Blago-Rama

clipped from www.haloscan.com Conservatives, led by the Wall Street Journal have been complaining about this problem for at least 15 years, and what was the reaction? The Democrats and their allies, the thugs of the financial industry, disparaged and in one case the head of Fannie Mae attempted to get a Journal editor fired. Sounds like Blagojevich doesn't it?

Me Too

clipped from www.chicagotribune.com But today's news is that Obama, often treated by the national media as the gentle Mr. Tumnus of American politics, got privately hardball with Reid over the Tombstone issue. According a story in the Tribune by Rick Pearson and Mike Dorning, Obama didn't want the Chicago Way on parade in Washington, less than two weeks before his inauguration, when he formally becomes the agent of the change we can believe in. Obama is perfectly within his rights to try to wriggle out of an embarrassing political situation, and what could be more embarrassing for him than to have Illinois political corruption constantly on the news in Washington? People might start asking questions, wondering how Obama could come out of a city run by the wrought-iron fists of the Daley machine but smell like the neck of a baby after a bath. I'm still wondering.

The "Crime"

clipped from townhall.com Wilson became an instant hero to critics of the Iraq war in the mainstream media. The impression was widespread that the Bush administration-- specifically Vice-President Dick Cheney-- had sent him to Niger and then rejected his report. This was news to officials of the Bush administration, who scrambled to find out who this man was and who sent him to Niger. Among those scrambling to find out was Scooter Libby. What Libby and others discovered was that Wilson had been sent by the CIA, on the recommendation of his wife, Valerie Plame. In reality, Robert Novak got his information from Richard Armitage, not Scooter Libby. Moreover, Novak was a critic of the Bush administration's decision to go to war in Iraq, so he was very unlikely to be part of a plot to retaliate against Wilson. Neither Novak nor Armitage nor anybody else was prosecuted for revealing Valerie Plame's name, for it was no crime.

Fauxtography Today (Part 56,826)

clipped from littlegreenfootballs.com The taps on the chest that he’s doing are the sort of thing you see in bad TV dramas, when you don’t want to make the poor actor playing the victim uncomfortable by really pushing on his chest. I think the man in the white coat knows this child is actually alive, and is making the simulated chest compressions gentle so as not to hurt the child. My guess is that he assumed the videographer, like those on better TV shows, would have been smart enough not to film as far down as the man’s hands on the chest. UPDATE at 1/8/09 12:43:55 pm: Well, well. CNN has removed the video from the page linked above, with no explanation or retraction.

And Watch For More Of The Same Cr*p From Obambi

clipped from michellemalkin.com The presidential merit award, equal to 35 percent of Chief Aguilar’s $172,000 annual pay, is 1.7 times larger than the base starting salary of $36,658 for a Border Patrol agent. The bonus has angered many field agents, some of whom told the chief in a terse, unsigned letter that the agency has been damaged and field agents jeopardized by his “politically expedient decisions.” The letter, a copy which was obtained by The Washington Times, challenged Chief Aguilar’s job performance since his May 2004 appointment, saying there had “never been a time when our chief has been so out of touch with the field, or a time when our chief has become a politician and lost sight of his most important responsibility: to be an advocate for the agency and its mission.” This is, of course, in keeping with the Bush tradition of rewarding incompetence , security-undermining negligence, and cronyism, and malpractice at DHS.

Retread Update

clipped from copyrightsandcampaigns.blogspot.com Denizens of Slashdot's copylefty comment boards are reacting to Obama's appointment of music industry litigator Tom Perrelli as Associate Attorney General. And they are not pleased with The One for tapping someone Slashdot terms "The Recording Industry of America's favorite courtroom lawyer." A collection of some of my favorite Slashdotter comments: Congratulations on electing a politician. Please enjoy the next 8 years of corporate whoring. Obama wants to change the system. But in order to do that, he needs insiders, clinton retreads, lobbyists, and big corporate stooges that know how to get shit done. Once he's surrounded by them, he'll be able to change the system. Now I'm laughing at all the drones here that fell for the Messiah's clever PR campaign.

Memory Holed (Part 7,896,376)

clipped from pajamasmedia.com MICKEY KAUS BUSTS REVISIONIST ACCOUNTS of the Iraq Study Group: “I must have missed the part of the blueprint where the Iraq Study Group called for the Petraeus ’surge’ strategy.”

Stupidity

clipped from shrinkwrapped.blogs.com Let us hypothesize a small man, weighing 150 pounds, who is unarmed. Facing him is an Arnold Schwarzenegger type, 250 pounds of sinew and muscle, who also has a machine gun slung over his broad shoulders. Since the two don’t like each other, you would expect the smaller man, as an act of self-preservation, to act in such a way so as not to rile the bigger man. But instead, throwing caution and IQ to the wind, the little man begins throwing rocks -- some of which are sharp enough to lacerate -- at the bigger man. He repeats the rock throwing the next day and then the next, seemingly intent on making a rite of a wrong. A neutral observer would conclude that only someone intellectually deficient would expect his bigger and more heavily armed adversary, now bleeding, to do nothing indefinitely, that at some point the big man is going to say enough is enough and pick up the little guy and hurt him bad, which is what he is doing now, in Gaza – without apology.

"Rights"

clipped from shrinkwrapped.blogs.com Compounding our problems, the West has been in an extended ideological slide of its own.  It is not just that our elites have become unmoored from the traditional anchors of our ethics and morality (religion, tradition) but they have adopted as their ideological underpinnings a new variant on the Marxist mantra.  We have gone from "to each according to his need, from each according to his ability" to a more nuanced and contemporary "to each according to his desires, from each according to his willingness to donate (sometimes under coercion) his time, energy, and money." Most young people of my children's generation have thousands of mp3's on their iPods and yet have paid for none of them.   In my own field, Medicine, the idea that the "consumer" should actually pay for their health care has become an outmoded object of ridicule.

Be Confident

clipped from www.italia-nuova.org Rather than tackle the source of the problem, the people running the bailout desperately want to reinflate the credit bubble, prop up the stock market and head off a recession. Their efforts are clearly failing: 2008 was a historically bad year for the stock market, and we’ll be in recession for some time to come. Our leaders have framed the problem as a “crisis of confidence” but what they actually seem to mean is “please pay no attention to the problems we are failing to address.” In its latest push to compel confidence, for instance, the authorities are placing enormous pressure on the Financial Accounting Standards Board to suspend “mark-to-market” accounting. This will have the double effect of reducing transparency and increasing self-delusion (gorge yourself for months, but refuse to step on a scale, and maybe no one will realize you gained weight). And it will fool no one. When you shout at people “be confident,” you shouldn’t expect them to be anything but terrified.

Neither Should Be Left In Charge

clipped from www.ritholtz.com “From the article: “We should begin by breaking the cycle of deteriorating housing values and resulting foreclosures…” I have my own take on this. We should begin by breaking the cycle of lies, obfuscation, and resulting bullshit. Anyone who believes the solution to the problem of artificially high home prices is to keep the home prices artificially high is either: 1) in complete and total denial that artificial demand created the artificially magnified prices to start - in other words, an idiot or 2) is a thief and liar who knows the truth but continue the lies and thievery anyway - in other words, pathological. In either case, neither should be left in charge.

Nazi Nancy

clipped from gatewaypundit.blogspot.com Speaker Pelosi plans to erase House rules that were written around Newt Gingrich’s "Contract with America" which would effectively silence the minority. Connie Hair at Human Events reported: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Pelosi’s proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office. Pelosi’s rule changes -- which may be voted on today -- will reverse the fairness rules that were written around Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America.” After decades of Democrat control of the House of Representatives, gross abuses to the legislative process and several high-profile scandals contributed to an overwhelming Republican House Congressional landslide victory in 1994. So... this is what hope and change looks like.

Ain't she grand? Of course, she could be right that the American public has now become as stupid as she is. (Natural gas isn't a fossil fuel you know.) God help us all if so.

Don't Be Rude Now...

clipped from pajamasmedia.com BUT DON’T CALL THEM “BARBARIANS,” because that would be rude. Comparing Hamas to the Nazis. “The Hamas founding covenant explicitly calls for the extermination of all Jews. Hitler never made total extermination an official plank of the the Nazi party platform.” UPDATE: Rand Simberg wonders why so many on the left are indifferent to Hamas’s intentions. “What are the Israeli intentions? To live in peace, without a threat to their lives and nation, and to minimize casualties, on both sides, in any war waged against them. What are Hamas’ intentions? Their intentions (and not secret ones, but stated openly and proudly, as Ron Rosenbaum points out) are the most evil imaginable (other than the extinction of the human race itself). Their explicit goal is the extinction of all Jews in creation.”

Malodorous Chutzpah Thy Name Is Bill

clipped from www.forbes.com On Dec. 19, 2008. at 2 p.m., the New York-based Alavi Foundation, which supports Iranian causes, contributed between $25,000 and $50,000 to the William J. Clinton Foundation. This can be best described as the ultimate chutzpah, for on the very same day, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York indicted the president of the Alavi Foundation, Farshid Jahedi, "on a charge of obstruction of justice for allegedly destroying documents required to be produced under a grand jury subpoena concerning the Alavi Foundation's relationship with Bank Melli Iran and the ownership of a Manhattan office building." Although the Alavi contribution to Clinton is legal, it is malodorous. However, as long as the U.S. government continues to treat different Iranian entities as though they are separate from the state it recognizes as a sponsor of terrorism, the mullahs will be free to advance their agenda in the U.S.

Pay To Play (D-How Ya Doin'?)

clipped from www.commentarymagazine.com With tongue planted firmly in cheek David Kahane “boasts” about the Democratic party: We are the party of Barack Obama and the Daley Machine; the party of the Clintons and their amazing alchemistic Library, which turns Saudi dross into altruistic gold; the party of Tony Rezko and Norman Hsu; the party of vaporizing fundraisers, absconding bagmen and sitting New Mexico governors (and a recent presidential “candidate”) currently under federal investigation for allegedly steering a state contract in the direction of one of his big backers, David Rubin of CDR Financial Products in Beverly Hills. Now comes word that Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state-designate, Congress and the Emoluments Clause willing, got millions of dollars for a mall in Syracuse shortly after the developer coughed up a hundred grand for the Bill Clinton “Foundation.” That’s what I call commerce!

What Will They Come Up With Next?

clipped from pajamasmedia.com Perhaps we are operating not just at the edge of our physical energy plant, but also near the edge of our civil energy plant. Was the Katrina-induced social breakdown in New Orleans a preview of what could happen at a national level in the even of a national crisis? It takes a crisis to reveal which virtues are actually vices. Gaza was not just the Arafat’s creation, it was also the result of the “International Community’s” policies taken to their logical conclusion. Gaza was a social experiment; a proving ground for diplomatic concepts, a test of ideology. In that poor patch the politics of symbolism, victimhood, guilt and dependency were tried out and given free rein to work their healing magic. And what it produced was a nightmare town of uneducated people ruled by gangsters and PR men. I’m sure the social engineers will go back to the drawing board. What will they come up with next?

CO2 Below The Surface

clipped from www.drroyspencer.com While you have probably seen graphs of the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration slowly increasing over time, the graph above shows the yearly growth RATE, as well as the estimated yearly rate of emissions by humanity. It shows a couple of interesting things. First, the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 is, on average, only about 50% of what mankind emits. This means that Mother Nature takes out about 50% of the ‘excess’ CO2 that we pump into the atmosphere every year. And it seem like it doesn’t matter how much MORE we put in each year…nature still takes out an average of 50% of that amount. Secondly, it shows that there are huge year-to-year fluctuations in the amount of extra CO2 that shows up at Mauna Loa. Most of these fluctuations are due to El Nino and La Nina events.

Heresy

clipped from tapscottsbehindthewheel.blogspot.com Some heretical thoughts being bandied about at The Wall Street Journal where today's edition features an editorial that pushes the idea of liberating Detroit to build and sell cars and trucks that actually make money, instead of having to offer vehicles that first satisfy bureaucratic edicts from Washington bureaucrats. Along the way, the WSJ analysis focuses on the crucial role of the government's Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) rules in the undoing of the Big Three: "The fuel-economy rules apply equally to foreign brands, of course, some of which also specialize in big, powerful vehicles. But they afford themselves an out. BMW paid $230 million in CAFE fines from 1983 to 2007 to avoid building small cars at a loss to please Washington. Volvo paid $56 million. Daimler paid $55 million. "Why don't the Big Three take this out? Explains the Government Accountability Office, because they fear the political repercussions of being tagged with "unlawful conduct."

Welcome To The Bill And W Depression

clipped from www.prospect.org As an REO (foreclosed properties) valuation analyst I see first hand all over the country what is really happening. The real net to the investor is often less than 30% of UPB. I also see the trends daily in price drops, activity and new properties coming on the market. There were one million foreclosures in 2008 and easily 2.5M in 2009 based on current monthly foreclosure activity (ex. there were 250k notices filed in October alone. All of this real activity is evidence that the problem is worse than being let on. Values are likely to drop at least as much again as they already have in most markets except those that have already dropped 30% or more like Phoenix, Miami, San Fransisco and Los Vegas. This essentially means the housing market has already entered a full blown depression and we are maybe at the midpoint. The Feds cannot manipulate real supply and demand. Thats econ 101. Thank Bill Clinton for his "housing for everyone" mantra.

Uncertainty

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com They were. The "Roosevelt Rally" flattened. The arbitrary quality of other initiatives reinforced concerns. The New Deal centerpiece, the National Recovery Administration, helped some businesses compete and criminalized others for the same behavior. Sometimes Roosevelt goaded federal prosecutors into harassing corporate executives. Other times, he schmoozed the same execs at the White House. In 1936, FDR pushed through deficit spending. In 1937, he was Mr. Budget Hawk. Uncertain, markets froze. Businesses refused to hire or invest in equipment. Unemployment stayed stuck in the teens. The 'deal' part of the New Deal phrase was problematic; businesses didn't want individual favors, they wanted clear laws for all. Industrialist Ernest Weir summed up what his community was desperate for FDR to do: "Above all to make the program clear and then stick to it."

Indistinction

clipped from onecosmos.blogspot.com God is distinguished by his indistinction from any other distinct things...--Meister Eckhart "Eckhart was obviously fascinated by the question of what we think we are doing when we attempt to speak about God. In one sense, his whole surviving corpus is an exploration of this issue. Why is speech necessary when silence is more fitting?" (McGinn). You might say that Eckhart picks up where Aquinas himself left off, in the abysmal silence at the beginning and end of all verbalization; which is why he could say that "the Word which is in the silence of the fatherly Intellect is a Word without word, or rather a Word above every word." In the beginning -- or at the Origin, to be precise -- is the wordless Word, or pure spirit-breath hovering over the face of the deep.

Or Is The Warming The Result Of The Cloud Change?

clipped from www.drroyspencer.com The central importance of feedbacks to the global warming issue can not be overstated. How the radiant flows of energy in and out of the Earth system change with temperature is THE most critical piece of knowledge we need in order to predict whether manmade global warming will be benign — or catastrophic. It is obvious that good estimates of feedbacks are needed from our observations of natural climate variability. This would provide the most important test of climate models: do the models exhibit feedbacks consistent with those we observe in nature? I am now convinced that the main difficulty in diagnosing feedbacks from observations of natural climate variability has been related to the issue of causation when observing cloud behavior. The best way to introduce what I mean by this is with the following question: When low cloud cover is observed to decrease with warming, is the cloud change the result of the warming, or is the warming the result of the cloud change?

If The OHsu Fits

clipped from gatewaypundit.blogspot.com In his December 22 letter, Cohen also noted that Hsu was already "notorious for his political activities" and that it was "inevitable" that his client's "connections" to Bill and Hillary Clinton "and other democratic notables--including perhaps the president-elect--will be introduced at trial." Before becoming a key fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, Hsu co-hosted a 2005 California fundraiser for Obama's political action committee and introduced the Illinois Democrat to Marc Gorenberg, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who later joined the Obama campaign's national finance committee. Prosecutors allege that Hsu directed his investors to donate money to specific candidates, and then reimbursed them in violation of federal campaign laws.

Looking Away

clipped from www.chicagotribune.com Of course, Tuesday's fiasco could have been avoided. Democrats in the state legislature could have stripped Blagojevich of his appointment powers and imposed a special election. Obama also could have demanded it. But as he has done so often in his career, Obama avoided a confrontation and looked the other way. Democrats tried to finesse this, and they allowed Blagojevich the opening he needed, to hold that news conference and defy everybody. And so I'm forced to tip my hat to Gov. Dead Meat on this one, for sheer brazenness. He's no jester. And it takes guts to keep a straight face while Democrats about you are losing theirs.

Impossible?

clipped from townhall.com Whoever called politics "the art of the possible" must have had a strange idea of what is possible or a strange idea of politics, where the impossible is one of the biggest vote-getters. People can get the possible on their own. Politicians have to be able to offer the voters something that they cannot get on their own. The impossible fills that bill perfectly. You want the government to create more jobs for people when there is widespread unemployment? It's been done. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the government employed more young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps than there were in the Army. The money to pay for all this had to come from somewhere-- and that meant that there was less money left to employ other people in the private sector. While jobs created by the government may not have reduced total unemployment, these jobs increased votes for the administration, which is the real bottom line in politics.

Of A And B

clipped from townhall.com Another pitfall to straight thinking is sometimes called the cause and effect fallacy. That fallacy is made when a person sees event B coming on the heels of event A and then says A caused B. There may no causal relationship at all. Such is the case when the rooster crows and shortly thereafter the sun rises. That is easy to see but many historians assert that the 1929 stock market crash caused the 1930s Great Depression. Little is further from the truth. Instead, it was caused by inept fiscal, monetary and regulatory policies of the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations.

The "Vacuum"

clipped from www.jewcy.com A major fallacy ensues from this one-sided premise, which is that Israel is the sole stimulus for Hamas response, and therefore it alone bears the responsibility for the undeniable misery in Gaza. Those quick to point out how Olmert's miscalculations have hurt the people he governs will typically suggest that military incursions "radicalize" Arab sentiment, leading to more suicide bombers and more dead Israelis. Assuming this is true, why is it that the corollary is never asked: namely, how does Hamas radicalize Israeli sentiment? A much remarked-upon fact of the last 72 hours is that Israel's ultra-left-wing party Meretz has endorsed Operation Cast Lead, a development that should concern partisans of both sides. If there is merit to the "root causes" argument, then surely it applies to the decisions undertaken by a Jewish policy as much as it does to those undertaken by a Muslim one. Or does a belligerent Israeli consensus form in a vacuum?

Believe It

clipped from online.wsj.com So to recap all of this change you can believe in: A Kennedy and Cuomo are competing to succeed a Clinton in New York; the skids are greased for a Biden to replace a Biden in Delaware; one Salazar might replace another in Colorado; and a Governor charged with political corruption in Illinois wants one of his cronies to succeed the President-elect. Let's just say we're looking forward to 2009.

The Amazing Coincidence

clipped from online.wsj.com The left's hope is that derivatives are so poorly understood that people can be convinced that turmoil in the market for credit default swaps -- an effect of soured mortgage loans -- is actually a cause of this crisis. Credit default swaps (CDS) are insurance policies against companies or investment vehicles going bankrupt and being unable to pay their creditors. This insurance is cheap when things are going well, and very expensive when investors expect the relevant entities to fail. Turns out that the markets for CDS and other derivatives not tied to the housing crisis are functioning normally. in an amazing coincidence, it is the failure -- or the expected failure -- of entities with heavy exposure to toxic mortgages that is putting extreme financial strain on those who sold insurance. But the problem can't possibly be the toxic mortgages encouraged by Washington, according to the politicians. It must be the system of insuring against the collapse of those who bought the mortgages.

Welcome to We The Free! Using this blog: In addition to being mainly a personal research (linker) blog, I tend to keep some of my favorite posts bumped high and even dated into the future (notice the date on this post?). To read the very latest just click through to the "Cycles of History" post and scroll down from there... [ --This post held bumped to top-- ]

Fanning The Lazy

clipped from econlog.econlib.org It seems that AIG and other institutions became lazy and relied on the investigations and reasoning of others. Fannie and Freddie were recklessly buying subprime mortgage backed securities, funded by their government guarantee. The major credit ratings agencies were eager to go along with government pressure to approve subprime MBS bonds. They were comfortable having a an effective monopoly as government-approved companies. So, I think the suits got it wrong, thinking: Why stay out of a market that everyone else has confidence in.? AIG got into trouble evaluating the risk of default for banks holding mortgage backed securities. Banks bought AAA rated mortgage securities, supposedly rock-solid. The AAA ratings were given by government-approved ratings agencies. Insurers like AIG and other institutions relied on those ratings, and insured those banks by selling credit default swaps, which seemed to be a conservative risk. The actual risk of those mortgage securities was far higher.

Alarmed And Begging For Rescue

clipped from econlog.econlib.org "Third, that even though much of the public instinctively and correctly opposed the bailout, it sailed through without costing Congressmen their seats." I heard a story on NPR about a poll that showed that the public was fairly evenly split on the issue of bail-outs. In addition, the media overwhelmingly sold the financial problems as the worst the world has ever seen since creation and hounded politicians for a solution. Policians saw that the media was on their side and would portray them as heroes. Then the media pimped for the pols and told the public they were stupid for opposing bail-outs. Mencken said that the art of practical politics is to keep the public alarmed and begging for rescue. The mainstream media empower politicians in practicing their dark arts.

Government Is Here To "Help"

clipped from econlog.econlib.org Reason TV has a video of a panel discussion that really articulates the frustration that libertarians feel about the financial bailout. As Tim Cavanaugh points out, the bailout redistributes from the prudent to the profligate. As Veronique de Rugy points out (footnoting Andrei Shleifer, et al), when people lose confidence and trust in one another, their confidence in government increases. Thus, government failure that undermines confidence winds up reinforcing the demand for government! Bernanke, Geithner, and Paulson were hailed as saviors, even though they could just have easily been portrayed as bumblers. The whole thing was portrayed as government having no choice but to come in and clean up the private sector's mess, rather than an ill-conceived attempt to stop markets from adjusting to a mess that was created by a combination of market failure and government failure.

More Head Banging Goodness

clipped from michellemalkin.com I know I’m getting to be a broken record on this, but how long will this country keep trying to cure the disease with the disease? Headline: “GMAC loosens credit to make vehicles easier to buy.” Call it the subprime auto loan prescription. Easier auto loans for more people. The struggling financing arm of General Motors Corp., rescued by $5 billion in federal aid on Monday, plans to use some of the money to make cars and trucks more affordable to a larger pool of customers. Flashback Nov. 25: Borrow. Spend. Panic. Repeat. Mish sums this madness up perfectly: The more money wasted on stupidity like this, the longer the recession, and the slower the recovery. There is only so much capital, and using that capital to keep failed business models alive is sickening. Pardon me while I bang my head against the wall some more.

Cracked

clipped from pajamasmedia.com HEH: “Two years ago, like many somewhat financially literate readers, I was perusing newspapers stories about crazy negative amortization mortgages and exclaiming, ‘What are they, on crack?‘ Now we have our answer.”

Sad To Say...

clipped from www.powerlineblog.com "Two plus two always equals four, never five," he said. ... Before his speech, the assembly voted to raise the age at which workers can retire with a government pension by five years, to 65 for men and 60 for women. Officials said the change was needed because Cuba's population was aging rapidly due to a declining birth rate and immigration. Castro said Cuban managers need to demand more from their workers, who receive free education and health care and subsidized food rations but on average earn only $20 a month. ... He expressed dissatisfaction with the system of subsidies for those who can work, but do not, saying government handouts discourage Cubans from being more productive. It's sad to say, but there are many in Congress and even some in the administration who could take a lesson from Castro's realism.

Dave Barry's Real Life

clipped from www.extrememortman.com If you work for the New York Times, or if you are a fierce loyalist and fan of the New York Times, you may not want to read Dave Barry’s 2008 year in review. Why?  Because in an year in which Barry hilariously eviscerates the media — sample:  “A mesmerizing speaker, Obama electrifies voters with his exciting new ideas for change, although people have trouble remembering exactly what these ideas are because they are so darned mesmerized. Some people become so excited that they actually pass out. These are members of the press corps” — he saves particular and substantial ridicule for the New York Times. Collection: Barack Obama, continuing to shake up the establishment, selects as his running mate Joe Biden, a tireless fighter for change since he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1849. Some may call this satire. Others may call it, well, real life.  Dave Barry really may not be making this up.

"They chose dishonour. They will have war." -- Winston Churchill

Unfair

clipped from pajamasmedia.com A lot of people have been comparing the Ponzi scheme allegedly run by Madoff to the Ponzi scheme run by the U.S. government, also known as Social Security. That’s entirely unfair. To Madoff.

A Quote You Can't Place -- Why Not?

"First he incites war, then falsifies the causes, then odiously wraps himself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy and slowly but surely leads mankind to war, not without calling God to witness the honesty of his attack." --Do you know who said this?

Anyone paying attention to politics circa 2006 would reasonably guess that it's a quote from some famous Democrat about George Bush. But it isn't -- the answer is here at the end of the second paragraph.

Did that make you blush? Then don't forget to take the "Who said it?" quiz (second item down) while you're flustered -- you may miss a few there too...

Unfathomable

clipped from atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com "Even the Rabbi and his wife at Nariman House were sexually assaulted and their genitalia mutilated" Remember, the Rabbi's wife was pregnant. I think it might have been easy to deny the evil of the Nazis and their barbarism before their inconceivable atrocities were exposed. They were a most advanced, "modern" country - lovers of art, music (Wagner!) culture and technologically, they were ahead of the curve. Islam, OTOH, has none of the brilliant disguises of the Third Reich. They contribute nothing to the advancement of humanity. They marinate in their hate, are prideful of their savagery and blood lust. And yet, the West apologizes, caves, bows, grovels ...... and so the pious Muslims strive to top their execrable wickedness, thereby insuring further capitulation and appeasement from the West. More information is slowly coming out about the pious Muslims that attacked Mumbai November 26th - Mumbai's 9/11 and their depravity is unfathomable. This is pure evil.