Saturday, October 25, 2008

All "Journalists"

As usual, Trooper understates the case against journalists.

Just remember Goebbels, Trotsky, Marx, and Dan Rather were all journalists.

Caesar's Dreamland

Obama has presented himself from the start as a messianic, "transformational"
leader -- and thus played deceitfully with ideas that belong to religion and not
politics. That he has done this so successfully is a mark of the degree to which
the U.S. itself, like the rest of the western world, has lost its purchase on
the Christian religion. Powerful religious impulses have been spilt,
secularized.

In this climate, people tend to be maniacally opposed to the
sin to which they are not tempted: to giving Christ control over the things that
are Caesar's. But they are blind to the sin to which they are hugely tempted:
giving Caesar control over the things that are Christ's.

"Faith, hope,
and charity" are Christ's things. They apply, properly, outside time -- to a
"futurity" that is not of this world. They must not be applied to any earthly
utopia. A Caesar who appropriates otherworldly virtues, is riding upon very
dangerous illusions. Follow him into dreamland, and you'll be lucky to wake up

What's A Little Genocide After All?


"The unconstrained vision is really an elitist vision," Sowell
explains. "This man [Obama] really does believe that he can change the world.
And people like that are infinitely more dangerous than mere crooked
politicians.
"


Indeed. That's the difference between
href="http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2006/07/malignant-narcissism-sociopathic.html">malignant
narcissism of the selfish variety and malignant narcissism of the idealist
variety
--the latter I refer to as "sociopathic selflessness". This
malignant selflessness allows the Bill Ayers of the left to cooly contemplate
killing 25 million people in order to usher in the leftist utopia.

href="http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/276377.php">What's a little
genocide
, after all ?

OFraud Update


But to my honest and patriotic Democratic friends, I must say this
forthrightly, and I must say it now:

There is a criminal element that is infesting your Party to a degree
unprecedented in American history, and they are trying to buy the White House
for your candidate through overtly criminal means.


every honest Democrat should demand that everyone associated with the
decision to disable the most basic anti-fraud mechanisms from the Obama-Biden
campaign's credit-card donations systems be publicly identified and immediately
fired.
Every honest Democrat should demand the immediate and full
cooperation from the campaign — pointedly beginning with Barack Obama — in
seeing them prosecuted and convicted.

You may not stay silent, watching your funds commingled with those obtained
through criminal means, and keep your own honesty. You may not close your eyes
and keep your own honesty. And you may not deny that this fraud is happening,
and yet keep your grasp on reality and your sanity.

NYeT! NYeT! NYeT!



"If this thing was running the other way, if Obama was taking the public
money and McCain had opted out and raised $150 million in September, do you
think The New York Times would have an editorial against it?


Indeed.

Do bears do you know what in the woods?

Friday, October 24, 2008

What If

clipped from www.qando.net
However, deficit hawk or no, we have Obama touting his tax increases and href="http://www.qando.net/Details.aspx?Entry=9537" target=new>Barney Frank
saying taxes need to be increased as well.

Any guess which group is most
likely to prevail?

Any guess as to why there is a great sell off going on
on Wall Street right now?

James Pethokoukis says:
In 1980, anxious Americans voted for lower taxes and smaller
government as the solution to the nation's economic ills. Would the opposite
prescription also have led to a 25-year economic boom? With Obamanomics, voters
may be about to play a fascinating game of "what if." Except it's for real. When
Goldman Sachs ran a sophisticated economic simulation of the effect of a total
repeal of the Bush tax cuts, the computer predicted a 3 percentage-point drop in
GDP. Maybe investors fear that with perhaps a trillion-dollar budget gap ahead,
revenue-hungry Dems will raise taxes further than Team Obama is suggesting—right
into the teeth of a weak economy. What if, indeed.

A Small Circle Of OFriends

According to href="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-obamamideast10apr10,0,1780231,full.story">Wallsten
the evening not surprisingly turned into a classic Jew-bash:
"During the dinner a young Palestinian American recited a poem
accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians
and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel.
Barack Obama also praised the former PLO operative during the
event.
And, Obama confessed that his family often
shared dinner with the Khalidis:

His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent
reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases... It's for that reason
that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a
conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table,"
but around "this entire world."

...The event was videotaped, and
a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.
Khalidi and
the Obamas were great friends in Chicago and often shared meals
together.
By the way, Khalidi was also href="http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/43474e3d-252a-4011-9044-2befe2e65e40">best
friends with Bill Ayers
.

Yet More National OSocialist Shock


I'M SHOCKED, href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102303364.html">SHOCKED:


The Miami trial of a Venezuelan entrepreneur who grew rich doing business
with President Hugo Chávez's populist administration has exposed how some top
government officials have profited from a corrosive web of corruption in the
oil-rich country.

Kickbacks, bribes and secret payoffs have become a feature in the socialist
administration, which had claimed a break from the past but instead has seen
several officials implicated in multimillion-dollar corruption schemes,
according to testimony and conversations taped by the FBI. The trial has also
revealed the Chávez government's determination to funnel state funds to its
allies in Latin America and the lengths it will go to to keep the aid
secret.


Corruption among socialists? But they're for the people! Right?

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Curing A Nearby Blind Child

clipped from jimtreacher.com

Media Bubble, Oct. 23 -- Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin
has come under fire in recent days after it was revealed that earlier this year,
a drive-through meal purchased by the Alaskan Governor contained more than the
usual number of french fries.

The discovery was made during a routine Associated Press search of
drive-through security camera footage obtained from the McDonald's restaurant at
130 Front St. in Juneau, less than a mile from the governor's mansion.

"Sarah Palin says she's just an ordinary working-class American. [laughter] Now
it turns out she eats strips of potato that have been fried and salted. And if
somebody offers her more of them for a slightly higher price... that's just
fine with her.
[boos]
Pres. Obama then emitted a discreet puff of arugula-scented flatulence, curing a
nearby blind child.

Barack On Whitey

clipped from www.youtube.com

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Joe Blows Again

clipped from jimtreacher.com

"I mean, the taxes, they're gonna be unbelievable. Holy f***. So we'll
need your help with that. You're gonna have to pay 'em. There's no way we can
repel a full-scale nationwide tax revolt without resorting to nuclear,
biological, or chemical weapons, at least in the scenarios they've shown me, so
we're countin' on you to do the right thing.

"And I'd say to America, this land that I love: You've all seen what an agent
of change Barack Obama is. He's brought together people from all walks of life.
He's inspired every single person in this country, no matter who you are or what
you look like or even if you're into, y'know, the funny stuff. [chuckle] Which
is gonna be a great comfort when the Obama administration strangles the U.S.
economy and sets off a long, terrifying race war.

Biden added, "And don't forget Iran! They know he's a pushover. Which is one of
the things I love about the guy, he's a pussycat, but these animals? Boy
oh boy. Can you say 'suitcase nuke'?

Of Burke And Lewis And O


Or Edmund Burke who said:


"I must bear with infirmities until they fester into
crimes."


And then there's this from C.S. Lewis, via a reader:


Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims
may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than
under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes
sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for
our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of
their own conscience.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Barkless



Then, part 2 took place today. The sellers of the CDS settled with the
buyers. And NOTHING happened...or, rather, the sellers shelled out about $6
billion or so to the buyers and everyone went home. No CDS counterparty failed
to perform! The cash collateral margining mechanism worked just fine. A handful
of small hedge funds might fail...because they typically borrow to meet their
CDS collateral margin calls...so lenders to those funds may have a problem, but
NOT the CDS counterparty. But so far none has.

And the overhang?...well
almost all of it is HEDGED, i.e., offsets other obligations...when these were
all netted....the actual required payout was LESS THAN 2% of the notional amount
of the CDS contracts.

I'll be waiting for the big news report on this in
the MSM and their informed observers.


There you have it.

Even Bad Weather



Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do,
when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie --
that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the
Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad --
even bad weather -- on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them
to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on
telling the truth -- even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite
candidate.


But the mainstream media--which is to say, most reporters and editors who
work for "mainstream" news organizations--have no honor and are not interested
in truth. They are, as Card says, "the public relations machine of the
Democratic Party."

The Mudbath For Thee But Not For O

The question should naturally arise: Had he any significant early connections
with persons who were not former Weather Underground terrorists, Chicago
mobsters, corrupt party-machine fixers, race-baiting radicals, or systemic
perpetrators of voting fraud?

And, given a voting record in the U.S.
Senate to the left of every other member, and a potentially controversial
register of past campaign contributors, is there any indication that he has
moved beyond the sordid political environment from which he
emerged?

Moreover, having granted that he is a smooth and engaging
speaker, a paragon of cool, and the rhetorical master of the emotive empty
phrase, what has he ever done to suggest he even might be presidential
material?

Nothing that I can find -- and this after a very long and
excruciating campaign in which every candidate who has run against him (from
Hillary Clinton to John McCain to Sarah Palin) has been subjected to an extended
media mudbath.

Today's Nutshell


Abe Greenwald went to a "Democrats for McCain" event last
night and liked the cut of speaker Bartle Bull's href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/greenwald/39471">bullet
points
:


-8 YEARS OF AN OBAMA-PELOSI-ACORN ADMINISTRATION WOULD GIVE AMERICA:
-8
YEARS OF SPREAD-THE-WEALTH SOCIALISM,
-8 YEARS OF CHICAGO-STYLE CORRUPTION,
&
-8 YEARS OF UNITED NATIONS-STYLE FOREIGN POLCY

The case that never gets made is that the consistent political philosophy of
Ayers and his associates continued to warp the mission of the Democratic Party
long after the Weather Underground has become nostalgia, and that Obama is the
philosophical offspring of the movement birthed by radicals such as Ayers.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Another Helping Of JFK For You Coming Up

clipped from hotair.com

Kennedy’s assessment of his own performance was no less severe. Only a few minutes after parting with Khrushchev, Kennedy, a World War II veteran, told James Reston of The New York Times that the summit meeting had been the “roughest thing in my life.” Kennedy went on: “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts. Until we remove those ideas we won’t get anywhere with him.”


What resulted?  The Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis.  Kennedy wound up trading strategic intel and missile installations in western Asia in exchange for Soviet withdrawal of the nuclear missiles from Cuba.  The entire Kennedy administration turned out to be a foreign-policy disaster that was only overlooked because of the tragic assassination of Kennedy in Dallas in 1963.

I agree with Biden.  Obama is exactly like Kennedy in this regard, and our enemies will test us by threatening our interests around the globe if we elect Obama.

Thanks for that Slow Joe.

Good News: 10% Of Bailout Funds To Go For Bonuses

clipped from www.247wallst.com

No matter how badly the economy is doing and what shareholders in American financial firms have lost, it would be a shame to see investment bankers go without their bonuses.

According to The London Observer, "Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned. Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are in line to pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bailout from the US government that has already prompted criticism."

Can't have the Reichstag fire arsonists get cold this winter now can we?

I'm sure Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick and the whole Fannie/Freddie crew will somehow end up with a cut too.

PDO Update

A simple climate model forced by satellite-observed changes in the Earth's radiative budget
associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is shown to mimic the major features of
global average temperature change during the 20th Century - including two-thirds of the warming trend.
A mostly-natural source of global warming is also consistent with mounting observational
evidence that the climate system is much less sensitive to carbon dioxide emissions than the
IPCC's climate models simulate.
It is significant that the observed scale factor (1.9) that converts the PDO index into units of heating
or cooling is just what the model required (1.7 to 2.0) to best explain the temperature behavior
during the 20th Century.
Thus, these recent satellite measurements - even though they span less
than 6 years -- support the Pacific Decadal Oscillation as a potential major player in global
warming and climate change.

Cold Snap

Brazilian meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart explained that extreme cold or snowfall events in his country have always been tied to "a negative PDO" or Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Positive PDOs -- El Ninos -- produce above-average temperatures in South America while negative ones -- La Ninas -- produce below average ones.

Dr. Hackbart also pointed out that periods of solar inactivity known as "solar minimums" magnify cold spells on his continent. So, given that August was the first month since 1913 in which no sunspot activity was recorded -- none -- and during which solar winds were at a 50-year low, he was not surprised that Brazilians were suffering (for them) a brutal cold snap. "This is no coincidence," he said as he scoffed at the notion that manmade carbon emissions had more impact than the sun and oceans on global climate.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Clock Stoppage


In partiuclar, adultery (without regard to whether the spouse consents) is,
without any further consideration, a legitimate topic to report. That inevitably
has to lead to an even further erosion (if that's possible) of our political
class, a further narrowing of the people willing to enter politics. And the vast
disparity between the media resources and attention devoted to sleazy gossip
like this versus actual investigation of true government corruption and crime
seems to be growing by the day, such that behavior like this will further decay
our already quite decadent journalistic class as well."

Greenwald and I disagree about many things, but there's not much room to
argue where the poor state of the political and journalistic classes (and the
increasing lack of differentiation between them) is concerned.

No Point In Saving Their Credibility



Honestly, I don't think they are going to be able to hit the reset button
this time if their preferred candidate wins. It was easier for Republicans (and
center/right folks who voted that way in 2000 and 2004) to let it slide a little
in those years, because winning the election made it that much sweeter. If the
press drags Obama across the finish line, there will be no forgiving or
forgetting. It was way too blatant this year, largely thanks to the blogosphere.


Yes, I thought they were in the tank in 2004, but this has been a whole
different order of flacking. Partly I think it's because they actually like
Obama, or at least the idea of Obama, while Kerry was just a not particularly
well-liked means of getting rid of Bush. I think they also feel that as the big
media lose viewers and circulation, this may be their last chance to swing an
election, and so there's no point saving their credibility for future
engagements.