A True Hero

(from American Thinker)


Navy pilot steadies his plane in order to let his crew bail out. He dies, going down with the plane.

Full article here.

Quotes:

The starboard propeller shut down, causing the plane to become unstable and plunge. Zilberman ordered his three crew mates, including the co-pilot, to bail. He manually held the plane as steady as possible so they could jump.

"He held the plane level for them to do so, despite nearly uncontrollable forces. His three crewmen are alive today because of his actions," Navy Rear Adm. Philip S. Davidson wrote to Zilberman's parents.

Latest Hubble Pic

The Hubble apparently still works, and is giving us some amazing photos of deep space...

From the site:

Hubble's 20th anniversary image shows a mountain of dust and gas rising in the Carina Nebula. The top of a three-light-year tall pillar of cool hydrogen is being worn away by the radiation of nearby stars, while stars within the pillar unleash jets of gas that stream from the peaks.

The New Secret Robot Rocket

Kerosene??? Hydrogen peroxide??? Is this a secret mission to go camping and kill bacteria?

The new "X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle", recently launched into space.
Apparently, it's shuttle-like: it'll return to earth.

The science is not settled

MIT professor of meteorology Richard Lindzen (yes, they study climate, not meteors) in the WSJ today:

That is to say, the issue relevant to policy is far from settled. Nonetheless, the letter concludes: "Our academies will provide the scientific backdrop for the political and business leaders who must create effective policies to steer the world toward a low-carbon economy." In other words, the answer is settled even if the science is not.

***

But it is unwise to assume that those who have carved out agendas to exploit the issue will simply let go without a battle. One can only hope that the climate alarmists will lose so that we can go back to dealing with real science and real environmental problems such as assuring clean air and water. The latter should be an appropriate goal for Earth Day.

We pause now for a brief but true Zombie Story

WE ZOMBIES

by Jonathan Grey Chapman

There I was again; about to kill. Damn me to hell; damn me.

But then I guess I was already damned. Isn’t that what a zombie is? Damned?

... continued on the web site...

America the Peach; Obamaism the Fungus

The real story of the Story of Stuff

Look, I'm not a materialist nor a consumerist. I think many people spend far more than they should, in terms of spending beyond their means and buying simply too much stuff.

But that does not mean I want some statist telling me how much of anything I can buy. And we as a nation are doing a decent job of improving everything we do in order to be easier on the environment. So there.

So watch this, if you're interested in countering some enviro-propaganda...

America, The last and best hope...

America's liberals have never learned to look at life through the prisms of contrast, comparison, and context. If they would honestly compare our country to ancient Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome, or to Ottoman Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Russia, Britain, and France, then they would have to conclude that America was and is the least imperialistic power in recorded history.
- Edward Glick, at American Thinker

Full article here - short, and great.

The One-Man Revolution in New Jersey

There are 700,000 more Democrats than Republicans in New Jersey, but the voters appear to have had enough of the Democrat-Public Employee Union control of the state. Check out what Gov. Chris Christie is doing in NJ...

George Will: Bringing Thunderous change to New Jersey

Some facts from the article:

• An estimated $70 billion in wealth has left New Jersey after taxes have been raised 115 times in the last 8 years (and you thought taxing the "rich" would always bring in more revenue!)
• The new Governor has immediately enacted spending freezes, closing the $2 billion budget gap (have you ever noticed that the $20 billion California budget gap is always referred to as insurmountable, or otherwise impossible to reduce? It's not impossible - just cut $20 billion in spending. It's very possible.)
• Property taxes have increased 70% in just 10 years

Stock talk: AAPL's revenue sources

Great info from Business Insider.

The disaster that is Illinois; Chicago-style run amok

Unbelievable.

Chicago-led Illinois democrats (mainly) have spent $500 Billion since 2003.
$500 billion, with a "b". How is that even possible?

Worse yet, there is no real accounting for this money. This is a huge scandal, if the voters of Illinois care enough about it to pursue it. We'll see.

One road project alone came in $375 million over budget.

Illinois now has a $13 billion budget deficit and is $200 billion in debt, including pensions.

Full story here.

Happy (God Created The) Earth Day!

VDH: An Age of Untruth

And now, the always-awesome Victor Davis Hanson - my Central Valley homeboy.

Read the full article here: An Age of Untruth

Some incredibly great quotes from the article...

O Ye of Little Memory! Do we recall any American shock when the Guardian published Charles Brooker’s lament — “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. — where are you now that we need you?” And I don’t recall anyone felt that language was getting too heated when Howard Dean, head of the Democratic Party, fumed, “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for.” And was it not The New Republic that highlighted Jonathan Chait’s infamous “Why I Hate George W. Bush” article? Of course, there was that thoroughly civil New York play, “I’m Gonna Kill the President.”

***

The real diversity — that of differences in thinking and independence of opinion — was hardly welcome, and any sort of call for such genuine diversity of thought was seen as hostile and sometimes had to be dubbed “reactionary,” “racist,” “homophobic,” “sexist,” etc.

So we ended up with “diversity” meaning “university” — a synonym for monolithic intolerance, for everyone worshiping “diversity” without exception. If that seems harsh, it is also the way things are.

***
There is no such thing as an easy, fuzzy notion of instant money creating economic growth. Instead it is a euphemism not for borrowing, but for massive borrowing and unsustainable debt. Indeed, note that we do not even use words like “borrowing” or “debt,” but instead prefer “deficit” (e.g., It’s only a year-to-year thing) and “stimulus” (e.g., spending what we don’t have somehow makes us richer in the future).

***
Do not believe that “illegal alien” is necessarily a hurtful or inexact term. Everyone who crosses the border without proper authorization is both doing something “illegal” (not a mere “infraction”), and is an alien (not a U.S. citizen; “alien” = “not of this place”.) When I lived in Greece in the 1970s, I was an alien; had I overstayed my visa, or accepted work without proper documentation, I would have been an illegal alien.

So what is illegal immigration? For most, it is a desperate attempt by the poor of Latin America to find a better life in America, made all the more attractive because postmodern America has no confidence in its institutions and thus asks little of its immigrants in accepting our own culture.

And for us, the hosts?

For the corporation it is a way to profit, masked in libertarian apologetics, of letting the market adjudicate labor costs without government interference.

For the racial tribalist it is payback for the Mexican War of two centuries prior.

For the liberal machine, it is an instant way through serial amnesty to hook a block constituency and redraw the electoral map of the American Southwest.

You can't wish it away: Iranian Nukes coming to a shore near you

Have you ever noticed that only the truly psycho regimes parade their missiles in public? The Soviets did this. Saddam did this. The Iranians and North Koreans love to do this. Nuts.

And what, exactly, is a lethal response to a country like Iran if they were to attack us first with a nuclear weapon? Do you obliterate Iran's cities? We could no doubt do this with ease. But what would be the point - killing all those innocent people, most of whom probably hate the mullahs anyway.

The answer is, there is no satisfactory response.

So the only solution to this problem is... a preemptive strike. Avoid nuclear war in the first place.

This new story coming out of our own Defense Department may finally force the hand of the U.S.: Iran may be able to reach us with a missile in 5 years. They'll be capable of producing a nuclear weapon before then - so all that's left is to figure out how to put that on a missile, and we have ourselves a new cold war with a culture and religion we can't even comprehend. At least in the good ol' days of the Cold War we knew Russia wouldn't sacrifice her existence to make nuclear war with us. There is no guarantee of that with Iran, whose leaders seem to be of the suicide bomber mentality.

The West spent half a decade denying and ignoring the threat of Hitler. And none of the wishing away, the peace movements, the hope, the negotiations, and the signed treaties - none of it prevented the largest war this world has ever seen.

Romney, putative Repub frontrunner - Obamacare originator

O'RomneyCare? Rom-bamaCare?

Before there was ObamaCare, there was RomneyCare.
The man who would again be a Republican candidate for president enacted a "health care" bill in his state that has all of the main features of the recently enacted federal bill.

I think Romney just made the "no way" list for me for the primaries.

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: