If he can run Norway with an iPad, just think what you could do...

The Prime Minister of Norway is stuck in NY City due to the volcanic eruption in Iceland.

And Mr. Savvy is running his biz with his iPad. Now that's just way too cool.

What day of the year do you stop working for Big Government?

If you live in California, the answer is April 14.
There, now you're free to earn some money for yourself and your family.




Source: Tax Foundation

(Prog)Rock On...

you can own the rich tasty goodness here.

Gov't Spending OUT OF CONTROL!!!

Remember, the chart below shows inflation-adjusted dollars - not 1965 dollars.
So indeed the chart shows government spending per household has tripled!!!!



(hat tip: Rep. Paul Ryan on his Facebook blog)


And by the way, household income has only grown 30% or so in roughly the same amount of time:

Californians, here's where the money goes

Taken from the California Governor's budget for 2010-2011:

click to enlarge

Thank God for the Frozen Chosin

Chosin from GI Film Festival on Vimeo.

Victor Davis Hanson: We'd have laughed if Obama ran on what he's done

"Nonetheless, until now we had not in the postwar era seen a true man of the Left who was committed to changing America into a truly liberal state. Indeed, had Barack Obama run on the agenda he actually implemented during his first year in office — “Elect me and I shall appoint worthies like Craig Becker, Anita Dunn, and Van Jones; stimulate the economy through a $1.7-trillion annual deficit; take over health care, the auto industry, student loans, and insurance; push for amnesty for illegal aliens and cap-and-trade; and reach out to Iran, Russia, Syria, and Venezuela” — he would have been laughed out of Iowa. "
- Victor Davis Hanson

Read this awesome article in its entirity here.

More quotes:

Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice were not paradigms of racial equality, as we once assumed. The new correct protocol of unity and togetherness is not to ignore race but to accentuate difference whenever possible. Thus we have a uniter and his flock talking of a “typical white person,” of white country folk who “cling” to their fears and superstitions, of “cowards” who refuse to discuss racial matters, of a “wise Latina,” of police who “stereotype” and act “stupidly,” and of polluters and high-school mass-murderers identified as typically “white.” In place of real civil-rights marches, we have psychodramas where congressmen wade into a crowd of protestors in search of a televised slur. To this president, the tea-partiers are sexually slurred “tea-baggers,” in his Manichean worldview of opponents to whom we are “to get in their faces” and “bring a gun” to their knife fight — all as we praise “unity,” “bipartisanship,” and “working across the aisle.”

Why They're Called "The Drive-by Media"

The major media pick up and run with a story that they want to believe. It just has to be true to them. Except, sometimes the story is not true at all. But it's too late. That damage has already been done, and their goal of tearing down their enemies a little bit more is accomplished.
And they wonder why their audience ratings are dropping as fast as a dead insect.

There is still no evidence that the n-word or spitting occurred on the day of the singing of the "health care" bill. Yet I bet if you asked the average person, they'd say that someone from the Tea Party protesters did just those things.

Well, you can go right to the source - the congressman who made the accusations and is now backing off of them. He is a liar, and should be censured for it. It's shame he uses the banner of civil rights as protection for his virulent lying.

Full story here at the American Thinker: Spittlegate.

Half of the US do not pay taxes

This is not really news! OK, so the percentage has gone up, but this is not news. However, as a reminder...

50% or so of income earners in our country do not pay any income taxes, and in fact, a good percentage of those actually get money from the government (that's right, not only do they not pay income taxes, they actually get money from the government in the form of credits).

The top 10% of earners pay 70% of the tax. Other than that, the rich sure need to "pay their fair share."

Full story here.

And while you're thinking about this, think about this:
Alan Reylnolds: The rich can't pay for ObamaCare.

He explains the myriad ways in which top income earners simply escape, avoid or otherwise stop paying taxes when the rates get too high. And there's no way Obama is going to get the $1.2 Trillion in extra taxes out of the rich. Ain't a gonna happen.

Come to Sunny Kyrgystan!

not the best picture put out by the Ministry of Tourism...



You know - Kyrgystan! Right next to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Ring a bell? No?

Well then, you need to visit the CIA World Factbook.

Watch out, Whitney...

Dick Morris: Repubs will take back BOTH houses...

Full article @ Towhall.com here.

"Presaging the Republican sweep that looms ahead is the shift in the party ratings on various issues. Rasmussen has the Republicans ahead by 49-37 on the economy and 53-37 on health care. His likely voter poll shows GOP leads on every major issue area: national security (49-37), Iraq (47-39), education (43-30), immigration (47-34), Social Security (48-36) and taxes (52-34).

When Republicans are winning issues like education, health care and Social Security -- normally solidly Democratic issues -- a sweep of unimaginable proportions is in the offing."

Wow! Boy, do those Iranians love us now!

See? All of our liberal-persuasion friends were correct. If we only got Bush out of office, the Iranians would love us. We'd talk to them. They'd no longer hate us because the cowboy would be gone.

From Reuters...

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who Wednesday called President Barack Obama a nuclear-armed "cowboy", said Iran would "try to make an opportunity out of sanctions" rather than change its stance to avoid them.

This is what it feels like...

every time the liberals pass some legislation...

You've got to hear Roger Ailes speak...

This guy is considered the Great Satan by liberal pundits.
You've probably never heard him speak before.
At least watch this clip - he's the most down-to-earth, forthright, commonsense speaker I've heard.

Roger Ailes on Uncommon Knowledge

Mr. Ailes is the reason behind a lot of successful ventures - including Fox News, which now totally dominates their class of programming. You'll find out some fascinating things about how he runs Fox News.

Quotes:
On his view of government:

"The American people have got to understand that everything government does costs money and there are only two ways to get it: their wallet or to print it. And if they print it, it reduces the amount of money in your wallet."

On the failure of big government policies in big cities:

"Every time you have a poverty city you have a one-party government - Chicago, Newark."

The whole series can be found here: scroll down to see the Ailes episodes.

Forget The Economy Killing VAT - Try a Flat Tax

Politicians need money and power in order to get elected - which gives them more money and power. Not trying to sound overly cynical - but most of what these guys do is create legislation that allows for tax loopholes for their causes and donors. The power to do this (shower money on or remove taxes from certain constituents) is what gets politicians donations.
So how could this cycle ever be broken? I've got some ideas there, but more on that later.

For now, one can at least imagine...

The Most Dangerious Jobs

OK, now we know what the most dangerous jobs are...
- any political job for a black conservative
- any acting job for a hollywood conservative

But here is a more realworld snapshot of job danger:

The obligatory and depressing post on California schools

We have a great school in our humble district of 5 schools. Excellent district.
But when looked at on the state level, there's not a lot of positive things happening.

Quotes from The Economist: From bad to worse

California’s 8th-graders (14-year-olds), for example, ranked 46th in maths last year. Only Alabama, Mississippi and the District of Columbia did worse.

The California Teachers Association (CTA) is the biggest lobby in the state, having spent some $210m in the past decade—more than any other group— to intervene in California’s politics.

But although schools account for the largest part of California’s budget, California entered the recession ranking 46th in spending per pupil. It has the largest classrooms in the country, with 23.4 students per teacher in 2008, almost twice the national average. Schools in black and Latino districts fare much worse than those in white areas.

Talk About Original Intent: The Constituion

From the eminent Walter Williams:

James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, explained in Federalist Paper No. 45: "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State."

" Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution lists the activities for which Congress is authorized to tax and spend. Nowhere on that list is authority for Congress to tax and spend for: prescription drugs, Social Security, public education, farm subsidies, bank and business bailouts, food stamps and other activities that represent roughly two-thirds of the federal budget. Neither is there authority for congressional mandates to the states and people about how they may use their land, the speed at which they can drive, whether a library has wheelchair ramps and the gallons of water used per toilet flush. The list of congressional violations of both the letter and spirit of the Constitution is virtually without end. Our derelict Supreme Court has given Congress sanction to do anything upon which they can muster a majority vote."

Full article here.

The iPad: It doesn't run apps - it becomes the app

Well put by TidBits...

In contrast, the iPad becomes the app you're using. That's part of the magic. The hardware is so understated - it's just a screen, really - and because you manipulate objects and interface elements so smoothly and directly on the screen, the fact that you're using an iPad falls away. You're using the app, whatever it may be, and while you're doing so, the iPad is that app. Switch to another app and the iPad becomes that app. If that's not magic, I don't know what is.

Full article here.

iWant the New oPad.

Public Safety Alert: Violent Media Members

A warning about violent media members..

Iowahawk: Journo-Politico Violence: Deadly Threat or Menacing Trend?

Quite hilarious, and a nice long hilarious laundry list of dirty deeds as well.

iCantWait

the ipad is here.

RNC Partying at Bondage Club?

Way to go, morons.

Fox: RNC Says Member Will Return $2,000 Reimbursed for Visit to Bondage Club

I guess I need to remember that the Democrats probably have an official Bondage wing of their party, where at least in the Republican party they deny reimbursements for such stuff.

Total Surprise: Terrorists return to terror

Total shock. I cannot believe that more Gitmo detainees returned to a life of terror and killing our troops. Was not expecting that...

Fox News: More Guantanamo Detainees Are Returning to Terror Upon Release

Al Franken, Man of The People

When You Spend It, You Spend it More Wisely

"Once people begin spending substantial sums from their own pockets, they become willing to shop around. Ordinary market incentives begin to operate. A good bill would have encouraged that."

Nobel economist Gary Becker, on the recently passed health care bill

Full article here.

Anything to look good in foreign policy

US signs nuke deal with... wait for it... the... Russians???
This is so '70's and '80's.

This is the most important treaty to be signed since the Liechtenstien-Switzerland peace treaty signed last month.

I love these "strategic arms reduction" agreements. It's like signing a treaty, the title of which is "Time to Get Rid of Some Old Nukes We Have Sitting Around."

NJ Gov. Bans State Gov't From Lobbying For More... State Gov't

You're not going to believe this, but the newly elected Gov. of New Jersey, Chris Christie, has just banned state agencies from using - what else - tax dollars to lobby for themselves.

What's so totally unbelievable is that this is legal in the first place. State agencies using tax dollars (do they have another source of income?) to pay lobbyists to influence lawmakers to pass laws that ostensibly would get those agencies more money.

The fact that it was just banned means it's been going on - and in how many other states????

If you don't see the pernicious insanity in that, then I don't know what to say. If something doesn't scare you about government lobbying government to make government bigger, then nothing will.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "government sponsored enterprises", that were started and funded by the federal government. They were supposed to be private corporations. But something happened along the way - they gained so much money and power they became a strong influence on the government that was supposed to regulate them. And that influence meant that the overseer under George W. Bush's administration cried foul, but was shot down by the Democrats, who received massive donations from the CEO's of the companies. The corporate boards were also full of democrats. It was in essence the same thing as occurred in New Jersey.

You see, government tends to create monsters that grow bigger.

More on the New Jersey thing here.

Still no proof of spitting on Congressman or use of the n-word

See for your self at 1:33 in this video.
It looks like he's reacting to some overspray from the guy shouting. And then Cleaver lets into the guy about something.
But intentional spitting? The n-word?




I believe that is the man in the center of the spit and n-word controversy, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver. And it doesn't look like he was spat on. Notice the police officer accompanying him - why did he not pursue an assault charge right there when the officer is present.
Conclusion: because it didn't happen.

I'll just come out and say it. A congressman has made a racially charged accusation, and he is lying about it. Prove us wrong, Congressman Cleaver.

Two Huge Tells In One Week by Obama

Did anyone else notice, that within one week Obama made friendly overtures to Iran, and was rebuffed, and received friendly overtures from Israel, and rebuffed them.

In one week he tried to make friends with enemies, and make enemies of friends.

It's difficult to destroy foreign policy that much in one week, but we as able to.

The Government-Run Model: The Post Office

The Post Office was technically "separated" from the federal government a while ago.

But that does not seemed to have improved their lot. Which is our lot. Which is about to rack up serious debt.

Eagerly They Cried "Racism!"

I've not yet seen actual proof of any of the anti-health-care-reform-bill protesters shouting epithets.

Yet the Monolith Media have totally picked it up and run with it. But where's the proof?
The accusation comes from one congressman: Democrat Emanuel Cleaver.

Video and audio recorders were rolling the whole time - apparently even during the time Cleaver makes this charge. But there is no evidence that it ever happened. A lot of people are rightly angered at such an act - if it occurred.

But if it didn't occur, then we have, again, race-baiting by the Dems and the Media (but I repeat myself).

So are the Tea Party members racists? Where's the proof?
It may eventually surface, but so far all we have is this (from AT):

"What is uncorroborated is whether Cleaver even heard a single person utter the slur in question. William Owens, a black Tea Party activist from Nevada who had joined in the protests, confirmed to FOXNews.com, "Never did I hear any type of racial slur."

House majority whip James CIyburn, who walked with the contingent from the Black Caucus, heard no racist remarks either. "

WW = WW

Woodrow Wilson and World War.

Interesting article from AT:

"Wilson presided over a segregated federal government. Wilson took this country into World War I, for which his pacifist policies left us almost wholly unprepared. He permitted black soldiers in the U.S. Army to be detailed to the French to plug holes in their lines, but he withheld his white troops.

Wilson's willful and one-sided negotiation of the Versailles Treaty led the U.S. Senate to reject both the treaty and the League of Nations. That international organization was one to which Wilson was willing to yield up too much of U.S. sovereignty. Wilson refused the Japanese request for a racial equality clause in the Versailles Treaty. Japan was our ally in World War I. Fearing the reaction of his segregationist allies in the U.S. Senate, Wilson rejected their plea. All the Japanese asked for could be found willingly stated in the American Declaration of Independence. The Japanese walked out of the Paris peace talks, their democratic government hopelessly compromised by allied blindness.

What fateful consequences followed."

Fact of The Day: How many Obamas were aborted today?

Fact: 1,400 African-Americans were aborted today.



How many of those would've run for office? How many would've invented a new medicine? How many would've set new records? We'll never know, because, though they were living, they were terminated as a means of birth control.

Whether you're pro-life or pro-choice doesn't change the fact that there are 1,400 fewer african-americans today. And tomorrow it'll be repeated.

Read more here.

Obama has "Crossed the Rubicon"

This article will rock your world and confirm some truths you already intuitively know.

VDH rules.

Read here: We've Crossed the Rubicon by Victor Davis Hanson.

Quotes (but really - go read the whole thing - you have the time)...

"President Obama has crossed the Rubicon with the health care vote. The bill was not really about medicine; after all, a moderately priced, relatively small federal program could offer the poorer not now insured, presently not on Medicare or state programs like Medicaid or Medical, a basic medical plan.

We have no interest in stopping trial lawyers from milking the system for billions. And we don’t want to address in any meaningful way the individual’s responsibility in some cases (drink, drugs, violence, dangerous sex, bad diet, sloth, etc.) for costly and chronic health procedures.

No, instead, the bill was about assuming a massive portion of the private sector, hiring tens of thousands of loyal, compliant new employees, staffing new departments with new technocrats, and feeling wonderful that we “are leveling the playing field” and have achieved another Civil Rights landmark law. "

"In our brave new world, expect more of the lurid stories about the secretary of the Treasury not paying his FICA taxes. The multimillionaire Madame Speaker will spend more of the state’s millions on private jet travel as she lectures on carbon footprints and a culture of corruption. We will hear more about the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee hiding his income, or a member of the House Rules Committee bragging that, given the historic importance of health care, they are just making up the rules as they go along — and proud of it."

"In every statist society, large corporations either resist or join. For the latter, the machinery of government reinvents them as part of the solution rather than the problem — in the way that Al Gore really doesn’t really guzzle electricity, or John Edwards never really lived in a mansion. The transition to a Ministry of Industry requires a Ministry of Truth. With the Obama media we are already half there."

New on the menu: Weapons Vindaloo

Grenades with hot chili peppers.

"After conducting tests, the military has decided to use the thumb-sized "bhut jolokia," or "ghost chili," to make tear gas-like hand grenades to immobilize suspects, defense officials said Tuesday."

This health care bill is massively popular!

Favorable ratings by public poll:
Pelosi: 11%
Reid: 8%


Story on CBS here.

And for Obama, from CNN:

"For the first time, a CNN poll has found that a majority of Americans disapprove of President Obama's job performance."

The State of The Arab World: UN Report

Not a new story - I just happened to read it in an old paper copy of the WSJ.
Insightful to say the least - eye-opening.

Fouad Ajami: Autocracy and the Decline of the Arabs

Notable quotes...

"The Arabs, by their own testimony, have become spectators to their history."

"... an Arab Rip Abu Winkle awakening from a slumber into which he had fallen in the early 1980s to marvel at how little has changed. He would find Hosni Mubarak still at the helm in Cairo, the policeman Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, and Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. He would miss Hafez Assad in Damascus, but he would be reassured that his son Bashar had inherited his father’s dominion. He would of course find the same dynasties in Jordan and in the Arab states of the Peninsula and the Gulf."

"The simple truth is that the Arab world has terrible rulers and worse oppositionists. There are autocrats on one side and theocrats on the other. A timid and fragile middle class is caught in the middle between regimes it abhors and Islamists it fears."

"There is no mistaking the animating drive of the new American policy in that Greater Middle East: realism and benign neglect, the safety of the status quo rather than the risks of liberty."

You Wanna Talk Inspiring??

Holy crud cakes, I can barely make it out on the mountain bike once a week, and this guy works out twice a day in pain...

"Firefighter Matthew Long -- who survived a horrific collision with a bus while cycling to work during the 2005 transit strike -- has gone from the brink of death to one of the world's fittest men."

NY Post: Fireman who almost died is now in buff elite

From Each To Each?

Once again, another incredibly insightful article on American Thinker...

"In a free society, does one individual's needs constitute another individual's obligation to provide?"
- Andrew Foy, MD

More great quotes from this article:

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." - Karl Marx, 1875

"A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned." - Thomas Jefferson, 1801

And to sum it up, why government-run health care can never work:

"Another important question is: What constitutes a need, and who should decide? Should it be the patient in concert with his or her physician? This seems like the obvious choice. However, if society is paying the cost of whatever service is required to satisfy "the need," then the provision of that service must be regulated to prevent overutilization and runaway costs. In other words, it must be rationed. In a free market, prices perform this rationing function. In the absence of a free market, some third party must ration based on a formula other than price."

"Ultimately, these decisions are made by those with the most political influence -- a situation that inevitably breeds corruption. "

Of course you should pay for my health care...

This is an amazing article at the American Thinker. It's short. Read all of it.

"Under actual civilization, ordinary Americans in voluntary association would secure their access to health care by balancing their needs and their means through their own voluntary individual and collective efforts. Insurance companies, doctors, and hospitals would compete vigorously for their good opinion. And Americans would, so far as they were able according to their lights, obtain that decent provision of health care without compelling other Americans to provide health care for them through exercise of political power."
- Christopher Chantrill

Read full article here.

Stosssel with an awesome report on Gov't Health Care

Bipartisanship Baloney

"Conservatives desire a control of one's own destiny. Liberals seek to control everyone else's destiny. "
- C. Edmund Wright, on The American Thinker

The Myth of The Pro-Life Democrat

"It is naïve for any elected official, especially one who describes himself as ‘pro-life,' to expect that a promise to issue an Executive Order that reasserts the intentions of the Hyde Amendment will be fulfilled by the most pro-abortion president to ever sit in the White House. Perhaps Mr. Stupak and his fellow pro-life Democrats forget that President Obama's first Executive Order was the repeal of the Mexico City Policy to allow for international funding of abortion."

"Not only would an Executive Order be rendered meaningless in the face of Congress passing legislation which actively provides for the massive expansion and funding of abortion services, but anyone who doubts the abortion tsunami which awaits this bill becoming law lives in a fantasy world."

"Barack Obama has lined every existing federal agency with the most dedicated pro-abortion ideologues, and we know that he will continue this pattern of pro-abortion appointments when it comes time for him to fill the over-100 bureaucracies created to administer his socialized health care program."

"Any formerly pro-life Democrat who voted ‘Yes' on the Senate health care bill tonight will be forever remembered as being among the deciding votes which facilitated the largest expansion of abortion services since Roe v. Wade."

"Mr. Stupak and his Democrat followers have now clarified that you cannot be pro-life and be a Democrat. If abortion was truly their biggest issue, they wouldn't willfully align themselves with the Party of Death."

"This vote has exposed the myth of the ‘pro-life Democrat.' With this single vote, the Democratic Party has divided our nation into the Democrat Party of Death and the Republican Party of Life, and future elections will never be the same."
- Phyllis Schlafly

More Here.

Just Another Russian Singing "Ho, Ho, Ho"

I think we've started a new theme here at Pantheon with the way-weird Russian song video thing... This one might win the all-time prize.

Onward They Marched, Spiraling Down, Down...

Government dependence is a downward economic death spiral. It is a cycle wherein the people receive largess from their government, and the government, evermore pressed to come up with the means to pay for it, exacts wealth by force out of the population. This exacting of wealth bleeds dry the important arteries of the economy. Lower wages and higher unemployment are the only possible result of fueling massive government machinery. It is simple: money that would have invented a new technology or new medicine or perhaps started a new business - with the inevitable hiring of new workers - is now pilfered, taken into the leviathan federal bureaucracy, as it trickles its way down through highly paid managers, unions, myriad federal employees, and finally to the receivers of the "free" government benefit. One need only look to the examples of the Big Government experiment that other nations have so eagerly set before us : high unemployment, soaring taxation, quicksand-thick regulation over businesses and private citizens, low or no economic growth, and national debt so staggering one is incredulous of the amount. Merely wishing for and imposing on the people "free" health care or any other entitlement does not change the real underlying costs of those things: the precious resources of time, energy, materials, finances. The death spiral gains momentum at an invisible inflection point: when those who must eventually pay for these "benefits" are politically outnumbered by those who either receive them or are employed in delivering them, for the latter will always vote for more.
© The Pantheon Journal

One of Malcom X's Killers Walks Free

I never will understand the idea behind letting killers go free. Even if it is 40 years later. Murder is murder.

Be careful of the link here, it contains a photo of Malcom X on the autopsy table. Yikes. Not gory, but I thought I'd mention it...

The Smoking Gun says: Malcom X Killer Paroled.

Plan B on Iran: let them have nukes?

Downright scary. Iran with nukes.

I don't get the U.S.'s game on this: Are we really willing to put this off onto Israel (that being, military action to stop nuke development)? We are really going to sit by and watch Iran get nukes?

So far, international action on this has been... inaction. We can't even get the UN Security Council to agree on "tough sanctions.".

Iran won't negotiate on this. It will only forestall. It won't stop until it is stopped from an outside force. If Iran attains nuclear weapons capability, then expect one to come floating up to the shores of Israel sometime soon after that. Heck, maybe even New York or LA. Put a nuke on a boat, have your terrorist friends sail it close to a city of their choosing. Simple.

Coulter Has The Best Health Insurance Plan

Read it all here @ Townhall.com.


Quotes...

In the first sentence, Congress will amend the McCarran-Ferguson Act to allow interstate competition in health insurance.

We can't have a free market in health insurance until Congress eliminates the antitrust exemption protecting health insurance companies from competition. If Democrats really wanted to punish insurance companies, which they manifestly do not, they'd make insurers compete.

The very next sentence of my bill provides that the exclusive regulator of insurance companies will be the state where the company's home office is. Every insurance company in the country would incorporate in the state with the fewest government mandates, just as most corporations are based in Delaware today.

That's the only way to bypass idiotic state mandates, requiring all insurance plans offered in the state to cover, for example, the Zone Diet, sex-change operations, and whatever it is that poor Heidi Montag has done to herself this week.

The third sentence of my bill would prohibit the federal government from regulating insurance companies

This would, in effect, transform medical insurance into ... a form of insurance!

My bill will solve nearly every problem allegedly addressed by ObamaCare -- and mine entails zero cost to the taxpayer. Indeed, a free market in health insurance would produce major tax savings as layers of government bureaucrats, unnecessary to medical service in America, get fired.

Of course, an insurance company has to be able to refuse NEW customers with "pre-existing conditions." Otherwise, everyone would just wait to get sick to buy insurance. It's the same reason you can't buy fire insurance on a house that's already on fire.

That isn't an "insurance company"; it's what's known as a "Christian charity.

The Bill of The One

Happy Reading.

H.R. 4872 - Reconciliation Act of 2010

And Now, A Word From Our Sponsors

You've got to be kidding me - Warren Buffet in a commercial????? Wild.

By the way - he doesn't like the current health care bill...

Your Stimulus Dollars At Work...

From: Stimulus Springs Eternal: Building Roads In Upscale Illinois Neighborhoods

And Now A Word From Our Sponsor

100 Million Murders and Counting...

You cannot make this stuff up.

North Korea executes official for blunder: report

The execution by firing squad in Pyongyang last week of Pak Nam-ki, Labour Party chief for planned economy, was for the crime of "a son of a bourgeois conspiring to infiltrate the ranks of revolutionaries to destroy the national economy," South Korea's Yonhap news agency said, quoting sources.

Full story here.

How To Not Make The 24-Hour News Cycle: Be a Lib

I don't really care to post things like this - people stumbling through speeches.
Because it could happen to just about anybody. And any time you speak in front of the public as much as presidential candidates (or presidents) do, you're going to make some gaffes.

But if this were, oh say... Dan Quayle, George Bush (I or II), or any other republican - it would be all over the web and the news. But Obama does it, and... nothing.

If Republicans are called stupid because they make public speaking gaffes, what do we call liberals when they do the same?

Fake Runaway Prius Moron Called 911????

I did not hear the media report this, though they may have.

But give me a break - the guy is "out of control" and he... dials 911???
Did he have a headset on? Because if he didn't, boy is he going to be in trouble!




More here.

And you thought your commute was bad...

DarkRoastedBlend.com: The Most Dangerous Roads in the World

Your Dentist Used A... paperclip?

AG: Mass. dentist used paper clips in root canals

A former Massachusetts dentist is accused of placing paper clips instead of stainless steel posts inside the teeth of root canal patients while billing Medicaid for the more expensive parts.

Has it come to this? Can a man not recycle unused (or used, maybe?) paperclips?

The Onion: Liechtenstien Goes Nuclear

Liechtenstein Successfully Tests Teeny Tiny Nuclear Bomb

Sean Penn: Prison if You Call Chavez a Dictator

If you call Hugo Chavez a dictator, and you're in the United States, Sean Penn thinks you should go to prison. Not jail. Not be sued. Not censured. Go to prison.

Penn:

"every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it! And accept it. And this is mainstream media, who should – truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies."

Hugo Chavez, dictator (whoops, sorry, Sean) of Venezuela, is of course a classic dictator - elected, but now industry by industry absorbing the whole country into his controllable sphere.

Of course if you say "dictator" in Venezuela, you would end up in prison.

But here, Sean, we have the 1st amendment.

It's people like you who make concentration camps possible. The 3rd Reich was built by people like you. Dictators like Chavez and Fidel Castro are putatively legitimized by you. Your ideas fit perfectly into Nazism and Communism - indeed, they could not thrive any other way.

Well, I guess you have your wish, Sean. People are in prison for using the wrong terms about their dictators - just not here in the U.S.

More here.

The U.K. - Quality, "Free" Health Care, Except for that whole death thing

The Daily Mail: Neglected by 'lazy' nurses, man, 22, dying of thirst rang the police to beg for water

'I told three nurses there was something wrong with my son and they said, "He's fine" and walked off. I started to cry and a locum doctor who was there told me not to worry.
'Eventually the ward doctor came round, took one look at Kane and started shouting for help.'

Dan Rather: Obama "articulate", "couldn't sell watermelons"

Enlightened.

Yet another liberal claiming how "articulate" Barak Obama is.

So Dan Rather thinks President Obama is "articulate", but "couldn't sell watermelons." Give Rather more time and I'm sure he's got some quips about fried chicken and greens, too.

Don't be too hard on him, though. Remember, this is the man who took a document from a Democratic operative (who had typed it up in MS Word), and tried to push it off as a real memo written on a typewriter and proof George W. Bush had avoided armed service.

I see clearly now that the man simply has a brain that is imploding.

So Health Insurance Companies Are the Problem?

George Will:

"... confiscate all the profits of all the health insurance companies, with those profits you could finance our health care for 48 hours."

Well, I guess that pretty much destroys the argument that getting rid of those evil health insurance companies would solve all of our problems.






Read more here.

Just Your Everyday Russians In Wigs Singing Sweet Home Alabama in English

This is so bizzare I don't even know what to say, other than enjoy...

Porky's Party House

Keep Spinning it, But Your Dem Leaders Want Abortions Funded

I can't believe it - this shocking story reveals that the Democratic leadership is secretly plotting to somehow fund abortions with federal tax dollars in a huge socialized medicine scheme. Man, I did not see that one coming.

Story: Stupak Claims Committee Chairman Wants Government to Fund Abortions

The pro-life Democrat leading the charge in the House against passage of the Senate health insurance reform bill said Friday that a key committee chairman told him that Democrats want abortions to be paid by a federally-funded nationalized health insurance system.

More Johnny The Hair-Do Edwards

This is just plain funny if you read the whole article. Sounds like a great crime drama sketch for a comedy show.

Ex Edwards aide avoids jail again in sex tape flap

"I don't think anyone could show an intentional lie here," said an attorney for Young, Robert Elliot.

Absolutely not. Why would anyone lie in a politically charged, sex video tape scandal?

Maybe that's what John Edwards, in his presidential campaign, meant when he spoke of "two Americas": those who gross $60 million from suing doctors in bogus medical cases and run for president while having sex with a crazed fan when your wife has terminal cancer, and those who don't do that.

Not The Kind Of Convergence He'd Intended

Racist Cuba: 90% of Its Prisoners Are Black

That's right - 90% of all all prisoners in Cuba are black - while they make up only 10% of the population (35% including mulato).

Have you ever heard this quote from the toast of the left Ché Guevara:

“The Negro is indolent and spends his money on frivolities and booze, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent,” wrote Ernesto “Che” Guevara in his diaries. When during a 1959 press conference a Cuban black asked Guevara, “what his Revolution would do for blacks?” Che sneered: “we’ll do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the Cuban revolution. By which I mean: nothing!”

I guess he said that because he was such an enlightened revolutionary.

The Violent Ignorance of Jimmy Carter, Oliver Stone, et al...

How can supposedly peace-loving "progressives" support murderous dictators?

How can one visit a country like Cuba, knowing full well that there are many political prisoners suffering in terrible conditions, and serving long sentences?

Think about that - if Jimmy Carter, Oliver Stone, Michael Moore, and all of them know that there are political prisoners in Cuba - then the liberal elite crowd must think those prisoners deserve their fate. Oliver Stone has actually said as much in public. So while they call George W. Bush Hitler, they shake hands and have tea with a murderous dictator who imprisons people for decades for much less (wanting civil rights, for example).


Excellent post here by Humberto Fontova.


Fox did a show on Cuba's wonderful and free health care system - see below.






And if you can stomach it, look here at TheRealCuba.com.

Incoherent and Irate Make a Terrible Combination

The late Ted Kennedy's son, rambling on incoherently about media coverage of the war in Afghanistan.

Some very cool science pics at Fox...

The "Ché" Movie: Straight From Cuba's Ministry of Propaganda

Another Hollywood director tries to rewrite history.

This time, he did it by meticulously sourcing... Fidel Castro's propaganda guys. Lovely. No agenda there!

Read here, Soderbergh’s ‘Che’ and Historical Accuracy, Part II

Quotes:

Fidel Castro, you see, wrote the forward to Che‘s Diaries wherein this Davy Crocket-esque-at-the-Alamo version of events appears. These diaries were published in Castro’s Cuban fiefdom by the Stalinist dictator’s very own propaganda ministry. So lest they unwittingly fudge their film’s historical accuracy, Soderbergh and co-producer Benicio Del Toro were scrupulous in repeatedly visiting Castro’s Stalinist fiefdom to get the unvarnished truth straight from Castro’s own propaganda ministry!

Funniest Ad ev-ah!!!

And who knew? Old Spice?!?!? That was some cheap smellin' crap. I hope their new products are better. Anyway, their ads are awesome...




And, even better, how they made the ad... (one take!!!)

See? Now that Bush is gone, the world loves us and Obama!

from: The Jerusalem Post.

Syria's Dictator Openly Mocks Sec. of State Clinton

Every day this administration becomes more of an embarrassment. They're lucky they're Democrats, otherwise this would be all over the media.

From Mona Charen on NRO: Mostly Hope : Optimism is not a foreign policy, as recent events have shown.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did make one request though — that Syria reciprocate for these gestures by distancing itself from Iran. Last week, Bashar Assad responded. Hosting Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Damascus, Assad ostentatiously signed a treaty of friendship with Iran and said of the secretary of state’s request, “I find it strange how they talk about Middle East stability and at the same time talk about dividing two countries.” Further mocking her, Assad joked, “We must have understood Clinton wrong because of bad translation or our limited understanding, so we signed the agreement.”

Government-Run Health Care is About Government

wowzers...

Great post from Mark Steyn:
It’s About Government, Not Health Care

Quotes:

Indeed. Look at it from the Dems’ point of view. You pass Obamacare. You lose the 2010 election, which gives the GOP co-ownership of an awkward couple of years. And you come back in 2012 to find your health-care apparatus is still in place, a fetid behemoth of toxic pustules oozing all over the basement, and, simply through the natural processes of government, already bigger and more expensive and more bureaucratic than it was when you passed it two years earlier. That’s a huge prize, and well worth a mid-term timeout.

Because government health care is not about health care, it’s about government. Once you look at it that way, what the Dems are doing makes perfect sense. For them.

Quote of the Day: Samuel Adams

“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, not your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” –Samuel Adams, 1776

Found at BigJournalism.com.

Another registered sex offender kills..

The evidence may be pointing to two murders, a year part but in the same area, by the same guy, who is now in custody.

Remains of Missing California Girl, 14, Found Year Later

It's always striking to me, these heinous crimes. We read the headlines, and are maybe shocked for a few moments, then we go back to our lives, back to electing the soft-hearted idots who create the laws that let little-girl-kidnappers walk free.

In any sane society, if a man kidnaps, lures, etc., a young girl, he wouldn't ever walk free again. Not ever.

Yet we seem to be glad to just live with these obscene crimes as long as they don't make us think, change our vote, or otherwise inconvenience us.

Where is the anger at these crimes????

Has it ever occurred to you that we could live in a society virtually free of these crimes?

They finally nailed Fat Boy...

March 8 UPDATE: It's NOT Fat Boy. Someone with a similar name.





Officers: Pakistan arrests American-born al-Qaida

The Laffer Curve Illustrated

There is a maximum rate of taxation, above which people will simply stop paying taxes and either do something else with their money, or hide their income.

A man named Arthur Laffer famously drew this curve on a napkin, forever entering this idea into the public consciousness.

The Cato Institute does a great job here of illustrating this with actual examples...

Summed up - under Carter and the Dems in the 70's, the top tax rate hit 70%. 70%!!!!
By '88, Reagan reduced that to 28% - and the number of taxpayers in the top bracket quintupled. That is, tax receipts were 5 times higher from that group and there were more of them reporting - way more than can be accounted for, even adjusting for inflation and other things.

Weakness begets... disaster in foreign policy

Great article at the increasing awesome American Thinker on Obama's weakness in foreign policy.

Obama's willingness to abandon his own purported values is genuinely shocking. Russia has a pandemic problem of race murder, yet when Obama visited Moscow, he ignored it. When he met with Russian human rights leaders at the White House recently, they reported that he told them, "Human rights is not the only issue that he has to take into account. Security and trade are also important, and he can't help but try to engage the governments in order to achieve result in these spheres."

2 years later, the Monolith Media Come Around To Corruption

I can't believe I'm finally seeing this in headlines...

Democrats mired in swamp they vowed to drain

First reported in the NY Post, and posted here, almost 2 years ago, Rep. Charles Rangel is his own swamp of corruption.

And the shocking part of this story - he's "temporarily" stepping down.

Does anyone even remember what Newt Gingrich was accused of?? Tom Delay??? No. Because it was so freakin' minor, that's why. And they were forced to step down. But when a senior Democrat fails to report $500,000 in income over a couple of decades, it's only a minor problem (let alone all of his other problems).

Now Rangel's list of sins has grown so long that no one can (any longer) honestly cover it up.

Hubble Pics

wowzers. These are awesome.

Hubble Pics.

Our Rock-Solid Climate Change Data Gathering Methods

From Fox News:

Human-Error-Prone temperature data gathering methods.

Norman Borlaug - the greatest hero you've never heard of.

How many people have saved 1 billion lives and have NOT become a household name?

Read about this amazing American who spent his life teaching the world to grow better crops, thus feeding themselves, thus circumventing the scenario where places like India wouldn't be able to feed themselves.

Read the full article at the WSJ.

Highlights:

The very personification of human goodness, Borlaug saved more lives than anyone who has ever lived. He was America's Albert Schweitzer: a brilliant man who forsook privilege and riches in order to help the dispossessed of distant lands. That this great man and benefactor to humanity died little-known in his own country speaks volumes about the superficiality of modern American culture.

In 1999, the Atlantic Monthly estimated that Borlaug's efforts combined with those of the many developing-world agriculture-extension agents he trained and the crop-research facilities he founded in poor nations saved the lives of one billion human beings.

Borlaug told me a decade ago that most Western environmentalists "have never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for 50 years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists in wealthy nations were trying to deny them these things."

"Without high-yield agriculture," Borlaug said, "increases in food output would have been realized through drastic expansion of acres under cultivation, losses of pristine land a hundred times greater than all losses to urban and suburban expansion."

Caught Lying About His True Goals