They Can't Stop Themselves

Once the bias genie is out of the bottle, it pretty much stays out. And, being a vaporous, malodorous sort of thing, the bias genie starts to seep into everything, like a house built on a landfill.

In this case the stinky house is the AP. Saw a headline today about the Washington Times laying off staff. First thought in my head? 'How long before they call the paper "conservative"'?

I wasn't disappointed.

Washington Times slashes staff; sports section out

They did manage to control themselves until most of the way through when this just had to find its way in there: "The Times is often viewed as the conservative alternative to the much larger Washington Post."

So predictable. I guess you could assume they are implying in a backhanded sort of way that the Post is liberal (which it is...in spades), but they certainly don't say that.

But then another thought crept in...'Hey, didn't the NY Times just lay a bunch of people off? Wonder how the AP covered that.'

Sure enough...

NY Times lays off 18 workers in newsroom cutbacks

Go ahead and read it as many times as you like...you won't find the word 'liberal' anywhere. You'll note that I found as near-equal stories from the AP on identical topics within days of each other as possible. Both focused on staff cuts. Both un-bylined AP stories. Both the version they put on Yahoo! Finance.

This house smells funny, don't you think?

In somewhat related news...for how long do you think the press can go on running headlines to the effect of "jobless claims drop unexpectedly"? It seems several cycles have now passed with this headline...basically you incorrectly assume initial jobless claims will be X, when they come in a couple of thousand less than X you call that "unexpected" and then you report how the numbers from the previous period were revised upward so that they end up about what was expected. Then, sure enough, next reporting period it's all "unexpected" again.

Sheesh.

Weep For America

Well, if you loved it, that is. Wizbang tipoff on this one over at American Spectator:

On December 26, two days after Nigerian Omar Abdulmutallab allegedly attempted to use underwear packed with plastic explosives to blow up the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight he was on, and as it became clear internally that the Administration had suffered perhaps its most embarrassing failure in the area of national security, senior Obama White House aides, including chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and new White House counsel Robert Bauer, ordered staff to begin researching similar breakdowns -- if any -- from the Bush Administration.

"The idea was that we'd show that the Bush Administration had had far worse missteps than we ever could," says a staffer in the counsel's office. "We were told that classified material involving anything related to al Qaeda operating in Yemen or Nigeria was fair game and that we'd declassify it if necessary."...

"This White House doesn't view the Northwest [Airlines] failure as one of national security, it's a political issue," says the White House source. "That's why Axelrod and Emanuel are driving the issue."

Axelrod, who has no foreign policy or national security experience...has been actively participating in national security briefings from the beginning of the administration...

Axelrod's presence in the meetings has raised some eyebrows, as previous political advisers in the White House have typically not participated in such meetings. Bush Administration sources, for example, say that political adviser Karl Rove was not present at national security meetings.

We told you so. And we're not happy that we have to say that. At least Clinton thought of international terrorism as a 'police' issue...not a 'political inconvenience'.

Iran, Iraq, Bush, And The New York Times

Larry Elder crams a few inconvenient truths down the New York Times' biased pie hole:

As to Iran, The New York Times quoted a pundit-blogger who, when protests began this past summer, wrote, "(N)o Iranian ... has mentioned Iraq as an inspiration for the demonstrations, nor has any leader of their opposition cited their Iraqi neighbors as a model or a source of guidance."

None?

Meet Mohsen Kadivar. In May 2004, Time magazine profiled this Iranian intellectual in a flattering article called "The Critical Cleric -- Reclaiming Islam for a New World." Newsweek called him a global leader "to watch in 2005." His criticism of the Iranian regime landed him in jail. He now teaches at Duke University, and PBS's Charlie Rose interviewed him in July.

What does this cleric says about Iraq's possible influence on his native country? In February 2005, he said: "I think the Iraqis can make what we wanted to create but were unsuccessful: a real Islamic Republic. By that I mean a republic with Islamic values, democracy with Islamic values ... (where) the clergy has no special rights. If they have a good government with Islamic democracy and without any special or divine rights for the clergy, the Iranian government won't be able to justify its situation to the Iranian citizens."

Meet Mashallah Shamsolvaezin. In 2000, this Iranian journalist received an International Press Freedom Award but could not attend the formal dinner honoring him. Shamsolvaezin was then sitting in a Tehran prison for the crime of "insulting Islamic values." The authorities shut down several publications that he edited. Just days ago, he and several other journalists were arrested in Iran.

What did he say about Iraq's possible influence on Iran? "The Shi'as in Iraq have accepted the notion of having a secular government, and they are slowly moving toward the democratization of their country -- free elections, democratic institutions, a free press. All of this in and of itself will have an impact on the situation in Iran."

Meet Mohsen Sazegara. This Revolutionary Guard co-founder and former Islamic Republic supporter became a critic. He attempted to run for president of Iran, but authorities denied his application. He spent three months in jail for opposing the regime. He now lives in the United States and faces more prison time should he return to his country.

What did he say about Iraq's possible influence on Iran? "I personally hope that Iraq's (transition to democracy) will be completed successfully so that it can also help our nation. For sure, neighbors with democratic governments are much better for us than dictators such as Saddam Hussein or backward groups such as the Taliban ... . Our young generation in particular has shown ... that it has a strong desire for democracy, human rights and civil society, and a strong desire to join the international (community). And when democratic changes take place in our neighboring and brother country Iraq, with its many ties to us, it encourages our youth, and emboldens our young people to ask for change in our current constitution."

What's the saying, something about freedom meaning nothing left to lose or something? I guess when you've gone beyond your slip showing and polls are clear that you stand fully naked in your bias in front of the country, there's not much point in even pretending to be balanced anymore if you're the Times.

Official Injustice

Another precursor to my upcoming (I promise!) recap of Obama's first year:

On Election Day 2008, two nightstick-wielding, paramilitary members of the New Black Panther party stood outside a Philadelphia polling place. They hurled racial slurs at voters and poll-watchers entering the building, serving up admonishments such as, “White power don’t rule here.” Another voter faced a charming greeting: “Cracker, you about to be ruled by a black man.” Witnesses said they feared for their physical safety, as one of the men repeatedly brandished a weapon. One couldn’t dream up a more clear-cut case of voter intimidation.

Career Justice Department attorneys agreed. They pursued the case and won a default judgment in federal court against the duo, only to see the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division inexplicably swoop in and drop the complaint months later. The Washington Times reported that although department brass nixed the charges, they had courageously allowed for “appropriately tailored injunctive relief” against one of the men—barring him from “brandishing a weapon outside a polling place through November 15, 2012.”...

On the same day the two Panthers were menacing Pennsylvanians, voters in the small town of Kinston, North Carolina were also casting ballots. More than 11,000 local residents turned out, many of whom helped propel Barack Obama to victory. In addition to the federal elections, Kinstonians also voted on a local question: Whether to eliminate candidates’ political party identification on municipal election ballots. By a margin of nearly 2-to-1—including wide support from the black community—the locals chose to drop D’s and R’s from future town-wide contests. The Holder Justice Department, naturally, had to intervene.

Why? Well, the feds simply couldn’t abide the will of Kinston’s silly, ignorant populace. Without a ‘D-for-Democrat’ printed conspicuously beside a local candidate’s name on the ballot, they explained, black voters may not be able to figure out whom to support. This wasn’t the DOJ’s ulterior motivate in overturning the valid election result—it was their primary justification. They even put it in writing. An August memo spells out the racial snobbery in excruciatingly blunt language: “Removing the partisan cue in municipal elections will, in all likelihood, eliminate the single factor that allows black candidates to be elected to office.” Really...

This tainted interpretation of the law also led Holder to put American’s lives at risk—for no acceptable reason. In awarding KSM a civilian trial, and the panoply of rights that come with it, the Attorney General has handed this monster the largest anti-American megaphone he could have ever hoped for. Muhammad, who requested to plead guilty and face execution last year, could easily have been brought to justice before a military tribunal. After all, that’s the legal fate of a fellow Jihadist who planned the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. Instead, KSM’s proposed show trial will allow defense attorneys to put the Bush administration on trial, stirring up political passions at home and releasing sensitive information to the public, including America’s enemies.

Eric Holder, a tainted appointee from the very start, has since risen above the dung heap to earn especial distinction this year as an epic fail. And we're all the more racially divided and less safe because of him. Please, feel free to distribute this to your black friends and acquaintances, especially any of them that don't know they're just supposed to look for the (D) on their ballots so they know how to vote. I guess Mr. Holder isn't too much of a "coward" to come out and admit that he thinks most black people are too stupid to vote and are just supposed to mark the line they're told to mark.

Your Random...Something

David Limbaugh on Obama's delusions:

He told Oprah Winfrey he deserves "a good solid B-plus" for his first year in office. The only things standing in his way for that coveted A are -- for the most part -- other people, such as evil Republicans who oppose socialized medicine...

"The biggest burden on me right now is that economic growth has happened, but job growth has not happened." Note the "burden on me." Similarly, he said his painfully belabored decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan hit him "in the gut."...

When the George W. Bush economy was humming for almost eight years, Obama and his media friends gave Bush no credit because, they said, we were experiencing "jobless growth." These partisan charlatans characterized 4.5 percent unemployment as "joblessness." What does that make 10 percent -- especially in light of Obama's promise to keep it less than 8 percent?

Shouldn't Obama be held to the same standard that he and his liberal friends set for President Bush? A June 10, 2007, editorial by George F. Will had it just right: "In 2002, when (Bush's) tax cuts kicked in and the economy began 65 months -- so far -- of uninterrupted growth, critics said: But it is a 'jobless recovery,' (even though) the unemployment rate steadily declined (to) 4.5 percent."

Lawrence Kudlow wrote in 2006 that Democrats who proclaimed a "jobless recovery" in 2003 and 2004 "had to eat crow." "Right now," Kudlow wrote, "total employment in the U.S. stands at a record high of 144 million. This is a big number, just as 4.6 percent unemployment is a low number."

But despite the objectively positive data, liberals wouldn't permit any positive perspective on the Bush economy, to the point that they had convinced 64 percent of Americans (according to a Gallup Poll) that the economy was doing poorly...

Yet Obama pats himself on the back because "we are on our way out of Iraq," and he thinks "we've got the best possible plan for Afghanistan."

How he can give himself credit for Iraq is beyond comprehension. He vigorously opposed the surge, which everyone acknowledges turned the war around, and he steadfastly refused to admit he was wrong. Our withdrawal from Iraq is only possible because wiser heads prevailed. As for Afghanistan, he ultimately made the right decision to listen to the generals -- partially. He refused to send the number of troops they requested, demoralized our forces and emboldened the enemy in needlessly delaying his decision, and telegraphed our lukewarm commitment to the war by setting a short-term withdrawal date just as he was increasing troop deployments.

How about Obama's restoration of America's image? Well, he's gone around the world telling people how terrible we are -- not exactly the smartest PR move. He's consistently insulted our greatest ally, Britain; a Wall Street Journal article this week notes that he snubbed Britain by failing to mention its support in Afghanistan while touting nations offering less support. He disses our ally Israel, treating it as a terrorist nation and demanding that it unilaterally cease settlements in a portion of its own land...

B-plus?

"Delusional" is an understatement.

Nice bias example from Mr. Bozell:

Liberal newspaper people are so predictable when it comes to internal party fights. If it's inside the Republican Party, it's the conservative Republicans who are wrong. If inside the Democratic Party, it's the conservative Democrats who are wrong.

The Washington Post recently gave us a case study in this slanted worldview. On Dec. 14, they splashed across the front page an article by reporter Michael Leahy on an obscure California Republican assemblyman named Anthony Adams. The charge: He betrayed his no-new-taxes vow and supported a $12 billion tax increase. The Post analysis: Adams was savaged by the "toxic infighting" of nasty conservatives, who moved (unsuccessfully) to recall him from office...

The Post never considered the troublesome reality that it was Adams who first opened fire by breaking his word to his constituents and betraying his party...

Now dig back to the Post on Dec. 8, and see how a man who dares to be different inside the Democratic caucus is treated. Suddenly, the gloves come off and the reporters start swinging. Note the personal disgust in the very first paragraph of a Joe Lieberman story by Lois Romano and Alec MacGillis:

"Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) has once again inserted himself into the middle of an inflamed partisan debate, raising questions about his motives, his ego and his fickle allegiance to the Democratic Party, which forgave him after he supported Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president."

Back in California, the tax-hiking Republican was not the aggressor "inserting himself" into the debate and "inflaming" partisan debate. The Post didn't question "his motives, his ego, and his fickle allegiance" to the party.

Moderately Moderate

Dick Morris sort of makes a point in this column.

Actually...I didn't read the column. The title enough makes a point that practically screams "media bias!"

You've got a 'moderate' Democrat that decides he just can't go along with the Sovietication of these here United States of America. So he reaches over the (D) next to his name and squishes it into an (R).

Hmmm.

Funny, when Arlen Specter did that the headlines and editorials actually screamed that it was the "end of moderates in the Republican party!"

Yeah?

Read many editorials claiming that Griffith's switch was a harbinger of the death of the "moderate wing" of the Democrat party?

Don't let that tumbleweed knock you over.

And here's a bonus thought:

If the Republican party, according to the brilliant minds of the press and the left, has now "purged" itself of "moderates" (which is, of course, a "death knell" for the party as well as several other hackneyed metaphors), does that mean that a Democrat flipping on over has repopulated the "moderate wing" of the Republican party - or because he doesn't want to live in an SSR and changed his party affiliation he is now a "right-winger" and "hard-bitten conservative"?

Well? Which is it?

Obama's Gonna Git You, Sucker

IBD:

Let's face it: Big government is making suckers out of all of us. All of us, that is, who play by the rules and pay our bills. Here's a little test to see just how big a sucker you really are.

Are you still paying your mortgage each month at the interest rate you agreed to? Sucker! The government has created a program to let those who aren't paying on their mortgages get lower interest rates on their loans...

Do you work for a private company instead of the government? Sucker! The real money is made working for Uncle Sam. The average pay for federal government workers is now $71,206, compared with $40,331 for those in the private sector.

In fact, nearly one out of five federal workers pulls down more than $100,000. That's up over 33% during what the administration says is the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression...

Are you represented by a senator who promised to vote for health care reform before demanding a few barrels of pork from Majority Leader Harry Reid? As Reid himself said, "I don't know if there is a senator that doesn't have something in this bill that was important to them. And if they don't have something in it important to them, then it doesn't speak well of them." Translation: "Sucker!"

You don't actually pay federal income tax, do you? According to the Tax Policy Center, roughly 47% of American households don't — and that's expected to top 50% soon. So if you're still cutting a check to Uncle Sam when half of your fellow citizens pay nothing — or even get a tax credit — well, if that's not the definition of "sucker" we don't know what is.

Obama Hasn't Bothered Getting Security Heads In Place

Consider this a precursor to my upcoming year-end wrap-up later this week...

Two federal agencies charged with keeping potential terrorists off airplanes and out of the country have been without their top leaders for nearly a year.

It took the Obama administration more than eight months to nominate anyone to lead the Transportation Security Administration and the Customs and Border Protection agency...

I think we might, tragically, start seeing more of those "miss me, yet?" signs around. Remember, after a terrorist was able to get onboard with and set off a (faulty) bomb on a USA-bound flight his top security official, the ridiculous Janet Napolitano, said "the system worked".

A Welcome Change

Obama vows to use power to thwart terrorists (AP)

Well, hey, ya gotta admit - it's a nice change from emboldening them!

2009 - A Year Of Failure For Barack Obama Revisited

Funny, I just found this incomplete post from a year ago...and most of it is still applicable after year 2! Let's see what I meant to say...

-

To be honest, I'm a little hard-pressed to come up with any real accomplishments of Obey-Won in his first year in office. Signing an executive order that makes it legal to use foreign aid to pay for abortions isn't really much of an achievement. Everyone knows that winning the increasingly-irrelevant Nobel "Peace" Prize is nothing but a liberal popularity contest - his ordering the escalation of the conflict in Afghanistan just prior to accepting the award was simply the big, red nose on Bozo's face. Getting some wishy-washy commitments in Copenhagen to maybe, sorta do something about all that pesky plant life by choking off it's supply of carbon dioxide came nowhere close to being what he wanted.

That said, let's see what Obey-Won and the communists running Congress failed to accomplish in 2009, even with all their Debt-i money tricks...

PORK
- This is the guy that said he would go through budgets "line by line" and cut out the pork if Congress dared to put any in there. Instead, in the name of 'no time to delay', essentially everything he's put his name on has been jam-packed with pork from the 'Stimulus' package to the 2008 retroactive budget that had to be hurried through (because Nancy Pelosi and her buddies refused to do a budget while Bush was still in office, presumably because they knew he'd veto its porky fanny) with no time to delay to the bribes to each other for heath care takeover votes. For these Debt-i Knights, pork is job 1 (sorry, Ford).

Obama Admin Forced To Eat Words

After telling an incredulous CNN that "the system worked" after a wannabe muslim terrorist succeeded in smuggling explosives aboard a US-bound flight and succeeded in setting them off (but the bomb itself failed), Obama's joke of a Homeland Security chief, Janet Napolitano, last seen making headlines by releasing a report that said authorities should be on the lookout for conservatives and veterans, has been forced to eat her idiotic, moronic, pathetic, ignorant, jaw-droppingly insane words.

Apparently it only took several days of her own idiocy staring her in the face for her to try to lie about what she said and claim that what she said isn't what she said:

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano conceded Monday that the aviation security system failed when a young man on a watchlist with a U.S. visa in his pocket and a powerful explosive hidden on his body was allowed to board a fight from Amsterdam to Detroit...

A day after saying the system worked, Napolitano backtracked, saying her words had been taken out of context.

"Our system did not work in this instance," she said on NBC's "Today" show. "No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way."...

Abdulmutallab has been charged in federal court with trying to detonate the device as the plane approached Detroit. The device burst into flames instead, according to authorities, and he was subdued by passengers. The plane landed safely...

On Sunday, Napolitano said, "One thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked." On Monday, she said she was referring to the system of notifying other flights as well as law enforcement on the ground about the incident soon after it happened.

The top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee took issue with Napolitano's initial assessment.

Airport security "failed in every respect," Rep. Peter King of New York said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "It's not reassuring when the secretary of Homeland Security says the system worked."

The last refuge of liars caught with burning pants...'I was taken out of context!'. Bullspit. Her "context"?

So the whole process of making sure that we respond properly, correctly and effectively went very smoothly.

As long as you don't consider letting terrorists on planes with bombs, not reacting when the terrorists own father warns you about him, and not stopping the terrorist from setting off his bomb part of "the whole process", then, sure, I guess she's right. However those all sound like pretty big parts of "the whole process" to me.

Putting the blame on Bush in 3...2...

And can we please stop with the "TERROR PLOT FOILED!" headlines, for the love of God? The press spent years mocking Bush and his people when they announced that terror plots had been broken up before they could accomplish their mission, meanwhile a guy gets on a plane, sets off his bomb, and then is subdued by other passengers. If his bomb had actually gone off instead of just setting his pants on fire the plot would have utterly succeeded. There is absolutely nothing that anyone did to "foil" his plot, unless you mean the person that made the faulty bomb detonation mechanism, because it otherwise went off without a hitch. The only headline that would be acceptable would be "TERROR PLOT FAILED".

Socialized Medicine Will Save Money? Yeah, That's A Lie

Not that it's surprising or anything that the Dems and their town criers, the mass media, would lie when the CBO reports that their plan will not 'decrease the deficit' - a claim that was always foolish:

Remember the $246 billion that Democrats were going to take out of Medicare to keep the program solvent as well as help fund their health care reform schemes? Turns out it was just a fantasy.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Democrats double-counted funds in their health care plans, drawing the savings for Medicare and financing for the new medical programs outlined in the Senate bill from the same source. The legislation, says the nonpartisan CBO, will increase the deficit, not reduce it as its supporters claimed.

The $246 billion was to come from a cut in Medicare benefits. This would supposedly delay that program's inevitable insolvency — now projected to be 2017— by as much as nine years. But CBO Director Doug Elmendorf said Wednesday that "the improvement in Medicare's finances would not be matched by a corresponding improvement in the federal government's overall finances."

The key point, according to Elmendorf, is that the Medicare savings "would be received by the government only once, so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation or on other programs."

Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions from Alabama, who asked for the CBO analysis that revealed the chicanery, called the letter from Elmendorf a "game changer."

Ooh, big surprise! The Dems and Obey-Won are being dishonest about this piece of carp. Shocker!

Merry Christmas

To one and all, Merry Christmas. Let there be light in the darkness...please.

Your Random IBD

We hold these truths to be self-evident...but IBD's editorial staff often says them rather well.

Socialism Creeps In As America Sleeps

But there they were, the United States Senate, at 1 a.m. Monday, rushing to vote in the middle of a snowstorm to close debate on the most important piece of legislation of our time — the nationalization of the U.S. health care system. And we've been scrambling ever since to make sense of it.

Let's see if we have this right:

• This was a vote on a Democrat-concocted scheme that Americans have rejected every time it's been proposed for 100 years and that is opposed again, by 54% to 41% by the public at large, by 2-to-1 by practicing physicians and by every last member on the Republican side of the aisle.

• The vote was taken without any members having read the main 2,074-page bill, let alone the 383 pages of amendments that were tacked on at the last minute to buy off senators...

• Despite growing public opposition, Democratic members had the nerve to call those who questioned their monstrosity "obstructionists" and worse. Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse called health care bill foes "birthers," "fanatics" and "people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups." Is this what Democrats meant when they said they seek bipartisan solutions to the nation's problems?

• The bill contains at last count 18 new taxes totaling an estimated $406 billion — including significant new levies on those earning less than $250,000, a major breach of Obama's pledge not to raise taxes by "one penny" on those in that income group...

• Spending under the package, which Democrats vowed will "cut costs," will in fact increase. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that total health care spending will rise by $289 billion from 2010 to 2019...Once all the budget gimmicks are removed, the real 10-year price tag is at least $2.5 trillion, Senate Budget Committee staffers say...

Obama Lap Dogs To The Very End

With the thousands of pages passed by the U.S. Senate at 1 a.m. Monday available online, you'd think the press corps would have some questions for the president's spokesman about the Democrats' health care plans during the first White House press briefing since the vote, and also the last of the year. Instead, what we got from America's intrepid practitioners of First Amendment freedoms was a discussion about "a pink polka-dot shirt and a checkered tie."

A press conference that began with White House press secretary Robert Gibbs announcing that since "last week we did a sort of happy hour briefing," he thought "today we'd do sort of a brunch briefing," got more trivial — and insulting by the minute...

There were jokes about cell phones going off — "Is somebody ordering a pizza?" Gibbs asked — and of equipment being noisily dropped — "Careful ... this room isn't paid for!" said Gibbs. "This is just a rental!" But there were no serious questions about what is contained in Congress' worst-ever piece of legislation, rammed through in the middle of the night on a party-line vote.

What, for instance, does the president think about Democrats adding last-minute language that changes rules so parts of their bill may not be repealed by majority vote in future Congresses?

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint wonders if such a provision is even constitutional, since it affects "the fundamental purpose of Senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future Congresses."

Palin Vs. Gore: Oceans Apart

Palin, called a "denier" by Gore, says she denies nothing, responding on Facebook: "Climate change is like gravity — a naturally occurring phenomenon that existed long before, and will exist long after, any governmental attempts to affect it. It is man-caused global warming and Gore's doomsday scenarios that (are) at issue."

So fact-challenged is Gore on the subject that when he criticized Palin's position on global warming, he claimed: "I haven't read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old. These private exchanges between these scientists do not in any way cause any question about the scientific consensus." Oh, yes they do, Al, and the word is "conspiracy," not "consensus."

As Anthony Watts' Web site Watts Up With That shows, one Climate-gate e-mail was from just two months ago. The most recent was sent on Nov. 12 — just a month ago. East Anglia Climate Research Unit director Phil Jones' infamous e-mail urging other Climate-gate scientists to delete e-mails is from last year.

As for the disappearing polar ice cap, according to the National Snow And Ice Data Center, second-year ice — the ice that survives the annual and normal summer melt — this summer made up 32% of the total ice cover on the Arctic Ocean compared with 21% in 2007 and 9% in 2008. Clearly, Arctic sea ice is not following the consensus touted by Gore and the warm mongers.

Despite pictures of floating polar bears taken in summer, data reported by the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center show global sea-ice levels the same as they were in 1979, when satellite observations began.

-Scratch Scratch-

I'm awfully confused.

The headlines are all screaming that the Senate bill passing is a big "victory" for Obama.

But the bill is nothing like what he wanted.

So how on earth is them passing something that isn't even close to what he wanted a "victory"?

Truth Hurts

Luxury car buyers spending less for the holidays

This holiday season, the luxury car buyer is offering a simple phrase: I'm not spending too much.

Wealthier shoppers are trickling back into showrooms after staying away much of the year. But there's a catch. Many are pinching pennies, sort of, by choosing smaller BMW and Mercedes models, or they're buying top-of-the-line cars from cheaper brands.

Hmmm...

Do "the rich" sell the luxury cars?

Do "the rich" make the luxury cars?

Do "the rich" make parts for the luxury cars?

Do "the rich" earn money off of advertising luxury cars?

Gee, it's almost as if the lower and middle classes are affected when "the rich" spend less money.

In fact, if "the rich" were to really cut back you might see auto assemblers, salesmen, etc out of jobs.

Oh, wait, what was I thinking? A rising tide lifting all boats is nothing but a big fat conservative lie told by fat cat heartless conservatives. It's the auto assemblers and auto part makers that put money in the pockets of "the rich", not the other way around! That's why we need to transfer the wealth from one to the other by force! Of course! And this happens even when people aren't buying luxury cars! Of course!

How could I be so foolish as to think that policies that encourage "the rich" to spend and invest would actually help people instead of policies that encourage them to scrimp and keep their money in their mattress. What a sillyhead I am.

No Surprise

Like we didn't expect this. Link.

Try this one: Link

Housing Built On Sand

My how things change in a day...

Here's some news that we were seeing yesterday (or today, based on yesterday's reporting of the 'Obama saved us!' type because existing home sales weren't horrible to drown out the fact that 3rd Quarter GDP was revised sharply downwards - of course those original numbers had been trumpeted as the work of the savior as well):

(AP) Asian and European stock markets were higher Wednesday after a jump in U.S. housing sales suggested the world's biggest economy is picking up speed.

Shanghai, Seoul and Sydney all rose after major U.S. indexes gained Tuesday on news that November home resales jumped 7.4 percent, above a forecast 2.5 percent...

The housing figures, which came after upbeat earnings and forecasts from technology companies and more corporate dealmaking, countered gloom about third quarter economic growth being revised lower.

**

(RTTNews) With first-time homebuyers rushing to close sales before the original November 30th deadline for the recently extended and expanded tax credit, the National Association of Realtors released a report Tuesday showing stronger than expected existing home sales growth in November.

The report showed that existing home sales rose 7.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.54 million units in November from a revised 6.09 million in October. Economists had expected existing home sales to rise to 6.25 million from the 6.10 originally reported for the previous month...

While the first-time homebuyer tax credit had been due to expire at the end of November, President Barack Obama signed a bill that extended and expanded the tax credit...

The stronger than expected existing home sales growth reflected increases in sales in all four regions of the country.

**

(MarketWatch) The dollar gained ground versus major counterparts on Tuesday, after news that U.S. existing home sales surged by 7.4% in November. The dollar index , which measures the U.S. unit against a basket of major currencies, rose to 78.25 compared with 78.05 ahead of the report. The 6.54 million seasonally adjusted annual rate for new home sales was the highest since February 2007 and was the third straight increase. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch were expecting existing home sales to rise to a 6.28 million annual pace in November.

**

(Investor's Business Daily) Sales of existing homes jumped to their highest level in almost three years in November, an industry group said Tuesday, the latest sign that the economy is accelerating heading into the new year.

Separately, the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 2.2% from July to September, below the Commerce Department's estimate of 2.8%. Still, it was a welcome rebound after a record four straight quarters of contraction.

**

(Times Union) The federal tax credit for first-time buyers sparked a rush to buy homes in November, boosting property sales across the Capital Region.

The numbers led some observers to proclaim that the region's housing market is now headed for full recovery. But the November surge was apparently fueled by the tax credit's anticipated expiration date, leading to worries that the boost won't last...

"It's been a tough year, but I've seen a resurgence," said Miguel Berger, president of TechValley Homes Real Estate. "I think we hit bottom in the summer, and now it's on the way up."

Yet home prices were down in much of the region, despite the uptick in activity. And not everyone was sure the sales surge would continue.

James Ader, chief executive of the Realtors' association, warned that December home sales might slump, because so many buyers rushed to complete sales in November.

That, after all, was what happened with Cash for Clunkers -- another federal attempt to boost the economy. Auto sales crashed when the popular program ended.

But there are reasons to believe the real estate economy may avoid a crash...

CLUNK!

Whoops! What was that?

That was the other shoe dropping. And there's no way to shine this turd up:

(Briefing.com) Meanwhile, new home sales for November were reported to have fallen 11.3% month-over-month to an annualized rate of 355,000 units. That is not nearly as strong as the consensus forecast, which called for a 1.7% month-over-month increase to an annualized rate of 438,000 units. The previous month's data was downwardly revised to reflect a 1.8% monthly increase and an annual rate of 400,000 units.

Absolutely a terrible report, a very large drop in the face of an 'expected' gain, and a downward revision to last month's count - so last month was barely above water and now it's gone back under even during the heat of the "tax credit" frenzy.

Up, Up, And Away

Sweet!

The parents who carried out the balloon boy hoax were sentenced to jail Wednesday and given strict probation conditions that forbid them from earning any money from the spectacle for four years.

Richard Heene was sentenced to 90 days in jail, including 60 days of work release that will let him pursue his job as a construction contractor while serving his time. His wife, Mayumi, was sentenced to 20 days in jail.

Richard Heene choked back tears as he said he was sorry, especially to the rescue workers who chased down false reports that his 6-year-old son had floated away in a balloon on Oct. 15. It was a stunt designed to generate attention for a reality TV show.

Nothing like a little justice on a cold, snowy Christmas. I hope they have to pay back the emergency services costs, too.

The Stimulus' Second Blow Coming

Let me tell ya a little story. It's a story about the American auto industry. It's a story about the "stimulus". It's a story about America.

When the downturn hit America, a recession like so many before it...just another business cycle blurp you would say...things happened...and didn't happen...in America.

Americans tightened their belts and cut spending and started saving a little more. They didn't buy so many Wiis, no matter how wii-wii'd up that made Obey-Won Obama. You see, when money's tight, you cut your spending. Or, well, you go bankrupt or end up in jail.

Now the car industry was 'special'. 'Foreign' car companies have been making cars here in America with American labor for years. When the downturn hit they laid some people off for a time, maybe cut some hours, reduced some perq's, that sort of thing. As a result they sort of cruised through the bad times, waiting for things to pick back up when they would rehire those folks.

But American car companies are slaves to the unions. Once useful, now obsolete, when the slide started the car companies went groveling to the union bosses and begged for mercy. 'Please,' they said. 'We cannot afford to keep paying people when they've been laid off or retired already! You have to help us cut costs, we're not selling cars and we can't afford all of this! Won't you work with us so we can stay afloat until things turn around?'

We all know how that went. The union bosses lit another cigar and puffed smoke in the car companies' faces. Because they knew they owned the big guy...Obey-Won, himself. They knew they could play hardball because they had the US Treasury to back up their bluster. They told the car companies to go screw, that they weren't going to give an inch. As a result GM and Chrysler went bankrupt, not enough coming in to pay all those current, former, and retired workers with their gold-plated benefits. But the unions did not fret. The Won had their back. Sure enough the Won made sure the courts did not obey bankruptcy law and did not make sure the car company creditors got paid back. Instead he made sure the unions were given massive chunks of the companies they had driven to the brink of destruction.

You see, the non-union companies cut back for a time and got ready for recovery. The union companies refused to cut back and they went bankrupt.

Which brings us to the state of the union and the States of the Union. The States and localities saw bad times coming with much reduced tax receipts to cover all those new plans and spending they'd dialed up when the economy was humming thanks to President Bush and the Republican Congress. So, suddenly, they had all these commitments and no way to pay for them.

'Oh, woe is us,' they cried! 'Whatever shall we do? Who will save us from our spendthrift ways?'

'Fear not,' shouted Obey-Won from his pile of Chinese debt money. 'I will save you with my trusty Debt-i Knights in Congress and some Debt-i money tricks!'

So, instead of reducing their spending, the States and municipalities just kept on spending thanks to Obey-Won's handouts of Chinese money.

Now some people, 'deniers' if you will, said it was a terrible idea. They said that during a rough patch people should tighten their belts and ride it out by cutting spending. They said, 'What are you going to do when the Chinese money runs out and you see that it was just a Debt-i money trick all along? Why, you'll have to raise taxes to keep paying for your spendthrift ways!'

They were shunned and mocked, laughed at by the Debt-i Knights and their media emperors.

Which brings us to today, my friends.

Taxpayers would face property tax boosts of almost 8 percent to make up for the departure of federal stimulus funds in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, according to an analysis from the office of state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. That increase would be absent any cuts to school budgets or potential replenishment of the lost funds by state or federal actions.

"ARRA funding has helped ease some of the budget pain for school districts and taxpayers," DiNapoli said in a statement. "But that money stops in 2011-2012, and when it does New York's schools face a $2 billion funding gap. That's a big hole to fill.

"The time to start thinking about how to fill that hole is now, not when the money is already gone," DiNapoli said.

It gives me no pleasure to say it, liberals. But we told you so. Except we said the time to do that was a year ago, before you started burning through billions of Chinese bucks.

Oh, Give Us A BREAK, Already!

Are you freakin' kidding me?


Sarah Palin is the poster child for the biggest scandals of the year??

Get a ***king life, mainstream media.

Prolific Letter Writer A Study In Double Standards

I was a bit struck by a letter in Saturday's Gazette. The writer, Marty Shanty of Charlton, wrote:

It doesn't matter what party you belong to. It's not a competition as to who will get the most credit for future re-elections. This is our country; it belongs to all of us.

We all come from many different backgrounds and religions; that is what this country is all about. We need to give President Obama our full support. He is an intelligent, well-educated man who can look at all the options before jumping in. He is a man of reason.

This country needed to reach out to other countries and regain their respect and support. He has done that. He has put this country back on the path of financial stability. We didn't get into this mess overnight, and it will be some time before we get back on our feet.

We elected him as our commander and chief, so let's show him the loyalty and support he deserves.

Of course I immediately suspected Ms. Shanty is a liberal that spent 8 years frothing at the mouth over George Bush but now thinks the office of the President is not to be questioned and only treated with the utmost respect and obedience. So, thanks to Mr. Gore's magical internet, I decided to see if Ms. Shanty had written any other letters (a lot of letters are from the same people writing over and over again). Well, bingo. Ms. Shanty is one of the most prolific letter writers I have yet to run across. So, did I peg her or not? Let's explore whether Ms. Shanty has always been in favor of "reaching out to other countries" for "their respect and support" and whether "loyalty and support" is earned simply by being elected...shall we (note that this is by no means all of Ms. Shanty's letters to the Gazette)?

Oct 1993: Schenectady County needs to honor its commitments. We retirees voted these people in and we can vote them out. County retirees need to contact their legislators and let them know how they feel.

Oops, so much for respect and loyalty to people that get elected.

Mar 2004: I read Carl Strock faithfully. Most of the time I agree with him and I am thankful that we have a watchdog to keep an eye on our local and state government.

Liberal? Confirmed.

Mar 2005: I can't believe that the president would fly to Washington at taxpayers' expense, to sign that piece of legislation into law. Good for the federal judge who did not cave in to the pressure.

Carl is right; the president should concentrate on bringing our boys home, and minding our own business. We have enough troubles here to keep him busy for many years to come. Keep up the good work, Carl. We need a watchdog like you on the job!

Hmmm...where was the "loyalty and support" when Bush was president? As I suspected and predicted, it only applies to a liberal Democrat president.

Nov 2005: It's a wonderful thing that in this country we can express our opinions without fear of repercussions. It doesn't matter how rich or politically connected people are, we still have a right to our opinions. That variety in our culture is what makes this country so strong.

My how things change...now it's 'don't criticize the President!'.

Same letter: I, too, feel that President Bush, being a very rich oil man, is pandering to the big oil companies.

Well, now...that doesn't sound like "loyalty and support", now does it?

AP's Odd Definition Of 'Conservative'

I thought this was pretty funny, it ran in the Gazette on Friday:

A year in the making, sweeping health care legislation backed by President Barack Obama hung in the balance Thursday as conservative Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson withheld his vote in pursuit of stricter abortion limits and liberals grew restive on the left.

A conservative? Ben Nelson? Really?

No, not really. The guy's got a lifetime conservative rating of 47 and, voting along with his hardcore liberal compatriots in 2008, his 2008 rating is a very conservative (that's a joke) 16...that's 16 out of 100.

Yup, I guess for Democrats these days that's pretty conservative.

Where's Ozone Man When You Need Him?

Gee, a government 'solution' that makes things worse...what a surprise.

Ethanol is more likely than gasoline to generate ozone and ozone-related health problems, researchers at Stanford University have found.

A commonly used blend of ethanol and gasoline, E85, produces more aldehydes when combusted than gasoline, scientists at Stanford said yesterday. Aldehydes are precursors to the creation of ozone.

That means ethanol, which is added to gasoline to make a cleaner-burning fuel, would likely cause more health problems related to ozone, especially in winter, the Stanford researchers say in a report.

"What we found is that at the warmer temperatures, with E85, there is a slight increase in ozone compared to what gasoline would produce," said Diana Ginnebaugh, a doctoral candidate in civil and environmental engineering at Stanford.

"Even a slight increase is a concern," Ginnebaugh added, "especially in a place like Los Angeles, because you already have episodes of high ozone that you have to be concerned about, so you don't want any increase."

At colder temperatures, the problem is more pronounced. Ginnebaugh said ozone is generally lower in cold-temperature conditions, but use of E85 in a place like Denver, for instance, could create a health issue where ozone is not currently an issue.

"If you switched to E85, suddenly you could have a place like Denver exceeding ozone health-effects limits, and then they would have a health concern that they don't have now," she said...

But this is just a BS study funded by BIL OIL! right?

The Stanford research was funded by NASA, U.S. EPA and the Energy Department.

Oh.

Tonko Is Typical

Dare I say it?

(TU) Tonko's bill would create a new federal grant program...designed to help schools pay for the costs of starting up "universal classroom breakfast programs" that give meals to every student. Current federal programs provide breakfasts to low-income children.

Of course I dare...Paul Tonko, who ran as a smarter kind of Democrat...is nothing but another big government, tax-and-spend liberal Democrat out to run our lives and add more control over your local school district in the hands of career politicians in Washington.

Force schools in Beverly Hills and Westchester to provide "free" breakfast to every kid, whether they want or need it? Yup, if Tonko gets his way...just another entitlement, just another cost.

Higher school taxes? Just what Doctor Tonko ordered!

What's Left?

(AP)

Democratic leaders secured the support of Sen. Ben Nelson to provide the 60th and deciding vote for sweeping health care legislation in the Senate, capping a year of struggle and a final burst of deadline bargaining on President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.

Nelson, D-Neb., said Saturday he made his decision after winning fresh concessions to limit the availability of abortions in insurance sold in newly created exchanges, as well as tens of million in federal Medicaid funds for his home state.

So they've got 60 votes for...well...whatever this is. We know that what it is so far is a massive wealth transfer from some states to Nebraska in the form of Medicaid handouts.

Abortions for everyone is gone.

Single-payer is gone.

"Public option" is gone.

What exactly is left in this bill they're passing? Just the death panel?

The AP Is So Pathetic

So the AP has a lead story on 'the worst mistakes of the decade'...I had to click on it, it was like a car wreck.

Every decade has its mistakes, of course, but one nice thing about the past 10 years' foibles, foul-ups and flubs is that so often they came with neat, two-word monikers, almost like keepsakes: "Wardrobe malfunction." "Mission Accomplished." "Balloon boy."

Oh dear, look where they're going...attacking our military men and women...

2. White House flight of fancy, 2003: Advance folks had almost everything right: the golden sunset light, President George W. Bush's dramatic landing on the carrier deck, the speech. But that giant "Mission Accomplished" sign, with years of mission still ahead, who came up with that? Reporters launched the "bannergate" investigation.

How foul can you get? The banner, as everyone that bothers to find out facts knows (that doesn't include the AP apparently), was put up to celebrate the successful mission (I believe a mission of record-setting length) of our men and women sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln. Of course the "reporters" with their "investigation" never managed to report that inconvenient little fact. This dipstick even mentions the speech, the speech that explicitly said that the larger mission was not accomplished, even though that of the Lincoln was. Dumbass.

And, let's face it, America...the #1 mistake of the last decade was electing the inexperience, inept, unaccomplished sub-one term communist junior senator from one of the most corrupt parts of the country with a well-established history of hanging around with terrorists and socialists to be the leader of the free world. We can recover from Janet Jackson's boob...we don't know yet if America can recover from this giant boob.

Government Motors Deal Keeps Getting Worse

UPDATED FROM ORIGINAL 11-24 POSTING - SEE BELOW
*
Gee, another "we told you so" moment for the great and mighty Won from the right. We said all along that the GM bailout would be a disaster. After saying he didn't want to run GM, Obama personally canned the CEO of GM and put 'his' guy in charge. They screwed over investors, who typically get first crack at recompense in a bankruptcy proceeding, in favor of paying back Democratic cronies. They handed a massive chunk of the company to the unions who played a huge role in GMs failure to begin with. They sat down with a list of dealerships and started ordering dealerships to close (taking away their GM affiliation), no matter how successful they had been, in favor of keeping open dealerships, no matter how far away, clumped, or unsuccessful, owned by heavy Obama donors (that is, they gave a lot of money to Obama, not a lot of donuts to themselves). Then, instead of working out a reasonable deal for GM spinoff Saturn, he hands over Saturn to big-time Obama donor Roger Penske.

Then Penske couldn't make it work and now they have to scrub Saturn completely thanks to, yup, you guessed it, the ineptitude of the government trying to run a business.

And now, the cherry on top, the big deal to keep GM going?

Heading for a cliff: Saab future unclear as sale to Swedish firm fails

A Swedish automaker has backed out of a deal to buy Saab from General Motors Co., casting serious doubt on the future of the troubled brand.

Koenigsegg Group AB said Tuesday it has decided to scrap the deal, which was announced in June. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed by GM.

The collapse of the Saab sale is the third GM deal to fall through this year for a variety of reasons...

GM has been selling off existing inventory and preparing to end its role with the company, which would be difficult to reverse.

Through October of this year, GM sold only 7,441 Saabs in the U.S., a 62 percent drop from the same period in 2008.

In October, only 513 Saabs were sold nationwide.

Analysts say GM, which bought half of Saab in 1990 for $600 million and the rest for $125 million in 2000, was unable to differentiate the brand from its other products or find a sales niche. GM has conceded that it never made money on Saab...

GM has had trouble shedding its brands as it tries to restructure and focus on Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac.

GM's board decided earlier this month to back out of a deal to sell its European Opel unit to a group led by Canadian auto parts supplier Magna International Inc. Auto dealership chain owner and former race car driver Roger Penske in September ended plans to buy the Saturn brand after an agreement to get cars from France's Renault fell through.

The GM board has chosen to phase out Saturn, a possible fate for Saab.

But GM will keep and restructure Opel, which unlike Saab, is considered critical to GM's international operations. GM was concerned that Opel designs and technology would wind up in the hands of competitors.

A deal for GM to sell its Hummer brand to Chinese manufacturer Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Corp. still must be approved by the U.S. and Chinese governments.

By all means, put these people in charge of deciding what kinds of drugs and medical treatment doctors can use and prescribe. We are just reaping the benefits left and right of having a bunch of inexperienced, unqualified communists and political hacks super-genius in charge.

+

Well, it's confirmed - Obama has put Saab out of business.

General Motors Co. said Friday it will shut down Saab after talks to sell the brand to a Dutch carmaker collapsed, marking the third time this year that a deal by GM to sell an unwanted brand has fallen through.

Failure after failure after failure. Yeah, America's really on the right track now. Uh-huh. Yeppers.

Sorry, No Random Saturday

Sorry, with the Christmas hooplah going on and all I haven't even had a chance to read much in general or columns at all. Hopefully some random stuff and 'best of' posts for the next few weeks will keep you coming back. Sorry about that.

These Are The People That Want To Run Your Life

Another example of an utter doofus that Obey-Won has put in charge of trying to run your life:

“This – there's nothing more difficult than this,” he said. “Because we have really, truly good white people in important positions. And the fact of the matter is that there are a limited number of those positions. And unless we are conscious of the need to have more people of color, gays, other people in those positions, we will not change the problem.

“We’re in a position where you have to say who is going to step down so someone else can have power,” said Lloyd.

The Lloyd in question is the Federal Communications Commission’s Chief Diversity Officer Mark Lloyd. These people that think they can run your life better than you and are supposed to be running America are in favor of replacing effective people with others based purely on the color of the skin or who they have sex with - if they're the 'wrong' color (white) or the 'wrong' sexuality (men and women that like to have sex with the opposite sex), they need to be replaced, irregardless of whether they do their job well, with people that are the 'right' color (ABW - anything but white) and 'right' sexuality (gay).

What a joke...a sad, scary joke.

Say It's So, Joe

Once again (this makes 2, for the record), I'm forced to thank Joe Lieberman. His principled refusal to be the straw that breaks America's back may put him in the history books.

Hype The Outlier

You could just as easily call this post "Hype that's lying outright". Basically the AP has taken their own poll, a poll that must have problems, that finds a very different result than any of the respected polls, and then hypes their result mightily, including a front page web portal headline, despite the fact that their poll doesn't agree with anyone else's - which should give them pause.

Poll: Obama's popularity holds steady with 56% approval rating

"Poll" is right, because the "polls" show no such thing.

Budget deficits are in the stratosphere. Unemployment has hit 10 percent. The health care overhaul is incomplete.

Still, Americans appear to like President Barack Obama and the way he's doing his job.

And shouldn't that tell them there's a problem with their poll??

The latest Associated Press-Gfk poll shows the president's popularity holding steady, with 56 percent of those polled approving of the way he's taking care of the country's business.

Rasmussen on Wednesday?

Overall, 45% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-four percent (54%) now disapprove.

Gallup's?

Barack Obama's presidential job approval rating is 47% in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update, a new low for his administration to date.

Here's a summary: realclearpolitics. This front page poll has the largest spread of any in the list. No wonder the AP is hyping it. Those that are most accurate, Gallup and especially Rasmussen, aren't even in the same neighborhood as this AP poll that probably polled welfare offices and White House staffers.

Don't Post Too Much

Apparently I post too much and actually link to the sources I refer to. Google's automated anti-spam task force has decided my blog is a "spam blog" and has temporarily limited access to it.

Presumably this will be cleared up shortly.

AP Covers Up For Climate Scandal

Nice try...not nice enough:

E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data — but the messages don't support claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by The Associated Press.

Apparently "Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL [sic] correction" doesn't qualify as "faking" data.

However, the exchanges don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

But, um, no - you can't see that "vast body of evidence".

Frankel saw "no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data, although concerns could be raised about some instances of very 'generous interpretations.'"

No? How about "Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction"? If that's not evidence...what exactly would be?

It is not clear if any data was destroyed; two U.S. researchers denied it.

Really? What about: "About 2 months ago I deleted loads of e-mails, so have very little — if anything at all."? What about: "Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith re: (the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report)?" Nothing to see here, move along.

The e-mails show that several mainstream scientists repeatedly suggested keeping their research materials away from opponents who sought it under American and British public records law. It raises a science ethics question because free access to data is important so others can repeat experiments as part of the scientific method.

ummm...it raises the fact that this is a criminal act, not an ethical question.

One e-mail that skeptics have been citing often since the messages were posted online is from Jones. He says: "I've just completed Mike's (Mann) trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (from 1981 onward) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Jones was referring to tree ring data that indicated temperatures after the 1950s weren't as warm as scientists had determined.

Excuse me? Not "as warm as scientists had determined"?? How about, the data showed that the scientists' guesses were wrong so they altered the data to make it fit their guess, not the observed data. Nope, no pattern of corruption there.

Of course the big matzo that the AP fails to address is this one: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment..."

Seems the people they're defending don't even agree that there's a "vast body of evidence" for global warming...but you should.

Your Random Saturday

She turned me into a Newt!

While entrepreneurs and authentic job creators met elsewhere to discuss a real plan to create jobs, the White House convened big business cronies, labor bosses and liberal academics to do…nothing.

And as if that weren’t bad enough, House Speaker Pelosi decided to hold a vote to raise taxes on the struggling American economy the same day...

“Another day, another study confirming that ObamaCare will increase the price of health insurance.”

So began a report on the latest study -- this one by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association -- finding that Democratic health care reform will raise the cost of health insurance.

The study found that individual market premiums will rise under Democratic “reform” an average of 54 percent, a cost increase of $3,341 for families and $1,576 for individuals.

Check out this chart from The Center for Health Transformation, which lays out what many different analyses have concluded about the effect the different health care bills would have on premiums...

In making its announcement this week that greenhouse gases will be regulated by the government under the Clean Air Act -- raising the costs of virtually every aspect of life in the United States -- the Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also relied on the mysteriously-gone-missing data of the Climate Research Unit...
For every American who believes in building a better future for our children and grandchildren, now is not the time for complacency.

I got better.

America, this is your Senate leader, you voted for him:

"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'Slow down, stop everything, let's start over,'" Reid charged on Monday.

According to Reid, "When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said, 'Slow down. It's too early. Things aren't bad enough.'"

Going further, Reid then compared Republican obstructionism to the opposition to women's suffrage and the civil rights movement.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., called the remarks "beneath the dignity of the majority leader" and said he was personally insulted. But it's exactly in character for the left as it seeks to boost its powers in American life. Politicians who believe in the never-ending expansion of government are fully willing to pull out the stops when something as big as government-run health care is within grasp...

So it's actually the people themselves who Harry Reid is accusing of maliciously being on the wrong side of history. Americans know how dangerous it is to let history become a narrative of bigger and bigger government.

Thank You, Captain Obvious

US health care tab to keep growing under overhaul

Democrats trying to push President Barack Obama's health care overhaul plan through the Senate got a sober warning Friday that costs will keep going up and proposed Medicare savings may harm the program.

A new report from government economic analysts at the Health and Human Services Department found that the nation's $2.5 trillion annual health care tab won't shrink under the Democratic blueprint that senators are debating. Instead, it would grow somewhat more rapidly than if Congress does nothing.

More troubling was the report's assessment that the Democrats' plan to squeeze Medicare for $493 billion over 10 years in savings relies on specific policy changes that "may be unrealistic" and could lead to cuts in services. The Medicare savings are expected to cover about half the nearly $1 trillion, 10-year cost of expanding coverage to the uninsured.

In still more bad news, the report starkly warned that a new long-term care insurance plan included in the legislation could "face a significant risk of failure" because it would attract people in poor health, leading to higher and higher premiums, and eventually triggering an "insurance death spiral."

In related news, the sun will be rising in the east, that's the east, tomorrow.

-

Did they really call half a trillion in Medicare cuts "savings"?? Why, yes. Yes, they did. Several times. And the result? "(C)uts in services." Aka rationing and death panels.

What kind of genius does it take to come up with a report that explains that if you offer insurance to people with pre-existing conditions and poor health that they will use a lot of services and bankrupt/destroy the plan? And what kind of moron does it take to fail to acknowledge this (not to be in favor of it anyway - but to actually deny that this will happen)? Simple example: What if the government mandated that home insurers insure people who build houses in pools of gasoline, arsonists that live in paper houses, people whose houses are already on fire, and people whose houses have already burned to the ground? How long would such an insurer survive? And if the government instead took over insuring them, how long could it survive - let alone make money as the Democrats are telling us their health insurance scheme will do?

There's you're phrase of the day, by the way - "insurance death spiral". Mind you, this is not something put together by insurance companies, ExxonMobil, or even Rush Limbaugh - it's not from "BIG PHARM", "BIG OIL", or even "BIG INSURANCE"...it's straight from Obama's own BIG GOVERNMENT.

ANOTHER Foreign Policy Triumph!

When you're hot, you're hot!

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei lashed out today at U.S. climate negotiator Todd Stern, calling "extremely irresponsible" his recent pronouncement that no American climate change funding would go to China.

Speaking to reporters at a U.N. climate change conference where nearly 200 countries are trying to negotiate an international emissions agreement, He said he was "shocked" by Stern's comments.

Fortunately we don't need to deal with the Chinese at all...

right?

The Irony's Delicious Today

The Holidays are upon is and Christmas will soon arrive. Of course yummy treats are one of the hallmarks of this time of year. And the irony is awfully tasty today!

First, you've got Obey-Won, who was nominated for (what used to be) the most prestigious award in the world, the Nobel Peace Prize, mere days after getting his new job. In other words, he was nominated based on his work as a failed community organizer (his word), an attorney with few, if any, clients other than ACORN, a state legislator for a few years in a seat he won unopposed, and a couple of years as a Senator with no accomplishments. Still, they gave him the award. And the yummy part? He goes to accept this utterly unearned Peace prize days after escalating a war in Afghanistan.

Next up is down under. Not long after the Aussies threw out their pro-US conservative leader for a crunchy greenie that promised to bring them salvation from global warming, which the other guy wouldn't kowtow to, the yumminess emerges...

Giant iceberg heading toward Australia

A massive iceberg -- more than twice the size of New York's Manhattan island -- is drifting slowly toward Australia, scientists said Wednesday.

The iceberg, measuring 140 square km (54 square miles), cleaved off an ice shelf nearly 10 years ago and had been floating near Antarctica before commencing on its unusual journey north.

Yes, not long after dumping a successful leader because he wouldn't toe the line on global warming and voting for a guy that promised to stop global warming...a gigantic iceberg is charging towards Australia.

You can't make this stuff up.

ANOTHER Foreign Policy Triumph!

He's like a machine!

President Barack Obama's decision to break with tradition and not follow the lead of past Nobel Peace Prize winners bewildered some Norwegians. Others thought he was being impolite.

Obama had quite a whirlwind day Thursday — he signed the Nobel guest book, huddled with Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, met with King Harald V and Queen Sonja, and delivered an acceptance speech after he was formally presented with the prize. He also was joining the king and queen at an evening banquet.

But he skipped out on a host of other activities, including lunch with the king, a news conference at Oslo's Grand Hotel, CNN's traditional interview with the prize winner and a "Save the Children" benefit concert, where organizers replaced him with an Obama cardboard cutout. Obama also won't be around for Friday's Nobel Concert.

That would be an 'epic fail' machine. So far he's batting an impressive zero on the foreign policy front, having offended many of our allies, thrown our eastern european allies to the Russian wolves, caused our enemies to jeer and mock him when they're not praising his efforts to remake our country in Stalin's image, and utterly failed to win any concenssions from anybody on anything.

Obama: Is there anything he can do?

Bush Right, Dems Wrong - AGAIN

I've not bought into the hype that the bank bailout was equivalent to what the Dems have been doing since the beginning of the year. I also never quite bought into (or perhaps fully understood all the esoteric nuances) the idea that it's not possible to make money off the bank bailout the same as was done years back when they did the same thing. Some say they did, some say they didn't, one says they could again, one says it's hooey.

Well...anywho. You probably remember that dipstick the great, aka Obey-Won in his latest in a seemingly never-ending string of "major addresses" vomited forth the statement that the bank bailout, you know, the one Bush did (with Obama's urging and blessing at the time) was a failure, not like the massive successes of what he's done so far.

Apparently the truth is finally being pried out of the Obey-Won Administration:

The Treasury Department is acknowledging for the first time that it lost $61 billion on two key programs designed to stabilize the economy after the largest financial crisis in decades.

The government is losing more than $30 billion on lifelines extended to insurance giant American International Group Inc., according to Treasury data released Wednesday in an audit by the Government Accountability Office. It also is losing more than $30 billion on rescues of struggling automakers Chrysler and General Motors.

Treasury says the losses are offset in part by profits earned from bank bailouts. It says the bank bailouts will net taxpayers $19.5 billion.

Go figure.

You wanted an incompetent, ignorant communist to be President, America. Well, you got him. A program that kept the country liquid (it's ok to stop that now, Mr. Bernanke...please! stop!) is a "failure" to Mr. Economic Genius, despite it working as planned and making nearly $20 billion for the Democrats to piss away on candy bars and abortions.

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Of course the Dems plan on NOT giving us that money back or even using it to pay down debts...no, no...they're going to SPEND IT on more handouts...I mean, can you blame them? They know they only have about 11 months left to hand out taxpayer cash like candy from a parade float and they're going to spend until their wallets cramp and then push on through the pain and keep spending until they get that spenders' high that lets them spend some more.

The MorOn's Are Going Wild

Heh:

How could they?

Senate Democrats have just announced a tentative health care deal that doesn't appear to include a real public health insurance option.1

Instead of pulling out all the stops, they've bargained away the heart of health care reform—allowing conservative senators like Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson to hold the process hostage and protect Big Insurance.

Yeah, Lieberman's a conservative...and I'm a liberal. The guy's got a lifetime rating of 15.96. And Nelson's a 47 (and a 16 last year). I guess if you're a negative 48 like the MorOn.orgers then a 15 looks conservative.

The leftists have not yet begun to get angry that the people they thought they bought and own are going to increasingly turn away from them to recapture the independents that have nearly completely abandoned Obey-Won and the Democratic Debt-i Knights.

The Past Week Or So

It's really unbelievable what is being done to this country...the past week or so sums it up.

* The stimulus fails so badly that unemployment soars more than 2% past what Obey-Won said it would if it never was passed. Consequently the community organizer in chief held a "jobs summit" mostly with liberal activists and unions and others that know nothing about creating jobs to figure out how to 'make jobs'. Apparently the conclusion that the clueless Won reached is that we need to spend trillions more since the first trillion failed so completely. FDR tried this and got the Great Depression.

TRANSLATION: He wants to spend trillions of taxpayer funds to do something we already know doesn't work.

* Obey-Won's "war of necessity", unlike that Iraq "war of choice" of Bush's, in Afghanistan is apparently a "war of try a little a then quit" as he boldly announces 6 months after first being told that surge was needed (like the one that won the war in Iraq, allowing us to begin staging an orderly withdrawal) that he's going to send a few more troops...for a little while...and then we'll leave, no matter what the country looks like at that point. In other words, he gives a(nother) "major address" to announce that victory is not an option in a "war of necessity", thereby returning us to a pre-9-11 stance and "paper tiger" status.

TRANSLATION: He wants to spend who-knows-how-much and put thousands of our troops' lives in jeopardy despite having no intention of achieving victory.

* Obey-Won's Obamacare push, which we were told was ABSOLUTELY needed before the August Congressional recesss and MUST contain a "public option" to destroy private health insurance in America "compete" with private insurers (who can't use the US Treasury to back them) is, now in December, hanging on by a thread and opposed by a solid majority of Americans and now appears to be headed for a tremendous collision course for failure as the Senate plan, which will now presumably pass thanks to moderate sellouts, does not contain a public option and will not pass with a public option and allows taxpayer money to be used to fund abortions whereas the House plan currently forbids taxpayer funding of abortions and may not pass with funding for abortions and does include a public option. Yet, even though this was ABSOLUTELY necessary a few months ago, if it ever passes it will be unlikely to contain any of the elements considered necessary - thereby proving they're in no way necessary.

TRANSLATION: He wants to spend trillions on a plan we know is flawed, opposed by a majority of Americans, and will put lives in jeopardy.

* Obey-Won is jetting off to Copenhagen to tell the rest of the world that the US will happily cripple its economy in order to stop something that has now been essentially proven to be a hoax cooked up by scientists and zealots that had a theory, found the theory to be mistaken, and refused to admit it or give up the millions and notoriety it was getting them...and then threw away the raw data they based their 'findings' upon.

TRANSLATION: He wants to spend trillions despite the fact that the entire basis has been exposed as flawed, questionable, and almost certainly bogus as admitted to by the perpetrators themselves.

Revealed - Obama's Job Summit Advice

So check it out - want to know what advice Obey-Won got at his 'jobs summit'? I know you'll be shocked at the advice based on the giver:

Frederick Smith
Chairman, CEO, FedEx

I urged the President to accelerate the expensing of capital investment; reduce the corporate income tax rate; and champion free trade...

Gee, someone that knows how to make jobs recommends cutting taxes, realistic accounting revisions, and increasing free trade.
*
Robert Reich Robert Reich
Professor, UC-Berkeley; former U.S. Secretary of Labor

I urged that the Administration and Congress put first priority on helping states and cities, which are now undertaking, in effect, an anti-stimulus program totaling $350 billion over this year and next.

Career public employee with no experience creating jobs - federal handouts called 'anti-handouts' to fool the rubes in flyover country.
*
Arpana Mathur
Economist, American Enterprise Institute

My suggestion was for reducing corporate tax rate...

Conservative think tank economist suggests cutting taxes. The one thing that has always been successful in growing an economy and stimulating growth. What a surprise.
*
James P. Hoffa James P. Hoffa
General President, Teamsters

Think “America first” when it comes to trade policy. If this government wants to do something, enforce the trade laws if we have them.

Let's get this straight...the head union thug thinks the way to create jobs in America is to do exactly what was done to cause the Great Depression and 25% unemployment - namely enact protectionist stances and trigger trade wars. Frickin' genius over here.
*
Diana Aviv
CEO, Independent Sector

The nonprofit community... blah blah blah.

All well and good, but fails to actually offer a solution. I bet she was a big hit at the 'summit'...Gee, I don't really know how to make jobs...thanks so much for inviting me, though!
*
Robert Kuttner
Co-founder of the American Prospect

...The general feeling in the room was certainly we need to do more and I think he personally gets the fact that you have to go deeper into deficit spending.

Liberal columnist (what, exactly, is a liberal columnist doing at a 'summit' that was supposed to be figuring out how to create jobs?) says 'spend more!'. Shocking. Just shocking. Even more shocking is the majority of those invited apparently thought it was a brilliant idea. Because it worked so well getting those whole Great Depression and Japanese "lost decade" things cleared up, not to mention how wildly successful the first trillion was.
*
Edward Wytkind
President, Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO.

Another union thug says 'give us money!'. Yeah, that'll do it. Blow more on Amtrak! Right. Brilliant stuff.
*
Angela Glover Blackwell
Founder and CEO, PolicyLink

I told the president the same thing I've told anyone who would listen since this recession began—we have to target our help to those who have been hit first and worst. Poor people and communities of color have been devastated by this downturn...

Want to know what PolicyLink is? Per wiki: "[A] national research and action institute that works collaboratively to develop and implement local, state, and federal policies to achieve economic and social equity." Right. What, exactly was this liberal activist community organizer doing at a jobs summit? Apparently begging for handouts to the poor, generally, and blacks, specifically.
*
Jamie Merisotis
CEO, Lumina Foundation

...The idea is an accelerated program to receive an associates degree in 10 months. You would train very quickly and reenter the workforce in a rapid way, but you’re paid a stipend. You have a job, your job is getting a high profile education in areas where there’s a lot of potential. It wouldn’t be for general programs. We’re currently piloting this in a couple places already. We estimate that we could get 100,000 people trained for a billion and a half dollars, a relatively low cost for high impact effort. It’s not nearly as expensive as other ideas proposed, but we’ll see whether this is something they can advance in the near term.

And what is the Lumina Foundation? Shockingly enough, it's an education lobby, it looks like, if not in name, then in practice. Their solution? Spend a billion and a half dollars to maybe get 100,000 people working. To put that into perspective, something like 5 or 10 million people have lost jobs this year and when "only" 100,000 lost jobs this past period it actually led to a drop in the unemployment rate, it was such an insignificant amount. Basically they want to pay people to go to college...briefly. And how many jobs with "a lot of potential" require "10 month" degrees?
*
Ted Daywalt
President, VetJobs.com

The government needs to cut back on high taxes and on the onerous requirements being dumped on small businesses by the Department of Labor and others. I think one of biggest complaints of small business is access to capital.

I went [to the jobs summit] with high hopes and left feeling very depressed. I fear we will be in this recession for some time to come.

More truth, this time from a realist, that went there (foolishly) with high hopes and found that it was just a liberal gabfest, typical community organizer do-nothing dog and pony show, and call for more government spending that got us here to begin with.
*
Dean Baker
Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research

I was at the summit on the topic of workplace training. I think we could use some sort of work share task credit like Germany. Germany has been able to keep unemployment from rising during the recession by essentially giving tax credits to shorten work time rather than lay workers off...

In case you were wondering, yes, that's a liberal 'think tank' coming up with the brilliant solution of European-style wealth redistribution. Yeah, that always works out well. What's their unemployment standard over there? About 10%? There's the model we want to follow, pal. Right. Don't be fooled by the language...a "tax credit" is NOT a tax cut, it is a handout/transfer of wealth plain and simple, it does not reduce your taxes one bit, it takes tax revenue from one person and gives it to someone else whether they pay taxes or not.
*
Christianna Connell
President, future-ink

...I had some doubts going into it, but I think they were really listening. It really seemed like they were trying to get everybody’s ideas. There was a brainstorming feeling. I was pleasantly surprised by how serious everybody was taking it and the wide variety of people there.

No clue who this is, she's got like a web development company or something. No wonder "they were really listening" - the majority of those they invited were telling them what they wanted to hear. Really surprising there, eh? Her idea were in line with handouts to businesses that they would use to hire more people. Really? Great. So they're going to take money from successful business and give it to less successful businesses. How very socialist. And that always works out well in the end, too.
*
Lynn Jurich
President and Co-Founder, SunRun

...One of my recommendations to President Obama was that he provide grants to staff up permitting offices and those extra jobs will follow.

Give more money to cities so they can hire more people to review applications for solar power so they can approve more solar power jobs that will be partially or mostly funded with more government money because solar power is so expensive and inefficient. Great. That'll help in the long run.
*
Anna Burger
Chair, Change to Win

Just reading "Change to Win" made me start laughing. According to wiki it's even funnier when you find out what they are: "The Change to Win Federation is a coalition of American labor unions originally formed in 2005 as an alternative to the AFL-CIO. The coalition is associated with strong advocacy of the organizing model." Yup...a group of union community organizers. I mean, if you want to find out how to create jobs, the first people I think of are unions and community organizers. She offered a whopping ten suggestions. I didn't bother to list them here. You can go and read the link. Guess how many involved government handouts? If you said '8' - good job. The other two? Card check - because eliminating the right of workers to vote privately on whether or not to unionize will create millions of jobs...or something like that, I guess. And the other is to socialize health care. That'll create jobs, right? I mean, how could increasing costs to employers and raising taxes do anything but create jobs?
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So there you have it. If you thought Obey-Won's "jobs summit" attended largely by those that have never created a job and wouldn't know how to do so if their life depended on it would be a giant waste of time with cries of racism, class warfare, and calls for handouts to unions and more government spending...well, this proves that's exactly what went down.

Americans Don't Read Enough Foreign Press?

I say baloney when the major 'international' players like AFP come up with laughable ridiculousness like this - completely detached from reality:

President Barack Obama is due to join the closing summit. But highlighting the domestic political constraints he faces, Obama will be trailed in Copenhagen by Republicans adamant that climate change is science fiction.

I mean, this is funny stuff, but in no way is it informative journalism. I'm pretty sure if you talked to whomever they're referring to they'd gladly admit that climate changes, heck it does it all the time - constantly even. I mean, you'd have be the dullest rock in the garden to not notice climate change if you go outside in the rain one day and the sun the next. Of course it would never occur to these ultra-liberal propagandists (or "useful idiots" as Algore calls them) to lie about the position of the people that just happen to have the facts on their side.

Right?

Algore Decides To Get Involved

He should've just stayed away instead of daring us to use direct quotes that cannot conceivably under almost any circumstance be legitimized...

Gore firmly took the side of the authors, who say their private emails were sometimes flippant or ironic and were being distorted to suit climate change denialists.

"If you take one little thing from 10 years ago out of context

TRICK

and describe it inaccurately,

HIDE THE DECLINE

then it becomes a controversy without any real substance," Gore said.

VERY ARTIFICAL [sic] CORRECTION

"Is there any substantive reason to worry about them? No.

DELETE THE FILE

Does the noise machine of the climate deniers blow them out of proportion

TRICK

and fool some people into thinking they have substance? Well, that's another matter," he said.

HIDE THE DECLINE

"This was an open process

"I'LL MAYBE CUT THE LAST FEW POINTS OFF THE FILTERED CURVE BEFORE I GIVE THE TALK AGAIN, AS THAT'S TRENDING DOWN"

in which the studies that were being argued about actually were fully included

"I CAN'T SEE EITHER OF THESE PAPERS BEING IN THE NEXT IPCC REPORT. KEVIN AND I WILL KEEP THEM OUT SOMEHOW - EVEN IF WE HAVE TO REDEFINE WHAT THE PEER-REVIEWED LITERATURE IS!"

and openly discussed

"ABOUT 2 MONTHS AGO I DELETED LOADS OF E-MAILS"

and analyzed.

"CAN YOU DELETE ANY E-MAILS YOU MAY HAVE HAD WITH KEITH RE: (THE IPCC'S FOURTH ASSESSMENT REPORT)?"

So this was an example of people who don't want to do anything about the climate crisis taking things out of context and misrepresenting them."

"OH MAN! WILL THIS CRAP NEVER END?"

And just what the fudge is a "denialist"?