Shout First, Ask Questions Later: 2010-05-09

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Circus Came To Town

So no posts today. But check out these amazing pictures here.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Gov Christie calls S-L columnist thin-skinned for inquiring about his 'confrontational tone'

Green Corruption

You know, besides all that climategate stuff.

Insiders Cash In Big, Consumers Pay Big Under New Energy Bill

U.K. Coalition's Energy Policy: We Don't Need Any (Originally posted by my husband on NRO-The Corner)

Cap and scam

U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits

Under the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Minerals Management Service is required to get permits to allow drilling where it might harm endangered species or marine mammals.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, is partly responsible for protecting endangered species and marine mammals. It has said on repeated occasions that drilling in the gulf affects these animals, but the minerals agency since January 2009 has approved at least three huge lease sales, 103 seismic blasting projects and 346 drilling plans. Agency records also show that permission for those projects and plans was granted without getting the permits required under federal law.

The emphasis is mine because all those permission slips were handed out by the Obama administration. How's the rube now?

Eric Holder Must GO

I joined the chorus demanding this worthless human leave the administration back during his Black Panther corruption of the DoJ. Now others are finally catching up.

Eric Holder Is Irresponsible and Dangerous – Eric Holder Must Step Down

Holder admits: No, I haven’t read the Arizona law I’ve been dumping on

Holder Profiles Arizona

The Most Transparently Irresponsible Administration in American History

More on Holder & Illegal Immigration

It's not that I hate and loathe the man personally. I just hate and loathe everything he does, says, and believes in professionally.

And by the way Arizona's law is a-okay with the readers of the Los Angeles Times: Poll: Was the L.A. City Council right to pass a boycott of Arizona? 92% say the city should mind its own business. 92% (Click on poll results at bottom of page to see vote results)

Hypocrisy Two-Fer

Two hypocrits in one post!

FBI files discuss Cronkite aiding Vietnam protesters There goes another so-called impartial journalist.

And this is just rich - Pelosi lays down new travel rules for lawmakers

I KNOW

I married one. Took a year to break him of the habit.

Britons spend months discussing the weather

The bigger question is just how slow a news-day is this for Reuters?

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Feeding at the Public Trough

When your salary comes from the public purse, the public has a right to know what they are shelling out (and if it is worth it). For example....

$316,245 Long Island school pension!

Get a Government Job, and Let’s See Your Salary

Public employee salary AND Public Salaries (cont.)

Government Salaries

Video - Re: Get a Government Job

Congressional Salaries

D.C. Metro shows that not all public sector workers are created the same

Obama's Islam Impediment

It's beginning to look like Obama and his ilk have a wee speech impediment.
AG Eric Holder Refuses to Say 'Radical Islam' Is a Cause of Terrorism Committed by Muslims

Who's the Coward Now, Mr. Holder?

And yet.....
'You Can't Make It Up' Dept.: The Feds Are Paying the Islamist Mosque in Virginia

New Hawaii law shuns Obama birth document requests

Besides flying in the face of the Freedom of Information Act, this (probably not constitutional) law from Hawaii only fans the flames of birthers. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

But that's what you get when you are a socialist.

Oh Goody More Food Nazis

They did this in the UK and used it to justify social services taking children away from parents because they were "too fat". It is disgusting that they would consider anything remotely similar over here. The Federal Fat Police: Bill Would Require Government to Track Body Mass of American Children Worse, they are basing the "overweight" label on BMI which has been proved REPEATEDLY to be deeply flawed.

05-13 Round-Up

President Obama Job Approval

"Fully 73% say they approve of requiring people to produce documents verifying their legal status if police ask for them." "Two-thirds (67%) approve of allowing police to detain anyone who cannot verify their legal status, while 62% approve of allowing police to question people they think may be in the country illegally."

Duncan, Wamp say public has right to TVA's information And I say he's right. Interestingly, the picture the newspaper chose to run makes Rep Duncan look vampire-ish.

Does the Media Care About Unemployment?

And this is why Big Government is wrong and evil. It's tantamount to aristocracy. Bureaucracy and Tyranny

Could Arizona be ahead of the curve? A Downside of Racial Awareness?

Here is what he found:

Upper-division area and ethnic studies students rated Climate of Respect for Personal Beliefs at 4.16. Humanities and social science students gave it a substantially higher 4.80, and science, engineering, math, and business students rated it even higher at 5.05. Obviously, field of study affected scores.
Chatman attributes the low climate scores in area and ethnic studies precisely to the instruction students receive in those classes. "Students in area and ethnic studies should have learned to recognize prejudicial communication and should be more sensitive to communication that might be prejudicial," he writes. Whereas a math student might hear a remark and think nothing of it, an African American Studies student might discern prejudice and stereotyping. Does this mean that students in area and ethnic studies are more perceptive and accurate in their assessment of campus climate, or have they acquired in their classes a "warped lens" (Chatman's term) that sees social life in overdone racial categories? Chatman even draws a logical possibility that might appall area and ethnic studies instruction, that is, that the climate in those fields is a lot worse than it is in engineering classes and labs. One wonders how area and ethnic studies professors would feel if they were ordered to undergo diversity sensitivity sessions themselves to try to straighten out their problems.

Shocking News! Americans want lower spending, not higher taxes

Ironically, now I feel like a cigarette. State to force stores to post graphic signs vs. smoking

Henry Gates Deflates the Reparations Balloon. Gates famously played the race card when arrested by a white cop in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And yet his new book has dropped like a bomb on those who’ve made careers out of racial complaints.

Video - Obama Flashback: A Supreme Court Nominee With No Judicial Experience Requires Extreme Scrutiny Ouch. I'll bet this is the first time in his life that Obama is being held accountable for the words that come out of his mouth.

Oh really? Orszag: The president never “pledged” no new taxes; he simply “preferred”

Polarization starts at the top

Why Americans Are Shocked & Appalled

Well doesn't this just take the biscuit! Jupiter loses one of its stripes and scientists are stumped as to why

Doubt Is Cast on Many Reports of Food Allergies

Are Democrats Plotting to Steal Your 401(k)?

Because why would New York City need funds to defend itself from terrorist attacks? DHS cuts New York funds as President Obama visits It's this kind of thinking that leads me to believe that the Ivy League is VERY over-rated.

Raids In Times Square Probe Yield 3 Arrests. Homes In New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts Among Those Being Probed

New lawsuit on Obamacare

N.J. gov. sets tone for US AND CFA Submits Testimony in Support of NJ Transparency Bill Nice.

Sunset In Taxifornia? To see why California is in such trouble check out these charts from Chuck DeVore who's running for office in CA.

How Badly Will the Democrats Do? A few trends to watch ahead of November.

Palin Calls Foul on Highland Park High

Time Is Not On ObamaCare's Side

Nightmare for the left: Getting ‘soutered’ by Kagan

New Favorite Video!!

PolitiZoid: Money for Nothing

Why Socialism is Bad

It's the "gateway thinking" that leads to fascism and communism. And this article here explains how and why. A Hidden History of Evil Why doesn’t anyone care about the unread Soviet archives?

There are other ways in which the story that Stroilov’s and Bukovsky’s papers tell isn’t over. They suggest, for example, that the architects of the European integration project, as well as many of today’s senior leaders in the European Union, were far too close to the USSR for comfort. This raises important questions about the nature of contemporary Europe—questions that might be asked when Americans consider Europe as a model for social policy, or when they seek European diplomatic cooperation on key issues of national security.

According to Zagladin’s reports, for example, Kenneth Coates, who from 1989 to 1998 was a British member of the European Parliament, approached Zagladin on January 9, 1990, to discuss what amounted to a gradual merger of the European Parliament and the Supreme Soviet. Coates, says Zagladin, explained that “creating an infrastructure of cooperation between the two parliament[s] would help . . . to isolate the rightists in the European Parliament (and in Europe), those who are interested in the USSR’s collapse.” Coates served as chair of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights from 1992 to 1994. How did it come to pass that Europe was taking advice about human rights from a man who had apparently wished to “isolate” those interested in the USSR’s collapse and sought to extend Soviet influence in Europe?

Or consider a report on Francisco Fernández Ordóñez, who led Spain’s integration into the European Community as its foreign minister. On March 3, 1989, according to these documents, he explained to Gorbachev that “the success of perestroika means only one thing—the success of the socialist revolution in contemporary conditions. And that is exactly what the reactionaries don’t accept.” Eighteen months later, Ordóñez told Gorbachev: “I feel intellectual disgust when I have to read, for example, passages in the documents of ‘G7’ where the problems of democracy, freedom of human personality and ideology of market economy are set on the same level. As a socialist, I cannot accept such an equation.” Perhaps most shockingly, the Eastern European press has reported that Stroilov’s documents suggest that François Mitterrand was maneuvering with Gorbachev to ensure that Germany would unite as a neutral, socialist entity under a Franco-Soviet condominium.

Zagladin’s records also note that the former leader of the British Labour Party, Neil Kinnock, approached Gorbachev—unauthorized, while Kinnock was leader of the opposition—through a secret envoy to discuss the possibility of halting the United Kingdom’s Trident nuclear-missile program. The minutes of the meeting between Gorbachev and the envoy, MP Stuart Holland, read as follows:
In [Holland’s] opinion, Soviet Union should be very interested in liquidation of “Tridents” because, apart from other things, the West—meaning the US, Britain and France—would have a serious advantage over the Soviet Union after the completion of START treaty. That advantage will need to be eliminated. . . . At the same time Holland noted that, of course, we can seriously think about realisation of that idea only if the Labour comes to power. He said Thatcher . . . would never agree to any reduction of nuclear armaments.
Kinnock was vice president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004, and his wife, Glenys, is now Britain’s minister for Europe. Gerard Batten, a member of the UK Independence Party, has noted the significance of the episode. “If the report given to Mr. Gorbachev is true, it means that Lord Kinnock approached one of Britain’s enemies in order to seek approval regarding his party’s defense policy and, had he been elected, Britain’s defense policy,” Batten said to the European Parliament in 2009. “If this report is true, then Lord Kinnock would be guilty of treason.”

Similarly, Baroness Catherine Ashton, who is now the European Union’s foreign minister, was treasurer of Britain’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament from 1980 to 1982. The papers offer evidence that this organization received “unidentified income” from the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Stroilov’s papers suggest as well that the government of the current Spanish EU commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, Joaquín Almunia, enthusiastically supported the Soviet project of gradually unifying Germany and Europe into a socialist “common European home” and strongly opposed the independence of the Baltic states and then of Ukraine.

Perhaps it doesn’t surprise you to read that prominent European politicians held these views. But why doesn’t it? It is impossible to imagine that figures who had enjoyed such close ties to the Nazi Party—or, for that matter, to the Ku Klux Klan or to South Africa’s apartheid regime—would enjoy top positions in Europe today. The rules are different, apparently, for Communist fellow travelers. “We now have the EU unelected socialist party running Europe,” Stroilov said to me. “Bet the KGB can’t believe it.”

And what of Zagladin’s description of his dealings with our own current vice president in 1979?
Unofficially, [Senator Joseph] Biden and [Senator Richard] Lugar said that, in the end of the day, they were not so much concerned with having a problem of this or that citizen solved as with showing to the American public that they do care for “human rights.” . . . In other words, the collocutors directly admitted that what is happening is a kind of a show, that they absolutely do not care for the fate of most so-called dissidents.
Remarkably, the world has shown little interest in the unread Soviet archives. That paragraph about Biden is a good example. Stroilov and Bukovsky coauthored a piece about it for the online magazine FrontPage on October 10, 2008; it passed without remark. Americans considered the episode so uninteresting that even Biden’s political opponents didn’t try to turn it into political capital. Imagine, if you can, what it must feel like to have spent the prime of your life in a Soviet psychiatric hospital, to know that Joe Biden is now vice president of the United States, and to know that no one gives a damn.

Instapundit quotes:

And its willing collaborators in the West, many identified by name here. “Perhaps it doesn’t surprise you to read that prominent European politicians held these views. But why doesn’t it? It is impossible to imagine that figures who had enjoyed such close ties to the Nazi Party—or, for that matter, to the Ku Klux Klan or to South Africa’s apartheid regime—would enjoy top positions in Europe today. The rules are different, apparently, for Communist fellow travelers. . . . We rightly insisted upon total denazification; we rightly excoriate those who now attempt to revive the Nazis’ ideology. But the world exhibits a perilous failure to acknowledge the monstrous history of Communism. These documents should be translated. They should be housed in a reputable library, properly cataloged, and carefully assessed by scholars. Above all, they should be well-known to a public that seems to have forgotten what the Soviet Union was really about.”

Father. Hero. God Bless.

Shocking Car Crash Footage Shows Father Taking Full Impact to Save Baby

Oh. My. Lord.

See, this is why I hate it when men are depicted as buffons when that are so great so often. There's not a doubt in my mind that Haydn will grow up well with a father like Andrew.

Purple People Eater

The SEIU is a cesspool. Come On Andy Stern, Get Real…

It infuriates me that the original and decent purpose of Unions was to get fair treatment of workers and improve workplace safety standards. That it has been perverted and twisted into an abomination like the SEIU and other corrupt union organizations is profoundly sad.

NHS Admirer - Also liked poop

How Donald Berwick Will Run Your Health Care
Any jackanapes who admires the NHS probably needs special educational classes in order to learn how to push a broom. The only good thing resulting from this man running Obamacare is that it will make Americans all the more insistent on shutting down Obamacare.

Bailing Out Foreigners

Pence: We Didn’t Ask the EU to Bail Out New Jersey or California

May I suggest we end WWII and the Korean War by closing all bases in Western Europe, Japan, and Korea. There are many other regions (Eastern Europe, perhaps) were American dollars are better spent. And it might, just might, help those countries get their socialist acts together.

The We're-Not-Europe Party The bill comes due for a life of fairness at the expense of growth.

Republicans introduce bill to prevent Euro bailout

Will The Recession Turn Into A Depression?

Depression 2010?
OUCH

Against that backdrop, today's unresolved problems -- over the welfare state, leadership in the global economy -- become more ominous. They suggest that major adjustments won't be made until they're compelled by some sort of crisis. This possibility defines the present economic drama. Will the recovery encourage conscious changes? Or is recovery providing a false sense of security? The stakes are, of course, enormous, because -- as everyone knows -- the economic suffering of the Great Depression transformed many countries' politics for the worse and led to World War II.

Why Go Green Bites

Dems’ energy policy: If you can’t beat ‘em, force it on ‘em

The Wrong Way To Get to Green Once you've carpeted the wilderness with wind-farm turbines, and crushed any guilt about the birds you're about to kill, prepare to be underwhelmed and underpowered.

Al Gore has a dream, a dream increasingly shared, according to opinion surveys, by people all over the world. It is that the 19th century, the age of steam and iron and coal, will finally end and that, as Mr. Gore wrote in an article for the New York Times in 2008, the time will soon come for "21st-century technologies that use fuel that is free forever: the sun, the wind and the natural heat of the earth."

It might be better, and much more realistic, says Robert Bryce in "Power Hungry," to imagine our journey toward a "green" energy Arcadia in units of Saudi Arabia. "Over the past few years," he writes, "we have repeatedly been told that we should quit using hydrocarbons. Fine. Global daily hydrocarbon use is about 200 million barrels of oil equivalent, or about 23.5 Saudi Arabias per day. Thus, if the world's policy makers really want to quit using carbon-based fuels, then we will need to find the energy equivalent of 23.5 Saudi Arabias every day, and all of that energy must be carbon free."

"Power Hungry" unfolds as a brutal, brilliant exploration of this profoundly deluded quest, from fingers-in-the-ears "la-la-la-ing" at the mention of nuclear power to the illusion that we are rapidly running out of oil or that we can turn to biomass for salvation: Since it takes 10,000 tons of wood to produce one megawatt of electricity, for instance, the U.S. will be chopping down forests faster than it can grow them.

Mr. Bryce also points to the link between cheap power and economic productivity and asks why we should expect much of the world to forgo the benefits of light bulbs and regular energy when we enjoy these privileges. But if "Power Hungry" sounds like a supercharged polemic, its shocks are delivered with forensic skill and narrative aplomb.

So you want to build a wind farm? OK, Mr. Bryce says, to start you'll need 45 times the land mass of a nuclear power station to produce a comparable amount of power; and because you are in the middle of nowhere you'll also need hundreds of miles of high-voltage lines to get the energy to your customers. This "energy sprawl" of giant turbines and pylons will require far greater amounts of concrete and steel than conventional power plants—figure on anywhere from 870 to 956 cubic feet of concrete per megawatt of electricity and 460 tons of steel (32 times more concrete and 139 times as much steel as a gas-fired plant).

Once you've carpeted your tract of wilderness with turbines and gotten over any guilt you might feel about the thousands of birds you're about to kill, prepare to be underwhelmed and underpowered. Look at Texas, Mr. Bryce says: It ranks sixth in the world in total wind-power production capacity, and it has been hailed as a model for renewable energy and green jobs by Republicans and Democrats alike. And yet, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which runs the state's electricity grid, just "8.7 percent of the installed wind capability can be counted on as dependable capacity during the peak demand period." The wind may blow in Texas, but, sadly, it doesn't blow much when it is most needed—in summer. The net result is that just 1% of the state's reliable energy needs comes from wind.

If using a huge amount of real estate to generate a tiny amount of energy from an intermittent energy source sounds deranged, consider, too, that we haven't yet found the holy grail for storing wind-generated energy. Wind is either an instant energy snack or a famine. It must be used when it's there or immediately replaced when it isn't.

But if you are managing an energy grid, you have to meet constant demand or face blackouts, which means that you will have to have conventional power plants to back up the wind farms. As Jing Yang reported in The Wall Street Journal last year, this strategy is precisely the one that China is pursuing, adding in one province alone the coal-fired equivalent of Hungary. These plants, Mr. Bryce notes, are designed to run continuously and will in all likelihood "be run continuously in order to assure that the regional power grid doesn't go dark." The irony of wind power is that it "doesn't displace power plants, it only adds to them."

It is not for nothing, then, that the scientist and ur-environmentalist James Lovelock (the author of the Gaia theory of holistic planet-nurturing) now thinks that wind power and renewable energy are "rotten ideas." What is arguably worse are rotten ideas that no one is allowed to criticize: Last year, Britain's minister for climate change, Ed Miliband, declared that the British government had to make opposition to wind power "socially unacceptable." There are more than 200 groups opposed to wind farms in Britain on the grounds that the turbines disfigure the landscape, thrum like air-conditioning units and, when the sun sets, create an irritating flicker-light for miles.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

the little bits left

On Media Matters’ FoxNews Obsession

Hilarious! PolitiZoid: Money for Nothing

Random Round-Up 05-12

Where does the time go?

President Obama Job Approval

Why Northrop chose Virginia

Sunlight is the best disinfectant afterall - Get a Government Job, and Let’s See Your Salary AND Public Service Recognition Week

When will these Congressional Crypt-Keepers go away? Oh wait, most of them will be gone by November. Retirement age: the painful realities of the oldest Congress in history

Looks like RomneyCare was an epic fail like Obamacare will be - Health care fails small businesses

HA! - Obama Threatens Veto of Obamacare as Cost Estimates Soar Above $1 Trillion

Michelle Obama: Food Profiteer Turned Food Cop AND Michelle Obama to women planning a pregnancy: ‘No fatties’

Damn loser liberals! See this is why I became so disenchanted with the Left and moved Right. Liberals get their day in court. Lose fair and square but because the big babies can't stand losing, they resort to illegal measures. ARGH! Caretakers of Stolen Mojave Desert Cross Vow to Replace It I hope they set up an ARMED honor guard for the new cross.

Hot Air has a really solid Quotes of the day post up.

Holy Crap! Muhammad really was kind of a jerk. And I got irked that Jesus smote that fig tree for no reason! Jesus didn't let the apostles (or anyone else) eat his poop. At least, Jesus didn't let the apostles write about it. But according to islamic holy text, Muhammad did. Yikes! What Did You Say About Muhammad?! Read the article but be warned, it is kinda gross.

The Varieties of Liberal Enthusiasm

ACORN lobbying efforts continue in Washington under Communities United name

Ken Blackwell (who so should have been RNC Chair) - Stopping Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution

Bailouts Defeat Bennett–Who Wants to Be Next?

Hinchey flack: We’re not talking about Hinchey’s positions to anyone

'It's Just Like the Old South, and It's Long Past Time That We Prohibited It'

John Derbyshire gives the best explanation of Information Cascade ever - Forget Fat Fingers

U.S. posts 19th straight monthly budget deficit

Scary - Federal Mutual Fund

We Are More in Debt Than We Think

Extend the Bush Tax Cuts—For Now. Deficits are a real problem but the recovery is still too fragile to choke off growth with higher rates

Detroit News Finds Example of 'Workers Choosing Jobless Pay' Over Work. Even in the state with the highest jobless rate, some landscapers turn down work to collect unemployment.

Arizona or San Francisco: Which Path Will America Take on Immigration?

Kagan Flunks Her Own Test. Obama’s Supreme Court nominee lacks the experience she once held up as a standard.

Our environment is in the best of hands - Interior Secretary Salazar installs ‘boom to nowhere’ at Gulf oil spill photo op

War, Pestilence, Famine: That’s Climate Change … When It’s Cold. Ignore the warnings of a warming planet — the worst eras for humanity occurred during periods of cold weather.

As much as I hate to disagree with Ron, I can't approve of any contraceptive pills (male or female) which end up dumping more artificial hormones into our waterways for fish to ingest. The Pill: The Male Version

Centrist senators push for greater federal power in consumer regulations

Wilson Without Tears

Muddledness at the Top

Green Movement Hits Yellow Light on Climate. Bad data, bad public relations, new investigation bedevil quest for cap-and-tax bill. Which begs the question, when can we put the brakes on this nonsense?

Kerry-Lieberman Bill an Economy Killer. Cap and trade simply won't die, and it's latest incarnation is as much of an economic disaster as all the previous ones

I'd prefer it if they stayed blurred - SEIU to refocus under Henry

Disgrace of the Day: Industry Join Cap-and-Tax Presser

Wind Can Be Expensive

Surprise: EPA Renovation, Repair, and Painting Rule Adds Cost, Does Little. The EPA's RRP rules force contractors to treat every home built before 1978 as a hazardous waste site. Will this do enough good to justify the cost

Democrats’ Soft Spot for Western Europe: A Liability in November?

The Untold Story of Astroturf: Corporate-Sponsored Environmentalism. Media often criticize Tea Party activism for being promoted from top down, while green movement openly backed by major corporations.

Brand New Green. A prominent environmentalist rethinks his worldview—up to a point.

Hat Tip - Jonah Goldberg

Remarkable

Media Double Standards: Some Fair and Others….Not So Much

President’s cancer panel reveals activist media are the real cancer

Two-faced Times. Ignores own 'corporate welfare'

Why Hollywood Will Lose the Culture War

‘Media Matters’ Mutters About K-Lo Tweet: Is This Any Job For a Grownup?

Video: Hay, here's a great idea how to clean up the BP oil spill

The Left’s Billion Dollar Tea Party Lie

Tired of Big Government Spending? Then YouCut it! AND YouCut the Federal Budget

'Living Wage' Reduces Employment Prospects For Poor AND Higher Minimum Wages Lead to Teen Dropouts, Criminals

Fannie Mae: No Profits for the Indefinite Future

Six Questions that May Decide the Presidential Contest of 2012. Will the economy still be in recession? Will there be a serious third party challenge? These and other keys have predicted results in national elections since 1956.

The Banality of Race. David Remnick’s life of Obama exemplifies the moral laziness of today’s liberalism

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Go here to win a signed DVD of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Joss Wheadon is a script Shakespeare add NPH and you've got greatness!

Cause and Effect

I've been keeping half an ear on the news from China about rampages in schools. This is the latest article - As School Knifings Continue, China Does Some Soul Searching.

The natural horror one feels at attacks on children is just. It is pretty much in the top three of worst things you could do. But given China's "One Child" policy, these attacks must be devastating on an entirely deeper level as well.

The article blames China's terrible mental health services combined with China's terrible legal system which triggers these attacks. The schools are "soft targets" and these mentally ill men with unresolved legal grievances attack them.

Which is a reasonable interpretation except when similar situations happen in the US, the target is usually the source of the grievance. The employer, the place of business, the US post office, etc. Very, very rarely is it a school. Indeed, US school rampages are more likely to have be effected by students and not grown men with no connection to the school.

My point is that blaming mental illness is fine. Blaming unresolved legal conflicts are fine. But this dodges the real concern, China's "One Child" policy.

The article states:

Part of the reason schools have been attacked is that they make easy targets for a deranged assailant hoping to inflict as much harm as possible. "They hope that people will pay attention to their misfortunes when they bring about pain and horror in society," says Ma. In China, where private firearms are banned, attackers are limited to using simpler weapons like knives. That helps explain the grim logic to why the recent attacks were aimed at schools. They are a soft target, where an assailant armed only with a knife can still inflict great harm. "It's the most effective way to achieve popular shock," says Ding.

What greater way to inflect harm on society than to attack its women and children? And in a society where women can only have one child, and/or are forcibly sterilized after the birth of their one child, how much greater is that harm?

While these attacks do not appreciably diminish the child population of China, I do believe they are a symptom of of China's weaknesses. Without just law, without decent services, and with draconian population controls, China's foundation has deep and profound cracks.

You Can Give

In this article "How Rich Are You?" you can feel good about your "status" and do some good for others with the Global Rich List's How Rich Are You? interactive calculator.

It ranks you in relationship to the rest of the world and then offers you a chance to do some good for others. Even the "poor" American is far wealthier than most of the globe. So check it out. You'll probably feel much better about yourself if you do.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Mini Round-Up

I indulged in a little retail therapy after yesterday's debacle and a good night's sleep. Also am gearing up to enter some photos into some juried competitions.

Anyways, here's some stuff of interest and I'll try to be a good girl tomorrow. Promise.

President Obama Job Approval

Pay attention, Thomas Sowell is speaking - A "Duty to Die"?

They're Back!!

FinReg Won't Deal With Black Holes Fannie and Freddie

Gosh Dodd is such a tool - Dodd’s Bank Bill: Worse Than ObamaCare. It’s the Nationalization, Stupid!

OUCH - Labor Department: Unemployment Rate Increased to 9.9 Percent in April

Fannie Mae: Now How Much Would You Pay?

Hooray! 'Tea party'-backed platform sails through Maine GOP convention

Board Changes Unionization Rule

Short Sellers in Congress: Another Lesson in Financial Hypocrisy

Because in a recession, crushing entrepenuers is smart, Harvard smart. FCC Proposal to Regulate the Internet Would Harm Consumers, Stifle Innovation

And those Harvard elites wonder why US jobs are going overseas - U.S. Effective Corporate Tax Rate: Highest in the OECD!

PJTV Video (Afterburner) - The Elitist Death Wish: Some Lives Are Worth More Than Others I always repeat what my husband says about any elitist idea, "You first."

Give the law a chance - No winners in boycott of Ariz. immigration law

Illegal immigrant's 145G 'deport gift'

Can't say I disagree - Seven Places Where Politics Doesn't Belong

For lobbyists, banks tap Washington pipeline, report finds

Labor unions rally behind Bill Halter in Senate Democratic primary in Arkansas

Obama the Polarizer

Left Is Certain of Tea Partiers' Motives, but Finds Terrorists Inscrutable

Taking ObamaCare Challenges Seriously

Science magazine is deeply disturbed

Young people’s attitudes towards the word “libertarian”

(I know the above is about Greece but when I first saw it, I thought that was Pelosi.)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi: Democrats reduced taxes to historic low She's either completely lost touch with reality, she's delusional, or she's arrogant enough to believe we'd swallow her lies. Personally, I think it is all three.

Suck up - Obama Works the Refs

Tracking ACORN’s Rebranding Process: A Handy Updated Guide

Trickle-Down Misery in L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa's nightmare numbers

I actually felt the same sort of pity towards Obama when he won. The who-would-be-stupid-enough-to-want-to-have-to-fix-this-mess sort of pity. Cameron Faces a Massive Challenge Ahead

White House: Stop Marketing Unhealthy Foods to Kids. Me to White House: Keep Your Effing Nose Out Of My Parenting!

Way to win customers and influence bloggers BoA! VIDEO UPDATE: As Tea Party Activists Protest Dodd’s Big Brother Bill, Bank of America Deploys Security Forces

Oh My Cuteness!

Thanks Instapundit!

Monday, May 10, 2010

Sleepy Girl Round-UP

I make no promises for coherence or something else.

Originally posted on The Corner by my husband - Gordon Brown Has Resigned, Sort Of

Nice. Very nice. (really) The Tea Party Movement as a Libertarian Mob. a pencil necked lefty explains the Tea Party movement I've gotta hand it to the "sumbitch", he is pretty right.

Don't leave it to Cleaver, part 16 It is sad when the heirs to MLK resort to lies and the MSM aids and abets. For shame.

One of Obama's closest friends part of federal probe

California: The American Greece

ObamaCare's Phony Medicaid 'Deal' The new health law unconstitutionally coerces the states.

Ignoring the Elephant in the Bailout

IF you blinked, you might have missed the ugly first-quarter report last week from Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giant that, along with its sister Fannie Mae, soldiers on as one of the financial world’s biggest wards of the state.

AND Pain in the Fannie

Sanctioning Barbarity: American Academy of Pediatrics and the New York Times

Left Wing Media Continues Struggle to Define the Tea Party Movement

OUCH Obama: ignorance is knowledge

Are the Feds Trying to Nationalize Your Retirement Savings? Thankfully we have no retirement savings. Sadly we have no retirement savings. They do this in England where socialism runs free.

At this point, I think the best we can say is this: the federal government is desperate for cash, and the biggest untapped source of wealth is the hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars that Americans who are now nearing retirement age have saved over their lifetimes. I don't doubt for an instant that the Obama administration would like to get its hands on this money, which would go a long way toward resolving the current government debt crisis. An obvious way of doing so is to take the money now, in exchange for a promise to pay an "annuity" later. The bottom line is that, given what we know about the Obama administration's rapacious appetite for swallowing up private wealth, anyone who has savings should be vigilant.

Thanks Powerline & Glenn Reynolds
Nice - Chevron Request for ‘CRUDE’ Footage Approved

Subsidizing Terrorism with Welfare Handounts: More Astounding Moments in Government Stupidity

So now it's ethical to be a bully

Damn straight skippy - House 2010: Nobody is Safe

If the gulf oil spill isn't Obama's Katrina, then shouldn't Nashville be it?