Friday, December 03, 2010

Liberal vs. Conservative

Liberal vs. Conservative

Yes, I know it is a bit hackneyed by now, but this is the best twelve minutes I have spent in at least a few days. Enjoy.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Child stripped, photog intimidated by TSA

Child stripped, photog intimidated by TSA



From the photographer/uploader's statement:

Lets get the facts straight first. Before the video started the boy went through a metal detector and didn't set it off but was selected for a pat down. The boy was shy so the TSA couldn't complete the full pat on the young boy. The father tried several times to just hold the boys arms out for the TSA agent but i guess it didn't end up being enough for the guy. I was about 30 ft away so i couldn't hear their conversation if there was any. The enraged father pulled his son shirt off and gave it to the TSA agent to search, thats when this video begins.

******* THIS VIDEO OCCURRED AT SALT LAKE CITY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT ON NOVEMBER 19TH AT AROUND THE TIME OF 12:00 PM **********

***Insertion of what happened after the video (full story)****

After I finished videotaping the incident I went through the check point myself. I collected my things and went over to talk to the father and son. Before I could get to them a man in a black suit who had been talking with the other TSA officials approached me. He asked to speak to me and I obliged, wondering what was to come. He then proceeded to interrogate me about why I was videotaping the "procedures of the TSA". I told him that I had never seen such practices before on a young child and decided to record it. The man being frustrated at this point demanded to know my plans with the video, of which I didn't respond. Repeatedly he asked me to delete the video, hoping his mere presence could intimidate me to obey, but I refused. By this point it became obvious that he felt TSA had done something wrong and that I caught it on tape. After the interview, I left for my gate. I called my brother who told me I should put the tape on YouTube because this had been a recent hot topic in the news.

My gate was a long way off, but about 15 minutes after arriving 2 TSA agents came and sat 15 feet or so away from me. I stood up and moved so that they were in front of me and then took a picture. A 3rd and then a 4th agent came and sat down with the others. They would occasionally glance at me and talk on their walkie-talkies. I don't know why they were there or if it was a huge coincidence but they stayed for 30-45 minutes and left just before I boarded the plan. Interesting to say the least, intimidating? Maybe a little...

Sunday, November 21, 2010

What is wrong with America?

What is wrong with America?

Drew Klavan gets it, and explains it to us.

Men used to be men - What happened?

Men used to be men - What happened?

Now that we have a limp wristed metrosexual president who throws a baseball like a girl, who will stand up for the rights and dignity of women and children?

Theme Song for Obama and his Minions

Theme Song for Obama and his Minions

TSA is out of control

TSA is out of control

Monday, November 01, 2010

Election Night Party at the Rimrock

Election Night Party at the Rimrock

Some Seattle bloggers are setting up a drunken (optional) victory party at a local dive. I'm gonna try to show up, at least for a little bit, but any of the rest of you closet conservatives here in the Seattle area (is there any other kind?) who want to sit in a bar, surrounded by screens tuned to Fox News, along with some like-minded people, come on down to the Rimrock on Lake City Way Tuesday evening.

The election night party has its Facebook page here, and all the particulars are here at Sound Politics.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

How the democrats sunk themselves this time

How the democrats sunk themselves this time

A particularly accurate piece of meta-transcript is on display on PJ today, written by Frank J. Fleming. Like most political humor, it is dead-on accurate:
AMERICANS: “So, the economy is pretty bad and there’s high employment. You think you can do something about that?”

DEMOCRATS AND OBAMA: “We can spend a trillion dollars we don’t have on pork and stuff.”

AMERICANS: “No … that’s not what we want. We’d really like you not to do that.”

DEMOCRATS: “You’re stupid. We’re doing it anyway.”

AMERICANS: “That’s not going to help us get jobs!”

DEMOCRATS: “Sure it will; millions of them … though they may be invisible. You’ll have to trust us they exist. And guess what else we’ll do: We’ll create a giant new government program to take over health care.”

AMERICANS: “That has nothing to do with jobs!”

DEMOCRATS: “We don’t care about that anymore. We really want a giant new health care program. We’re sure you’ll love it.”

AMERICANS: “Don’t pass that bill. You hear me? Absolutely do not pass that bill.”

DEMOCRATS: “Believe me; you’ll love it. It has … well, I don’t know what exactly is in the bill, but we’re sure it’s great.”

AMERICANS: “Listen to me: DO. NOT. PASS. THAT. BILL.”

DEMOCRATS: “You’re not the boss of me! We’re doing it anyway!”

AMERICANS: “Look what you did! Now the economy is way worse, we’re even deeper in debt, and we have a bunch of new laws we don’t want!”

DEMOCRATS: “You’re racist.”

AMERICANS: “Wha … How is that racist?”

DEMOCRATS: “Now you’re getting violent! Stop being violent and racist, you ignorant hillbillies! And remember to vote Democrat in November.”

So the Democrats sucked. But not just plain old, usual politician sucked, but epic levels of suck where it’s hard to find an analogue in human history that conveys the same level of suckitude. It was sheer incompetence plus arrogance — and those things do not complement each other well. We’re talking sucking that distorts time and space like a black hole.

It’s Godzilla-smashing-through-a-city level of suck — but a really patronizing Godzilla who says you’re just too stupid and hateful to see all the buildings he’s saved or created as he smashes everything apart. Or, to use Obama’s favorite analogy, you have a car stuck in ditch, so you call the mechanic, but the only tool he brings with him is a sledgehammer. And then he smashes your car to pieces and charges you $100,000 for his service. Finally, he calls you racist for complaining. Obama and the Democrats have been so awful, it’s hard for the human brain to even comprehend.
They suck like a black hole? Nice. And true.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Evolution

Evolution

There are a plethora of tribal arguments making the rounds these days, among them Global Warming and Darwin's theory. There are plenty more, but these two seem to be particularly susceptible to a logical attack. (Who knows - maybe Bush really DID make a deal with bin Laden) Both sides to these arguments need to ignore the other side's facts to continue in their blissful certainty. These are complicated natural systems, and neither side wants to concede that the truth is NOT available to either side.

One thing I have learned in decades of readings in science during a period of immense progress in the state of understanding is this: The more we know, the less certain we seem to be. Greater knowledge give us the power to formulate better questions. The facts we learn refuse to support either of the polarized sides. We just do not know enough. This has reached the point of parody in the global warming debate, since one side was so sure that their truth was the objective truth that they falsified so much of the data that there has really been no advance of knowledge. None of that is true in the evolution debate, where both sides act from the same set of data.

Evolution is not a sound bite. It is a complex scientific theory that has many elements. Some parts of the theory are provably true, parts are provably false. Anyone who takes a definitive position on either side of the God vs. Nature debate is practicing a religion. Anyone who claims that Darwin or his successors can use their theory to explain or describe how a living cell emerged from a puddle of slime is as committed to his Darwin religion as any holy-roller. There is no way to use that body of work to describe how a fish became a lizard which became a bird or a mouse, let alone how that mouse became Einstein. Not a clue to how that was done. Personally I do not believe a deity was involved, but religion describes the phenomenon better than any scientist can - yet.

Once we get past the child's play of the actual origin of species, we can undertake to explain the Big Bang and the origin of the Universe.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Catastrophic Global Warming

Catastrophic Global Warming

This current interglacial period is coming to an end. True to form, the warming trend ended with a spurt of heat. Now we are hanging around the peak, maybe about to go into a global temperature decline. Ocean heat has not risen since 2004. Minimum arctic ice extent hit its minimum in 2007. The southern hemisphere is at record cold this winter. The only thing in scientific dispute is whether we are about to begin a cooling towards an ice age, or will the natural warming continue. Staying the same is the least likely outcome. It is not any exaggeration to say that we can take a 2 degree warming WAY better than we could a 2 degree cooling. 5 degree cooling and civilization is dust. Small, ambitious people are riding the wave of public cash and power on this AGW fraud. They are dining out and seizing power and tax money worldwide on this situation. Just remember one thing that is absolutely true - when the warming stops, the ice age begins. And all signs are that the warming has stopped. If that trend is not reversed, pray.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Quote of the Day - H.L. Mencken

Quote of the Day - H.L.Mencken

"The desire to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it"

H.L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

Monday, September 13, 2010

Quote of the Day - Marcus Aurelius

Quote of the Day - Marcus Aurelius

"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180)

Sunday, August 22, 2010

It's a great time to be an American

It's a great time to be an American

Benjamin Franklin once said "Where you stand depends on where you sit," but, beyond your situation, your stance also depends on your preconceived notions, your experience, strength, and hope, plus your expectations of what is possible. Thus, anyone who believes that the American constitution is the best rule book for the future, needs to come to terms with the reality that the constitution is not respected anymore as the national rule book, by any of the three branches of government that it created. Clearly, people who believe that we have but three branches of government have not closely read the document itself, which places sovereign power over those branches of government squarely in the hands of We the People.

In the last two decades, two major political groups have taken a stance far from constitutional rules, the social conservatives and the democrats. For the last four years the democrats have dominated the legislature, and have used their power to move the system further away from any semblance of constitutional rule over the expansion of their power. For almost two years the democrat party has dominated the executive as well, and they have acted in a way that seems bound and determined to remove any constitutional constraints on their almost dictatorial powers. Now it appears that they have overstepped the bounds of what they can get away with. Election day looms.

Zero base thinkers make a habit of reading opinion from all sides of the political debate. I must admit that reading sources from the political left has been a difficult chore these last few years, as they immersed themselves in the practice that has been so aptly named "Bush derangement syndrome," so unhinged has been their criticism of George W. Bush and all other thinkers on the right. The leftist (or statist) commentariat has reveled in their perception that their war against Constitutional limits to government power and American Exceptionalism had been won. It appears, however, that their celebration has been premature.

The counterattack began with the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, and the feckless response to those events by the president. It reached a fury over the cynical way the democrats pushed through their Trojan Horse health care bill. Now the terms of their defeat are being negotiated in election races nation wide. Clearly, this upcoming election will only be the result of a single battle in the war for control of our nation, and there will be many battles ahead, but it is clear that democrats will emerge from the elections in a depleted condition. I try not to predict the outcome of elections, but it is a common understanding that the control of congress will revert to the republicans, and the filibuster-proof majority the democrats hold in the senate is over.

So, these days, it has become less of a chore to read leftist opinion on websites like Daily Kos and Huffington Post. They reveal a diminution of respect for their leader, Barack Obama, who has turned out to be a disappointment to a vast majority of voters. He has not delivered on his implicit and explicit promises, made during the long campaign, to his base. Guantanamo stands, war continues, health insurance premiums soar. And, to the joy of no organized group, the economy is failing under the discredited policy prescriptions of the anti-business left. All this is fueling a strong response from freedom loving voters of all stripes, and should serve to depress turnout of many "Donkey" voters.

But the election is two and a half months away, so their can be no joy in the result yet. One can take joy today, however, in the disarray in the world of democrat opinion. For instance, Arianna Huffington writes,
"I get that the progressives, and the activists, and the young people who voted for the first time, and the disillusioned voters who returned to the polls in '08, feel slighted by the president. You thought you had a special connection with him, but it turns out he'd rather hang out with Larry Summers, flirt with Olympia Snowe, or play war games late into the night with David Petraeus. Face it: he just isn't that into you."
And the vitriol directed at president Obama can be found all over Daily Kos and other leftist, statist, and socialist sites has become entertaining, as the democrats engage in their cannibalistic practices. It seems as if no actual politician (with an actual chance to be elected) will ever be extreme enough for them.

As the sun sets on this latest attempt to seize power in the United States of America, it is a great time for us citizens. The democrats have been revealed as the party of the entrenched single interest power centers, and the super-rich. I do not advocate the republican party as the answer to the diminution of the constitution as the rule book of the American government. It is, however, the repository of the resistance to the Obamist movement, that is the horse the electorate has to ride at this time, if we are to move the government back, closer to the constitutional ideal. And they are riding it to victory in this latest effort to restore the rule of law to our republic.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

The Essence of the Ground Zero Debate

The Essence of the Ground Zero Debate

Misguided individuals have sided with a group that desires to erect a monument to the destruction of the great symbol of Western Freedom, the World Trade Center. I say that they are misguided because they show their fundamental misunderstanding of what the enemy is all about. To review:

In Islam, the world is divided into two parts, Dar al Islam, or World of Submission, where everybody is either Muslim or pays the Jizya and accepts second class status, and the Dar al Harb, or World of War, with which the entire Islamic establishment is dedicated to take over by any means necessary. In a war, you have to pick sides. To stand above the fray puts you in the camp of the enemy.

Give us you tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The operative word is FREE. If you want to take over, and convert everybody at the point of the sword, stay home. If home sucks, rot there, do not come here to spread your idea of religion and government as one governing unit. Now THAT is un-American.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Quote of the Day - P. J. O'Rourke

Quote of the Day - P. J. O'Rourke

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things bought and sold are legislators."

P. J. O'Rourke (born 1947)

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Sarah Palin's main obstacle is from republicans

Sarah Palin's main obstacle is from republicans

There is a lot of opinion on the right that takes Sarah Palin lightly, even making fun of her. While a lot of this might be due to misogyny (after all, there must be a reason we have never had a female president) the rest of the criticism is, to me, eerily reminiscent of the early reaction to Ronald Reagan's candidacy.

Those of us old enough to have voted for Reagan remember how the left and the media, and even some in the republican establishment ridiculed him. An ACTOR fer crissakes! Many grass roots republicans were unsure of him also, but once he was nominated the jibes and caricature melted in the face of his down home common sense and the fact that we all knew that he was a lot like us. He was nothing like any politician we had ever seen before. Then he demolished Carter in the debates, and it was all downhill racing from there.

So go on republicans, keep equivocating about Sarah - it will only make her stronger. She may have a ways to go to be able to challenge the empty suit for the White House, but like Reagan, her biggest battle will be against the old men of the republican party - after three and a half years of bald-faced statist rule, America will welcome her far easier - and sooner - than the old guard of the republican party. They have power to protect, and Sarah is not a part of the old boy's power structure on the right. But in the end, politics is all about winning, and winning is all about turnout, and turnout is all about excitement. No doubt Sarah engenders excitement - from both sides.

Saturday, July 10, 2010

A Poem

A Poem

I do not like this Uncle Sam
I do not like this gulf oil scam.
I do not like these dirty crooks,
how they all lie and cook the books.
I do not like when Congress steals
I do not like their secret deals.
I do not like this speaker Nan,
I do not like this 'YES WE CAN.'
I do not like their smug replies
when I complain about their lies.
I do not like this kind of hope.
I do not like it nope nope nope!

With apologies to Dr. Seuss, and thanks to whoever actually wrote this bon mot.

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Democrats hope Obama 2008 model will help stem midterm losses

Obama screwed white voters, now he reaps the whirlwind


So, we elected the first black president. Next thing you know, we required him to live up to some (small) portion of the promises he made to us. He failed.

I have posted several times before the election that Obama has better be a decent president, or his election would be a harbinger of deteriorating relations between the races. That prediction is about to come true - in spades. As the Washington Post is beginning to realize.

Monday, July 05, 2010

Cuban Missile Crisis and Gaza

Cuban Missile Crisis and Gaza

It is interesting to compare the reaction of democrats to memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis to their reaction to the Gaza blockade. While the Left uses Israel's actions to further demonize the Jews, one wonders if there is a substantive difference between the blockade JFK placed on ships going into Cuba in 1962 and Israel's blockade on ships going into Gaza today. In both cases the ships are suspected of carrying weapons. In both cases international law supports the right of states to protect themselves this way. Yet Israel attracts the ire of democrats in a way that JFK never has.

Does it have something to do with the fact that Americans of Cuban descent, who vote in American elections, approve of the isolation of the regime of the Castro brothers? Is there a chance that, if American Jews would withhold their votes for democrats who refuse to support Israel, the democrats might change their tune?

Sunday, July 04, 2010

Have a safe and happy Independence Day!

Have a safe and happy Independence Day!

Quote of the Day - Mark Twain

Quote of the Day - Mark Twain

Mark Twain, who was not Jewish, marveled at the apparent immortality of the Jews throughout their harsh history in a famous essay. He wrote in his famous essay "Concerning the Jews" published in Harper's magazine in 1897:

If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.

His contributions to the world's list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also way out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and he has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it.
The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished.

The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal, but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) - 1836 - 1910

Friday, July 02, 2010

Obama Administration Has A Big Problem Delivering the Truth

Obama Administration Has A Big Problem Delivering the Truth

Congressional Report Claims Administration Misled About Efforts on Oil Spill
"(CNSNews.com) – Billy Nungesser, president of New Orleans’ Plaquemines Parish, sensed that a chart showing 140 oil skimmers at work -- a chart given to him by BP and the Coast Guard -- was “somewhat inaccurate.” So, Nungesser asked to fly over the spill to verify the number."

Administration oil spill report requires a willing suspension of disbelief?
"Rep Darrel Issa (R-CA) has become a bit of a thorn in the administration’s side over its response to the spill. As ranking member of the House’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he’s taken it upon himself to have the various administration claims investigated. The result? Not so hot:" (PDF)

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

"Militia" in the second amendment

"Militia" in the Second Amendment

The fundamental argument of the anti-gun side in gun rights cases, and most recently the minority dissent in McDonald v. Chicago, is the language of the second amendment. "A well regulated militia being necessary..." is commonly misconstrued by statists as if a militia is supposedly some kind of a military operation organized and equipped by the State. Nothing could be further from the truth, if the gun right is considered in the context in which it was conceived. The idea was that, when necessity came, a militia could be formed in a moment, by calling people out of their homes, bearing the arms they had been keeping. The only way that could work would be if the citizens already had their arms in their possession, ready to deploy. Of course, lawyers and judges commonly use the language to confuse or obfuscate in order to reach their desired result. We understand their zeal to rewrite the constitution, since their highest goal is to rewrite that rule book, but there is no way the National Guard could suffice to provide the fundamental right of citizens to join an ad hoc militia when necessary, on demand or command.

And what can we do about actual amoral mendacity by judicial nominees? In Sonia Sotomayor's case, how can it be other than a lie under oath, swearing just a few months ago that she found an individual right to arms in the rule book, yet today she could no longer find it there. I guess that there is no way to hold these people to their oaths, but it certainly is unseemly that she could blatantly swear to whatever she thought her audience in the Senate Judiciary Committee wanted to hear, and then contradict herself a few months later. The other three dissenters could plausibly claim that their beliefs of what the constitution means had changed over the years, but Sonia has no such excuse. Neither will Elena Kagan.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Quote of the Day - Ronald Wilson Reagan

Quote of the Day - Ronald Wilson Reagan

"Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so."

Ronald Wilson Reagan - (1911 - 2004)

Monday, June 21, 2010

The Pledge of Allegiance

The Pledge of Allegiance



Buy this song, or the album, on iTunes.

Kyl says Obama is holding Border control hostage.

Kyl says Obama is holding Border control hostage

It is enough to make me wish we could have Bill Clinton back. This president Nobama has a tin ear for politics. He is willing to admit to a U.S. senator that he refuses to control the border because he feels that closing the border better will result in less support for "comprehensive immigration reform." Not only is he most likely wrong, he is foolish for admitting it. Longer video available, but I have posted the short form below.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Jihad is Sweet, Jihad is Fun

Jihad is Sweet, Jihad is Fun

Starring the leaders of Turkey, Iran, and Syria. From the folks who brought you "We Con the World."

Saturday, June 05, 2010

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day - Thomas Mann

"Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil."

Thomas Mann - 1875 - 1955

Am Yisroel Chai

Am Yisroel Chai

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

It’s better to have a Jewish State that’s hated by the whole world than an Auschwitz that’s loved by it."

Seen on a poster carried by an anonymous protester outside the U.N. building in NYC.

My choice for best campaign ad by a democrat. Ever.

My choice for best campaign ad by a democrat. Ever.

Video Analysis of Lynching at Sea

Video Analysis of Lynching at Sea

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Who ever said he was competent?

Who ever said he was competent?

Peggy Noonan has a piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal pointing out that the Gulf oil spill is revealing the president's lack of competence. She was one of the "moderate" republicans who supported him in his quest for the White House, one of the enablers of his lust for power and self aggrandizement.

Forgotten in the Gulf oil spill mess is that is was the federal government itself that created the mess in the first place. By caving in to environment extremists the federals were the ones that drove the drillers offshore in the first place. No company would drill in 5000 of water if they were allowed to drill in 100 feet, but the Greens, backed up by yuppies who wanted a better view from shore, made that impossible, and the federals gave power to their antihuman dreams. ANWR is a perfect example. Nobody makes his living there, only caribou and mosquitoes live there, yet the oil remains in the ground, while shrimpers watch their livelihoods go down the drain.

But Peggy Noonan is really just apologizing for her own support of Obama. Who in their right mind ever thought the empty suit was competent in the first place? Only those who were willfully blind to his lack of any single achievement voted for him. The evidence was there from day one, that all this clown knew how to do is make trouble and get himself elected to jobs for which he was unqualified, and all he ever did, once elected, was to use the position as a springboard to higher office.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Moslem Cow wants to see Jews "Hunted down and killed"

Moslem Cow wants to see Jews Hunted down and killed.

Muslim Students Association supports "Hitler Youth Week" at U.S. San Diego

Swat Team Shoots Dogs

Swat Team Shoots Dogs

Sunday, May 09, 2010

Friday, May 07, 2010

Welcome to the Planet of the Apes

Welcome to the Planet of the Apes


Guest Post by Ted Nugent

If ever there was a case of the proverbial pot calling the kettle black, it is the cluster of new financial regulations Washington politicians are trying to foist on the back of Wall Street.

In a typical political smoke-and-mirrors misdirection, President Obama wants us to believe greedy Wall Street bankers are to blame for our economy sinking in financial quicksand and that more government regulations and controls are the answer. Don't believe it.

The truth is that the federal government, as always, has overtly wasted, lost and blown far more of our hard-earned tax dollars than Wall Street crooks could have ripped off in their wildest Bernie Madoff imaginations. Our politicians are the real bandits and culprits of our economic calamity.

What our elected idiots willfully and with malicious forethought did not do - even when warned to do so by Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan in 2005 - was rein in the out-of-control, government-managed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Regarding Fannie and Freddie, Mr. Greenspan told Congress in 2005, "We are placing the total financial system of the future at substantial risk."

A significant Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee in 2005, but the Democrats prevented the bill from becoming law and thus set in motion the events that would steer our economy straight off the cliff. While this economic storm was brewing, then-Sen. Barack Obama collected more than $125,000 from Fannie and Freddie in political contributions.

The Democrats' pathetic, unethical and arguably criminal lack of control of Fannie and Freddie, coupled with their own pressure on banks to make high-risk home loans to people who couldn't afford them, is the reason for our economic meltdown. Believe it and blame the Democrats - and the Republicans who failed to do a thing.

Now those very same Democrats want to control Wall Street. Unbelievable. Welcome to the Planet of the Apes.

America is going bankrupt not because of crooked and unethical Wall Street investment bankers. We are in this financial morass because of a bloated, ineffective, unaccountable and wasteful Fedzilla.

Poll after poll finds Americans have little faith in our professional political windbags, who, in addition to causing our current economic meltdown, have robbed and plundered the Social Security Trust Fund and Medicare over the years to the point that both these entities are not only broke, but massively in debt. President Obama's solution: more government borrowing, taxing and spending. Anti-social insecurity anyone?

No one in Washington ever accepts any blame or fault. There is always someone or something else to blame. This time, it's Wall Street's fault, but anyone with an ounce of common sense and a modicum of desire to know the truth understands that the underlying fault for all - yes, all - of our economic, social and cultural problems is Fedzilla and the political punks who feed it for their own political profit. To hell with America; they need votes.

How dare these political frauds shake their own corrupt finger at Wall Street. Where are the journalists who should be shouting daily questions at these political frauds and pouring buckets of hot ink on the editorial pages of newspapers and blogs across the country, exposing these elected frauds who are financially raping and plundering America? Our forefathers would encourage us to get a bucket of hot tar and some feathers and run these crooks out of town.

If we continue down this economically suicidal, massive-deficit-spending and higher-tax path that President Obama is intent on, our economy will continue to grind to a halt, unemployment will remain high, investments will dry up, and entrepreneurs will fade away. I'm just a guitar player, and I figured that out decades ago.

The Tea Party gets it. Its members understand that out-of-control and unsustainable government spending has put America on the path to financial ruin. And what does our lapdog media do? Castigate the Tea Party as being a bunch of illiterate racists. What a joke. I heard the circus is looking for some new clowns.

I'll bet the president a backyard beer at the White House that many more Americans would entrust their future to Wall Street bankers than to the elected frauds and idiots who have plundered the national treasury and put America's future on thin ice.

November is hunting season. No bag limit.

Ted Nugent is an unstoppable American rock 'n' roll, sporting and political-activist icon. He is author of "Ted, White & Blue: The Nugent Manifesto" and "God, Guns & Rock 'N' Roll" (Regnery Publishing).

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Foolishness and Ignorance in the Press

It always amazes me that press reports are assembled with so little thought. Even as important a source of straight news as the Associated Press rarely bothers to get their facts right, instead carrying clearly ignorant statements from bigshots.

An example of what I am talking about is this item from A.P. An interesting bit is this paragraph:
Police said the bomb could have produced "a significant fireball" and sprayed shrapnel with enough force to kill pedestrians and knock out windows. The SUV was parked on a street lined with restaurants and Broadway theaters, including one showing "The Lion King," and full of people out on a Saturday night.
We see the misuse of the word "shrapnel" which is being used commonly, though incorrectly, these days to describe random bits and shards from a blast, but then we see the emphasis on the production of Lion King, only later do they note the car bomb's proximity to the offices and studios of Viacom and Comedy Central, which was just recently involved in controversy due to their attempted depiction of Mohammad. Rather than merely noting the facts of that case, they insist on paying fealty to the child rapist by using the term of respect "Prophet," and claiming inaccurately that Uncle Mo was defamed by depicting him is a bear costume, rather than the fact that anyone who shows any graphic representation of Mo is marked for death. (Also marked for death are people who correctly depict him as a raper of children, but then that is the official story, so what can we do? Lie?)
The SUV was parked near offices of Viacom Inc., which owns Comedy Central. The network recently aired an episode of the animated show "South Park" that the group Revolution Muslim had complained insulted the Prophet Muhammad by depicting him in a bear costume.
Then comes the entire attempt, which goes far beyond A.P. straight to Mayor Bloomberg, to depict this as an "amateurish" attempt. The guy surely was an amateur, but this would have been a much more effective and serious event if the bomber would have remembered to open the valve on one of those propane tanks before exiting the vehicle, and he may have been harder to find if he had removed the second VIN from the engine block. Remember that the 1993 WTC bombing case was broken by a VIN on the rear axle? So these Moslem bombers are well aware of the existence of alternate ways to identify the vehicles used in these crimes.

But there is another reasonable explanation. I would postulate that it is difficult to attack America from a cave in the TTL. They need to recruit American citizens who can pass through security measures. Citizens of this nation have too much of a paper trail to successfully evade detection without substantial planning and expense. Keeping in mind our enemy, who cares not a whit for the lives of the attackers but is expert at keeping themselves alive, why is it such a leap of logic to assume that the very amateurishness is intentional? The suspect, Faisal Shahzad, has already been arrested, a mere 52 hours after the event. This could have been predicted. The amateurishness of his apparatus will make for a defense of madness, rather than religious zeal.

But I guess that is way too obvious to appear in the mainstream press. Instead they surmise all sorts of fantasies of "Lone Wolf" attacks by "amateurs." But this amateur just spent five months in Pakistan, much of that time spent in Peshawar, gateway to the Khyber Pass, home to dozens of terror training camps.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Racial (and Racist) Tendencies are Human Nature

Racial (and Racist) Tendencies are Human Nature

It has always struck us as amusing that American whites are so sensitive to charges of racism, and the mental gymnastics most are prone to engage in when it becomes propitious to deny their own race based patterns of thinking. It would appear that whites are the only people who take time to express their own color-blindness.

Of course this is a response to the racial grievance industry in this country.We still talk about reparations that would be paid to blacks who may or may not be related to someone who suffered from the practice of slavery one and a half centuries ago. The money would be taken, or extracted, in Henry Louis Gates' formulation, from whites who mostly have no familial relationship to slavery, possibly even family to soldiers who fought and died to end the peculiar institution. The grievance industry has been so successful in extracting cash, jobs, and favors from whites in this country that an irrational subculture, with its own language, has evolved. The fear whites have developed to being called racist has combined with the blacks' institutional demand for unearned goodies, like jobs or acceptance to schools they do not qualify for, such that they have encouraged the "soft racism of low expectations" that vexes and besets them so. They have created for themselves a permanent underclass, and it is mostly due to their own efforts that so many American blacks remain ensconced within it.

Now a body of research is emerging that confirms that much of the behavior that is condemned as racist is actually neurologically based, that is, hard wired, in the human brain. We do react differently to people depending on their race, and the way we react to many social situations is indeed related to brain structures that are genetically passed along sown the generations.

Nothing to be ashamed of - we react to race in ways that have nothing to do with evil racism, we act the way we do because of human nature. This is not racist stereotyping, it is survival skills and instincts we learned in the primordial goo, from before the dawn of time. Not that anything will change now that we know this, since the race blame game is a core power center of the political left. It is, after all, the political left that has no respect for science when it is revealed as an inconvenient truth to their policy prescriptions. But next time my son gets rejected for a school or a job he worked hard to qualify for while some undeserving black child breezes in, I will tell him to smile. After all, none of us can help being the way we are. Human.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Costly IRS Mandate Slipped into Health Bill

Costly IRS Mandate Slipped into Health Bill


Costly IRS Mandate Slipped into Health Bill

Posted using ShareThis

Posted by Chris Edwards

Most people know about the individual mandate in the new health care bill, but the bill contained another mandate that could be far more costly.

A few wording changes to the tax code’s section 6041 regarding 1099 reporting were slipped into the 2000-page health legislation. The changes will force millions of businesses to issue hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of additional IRS Form 1099s every year. It appears to be a costly, anti-business nightmare.

Under current law, businesses are required to issue 1099s in a limited set of situations, such as when paying outside consultants. The health care bill includes a vast expansion in this information reporting requirement in an attempt to raise revenue for an increasingly rapacious Congress.

In a recent summary, tax information firm RIA notes the types of transactions covered by the new 1099 rules:

The 2010 Health Care Act adds “amounts in consideration for property” (Code Sec. 6041(a) as amended by 2010 Health Care Act §9006(b)(1)) and “gross proceeds” (Code Sec. 6041(a) as amended by 2010 Health Care Act §9006(b)(2)) to the pre-2010 Health Care Act categories of payments for which an information return to IRS will be required if the $600 aggregate payment threshold is met in a tax year for any one payee. Thus, Congress says that for payments made after 2011, the term “payments” includes gross proceeds paid in consideration for property or services.

Basically, businesses will have to issue 1099s whenever they do more than $600 of business with another entity in a year. For the $14 trillion U.S. economy, that’s a hell of a lot of 1099s. When a business buys a $1,000 used car, it will have to gather information on the seller and mail 1099s to the seller and the IRS. When a small shop owner pays her rent, she will have to send a 1099 to the landlord and IRS. Recipients of the vast flood of these forms will have to match them with existing accounting records. There will be huge numbers of errors and mismatches, which will probably generate many costly battles with the IRS.

Tax CPA Chris Hesse of LeMaster Daniels tells me:

Under the health legislation, the IRS could be receiving billions of more documents. Under current law, businesses send Forms 1099 for payments of rent, interest, dividends, and non-employee services when such payments are to entities other than corporations. Under the new law, businesses will be required to send a 1099 to other businesses for virtually all purchases. And for the first time, 1099s are to be sent to corporations. This is a huge new imposition on American business, costing the private economy much more than any additional tax that the IRS might collect as a result.

There appears to have been little discussion before this damaging mandate was slipped into the health bill and rammed through Congress, but a few business groups did raise concerns. Here’s what the Air Conditioner Contractors of America said:

The House bill would extend the Form 1099 filing requirement to ALL vendors (including corporate) to which they pay more than $600 annually for services or property. Consider all the payments a small business makes in the course of business, paying for things such as computers, software, office supplies, and fuel to services, including janitorial services, coffee services, and package delivery services.

In order to file all these 1099s, you’ll need to collect the necessary information from all your service providers. In order to comply with the law, you would have to get a Taxpayer Information Number or TIN from the business. If the vendor does not supply you with a TIN, you are obligated to withhold on your payments.

Private transactions are the core of a market economy, and the source of America’s growth and prosperity. Now the federal government is imposing a vast new web of red tape on perhaps billions of these growth-generating private exchanges.

For what purpose? So the spendthrift Congress can shake a few extra bucks out of private industry? The business sector is the generator of America’s high living standards, but most federal legislators just see it as a kitty to be raided or a cow to be milked dry.

I’m stunned that there wasn’t a broader debate before such a costly mandate was enacted. If it goes into effect, it will waste vast quantities of human effort in filling out forms, reworking computer systems, collecting and organizing data, and fighting the IRS. The struggling American economy can’t afford anymore suffocating tax regulations. This mandate is a giant deadweight loss. It should be repealed.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Andy McCarthy on Global Warming

Andy McCarthy on Global Warming

"From the premise that AGW is undeniable, the alarmist side leaps to the extravagant conclusion that we are therefore capable of, and obliged to, do something meaningful about it. On the other hand, the skeptics (I am one) too often deny the premise — not because it's false but because it may be frivolous. That is, relatively speaking, it may be nothing more than a drop in the ocean. I suppose it is undeniable, in absolute terms, that the drop increases the ocean's volume. The increase, though, appears so de minimis that denying it makes sense in the greater scheme of things. Yet, the alarmists deride the skeptics over their denial as if they were denying something as basic and incontestable as that two plus two equals four. For their part, the skeptics continue denying — even if they are wrong in absolute terms — because they fear alarmists have set the table in such a way that to concede the premise is to concede the draconian remedies alarmists have in mind. The debate gets nowhere."

"You say: "Put yourself in the position of a senior government leader tasked with making real decisions that affect the lives of millions. What would you do if faced with a matter of technical disagreement on such a quantitative-prediction question among experts?" I'll tell you what I would do. I would say that, given our finite capabilities and the shortness of life, AGW may not be a problem at all, and, if it is a problem, it is not urgent enough to obsess over. Not if I am a senior government leader of a country trillions of dollars in debt who is also tasked with making real decisions about unsustainable entitlement programs, the high likelihood that states will soon default, 10 percent unemployment, crippling new taxes and inflation on the horizon, a global war against jihadists whose mass-murder attacks — and their catastrophic costs — are impossible to predict, the imminence of game-changing nuclear capability in a revolutionary jihadist state that has threatened to wipe Israel off the map and whose motto is "Death to America," aggression from other hostile nations, a judiciary that is steadily eroding popular self-government, and a host of other actually pressing problems."

"That is, I would say it's not the government's job to gather together "the leading subject matter experts to produce a review of the known science" and then have their product "reviewed by a standing body of leading scientists ..." If the issue is truly important enough, the experts will sort that out themselves. Meanwhile, I’d conclude, get back to me when you have more certainty about the nature and extent of the problem, plus a compelling case that it's worthy of being on my plate given all these other first-order challenges. And when you come back, make sure that you have a proposal that makes economic sense in light of the straits we're in, and that you are ready to explain why I should not discount the problem based on (a) the rampant fraud that has been perpetrated to make the problem seem dire, and (b) the financial interests of the alarmist community in the existence of the problem."

From Andy's reply to the Jim Manzi piece, at The Corner on NRO.

Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor

Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Dhimmitude

Dhimmitude

In sympathy for all those who are under a fatwah by the benighted and cruel slaves of the gutter religion, violent Mohhamadism, I present their profit Mo, fucker of children and killer of women.

Monday, April 19, 2010

Quote for Today

Quote for Today

"Claims that the [AGW] science is settled border on criminal and certainly illustrate complete lack of understanding of climate science or deliberate ignorance for political ends or both."

Dr. Tim Ball writing in Canada Free Press.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Quote of the Day - Edmund Burke

Quote of the Day - Edmund Burke

"What is the use of discussing a man's abstract right to food or medicine? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician rather than the professor of metaphysics."

Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797)

Monday, April 12, 2010

Quote of the Day - Mohandas Gandhi

Quote of the Day - Mohandas Gandhi

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

Mohandas Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Quote of the Day - William J. H. Boetcker

Quote of the Day - William J. H. Boetcker

“You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatreds. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.”

William John Henry Boetcker (1873–1962)
(This quote is often erroneously attributed to Abraham Lincoln.)

Monday, April 05, 2010

Quote of the Day - David Manning

Quote of the Day - David Manning

"He [Obama] is an American who grew up in Hawaii, whose foreign experience was of Indonesia and who had a Kenyan father. The sentimental reflexes, if you like, are not there."

David Manning, former British ambassador to the U.S., to a House of Commons committee reporting on the relationship between Britain and the U.S.A.

Saturday, April 03, 2010

True Costs of Health Care Reform

True Costs of Health Care Reform

Quote of the Day - Burt Prelutsky

Quote of the Day - Burt Prelutsky

“Surely something must be terribly wrong with a man who seems to be far more concerned with a Jew building a house in Israel than with Muslims building a nuclear bomb in Iran."

Burt Prelutsky (b 1940)

Thursday, April 01, 2010

Quote of the Day - John Adams

Quote of the Day - John Adams

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence"

(“Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials,” December 1770).

John Adams (1735-1826)

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Quote of the Day - Martin Luther King Jr.

Quote of the Day - Martin Luther King Jr.


"I say to you that our goal is freedom, and I believe we are going to get there because however much she strays away from it, the goal of America is freedom."

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929 - 1968)

Friday, March 26, 2010

Quote of the Day - James Madison

Quote of the Day - James Madison

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."

James Madison (1751 - 1836)

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Quote of the Day - Thomas Jefferson

Quote of the Day - Thomas Jefferson



“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Quote of the Day - Peter Boettke

Quote of the Day - Peter Boettke

"If you bound the arms and legs of gold-medal swimmer Michael Phelps, weighed him down with chains, threw him in a pool and he sank, you wouldn’t call it a 'failure of swimming.' So, when markets have been weighted down by inept and excessive regulation, why call this a 'failure of capitalism'?" (Times Online)

Peter Boettke (b. 1960)

Monday, March 22, 2010

Quote of the Day - Jimmy Carter

Quote of the Day - Jimmy Carter

"I think it's inevitable that there will be a lower standard of living than what everybody had always anticipated, there's going to be a downward turning." (Time Magazine)

Jimmy Carter - (born 1924)

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Quote of the Day - Samuel Adams

Quote of the Day - Samuel Adams

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands, which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

Samuel Adams (1722 - 1803)

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Quote of the Day - C.S. Lewis

Quote of the Day - C.S. Lewis

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

C. S. Lewis (1898 - 1963)

Friday, March 19, 2010

Quote of the day - from J.F.K.

Quote of the day - J.F.K.

“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values, for a nation that is afraid to let its people judge truth and falsehood in an open market, is a nation that is afraid of its own people.”

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917 - 1963)

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

WHO says who has the most responsive health care? We do, says WHO!

WHO says who has the most responsive health care? We do, says WHO!


July 10, 2009

It has been widely reported that in a 2000 World Health Organization (WHO) report that the United State ranked 37th in the world in our health care system, behind countries such as Columbia, Greece & Chile. But it turns out that this isn’t so.

The truth is that the WHO survey ranked the United States Number 1 in the world in the Responsiveness of our healthcare system, and we ranked 15 in “Overall Level of Health” (Source: http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_annex_en.pdf, pg 196) and a 1% change would place us in the top 5 in overall health in the world.

Much more here.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Health Care Fraud

Health Care Fraud

The entire debate we are having in this country on "Health Care" is fraudulent. The terms do not have plain meanings, because BOTH sides are trying to fool us into supporting their side.

First: Is health care a right? The answer is that is easy - it already is a right. The law demands that any patient who goes to a hospital must be treated. Period. So we debate this - why?

Second: So many are uninsured. Answer - see first. Nobody goes without care in this country. Now some will get stuck with the bill, after they receive the care. That is a problem, but it has nothing to do with insurance. You can't insure your car after the accident, you can't give health insurance to the sick. You can decide to pay for it, but that is not insurance, it is charity, unless it is confiscation by the state to pay for the bills of others.

Third: Prices are out of control. The answer is that anything that you get for free will be overused. More demand drives prices up - always and everywhere. More than that the consumer of health services is not connected in any meaningful way with paying for it. I am one of the few who pays for most of my own health costs, and believe me, many times when you ask what a procedure costs they don't even know, then they don't want to tell you - it is that unusual. Then they usually cave on price, or I go elsewhere and the price is a quarter as much for the same thing. I talked my radiologist into giving me a $2400 MRI scan for $450, in about two minutes.


The democrats and the republicans are only out for themselves, so they are each selling their own brand of lying fraudulent snake oil. Right now the republicans are against the democrat bill which otherwise would become law, so they are on our side, but believe me, if the shoe were on the other foot I would be against them also, and so would be many others.

I could go on and on about this criminal enterprise, but suffice it to say that unless and until the patient is on the line for a proportion of every cent paid for their medical care, prices will keep exploding, and the lines at the emergency room will stay long. Politicians do not want meaningful reform, there is too much money on the line for them to steal. And most people are happy with the situation just the way it is.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Campaign Finance Law and the First Amendment

Campaign Finance Law and the First Amendment

Few issues in recent times have more graphically shown how far the needs of the public diverge from the needs of the political class than the Supreme Court decision that came down this week in the Citizens United case, where it was decided that the first amendment means what it plainly says.

Without arguing the merits of the case, I would look to the actions and words of our political class in their objection to the ruling. It is clear that their concern is not any worry that too much money will be spent in future electoral campaigns - far from it. They have been on a juggernaut in recent decades to raise and spend ever more money, pretending to create legal restrictions to campaign contributions when in reality they have built loopholes into the law that are bigger than the original hole. (It has finally gotten to the point where Obama spent just short of a billion dollars getting himself elected, and nobody has figured out exactly how much soft money has actually been spent.

And look at who is complaining the loudest about special interest money in politics. The party of special interests and billionaires. Gates and Buffet, General Electric and General Motors, Unions and trial lawyers, all give their political cash almost exclusively to democrats. So excuse me if I am skeptical about their complaints over allowing these entities the legal ability to spend more. They fear the voices of those who have felt frozen out of the process, or at least inhibited in their spending. This decision frees the spending of the smallest voices, not the largest.

No, their main objection is who controls the money being spent on their campaigns. Elected officials have engineered provisions in election law that allow unlimited soft money, hard cash contributed by 527 organizations and other types of groups have been created that allow for ever more corporate (and other) cash. Endless daisy chains of political committees funnel money into the hands of campaigns. Think Political Action Committees, campaign committees, like DNC, DSCC, DCCC, Emily's List, and many others.

The new law as ir stands now is that these same entities which have been allowed to put money under the control of the campaigns, can now spend an unlimited amount of money under their own control. That is the only change wrought by the Citizens United decision. The restriction against "issue oriented" ads near the time of elections has been lifted. Books and websites can now be advertised right up to election day.

If I can get away from all the hyperventilating about the fall of democracy or some equally dire consequence of this decision, I wonder if it is really true that the new reality will result in even more money coming into the process. It appears that it is more likely to result in the same amount, or perhaps a little more. It is not obvious to me that corporations have been forced to hold back and are straining at the bit to spend more. In either event, more money or not, the net result seems sure to be that a larger percentage of the aggregate pool of campaign cash will be independently spent, by corporations and unions and other groups and types of combinations of people, speaking truth to power and making their concerns known, taking their argument directly to We the People.

If that's the way it works out, the biggest change from the status quo ante would be a diminution of the power of incumbency. New candidates with little or no party involvement, or perhaps a candidate who unsuccessfully sought the nomination of a party, will have easier access to promotion of his candidacy and ideas. However this works out, I feel that it shows the wisdom of the founders of our nation, who wrote the rulebook they way they did. The first amendment says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
That is a beautiful statement. Incumbents, particularly democrats, find anathema in those words. Remember that the Citizens United case was about nothing more sinister than a producer of a documentary who wanted to run ads for it, and candidate Clinton felt that even that was going too far. Her side in the appeal told The Supremes that their restriction applied, even to books, yard signs, bumper stickers, and pamphlets. That was a reach too far for this Supreme Court, and as a result we have more of our constitution in effect, the way it was meant when it was written and ratified by the Thirteen Colonies. Hopefully this is a harbinger of things to come, and a reinvigoration of the intent of the founders.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Congressman asks Geithner to review Chrysler's Super Bowl ad buy

Congressman asks Geithner to review Chrysler's Super Bowl ad buy

Here we go. Now that the U.S. government is in the automobile business, congress has started second guessing Chrysler's business practices. Here we have a congressman, a republican who has spent the last two decades pretending to do something useful while We the People have been overpaying his salary, who believes that Super Bowl ads are too expensive to be bought with public money. Since he has never had a real job, he has no idea that Super Bowl ads, like all ads everywhere, are priced the way they are because they work for the advertisers.

I guess that when you have never made an honest living (Congressman Heller's only private sector job was selling stock before he moved to the public teat) you actually believe that companies are stupid, and the only smart people are the ones who figured out how to steal from the government. But Chrysler, no doubt, has volumes of research and past results that tell them that this is a cost-effective way to advertise their product. But what does all that knowledge amount to when put up against the populist emotion of a professional political whore?

The result of this can only be a further crippling of Chrysler's, and any other bailed-out company's ability to recover from the tender mercy the government showed them. We all lose. Obama will be pleased.