The last thing you see....

...if you're a field mouse.



h/t: The Borderline Sociopathic Blog for Boys, companion to one of my old favorites, Sippican Cottage.

Gawd....

I'm lovin' me my Glenn Beck. Yeah...sometimes he's a little over-the-top, and he certainly has got a Howard Beale vibe going on, but the guy is making scary sense.

So, yeah...I admit it...there's a lot of video here to watch....but do watch it. We're headed into totally uncharted waters.







I owe my h/t to Karl Denninger at market-ticker.org for these three videos. I read him all the time because he scares me worse than Stephen King.

Now let me add my amateur-economist's analysis to a point Beck touches on at 8:15 or so of the last video.

With words to this effect, Beck asks if the other countries in the world aren't going to be in the same sinking boat that we find ourselves in. I think he's exactly right, and underestimates this point. Take a look at yet another video.....



Yes...its al Jazerra....and there is a point to be made there too. But discounting that for the moment, this story illustrates the problem that China faces too.

For the last 30 years, China has been trying to get their peasant Third-World country into the First-World. To do this, they have kept their currency artificially devalued, so as to facilitate the export of the products that they make. What they're most concerned with is jobs...not the products of those jobs. They're quite content to spend money on cities that no one will live in because they need to keep the construction jobs (read: "economic activity") going.

We're not seeing this reported on any of the American (or Western) media because we're beholden to the debt that China holds. al Jazerra, in essence, the media organ of the Arab OPEC states, has a different set of priorities. They can report the Chinese problems in a candor that Western media cannot. However, the OPEC states are not without their own problems. Absent their oil, they have almost no industry. Their people are not far removed from living in the desert, and many are illiterate. They have few skills, and have to import white-collar and blue-collar labor to give them what they now have. They can operate what are in effect, massive welfare states because they are able to poke holes into the ground and pump out the wealth that supports it.

And here's where my fears are headed.....

All wars are economic.

We're broke.

China can't keep inflating their "production bubble".

And since the world runs on oil, the OPEC states will grind to a halt. (Not to mention the crazy-mad religious motivations that they have.).

These three groups all want to keep things going when we can't keep things going. And something's gotta give. Who'll give first?

What a great idea!!

Since the Democrats in Congress are all about requiring us to buy something we may not want to buy, at a price that we may not agree with, what's to prevent them from going whole hog with that approach?

So [h]ere it is: a modest proposal even Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley can agree on. If we're willing to require people to buy health insurance, why not require them to buy guns?

h/t Hotair headlines.

Alright: Unlike the last time I did this....

....I won't completely rip off Ace, but with regard to Zero's penchant for bowing down to foreign leaders, here he makes a very good point.

"....Greg Gutfeld (was up late last night) noted the bowing controversy and called it, using Andy Levy's phrase, a "blog issue." By which he meant a topic that gets predictable heat on blogs, but when you try to discuss it in the "real world," the reaction is "ehhh."

That may be so. To be honest, I had a bit of trouble drumming up a lot of passion about this. My real beef here isn't that what Obama is doing is wrong.

My actual beef is that the crap Obama is doing is irrelevant. No one gives a flying fuck if you bow to them, or you say nice things about "working together to reach our collective goals," or this ridiculous conceit that just because of Obama's "personal presence" -- a historic presidency, drenched in drama, topped with butter-baked crumbs of hope -- is going to make a lick of difference. Nations pursue their own policy goals -- period. You change the goals a nation might pursue by offering carrots and sticks, by buying them off or making it so costly to pursue a particular goal they refrain from doing so.

"Diplomacy" is merely a polite manner of announcing these carrots and sticks.

So my point, then, is that what Obama is doing is perfectly trivial, and to get all outraged about it actually invests his empty and feckless symbolism with a power it doesn't have. Obama's bowing to a Saudi king does nothing to improve our relations with the Islamic world. And neither, frankly, does Cheney shaking his hand as an equal. Neither matters -- and the problem here is that Obama is convinced these things not only matter, but are well-nigh determinative.

This malignant narcissist thinks that nations will change their fundamental national goals based simply on the (purported) fact that Obama is charming, nice, and awesome.

It's not so much that he's doing the wrong things -- he is; but these things are utterly trivial. It's that he's investing far too much time thinking about trivialities, convincing himself that the trivial trumps the substantial, that he invests no time or effort at all in substantive manners. Look at Iran. Rather than facing the grim reality he needs to confront Iran and make it too costly for Iran to continue building nukes, he convinces himself that if only he can be charming and nonthreatening enough he will neatly avoid having to face that reality.

He is indulging in fantasy at the expense of reality, and therefore at the expense of US national interests.

Now, all that said, all that acknowledgement that maybe this is a "blog issue," as Greg Gutfeld said, let me note again something that makes it not just a "blog issue" at all: Obama lied. Gibbs lied. White House sources lie. They all denied down the line that they were offering a sycophantic servility -- bowing like an inferior -- to royalty, and they now are forced to admit it was a lie all along.

They were deliberately bowing to royalty, and just lying about it to the American public. Because, I guess, sometimes a lie is "diplomatic."

So it seems while foreign royalty gets deep bows, the American public gets lies and fast-talk about it.

Actually... also taking it out of the realm of "blog issue" is that any symbolic act stands for something concrete and real. And Obama isn't just showing the symbolism of deference, weakness, and appeasement; he's actually practicing deference, weakness, and appeasement. His symbolic gesture then is simply confirmation of objective reality."

Hey....

Anybody else remember back a year and a half ago when Zero's low-level staffers were being thrown under the bus? Or even when some not-so-low-level staffers were thrown under that same bus (but later, miraculously, recovered from her injuries)?

Point being...Zero has habit of blaming others for things he ought to be standing up for.

Like.....his oft-repeated claim of the benefit we're deriving from his Stimulus-inspired "saved or created jobs".

And now this charade is coming apart too. The numbers he is reporting are outrageously inaccurate. So inaccurate, in fact, as to be claimed from Congressional districts that themselves do not exist. So, who is to blame for the reporting of this inaccurate data? Yeah...you guessed it...

"...Late Monday, officials with the Recovery Board created to track the stimulus spending, said the mistakes in crediting nonexistent congressional districts were caused by human error.

"We report what the recipients submit to us," said Ed Pound, Communications Director for the Board.

Pound told ABC News the board receives declarations from the recipients - state governments, federal agencies and universities - of stimulus money about what program is being funded.

"Some recipients clearly don't know what congressional district they live in, so they appear to be just throwing in any number. We expected all along that recipients would make mistakes on their congressional districts, on jobs numbers, on award amounts, and so on. Human beings make mistakes," Pound said...."

[emphases, mine]

Yes. You, the dumb public, are to be blamed for the bad data being reported by Zero's administration.

I engaged in a little activism tonight.....

So, anyway....today was yet another "medical day".

Background: I have been battling what I've been lead to believe was a bad salivary gland since late July. It usually begins with what I've been told is a cracked tooth on my lower left side. The pain develops to the point that it is indeterminate where I can't tell if it is on my upper jaw or lower, and then the pain radiates down my tongue. Finally, it settles into the glands.

My initial question regarding this was with my dentist, who pronounced it "pulpitis" or something. When it didn't go away, I went the medical route where the salivary gland thingi was both self- and medically-diagnosed...and they have had me taking steroids to the point that they don't want to give me any more, and have recommended that I have this gland removed.

So, anyway, today I finally was able to get into the ENT doctor...one very highly recommended. WifeofAzlib went with me, so as is my habit when I'm out with my family, I strapped on my CCW. The doctor didn't see the gland problem that I'd been lead to believe I had, and asked that I get a panoramic dental x-ray.

Back to the dentist.....

And guess what? I finally have a diagnosis: An abscessed tooth which will require a root canal on Wednesday. Yeah--me! [Seriously, I am very glad to have a diagnosis, which will hopefully lead to having this thing cleared up.]

In celebration (and because the both of us had wasted most of the day on these medical matters), we decided to go to our local Serrano's Mexican restaurant.

And guess what I found? An A.R.S. §4-229(C) sign prohibiting my carrying my concealed weapon inside their restaurant. One of our favorite restaurants, close to the house, reasonably priced....a family favorite.

Not wanting to ruin the night, I retreated back to the vehicle and put my gun away, but I told my wife that, while I would eat there tonight, I would not be returning.

Moreover, after remembering this post of Kevin's, I was determined to not just disappear from this restaurant's clientele. As we were leaving, I made a point of asking for the manager, and I very politely told him that I'd been in his restaurant at least once a month for the last 19 years, and that I wouldn't be back as long as that sign was in his window. He was polite too, and mentioned that he'd received a number of comment cards regarding their sign. We both made our points.

The family doesn't necessarily agree with me, but I'm not going back.

I don't often do this...

....(except for the photos which I snatch at will use freely...and which, if I knew how to host them myself, I would do so willingly), but this very good article from Ace warrants a full viewing. View it here, but his comments are worth your time too, so make some time to view it over at his house.

Ace: "Pelosi: It's Very Fair That We Jail You If You Don't Buy Health Insurance"

Seen on Hot Air, Infidels are Cool has this exchange:

Stone: Do you think it’s fair to send people to jail who don’t buy health insurance?

Pelosi: … The legislation is very fair in this respect.

The left continues pounding the table, insisting that right-wingers are "paranoid" and "extremist" to call Obama a socialist, or to use totalitarian imagery in posters to protest his agenda. Why, it's just so not true! they bleat. You'd have to be a maniac like Sarah Palin to make these delusional claims! Why, it's like bad science-fiction!

Really?

Socialism never attends a party without an escort of coercive state behavior. It is a historic fact -- indeed, an economic fact -- that as the state seeks to regulate and control more and more economic activity, they must, of course, control more and more human activity.

Economic activity is human activity, after all. Economics is not somehow divorced from humanity. Economic choices are not made of their own volition, passive-voice, without an actor. People make economic choices -- and socialism demands an ever-increasing control over those choices, and therefore the people who make those choices. (Or, more accurately: formerly made those choices.)

Furthermore, apart from the basic definitional aspect of socialism that requires a loss of freedom in exchange, supposedly, for economic security: Socialism has almost never worked as intended, but rather creates new problems and new poverties and new ways to exploit the system (black markets, for one); socialism therefore always requires even additional laws against once-unobjectionable and perfectly-legal behavior. In other words, not only does socialism require a small buy-in, in the form of loss of freedom, but it is always accompanied by unplanned-for (?) additional losses of freedom to "correct" for all the systematic irrationalities and distortions it creates.

And then it gets even worse after that, because it always fails, whenever it's been attempted, and the newly-empowered state will fight to survive, as any organism does, and any organism is willing to do an awful lot of violence when its very existence is threatened.

Note that the third part of that is the scariest step in the socialist takeover of the human condition, but even if that is avoided, the first and second stages are plenty objectionable in their own right. Although socialism has had a pronounced tendency to lead to full fascism and totalitarian control over the increasingly miserable citizenry it supposedly "serves," and that is the point of all those Nazi posters, it cannot be emphasized firmly enough that even if Stage Three of socialism is avoided, Stages One and Two are anti-freedom and frankly anti-human as well.

Just less so.

On a personal level, I go 'round and 'round with myself as to whether Nazi imagery is "civil" or helpful, politically: On one side I know for a fact that socialism tends in this direction. Every. Single. Time. Even in socialist states where fascism is avoided -- Britain, say -- it is nevertheless the case that the citizenry there exists under a much-diminished concept of "freedom" than your average American would find tolerable, or even imaginable.

On the other hand, I doubt the effectiveness of such imagery, for the simple fact that few can imagine such things, they seem too speculative and too impossible to contemplate, and so I usually make the case that rather than talk up the farther-off (yet still quite possible, and not quite so far off as some would like to imagine) possibility of Stage Three socialism, we should talk up instead the quite-objectionable-enough and much more immediate and imaginable defects of Stages One and Two.

Back to this leftist insistence that we're all paranoid to even think this way, to even define "freedom" in an antique, right-wing fashion, meaning "stuff you are permitted to do or not do without penalty and coercion from the state:" It is especially risible to me, in gallows-humor way, that the left continues to call us lunatics for fretting about increasing state control and increasing state coercion and increasing state outlawing of previously-legal behavior and freedoms even as, in their very first bill out of the socialist box, they propose jailing Americans for engaging in unobjectionable behavior which no one ever before dreamt of being a crime.

Think about this.

The left says: You are crazy to claim your so-called freedoms are being taken away, and you are a lunatic to scream about an overly powerful state which will use violent coercion (no one goes to jail without the threat of violence if he doesn't, after all) to enforce its notions of the "economic good."

And with the next breath the left says: By the way, you shall either buy health care insurance or we will throw you in prison for two or three years.

I'm paranoid? Really? I am not fretting here about some remote and unlikely possibility. We are not speaking here of "slippery slopes" or in terms of "what comes next?"

We are instead objecting to a black-letter law spelled out for all to see in the very first piece of legislation you're proposing.

Right out of the box. The state here -- Pelosi, Reid, Obama -- are claiming that they can imprison people for behavior that has never before even been hinted as being a crime, on the theory that such behavior constitutes unpatriotic economic behavior which is detrimental to the state's balance sheets.

Think about what a broad, all-encompassing term "economics" is. 80% of our waking hours are spent in economic activity of one sort or another. The state here is asserting the right to imprison people for behavior they consider not actually morally reprehensible or harmful as other crimes are, but instead merely detrimental to the Great Push Forward, the state's master plan of economic health and well-being.

Right out of the box they propose sending people to jail for acting as economic subversives and economic traitors and yet I am, somehow, paranoid if I point out that the first step here is to reduce human freedom and increase state power.

And this is just a down-payment, remember. This is merely the first of many freedoms you previously believed sacrosanct to be lost. This is merely the first freedom they've realized, in advance, will have to be taken away. When their Rube Goldberg system of cross-subsidizations and stealth-rationing produces a slew of irrationalities and evasions they did not anticipate, we will have a welter of new crimes to correct all that human behavior they now find constitutes bad economic hygiene and must be outlawed.

But we're paranoid. We're lunatics. We're "extreme."

Used to be in this county when we proposed making an entire category of human behavior a crime, that was cause for debate. Civil libertarians on the left would join those on the right in wondering what has so changed in the past several years to require an entire new category of criminality, an entire sphere of human activity now removed from the column of "freedom" and moved to the column of "forbiddance."

But not this time. Fascism, as they say, tends to come with a smiling face, and there's hardly a face more surgically stretched into smiles than Nancy Pelosi's, quite chipper and blithe as she proposes that she will begin filling America's prisons with a whole new category of criminal, the economic saboteur.

And there is no argument about it, and no debate. We are creating an entirely new type of "crime" that could end up imprisoning millions (or -- very nearly as bad -- compelling behavior and restricting freedom due to threat of incarceration) and the entire left and the entire media (but I repeat myself) blows it off as no big deal.

It's just What Must Be Done. Omlette, eggs, some breaking required.

But I'm a paranoid and extremist to take notice of the fact that what was once my freedom in 2009 shall become a cause for imprisonment in 2010.

I have a very good friend who is a Federal Marshal. He spends his days running around catching some of the very baddest of the bad guys who are out there. And one of my deepest fears, both for him and for me, is that one day he's going to be asked to grab up one of these future healthcare scofflaws, and that one day I might be one of them.

What will each of us do on that day? I don't really know the answer, and that scares me too.

OK, you morons....

Nobody--and I mean nobody--reads this crappy product I call "my blog".

But if you've clicked through from that comment I left over at Ace's place, and want to look around the place a bit, here is a somewhat larger comment I wrote back when UsAirways 1549 was fresh news.

An Update....

WSJ: Pfizer and Kelo's Ghost Town

While Ms. Kelo and her neighbors lost their homes, the city and the state spent some $78 million to bulldoze private property for high-end condos and other "desirable" elements. Instead, the wrecked and condemned neighborhood still stands vacant, without any of the touted tax benefits or job creation.

The taking of the Kelo property was bad enough: The Supreme Court decision on the taking was horrible. And now we see the justification for the taking--the increased tax benefits to the community--has turned to dust.

We should always guard against giving up any of our freedoms--no matter how small, or how slight.

h/t: SayUncle

So.....

I'm starting to wonder: Would a smart investor be investing in one of those private prison companies?




h/t: Captain Ed over at HotAir.

Another in a series of....

....Really, really dumb ideas.

Fry's, Safeway gird for strike

I saw this through Kevin at The Smallest Minority, but WifeofAzlib mentioned it last night too.

First of all, being a grocery store clerk isn't exactly skilled labor. As an airline pilot, I know (believe?) that if I ever were to go out on strike, that my company would have some difficulty in replacing me. But a grocery store clerk just runs your items across the scanner. Many grocery stores have installed those self-check-out lanes where you do this yourself. The decision to go out on strike has to be made with an assessment of how easy it is for the company to replace the striking workers.

And that brings me to this point: Unemployment.

None of the charts here are happy charts, but if you're going out on strike in Arizona, you might want to keep these two in mind....




If you're thinking of going out on strike, you had better be thinking of the other Arizona folks who are out of work. You're saying that you're willing to walk off your job for a better whatever-it-is-you're-striking-about, but you ought to remember the folks who are out there who are perhaps getting a little hungry.

And walking off your job now, means you're out of work too. While the grocery-store unions are certainly figuring that the holidays are the right time to have their workers go on strike, the union-members ought to consider that they're about to be unemployed over the holidays too.

A Case For Government Healthcare?--There Is None

A co-worker wrote this, and I have to say I agree with pretty much all of it. The only changes I made were to remove his name (given that I'm anonymous here, I thought I'd make him anonymous too), and some minor formatting to make things look right here on the blog.

Ask any politician to cite government’s constitutional authority to enact national healthcare. They can’t. It doesn’t exist. The federal government can only do what it is enumerated to do. The fact is there are no provisions in the constitution authorizing the state to interject itself into the healthcare decision-making processes of the American citizenry. None!

Then what business does the government have dictating the terms of private healthcare decisions for our selves and for our families? The government has no business doing this. But Democrats, the Obama administration, and the liberal left are poised to enact legislation that will ultimately enable the government to control every aspect of our lives, and to punish those who do not live in accordance with government’s benevolent standards.

But what is the harm in the government ensuring equal access to healthcare for everyone? Isn’t healthcare good? Healthcare is good. But every program the government enacts results in the same: regardless of good intentions the consequences, intended or unintended, are always: higher cost, reduced quality, loss of personal freedom, and destruction of the private sector.

But a national healthcare option is necessary to eliminate the great disparities in quality and cost of care. And only government programs can ensure equality of access. Wrong! Proponents call their proposals reform, compassion for the disenfranchised, and equality. But in actuality, state healthcare programs, like all government social programs, affect none of those ideals, but always result in the opposite: poor quality; high cost; lack of access; inequality; and equal distribution of misery.

The true aim of state run healthcare goes far beyond seeking equality of access. It would allow the ultimate in government control of its citizenry. It would allow the government to assert control over every aspect of our daily private lives – our diets; our exercise habits; our choice of transportation; our lifestyle, our doctor, our medical treatments… everything. And any behavior determined to be unhealthy or unseemly to the state, the state would have the power to punish or tax - in the interest of healthcare, of course. But far more devious, the government would have the power to employ healthcare as a tool for social engineering. Healthcare would be rewarded to those who are in compliance with government agendas and are in the political favor of the state, but denied to those who are not.

A national healthcare program would only make problems worse. As do other government agencies, healthcare commissions would conduct means testing, ration care, and employ “social justice” by race, gender, income, or creed authorizing or denying medical care on the basis of “fairness and equality”. Treatment for the elderly, disabled, or those who could not provide an adequate “return for the government’s investment” would be denied. If an unborn child is determined to be disabled (or otherwise) the panel would likely fund or even require an abortion, or deny prenatal and pediatric care to that child. Governmental health commissions would employ means testing and affirmative action to determine if individuals are worth the government’s “investment”. If not, treatments will be withheld or denied completely. In other words, government-appointed wogs (or death panels) would implement political policy in making life and death decisions for every American forced into a state-run healthcare program.

The political left has pushed for national healthcare for over sixty years. After all, why should the wealthy have better healthcare than those less fortunate, the less fortunate being the young, the old, minorities, etc… The arguments in favor of President Obama and the Democrat’s current healthcare campaign are emotional and can be difficult to refute without accusations of heartlessness. But conservative sentiments among the American electorate have awakened to the dangers of the government healthcare agenda, which they find to be in direct contrast to their natural desire for liberty.

Throughout the summer of 2009 American citizens across the country stood up to the charges of hatred and selfishness and stunned Democrat congressmen and senators via phone, mail, and email campaigns, and at town hall meetings affectively expressing suspicions of their government and displeasure with current healthcare proposals. They do not want higher taxes, lack of choice, social engineering, or government commissions ruining the quality of healthcare they currently enjoy.

Conservatives are clearly winning this debate, and Democrats have responded by evoking class envy and hatred, and charges of greed, anti-Obama racism, and right-wing Nazism – all charges recently leveled by Democrat leadership toward Obamacare opponents. Initially stunned by the anti-national healthcare sentiments expressed at their town hall meetings, Democrat supporters have countered by loading town hall meetings with their own vocal supporters in an effort to mitigate, and sometimes intimidate the affects of the conservative grass-roots message.

The liberal left is losing the debate on national healthcare. Next, they will back away from an all-encompassing healthcare agenda to one of compromise and repackaging – no doubt they will concede for now and settle for something less with the intention of seeking incremental expansion of state control in the future.

The problem in America isn’t the quality of healthcare. The United States has far and away the finest quality of healthcare available in the world, bar none. Accessibility is not the problem. The elderly, the young, the disenfranchised, and even illegal aliens can walk into any emergency room and receive medical attention twenty-four hours a day. Even Medicare and Medicaid are available.

The problem is not the lack of government involvement in healthcare. The problem is too much government involvement in healthcare, which over-regulates the industry and dramatically decreases accessibility and increases costs.

That isn’t to say there isn’t room for reform. Costs could be reduced significantly by implementing true reform. There are many free market ideas employed already that have shown positive results. Reform could begin with the following: 1.) Mitigate the cost of malpractice with tort reform. To put it another way, reign in ambulance-chasing lawyers. Not an easy thing to do, since the Democrats are in the pocket of the American Bar Association; 2.) Health savings accounts similar to an IRA – your money, your savings, you keep it to spend as you see fit for you and your family healthcare needs; And 3.) Point-of-service payment for healthcare - in essence, medical services are paid for by the patient – not by the cumbersome health insurance companies, and definitely not paid for by the government. Such a system could be likened to going to a restaurant and reviewing a menu before ordering a meal. One can shop for a quality product at a reasonable rate. And healthcare insurance would then be used as intended – to mitigate the risk of a major expense, not to cover everyday healthcare costs. With the patient intimately familiar with costs up front medical providers would naturally try to provide the best value at competitive rates.

These are only a few of the possible solutions to reduce healthcare costs. Many other valid solutions are being implemented throughout the country and are lowering the cost of health care without resorting to additional government intrusion. Reform solutions such as these are the result of basic American capitalism, which functions and succeeds through the competitive free-market process.

The healthcare debate is truly life-or-death. There can be no government healthcare, no low-cost government option plan, and no compromise plan. No foothold. Blue Dog Democrats can not be counted on to hold the line. They only claim to be worried about cost, not liberty or principle. They ultimately seek compromise – a lower cost version of the Obama plan, which too will bring about government intrusion and incrementalism. Continue telling politicians No! No! No! No!

The healthcare industry does need reform, true reform, but not this government “reform” plan. Government needs to act in the interest of free market solutions, not further restricting them. The solution will not be found in the Obama plan, what is certainly a blatant government takeover of our most intimate decisions – the personal healthcare decisions of our loved ones and of our selves.

No matter where government run healthcare has been implemented it has proven to be a deadly heartless failure – increased costs, lower quality, less accessibility. Healthcare costs are high. But the solution does not lie in more government. It lies in less government, greater competition in the marketplace, and competitive solutions brought about by the marketplace of ideas.

The lesson to remember is simple. In any debate - every time government ventures into the private sector the result is always the same: higher costs; reduced quality; loss of personal freedom; and destruction of the personal sector.

An ever expanding government minimizes the individual. This is true for public education, the postal service, AmTrack, General Motors, Cash for Clunkers, you name it. It is true for healthcare. And once the state wedges an opening into the healthcare door (even a compromise government option plan) we are on the road to further government intrusion and further loss of liberty. There is no case for national healthcare – none.

Download this and other articles available for distribution on the subject of INDIVIDUALISM Versus the State at ourobamadrama.com

Also, visit reason.com, and heritage.org for other free-market solutions to national concerns.

A Case for Government Healthcare? – There Is None

Oh, you just know.....

....That this will not end well.


George W. Bush Secretly Visits Fort Hood Victims

A decent President, and for that matter, a decent man would have made mention of the event at Ft. Hood before giving a "shout-out" to cousin Pookie, or Dr. Joe Medicine Crow, a "Congressional Medal-of-Honor winner" (who, in fact, does not have a MOH, but rather was awarded a Congressional Medal of Freedom), not to mention knowing that the Congressional Medal of Honor is not "won", but rather "awarded".

But Zero has not, now a year after he was elected, found his feet as our Commander-in-Chief, but still acts as our Community-Organizer-in-Chief. A man who was a real C-in-C would have canceled his golf game this weekend, and asked his allies in the Congress to postpone their debate and vote on his key domestic agenda item until next week while he went to Ft. Hood to be the Commander-in-Chief that he was elected to be. As it is, Bush gave Zero ample opportunity to do this, and when he had not, made the proper effort to attend to the troops.

I have to believe that somewhere at Camp David,
Michelle is flinging the crockery.

You know what?

Pretty soon, we're gonna need a bigger chart.



h/t: As always, the fellas at Innocent Bystanders.

Every now and then.....

....I get reminded that a place one would consider to be one of the safest places on the planet can, in a moment, turn quite dangerous.

I don't carry my CCW often, and when I do, WifeofAzlib often thinks I'm crazy for doing so. But this event can happen any time in any grocery store, mall or movie theater in America (and frankly, I'm surprised that it hasn't happened more frequently). WifeofAzlib, SonofAzlib, and Dau#1ofAzlib are all old enough to CCW, yet each for their own reasons have chosen to not get their permits. I'm hoping that they each reconsider. SonofAzlib has a nice CCW weapon, a Walther PPS, but he rarely shoots it. Dau#1- and WifeofAzlib each have .380 handguns, but they get to the range even less frequently, and frankly the .380 is a sub-standard caliber anyway. They don't know this yet, but they may be getting something in a 9mm sometime before Christmas.

And I will be carrying my Glock23c more frequently.

BTW, the media are now wondering how a shooter with two handguns could get off so many shots. Its not hard at all. A Glock17 has a standard magazine capacity of 17 rounds, and third-party magazines are available up to 33 rounds. Do this with two handguns and you're at 68 rounds without having to reload....more than enough to kill 11 and injure 31.

Nope......

You could not possibly make this stuff up.



This is Susan Rice dressed as Goofy.

That would be United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice dressed as Goofy.

And they wonder why they're not getting any respect around the world.

h/t Michelle Obama's Mirror's Blog.

Obama-Weather.....

Via Gerard, I see that this site offers an Obama which will tell us what to wear for the week.

And for the record, I do have cargo shorts (and pants) that I wear when the occasion suits. I even have casual sandals, although mine are a Cabelas knock-off of Teva's, and there was a day when I wore Birkenstocks. But I have never worn a t-shirt with an Obama image (or for that matter, a t-shirt with an image of any politician).

This, along with another site I found via Gerard, The Art of Obama, are either very clever commentaries on the adulation of Zero, or they are unwitting part and parcel of the same.