If you have 45 minutes to spare, this speech given by Mike Pence last year at Hillsdale College comes highly recommended.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnoef7xW5sg
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Monday, 31 October 2011
More Government Drek
I was working on a post about two new green companies that have gone into the red on the backs of taxpayers - ECOtality and Beacon Power - but I got into the weeds with all the details about how one, ECOtality, was show-boated by the administration, even during Obama's State of the Union address last year. Giving up our hard-earned taxpayer dollars and getting nothing but lies and losses in return can be exhausting to the point of debilitating... so I quit that post, for the time being.
So instead, here's the latest alert from Brother Jack:
The United States Secretary of Labor calls out "teabaggers"
This is so disgusting. It's so hard to believe that ordinary Americans, who - initially, at least, merely dared to express alarm at the passage of the "Stimulus" legislation into law (on top of the bailouts that had already occurred), are referred to in such disrespectful and offensive language by officials this high in the adminstration. I've certainly never witnessed anything like it in my life.
Kyle-Anne Shiver wrote an amazing post back in January of last year that I am tempted to print out and mail to Secretary Solis. This excerpt will give you a clue as to the gist of it. I do recommend reading it all, and repeat Kyle-Anne's own warning: "This is for adults only. It's not for the timid, squeamish or otherwise easily offended reader..."
... If so-called decent people and organizations wish to continue using the phrase, “tea-bagging,” in formerly respectable public forums, then they ought to know exactly what they are doing and how much grievous damage it is causing to those of us who have actually been “tea-bagged” by ... pedophilic tormenters. And how much damage they may be doing — at this very minute — to children being “tea-bagged” by sexual predators in the present.
You see, “tea-bagging” is the pedophile’s very best friend and ally. I know this because it was used against me. I’ve studied the issue of childhood sexual abuse and know that this vile deed against children is not as uncommon as some believe. In fact, according to the most recent findings, about one in every four American women was sexually abused in some fashion as a child. About one in five American men were as well. Few of us talk about it openly; I’m sure you can understand why....
How 'bout a 206% tax bracket? Will THAT work?
This chart from the Heritage Foundation shows that the rates at which the government would have to "tax the rich" in order to raise revenues and reduce federal deficits, are "mathematically impossible."
To close the 2035 deficit, the top two rates would increase to 139 percent and 150 percent, and in 2050 they would reach 206 percent and 223 percent.
Blogospheric Miscellany
KUDOS to Monty over at Ace of Spades HQ for sharing two things, both of which are true. First, he quotes Sir John Harrington (1561-1612):
"Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
And secondly, on a cold and grey Monday morning, he gives us this little cheer-me-up:
Aww..
Our Irreconcilable Differences
Niall Stanage at The Hill:
.... Last week, First Lady Michelle Obama laid out her vision of America in a speech in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.:
“Will we honor that fundamental American belief that I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper, and if one of us is hurting, we’re all hurting?” she asked rhetorically.
“Who are we? That’s what this election is about.”
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) presented the countervailing argument, also last week, in an address at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
He complained that people like Obama bought into ... “a false morality that confuses fairness with redistribution, and promotes class envy instead of social mobility.”
The arguments are couched in agreeable terms but the values they reflect are probably irreconcilable....
I wouldn't have described Paul Ryan as complaining; he's much more of the "explaining" sort. But we all hear what we want to hear, and I don't get to edit The Hill. In the meantime, I want to leave you with one more quote in particular, for which I may risk being thrashed by my peers (for even mentioning Grover Norquist*).
“What matters to [uncommitted voters] is what excites them. In 2006 and 2008 ... they voted ‘against Bush,’ about Iraq in particular.
“All of a sudden, Obama gets in and decides to spend all this money and they flip again, against the Democrats. And people say, ‘Oh, they’re confused!’ They’re not confused. First they were worried about endless war and empire. Now they’re worried about spending too much and bankrupting the country.”
Sounds about right to me.
Instead of Hope and Change, Decline and Despair
"Instead of hope and change, the Obama presidency has delivered decline and despair on a scale not seen in America since the dying days of the Carter administration."
"It will require another epic Reagan-style revolution to turn this great nation around and get it off its knees."
We don't need Nile Gardiner (The Telegraph/UK) to tell us how bad things are, but he does anyway. It's interesting to us only because it's something of an outsider's perspective, our own media being too corrupt to see our situation with any clarity.
And maybe this is news to Gardiner's particular readership?
More than two-thirds of American voters say the United States is in decline.... 83 percent are very or somewhat worried about the future of the nation; 49 percent, “very worried” (The Hill). A plurality in other countries believe that China - not the U.S. - is the world's leading superpower (Pew Global Attitudes). 90 percent of Americans believe recognize that our economy "stinks" (CNN).
.... With 14 million Americans out of work, millions of families struggling to pay the mortgage, the prospect of a double dip recession on the horizon and the biggest budget deficit since the Second World War, it is not hard to see why fewer than one in five Americans believe the US is heading in the “right track” in the latest RealClear Politics poll of polls....
.... Even The New York Times has acknowledged "soaring poverty" in Obama's America, citing a Census Bureau report showing the number of Americans officially living below the poverty line (46.2 million) at its highest level for more than half a century, since 1959.
And thus:
Placed in historical context, Obama is without doubt one of the most unpopular American presidents in post-war history at this stage of his time in office. Levels of public disillusionment with the federal government have never been higher, and almost everything the current White House touches ends in failure.
It will require another epic Reagan-style revolution to turn this great nation around and get it off its knees. Fortunately, what China lacks, the United States still has in abundance – the spirit of individual freedom, the love of liberty, a sense of justice and fair play, freedom of speech and worship, and an instinctive desire to act as a powerful force for good on the world stage.
America must continue to lead the world, for the alternative is too grim to contemplate.
In truth, America cannot lead "the world," not if it's to include these newly Islamist nations now congealing out of the revolutions of the "Arab spring." But we could yet lead the "free world" again, what remains of Western civlization, and it is encouraging to me that someone from across the pond is cheering us on... more or less.
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Implications of the Gaza Terrorists' "new and improved" weaponry
Yeshiva World News is an excellent resource:
With the renewed warfare in southern Israel, many are confused regarding attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza now striking areas that have not been mentioned in the media in the past. This is due to the fact that while Israel continues with business as usual, Hamas is constantly stockpiling new weapons, and in many cases, new-and-improved weaponry, which includes longer range rockets.
The warfare began years ago with the firing of mortar shells, which have a range of 6 miles. The terrorists then moved to first generation Kassam rockets with a range of 11 miles, replaced by Grad Katyusha missiles (12.6 miles) and now, the new improved Grad missile with a range of 25 miles.
The new improved Grad missiles are capable of striking many areas that were previously viewed as outside the danger range. This includes Ashdod, Kiryat Malachi, bordering Gadera, Kiryat Gat, Ofakim, Beersheva and Yavne to name a few.
The areas outside the Greater Gaza Border communities are also less equipped to deal with the missile attacks since they have not received the safe rooms and fortification that is now part of the infrastructure of Sderot residents and the surrounding communities. As a result, schools in those areas remains closed while in Sderot and border communities, schools are open.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
UPDATE: Finally this Islamic Jihad video has made it to YouTube. Have a look at their new multi-barrel rocket launchers.
Cain Wins Alabama Straw Poll
You may remember this -- from the NY Times in March 2007:
Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it'll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as ''one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.''
Moreover, Mr. Obama's own grandfather in Kenya was a Muslim. Mr. Obama never met his grandfather and says he isn't sure if his grandfather's two wives were simultaneous or consecutive, or even if he was Sunni or Shiite. (O.K., maybe Mr. Obama should just give up on Alabama.)
Perhaps Nicholas Kristof today regrets his parenthetical remarks. If anyone thought then - or thinks now - that Alabama voters are such a racist lot, they should think again. (And perhaps even apologize for indulging in unfair and old-fashioned stereotypes.)
By way of Don Surber, we learn that Herman Cain won the West Alabama Straw Poll yesterday.
TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain kicked off a day of appearances in Alabama on Saturday with a win at the West Alabama Straw Poll at the Bryant Conference Center.
Cain took 50.7 percent of 347 total votes cast in the poll, and Ron Paul came in second with 45 percent of the vote....
In Iowa :)
By the way, the Obama administration is suing Alabama. But then you all knew that.
Timeout
Unless I decide to tackle another of the five four remaining boxes I've never unpacked from Colorado (2005), I'll see you back here after the Rick Perry interview on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace.
Heh. If you get to see the interview, you'll want to pay attention when Chris Wallace chides him about his tax plan not bringing in "enough" revenue. If I'm not mistaken, Perry's response is a first among Republican candidates.