Protect IP Act a danger to free speech

  If you followed the Righthaven mess, you're probably really glad it seems to have been settled by the courts, although they are appealing the many court decisions which have slapped them down.
  Righthaven is a legal organization created by the Las Vegas Review Journal conglomerate to go after bloggers who post anything from their websites on their own blogs. This included small bits of text (you know, like when referencing articles using the Fair Use Act for discussion purposes.)
  There were many problems with this monster, particularly that websites that used even a photograph without specific permission were liable to be sued. Righthaven threatened lawsuits in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, confiscated blog names and settled for much less. 
  Do these people understand the term "World Wide WEB"?
  WEB: something formed by interweaving.
  Interweaving articles, news stories, commentary...that sort of thing.
  It looks like Congress is set to approve something like the  Americans With Disabilities Act only this time for the internet.
  As usual, Congress felt a need to intervene to "hep people," so they passed the ADA, which has gone on to destroy many small businesses and have serious financial consequences around the country. No one's disputing that ADA access has helped millions of disabled people, but when the ADA is abused by people to simply make money, like $12,000 a day, something's wrong with the good intentions of the Act itself.
  Devising complicated schemes with unintended consequences to defend special interest groups, in case Hollywood and music moguls, is Congress's specialty, however. 
  And, oddly, the right and the left are united in opposition to the Protect IP Act hovering in the Senate like a light bulb smasher.
  From the Guardian, Eric Schmidt voices his opposition, comparing the legislation to "China's restrictive internet regime." (Note: Didn't Google support China in its endeavors to block words like "democracy"?)

Schmidt, who became Google's executive chairman last month after a decade as its chief executive, described website blocking as akin to China's restrictive internet regime. 

"I would be very, very careful if I were a government about arbitrarily [implementing] simple solutions to complex problems," he said. "So, 'let's whack off the DNS'. Okay, that seems like an appealing solution but it sets a very bad precedent because now another country will say 'I don't like free speech so I'll whack off all those DNSs' – that country would be China. 

"It doesn't seem right. I would be very, very careful about that stuff. If [the UK government] do it the wrong way it could have disastrous precedent setting in other areas."

  Concern mounts around the country for yet another intrusion into the rights of Americans and free speech.
  Considering that the feds have already shut down numerous websites, (84,000 ACCIDENTALLY) using Homeland Security, Department of Justice and ICE, and considering that they just shut down another group of websites a week ago, anything could happen with this.
  Social network websites like Twitter, Youtube and Facebook are threatened by this act, which tech dirt describes as "incredibly broad."
  We OPPOSE the Protect IP Act.
  Here's video that explains it.

Penn State Will Examine A New Crime Against Humanity

An Ethical Critique of the Climate Science Disinformation Campaign

Dear Attendees of COP-17

On Tuesday, November 29th, in a seminar organized by Penn State University and the University of Washington on the ethical dimensions of climate change join us to look at two issues.

One, an ethical analysis of the climate change disinformation campaign. We will examine whether this is a new kind of crime against humanity?

Second, we will look at the piratical significance for negotiations in Durban if climate change is understood to create human rights violations.

Tuesday, November 29th, 1PM – 5PM,The University of Kwazulu-Natal, Howard College Campus Howard College Lecture Theater

Look what turned up in the latest batch of Climategate 2 emails. An ethical critique from Penn State? How pretentious; how ironic. Everyone must be heartened to know that Penn State has discovered ethics. Looking at the " piratical significance for negotiations in Durban" is easier than looking at Jerry Sandusky abusing boys in the shower room.

Let's Talk About Bill Ayers Some More

For everything there is a time and purpose under heaven. Team Obama and its abettors carried on a extraordinarily malicious attack against Sarah Palin and her family long after the campaign ended. Baseless ethics complaints were filed against her, looser Levi Johnson was enlisted to help in the smear, and a writer literally stalked the entire Palin family. Grinning, team Obama moved on. When Michele Bachmann began to rise in the polls out came the knives. She was stupid. She was a homophobe. She held fundamentalist Christian beliefs that are verboten in today's world. Slowly she sunk in the polls. Many people love Sarah Palin and many people love Michele Bachmann and when the country gears up for the general election it will see the settling of old scores like it hasn't seen since the baptism of Michael Corleone's nephew. This video, showing Robert Gibbs lying about Obama's association with Bill Ayers is mild compared to what is to come. It will not matter if the Republican nominee may, as McCain did, insists on fighting a clean fight. Scores will be settled and settled brutally.

Three things have happened since 2008. The Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v The Federal Election Commission that corporations could donate money to political campaigns and political action groups. Regardless what the Republican Party and its nominee may want political action groups, flush with cash will broadside Obama with enough questions and accusations to make him puke. Why are his student records sealed? Was he an affirmative action beneficiary who flunked Econ 101? Did he write a term paper with anti-semitic sentiments? Why is his birth certificate photo shopped. What about Larry Sinclair, a Hillary Clinton discovery, who had a homosexual affair and did drugs with Obama? Let's talk about Tony Rezko, Reverend Wright, and Michelle's no-show job.

There was no Tea Party in 2008. In 2010 the two year old movement managed to pick up 63 House seats and 6 Senate seats. If not for Obama there would be no Tea Party. It was formed and exists solely for the purpose of destroying big government and sending Obama and his fellow travelers to political hell. The Tea Party also loves Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann and they will not pull punches. They will remind everyone of every failure and misdeed committed by team Obama from the auto bailout, to Fast and Furious, to Solyndra, to Obamacare, and to TARP. They will hold rallies, knock on doors, man phone banks and blog. They will outdo 2010.

In 2008 there was no Andrew Breitbart and his "Big Government" site. There was no James O'Keefe and his investigative journalism. These two alone are responsible for the defunding of ACORN, the probable eventual defunding of Planned Parenthood and NPR and driving a Democratic Congressman from office. Then there is Glen Beck who drove Van Jones from his job and who like Breitbart has the visibility and funds to push a story. Backing up the aforementioned, there are hundreds of bloggers who ferret out hundreds of local stories and frequently provide video proof of those stories. Yes, times have changed!

Occupiers: the greediest of them all

  So we keep hearing about how intense and righteously angry occupiers are about income equality, even though statistically most of the occupiers (originally anyway) have proven to be rich white kids.
  The truth is that the occupiers are greedy, materialistic parasites who are so fixated on getting other people's cash and unloading their own debts that their ambition far surpasses most people's willingness to sacrifice their morals to get what they want.
  Powerline points to an article in the radical leftwing The Nation by William Greider; it's pretty sickening stuff but wroth reading because it's so delusional. One expects Greider is capable of seeing fairy dust on the rottenest corpse.

This new movement is probably more threatening to President Obama, because many of the young people and minorities who campaigned and voted for him in 2008 might drift away to Occupy’s direct action. If Obama refuses to get tougher on reining in Wall Street, these former supporters may just skip voting in 2012. Yet this new force can ultimately help Obama if he responds to its message. Led by the young, the movement is aligning with the reviving militancy of labor and other progressive constituencies. The spirit is open-armed and patriotic, not negative and divisive. Obama should dare to lead it rather than dodge or oppose it. The Republicans are hopeless, of course, utterly in thrall to banking industry demands. 

In any case, this movement is not about electoral politics—not yet, anyway. It is about saving the country, an objective bigger than politics and politicians. Its vision is nothing less than halting the degradation and fostering the rebirth of the nation’s original democratic promise. It is the nature of authentic movements to seek large and majestic goals that seem impossible to pedestrian politicians—and, at first, to most citizens. Standing up requires both uncommon courage and severe provocation. 

Another reason I’m optimistic about the Occupy movement is its distinctiveness from other movements. Its horizontal, leaderless quality confuses outsiders but ensures its autonomy as a free-standing force not beholden to political parties or financial patrons that might restrict its behavior. OWS’s creativity depends on its independence.

  The occupiers are highly patriotic, not negative and divisive! Courageous! Leaderless! Up twinkles!
 Since it requires taking from the productive to give to the nonproductive, what is income equality except redistribution?

Republicans Supporting Internet Censorship

You know the Republicans are out of control when you find yourself cheering Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Senator Ron Wyden. The issue is SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). It was introduced in the House by Republican Congressman Lemar Smith. It has the backing of the Chamber of Commerce, Hollywood, and the music industry. Under the mantra of stopping Internet piracy the bill would impose censorship and mandate that Internet service providers block offending web sites. The sites are foreign, in jurisdictions that are not into copyright enforcement, but the burden will be on American Internet providers and allow a federal judge to order any site-foreign or domestic- to be blocked. The basic issue is freedom of the Internet which is supposed be subordinated to the interests of the movie and recording industries. Pelosi and Wyden are not suddenly born again defenders of the first amendment. They too have interests to protect. The battle has come down to a fight between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, eBay, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedIn have registered their opposition. Yahoo is so angry that it quit the Chamber of Commerce in protest. Oddly this turkey has attracted support from two public sector labor unions, the National Fraternal Order of Police and the International Association of Fire Fighters. Why cops and firemen care about copyright infringement isn't clear but maybe there is some safety issue connected to downloading a pirated copy Microsoft Office.
Senator Wyden has received over 100,000 signatures and promises to read them all as part of his threatened filibuster when the Senate version of the bill (Protect IP ) is brought to the floor. One study finds that of some 1,900 bills that have been introduced in the Senate, only 18 other bills enjoy the same number of bipartisan cosponsors as Protect IP does. Here are the Republican supporters:
Senators Alexander, Ayotte, Blunt, Boozman, Chambliss, Cochran, Corker, Enzi, Graham, Grassley, Hatch, Isakson, McCain, Risch, Rubio, and Vitter. No one should be surprised to see Lindsy Graham, Orrin Hatch, and John McCain on board but Marco Rubio's appearance is a disappointment. On the House side there are only 24 sponsors. Rep Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee is the only Tea Party disappointment.

Running Against The White Working Class

The New York Times article, which incidentally appears on the opinion page, The Future of the Obama Coalition states that the Obama team is going to abandon the white working class in the upcoming campaign. The Democrats have been losing the white working class since the 1960's and according to democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg and Ruy Teixeira. They have not given up trying to win them back but in the 2012 they propose trying to forge a coalition among "voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic."

The Times doesn't mention it but many of these groups have been fairly well insulated against the recession by liberal welfare benefit and public sector union contracts. Much of the stimulus program was all about making sure they stayed employed while the white working class was fed a healthy diet of green and shovel ready job promises. They bore the brunt of the drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico, and EPA strip mining regulation. They lost jobs in the medical device industry as a result of the tax imposed by Obamacare. They lost jobs on the postponement of the Keystone pipeline and the NLRB shutdown of the Boeing facility in South Carolina. They are not happy and if they reject Obama as badly as they rejected Democratic congressional candidates in 2010 it game over. In 2010 the white working class voted Republican by a 30 point margin. To win the White House Obama must limit his loss among all white voters to about 17 percent.

Rush Limbaugh seemed to read this strategy as a bold, new, initiative. I view it as desperation. Greenberg and Teixeira break down the numbers by demographics, setting targets for each group. President Obama must keep his losses among white college graduates to the 4-point margin of 2008 (47-51). Why? Otherwise he will not be able to survive a repetition of 2010, when white working-class voters supported Republican House candidates by a record-setting margin of 63-33. So they must keep the white college educated within 4 percent and then depend on young people, Hispanics, unmarried women, and affluent suburbanites to turn out and vote in huge numbers.

All this is going to be awkward for congressmen and senators running for election. What message prevails in a blue collar district? The congressional candidate's or Obama's? Since electoral votes are award by states, not by demographic groups Obama won't be able to have a standard stump speech that plays well statewide and television ad are going to be bland so as not to offend any group. This plan is too clever by half.

Cain Break?

Herman Cain's lawyer released the following statement;

"Mr. Cain has been informed today that your television station plans to broadcast a story this evening in which a female will make an accusation that she engaged in a 13-year long physical relationship with Mr. Cain. This is not an accusation of harassment in the workplace – this is not an accusation of an assault - which are subject matters of legitimate inquiry to a political candidate.

Rather, this appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults - a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public. No individual, whether a private citizen, a candidate for public office or a public official, should be questioned about his or her private sexual life. The public's right to know and the media's right to report has boundaries and most certainly those boundaries end outside of one's bedroom door.

Mr. Cain has alerted his wife to this new accusation and discussed it with her. He has no obligation to discuss these types of accusations publicly with the media and he will not do so even if his principled position is viewed unfavorably by members of the media."

Either Cain needs a better lawyer or it's all over. "a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public" That's all well and good but it was a matter of media and public inquiry when it was Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and Newt Gingrich and this statement is almost an admission of guilt. We shall see.

Georgia Woman Claims 13-Year Affair with Herman Cain: MyFoxATLANTA.com

The face of the nanny state wants more surgery

We covered the fattest man in Britain a while back here. 

  As you can see, Mr. Mason has a little weight problem. 
  He's not only been on government assistance, but has also milked the system for every last dime he can get, such as having several attractive young women wait on him, um, hand and foot.
  I made the point in the previous article that Mr. Mason is the face of the nanny state.
  He will never be full. 
  He will never be independent. 
  He will always take advantage of any handout.
  He has been trained by the government to believe that someone else is at fault, someone else will fix him, someone else will food and clothe him and someone else will make the hard decisions for him.
  Having been originally fired from his job for theft, Mr. Mason is completely dependent on the government for his subsistence and, as a minor celebrity, perfectly comfortable demanding whatever he decides he needs to make life fulfilling, including suing the government because they should have stopped him from eating so much in the first place.
  His initial problem with eating, he says, is that his heart was broken and thus he could not deal with life and its tragedies and took to Fritos as an alternative to life and romance.
  Somewhere around a million pounds (about one and a half million dollars) have been spent over the years on Mr. Mason, money that could have gone to fix THIS man, who also is under government care, only he's had to wait for treatment until NHS decides they have the money. He can still do his work as a plumber, they say, because his arm will reach around through the pipes.

    Mr. Mason, on the other hand, has lost a great deal of weight but is very unhappy with the sagging skin that remains. Therefore he wants the "unsightly" skin removed, at government expense. Daily Mail:

However, NHS bosses have refused to perform cosmetic surgery, insisting that he needs to maintain a stable weight before it can be considered. 

But Mr Mason, who can now leave the house in a motorised wheelchair, said: 'I just need a little bit more help. I feel like I have been just left high and dry.  

'I need this operation to be able to get my life back, to be able to get back into society. It is stopping me living a reasonable life.'

  Of course, we want Mr. Mason to live a reasonable life; his extra flesh is indeed unsightly. One might say, however, that the plumber deserves to live a reasonable life too, as do many others under government health care; and the plumber's physical problem isn't one of his making.

  In contrast, the US government has taken Mr. Mason's advice and snatched an 8 year old child from his mother and his home and put him in a foster home before he eats himself into a wheelchair.

  Either way, it would seem our lives are to be handed over to the nannies. 

  Either way, the individual will not learn to make decisions independent of outside forces who think they know better than our families.

A Few Good Words For Michele Bachmann

From the Last Tradition Blog;

Although recent polls have Minnesota congressman Michele Bachmann back in the second tier of candidates, I think she may end up getting a real second look by the voters. The media was quick to dismiss her after she one the Iowa Straw Poll. But, I tend to ignore state run media anyway.

Following the last Republican debate Joe Scarbourgh raved about Bachmann's debate performance. He noted that her position on Pakistan as "too nuclear to fail" was well reasoned and she delivered her responses without appealing for an applause line. Politico noted; "The Minnesota congresswoman used her spot on the House Intelligence Committee to good effect, getting the better of Perry in a back-and-forth about Pakistan and foreign aid. She made her points clearly and succinctly and seemed like she belonged on the stage." That afternoon Rush Limbaugh rated her performance as "outstanding".

I have long admired Michele Bachmann and I hope that The Last Tradition has it right.

Boy, 11 Defends Mother With A BB Gun

From the "A word to the wise is sufficient department", when a kid tells you to leave his mother alone you should listen. An 11-year-old boy defended his mother from an attacker by shooting him in the face with a BB gun. That was after he slapped him with a board. The attacker was a roomer at the residence and came home drunk and attacked the boys mother because his room was messed up. The boy shot the attacker in the face four times.

 

Free Internet For The Needy

Do you have a hard time hooking up now that you've lost your job and don't get up until noon? Is your porn stash in need of an upgrade? If you still have nude pictures of Anna Nicol Smith on your hard drive the answer is probably yes. Luckily help maybe on the way. From freegovernmentcellphones comes this encouraging post:

"It took the government a long time to move from helping people afford landline phones to helping them get a cell phone. The next logical step is subsidized high-speed internet for the needy, and we hope it doesn't’t take as long for this step to occur as it did for the cell phone program. Unfortunately, the government is not yet directly offering free internet or discounted internet service, but, we see the FCC moving in the direction of getting the rural and the poor connected."

Free cell phones is a win-win proposition for the phone company and the users, although the taxpayers who are forced to fund this governmental munificence might be put off by the $162 per user annual cost, the phone companies get $10 per month for everyone they sign up. In Ohio about 600,000 deserving poor receive free cell phone service, up from 280,000 in 2008. The cost is up too for that same period from $30.4 million in 2008 to $58.9 million in 2010. If you think a program that gives away free phones and 250 minutes per month would be prone to abuse you are spot on. As there are at least five phone companies involved in this boondoggle some of the deserving poor sign up for all five and sell their extra phones on Craig's List. According to the Dayton Daily News about 26,000 Ohioans are abusing the Obamaphone program.

In Florida, Ocala Com refers to the abuse as "confusion", an almost inevitable paperwork snafu. And it could be the phone companies are to blame.

"It’s unclear if customers knew they should have received only one subsidy or whether it was intentional, according to the FCC order calling for the audit."
Just wait until free internet gets here!

Ohio To See Joe Biden Over And Over Again

Lucky residents of Florida, Pennsylvania, and Ohio will be seeing a lot of Vice President Joe Biden in the coming year. The Obama campaign hopes Biden can do what Obama cannot, namely talk to voters. The campaign noted Obama's high negatives in selected groups in these three states make it difficult for Obama to campaign effectively in these must win battleground states. Recently I cited a PPP poll that showed Obama's approval rating among white voters in
Pennsylvania was a dismal 36 percent with a 59 percent disapproval. One would suspect that his numbers similar in Ohio. In south Florida the Jewish vote is deserting Obama in spite of the best efforts of uber shmendrik, Congresswoman Debbie Washington Schultz.

Biden is reported to have strong blue collar appeal; something Obama does not. "Obama provides the speeches, and Biden provides the blue-collar subtitles." says Dan Schnur, a republican strategist. Readers will remember Biden's untruthful claims to a working class background in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The three aforementioned states contain a total of 67 electoral votes and were carried by Obama in 2008.

OWS's ; The New Busy Bodies

If you stop and think about it, the idea that members of a street mob know better how to spend your time and money than do should make you pray that they never get any real power. Never mind those earrings you were going to buy your wife for Christmas the unwashed think you would be better off spending it on education. Whose education? Your own? No theirs. Don't spring for an Ipad for you daughter give the money charity. Don't waste you time shopping. Work with the homeless and tutoring children. Exactly how the OWS's are exempt from every eleemosynary endeavor is never made clear. My wife and I aren't entirely self centered. We did drive to Nashville to protest the lawless treatment of the Gibson Guitar Company by the Obama administration.

 

Notice they were completely ignored

Like, dude, take me seriously!

They say tv adds 25 pounds.

Obama's America: a state of anomie

  This morning we wake to learn there have been numerous incidents of Black Friday violence around the country, much of it in Walmarts.
  A $2 wafflemaker inspires a crowd to go nuts, ripping and shouting.
  A woman sprays pepper spray at the crowd in a fit of "competitive shopping."
  A robber shoots a man who won't surrender his purchases.
  A grandfather is slammed to the ground in an overreaction (it appears at this point) to the charge of theft.
  And the crime wasn't only in "Walmart" parts of towns. 
  In an upscale neighborhood in New York, the Hollister store was broken into by an angry mob who didn't realize the store wasn't opening early. 
  After breaking in, the mob shoplifted numerous items in a "leisurely" manner, leaving before the cops could get there.
  Granted, the economy is difficult right now, particularly since so many job opportunities have been damaged by the current administration.
  But we might wonder if there is something else at work here.
  The entitlement mentality that has pervaded and been encouraged by the current political group in office certainly has contributed to a general feeling of malaise, greed and selfishness.
  What has the administration done to foster this mentality?
  Instead of "Morning in America," it's "Animus in America."
  We hate others. We hate what they have. We hate their possessions. We hate our "enemies," who have more than we have, don't see things our way or generally are happy with their lives without "helping" us out personally and financially.
  It is, Americans are told, their right to want what is not theirs.
  It is, Americans are told, their right to be angry and upset with the way things are.
  It is, Americans are told, their right to grab a pitchfork and march to someone's house to chant, cultlike, our unhappiness.
  Obama gives address after address, giving one glum, sour, resentful appearnace after another. "Times are bad," he says, and then goes on to blame Bush repeatedly. We are our brother's keeper, he says, and he though he doesn't financially support his own family members, he wants to "spread the wealth around" from you to whomever he feels appropriate. Often, the appropriate recipients are Democrats, oddly.
  He gave your wealth, that is, the fruit of your labors, to someone like this woman. Remember her?
< Peggy Joseph synopsizes the problem.
  He promised so much and now she's disappointed. Oh, he indeed delivered a great deal to the Peggy Josephs of the world.
  The problem is, with people like this, it's never enough.
  They aren't self sustaining, they aren't hard working and they aren't about to take responsibility for their lives at this late date. They've been taught, both by generations of dependency and by the government, that the only way to get what you want is government handouts.
At that, Obama has excelled. 
  Then we have this woman, a 34 year old mother of four children and Harrisburg occupier who felt the need to, juvenile as it may seem, paint her face as a zombie and walk the malls, moaning and staring at shiny window merchandise in an effort, apparently, to discourage materialism. Or something.

photo by Donald Gilliland  The Patriot-News

  What do you suppose goes through this 30 year old mother's mind as she paints a blood slash across her face in preparation to stalk happy grandmothers and babies at the mall? 

  Does she giggle at the prospect of frightening the grandmother? 
  More importantly, does she actually think this activity gives her life meaning?
  She is an example of the great spiritual vacuum that exists in this country. 
  Trying to fill Pascal's "God shaped space" in their hearts, they supplanted a creator with a flawed, egotistical, narcissistic individual who loves no one but himself.
  Consequently we find ourselves living in anomie. The cultural rules and laws are breaking down; the occupiers have done exactly what the progressives have nurtured. 
  Though they claim anti-materialism, they are the most materialistic and greedy of all, by making it acceptable to take anything they want without paying, to steal, to whine, to break laws, to exhibit the behavior of bad dreams, unthinkable in days past.

  This is Obama's America.

  Let's make no JFK comparisons.

  This is Obama's America.

Obama: one of the 25 least influential people

  This hot information is from TV Newser.
  Ed Schulz is right up there too.
  Obama, President of the United States who offered himself for $1.50 to the public and who is hawking a 10% discount on his merchandise today, has been named by GQ Magazine as the 25th least influential person alive.
  The President of the United States who goes on every tv show imaginable including late night comedy shows has finally diluted the brand!
  Not only has he put the United States into decline, he's also put the title of POTUS into decline!
  Yowza!

Obama offers turkeys discount on Obamawear

  Yes, it's true. See the code?
  President Obama, who recently offered himself for dinner for the mere price of one dollar and fifty cents, has decided to offered a turkey10%discount for all Obamawear.

  Code: 10%TURKEYDAY.
  And remember, for a mere three dollars you and a friend can enjoy the company of the President of the United  States, who's hawking his wares to his formerly loving public:

A few Thursdays ago, I had dinner with four Americans named Ken, Casey, Juanita, and Wendi -- the winners of the campaign's first Dinner with Barack contest.
I loved getting to know each of them.
We're taking names for the next dinner starting now, and this time I want to add a new feature: If you win, you can bring a guest.
Chip in $3 or more today to be automatically entered to win a spot for you and a guest at the next dinner.
The folks who this election is all about tend to fall under the radar of the D.C. pundits and traditional news media.

  And, yes, this IS the President of the United States talking here.
  The real guy. 

Jerry Sandusky Set New Polling Record

Public Policy Polling (PPP) while polling in Pennsylvania found a new all time high in "unfavorable". Jerry Sandusky has an 88 percent unfavorable rating beating previous leader of this dubious distinction former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. Sandusky did poll favorable among 3 percent of respondents. Not surprisingly former coach Joe Paterno keeps a 51 percent favorable rating with only a 28 percent unfavorable. After 46 years, one suspects people are giving the coach the advantage of a wait and see moment until more details become public. Still, respondents by a margin of 45 to 38 percent think he should have been fired.

Union president caught bullying

  Grossly obese Chicago Teachers' Union president Karen Lewis is angry with Breitbart (aren't they all) because his website and Kyle Olson publicized a video in which she bullies the Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan, also from Chicago, for his lisp, claiming that he would have lost that lisp if he had gone to public school.
  She attacks Duncan because he has none of those great education courses and claims he's the equivalent of janitor being appointed head physician.
  Sweeping the stage majestically and repeatedly across the stage in dreadlocks and floor length coat with generous underarm exposure, Lewis brags about how she has never been in danger of being fired in her career, presumably because of union rules and affirmative action.
  The video was already on YouTube, but since Big Government publicized it, Lewis claims it is right wingers who are picking on her. She also brags about drug use.
  Her "apology" for the insulting remarks is a mish mash of "teachers always get a bad rap," an appeal for the poor children and an admission that she was inappropriate. Here's the part referring to the mean right wingers who "edited" the video (which means cut it down to a very offensive segment, easier to watch and more likely to be seen).

“As you know, neo-conservative, anti-labor and anti-public education bloggers -- with a history of distorting and misrepresenting the truth -- seized the opportunity to create a pseudo- firestorm around my comments in order to distract from our work at the Chicago Teachers Union. One such blogger created a viral video, edited for dramatic effect, and then distributed his skewed video to the media and others in the blogosphere in an attempt to smear my character.

  She's being held accountable for abominable, unprofessional behavior and she doesn't like it. Too bad. 

Budget Cuts That Make Too Much Sense

Former game show host Chuck Woolery makes the budget cuts that the Super Committee failed to do in two months in ten minutes.

Revisiting Ayn Rand

Allan Greenspan was a devotee of Ayn Rand. You would have thought that. Rand quit speaking to William F. Buckley after his National Review published Whittaker Chamber's scathing review of Atlas Shrugged. I remember that controversy when Chambers, in effect, rode Rand out of the conservative movement. What a review!

"Atlas Shrugged can be called a novel only by devaluing the term. It is a massive tract for the times. Its story merely serves Miss Rand to get the customers inside the tent, and as a soapbox for delivering her Message. The Message is the thing. It is, in sum, a forthright philosophic materialism. Upperclassmen might incline to sniff and say that the author has, with vast effort, contrived a simple materialist system, one, intellectually, at about the stage of the oxcart, though without mastering the principle of the wheel. Like any consistent materialism, this one begins by rejecting God, religion, original sin, etc., etc. (This book's aggressive atheism and rather unbuttoned 'higher morality,' which chiefly outrage some readers, are, in fact, secondary ripples, and result inevitably from its underpinning premises.) Thus, Randian Man, like Marxian Man, is made the center of a godless world."

"Out of a lifetime of reading, I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained."

Oh to be back in a world where the critics wrote better than the authors!

1-800 Feed My Kids

Yesterday my brother and I were talking about what professional sports have become today with the overpriced tickets, inflated concession prices, television royalties, and the sale of
officially licensed products. They are hardly a group worth much sympathy. This video, in a cruel sort of way, makes that point.

Perrysburger Brinkley goes off

  Douglas Brinkley is an historian originally from Perrysburg, Ohio. Ordinarily he is a fascinating speaker, full of warm and personal stories about historical figures, battles and events but this little incident at a congressional hearing and filmed by c-Span cameras looks a little, well, 
  He's moderately left wing, as that goes, and appears to run in left wing circles.
  To be honest, in this encounter with the congressman, neither man looks like Captain America.
  You want to cheer when you see Brinkley snap back at the congressman, who is arrogant, condescending and mean, but Brinkley, frankly, looks like he's been out all night drinking and takes great umbrage at having his name jumbled with Rice University.
  It's almost a duel between two  "Don't you know who I am?" self important dudes who can't drop it.
  Brinkley can't drop it; he looks childish and petulant, won't stop talking and repeats his self righteous grievance.
  It's hard NOT to be sympathetic with Brinkley because the congressman is such an a$$, and Brinkley is right...he DOES pay the congressman's salary but, hey, Brinkley looks like he's partying down on Bourbon Street the night before.

The Worst of Climategate 2

As everyone who is not dependant on the mainstream media knows by now another batch of 5000 emails was hacked from the University of East Anglia and posted on a Russian web site. There are an additional 250,000 emails behind a password for later release. You could be forgiven if your have forgotten that UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was awarded a Nobel prize for it contributions to junk science. James Delingpole of the Telegraph identifies this letter as the most damning email of them all.

date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:58:09 -0700
from: Kevin Trenberth
subject: The first Nobel and other Christmas greetings
to: IPCC-group
Seasons greetings to you all, my fellow Nobel Laureates (even if we did not get to go to
Oslo). I just want to wish you and your families all the best for the holiday season, and Merry
Christmas to those of you who celebrate that festival. As part of IPCC we have achieved
something to be proud of. Thankyou for being a part of it with me.
At NCAR at the Christmas party a group made up a song that mentions by name all the NCAR
LAs in AR4. The song is below. You may appreciate it. (or not).
All the best for 2008.
Kevin

Sung to tune of The first Noel
Our First Nobel
Our First Nobel, for the IPCC,
Goes to Beth, Bette, Bill, Jerry, Kathy and Guy.
Kevin, Linda, Paty, Re-to and so many more,
And we’re sharing the honor with Mister Al Gore.
Nobel, Nobel, a story to tell,
We hope our coworkers’ egos don’t swell.
The First Working Group said to sound the alarm,
Rising CO2 levels are causing great harm.
Temperatures and greenhouse gas are racing up neck and neck,
Soon the whole Earth will be hotter than heck.
Nobel, Nobel, the planet’s unwell,
This is the future the models foretell.
The Second Working Group said that change is assured,
From the melting of glaciers to migration of birds.
From loss of land and crops to habitats,
How can they make it much clearer than that?
Nobel, Nobel, the oceans swell,
Polar bears search for new places to dwell.
We must work to mitigate, tells us Working Group Three,
Change from fossil consumption to clean energy.
If we all do our share in reversing the trend,
Our children might have a clean Earth in the end.
Nobel, Nobel, sound the warning bell,
Let’s make a future where all can live well.
Nobel, Nobel, we are stars for a day,
Can an Oscar be far away?
***************

Kevin E. Trenberth

Inspired?

Who is Behind Occupy Wall Street?

If you've wondered who is behind the Occupy Wall Street movement look no further.

CBO; Stimulus Will Hurt Future Economic Growth

Stimulus spending acts similar to credit card debt. It can accelerate demand in the short run but in the long run it detracts from future purchasing power simply because one can't make new purchases until the borrowed debt is paid down. In a perfect world everyone would pay cash but sometimes debt is necessary and sometimes it is beneficial to the borrower. It may make perfect sense to put a new overcoat marked down 50 percent at the end of the season on your credit card and pay it off in six months provided the interest paid is less than the savings and you do need a new overcoat. Buying a round of drinks on credit for your OWS lodge brothers means that you lost the price of the drinks plus interest from your future purchasing power. Quietly the Congressional Budget Office has admitted that in the long run the stimulus bill will damage the economy.The new report finds, for example, that the stimulus may have added as little as 0.7% to GDP growth in 2010, when spending was at its peak, and created as few as 700,000 new jobs.

Worse yet instead of buying the topcoat it bought drinks for its friends. Most of the spending went to pay political debts not to infrastructure spending so now we have neither the money nor the infrastructure. Sending money to prisoners and dead people, underwriting loans to Solyndra and First Solar and giving money to states to prevent laying off teachers and cops left the country $825 billion plus interest in debt with very little to show for it. As the stimulus money began to flow into cities and states they appeared to spend less of their own money so economic activity was not increased but the debt was shifted from state and local governments to the national debt.

"New Company Policy: We are not hiring until Obama is gone."

Considering the economic recovery is the worst since the great depression it's shouldn't surprise anyone that many in the business world have soured on Obama and his hope and change. Bill Looman, the owner of U.S. Cranes, LLC explained; "Can't afford it. I've got people that I want to hire now, but I just can't afford it. And I don't foresee that I'll be able to afford it unless some things change in D.C." After putting the signs on his company trucks he posted it on FaceBook. Eventually the word filtered to the Feds and the Secret Service dropped by to see how subversive he really was but left laughing.

 

Occupy Toledo packs it up; movement soars

  So they moved out because of the cold weather, promising to meet in other locations, namely a social justice church, as a number of other occupy groups have. Someone commented that mysteriously the power was turned back on in their Levis Park area to fuel the Christmas lights.
  Heh.
  Edmonton occupiers also had their power turned off.
  Heh.
  In LA, where the weather is warmer, the city has offered 10,000 square feet of city property free at $1 per year rental fee. Considering that the cost of occupiers' misbehavior is at about $13 million nationally and considering that California is in, shall we say, fiscal danger, good luck with that.
  Meanwhile, nationally, the occupier movement seems to be waning, according to the Washington Times, who detail carefully the evolution of the movement, its origins and those groups who have schemed to imitate the Tea Party, which truly was a grass roots movement rather than a union/anarchist/communist/socialist/Soros sponsored event enhanced with paid participants.

Beginning last summer, Van Jones, former White House “green jobs” czar, self-proclaimed communist and hero of the far left, began foretelling of an “October Surprise.” In retrospect, he was attempting to assume the role of Rick Santelli, whose spontaneous rant on CNBC from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in February 2009 inadvertently launched the Tea Party movement. Mr. Jones’ predictions of an October surprise were far from spontaneous or inadvertent: They were pure political calculus, laying the groundwork for a much hoped for, much planned for Tea Party of the left. 

By no means was Mr. Jones working alone. The Take Back the American Dream Conference in Washington, D.C., was planned for the first week in October. It featured a roster of luminary liberal speakers, including the New York Times‘ Robert Reich, the Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel, Reps. Barney Frank and Janice D. Schakowsky, andAFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and a host of others.

  And so it goes. While some politicians, including those really, really high in government, continue to support the occupy movement in hopes of shoring up votes and support for their left wing cause, a significant portion of the population (those who work for a living, no doubt) has fallen out of love (if they were ever in it) with the poopers.
  The Week has several theories, not the least of which blames the Right Wing, as opposed to the poopers and their fans. Here are the theories:

1. People are disgusted with occupiers' behavior

  No. Really?

2. Right wing propaganda is working

And that would be.....the MSM? Don't think so. Right wing propaganda seems to hang around...the right wing.

3. Many Americans are just starting to pay attention. The Week quotes Tommy Christopher explaining the lack of attention this way:  "To the disengaged mind, the human tendency to crave order and conformity easily overtakes the details. If there's a fight involving the police, the police must be right."

  So we're disengaged. Yeah, that's it. We crave order rather than what we see above.

4. The protesters are too focused on protesting. 

  While they're not doing drugs, pooping on sidewalks, dying from overdoses, raping each other, banging drums.
  Yeah, they're too focused.

Utica Update

About a month ago I reported that
Chesapeake Energy had drilled three horizontal well in Ohio, Utica Shale. Here is a short update on those well:

The Buell 10-11-5 8H in Harrison County, Ohio was drilled to a lateral length of 6,418 feet and achieved a peak rate of 9.5 million cubic feet (mmcf) per day of natural gas and 1,425 barrels (bbls) per day of natural gas liquids and oil (liquids), or 3,010 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day;

The Mangun 22-15-5 8H in Carroll County, Ohio was drilled to a lateral length of 6,231 feet and achieved a peak rate of 3.1 mmcf per day of natural gas and 1,015 bbls per day of liquids, or 1,530 boe per day;

The Neider 10-14-5 3H in Carroll County, Ohio was drilled to a lateral length of 4,152 feet and achieved a peak rate of 3.8 mmcf per day of natural gas and 980 bbls per day of liquids, or 1,615 boe per day.

Romney & Obama Tied In Pennsylvania: PPP

I'm sure it pained Public Policy Polling, a Democratic pollster to write; " If the Republicans nominated Mitt Romney and the election was today Barack Obama would probably lose Pennsylvania, fundamentally reshaping the 2012 electoral map." The poll finds Obama very weak among white Pennsylvania voters, well below the usual norm for northeastern states, and more like what they would expect from the deep south. Obama trails among white voters 36 to 59 percent. Romney and Obama both poll at 45 percent but among undecided voters Obama only has a 24 percent approval rating.

Notice Ron Paul is the second strongest contender and they omitted Michele Bachmann from the poll.

Democrats are the party of the rich

  We hear it over and over.
  Republicans (of which I am not a member) are the party of the rich.
  Conservatives (which I am) are heartless because they want people to be more independent.
  Republicans are "the rich." We see this in the class warfare rhetoric of President Obama and the occupiers, who apparently resent anyone having anything someone else doesn't have.
  Witness good old Al Sharpton claiming the mission isn't accomplished until everyone has the same stuff.
  Rep. John Duncan has written recently about the truth of who actually votes Republican..

The biggest lie in American politics is that the Republican Party is the party of the rich or wealthy.
In fact, the Atlantic Magazine, a year after the 2000 election, had an article comparing red and blue America. It said Montgomery County, Md., one of the wealthiest counties, voted 68 percent for Al Gore, while Franklin County, Pa., one of the poorest counties, voted 68 percent forGeorge W. Bush.
The article said in Franklin County, the Cracker Barrel was the most expensive restaurant and the death of Dale Earnhardt was a big event, while in 

Montgomery County, most people did not even know who Dale Earnhardt was.

  Let's look at "the poor," as defined by President Obama, from the Heritage Foundation. Robert Rector's research may surprise:

• 80 percent of poor households have air conditioning. In 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

• 92 percent of poor households have a microwave.

• Nearly three-fourths have a car or truck, and 31 percent have two or more cars or trucks.

• Nearly two-thirds have cable or satellite TV.

• Two-thirds have at least one DVD player, and 70 percent have a VCR.

• Half have a personal computer, and one in seven have two or more computers.

• More than half of poor families with children have a video game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation.

• 43 percent have Internet access.

• One-third have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.

• One-fourth have a digital video recorder system, such as a TiVo.

  While the MSM likes to claim Republicans in Congress are the ones who favor "the rich," Rolling Stone, of all places, points out that it couldn't be done without the help of Democrats who receive millions of dollars from corporate entities.
  And, of course, there are recent accusations of "insider trading" equivalency for Congress members who do not have the same prohibitions as actual producers in this country, even though they sit on the committees that influence policy and the economy.
  And who in Congress has benefited most from this insider trading from the Washington Times?

Despite the GOP’s reputation as the party of the rich, HouseRepublicans fared worse than their Democratic colleagues when it comes to investing, according to the study. The Democratic subsample of lawmakers beat the market by 73 basis points per month, or 9 percent annually, versus 18 basis points per month, or 2 percent annually, for the Republican sample. 

“Given the almost folkloric belief that Wall Street invariably favors Republicans, the superior performance of trades made by Democratic representatives may seem surprising,” the study authors said.

  As Hot Air titles this information "Party of the rich: Democrats in Congress score "abnormal stock profits"
  In fact, the blue states, which are constantly running out of other people's money and are talking about robbing the red states to pay for blue states' entitlement programs, have incomes that are statistically higher than the red states:

According to labor statistics, in “blue” states with a majority of Democrats, the average income is $100,000.  While in “red” states with a majority of Republicans, the average income is $30,000. The biggest supporter of the Democrat Party, George Soros, is a billionaire.  The other major supporters are Hollywood elites.

  This has been pointed out time and time again, but somehow, the fact that the Democrat party is the party of "the rich" never seems to resonate in the MSM public airwaves. Only those who lean conservative point this out occasionally. Washington Examiner:

Other data points:

• Wealthy Individuals Voted for Obama: 
CNN reported about election 2008: “High income voters — those who said they make at least $100,000 a year –went in Obama’s favor, 52 percent to 47 percent.”

• Wealthy Counties Voted for Obama:
 American’s richest county, Loudoun County, Va., voted Obama 54-46, thus being more Democratic than the rest of Va. and the nation (which were both 53% Obama). Fairfax, Va., the nation’s second-wealthiest county, voted 60% Obama.

• Wealthy States Voted for Obama:
 The three wealthiest states — Maryland, Connecticut, and New Jersey, all voted overwhelmingly for Obama.

Now, there are plenty of ways in which the wealthy lean Republican, but the idea of the GOP as the party is just a well-worn myth.

  And more here:

Democrats now represent 57% of the 4.8 million households that had incomes of $200,000 or more in 2008. In 2005, Republicans represented 55% of those affluent households.
"Democrats have made enormous gains in affluent, educated suburban districts," says Warren Glimpse, founder of Proximity, a firm that analyzes demographics. "What's not clear is whether this reflects a profound change or a temporary blip."

  Here we can see the wealthiest members of Congress; Issa was wealthy before he came into office.
  And at the Spectator we see more statistics on who the "rich" really are and who elects Democrats:

Not only does the theory that the rich elect Republicans ring false, just the opposite prevails. The bottom five states in the listing were Mississippi, Idaho, Utah, West Virginia, and Arkansas. Together these five states have 7 Republican senators (and 3 Democrats) and 12 Republican House members (and 4 Democrats).
So, the highest per capita income states had an 80% Democratic Senate ratio and 75% Democratic House ratio; while, the states with the lowest per capita income had a 70% Republican Senate ratio and a 75% Republican House ratio.

  Red states, with their lower incomes, have been bailing out blue states for years, particularly with the stimulus money which benefited unions who paid kickbacks to the Democrat party and created projects that had little value to the general public.
  Blue state residents seem to be heading for the door; the MSM and the Democrat party can only hide this information for so long. 
  People instinctively know what's true and what's not.
  The Stupid Party, however, ought to get out there and push this information.
  It the truth, after all.