The picture is all the explanation you need

The New York Times reports that President Obama is reviving an old proposal to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent (and 25 percent for manufacturers). Obama's push to lower the corporate tax rate to 28 percent comes less than a year after he raised the top individual income tax rate, paid by many small businesses, to 39.6 percent. In a speech delivered Tuesday afternoon, Obama did not explain why he thinks it's a sound economic idea to raise the top marginal tax rate on small businesses but lower it for corporations. ~Weekly Standard

The speech was made at an Amazon distribution center,  a distribution center than only pays $11/hour.  Amazon had recently announced its intent to hire 5000 more workers at 17 centers around the country, undoubtedly also at $11/hour. ~NYT

These are not the jobs America needs

These are the jobs the administration needs to make the employment numbers look good and make you think we're doing better than we actually are.  Small business pays 40%, big business pays 28%... of course big business makes larger political contributions than small business does.  How about we apply this logic to the personal income tax?  The more you make, the less you pay?

PASSWORDS

Can I get a little Salt with that Algorithm and Database?

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders.  Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo declined to comment on whether or not they had received requests, Apple, Facebook, AOL, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast did not respond to queries.

Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.  C/Net 

And you thought they were just listening to your phone calls and reading your email.

Governor Christie, New Jersey

 

Chris Christie, W.H. would like to give you the finger.

 

In honor of Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey,  I'd like to revive the Western Hero Finger Award.

 

Freedom is not an esoteric, intellectual debate and I'd like to point out that your chances of being the victim of terrorism are 1:20,000,000 while your chances of being a victim of violent crime in Newark are 1:84 so before you decide that the risk of the rest of us keeping our constitutionally protected freedoms is too great... 

FIX YOUR OWN F-ING SHITHOLE!  

Terrorism is the least of YOUR problems.

"this strain of libertarianism"

“The next attack that comes, that kills thousands of Americans as a result, people are going to be looking back on the people having this intellectual debate and wondering whether they put. …” said Mr. Christie, before cutting himself off.

FINISH YOUR SENTENCE

Me, I'm curious where governor Christie was going with this... what is the rest of the sentence?

"... wondering whether they put freedom ahead of safety"?

Would be my best guess given the context of the discussion

CAUSE THEY WORK

“President Obama has done nothing to change the policies of the Bush administration in the war on terrorism. And I mean practically nothing,” he said. “And you know why? ’Cause they work.” 

No one said they didn't work,  we said they were morally and ethically wrong.  I think you would find support for the efficacy of the measures from such diverse organizations as the MGB and Staatssicherheit.  

FRONT LINES

At a Thursday forum with Republican governors in Aspen, Colo., Christie spoke with disgust about “this strain of libertarianism” from people “not on the front line” who were criticizing tactics in the war on terror. ~ Slate

A picture of Mr. Christie "on the front lines"

On September 11, 2001 Mr. Christie was firmly entrenched in the front lines of the lobbying firm Dughi, Hewit & Palatucci.  The photo above is of Mr. Christie as the US Attorney for the District of New Jersey, an office he did not take until January 17th, 2002.

I got a good laugh out of this.  Aside from the name of his lobbying firm causing me to recollect the old joke about Dewey, Cheatem, & Howe... the mere mental picture of Mr. Christie on "the front lines" made me guffaw, although I suppose he would provide decent cover for our troops.

But I shouldn't make fun... Mr. Christie did do battle with Spear, Leeds & Kellog, the Ashcroft Group, and Bristol-Myers Squibb, some serious terrorist heavyweights.  

Christie's big terrorism case was that of Hemant Lakhani, an Indian rice trader and sari salesman convicted of illegal arms trading after purchasing a fake surface-to-air missile from a Russian intelligence officer in "an incredible triumph in the war against terrorism" in:

The arrest of Hemant Lakhani, a supposed terrorist mastermind caught red-handed attempting to acquire a surface-to-air missile. Only later did the government admit that the "plot" consisted of an FBI informant begging Lakhani to find him a missile, while a Russian intelligence officer called up Lakhani and offered to sell him one. ~ The Nation

A NO VOTE for Christie

I am a libertarian and a Republican, and I will not vote for Chris Christie, not in a primary and not in a national election.  

How about you?

Classically Summer

Summer - Vivaldi

 

The Waltz of Flowers - Tchaikovsky

 

 

A Midsummer's Night Dream - Mendelssohn

 

 

I Thought Obama Saved Detroit?

It's too easy to blame the decline and fall of Detroit on the Democrat party, progressivism and modern-day liberals. That goes without saying. They've had Detroit in their strangle hold since Ike was president. Sure, the corporations have their share of blame, but there is nothing conservative about them.

Big Business, Big Labor and Big Government:  The Combustible Mixture that Blew Up Detroit

Big Business is now spilling over with Crony Crapitalists who would piss their pants if they had to make it in a free, unrigged market. Big Labor is made up mostly of apple-shaped bureaucrats who don't know the meaning of labor, but such is the state of things today in the Absurd States of America. And Big Government never met a law or regulation it didn't like.  Selling exemptions to them is a money-making machine no DC chiseler or state capital grandee in his or her right mind would want to dismantle.

And Detroit is the inevitable result.

Jonathan Chait is a reliable liberal, but I read him because he is prone to sporadic outbursts of candor refreshing but rare in today's party-line, doctrinally-pure liberals. Also, he's a good writer and he makes me look up words like "synecdoche," which I learned from The Free Dictionary, means "a figure of speech in which a part is substituted for a whole or a whole for a part, as in 50 head of cattle for 50 cows, or the army for a soldier."

Jonathan Chait is right. Detroit is America writ small:

Detroit is a synecdoche for America — not America’s future, but its past.

Everything that happened in the United States in the middle of the twentieth century happened in and around Detroit, but moreso.

He describes the racial downward spiral, the white flight, and the increasing racial animosity between the city and the 'burbs, concluding...

The worse Detroit got, the more whites hated and feared, fueling black racial paranoia, which made the city worse still.

Also, I love his sense of humor:

Some national commentators recently suggested that Mitt Romney be brought in to turn around the city, which is a bit like suggesting that Benjamin Netanyahu would make a great Prime Minister for the Palestinians — hey, he’s from around there!

He also throws in this trite campaign phrase from one of the nation's greatest job destroyers, liberal Democrat Governor Jennifer Granholm:

“The only thing that should come between Detroit and Michigan is a comma.”

Chait grew up in a Detroit suburb, so he brings real-life insight to the article. It's an educational read blessedly devoid of stale liberal claptrap and cracked shibboleths that such liberal articles are usually littered with.

See also:
Why Liberals Won't Face Facts on Detroit
Stalled Motor City

Talk is Cheap

If Chris Matthews wishes to apologize collectively for whites, then he should have long ago moved to an integrated neighborhood, put his children in integrated schools, and walked to work through a black neighborhood to get to know local residents. Anything else, and his apology remains what it is: cheap psychological recompense for his own elite apartheid.
-- Victor Davis Hanson

I would only add that if President Obama, Al notSharpton, Jesse Jackasson and the rest of the noisy spokemouths  wants to speak for all blacks, they should live the black experience that tragically too many blacks (and whites as well) live every day.  Put their kids in shitty schools gripped in the stranglehold of teachers syndicates, worry about if their children and grandchildren will make it home without being shot, encountering a gang, or having drugs pushed on them.

You can bet your ass the Obama children have no gangsta friends and that their parents demand they do their homework and speak proper English, as their elegant and well-spoken parents do.  I'd also bet the farm that neither young lady uses the N-word, either ending in 'er' or 'a.'

I do cut Jackson, Sharpton and Mr. and Mrs. Obama some slack on the issue, because they did come up from humble beginnings.  Jackson and Sharpton faced the dogs and the firehoses, and I respect that.

But PC surrender victims like Matthews and his ilk auto-fellating themselves with such warm feel-good orgasmo-blabber should make any thinking person sick to his or her stomach.  And that goes for young men and women like Toure', whose worse experience was perhaps being surveilled by a marshmallow sales person at a Mervyn's department store.

But, such is the state of America today.  Conversation?  How is that possible when the Attorney General, fresh from selling weapons to Mexican Drug Gangs and lying to Congress, calls us cowards, as gasbags like Matthews and Sharpton suck all available oxygen from the conversation?

DOOM & GLOOM

0 - 1700

There was a rather depressing article in NY Mag recently about macroeconomic growth and the anomaly of the industrial revolution. It's a fairly long (5-page) article but the basic gist of it is as follows:

Between the time of ancient Rome and say about 1700 in the west not much changed for the vast majority of us.  Believe it or not, the quality of life for the average family in Rome was not all that much different than that of the average family in Britain at the dawn of the industrial revolution.  Everything we know and have come to expect in life has pretty much been defined by the period between about 1750 and 1970 which was one of unprecedented growth.  Now we get to the depressing part... That exponential growth from generation to generation is over, it was a blip, nothing more than an anomaly and while the after effects of the industrial revolution will continue to spread throughout the world,  eventually we will reach another stasis where life will be pretty much the same for the next few thousand years or so.  Are we there yet?

Innovation and the Future

Now I don't take the dismal view of the future that Robert Gordon does,  but I will venture to guess that economic life 100 years from now will be very different from today.  The question  then is are we in for stagnation or a renaissance?  What are your thoughts?

It's a Boy

Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

Heir to the Throne

I have to admit, I'm fairly indifferent when it comes to royalty although my wife, talking on the phone with a friend, was somewhat excited at the announcement of the birth .  When I was in London I did stand at the base of that statue and before those gilded gates, but frankly was more interested in the architecture than the occupants. Nevertheless, some are excited and some sources estimate that the birth will stimulate around $400 million in economic activity for the British economy.

So what do you all think of this new baby who may one day be By the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories King, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith?  All seems kind of silly if you ask me.

Are We Better Off?

(c) Finntann

Are we better off today?

The house above was my grandfather's house, he was a Stationary Engineer and a union member.  He lived in that house with my grandmother, a housewife, and ten kids.  He had steady work through the depression, earning twenty-five dollars a week (that's five dollars a day... or less) working on the steam plant at the YMCA.


FT made two interesting observations in yesterday's thread:

It was INDIVIDUAL VISION, INGENUITY, INITIATIVE, CREATIVITY and AMBITION that developed the PRIVATE INDUSTRIES that BUILT this country and made it as great as it was -- "The Envy of the World" -- as it was called in my youth.

My grandpa, who never earned more than twenty bucks a WEEK, raised EIGHT CHILDREN, and was able to save enough to build a three-storey house with a wraparound porch on ACREAGE in New Jersey with an apple and peach orchard and room for a large vegetable garden.

I easily make more than fifty times what he did, and yet could not afford a house like that (unless apparently given yesterday's post I am willing to move to Detroit!).

So are we better off?

Medically we are mostly better off,  the ten children he lived with were out of 13 that survived childhood, two died in infancy and one at 3 years old.  Although my grandfather did live to 68,  an age today that one wouldn't be overly surprised to hear that one died at.  His father made it to 70, his mother to 76,  and his wife made it to the then ripe old age of 84. He was one of eight children, six of whom lived into adulthood, although he did have a sister who died of tuberculosis at the young age of 28.

Physically, one has to wonder.  An Australian study of 19th century lifestyle habits revealed that the average person then spent three times more calories going about their daily business than we do today.  The study also points out that these were normal everyday townsfolk, merchants and the like, not lumberjacks or ditch diggers who would spend five times the energy we do today.  In other words, these weren't couch potatoes.

But what about quality of life, you may ask.  I don't know for certain, but I have plenty of old family photos going back to the start of the 20th century depicting picnics, baseball games in parks, trips to the shore (beach for those of you not east coasters), etc.  All normal run of the mill things we do today (or not if we are too busy). I do notice one thing though,  there are far more people gathered together in the old photographs than I find in mine today.

Innovation

There is an organization here in Colorado known as the Stapleton Foundation and on the grounds of the old Denver airport they are constructing a series of new and innovative Stapleton communities.  Communities with parks and open space,  front porches, designed for pedestrians where you can walk to the local grocery store and local shops and tied to public transportation.  They call it "walkable design" and they call it innovative.  Funny, sounds like the neighborhood I grew up in.

Are we that much different?

I leave you with this,  a road trip in 1921... have things really changed all that much?

(c) Finntann

I was a little bit skeptical about the date when I saw the "I'd walk a mile for a camel" ad but did a little research and it does jive with the date.
 
  

Have we got a deal for you

Charles Fisher House, Photo by: Andrew Jameson

Boston-Edison

Once the premier neighborhood in Detroit, home to such illustrious folk as Henry Ford, S.S. Kresge, Benjamin Seigel, Walter Briggs, and of course Charles Fisher as noted above, is the largest historic residential district in the country.  I was amazed to find the prices that some of these homes are now going for...  how would you like a six bedroom, six bath, almost six thousand square foot home for only $126,000 on the same street that Seigel, Kresge, and Briggs lived?

Check out some of the properties available at the Historic Boston Edison Association website.

Farmland?

Some enterprising people have come up with the brilliant idea of converting abandoned city lots into farmland.  The most expansive proposal being Hantz Woodlands,  to turn roughly 1500 vacant and abandoned housing lots into a 170 acre commercial hardwood woodland.  People have looked at everything from golf courses to amusement parks

What innovative use can you come up with?

The MOTOWN History of Detroit

We start out in the vibrant heyday of Detroit, The Motor City:

Dancing in the Street with Martha & Vandellas

For Detroit's Politicians over the years

We continue the story with Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles

The Fall of Detroit

We get to more recent history with Inner City Blues by Marvin Gaye

Modern Detroit

For the past few years Detroit is represented best by Barrett Strong's Money (That's what I want)

Detroit Today

With the filing of Chapter 9 bankruptcy what can I say other than Ain't Too Proud To Beg by The Temptations

 

 

The Paris of the West

Photo: Albert Duce

Largest Municipal Bankruptcy in US History

The City of Detroit filed for Chapter 9 Bankruptcy yesterday in the face of a two billion dollar immediate shortfall and roughly 20 billion in long term debt.

The unemployment rate sits at 16% and the population has decreased 63% from its high in the 1950's from roughly two million to 700,000 today. The population has decreased 28% since 2000 and the tax base can no longer support the city's debt and expenses.

The average police response time in Detroit is 58 minutes and only 8.7% of crimes are solved.

30% of the city's police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances are not functional.

40% of the city's street lights are not functioning.

There are over 78,000 abandoned properties in the city.

Of the 20 billion in city debt, roughly half is owed to two retirement systems, the General Retirement System and the Police & Fireman Retirement System which have sued to block a reduction in pensions.

America's Disgrace

What do you do with a city no one wants to live in?

While abandoned homes may be familiar to most of us,  the concept of abandoned skyscrapers is almost surreal.  We give away 50 billion in foreign aid every year while what was once one of America's premier cities looks like this.  It's not hard to look at Detroit on Google Maps satellite imagery and find entire blocks bereft of houses or blocks with only one or two left, and that view gives you no indication of what is abandoned yet still standing. If you need help getting started just google "Alfred Street and John R Street, Detroit, Michigan" and scroll around.

The intent of this post isn't to point fingers and place blame, for as G.K Chesterton said:

"The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."

The question is, what the hell do we do about it?

 

You Are Being Watched

On May 16th you left your office at 11:13 am,  at 11:27 you were at the McDonald's on First Street,  you returned to your office at 12:05 pm.

We're not quite there yet, but soon will be:

Police across the USA are using automatic cameras to read and snap digital photos of millions of car license plates to help solve crimes, but in the process stores information on millions of innocent people, the American Civil Liberties Union says in a report out Wednesday.

License plate scanners are "in effect, government location tracking systems recording the movements of many millions of innocent Americans in huge databases," said ACLU staff attorney Catherine Crump, the report's lead author.  USA TODAY

So, how do you like being tracked?

 

The Most Overrated Things

I've been reorienting my priorities over the past year, so an article containing a list of the most overrated things grabbed my attention. I lost the link to the below list, but you can find similar lists all over the internet with a little Yahooing






These were the items on the list I agree with:

Celebrity Gossip
Professional sports
TV
Facebook
Starbucks coffee
Nightclub
Champagne
Movie Stars
iPhone
New Years Eve
Justin Bieber

I'm agnostic about these...

Extravagant Weddings
Getting a Ph.D
IQ

... because it all depends. If you can afford an extravagant wedding, I say go for it. Same for a Ph.D. Basically, if you're doing it with your own money, it's your own business.

I also don't discount IQ. Intelligence is important, but there are also valuable smarts that are not measured by standardized testing. Release an intelligent Ph.D among Mongolian yak herders, or into the wilds of Yemen or inner city America, and see who's the smart one...

I disagree with these items that appeared on the list:

Career
Religious sentiments
Sex

Career is important. Having a rewarding career can be a source of happiness and satisfaction. It can provide a measure of autonomy that comes from earning your own money and determining your own future.

I don't even know why religious sentiments made the list. What do people have against others holding their own beliefs?

And sex... Well, it goes without saying, and it depends on why it's on the list. I  wouldn't call it overrated, but I do believe it's overexposed.  It's great when people keep it to themselves, but do we really need so much attention on it in our culture?

My Short List of Overrated Things:

Automobiles
Anything emanating from government
Politicians
Political pundits
Conventional wisdom
Arguments over sports
Partisan arguments
Eating out

My Short List of Underrated Things:

Classic Literature
Philosophy
Playing a musical instrument
Spending time unplugged
Freeware and shareware
Home cooking

What's on your list of overrated and underrated things?

Racism and Stupidity in America

Ho Lee Fuk

In the wake of the Asiana Flt 214 crash at San Francisco, Oakland's KTVU aired the above report.

KTVU exercised due diligence, confirming the names with an intern at the NTSB... let me guess,  his name was Stu Pid?

Asiana files lawsuit

Asiana filed a lawsuit against KTVU for damaging the company's image, as if doing a cartwheel with a 777 hadn't done enough.

KTVU apologized saying  "Nothing is more important to us than having the highest level of accuracy and integrity, and we are reviewing our procedures to ensure this type of error does not happen again."

It's beyond me how anyone could get past the first name on the list without knowing something was wong!

In the wake of the trial...

Police Fear Flash Mob Violence if Zimmerman Found Guilty

Sharpton/Jackson Worry Zimmerman Conviction Will Usher In New Era of White On Black Violence

Zimmerman Conviction Sparks Worry of Riots

Race Violence Alarms Before Zimmerman Conviction

Sanford Police Chief Fears Violence In Response to Zimmerman Conviction

Preparing For Riots After Zimmerman Conviction

Non-Violence Urged In Response to Conviction

 

These headlines just don't seem right, do they?  They're all taken from news articles preceding the verdict with one simple twist, the premise is reversed.  Just something to think about.

Isn't the assumption or conjecture that the black community will riot in the face of an acquittal in and of itself, racist?  Isn't the fact that we think the white and latino community won't do the same for a conviction, also racist? 

NOT GUILTY

Stunning,  Amazing, Shocking

These were words I heard used on the news when the verdict in the George Zimmerman trial was announced.  I'd use another one:

OBVIOUS

 

 Under Florida law second degree murder is defined as: The unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual, is murder in the second degree.

Manslaughter is defined as: The killing of a human being by the act, procurement, or culpable negligence of another, without lawful justification according to the provisions of chapter 776 and in cases in which such killing shall not be excusable homicide or murder, according to the provisions of this chapter, is manslaughter

Self-Defense

Florida law also recognizes Justifiable Use of Force: A person is justified in using force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person is justified in the use of deadly force and does not have a duty to retreat if:

(1) He or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.

Justice is not served by the mob...

or by appeasing the mob.  The jury's verdict vindicates the Sanford police department and its fired chief.  Of the roughly thousand murders a year in Florida, this one was tried in the forum of public opinion by the media long before it was tried in court.  While the majority of the evidence presented in court supported Zimmerman's account of events, the prosecution's case seemed to be based entirely on emotional appeal and little supporting evidence. 

This case never should have gone to trial in the first place.

The Songs of Summer

Summertime.  

George Gershwin's aria for the 1935 opera Porgy and Bess, this 1957 cut features Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.  The melody alone conjures up the atmosphere of a sultry summer night.

Summertime Blues 

This one, written and recorded in the late fifties by Eddie Cochran has become a summertime classic covered by everyone from Alan Jackson to the Beach Boys and Van Halen to The Who.

Summer in the City

From the 60's Lovin' Spoonful gave us Summer in the City,  a song that conjures up hot, muggy summers in Philadelphia from my youth.  I also seem to recall WMMR in Philly played it all the time every summer.

The Summertime

Originally recorded in the 70's by Mungo Jerry, this version received a lot of airplay on Cape Cod in the summers of the early nineties.

Surfin USA

No summer playlist would be complete without something from the Beach Boys,  Americas classic summer band. 

Margaritaville

Like the Beach Boys above,  you can't have a summer playlist without Jimmy Buffet.

What's on your summer playlist?

Obamanation Apocollapso

Cheer up, America!  The economy is booming in DC and on Wall Street!

To call the U.S. federal government a black hole is a disservice to black holes, which have a neutral majesty. Excepting the military's fighting units, the federal government has become a giant slug, like Jabba the Hutt, inert but dangerous. Like Jabba, the government increasingly survives by issuing authoritarian decrees from this or that agency. Barack Obama, essentially a publicist for Jabba's world of federal fat, euphemized this mess Monday as the American people's "democracy." (Daniel Henninger)

 It amazes me that there are still people who proclaim faith in government, and who even go so far as to try to defend its actions.  If the Repukes weren't so stupid, they could figure out how to capitalize on the electorate's fizzling faith in government.

Why didn't I think of that

Photo: LD

Sue

Resident's of Chicago's Humbolt Park and Logan Square have successfully sued to stop delivery of free advertisement papers.   Residents biggest gripe is the delivery of 2-3 of these papers a day, and the constant accumulation of papers at vacant residences. This is following the paper's published cancellation process which many residents followed to no avail.

We don't get this kind of advertising paper at our house,  probably not cost effective as spread out as everything is, but we do seem to get three or four free 'advertising' phone books a year, which usually wind up in the trash.

What's your experience with this type of advertising, and what's your opinion?

Concealed Carry

Photo: Hustvedt

Illinois

Illinois has become the last state in the country to permit concealed carry following a 77-31 vote in the state house and a 41-17 vote in the state senate, overriding an amendatory veto by the governor while under a federal court deadline.

More surprising it is a "shall issue" law for anyone who has passed a background check, taken 16 hours of gun-safety training, and can fork over the $150 for a five year permit. 

7th Circuit Court of Appeals

This change comes about after the 7th Circuit Court ruled that:

The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Second Amendment therefore compels us to reverse the decisions in the two cases before us and remand them to their respective district courts for the entry of declarations of unconstitutionality and permanent injunctions.

Nevertheless we order our mandate stayed for 180 days to allow the Illinois legislature to craft a new gun law that will impose reasonable limitations, consistent with the public safety and the Second Amendment as interpreted in this opinion, on the carrying of guns in public. 

That 180 days would have been up today.

A Coup by any other name is still a Coup

Though officials did not dispute the fact that Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy, a democratically-elected leader, was ousted by the military in an extrajudicial fashion, they would not say the word "coup," which has an important legal consequence for the $1.5 billion in aid Congress sends to Egypt every year.

"[We are] taking the time to determine what happened, what to label it," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters. 

"We're just not taking a position," said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. 

Foreign Policy Magazine

Calling a Cat a Dog doesn't make it so

Virtually every media outlet around acknowledges that what happened in Egypt was a coup,  acknowledges that the administration refuses to call it one, and acknowledges that they are doing so to get around US law requiring that aid be suspended.  Yet no one seems to have a problem with the administration boldly lying to their face, with the possible exception of Matthew Lee of the AP.

When Psaki said of the Muslim Brotherhood "We urge them to engage in the political process and support the process to full civilian government". Lee retorted that  "they did engage in the process, now their candidate is the loser, and he's the loser because he was ousted by the military,"

Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman replied:

"a democratic process is not just about casting your ballots." 

Really?

Nothing to see here... please look the other way. 

Independence Day Revisited

Kalbaugh claims that his rights were violated at the stop, and Decatur Criminal Defense Attorney Brian White agrees.  "You cannot be required to exit the vehicle or perform any test without some reasonable suspicion," White said.  From what he saw of the video, White believes officers did not have reasonable suspicion on which to ask Kalbaugh to step out of his vehicle.  "His speech is appropriate and not slurred. He is not cooperating, but he is doing so politely and asking intelligent questions," White said.  WAAY-ABC

“I broke no laws, and I made sure to be respectful the entire time while still exercising my constitutional freedom,” Kalbaugh said. “The officers would not let me leave, but they would not answer if I was being detained.” ~Chris Kalbaugh

“I realize that these road blocks help keep drunk drivers off the roads, and illegal searches like the one witnessed in the video are bound to turn up illegal drugs every now and then, but this is an example of soft tyranny,” Fancher said. “Our founders put in place rules and laws to limit these offenses, but over time we have slowly given up these rights — sometimes without even realizing it, because most people are good people and will mind a police officer when they tell us to do something.”  ~Gabriel Fancher, Secretary Rutherford County Republican Party

Daily News Journal - Murfreesboro

What to do about Egypt

Millions want Morsi out, perhaps an overwhelming majority, but it's hard to tell.  The military topples a democratically elected government and the US is mute, failing to condemn or even really acknowledge a coup.  Frankly though, saying as little as possible at this point is probably the best path forward, so I can't fault the administration.

The question then is what to do?  Support democracy the process?  Or, support democracy, the people?  Or... just sit back and watch?

Honestly, I don't think our politicians aren't all that comfortable with "political Islam", and weren't too keen when the Muslim Brotherhood came out on top in a democratic election.  We've pretty much been accused by one side of looking the other way as the Egyptian military ousted their democratically elected leader and accused by the other of supporting a budding dictator.  Seems we can't win for losing.

Rarely Heard

The Liberty Song

Penned by John Dickinson who represented Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress in 1776 and who went on to become both President of Delaware and of Pennsylvania.  The lyrics are set to "Hearts of Oak", the official march of the Royal Navy.

Enjoy Your Holiday Weekend

The Lost Paragraph

This Execrable Commerce

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidels powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. He has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

Politics & Compromise

The above paragraph appears in what Jefferson termed his "original rough draft" of the Declaration of Independence.  Now original rough draft might be misleading, as there were many previous versions that Jefferson termed "composition drafts".  This rough draft was presented to Congress and this paragraph, this charge was Jefferson's desired closing paragraph to the list of charges against the King. 

The Jefferson Committee wanted to keep this paragraph and it is said that it was John Adam's favorite, this paragraph was struck by Congress and that... is compromise in politics.

Happy 4th

Perspective

Let us put some numbers into perspective, the illegal immigrant population of the United States exceeds the population of each one of these countries:

Cuba, Greece, Chad, Portugal, Belgium, Czech Republic, Tunisia, Hungary, Dominican Republic,Rwanda, Belarus, Haiti, Bolivia, Guinea, Sweden, Benin, Somalia, Burundi, Azerbaijan, Austria, Serbia, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Israel, Honduras, El Salvador, Tajikistan, Togo, Papua New Guinea, Libya, Paraguay, Jordan, Sierra Leone, Laos, Nicaragua, Denmark, Slovakia, Kyrgyzstan, Finland, Turkmenistan, Eritrea, Norway, Singapore, Croatia, Costa Rica, Georgia, United Arab Emirates, Central African Republic, Ireland, New Zealand, Lebanon, Palestinian Territories, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Lithuania, Panama, Uruguay, Albania, Mauritania, Armenia, Kuwait, Jamaica, Mongolia, Oman, Latvia, Kosovo, Namibia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Lesotho, Botswana, Gambia, Guinnea-Bissau, Estonia, Trinidad and Tobago, Gabon, Mauritius, East Timor, Swaziland

There are a further 80 countries on this list which is comprised of sovereign states and self-governing dependencies.

If you add both the legal and illegal immigrant residents of the United States, you can add the following countries to the list:

Ghana, Taiwan, Yemen, Romania, Mozambique, Australia, Syria, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Angola, Chile, Netherlands, Kazakhstan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Niger, Malawi, Guatemala, Zimbabwe, Ecuador, Senegal, Mali, Zambia

The complete list of sovereign states and self-governing dependencies contains 222 countries. Of those countries 167 have lower populations than the number of legal and illegal immigrants in the US.

Considering just illegal immigrants, 149 countries each have a lower population.

Consider that fact... we could absorb the entire population of any of those countries and the number would be less than the number of illegals we currently have.

Put another way, the annexation of Cuba would have less of an impact than our current illegal immigrant population.

Some of you may have a problem with the term illegal immigrant, may I point out that the definition of illegal is 'forbidden by law or statute' and/or 'contrary to or forbidden official rules, regulations, etc.' The term is not used to describe their motives or behavior outside of their immigration status... they are in this country contrary to law or statute, hence they are illegal.



I first published a variation of this article during the last immigration bill debate back in 2008, the numbers have changed a bit over the years, but the impact on our society hasn't changed much.

Just a small dose of perspective

In Memoriam

When I am called to duty, God
whenever flames may rage,
Give me the strength to save some life
Whatever be its age.

Help me to embrace a little child
Before it’s too late,
Or some older person
from the horror of that fate.

Enable me to be alert
And hear the weakest shout,
And quickly and efficiently
to put the fire out.

I want to fill my calling
and give the best in me,
To guard my neighbor
And protect his property.

And if according to Your will
I have to lose my life,
Please bless with Your protecting hand
My children and my wife

Andrew Ashcraft, Kevin Woyjeck, Anthony Rose, Eric Marsh, Christopher MacKenzie, Robert Caldwell, Clayton Whitted , Scott Norris, Dustin Deford, Sean Misner, Garret Zuppiger, Travis Carter, Grant McKee, Travis Turbyfill, Jesse Steed, Wade Parker, Joe Thurston, William Warneke, John Percin 

Please find today's article below...

Immigration Kabuki

Marco Rubio, The Great Hispanic Hope, killed his shot at a GOP presidential nod (which doesn't matter anyway, since we'll probably never have another GOP president), and Paul Ryan is working on doing the same. He too wants legalization first, border enforcement (as Ducky is fond of day, LMAO) second.

This statement from his interview with Sean Hannity is a bald-faced lie.  It.  Will.  Never.  Happen:

Well, look, they can’t get — what a person would want to have, is they would come out of the shadows, they’d get put on probation, they’d pay taxes, pay fines, learn English, learn civics.

Learn English?
We don't require native-born Americans to do this. Why the double standard? English is not our official language and it is clearly not a requirement to vote and live here. How racist!

This also ignores the Teachers Union money-making scam of English as a Second Language, where bilingual teachers and their schools are paid extra to keep foreign language kids linguistically ghettoized instead of leveraging children's natural linguistic abilities to rapidly assimilate them into the lingua franca.   

Civics?
Learning about the racist white crackers who founded this joint? Is Ryan nuts?

Pay taxes?
That's only for the dumb schlubs in the working middle class. The rich know how to avoid them, and the working poor don't make enough. Welfare bums, a natural Democrat party constituency that Obama has greatly expanded, pay no taxes at all.

This next statement by Ryan is even funnier:

If they break the terms of their probation, they can be deported. And if the border is not secure by that time, if the verification system is not up and running, they can’t get — not only does the status go away, they can’t get legal permanent residence…

Deported?  I thought we were incapable of deporting them now?  How will we miraculously be able to do it in the future?

And he seriously wants us to believe we will go back to the status quo if "border security" doesn't happen?  How long has he been in Washington?  Does he think we're stupid?

By everyone's admission, this immigration bill is a grand bargain between unions, their partners in the chamber of commerce, and the Democrat party to increase union membership, keep wages down, and fill the Democrat party voter rolls.

These are the lies politicians tell one another.  Believe it or not, some voters are stupid enough to believe them.

Do you really think Democrap Senator Senator Schmucky Schumer will stand for draconian punishments of immigrants, or Quetzalcoatl forbid, deportation of undocumented Democrat voters?  No way!  Tough-talking Repukes like Rubio and Ryan are serving their Democrap overlords, knitting fig leafs until the fix is in.
 

CELEBRITY CAGE DEATHMATCH

Photo: Simon Q

PAULA DEEN VS. ALEC BALDWIN 

 

PAULA DEEN COMES OUT SWINGING!!!

Lawyer: Have you ever used the N-word yourself?
Deen: Yes, of course.

Lawyer: Okay. In what context?
Deen: Well, it was probably when a black man burst into the bank that I was working at and put a gun to my head.

Lawyer: Okay. And what did you say?
Deen: Well, I don't remember, but the gun was dancing all around my temple ... I didn't -- I didn't feel real favorable towards him.

Lawyer: Okay. Well, did you use the N-word to him as he pointed a gun in your head at your face?
Deen: Absolutely not.

Lawyer: Well, then, when did you use it?
Deen: Probably in telling my husband.

Lawyer: Okay. Have you used it since then?
Deen: I'm sure I have, but it's been a very long time.

Transcript: Huffington Post

ALEC BALDWIN PUTS UP A MEAN DEFENSE

 

I'm gonna find you, George Stark, you toxic little queen, and I'm gonna fuck … you … up

If [sic] put my foot up your f--king ass, George Stark, but I’m sure you’d dig it too much?"

I want all of my followers and beyond to straighten out this fucking little bitch. 

Newsbusters

TOO CLOSE TO CALL

Obviously, this match is too close to call, we're going to have to go to the judges tonight... the American media.

AND THE VERDICT IS...

 

PAULA DEEN IS A RACIST

ALEC BALDWIN MADE AN ALLEGED SLUR

COME ON FOLKS!

Even Anderson Cooper gets it:

Why does #AlecBaldwin get a pass when he uses gay slurs? If a conservative talked of beating up a "queen" they would be vilified.

First, you have to understand both of them were under extreme pressure, someone put a gun to Paula Deen's head... and someone tweeted that Alec Baldwin's wife was texting at James Gandolfini's funeral.  I think if someone tweeted about my wife, I'd have to go and hire her a bodyguard.  What's this world coming to?

I'm not defending Paula Deen, nor am I implying that Alec Baldwin is a "rude thoughtless pig"... okay, maybe I am but that's just my personal opinion.  But come on folks, can you have a bigger double-standard than the one illustrated in these events?