As an aside

So Google is releasing free software that helps people keep track of each other via their cell phones. The devices use GPS systems along with something called "cell tower triangulation," to help find out where your friend or family member is. It`s going to be marketed as a way for parents to keep track of their stupid kids, but it can also be used to see if your husband is really at work, or if your girlfriend isn`t banging that young waiter that served your dinner at the Palm last night.

This idea that everyone needs to know at any given time where someone else is, makes me want to throw up through my eyeballs. I`ve seen this happen in restaurants, where a person walks in - on the phone - saying, "where are you, where are you.... oh there you are," as though he might take a wrong turn somewhere between the door and the bar. He would have made a great pioneer.

Now I will admit all of this new technology is pretty awesome - but it makes me long for the days when you could disappear, and no one could find you. I once drove across country in a piss-poor car, (1956 VW Beetle) with nothing but a few hundred bucks, and three pairs of clean underwear. I made it in one piece, without ever having to call anyone to tell them where I was. Even better, because there were no cell phones back then in the 1960's – no one seemed to miss the folks I picked up.

Those were the good old days.

Paying taxes is voluntary

Ya just can't make this shit up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7mRSI8yWwg

Can you say "Learning Curve"?

Unfortunately, it could have been foreseen that Obama would have a long and out of round learning curve to be placed in such a responsible position. Amateur mistakes:

--Providing no guidelines to Congressional Dems about writing a stimulus bill. It is a goofy and porky mess. For examples see http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber/2009/02/03/doorbells/
--Poor vetting and staying with bad, bad choices. In addition to the crooks who some of our fellow voters insist on returning to Congress, Obama is setting a new pace in placing crooks in his administration. Dumb...unless he wants advice on how to get crooked. Is there really no one qualified for HHS in the country except Daschle? Ditto Geithner at Treasury?
--Trying to appease Iran. They turned around and bit Obama's hand for petting them. What a disgrace for us.
--Implying that business profits are evil. Is he for real?
--Talking tough about Afghanistan in the campaign and starting to go wobbly now.
--Being just plain stubborn about denying his own fallibility.
--Picking Biden for VP.
--Allowing Michelle to wander around the Administration facilities asserting she is part of the Administration.

How many more major blunders can we expect from this unworldly philosopher now caught in the real world headlights? I wish him luck in quickly learning how to operate on planet Earth. It is too bad he had so much charm he landed himself in office unprepared.

I just love it when a politician thinks that he knows what is best for a company that isn't his and isn't controlled by the government. Yet, he insists on getting involved anyway. In this case, I am talking about Republican Iowa Senator Charles Grassley. Grassley is upset that Microsoft is going to lay off employees, but some of the employees keeping their jobs will be foreigners. The horror! Grassley says that it is "imperative" that Microsoft give job priority to US citizens over foreigners with H-1B visas. He goes on to say, "Microsoft has a moral obligation to protect ... American workers by putting them first during these difficult economic times."

Nope ... Microsoft has an obligation to protect the interests of its shareholders by retaining the best workers and letting the marginal ones go. Microsoft has a moral obligation to obey the laws of the United States. Microsoft has no moral obligation whatsoever that would require it to sack a good worker and keep a marginal employee just because he's an American citizen.

Are we seeing another hint at how government might want to control business in the American "free market" here? This guy is a Republican?

And just so you know--We should all be in favor of the bonuses paid on Wall Street whether they are $18 Billion or $818 Billion. Changing the rules after the game has been played is just not fair. And we all want to be fair now don't we?

---

Really?

One of Barack Obama's first acts as president was to close down Guantanamo Bay within one year. Now just two weeks later, we get this from Obama: he is worried that the detainees freed from Gitmo are going to return to a life of terrorism and attack the United States.

Oh, so now you tell us! What was your first clue, Mr. President? Funny how the responsibilities of the actual office will override campaign rhetoric, isn't it?

And yet Obama says that he closed the prison because it was a matter of upholding US values and law.

Five Truths about the Financial Crisis

The first truth to understand about the banking crisis is that people don’t want you to understand it. You are supposed to trust in the judgments of the experts and give them whatever they are asking for, no matter what the cost or consequences. Just ignore the fact that many of these people are the same experts that failed to foresee or to prevent the problem in the first place.

[1] Henry Paulson, the former treasury secretary, is one such expert. Throughout 2007 and most of 2008, he assured the public that the economy was strong, any subprime mortgage fallout was contained, the banking system was safe, and that there were no plans to recapitalize or rescue Fannie and Freddie.

Then, last September when multiple financial institutions were on the brink of collapse, he naturally took responsibility for his errors in judgment and inaction and resigned, right? Well, no. Actually he requested $700B more with virtually unlimited authority.

Of course it wasn’t exactly a request. Give me $700B right now or you get a massive financial collapse and the Second Great Depression. It almost sounds like a scheme cooked up by Dr. Evil. Did Paulson have some kind of doomsday device that he was ready to activate? Was the country really facing a financial meltdown?

We will answer that shortly and the answer may surprise you. Lets move on to Truth #2. This entire crisis was caused by widespread mismanagement throughout the financial industry.

Banks that loan money to borrowers who can’t repay don’t stay in business for very long — or at least they’re not supposed to. The same is true for investment managers that exchange good money for bad paper.

This may seem obvious, but there are still far too many weakly written articles that blame the financial failures on the bad economy or the weak housing market — as if banks couldn’t possible imagine that the economy might slow at some point.

Similarly, pointing the finger at credit rating firms or government regulators or auditors also misses the mark. Yes, all of these parties should have acted earlier to help prevent the crisis. But the situation wouldn’t even exist if not for the widespread irresponsibility of the people we trust to manage the world’s money.

Once the blame is assigned correctly, the ethics of the situation become very clear. Management needs to go, and the institutions they ran into the ground deserve to fail. But we can’t have hundreds of banks and financial institutions fail, right? Wouldn’t the economy drown in a sea of bankruptcies?

Truth #3: Banks can fail without endangering the economy. In fact, over 700 lending institutions failed during the Savings & Loan crisis in the early 1990s, and the damage was minimal.

Credit the Bush administration — not W. but his father. In 1989, he signed legislation creating a framework in which S&Ls could fail quickly, be removed from the marketplace, and then be replaced with healthy institutions.

The process was simple. If a financial institution couldn’t meet its capital requirements, the regulator declared it insolvent and shut it down immediately. At that point a government custodian (the Resolution Trust Company) took over the firm’s assets, inventoried and packaged them for sale, and auctioned them off to the highest bidder, usually another healthier financial institution.

If the RTC had difficulty unloading some assets (what we would now call toxic assets), it created innovative public-private sector partnerships to manage the risks and share the future profits.

When institutions were seized quickly, many still had significant assets that could be used to cover the losses and debts. But in the end it was a bailout, and the taxpayer was responsible for the final cost.

Which brings us to Truth #4: This current crisis almost certainly isn’t a trillion dollar problem, but we can certainly make it into one.

Let’s take a step back for a moment. If one year ago, someone had told us that the U.S. taxpayer would have to ultimately spend $500B to clean up the banking system and prevent a total collapse, we would have been outraged.

At this point we would consider ourselves lucky to get by so cheaply. Only $500 billion? And no depression? What a relief! The high price tags of TARP, the economic stimulus, and the dire economic projections have conditioned us to expect a final cost in the trillions.

The S&L crisis cost taxpayers $124B, and that was primarily the difference between what it took to pay insured depositors back and what was recovered from the failed institutions by the RTC. The cost may sound reasonable by today’s standards but was actually far higher than it should have been.

What happened was that in the early stages of the crisis, the scope of the problem was not well understood by the regulators and many insolvent institutions were allowed to continue operating. Often these institutions offered high-yield accounts to attract insured deposits and then proceeded to make more bad loans and investments.

The lesson is that the more quickly regulators act, the lower the losses are. Declare a bank insolvent the day that it first fails to meet capital requirements and the cost of the failure will be minimal. Keep it operating and give it more government guaranteed money to make more bad loans, and the final cost of the cleanup will skyrocket.

Now armed with our four truths, let’s go back to Paulson and his ultimatum. Was the financial system really facing a meltdown? Yes, and it still is, but only because of his willingness to continue to provide taxpayer money and guarantees to banks and investment firms that created the current mess we’re now in.

The banking crisis could be solved today for the lowest possible cost if the Treasury would simply shut down insolvent financial institutions, auction off their assets, and repay depositors in full. There would be no damage to the economy aside from losses to investors in the financial institutions. In fact, the economy would be healthier and recover far more quickly if the banking and credit system were sound.

And there is no need for a full bailout. When AIG was taken over, its creditors received a nice Christmas present — its once precarious debt was now backed by the U.S. Treasury.

This prevented the chaos of the Lehman bankruptcy, a severe system shock followed by a legal mess that will take years to sort out, but there’s no reason that creditors in failed financial firms must receive 100 cents on the dollar for their claims. Only federally insured depositors should have that right.

Did Paulson know these four truths? Does Geithner? Perhaps they’re surrounded by too many Wall Street executives who are pleading for just a little more time and money to fix the mess that they created. Or perhaps they know that a financial crisis is the ideal environment for a dramatic expansion of the role of government in the economy.

One person who does know these truths is William Seidman. He was the chairman of the FDIC and RTC during the Savings & Loan crisis. At the age of 87 he is appearing in television interviews and writing editorials telling everyone that will listen that insolvent banks need to fail so that the system will survive.

My guess is that Seidman also understands Truth #5: Not all financial crises are created equal. When borrowers can’t pay their debts, you get a banking crisis, and as we’ve seen those are painful. But when governments can’t pay their debts you get a currency crisis, which is far worse. During Argentina’s recent currency crisis, the GDP fell by 10% in a single year, the unemployment rate jumped to 25%, and inflation hit 10% a month at one point.

We are nowhere near a currency crisis now. But the quickest way to get there is to borrow trillions of dollars and spend it on dubious financial rescue programs and stimulus packages that are unlikely to either rescue the financial sector or stimulate the overall economy.

Any stinulas package that is voted out of Congress is a sham and a fraud done by know-nothings. You need to get involved and in the words of Nancy Reagan--"Just Say No"

From my Alter ego -- Liberal Larry

Book Review: Ann Bimbot Coulter's Guilty

The was a rumor going around that Nazi bimbot, Ann Coulter, had a new book out - so I checked my testicles and sure enough, they were the size of peas. Every time that venom-spewing slut releases one of her right-wing hate screeds, my gonads shrivel up like shrinky-dinks in a microwave. This, her latest in a long line of racist tomes, must be a real doozy because my family jewels haven't been this tiny since Sarah Palin put lipstick on a pit bull.

It's like waking up in the morning to discover that someone performed gender reassignment surgery on you in your sleep. The bad news is that it makes it next to impossible to write an informative, comprehensive review of the hatemongering hater's book without it deteriorating into a series of catty remarks about her hair, or those bony elbows and cottage cheese thighs of hers...not to mention that bowling ball-sized Adam's apple. And she has the GALL to criticize Michelle Obama's pantsuits? HOW DARE SHE?! She looks like someone who just crawled out of a David Bowie look-alike contest in a concentration camp. The only reason the right-wingers like her is because she's so damn HOT. Ooooohh I could just SCRATCH HER PRETTY LITTLE EYES OUT!!!!

Whoo! There I go again. My estrogen is through the ROOF right now. Can you imagine what would happen if I actually read her book? My genitals would dwindle away completely, to be replaced by a huge, gaping hole from which nothing - not even light - could escape. That might get me a job writing op-eds for the Huffington Post or the New York Times, but it just try sitting at a desk with office products, heavy machinery, and entire families of undocumented workers spiraling into the dark vortex of your mangina. I don't know how Paul Krugman does it.

So as much as it pains me to say it, I won't be reviewing the hussy's book this time. In fact, I'm going to stay as far away from it as possible. If you value your chestnuts, I suggest you do the same.

Xanax anyone?

So according to a new study, one in five Americans has a personality disorder. These illnesses include obsessive or compulsive tendencies, the kind that might lead to violence or the purchase of Deepak Chopra love dolls. Basically, we`re a nation of nutcases – like the studio audience of the View, but without the compression hose or the drool bucket.

I`m sorry, but the only thing nutty about our nation, are studies like these. These new stats have nothing to do with an increase in mental problems, but a rise in diagnosis among people under 25.

The bottom line: if your kid is bored, lazy or self-absorbed, sometimes it`s just easier to treat him with pills – than to kick him in the pants. In a weird way, today's teens are like high risk borrowers and their parents are dodgy banks: instead of restricting their behavior, they`re just indulging their excesses in a way that leads to bigger problems later.

Look, I`m all for helping sick people – and teens and pills are my two favorite things! But once you say everyone has a problem- then having a problem becomes the norm. And being normal then becomes abnormal! So at that point, why treat anyone at all?

And, maybe anxiety disorders arise because you SHOULD be anxious. If people responded to anxiety instead of erasing it, maybe our nation`s collective unease would have prevented the housing crisis. Or at least the Jonas Brothers.

Besides, is it really wrong to obsess about stuff like unicorns all the time? Is it that unhealthy to believe unicorns can read my thoughts? Is it really a tragedy that I happen to know unicorns are sending me personal messages through my fillings?

I don`t think so. But if you do – then you`re worse than Hitler and you should be tortured or something.

Obama moves to the Right

No Cabinet Spot for al Zawahri

Al Qaeda's number two, Ayman al Zawahri, released a video today praising Malcolm X, and slamming America as an "criminal imperialist opressor".

I know what you're thinking: he's obviously angling for a spot in President Obama's cabinet. Well, too bad, Big Al, but you blew it with that "House Negro" remark. The Democrat Party does not tolerate such racially divisive language when its directed at anyone but a Black Republican. Perhaps if Zahawri clarifies his remarks and explains that he was actually referring to Condoleeza Rice, there might be a place for him on the pulpit at Obama's church. If he amps up his anti-American rants a little bit, I'm sure he could even get a job teaching at the University of Illinois.

He already attacked the Pentagon once, so that should look good on his resume.

Who is going to bail out Whorehouses?

Barack Obama wants Congress to approve $50 billion for the auto industry. He also wants to appoint a czar or board to "oversee the companies." This would be the person or committee in charge of restructuring the auto industry.

I can't make this any more clear: it is not the government's job to restructure the auto industry. The auto industry got itself into this mess, and it doesn't need government or the tax payers to get it out of this mess. And besides, what makes the auto makers believe that government could do a better job of restructuring their industry? Politicians aren't in the industry ... let the companies that once enjoyed such great success build on the ingenuity that made them great. The only guarantee you will have from government is mediocrity.

With Obama and Democrats it's all about government. What is he going to do, set up a Department of Automobiles? Who will he name to be the Secretary of Cars? Will there be an Undersecretary of Trucks? What's next? How about a homebuilding czar? Is it too late to appoint a steel czar? Come on my friends, get in the game here! Every industry is going to have its own czar in Washington to oversee operations! My God! Could this guy possibly love government any more?

Do you remember the words of one of Obama's transition czars? Obama will be ready to "take power and rule from day one." Rule? I guess we're beginning to see what this person meant.

If you'll notice, the Democrats are suddenly so focused and so worried about this auto industry bailout. That can be explained by two words: unions and votes. If they are the heroes of the auto industry, they can guarantee a win in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois for years to come. The line will be "we saved your job at a time when the Republicans wanted to let your employers fail."

Just in case you actually think it's a good idea to bail out the auto sector just remember the government will be putting $50 billion into a failed business model. Would you want them to put $50 billion into buggy whips. We still have horses don't we?

As an aside there is an auto industry that is doing fine all over the Southern and Midwestern States. Honda, Toyota, Nissan. And guess what? They are there because of "Right to Work" status. What does that say about unions?

Happy Veterans Day

This is the day set aside to honor all men and women who have served in our armed forces. Here's a thought for you ... that old man driving that Buick at 20 mph below the speed limit? You know .. the one with the big ears and that driving hat? Give him a break. He might have been one of those who waded ashore on Utah Beach on D-Day. He might have dragged a buddy to safety after seeing him cut down by German fire. We owe these people so much ... whether they saw combat or not. They've been there to defend our freedoms. Now, more than ever, that should mean something to you.

Morning After

I brought this up several months ago ... a slogan for this election. "I want my mommy." The phrase really says it all. This is not an election where the American voters were looking for someone to protect their freedoms. Instead, it was an election where people were looking for someone to take care of them. Self-sufficiency seems a bit old-fashioned right now. Why work so hard to be self-sufficient when candidates are falling all over themselves to provide the American people with womb-to-tomb or, if you will, cradle-to-grave paternalism. The voters who put Barack Obama into office bear little resemblance to the people who fought for independence 224 years ago. Colonists fighting for our independence actually left their bloody footprints along the icy roads of New York and Pennsylvania while marching to engage the British troops. Today we can't even drum of a decent plurality of voters who will vote for liberty, let alone fight for it.

This has been a "what's in it for me" vote. Are you going to give me health care? Are you going to make sure my job is guaranteed? Are you going to cover my child care costs? You aren't going to make me pay taxes, are you? How about all those evil rich people? Aren't you going to take some of their money away from them and give it to me? After all ... I work for my money, they cheated and stole for theirs. Make them pay their fair share of taxes. Me? I'm tired of paying any share.

The big question for me today is whether or not freedom, economic liberty and self-sufficiency can make a comeback in America. Right now it seems that a dismaying number of Americans think that they are owed a living; that it is the government's job to guarantee their economic security. Can we ever turn that around and return to a time when people accept the responsibility for their own lives and eschew the idea of using government as a tool of legalized plunder?

I've mentioned the concept of "The Tipping Point." I'm using that term in the context of voting and taxpaying. Right now we are at the point where about 43% of American income earners pay absolutely NO income tax. I've been saying for years that if the Democrats ever gain absolute control in Washington we're going to see that percentage climb ... climb to over 50%. That's the tipping point. Imagine a political campaign where the majority of voters do not pay income taxes. Imagine a campaign where the majority of voters actually get a check from the government instead of writing a check to the government. Can you hear the Democrat campaign themes then? "Vote for the Republicans and they're going to make you pay income taxes."

In fact ... I've already developed the Democrat campaign themes for the next several presidential elections:

2012: "Vote for the Republicans and they're going to make you pay income taxes."

2016: "Vote for the Republicans and they're going to make you pay your own Social Security and Medicare taxes."

2020: "Vote for the Republicans and they're going to make you pay for your own health care."

2024: "Vote for the Republicans and they're going to make you pay for your own place to live."

Here we are my friends. We're at the point where virtually every voter out there understands that they can use their ballot as an instrument of plunder. For those of you who went to government schools, that means they can use their vote to take money away from other citizens. That would be the difference between a Democracy (rule of man) and a Republic (rule of law).

Be careful what you wish for because now you're going to get it.

The last thing I would want to do is discourage any capable and qualified voter from heading out today to vote. Now by capable and qualified I mean someone who is actually a citizen and someone who has somewhat of a clue as to what is going on out there. The sad truth is that there are going to be legions of voters like that idiot woman at an Obama rally who thought that once Obama wins here mortgage payments and gas for her car were going to be taken care of.

Obama is going to win this thing. There are only two mysteries left. How big will the victory be, and will Obama get a filibuster-proof U.S. Senate.

So ... some Election Day thoughts:

Thanks, Republicans. This one belongs to you. The Republican Party completely abandoned its principles after the voter revolution of 1994. The GOP became the party of big spending and big government. Beltway Republicans became drunk on power and completely forgot why they were there. They gave us no real reason to go to the polls and vote for them save for that filibuster-proof Senate scare and the fear of what the election of a Marxist will mean to our freedoms.

Thanks, George Bush. Thanks for your spectacular lack of leadership on issues of spending and big government over the past two terms. You get all the credit in the world for keeping America safe from another terrorist attack ... but when a president signs a bill he thinks is unconstitutional (McCain-Feingold) just because he thinks the Supreme Court will straighten things out; and when a president introduces grand new entitlement programs (Medicare drug benefits) and fails to veto even one pork-laden spending bill ... well, the result is an uninspired electorate and ... Barack Obama.

Thanks, Public Schools and Teacher Unions. Back to that woman at the Obama rally: Does she really believe that once Obama is elected she won't have to worry about putting gas in her car or paying her mortgage? Yup, she probably does. Then we have those Harlem voters who think that Barack Obama did a fine job in selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate. This election, more than any I can remember, illustrates why Democrats are so determined to preserve our system of government education. American voters are, for the most part, spectacularly uninformed about the issues and the candidates they are voting for. Did I say "uninformed?" I meant to say ignorant. For the most part these people casting ballots today could not name their two U.S. Senators and their Congressman if their flat-screens and cell phones depended on it. Things are only going to get worse. Get ready for an all-out war on school choice .. and that includes the home schooling option. The era of the teacher's unions is upon us.

And thanks Voters. This is an election that has been driven by wealth envy and celebrity worship. I really don't see any of this changing anytime soon ... so, whatchagonnado?

I really should be saving most of this for tomorrow .. when we find out just how much trouble our Republic is really in. For today ... all we can realistically hope for is keeping those big-government numbers down in the Senate.

Another must Read

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/say_goodbye_to_america.html

Celebrity beats Substance in today's electorate

Election day is tomorrow, so there's definitely a chance here to prevent perhaps irreparable harm to our Republic ... maybe not a huge chance ... but a chance.

Never in the last 100 years has someone so completely inexperienced and so far to the left been so close to becoming our president. It is beyond imagination that we've come to this.

I wish I had more time to craft (if that's the word) a lengthy narrative on this campaign and the importance of our vote tomorrow ... so we go with bullet points. They don't necessarily flow together all that well ... but each gets a point across that is, I think, important.

Who knows ... maybe someone will read some of these points and tell themselves that they just can't pull the trigger for this dangerous leftist when they get into the voting booth. Others will read this and just have their feelings about how much trouble freedom and economic liberty in this country are in totally reinforced.

• One question about Obama that has never been satisfactorily answered is "What has he ever accomplished" other than write two books about himself? The best his supporters can come up with is "He was elected to the U.S. Senate." So was John McCain ... several times. Besides, take a look at his election. He had two opponents self-destruct with scandal. The GOP had to go to Maryland and talk Alan Keyes into moving to Illinois to run against Obama. Trust me, that win was no sterling accomplishment.
• Don't argue with me here. You'll lose. There is NO constitutional right to vote in a presidential election. We're going to learn in a few days just how smart our founding fathers were in this regard.
• Obama is a product of the Chicago political machine. Several times during his political career Obama had a chance to either cast a vote or make a statement against the corruption that permeates Chicago's machine. Never – not on one occasion – did he do so.
• The fact is, Obama has benefited from corruption (Tony Rezko?) but has never fought it.
• Do you know how Obama won his first election in Illinois? He had campaign operatives go to the voting office and work hundreds of hours pouring over petitions to have his opponents thrown off the ballot. I guess that means that this is the first real election battle he's ever been in!
• I guess it's just me, but all this time I thought that the government used its power to seize property ... i.e., to tax ... in order to fund the necessary and appropriate functions of government. Now, under Obama, we've learned that one of the appropriate functions of government is to take from those who have and give to those who have not. I prefer a different phraseology: Take from those who achieve, and give to those who achieve not. Karl Marx was of a like mind.
• Obama's "spread the wealth around" mantra means that he believes that we do not leave our homes every morning to work for ourselves and our families. We leave our homes to work for the government. We belong to government, not to ourselves. The government will determine how much of the money we earn we deserve to keep .. the rest goes to people the government believes to be even more deserving of the fruits of our labors.
• Obama's candidacy would have faltered before an educated electorate. Why do you think Democrats love government schools and teacher unions so much? Do you want examples? I've got examples.
• Obama says he's going to give tax cuts to 95% of Americans. Americans don't realize that over 40% of their numbers don't pay income taxes; and since they don't realize that, they aren't asking themselves how Obama can give a tax cut to someone who doesn't pay taxes.
• Obama has effectively change the definition of "tax cut." From now on any government handout to any worker is a tax cut. Changing this definition may well be one of their greatest accomplishments in this election and that new definition will cause us problems for decades.
• Obama constantly rants about those dirty corporations who shipped "our jobs overseas." An educated voter knows that those jobs belong to the employers, not the employees. Workers look for jobs. Employers with jobs look for workers. Pretty simple, really.
• Obama also tells us that 95% of small businesses out there will not have their taxes increased. The only reason this line works is because our public educated voters cannot grasp the idea that it isn't the percentage of small businesses hit with tax increases that counts; it's the percentage of small business employees represented by the unfortunate 5% that counts. Tomorrow thousands of workers – perhaps tens of thousands of workers – employed by what we call "small businesses" will cast a vote that, a year or so down the road, will cost them their jobs.
• Over the weekend Obama promised to bankrupt the coal industry if they tried to build any more coal-fired power plants. Can any of you think of a time when any president has ever made an overt threat to bankrupt a large American industry?
• Obama says that his "cap and trade" policy for controlling greenhouse gas emissions is going to cost electricity prices to "skyrocket." Oops ... there goes some of that middle class "tax cut." Guess he'll have to transfer some more wealth to help his constituents pay the increased price.
• There are literally millions of Obama supporters out there who think that once Obama becomes the president their lives are going to become sweetness, roses and light. One woman at an Obama rally thinks he will pay her rent.
• Remember Obama's 30-minute infomercial? If a foreigner with no knowledge of our country or our people were to see that program they would think that America was a country mired in abject misery and depravation. Thanks, Obama, for the nice positive message.
• How long after the election, whether Obama wins or loses, do you think it will take for that America-hater Jeremiah Wright to surface?
• The top 10% of income earners in this country pay over 70% of all income taxes. The top 1% of income earners earn around 19% of all income, but they pay almost 39% of all income taxes. When these people don't want to give up a larger share of their earnings Obama call's them "selfish."
• When someone is content to sit on their butts and wait for Obama to transfer some wealth from someone else to their pockets they are not "selfish."
• Every one of the points I am bringing up here is "hate speech" to an Obamacon.
• The great Democrat goal is to have more than 50% of the voters living, at least in part, on the efforts of the minority of voters. When we pass that tipping point ... and we're nearly there ... game over.
• In every election since 1952 Democrats have told the voters "vote for the Republicans and they'll take your Social Security away." In every election after 2008 the Democrats will say "Vote for the Republicans and they're going to make you pay taxes." Then if Obama wins again, in every election after 2012 Democrats will say "Vote for the Republicans and they'll make you pay for your own Social Security and Medicare." How long before we hear: "Vote for the Republicans and they'll make you work for a living!"
• Obama will definitely destroy your right to be armed outside of your own home for your own protection. The question is whether we count the time until he accomplishes this in days, weeks, months or years.
• Surveys in Israel show that 76% of Israeli citizens want McCain to win. American Jews will vote for Obama by pretty much the same percentage. What do Jews in Israel know that Jews in America do not?
• Peter Nicholas is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He has been traveling with Obama for almost the entire campaign. Nicholas writes "After all this time with him, I still can't say with certainty who he is." Nicholas doesn't know him, but so many voters are so sure they do.
• Obama wants a national civilian security force that, in his words, is "just as strong as our military." Who would they serve under? What would their mandate be? Would they be unionized? (oh HELL yes!). Would this be like the Soviet Union under Communism where neighbors ratted on neighbors for anti-government statements? And what does he mean "as strong as our military?" Would this national civilian security force have nukes? Tanks? Fighter planes? Are we just talking about a glorified national police? (Show us your papers!)
• Obama has talked about reducing spending on our military. One leading Democrat Senator has suggested a 25% spending cut on defense. Do you feel comfortable with that? You do know that all of the savings would be spent on buying votes, don't you?
• Do you home school your children? Obama has called home schooling a fraud. Put him in office and you'll be putting your kids back in government schools for their indoctrination.
• Do you run a small business? If Obama wins start planning immediately to lower your work force. The best way to do this would be through efficiency measures and temporary staffing agencies. Not only is Obama going to make it easier for your workers to unionize ... he's going to expand onerous measures such as the Family Leave Act. You will end up paying your employees a good portion of their salary to lay out for weeks on end.
• Maybe you shop at Wal-Mart. Get ready for higher prices. Obama's instant unionization bill will surely result in the unionization of Wal-Mart's workforce. In fact, as much as Democrat politicians hate Wal-Mart, it's safe to say that Wal-Mart is target number one. The result? Higher prices for you. If Obama can call a government handout a tax cut, we can call higher prices a tax increase. This will be Obama's tax increase on the poor and the middle class.

OK ... run with those.

If you're voting for Obama you're a racist.

So a liberal buddy of mine sent me a well-traveled email – one that argues that if Barack Obama had the same flaws as John McCain, he would be crucified. Meaning: the only reason McCain receives any support is because he's not black.

Which is intriguing – but asinine.

First of all, I always love how I`m told my judgment is inherently clouded by racism, according to people who don`t even know me. Fact is, I left the Aryan Brotherhood years ago. Even more, these jerks don`t realize I can use the very same argument on them. I mean, could it be their own innate and unconscious racism that`s causing them to believe I'm racist? I think shrinks call this "transference." These dopes are actually voting for Obama because THEY are racist - willing to overlook his inexperience and questionable judgment- in order to feel good about their own white liberal, pant-wetting guilt. Hence, their racism prevents them from comprehending anyone making a logical decision NOT to vote for Obama.

So this argument cuts both ways. I am not voting for him, because he's black. And you're voting for him - because he's black. But both cases are completely wrong. The fact is, if you're a liberal Democrat, you'd vote for Obama whether he was black or white (and, get this: he's both). But if you`re a conservative or a right-leaning libertarian, you wouldn`t vote for Obama whether he was black, white, or chartreuse. So when the left says the reasons behind your choice are racial instead of intellectual, it's way beyond arrogant, and bordering on an opinion that deserves a punch in the kisser. But that`s the beauty of stupidity – it knows no color.

And if you disagree with me, you`re probably a racist, xenophobic pig!

I wonder how many TV's and computers these poor dupes have?

So I watched Obama's infomercial, and forgive me if, unlike Chris Mathews, I didn't soak my Depends.

As I watched, all I could be was...confused. Obama produced what can only be described as bizarro-propaganda - a dour documentary designed to undermine an eastern bloc country, circa 1974. Ten minutes into the thing, I was expecting a bunch of fat babushkas in headscarves fighting over the last loaf of stale bread. By the time it was over, I had boiled and ate a neighbor's dog.

This was a view of our country seen, grimly, from the outside looking in: a place where everyone is sick, poor, or sickly poor. I call it Hugo porn - the kind of stuff that gives Chavez a chubby.

It's as if the most successful and selfless country in the history of the world never existed. Instead, we have east Germany without the lederhosen or the sausage. But I guess, in order to sell himself, Barack has to sell the rest of the country short.

When it was over however, I felt like I always do after ingesting a hard sell: convinced I was being sold something I didn't need. To me - Obama's gleaming valentine to himself succeeded in only reminding me of the Soloflex in the garage. Once shiny and new, it's now covered in soiled shorts.

And if you disagree with me, then you sir are worse than Hitler.

The Chosen One is really a "Hot Chick".

So yesterday a friend of mine who is one of those star struck, Marxist, liberal, asshole asked me about Sarah Palin, focusing on how little we know about her time in college. My blood pressure spiked, because naturally her history – or lack thereof – is far less murkier than Barack Obama's. But it didn't seem to matter, because no matter what you have against the man, it just doesn't stick.

Seriously, the man isn't a presidential candidate – he's a really hot chick.

You know what I mean, right?

You know how when a friend starts dating some girl – let's say a stripper with top of the line implants and a truly remarkable skill involving the projection of ping pong balls – he overlooks everything else. She could be spreading chlamydia like a Jehovah Witness unloading a case of Watchtowers, and it won't matter. Blinded by her beauty, he lets her get away with everything, until your buddy is left broken and broke – riddled with disease, sleeping in your garage and convinced a mob boyfriend wants him dead.

I'm not saying Barack is anywhere near that bad. I'm just saying that when it comes to the media, he possesses that impenetrable force field that every hot chick has – and no matter what you say or do to convince obsessed fans otherwise – it won't work. Face it: if you found out that your new girlfriend, who happened to be Megan Fox - worked with Acorn, hung around with Ayers, and used to do coke back in college – would you care?

Of course you wouldn't! It's Megan Fox!!!

Congratulations: you're now the New York Times.

Who do you belong to???

Sounds like an odd question, doesn't it? But have you ever actually thought for a moment about who has ownership rights to you? This is no silly or meaningless exercise here. You exist. You have value. That value belongs to someone. The question is who? This is an important question in this election because there are quite a lot of people out there who earnestly believe that you belong not to yourself, but to the government. For the first time in my memory we have a presidential candidate who wants to raise taxes on a few not so much to cover the costs of the essential functions of government, but to bring about some sense of what he calls "fairness" in the distribution of wealth. This would mean that in the eyes of this particular presidential candidate (I would mention his name, but that would be racist.) the government owns a portion of you; a portion to be used by the government to enrich the lives of others in the quest for economic "fairness."

Let me know how this works out for you.

A Must Read

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott Card

Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:

I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.

If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.

If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.

This article first appeared in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina,