? Several donkeys were injured. Then he bombed Sarajevo in the Balkans war.

Israel in 2006 bombed everything in sight during their war against Hezbollah. They crippled Lebanon but not Hezbollah, turning world opinion radically against them. Then the Olmert government lamely and belatedly sent in ground troops - a few miles or so into Lebanon.

Troops, no. Bombs, yes.

How many more targets can there possibly be in the backwards and tiny Gaza strip?

I'm all for Israel defending itself. But I seem to recall that when Israel actually occupied the Gaza strip and regularly conducted ground raids, there were no suicide bombers, nor Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules Gaza, nor the need to bomb everything.

Let's get the real men and women back in control in Israel, the ones who can deal with terror as it warrants.

Terrorists in Gaza have been shooting rockets nonstop for years. Why all the bombing now? Could it be their upcoming election, with political opponent Bibi Netanyahu knocking at the door? This massive bombing right before an election smacks of cowardice and craven politics over real action.

You Know...

This is, you know, that Kennedy, who wants Hillary's, you know, Senate seat. I say auction to the highest bidder in that great, you know, Democratic Party tradition.

"I'm really coming into this as somebody who isn't, you know, part of the system, who obviously, you know, stands for the values of, you know, the Democratic Party," Kennedy told the Daily News Saturday during a wide-ranging interview.
"I know how important it is to, you know, to be my own person. And, you know, and that would be obviously true with my relationship with the mayor."
- Caroline, You Know, Kennedy

Full, you know, story, uh, you know, here.

Huge Raid In Gaza Strip: Israel Rains Down Bombs

Full story here at the Jerusalem Post....

Funny how when Israel decides, once in a while, to defend itself, suddenly there calls for "restraint". And no one in the press can figure out who actually "broke the truce". You, know that 6-month cease-fire kind of truce where the Gazans rained down rockets in southern Israel every week. You, know, that kind of truce. That's the "truce" that the Israelis let expire.
And now the bombs begin.

It's very sad, because a lot of lives are in hell right now.

But this problem is easily solvable if all the Palestinian Arabs want is some land. But they don't, they want the annihilation of Israel. That one's pretty much impossible to solve. Even if Iran puts a nuke off the coast of Israel they won't cease to exist and just go away.

It seems we'll just continue in this cycle of violence, then fake peace talks, until the Arabs decide that peace is the only route and Israel has right to exist. Sad.

Awesome Weather Pix

From Weather Underground...

... no, not that Bill Ayers' terrorist friend-of-Obama thing..

The Pelosi Man's Kind of Car...

From the inimitable Iohawk...

Congressional Motors brings you...

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2008!!!!

From Russia, With Love and Treason

Oh, those Russians love their pride.

They'd rather, apparently, be proud than free.

I recently asked a woman from Belarus, a Russian satellite country, what she thought of Putin.
"Thumbs up", she said and gesticulated. Then she changed her mind: "Two thumbs up", as she shook her head an affirmative yes.

And what's not to like about Vladimir Putin? State-controlled radio and TV, state-owned oil companies, after taking over and liquidating the companies and literally jailing their CEO's. Then there's all that nuclear technology they're so willing to sell. I thought it was a nice touch that they sold Saddam Hussein advanced surface-to-air missiles right before we invaded.
And can anyone even count the number of murders of dissidents? The Forbes Russian Editor, the famous woman critic of the Chechnyan war, and man others (see below).

Now, Russia looks like it's going to enact a treason bill which counts as treason acts that are "damaging" to Russia's constitution. In other words, any protest.

Full article here: Russian treason bill could hit Kremlin critics

"New legislation backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would allow Russian authorities to label any government critic a traitor—a move that rights activists said Wednesday was a chilling throwback to times of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin."

And you think Iraq is a failure of diplomacy on our part? Letting Russia slide back into abyss of first lawlessness in the 90's and now into Stalinism under the guise of "sovereign democracy", is a massive failure on the part of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

And to add some frosting to this sweet cake of a story, let's end with a 2006 WaPost piece on all of Russia's assassinations, written by a former Soviet KGB Colonel...

Russia's Killing Ways

Quotes...

"orders for assassinations no longer have names or signatures on them, according to what I am told by my connections. Directives such as the one to assassinate Alexander Litvinenko are written to say, for example, "Request permission to carry out inquiry abroad," with no mention of the target. The document goes to an archive with nothing tying those involved to an assassination."

Now, with Litvinenko, they have dared to kill a citizen of Britain on the soil of that country. Yandarbiyev, Shchekochikhin, Politkovskaya, Litvinenko: Russia has become a terrorist regime."

You're Welcome, Iraq

NY Times' international paper has a story on the the Arab reaction to the Bush shoe-throwing incident.

Thousands have demonstrated in Iraq in support of this, which implies that many more support this absurd and otherwise irrelevant act.

I wonder what the reaction would've been if the brave journalist had decided to throw his shoes and call a dog Saddam Hussein. Saddam just might have reacted a little differently. Say, cutting the guy into little pieces using a pocket knife, and maybe eliminating his family, maybe even his whole village. Who knows, but maybe Saddam's sons could have had their own brand of fun with the man's female relatives. That was the Hussein way.

Indeed, the only reason he could do this in the first place is that a free and open society was having a press conference with a freely elected leader of a free country.

It's hard not to get steaming angry at these mobs of ignorant protesters.
But they are just that - ignorant.

Who in their right mind, after being freed from Saddam Hussein and given a chance at freedom and prosperity, would insult the leader of the nation that brought you this chance? And, that after the nation had sacrificed thousands of its sons and daughters to do so?
Even if you no longer desired to have that nation have a say in your national affairs, you wouldn't dare treat it with the worst insult your culture can come up with (aside from all that rape and torture and mass-grave kind of stuff).

No, you wouldn't do that unless you are supremely ignorant. A violent tribal culture doesn't help either.

Perhaps these ingrates would prefer to have been treated like Japan and Germany towards the end of WWII - carpet-bombed and ruled by martial law. Maybe that's more their language.

It Is Cold...

The Evil of All Roots

Killer cartoon from Glenn Foden on Townhall.com...

Newt on Blago Scandal

Including some terrifying stats, like 82% of retiring CHP's (California Highway Patrol) in 2000 claimed a disability. 82%. No fraud there.

How About A Shark INSIDE of your Shark Cage???

Whoa.

That is a big freaking shark....

A View From The Hubble...

Click here to view a killer Hubble photo gallery.

Click here to view some of the best, with explanations.


And now, some more pics from your tax dollars at work...


How about 800 billion suns, 50,000 light-years across, and 28 million light-years away? El Galaxy De Sombrero:

Why Not "Culture of Corruption" Now?

Funny how we've heard no media mantra of "culture of corruption".

Chicago, the city that brought you the John F. Kennedy presidency after his daddy bought votes there, has apparently always been a cesspool of political corruption.

Jonah Goldberg has some seriously funny (eh?) things to say about it in his column: A Little Blago for Everybody. I had no idea this guy was this funny...

Oh, last thing, in no way is Obama connected to any of this graft, and he in no way was influenced by the corrupt machine that made him powerful. Nope. Not a bit. Getting all his opponents in the state senate race thrown off the ballot - leaving only him - was his own idea and kind of a fluke. So don't even ask or think about it...


Quotes:

For the more historically minded, it's a time for nostalgia. The past comes alive as Chicago's grand tradition of corruption is sustained for another generation. As the Chicago Tribune once wrote, "corruption has been as much a part of the landscape as corn, soybeans and skyscrapers." According to the Chicago Sun-Times, as of 2006, when Blago's predecessor, George Ryan, was sent to prison for racketeering, 79 elected officials had been convicted of corruption in the past 30 years. Among the perps: 27 aldermen, 19 judges, 15 state legislators, three governors, two congressmen, one mayor, two turtledoves and a partridge in a stolen pear tree. Especially in this holiday season, it's so very important to keep traditions alive for the kids. In a sense, Blago did it for the children.

For partisans, there's the schadenfreude that comes with watching the Democrats -- self-proclaimed anti-corruption zealots in recent years -- explain why Blagojevich shouldn't be lumped in with Congressmen Charlie Rangel (cut himself sweetheart deals), William Jefferson ($90,000 in his freezer) and Tim Mahoney (tried to bribe an aide he was sleeping with not to sue him; and you thought romance was dead) as part of a new Democratic "culture of corruption" storyline.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., himself the son of a shakedown artist, is alleged to have offered (through a minion) a half-million bucks for Barack Obama's vacant senate seat. Jackson replaced former Rep. Mel Reynolds, who went to jail for getting jiggy with a 16-year-old campaign staffer and stayed in jail because of various fraud convictions. Reynolds, in turn, was the "reformer" who had replaced Rep. Gus Savage, the thug-congressman who groped a Peace Corps volunteer in Zaire while on a "fact-finding" trip. Savage held off Reynolds' attempts to replace him for several years by claiming Reynolds was financed by "racist Jews."

Man, what isn't there to love about Chicago politics?

How Much Does it Cost to Buy a US Senate Seat?

About $1 MILLION buckaroonies.

From the Guardian...

Describing the offer in an October 31 conversation recorded by the FBI, Blagojevich said: "We were approached 'pay to play'. That you know, he'd raise me 500 grand. An emissary came. Then the other guy would raise a million, if I made him [Senate Candidate 5] a senator."

Senate Candidate number 5 is none other than Jesse Jackson, Jr. I quoth...

which yesterday widened beyond the figure of Blagojevich to Jesse Jackson Jr, a son of the civil rights leader, who wanted the president-elect's old Senate seat.

A lawyer for Jackson, a congressman and ally of Obama, acknowledged that he was the man identified as Senate Candidate 5 in the FBI wiretaps. Senate Candidate 5 is the only one of the contenders for Obama's seat alleged to have acted improperly, news reports said yesterday.

So the family who purports to stand for the little guy, tearing down discrimination, and raising the plight of the poor, can afford 1 million dollars just to buy a Senate seat. That's perfectly emblematic of liberal politics.

Have we heard one word about the "culture of corruption" in liberal politics? Not from Big Media.

Iowahwak: Feds Seize Blago's eBay Account

the humor averse be forewarned...

BREAKING: Feds Seize Blagojevich eBay Account

I love this page...

"Day Without a Gay" Not So Gay

Not very good participation in "Day Without a Gay", an attempted stoppage of work for all gays to protest those evil straight people who will simply not normalize the gay lifestyle.

Day without a gay? I'm thinking they should try "Whole Year Without a Gay."

Our New Sec. of State: HillBilly

From noblesseoblige.org...

Palin Put To Jazz

I love this...

Listen as the piano plays the exact melody and pitch used in her speaking voice.
[hat tip: LGF]

Governors Who Out-spent Growth Come, Hands Outstretched

And here come the state governments, looking for a handout from the Feds.

These are the same governors who increased their spending at 3 times the rate of economic growth, and now everyone else is supposed to bail them out. Disgusting.

Do you get the shell game governments play? During economic expansion times they can spend more than the rate of the expansion itself, growing government ever bigger in proportion to everything else. And why not, we'll pay down the debt with a ever-growing economy. Then, during recessions, they of course can't cut spending in the name of trying to stimulate the economy.

Yes, California is cutting back spending right now, after decades of out-of-control growth, but they (we!) are still left with tens of billions in debt and a still-huge budget deficit.

Jacob Armen - Etude #11

And now, the best drummer in the world. Patrick Moraz (Moody Blues, Yes, others) first told me that. And now that I've heard him - a lot - I believe it.

My friend, Jacob Armen...

Eye for an Eye, Literally, In Iran

No, this story is not 800 years old.

BBC reports that an Iranian court orders a man to be made blind by acid, the same way he attacked his victim.


Quotes:

A court in Iran has ruled that a man who blinded a woman with acid after she spurned his marriage proposals will also be blinded with acid.

The ruling was reported in Iranian newspapers on Thursday.

The punishment is legal under the Islamic Sharia code of qias or equivalence, which allows retribution for violent crimes.

Happy Thanksgiving

"I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens."
- President Lincoln, quote from official proclamation

IBD: Era of Fear

The S&P 500 chart for Fall 2008

IBD is running and op-ed piece on: Market Swings Indicate We're In Era Of Fear

Astonishing stats:
In the last few months, we've had 25 days in the stock market where it moved 4% or more. That 25 number equals what had occurred in the previous 25 years. Whoa.
In other words, this is an unprecedented amount of volatility. And fear.

Americans have decreased their savings rate down to zero, and a result of that has been an extra $1 Trillion spent each year. Wow is our economy going to miss that!

Since September 2007, Americans' personal wealth has dropped about $9 trillion, says economist Nigel Gault of IHS Global Insight. A common estimate is that every dollar's change in wealth causes people to change their spending by 5 cents. If so, the hit to consumer spending would be $450 billion ($9 trillion times .05).

But the mechanics of this cycle differ sufficiently from any since World War II as to raise doubts. Americans are less upset by hardships they've experienced than by those they imagine.


Quotes:

The stock market is nothing if not a psychological barometer. The present signal is unmistakable: fear.
It's not just that the market dropped by more than half; that decline parallels some previous post-World War II bear markets (48% in 1973-74 and 49% in 2000-02). More revealing are the day-to-day movements.

From mid-September to Nov. 21, there were 50 trading days; on 25 days, the market moved 4% or more (16 down, nine up). In the previous 25 years, there were just 25 daily moves of 4% or more. We've gone from one a year to one every other day.

The wild stock swings confirm the palpable fear and uncertainty. On average, households expect to spend only $418 on holiday gifts this year, down 11% from last year. Unemployment remains well below the average peak of post-World War II recessions (7.6%). What terrifies Americans is the prospect that the slump will become worse than average — and that government has lost control of events.

or the past quarter-century, higher stock prices and home values propelled the economy forward by inducing Americans to spend more of their incomes and to borrow more. In 1982, the personal saving rate was 11% of disposable income; by 2006, it was almost zero. The lowered saving rate added about $1 trillion annually to consumer spending — more shoes, laptops, books — out of a total of about $10 trillion.

When I Test Drive A New Car...

This is also a lot like my daily commute.

You can really skip ahead to the 1-minute mark.



[hat tip: Hot Air]

He Was Voted In Anyway...

30 of Our Guys Against 250 of Theirs - We Win

Our fighting soldiers are awesome.

In Afghanistan, 30 of our marines came under attack in a brutal area where successful attacks are often carried out, and not one of our guys was seriously injured - and out of 250 enemy, 50 were killed and more were wounded.

Whoa.

Full story on Military.com.
[hat tip LGF reader links]

Quotes:

The vicious attack that left the humvee destroyed and several of the Marines pinned down in the kill zone sparked an intense eight-hour battle as the platoon desperately fought to recover their comrades. After recovering the Marines trapped in the kill zone, another platoon sergeant personally led numerous attacks on enemy fortified positions while the platoon fought house to house and trench to trench in order to clear through the enemy ambush site.

During the battle, the designated marksman single handedly thwarted a company-sized enemy RPG and machinegun ambush by reportedly killing 20 enemy fighters with his devastatingly accurate precision fire. He selflessly exposed himself time and again to intense enemy fire during a critical point in the eight-hour battle for Shewan in order to kill any enemy combatants who attempted to engage or maneuver on the Marines in the kill zone.

“I was in my own little world,” the young corporal said. “I wasn’t even aware of a lot of the rounds impacting near my position, because I was concentrating so hard on making sure my rounds were on target.”

“I didn’t realize how many bad guys there were until we had broken through the enemies’ lines and forced them to retreat. It was roughly 250 insurgents against 30 of us,” the corporal said. “It was a good day for the Marine Corps. We killed a lot of bad guys, and none of our guys were seriously injured.”

Pennyland

Click on:
http://www.pennyland.org/

A reader submits this site - I've not looked at all the content, but there is a song with a great slideshow/movie about the Great Depression, if you like those sorts of things.

Thanks, Frank!

"Jolting" The Economy

Great piece by Thomas Sowell, with some quotes further below.

I do hope that at least most of you realize that this economic rescue is a cynical attempt on the part of the democrats to not only take into their hands significant economic power, but to also give themselves a permanent majority.

We are about to see a torrential hellstorm unleashed on conservatism, private industry, and traditional values. Don't say nobody warned ya'.

Quotes:

Amid all the political and media hysteria, national output has declined by less than one-half of one percent. In fact, it may not have declined even that much-- or at all-- when the statistics are revised later, as they very often are.

We are not talking about the Great Depression, when output dropped by one-third and unemployment soared to 25 percent.

What we are talking about is a golden political opportunity for politicians to use the current financial crisis to fundamentally change an economy that has been successful for more than two centuries, so that politicians can henceforth micro-manage all sorts of businesses and play Robin Hood, taking from those who are not likely to vote for them and transferring part of their earnings to those who will vote for them.

No doubt we could all use a few billion dollars every now and then. But the question of who actually gets it will be strictly in the hands of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. It is one of the few parts of the legacy of the Bush administration that the Democrats are not likely to criticize.

Many of those who have, over the years, praised the fact that this was the first time that the federal government took responsibility for trying to get the country out of a depression do not ask what seems like the logical follow-up question: Did this depression therefore end faster than other depressions where the government stood by and did nothing?

The Great Depression of the 1930s was in fact the longest-lasting of all our depressions.

Government policy in the 1930s was another bipartisan disaster. Despite a myth that Herbert Hoover was a "do nothing" president, he was the first President of the United States to step in to try to put the economy back on track.

With the passing years, it has increasingly been recognized that what FDR did was largely a further extension of what Hoover had done. Where Hoover made things worse, FDR made them much worse.

Herbert Hoover did what Barack Obama is proposing to do. Hoover raised taxes on high-income people and put restrictions on international trade, in order to try to save American jobs. It didn't work then and it is not likely to work now.

iPhone "Glitch" May Cause Divorce

A newly discovered iPhone "glitch" has been discovered.

I'm not sure if this post is real or not, but this is sure funny if it isn't...

Apple iPhone Discussion Thread: Pictures automatically attach to email?

"Please help! I took my husband's i-phone and found a raunchy picture of him attached to an e-mail to a woman in his sent e-mail file (a Yahoo account). When I approached him about this (I think that he is cheating on me) he admitted that he took the picture but says that he never sent it to anyone. He claims that he went to the Genius Bar at the local Apple store and they told him that it is an i-phone glitch: that photos sometimes automatically attach themselves to an e-mail address and appear in the sent folder, even though no e-mail was ever sent. Has anyone ever heard of this happening? The future of my marriage depends on this answer! "

If you like this article, click the buzz button below.

Citigroup Trades 1 BILLION SHARES!!

UPDATE: Citi - too big to fail? May get bailed out...

Citigroup, ticker symbol C, plunged 20% today, on massive volume - 1 billion shares traded hands today alone. Wow. I'm sure it's happened before, but I've never seen a stock trade one billion shares in one day.

Typical volume on the entire NASDAQ is usually 2 billion shares trading hands, for ALL companies listed on that exchange. (C trades on the NYSE, which has higher daily volume, but still.)

Citigroup stock is down almost 90% in one year. So much for buy and hold.

From the WSJ:

Meanwhile, Citigroup plunged to levels not seen in 15 years as investors lost faith in the Treasury Department's efforts to stabilize the banking system. Traders say the Treasury's decision last week not to buy distressed assets abruptly changed the outlook for banks.

Oil $peculators $ave The Day

THE Evil oil speculators, who only months ago tried to bring the world to ruin by raising oil prices, have now shown mercy on us all and have lowered prices. And Big Media have been hailing their heroic efforts to save the world by bringing down the price of a barrel of oil. I mean headline after headline, the endless news cycle on TV, about how good and beneficent these speculators are now.

Left to its own devices, oil would have stayed sky high. Fortunately for us, the speculators decided to lower the price, arbitrarily.

And if you believe all that...


Look - when the price of something skyrockets or plummets there is no guarantee to anybody that the trend will continue. Speculators are putting their money at risk to try to correctly bet where the future price of oil will be. And you bet a lot of these folks lost their shirts when the price of oil collapsed - from about $150 to $50. Yes, it shrank to about 1/3 the price in a matter of months.

But why are we not now praising the speculators for bringing down the price of oil, if it was their fault for making it go up? Because it wasn't their fault to begin with.

Think of what would happen if these speculators didn't exist as such, and there were no formal oil trading markets. Years ago, operators in China would have bought up the entire current world's supply of oil, knowing that their country needed it for energy for the rapidly expanding economy and industry. So a select few would have gobbled up all the oil, creating panic in the world. And now, of course, those few would have been heavy laden with all those barrels sitting in warehouses, worth a fraction of what they paid.

This same thing has essentially happened in the oil markets, but in a more orderly way. One could probably make the argument that markets make commodities more easily traded, and thus more volatile in price. But this kind of crazy volatility comes from human nature, not merely oil speculators per se. Home prices, cabbage patch kid dolls, oil, tech stocks, gold, you name it, it's all subject to the whims of human activity, whether that be greed, desire, objective prediction, panic, or mild concern.

Check out this piece in IBD: Did Hated Speculators Lower Oil Prices?
Quotes:

In hindsight there is little mystery, just the latest affirmation that the most basic aspect of economic theory still prevails. Yet between oil's price ascent and descent, a very interesting morality play unfolded.

As economist Milton Friedman pointed out, it is human nature to ascribe to our own abilities the positive things that happen. It is equally so to attribute the negative things to others' faults. Enter the speculator. These unnamed actors were claimed to have participated in an action undefined beyond their own greed.

What is speculation? Is it simply presuming prices will move in one direction and seeking to make gains on this insight? What investor doesn't do this? Is it done in such a way that the market moves in a desired direction? If so, it apparently did not work.

• If speculation was a problem then, why is it not a problem now? If speculators were responsible for the price rise, why are they not liable for the price decline?

While it is human nature to take credit for the good and shift blame for the bad, neither is necessarily descriptive of reality. The laws of economics work, regardless of how we or government seek to constrain them or refute them. There is no mystery or conspiracy in them.

In the case of oil, they conspired to create a price we did not like. And it was a price that was the result of policymakers who had constrained supply and allowed it to be so outstripped by demand.

Another article if you're really that into this...
Speculators' Reprieve

Interesting factoid from this article: The US produces the same amount of oil domestically as it did in 1947, but our economy today is 8 times larger.

How Obama Got Elected

"I think I'm not as informed as I thought I was... but I still don't think I would change my vote."
- Obama supporter

The filmmaker who made this film commissioned a poll from Zogby, a major poll company.
So his point is that his film, though showing a small sampling of Obama voters, corroborates the poll of over 500 people.

The results are astonishing, but not surprising. The film shows a number of Obama voters who are totally ignorant about politics in general - they new almost nothing of the democratic leaders - but who can recite the common slurs regarding Gov. Sarah Palin. They had no idea about any of the misgivings about Obama.

The point is, people really are influenced by that far-left, major media. The major media are controlled by people who are about 90% democrats. Watch as the interviewees say that they get their news from PBS, NY Times, CNN, MSNBC, Jon Stewart, Colbert Report, etc.





Here is the data from the Zogby Poll----------------

512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points

97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates

Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions

57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)

71.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)

82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)

88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)

56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).

And yet.....

Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes

Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter

And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her "house," even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!

Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.

Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we "gave" one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)


--------------

More here, at this site:

Iran Ready To Make A Nuke

"They clearly have enough material for a bomb," said Richard Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades. "They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that's another matter."

This is simply unbelievable. We, the world, have watched as Iran defiantly told the world they were pursuing nuclear technology, and have watched ever since as the centrifuge sites have proliferated, and Russia has enabled them by selling them the necessary technology. And now, we watch as the International Atomic Energy Agency tells us that Iran has has enough enriched uranium to make a bomb. Don't worry, though, they say. They probably can't make a bomb out of it. Yet.

Whew. That's a relief.

Israel will have no option but to bomb all of these facilities and the craven world will sit back, watch, publicly show outrage and censure Israel, and then under their breath thank Israel for saving the world. Such is the state of the brave, clear-headed leaders of the "free world".

Full story here.

Quotes:

Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.

The figures detailing Iran's progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of the country's main nuclear plant at Natanz. The report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium.

Siegfried Hecker of Stanford University and a former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory said the growing size of the Iranian stockpile "underscored that they are marching down the path to developing the nuclear weapons option."

"They have a weapon's worth," Thomas Cochran, a senior scientist in the nuclear program of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private group in Washington that tracks atomic arsenals, said in an interview.

He said the amount was suitable for a relatively advanced implosion-type weapon like the one dropped on Nagasaki. Its core, he added, would be about the size of a grapefruit. He said a cruder design would require about twice as much weapon-grade fuel.

See these links for more info:

What A Secret Centrifuge Site Looks Like

Here's an info-packed short movie...

The Obama Presidency: A Racist's Dream

How many Barack Obamas will be aborted during Barack Obama's presidency? We'll never know, because they won't live out their lives for us to find out.

The truth is, electing Obama into the office of the president must be a dream come true for the hate-filled white supremacist crowd. Imagine a plot to kill off thousands of African Americans. And not just in one decade or even in one year. How about every day? Even if all white supremacists took up arms and went on a collective rampage, there's no way they'd even come close to killing 1,000 people in one day.

Yet somewhere around 1,400 African Americans will lose their lives every day of the Obama presidency due to abortion. If he serves two terms, that will be about 4 million African Americans killed. Out of a total of 12 million people.

With Barack Obama as president, we'll likely get two replacement ultra-liberals on the Supreme Court, replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg (75), and John Paul Stevens (88).

No doubt McCain wouldn've appointed orginalist judges who'd correctly see that there is nothing in the constitution as regards a "right to choose" abortion, and turn the matter over to the states of the union.

But now, that hope is gone - and maybe for a generation or more.

Who in this election did not know that the President would be choosing Supreme Court justices? Everyone knows this.


Read this damning paragraph from Human Events:

The statistics on African American abortions are shocking. Even though African Americans are only about 13 percent of the U.S. population, one of every three abortions in the United States is performed on a black woman. Three of every five African American women will abort a child. Some 1,452 African American babies are killed each day in abortions. Let’s compare these statistics to the number of African Americans who have been killed by crimes of racial violence. Statistics show that between 1882 and 1968, 3,446 blacks were lynched in the United States. That number is bypassed by the number of African American abortions every three days. Let’s project the favorable consequences had the aborted babies been allowed to live. Had the 13 million babies aborted since Roe v. Wade in 1973 been allowed to live, today’s African American population of 37 million could reasonably be projected to exceed 50 million today. In other words, today’s potential African American population has been reduced 25 percent by abortions. And the 13 million African American abortions are estimated to have enriched the U.S. abortion industry by some $4 billion since Roe v. Wade.

They've stopped executions of murderers in California because those involved thought putting them to sleep first was cruel and unusual. Cruel and unusual: look up how abortion procedures are carried out - on human beings that can feel every bit of pain that we can - and see if you think it's cruel and unusual.


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HRC as SoS? OMG!!!

Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State? You've got to be kidding me.

And what experience, besides her husband's connections, does she bring to that job? Not much. Some overseas trips, during which she indeed was not shot at, and that's about it.

There's no way. No way Obama could trust her, no way it could work.

This is Obama's attempt to placate all the Hilaryites who are mad at him for not even vetting her for the Veep slot. Well, now he's vetting her. Happy?

Dick Morris on FoxNews had some astonishing things to say about this - about how Hillary is the one who leaked this - not the Obama camp. How Bill has taken in $130 million from one foreign government alone for his library. $130 million??? That should buy a lot of books and Clinton memorabilia I would think. Especially after he's already raised tens of millions elsewhere. Must be some library.

Think of all the fun Hillary would have missed if she really had stayed home and baked cookies. And who can forget that moment... Ah, I miss the chubby version of Bill Clinton...

Pirates, They Be Everywhere, Harrrr!!

One could have mistakenly thought that the recent crack-down on these pirates by U.K and U.S. military forces would scare them off.

Not so.

Drudge reports a whole new rash of pirate attacks...

- 80 ships targeted this year

- 12 of those are still being held!

From Breitbart:

The top US military officer said Monday he was "stunned" by the reach of the Somali pirates who seized a Saudi supertanker off the east coast of Africa, calling piracy a growing problem that needs to be addressed.

But Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there were limits to what the world's navies could do once a ship has been captured because national governments often preferred to pay pirates ransom.

Hmm, more piracy after craven national governments hand over money to them. Heads up, you liberals who prefer to not understand economics and human behavior - when you provide a strong financial incentive for something, you usually get more of it. Just a lesson as we watch the coming administration pass out goodies to its supporters and punish investment and business creation.

Here's a close-up of a map of the Horn of Africa (on its east coast)...



And here is a snapshot of a live piracy map. No kidding. From these guys:

Michael Yon's Afghanistan...

"These boys might be old men before this current war is over. Their fathers were born during an earlier phase of it. It is hard to imagine how the nicer parts of their culture can survive a multi-generational war, and how the country can advance when its resources go to basic self-defense. Yet here they are, seemingly ready for change. The British tell me it will take 10 years to “win” the war. Some Americans say 25. Both seem like gross underestimates. Perhaps the fighting will end. But it will take a century for Afghanistan to become modern. Today, Afghanistan is spiraling into the abyss. To us, progress is a given. To others, it is an elusive dream, if they dream at all. Here, the march of time can go forward or backwards."

These words were penned by Michael Yon, whose incredible web site can be found here.

Yon is an independent journalist in the truest sense, and you can support him directly by either donating or buying his eye-opening book about the war in Iraq.

Here's a sample of photos from his site, taken in Afghanistan recently...

Little Boy



The road from Kabul to Jalalabad.

Violent Sex Offender in Oakdale, CA

Why do we live with these people? Why do we allow our lawmakers and legal system to keep churning out repeat sex offenders?

Here's one gem of a guy living close to my old home town...




Fortunately, he was busted for this - threatening people itself is a crime.

If you want yourself and your children to continue to be exposed to these kinds of gems, then by all means keep putting politicians in office who are soft on crime. Your choice. Your life. Your society.

Elvis Ascendant

The Green Party in Germany has chosen an Elvis impersonator as its candidate..

OK, I made up the Elvis part, but still...

Full story here.

Figthing Pirates - in the 21st Century

Yes,the civilized world is still fighting pirates. But they're not the funny kind that say, "Har, mate-ee!" Probably no eye patches or hooks for hands either.

Just AK-47's.


From The Times Online: Royal Navy in firefight with Somali pirates

Quotes...

Pirates caught redhanded by one of Her Majesty’s warships after trying to hijack a cargo ship off Somalia made the grave mistake of opening fire on two Royal Navy assault craft packed with commandos armed with machineguns and SA80 rifles.

The Ministry of Defence said the Marines circled the pirates’ boat to try and persuade them to stop.

As they approached, however, several of the pirates, a mixed crew of Somalis and Yemenis, swung their assault rifles in their direction and opened fire. The MoD said the Royal Marines returned fire “in self defence”, and then boarded the dhow — a stolen Yemeni-registered fishing vessel.

THANK YOU, VETERANS

[awesome poster from LGF]


"Thanks" will never be enough to convey the debt of gratitude we owe our men and women who have fought and died for our freedom.

But that's how we say it in our language, so THANK YOU, VETS!!!!!!!!!

I could not be more proud of our military. I dare say never in the history of man has such a prosperous nation produced such an accomplished and powerful all-volunteer army.





The Wounded Warrior Project on Fox News...





And, GreatAmericans.com...

Looking Forward To Gov't Health Care: 'Waiting-Time Targets'

Can't wait for that awesome government-run health care.
Canadians are having a great time dying, literally, in their emergency rooms.

Imagine the Post Office, or your local Department of Motor Vehicles running your health care. You know, those productive not-paid-for-performance government employees.

[hat tip: anncoulter.com]

Emergency-room nightmares spur calls for action

LISA PRIEST
From Monday's Globe and Mail

Emergency wards are so overcrowded, patients have had heart attacks, miscarriages and, in at least one case, even died while in the care queue, prompting doctors to call on provincial governments to implement waiting-time targets and to stop using the hospital department as a patient "dumping ground.

Full story here ($).

Quote of The Day: Respect

For now, we have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president.
- Ann Coulter

Full article here.

The Devil Is In the Details? Rahm Emanuel...

“Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.”
- President-elect Obama, Victory Speech

"[The Republicans] can go f*** themselves!"
- President-elect Obama's second in Command, Rahm Emanuel

Choosing Rahm Emanuel as his right-hand man - one of the most partisan and divisive figures in the country - is an interesting first step of President-elect Obama.

"Emanuel" means "God with us."

But Obama may have gotten a little devil in Rahm Emanuel - Obama's choice for Chief of Staff at the White House.

If the President is the CEO of the nation, the Chief of Staff is like the COO. It's a key position in the administration in which one may be the senior adviser, policy creator, gateway to the President, negotiator with congress, manager of the schedule, and manager of all the white house staff - not the cooking and cleaning, but the policy makers.

Emanuel worked in the Clinton administration. So President Change has selected Partisan HotHead Washington Insider as his number 2 guy. And what a lovely little pussycat Emanuel is.

Here's a quote from newsmax.com:

Emanuel once sent a dead fish to a pollster who displeased him. In one meeting with his staff, Emanuel shouted out, “Since my kids are gone, I can say it: They [Republicans] can go f--- themselves!

And, wow, does Dick Morris have some interesting things to say about Rahm Emanuel. Morris was for a quite a while at the very center of the Clinton Administration, where Emanuel also served - so Morris is very familiar with Rahm Emanuel.

Clinton apparently couldn't even trust Emanuel, though Emanuel was on his staff. He chided Dick Morris for giving information to him, knowing it would leak to the press for self-serving purposes.

Some quotes from Fox News:

"Rahm is in business for Rahm".

"Clinton never told the truth to Emanuel. He constantly cut Rahm out, he was afraid of him, because Rahm was always in business for Rahm."

"He (Rahm) formulates the Democratic position."

"Obama is making a huge mistake in appointing this guy."

However, I do note that Mr. Emanuel is taking on a more conciliatory tone this weekend in The Wall Street Journal. Fox News also reported on election night that the Obama campaign analyzed the mistakes of the Clinton administration's first two years, and Obama's camp is determined to not overreach. Meaning, they want to do more, but they know the public won't let them.

I think Ann Coulter is right - Democrats on the national stage only win by running as Republicans.


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What A Secret Centrifuge Site Looks Like

Oh, the fun with Google Maps.

After watching this video here, I was able to find the secret Natanz centrifuge site in Iran.
Centrifuges are used in nuclear technology to create powerful, "enriched" uranium. If you get good enough at them, you can make a nuclear weapon.

Here's how you can tour the facility yourself, from the sky:

First, go to Google Maps.

Second, in the search field (on Google Maps, not the main Google site), copy and paste this:

33.719789,51.729083

.. and click the Search Maps Button.



Or, just use the embedded map right below (it's live, you can click on it!):

View Larger Map



And now, some pics (mine, from Google maps, and one from GlobalSecurity.org).
I'm sure President-elect Obama is going to see plenty of pictures like these in the coming months...

click to enlarge any of these

This would be a good area to avoid, if you're going to vacation in Iran within the next two years... (the "A" symbol is where the centrifuge site is)



And, just for fun, here's a live map of the infamous Bushehr nuclear reactors... ("Bush error" is a very unfortunate name for this plant)


View Larger Map


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