Thursday, October 28, 2010

Socialism Defined ::: Obamacare discourages work, CBO admits; Will likely shrink economy


Even the Congressional Budget Office, which allowed supporters of Obamacare to hide its costs through gimmicks and dodges, admitted last “Friday that Obamacare includes work disincentives likely to shrink the amount of labor used in the economy.” For example, it effectively creates a 35,618 percent marginal tax rate for one hypothetical 62-year-old whose income rises by $22, by triggering the sudden loss of $7,836 in government tax credits (as Ted Frank explains below).

[snip]

As noted earlier, the healthcare law imposes manymiddle-class tax increases, such as on cosmetic surgery and medical devices, and it increases taxes in future years on investors. Obamacare will also reduce lifesavingmedicalinnovation, break many campaign promises, and increase state budget deficits. It is driving up health insurance premiums, and it imposes restrictions that failed when tried at the state level. It ignores advice from doctors and federal experts, and lessons from countries with universal health care, about how to reduce costs.


Obamacare discourages work, CBO admits; Will likely shrink economy - Washington DC SCOTUS | Examiner.com

Michael Ramirez Cartoon: Obama As Nixon (Enemies List)


I still can't believe the mainstream media hasn't touched this story.

Just kidding.


obama-nixon


Obama indentifies Americans as enemies [Reader Post]

The Flintstones Lived In Florida? ::: Smithsonian does not dispute authenticity of find in Vero Beach


A 13,000 year-old etching of a woolly mammoth found on a bone near Vero Beach... hmmm...


VERO BEACH — The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has found no reason to dispute the authenticity of an one-of-a-kind archaeological discovery that might help confirm a human presence here up to 13,000 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age.

In early 2009, local fossil collector James Kennedy cleaned off an old bone he found two years earlier and noticed some lines on it — lines that turned out to be a clear etching of a walking mammoth with tusks.

The location where he found it hasn’t been disclosed, except that it came from an area north of Vero Beach.

University of Florida researchers scrutinized the four-inch etching on the 15-inch prehistoric bone with an electron microscope and their tests showed it to be apparently genuine.

In May, Kennedy took the bone to the National Museum of Natural History for further studies. There Smithsonian Institution archaeologists made a copy and used advanced techniques to look at the etching.

“We have found no traces that would indicate that a (modern) metal tool was used to carve the bone,” said the institution’s Dennis Stanford, who specializes in early North American archaeology.

“While we see no evidence that it is a forgery” the institution doesn’t authenticate objects unless they are donated to the museum, Stanford wrote in an e-mail on Tuesday.

Kennedy is keeping the bone in hopes of selling it by auction.

“I want to auction it to the person with the most money, although I would rather it go to a museum,” Kennedy said.

It is presumed to be the oldest known art object of its type found in the New World, said Richard Hulbert, a paleontologist with the Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville.

The person who created the etching, presumably with a shark tooth or flint implement, had to have seen a live animal to have drawn it in such detail, he said.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

What A Statesman! ::: Obama Tells Latinos To "Punish" Their "Enemies" [Audio Link: Piolín and Obama]


There are so many new lows to be had in this interview, I don't quite know where to start.

The interview is in two parts, and the relevant quote is at the beginning of "Parte II". The entire quote is this:

Latino voters, the president said, would have an opportunity to send a message to Republicans, who Obama accused of "politicizing" immigration reform and the border security debate. Obama said "pressure has to be put on the Republican Party" if immigration reform is to become a reality.

"And if Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, we're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us, if they don't see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it's gonna be harder — and that's why I think it's so important that people focus on voting on November 2," he said.

Just keeping it classy... the Chicago way. (Transcript courtesy of The Hill.)


For a real hoot, listen to the whole interview, if you can stomach it. That the president of the United States would participate on a show like this is amazing. If the host had been wearing a clown nose the whole time I wouldn't be surprised.

And the intro to Obama... oh my heavens... The first few minutes of "Parte I" may be some of the most sycophantic moments in all of history. I promise you Kim Jong-Il is asking for the writer's CV as I type this.


For additional commentary, this has also been posted on FR.

New Addition To My ApocaList ::: Hyland's Teething Tablets (Recalled... Effectively Banned)


Things to hoard:
- Guns and ammo
- Light bulbs
- Kombucha
- Teething tablets


Yes, the FDA has seen fit to go after one of the finest products that has made mothering four a slightly less stressful task -- the humble Hyland's Teething Tablets.

When I discovered these about 14 years ago, life changed significantly. If you have ever tried to spread that disgusting pink teething gel onto the sore gums of a miserable baby, you'll probably understand the gratitude one might feel for a mess-less stress-less insta-cure.

And thus you're probably fuming over this one too.

Los Angeles, October 23, 2010 – Standard Homeopathic Company, in consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is voluntarily recalling its Hyland’s Teething Tablets. The company is initiating this recall in an abundance of caution due to an FDA investigation of its manufacturing facility. Hyland’s Teething Tablets are manufactured in the United States and distributed throughout North America.



We're all hippies now.


I went to my local grocery store and bought all they had on the shelves... four boxes. Before I even got home, my pregnant friend had asked to buy two of them.

Oh... so that's how black markets are born.

Teething Tablet Recall News Release

Friday, October 22, 2010

Where's The Media On This?! ::: Wikipedia’s [Falsifying, Cheating, Fascist] climate doctor


The Stalinesque tactics of the left are actually mind-boggling. The tacit endorsement of these tactics by the mainstream media is close to unforgivable.

The Climategate Emails describe how a small band of climatologists cooked the books to make the last century seem dangerously warm.

The emails also describe how the band plotted to rewrite history as well as science, particularly by eliminating the Medieval Warm Period, a 400 year period that began around 1000 AD.

The Climategate Emails reveal something else, too: the enlistment of the most widely read source of information in the world — Wikipedia — in the wholesale rewriting of this history.

The Medieval Warm Period, which followed the meanness and cold of the Dark Ages, was a great time in human history — it allowed humans around the world to bask in a glorious warmth that vastly improved agriculture, increased life spans and otherwise bettered the human condition.

But the Medieval Warm Period was not so great for some humans in our own time — the same small band that believes the planet has now entered an unprecedented and dangerous warm period. As we now know from the Climategate Emails, this band saw the Medieval Warm Period as an enormous obstacle in their mission of spreading the word about global warming. If temperatures were warmer 1,000 years ago than today, the Climategate Emails explain in detail, their message that we now live in the warmest of all possible times would be undermined. As put by one band member, a Briton named Folland at the Hadley Centre, a Medieval Warm Period “dilutes the message rather significantly.”

Even before the Climategate Emails came to light, the problem posed by the Medieval Warm Period to this band was known. “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period” read a pre-Climategate email, circa 1995, as attested to at hearings of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works. But the Climategate transcripts were more extensive and more illuminating — they provided an unvarnished look at the struggles that the climate practitioners underwent before settling on their scientific dogma.

The Climategate Emails showed, for example, that some members of the band were uncomfortable with aspects of their work, some even questioning the need to erase the existence of the Medieval Warm Period 1,000 years earlier.

Said Briffa, one of their chief practitioners: “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is not quite so simple. … I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago.”

In the end, Briffa and other members of the band overcame their doubts and settled on their dogma. With the help of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the highest climate change authority of all, they published what became the icon of their movement — the hockey stick graph. This icon showed temperatures in the last 1,000 years to have been stable — no Medieval Warm Period, not even the Little Ice Age of a few centuries ago.

But the UN’s official verdict that the Medieval Warm Period had not existed did not erase the countless schoolbooks, encyclopedias, and other scholarly sources that claimed it had. Rewriting those would take decades, time that the band members didn’t have if they were to save the globe from warming.

Instead, the band members turned to their friends in the media and to the blogosphere, creating a website called RealClimate.org. “The idea is that we working climate scientists should have a place where we can mount a rapid response to supposedly ‘bombshell’ papers that are doing the rounds” in aid of “combating dis-information,” one email explained, referring to criticisms of the hockey stick and anything else suggesting that temperatures today were not the hottest in recorded time. One person in the nine-member Realclimate.org team — U.K. scientist and Green Party activist William Connolley — would take on particularly crucial duties.

Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information source the world has ever known – Wikipedia. Starting in February 2003, just when opposition to the claims of the band members were beginning to gel, Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site. He rewrote Wikipedia’s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph. He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the band. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the world’s most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets, followed by others that the band especially hated, such as Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, authorities on the Medieval Warm Period.

All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.

The Medieval Warm Period disappeared, as did criticism of the global warming orthodoxy. With the release of the Climategate Emails, the disappearing trick has been exposed. The glorious Medieval Warm Period will remain in the history books, perhaps with an asterisk to describe how a band of zealots once tried to make it disappear.

Financial Post
LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com




Lawrence Solomon: Wikipedia’s climate doctor - Full Comment

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

AJ,NTSA ::: Obama Strips the 'Creator' from Declaration of Independence -- Again



(CNSNews.com) – For the second time in little over a month, President Barack Obama stripped the word "Creator" from the Declaration of Independence when giving a speech.

"As wonderful as this land is here in the United States, as much as we have been blessed by the bounty of this magnificent continent that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, what makes this place special is not something physical. It has to do with this idea that was started by 13 colonies that decided to throw off the yoke of an empire and said, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that each of us areendowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’” Obama said in Monday's speech. [Emphasis added.]

The Declaration of Independence actually says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” [Emphasis added.]

Cue you know who:




I guess I should be grateful that this time he at least credited Americans for the concept. (As opposed to the Indians and Mexicans the first time around.)


Obama Strips the 'Creator' from Declaration of Independence -- Again | CNSnews.com

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Machine Gun Matthews ::: Jack Conway on Chris Matthews Hardball Re: Ad on Rand Paul


What a beatdown! I have never seen such a pummeling... especially of a Dem by, ostensibly, a Dem.

Buckle up.





Conway's supporters are stunned into silence. What a ride.

YouTube - Jack Conway on Chris Matthews Hardball discussing his shameful ad

A Real-Life Ghoul ::: Dignitas's Ludwig Minelli: Let partners of terminally ill who commit suicide die too


Words fail.

But the Ghoul lives.


The founder of controversial Swiss clinic Dignitas has said a person whose terminally ill partner commits suicide should also be given help to die – even if they are perfectly healthy.

Ludwig Minelli wants the deadly drug that is prescribed to his clients to be made available to the partners of those suffering from dementia.

At present Swiss law states it is legal to assist only those with a terminal illness.
He said: ‘A change in the law is required to give dementia sufferers and their families more opportunities.

‘The partner should be allowed to have a prescription for these drugs even when they are not terminally ill.

In such cases the partners are often a similar age and one does not want to remain without the other.’

The human rights lawyer spoke following the case last week in Switzerland of a 64-year-old man who strangled his wife of 30 years who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.

He described it as ‘an act of desperation’.

Zurich public prosecutor Andreas Brunner rejected Mr Minelli’s proposal to widen the legislation.

He said: ‘In my view, no change in the law should be sought.’

It is not the first time Mr Minelli has argued healthy people should be given the legal right to die.

Last year he said that he believed assisted suicide should be available ‘on demand’.

Mr Minelli, whose organisation has supervised the deaths of more than 100 Britons, said suicide was not just for those who were dying but ‘a marvellous possibility given to a human being’.

He has dismissed concerns that assisted suicide should be reserved for the terminally ill as a ‘British obsession’.


He looks human enough, and thus walks through crowds virtually undetected.

Dignitas clinic head Ludwig Minelli says relatives should be allowed to have prescriptions for suicide drugs even when they are not terminally ill


Dignitas's Ludwig Minelli: Let partners of terminally ill who commit suicide die too | Mail Online

Friday, October 15, 2010

10 Second Video That Needs No Words ::: Demplosion

YouTube - Demplosion


Common Sense Prevails ::: Wilders not guilty on all counts - Update


The whole western world needs to be firm like this. We welcome and accept Muslims, but they also must respect our freedoms, and our rights.

The public prosecution department on Friday afternoon stated that Geert Wilders is not guilty of discriminating against Muslims. Earlier on Friday it announced he should also be found not guilty of inciting hatred.

Prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman reached their conclusions after a careful reading of interviews with and articles by the anti-Islam politician and a viewing of his anti-Koran film Fitna.

They said comments about banning the Koran can be discriminatory, but because Wilders wants to pursue a ban on democratic lines, there is no question of incitement to discrimination 'as laid down in law'.

On the comparison of the Koran with Mein Kampf, the prosecutors said the comparison was 'crude but that did not make it punishable'.

Dealing earlier on Friday with incitement to hatred, Van Roessel and Velleman said some comments could incite hatred against Muslims if taken out of context, but if the complete text is considered, it can be seen that Wilders is against the growing influence of Islam and not against Muslims per sé.

On Tuesday, the prosecutors said the MP should not be found guilty of group insult.

The public prosecution department was forced to take the case by the high court after anti-racism campaigners protested at its refusal to prosecute Wilders.


His film Fitna is available for viewing online here at wejew.com, and also here at Jihadwatch. They seem to be slightly different versions, but I have not yet had a chance to watch them both through.


DutchNews.nl - Wilders not guilty on all counts - Update

Illinois Candidate's Name Misspelled As 'Rich Whitey' On Electronic-Voting Machines


Sad and crazy, yet unfortunately hilarious. Isn't Illinois also having issues with their military ballots as well? Hmmm...

There are typos and then there are complete and utter catastrophes.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that the name of Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney is misspelled "Rich Whitey" on electronic-voting machines in 23 wards -- "about half in predominantly African-American areas." The error only occurs on screens voters would see when they are reviewing their choices (Whitney's name appears correctly on the initial screens), but officials say the error cannot be corrected before election day.

Jim Allen, spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections, told the Sun-Times he expects 90% of votes on election day to be cast on paper ballots -- minimizing the number of voters who would see the misspelling.

"I don't want to be identified as 'Whitey.' If this is happening in primarily African-American wards, that's an even bigger concern," Whitney told the Sun-Times. The paper says he's considering legal action. "I don't know if this is machine politics at play or why this happened."

The latest Rasmussen poll shows Whitney drawing just 2% of the vote.




Illinois Candidate's Name Misspelled As 'Rich Whitey' On Electronic-Voting Machines | TPMDC

Oh, Good Grief. Oprahturf?! ::: Oprah Surprises ‘Daily Show’ Audience



You’re going to D.C.! And you are! And you! And you! And you!

An audience member tells JustJared.com that Oprah surprised the entire Daily Show audience today (October 14) with a promise to fly the audience out to Washington, D.C. for the Rally to Restore Sanity and put them all up in hotels!

Oprah appeared before the live studio audience via satellite.

JustJared.com will be at the rally at the end of the month - for more information on the event, visit RallyToRestoreSanity.com!

Last month, Oprah showed support for the rally on her twitter. “I think Jon Stewart’s on to something. Rally to Restore Sanity,” she tweeted. “Would you consider going? Oct 30, 2010?”


Oprah Surprises ‘Daily Show’ Audience | Jon Stewart, Oprah Winfrey : Just Jared

Kickass Ad - Ken Buck for U.S. Senate - "Ignore Us"






First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
-Mahatma Gandhi

Hat-tip to Powerline.

YouTube - Ken Buck for U.S. Senate - "Ignore Us"

Political Ad Of The... Long Time! ::: (Video) John Dennis: Why No Debate, Nancy Pelosi?


This is absolutely fantastic.






Great Month At The Lost And Found... A Vivaldi! And a Michelangelo!


Two super cool stories.

1-


LONDON (Reuters Life!) – A lost flute concerto by 18th century composer and virtuoso violinist Antonio Vivaldi has been discovered by an academic among a set of dusty papers housed in Scotland's National Archives in Edinburgh.

The extraordinary find, a 300-year-old copy of the Italian Baroque composer's original manuscript, comprises the parts for "Il Gran Mogol," one of a quartet of national concertos.

The others, entitled "La Francia," "La Spagna" and "L'Inghilterro" remain lost.
The musical score, which scholars believe may never have been performed, was found and authenticated by Southampton University research fellow Andrew Woolley.

"This piece was previously known only from a mention in the sale catalog of an 18th-century Dutch bookseller. Discovering that it is actually in existence is unexpected and hugely exciting," Woolley said.

Peter Franklin, spokesman for the University of Southampton, said: "this is an 18th century published copy of the original, so it's not in Vivaldi's own hand, but we don't know of any other copy in existence."

The work is almost complete, missing just a part of the second violin. Woolley was able to reconstruct the missing part by referring to another Vivaldi flute concerto, kept in Turin in Italy, which he said appeared to be a rework of the original.

...

The concerto will be played for the first time in Perth Concert Hall, Scotland, in January.



2-

This unfinished painting of Jesus and Mary could be a lost Michelangelo, potentially the art find of the century.


But to the upstate family on whose living-room wall it hung for years, it was just "The Mike."


When the kids knocked the painting off its perch with an errant tennis ball sometime in the mid-1970s, the Kober clan wrapped it up and tucked it away behind the sofa.


There it remained for 27 years, until Air Force Lt. Col. Martin Kober retired in 2003 and had some time on his hands. His father gave him a task -- research the family lore that the painting was really a Michelangelo.


...

"Now, with your newfound free time, do something with this!" Kober recalled his father telling him.


Kober, now 53, dug into the history of the painting, contacting auction houses, Renaissance art scholars, European archives, and even meeting museum directors in Italy. He found Antonio Forcellino, an Italian art restorer and historian and told him of the tennis ball, and something more horrifying.


"It wasn't the story that had scared me, but that it had been exposed to heating commonly found inside a middle-class home," Forcellino writes in his new book, "La Pieta Perduta," or "The Lost Pieta," published in Italy and due out in the United States next year.


And he did not believe in the existence of another version of Michelangelo paintings that are hanging in Italian museums.


"I had assumed it was going to be a copy," Forcellino said.


Still, Forcellino skeptically visited Kober's home outside Buffalo to view the painting, and the trip left him a bit breathless.


"In reality, this painting was even more beautiful than the versions hanging in Rome and Florence. The truth was this painting was much better than the ones they had. I had visions of telling them that there was this crazy guy in America telling everyone he had a Michelangelo at home," Forcellino said.


A scientific analysis of the painting proved that the Michelangelo claim was not so crazy.


Forcellino told The Post that infrared and X-ray examinations of the painting -- on a 25-by- 19-inch wood panel -- show many alterations made by the artist as he changed his mind, and an unfinished portion near the Madonna's right knee.


"The evidence of unfinished portions demonstrate that this painting never, never, never could be a copy of another painting," Forcellino said. "No patron pays in the Renaissance for an unfinished copy."


...

Additionally, the provenance, or ownership history, points to the work being done by Michelangelo around 1545 for his friend Vittoria Colonna. That was about 45 years after Michelangelo did his famed "Pieta," or pity, sculpture of Mary holding Jesus, housed in St. Peter's Basilica.

...

The rare Michelangelo drawings that have come up for sale in recent years have sold for as much as $20 million. And a possible Michelangelo at the Metropolitan Museum of Art could be worth as much as $300 million.


"Millions and millions," Wallace said of the lost Pieta's value.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

One More Time, With Feeling ::: Two Must-See Dem. Sen. Candidate Alvin Greene Interviews


Okay, so the first video I'm embedding is several months old. But it took me this long to get around to finding it. And then I laughed until it hurt.

Then I felt bad about laughing at poor Alvin Greene, the Dems Senatorial candidate challenging Jim DeMint in South Carolina. After watching it, if you haven't already, you'll see what I mean.

But then I was just really gobsmacked at the insanity that this man won the Democrat primary, against a seasoned lifetime politician (Vic Rawl). Alvin is unemployed. He lives with his parents. He has absolutely no experience, and yet he won with almost 60% of the vote.

Is he a Republican plant? Is he a garden plant? Did he win because folks thought he was Al Green? I don't know. But it's crazy.


55%.

(But only 21% statewide.)

Anyway... please sit back... and enjoy.










BTW... I never heard of this O'Donnell guy before but yeesh... what a leftard. I take it this is supposed to be an opinion (as opposed to news) show?

YouTube - Alvin Greene Interview with CNN Must See! 6-12-2010

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Great Ad From Christine O'Donnell... Chris Coons, The Taxman

It's nice to see she's finally getting some decent return on the campaign cash that poured in. Really well done ad.






YouTube - Christine4Senate's Channel

I Want My Astroturf ::: Big H'Wood Exclusive: Internal Email Reveals MTV Pressuring Employees to Attend Stewart’s Rally (More Free Bussing)


This is an excerpt, the whole thing is worth the read:


An internal email reveals that MTV is investing heavily in making a success of Jon Stewart’s counter-rally to Glenn Beck’s incredibly successful August event. But the music network’s tactics give the whole affair a taint similar to October 2nd’s “One Nation” rally, where all that Big Labor-SEIU astro-turfing still wasn’t able to reproduce Beck’s grassroots success. Below is a portion of an email that I’m told just went out to some, and maybe all, MTV employees. The wording is chipper and upbeat enough, but the subtext is worthy of an SEIU thug: [emphasis mine -- and I've removed any links for fear they go to private internal servers]:

Whether you lean left or right, hail from a blue state or red, prefer keeping sanity, fear, or a healthy dose of both alive and well, the one thing we all have in common is that we’ve pledged allegiance to the MTV Networks flag. And when an opportunity arises to support one (or two) of our own. we’ll take it pretty much every time.

You may have heard that Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are hosting a little get together on the National Mall in Washington, DC on Saturday, October 30th. … This will be a day when — no matter what transpires from Jon, Stephen, and their special guests — our brothers and sisters at Comedy Central will own the cultural conversation, without question. Who would want to miss that one?

On the morning of October 30th, we’re loading up a fleet of buses here at 1515 Broadway and sending as many of you as we can down to DC for a free one-day, round-trip journey to join in the Rally to Restore Sanity and March to Keep Fear Alive. It’s about a 5 ½ hour trip down 95 to our nation’s capital[.]

In an economy plagued with chronically high unemployment, how would you react to a memo like that? The opening paragraph makes clear that MTV expects you to put your political beliefs aside and take one for the team – in the form of a grueling 11 hour bus ride. The line MTV draws is also clear. Those who choose to attend Stewart’s left-wing event are loyal to the company, and those who choose not to attend … are not. After all, you did pledge allegiance to the “MTV Networks flag,” right?

What’s a conservative to do in a situation like this? You either conform or…

We’ve all worked for companies where a little above and beyond was expected from time to time. But this is something else. No matter how Jon Stewart tries to spin it, his October 30th “Restore Sanity” rally is not only a political event, it’s a political event meant to help the party currently holding power. And we know this because the leader of that party told us so. To pressure an employee to take part in a political rally anathema to his or her personal beliefs crosses a line.

Money for nothing. Chicks for free.

Big Hollywood � Blog Archive � Exclusive: Internal Email Reveals MTV Pressuring Employees to Attend Jon Stewart’s Political Rally

Jake Tapper Interview ::: Axelrod to US Chamber: What Are You Hiding? (US to Axelrod... you first!)


I absolutely love this Tapper/Axelrod exchange.

As politics followers know, the latest Dim plot for the elections is to smear the US Chamber of Commerce because they're spending a lot of money on Pubbie ads for the mid-terms. So they've come up with baseless charges and are now demanding the CofCs disprove them.

Now, Jake Tapper could have asked ol' Axie if Obama was still beating his wife, which would be the perfect retort, but he actually went one better.

TAPPER: But what do you say to people who argue you are demonizing an organization for a charge that nobody knows if it's true or not?

AXELROD: Well I’m not demonizing the Chamber of Commerce. I’m simply suggesting to them that they disclose the source of the $75 million that they are spending in campaigns and put to rest, put to rest the questions that have been, that have been raised.

TAPPER: Isn't that like the whackjobs that tell the president he needs to show them his full long-form birth certificate so he can put to rest the questions that have been raised?

AXELROD: The president’s birth certificate has been available to people.

TAPPER: The long form?

AXELROD: Someone once in the course of this debate about whether we should have a law to force these organizations to disclose where they’re money is coming from in the campaigns, someone said, and I think they’re right – “the only people who want to keep things secret are folks who have something to hide.” If the Chamber doesn’t have anything to hide about these contributions, and I take them at their word that they don’t, then why not disclose? Why not let people see where their money is coming from?


So Axie... are you saying Bambi has something to hide?

Monday, October 11, 2010

Arianna Pulls A Castro with A Quarter Mil To Bus 'Em In ::: Jon Stewart Rally Astroturf Alert


“Jon and I were talking in the green room about the rally. I said, ‘Oh my God, how are those people going to get there?’ On the air I decided to make that offer, it was spontaneous, and nobody knew. My people were in the green room with me, and even they had no clue.”

To Stewart’s delight and apparent surprise, the new-media mogul pledged “as many buses as there are people to fill them” from Huffpo’s headquarters in Manhattan to the comedian’s Oct. 30 rally on the Washington Mall.


"How are those people going to get there?" Good grief. Here, in America, we have plenty of options when it comes to means of travel.

What is it with lefties and their busses?! Are they going to hand out sandwiches, too? (Apparently there were lots of trashed boxed lunches left on the ground after the "One America" rally. Heck, for a free ride and a sammy I might have attended too.)






Arianna's $250K Bus to Jon Stewart Rally a 'Shock' at HuffPo HQ | TheWrap.com

Weird eBay Find Of The Day ::: trashed sweet ballet flats, $199, "nice odor"


I'm not sure what's going on here, but I imagine it's meant to be kinky.



Q: hi Gabby i want these shoes. Ireally want them. i live in the usa.please tell me something about them. are the your shoes. will pics be available of your feet and your feet in them. what is the least you will accept? will 80.00 dollars make them mine? i want to hear from you please. I want these shoes.thx so much. Anthony.Oct-10-10
A: Hi Anthony, you write so sweet I would really love to sell these shoes to you. But I can't do anything with the price due to 2 reasons. 1. It is not mine. It belong to a friend of mine. She is a 25 years old very attraktive and bold but lovely russian girl. It was her absolute favourite pair and she loved them so much. Normally she wouldn't give them away but as she saw some of our auctions she said, "ok, for 200 $ I would give my boloved flats away". AND they have a nice odor too. 2. I have buy-now-bids for already 120 EUR which is 165 US$. I know, for those shoes you have to wait years to get another similar one. It so soft leather and totally worn to the death. And more. If you buy them I would be willing to send you some pics of Anastasia (the owner) and her feet. kind regards Gaby


The pictures are worth the click (including a really odd hand-up-a-skirt shot.)


trashed sweet ballet flats leather well worn (Sammler) - eBay (item 270647200949 end time Oct-12-10 18:33:48 PDT)

Just What I Needed Today ::: Wyclef Jean - Redemption Song/America (Tribute to 9/11 Heroes [Video])


I've never forgotten this great rendition of Redemption Song by Wyclef Jean at the 9/11 Tribute to Heroes concert in '01. And, after finding a video of it, I see my memory still serves me well. It's still wonderful. (Second best moment of that night after Mike Moran telling Osama to kiss his royal Irish ass.)






YouTube - Wyclef Jean - Redemption Song (Tribute to the heroes)

Thursday, October 07, 2010

How Come All The Republicans With Testicular Fortitude Are Women? (New Sharron Angle Ad: "Thanks, Pal")


First we have Jan Brewer taking on the obnoxiousness of foreign nations being given "friends of the court" status vs. Arizona, now this no-punches-pulled ad from Sharron Angle.

(Dennis Miller talks about campaigning for Angle [and continues his hilarious pummeling of Harry Reid] on O'Reillys show here.)

Anyway... back to Angle's ad:






(P.S. and FWIW... I find the visual that goes along with the tuition break part a little problematic, but I like the ad as a whole. However, if I were on her team, I would tweak that part.)


YouTube - Thanks, Pal

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Head Shaker Of The Day ::: Council Member MELTDOWN Highlights - Vancouver City, WA (9.13.10)


The arrogance of councilmember Jeanne Harris is truly a sight to behold. The Mayor of Vancouver City is a total drip. And councilmember Jeanne Stewart really needs to take over the whole place.






YouTube - Council Member MELTDOWN Highlights - Vancouver City, WA (9.13.10)

Eco-Fascists Show Their True Colors... Again ::: How to Cut Carbon Emissions


How these loonies got the delectable Gillian Anderson to participate in this insane campaign, I'll never know. Or perhaps I just don't want to know.

And yes... this is a real ad. That they've now pulled.







The "again" in the subject title refers to the Audi "Green Police" Super Bowl ad, which, in case you missed it:





YouTube - How to Cut Carbon Emissions

Friday, October 01, 2010

I Heart The Worm ::: In a Computer Worm, a Possible Biblical Clue - CNBC


I've been following this story intently since last week, and love everything about it. For the record, from the beginning I put ten bucks on this being a gift from the Mossad. lol.

Originally in the NYT:
Deep inside the computer worm that some specialists suspect is aimed at slowing Iran’s race for a nuclear weapon lies what could be a fleeting reference to the Book of Esther, the Old Testament tale in which the Jews pre-empt a Persian plot to destroy them.


That use of the word “Myrtus” — which can be read as an allusion to Esther — to name a file inside the code is one of several murky clues that have emerged as computer experts try to trace the origin and purpose of the rogue Stuxnet program, which seeks out a specific kind of command module for industrial equipment.

Not surprisingly, the Israelis are not saying whether Stuxnet has any connection to the secretive cyberwar unit it has built inside Israel’s intelligence service. Nor is the Obama administration, which while talking about cyberdefenses has also rapidly ramped up a broad covert program, inherited from the Bush administration, to undermine Iran’s nuclear program. In interviews in several countries, experts in both cyberwar and nuclear enrichment technology say the Stuxnet mystery may never be solved.

There are many competing explanations for myrtus, which could simply signify myrtle, a plant important to many cultures in the region. But some security experts see the reference as a signature allusion to Esther, a clear warning in a mounting technological and psychological battle as Israel and its allies try to breach Tehran’s most heavily guarded project. Others doubt the Israelis were involved and say the word could have been inserted as deliberate misinformation, to implicate Israel.

“The Iranians are already paranoid about the fact that some of their scientists have defected and several of their secret nuclear sites have been revealed,” one former intelligence official who still works on Iran issues said recently. “Whatever the origin and purpose of Stuxnet, it ramps up the psychological pressure.”


[snip]



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