Screw You, We're From Texas

A couple of links shamelessly ripped off from Trey Garrison's blog, all about the thing I'm not going to write about any more. 

DALLAS, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Texas and several national industry groups on Tuesday filed separate petitions in federal court challenging the government's authority to regulate U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Texas, which leads U.S. states in carbon dioxide emissions due to its heavy concentration of oil refining and other industries, will see a major impact if U.S. mandatory emissions reductions take effect.

LONDON, Feb 14 (UK Daily Mail) -
* Data for vital 'hockey stick graph' has gone missing
*There has been no global warming since 1995
*Warming periods have happened before - but not due to man-made changes

DALLAS - In December, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide endanger human health, opening the door for the agency to issue mandatory regulations to reduce them....Texas said it had filed a petition for review challenging the EPA's "endangerment finding" with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Texas has also asked the EPA to reconsider its ruling.

LONDON - The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information....Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.
Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.
The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.
Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.
And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

I could keep going back and forth for a while, but that would quickly become tiresome.  It seems that the EPA's decision to declare CO2 a pollutant has suffered from some lousy timing.  
Here's some Ray Wylie Hubbard.  "Screw You.  We're From Texas" 
 


Links to websites of various Texas singer-songwriters and their haunts are provided for visitors from the U.K.

I got on my cowboy boots, jeans
And Hawaiian shirt, mirrored sunglasses
And a mobile phone
I guess I look like some Port Aransas
Dope dealer that's out on bail
Just trying to get home
Well I ain't in jail and I got me a guitar
Got a little band that's hotter than a rocket
Sometimes we're sloppy
We're always loud, tonight we're just ornery
And locked in the pocket

So screw you, we're from Texas
Screw you, we're from Texas
Screw you, we're from Texas
We're from Texas baby, so screw you

Now I love the USA
And the other states
Ahh, they're OK
Texas is the place I wanna be
And I don't care if I ever go to Delaware anyway
Cause we got Stubbs, and Gruene Hall and Antone's, and John T's
Country Store
We've got Willie and Jacky Jack, Robert Earl, Pat, Cory, Charlie and me
And so many more.

So screw you, we're from Texas
Screw you, we're from Texas
Screw you, we're from Texas
We're from Texas, screw you

Sing it with me--
Screw you, we're from Texas
Screw you, we're from Texas
Screw you, we're from Texas
We're from Texas, screw you!

Now Texas has gotten a bad reputation,
Because of what happened in Dallas and Waco
And our corporations well they are corrupt
And the politicians are swindlers and loco
But when it comes to music my friend
I believe these words are as true as St. John the Revelator's
Our Mr. Vaughan was the best that there ever was
And no band was cooler than the 13th Floor Elevators.

So screw you, we're from Texas
Screw you, we're from Texas
Screw you, we're from Texas
We're from Texas, screw you!

Screw you, we're from Texas
Screw you, we're from Texas
Screw you, we're from Texas
We're from Texas Screw you

Screw you, we're from Texas
Screw you, we're from Texas
Screw you, we're from Texas
We're from Texas Screw you

We're from Texas Screw you...
I apologize for posting a video that contains pics of Eminent Domain Sports Palaces.  But the rest of it is pretty cool.  Trey Garrison is pretty cool also.  Hope he doesn't mind me ripping off his post. 

Joseph Stack destroys Austin Tx IRS building with airplane; creates and/or saves hundreds of jobs

A reader of Radley Balko's Agitator blog took him to task for not commenting on the libertarian who flew a plane into an IRS building.  Here's Mr. Balko's response:

Sorry for my silence. It’s just that yesterday’s events have stunned me into a moral crisis. I’ve been up all night recontemplating my entire political philosophy. It’s so clear now how a philosophy that espouses nonviolence and peaceful, voluntary exchange could drive a man to fly a plane into a building in a murderous, suicidal act of hate.


I can’t believe I didn’t see it all along.

Well said, Mr. Balko. 

It's too soon to be posting anything glib or flippant about this, and I apologize ahead of time for being insensitive.  But....
This guy did a huge amount of damage to a building, and it will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, to repair it. 
Just think of the jobs created or saved....
Here's a video from the Cash For Clunkers era, illustrating the same flawed concept.  Let's destroy things to stimulate the economy. 




Pic came from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 

Why I love watching Keith Olbermann

I was telling a friend of mine the other day about discovering the wonderful world of MSNBC, but I couldn't really explain why I'm drawn to that network.  It's like looking in on a sophisticated culture that developed without ever discovering the wheel.  Nestled in there next door to FOX Business, it's like a sitcom about Amish farming families trying to make it in Manhattan.  MSNBC is like a space shuttle staffed by The Flat Earth Society.  They don't, or can't, acknowledge the world that the rest of us live in.
 
This is why I LOVE watching Keith Olbermann.
In a recent rant about the Tea Party/9-12 movements, Olbermann says "Let me ask all of you who attend these things, how many black faces do you see at these events? How many hispanics? Asians, gays? Where are these people? Surely there must be blacks who think they're being bled by taxation. Surely there must be hispanics who think we should have let the auto industry fail...."
And he goes on and on and on in that vein.  
I don't know who the guy is that vandalized this video of Olbermann's rant, but he did a heck of a job. 



Well, Mr. Olbermann, you can go here and check out the pictures from my post about Fort Worth's 9-12 rally.  Hispanics, if memory serves, were possibly over-represented.  African-Americans were probably under-represented, especially women, but the men were there in fairly large numbers.  (Mostly older guys, ex-military, and wearing their camo/caps/etc. with insignia to designate their branch of service.) 

And please indulge me for indulging in this stereotype: I've NEVER seen Asians at these events, probably because they're too busy working.  You can go here to see that the Asian vote is almost evenly split between Republicrats and Demoblicans.  So far, they've resisted left-wing victimization programs.

I didn't take these pictures with the goal of filling racial quotas, as Olbermann seem to advocate, but the random sampling I posted kinda indicates that the 9-12 rally was a lot more diverse than (ahem) Mr. Olbermann's employer.

If anyone is interested, here are some interesting videos from Dallas Pastor Stephen Broden, speaking at the 9-12 event.  Do I agree with everything Pastor Broden says?  No, and I don't have to.   Do I like listening to him?  Yeah. 
Those of us who have united against The Teleprompter Jesus have something that MS-DNC seems to lack.
It's called "diversity". 


Maybe Keith Olbermann just needs to get out more and get a clue about what he's reporting.  That might help. 


Yet another coat of Whitening goes to Ed Driscoll for the first video link.

Update from 2-20-10....BUT WAIT ! ! !   There's more ! ! !    Where is all this video coming from that doesn't fit the preferred narrative ? 

To Danny Williams, the Canadian Premier who came to the U.S. for surgery: We'll leave the light on for you ! !

From the Mackinac Center For Public Policy, on Danny Williams, the Canadian politician whose life obviously depends on getting the hell out of Canada. 

Recent news reports that the Canadian premier of Newfoundland and Labrador would obtain heart surgery at an American hospital occasioned teeth-grinding by supporters of a government-run health care system like Canada's, and snickers from those opposed to the Congressional plan to impose a system with many of the same features here.

The news that a Canadian government official sought care in this country was no surprise to those who watched the Mackinac Center's popular YouTube videos posted last fall documenting the pain and suffering that Canada's health care rationing imposes on individual citizens (more than 800,000 Canadians are on a waiting list for care at any given moment).
BTW, the premier's surgery was a success.

Here's something that's engraved onto the Statue Of Liberty's pedestal.  

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

That lamp in the poem is the light of Liberty.  The right to do whatever you want, as long as it doesn't harm others.  You can own property, own guns, eat unhealthy food, get drunk, or get heart surgeries.  Just don't hurt somebody else.  Lady Liberty's welcome should apply to everyone from lowly Haitian earthquake refugees all the way up to Canadian politicians trying to escape the horrific consequences of their own Healthcare policies. 

Get well soon, Premier Williams ! !   Tell everyone in Canada how much you liked it here.  We need more medical tourism from the truly socialist countries.  We'll leave the light on for you ! 

In Praise Of Wal-Mart

Full Disclosure:  I work for a Wal-Mart supplier.  (We also supply Albertson's, Kroger, Winn-Dixie, Publix, HEB, Central Market, Brookshire's, Brookshire Brothers, and anyone else who wants to keep their groceries off the ground.  We've been keeping food off the floor since nineteen eighty-four, and we're better at it than anybody.  That's just how it is.)

I'm fascinated by Wal-Mart.  Because they bring good products to the masses at a low price, and because Wal-Mart plays a major role in keeping inflation down, and because Sam Walton probably deserved a Nobel prize, and because most low income families wouldn't swap their Wal-Mart for every social worker who has ever lived, and because of their anti-union stance, and because Wal-Mart accomplishes all this down-home Bentonville, Arkansas, goodness with no government aid, well, the lamestream media is required to portray Wal-Mart as downright satanic.   

We now have a few more goodies to add to that pile.  It's about the Wal-Mart produce selection.  Here's Reason magazine's Katherine Mangu-Ward:

(Author Corby) Kummer buys two batches of nearly identical groceries at Wal-Mart and Whole Foods. He has them prepared in a restaurant kitchen and invites taste testers to make a blind side-by-side comparison. The Whole Food grocery set cost $50 more, $20 of which is spent on top of the line chicken breasts (Wal-Mart didn't really offer equivalently high-end meat.)

The taste testers preferred the Wal-Mart veggies overwhelmingly, with complaints about the meat and dairy. "The tasters were surprised," he writes, "when the results were unblinded at the end of the meal and they learned that in a number of instances they had adamantly preferred Walmart produce. And they weren’t entirely happy."

Here's something else from Corby Kummer's original article about the taste test experiment, which is in the March 2010 Atlantic Monthly online edition:

Michelle Harvey, who is in charge of working with Walmart on agriculture programs at the local Environmental Defense Fund office, summarized a long conversation with me on the sustainability efforts she thinks the company is serious about: “It’s getting harder and harder to hate Walmart.”

Of course, it's getting harder and harder to hate Wal-Mart.  But what if hating Wal-Mart is one of the planks in your political party's platform?  I'm sure you'll find a way to continue that policy.
Some cynics think that Wal-Mart's sustainability efforts are nothing but window dressing.  Trust me.  I know differently.  They want everyone up and down their supply chain to operate in a sustainable manner.  Trust me.  I know.  They're for real on this.  I know.  Trust me. 
   
A few other things about the Atlantic Monthly Online's tour of Wal-Mart's produce offerings....Here's the picture they posted at the top of the article:

Are those not the best looking produce displays you've ever seen?  (Except, of course, for the others we have designed and manufactured for other grocery chains, which look just as good, but in a different sort of way?)  WE'VE MADE IT INTO THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !   Mark Twain published in The Atlantic !  So did Hemingway !  And the THE ATLANTIC FREAKIN' MONTHLY is running photos of our fruitstands ! ! ! ! ! 

And if that's not enough, the Atlantic Monthly even made a video.  Corby Kummer has good things to say about the quality of Wal-Mart's vegetables, but that's not the best part.....  Those are our shelves inside the wall refrigeration units !  Those are our new-era Produce Tables at the :40 mark, built by Ray The Wood God and Super Igor The Wonder Serb !  I think that's some of our plastic at the 2:00 mark, built by Danny Ray and company.  Those are our bakery displays over the narrator's left shoulder at the end of the video.

Hit the second button from the right if you want to view it in full screen mode. 
. 

But enough about us. You see, after all those exclamation points that I wasted in the previous paragraph, it might not even be our equipment in the video. WM has at least two suppliers for everything in their stores. (See the link above about how WM keeps inflation down.  Unlike the post office, the Department Of Motor Vehicles, or any other monopoly, we have competitors.  Therefore, we're obligated to build good products for a low price.  Let this be a lesson for anyone wanting a government monopoly in healthcare.)

One last thing....another one of my heroes, Radley Balko, wrote this post called "Does Wal-Mart make you skinny?" for The Daily Beast yesterday.  (It's been a good couple of days online for Wal-Mart.)

.....Economists Art Carden of Rhodes College and Charles Courtemanche of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro....conducted a study to find out (whether Wal-Mart had a positive impact on community health and overall economy.)   Carden and Courtemanche have done a number of studies on Wal-Mart. Carden insists they get no funding from the company, directly or indirectly. Rather, he says, the two free-market economists have been intrigued by the Wal-Mart debate and wanted to test some of the more common criticisms of the store. Generally, they’ve found that the worst fears about Wal-Mart are unfounded, and that the stores have a mostly positive impact on their communities.

But they thought this one might be different. “We expected the study to show an increase in obesity in communities with a Wal-Mart,” Carden says. “We know that Wal-Mart lowers the cost of food, but we figured it’s not always the best food for you.”

To their surprise, they found the opposite—there was a small but statistically significant reduction in obesity rates in communities with a Wal-Mart, perhaps because the store also sells fresh produce of good quality at a good price.....

In a widely cited 2005 paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, economists Jerry Hausman and Ephraim Leibtag found that Wal-Mart significantly lowers prices in the communities where it sets up shop, even for people who never shop at the store. On food alone, Hausman and Leibtag found that Wal-Mart delivers a 25 percent benefit to consumers, which has a disproportionately positive effect on the poor because they spend a larger percentage of their income on food.

The mere presence of a Wal-Mart in a community results in the equivalent of a 6.5 percent increase in annual income, which, as The Washington Post’s Sebastian Mallaby has pointed out, makes the store a bigger boon to the poor than the federal government’s food-stamps program. And Carden and Courtemanche began their study before Wal-Mart began its $4 prescription drug program, which also delivers a big potential health benefit both to Wal-Mart customers and other consumers in the area, because many competing stores were moved to implement similar programs.

And here's the typical Radley Balko kicker at the end:

Every time Wal-Mart tries to open a store in a big city like Chicago, Los Angeles, or New York, it encounters a storm of protest from politicians, labor unions and activist groups who claim to speak for the poor and low-wage workers. Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry, who proposed the one-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants on L.A.’s south side to combat childhood obesity, also in 2004, backed a bill to keep Wal-Mart out of that same community.

In Chicago in 2006, a proposed Wal-Mart store met with fierce opposition from groups critical of its labor practices—a position just reiterated by Mayor Richard Daley. So instead, Wal-Mart opened in Evergreen Park, one block outside the Chicago city limits. The store received 24,500 job applications for just 325 positions, and now generates more than $1 million per year in taxes for the small town while boosting revenue for local businesses.

Had Chicago’s politicians not been so obstinate, that economic windfall could have been enjoyed by the city’s low-income, mostly minority Chatham neighborhood—whose residents might have dropped some pounds as well.

The pictures of the GREAT looking produce displays in this post came from The Atlantic Monthly.  Thanks to Instapundit, as usual, for many of the original links.

NASA. Climategate. Freedom Of Information Act Requests. Disappearing Data. Thermometers. Dogs. Homework.

In which NASA just wishes the dog ate their homework. 
Go here. 

These guys almost implemented the biggest regulatory intervention in the history of our galaxy, and it's all crumbling. 
Within 5 years, the complete story will come out. No one will go to jail and no one will lose his job.  Because, you see, their intentions were so good and wholesome. 

In related news, go here for a list of some of the major corporations who were going to discourage competitors by helping to implement the Cap And Trade system.  They're not so excited about it any longer. 

And you can go here to learn why the Environmental Protection Agency's Lisa Jackson, should have someone following her around wiping drool and slobber off her chin.  (Jackson is the EPA head who recently declared carbon dioxide a pollutant, in yet another attempt to take over manufacturing, agriculture and trucking.)
.....It makes no sense to set ambient air quality standards for greenhouse gases. There is simply no way for state and local regulators to ensure that individual cities, or even larger regions, meet an air quality standard for a globally dispersed atmospheric pollutant. Local emissions could be reduced to zero, and a given area would still violate the standards if global emissions did not decline. It would be a pointless regulatory exercise.

That's the end of this evening's cynicism about people trying to make money from the weather, a topic that I've sworn off writing about.  Hope you enjoy and benefit from the links. 
The picture of the dog who didn't eat anybody's homework came from the Talk With The Preacher blog, something that everyone involved in this scam needs to consider.

Libertarian Gubernatorial Debate, Southern Methodist University, February 16th 2010

I have about 5,000 good things to say about the Libertarian Gubernatorial Debate that was held at SMU last night. 
Any of the four Libertarian candidates for Texas governor, Jeff Daiell, Ed Tidwell, Steve Nicholls, or Katherine Youngblood Glass, would be a superior alternative to the gang leaders being offered by The Crips and The Bloods.  I'll try to post some opinions about each candidate later tonight. 

Here's what impressed me most, though.  Check out the SMU Libertarian website.  The Southern Methodist University Libertarians have divided up their organization into a variety of interest groups: NORML (National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws), GLBTA (Gay, Lesbian, Bi-, Transexual, and I have know idea what the "A" stands for, and I'm not going to speculate here), Tea Baggers (note the SMU mustang's tail on the logo), and Gun Rights.  They listed some other new goups in their intro to the debate, things like Austrian Economics.  This way they have a subdivision for kids who might be passionate about fighting Victim Disarmament Laws, but who might be lukewarm about economic issues.  Good idea. 

I sat behind some of their officers, and couldn't help overhear one particular conversation.  They were sitting in a pack, of course, and one of the leaders stood up and said "Hey, guys, look around this auditorium at all these people.  These are our potential group members.  Leaders don't sit and chat with each other at an event like this.  Let's get out there and mingle."  They got out there and mingled. 

Well said, sir.  We can be a traveling evangelist, or church preachers.  We need evangelists.     

8 or 9 kids were there from Allen, Texas.  They have a Libertarian Facebook group, and were at the debate simply because they're into it.  After the debate I walked with them back toward the parking garage and was pleasantly surprised at how well they caught the distinctive hot button characteristics of each candidate. 
BTW, more than one kid said told me that his/her parents were a bit cynical about their involvement with the Libertarians. 
Hang in there guys.  The Republicrats and Demoblicans are running up a huge bar tab on your credit cards, and I apologize for my generation and the one that came before me.  If you're really lucky, somebody will attack Pearl Harbor again and we can bomb some of our competitors back into the Stone Age and take all their property.  (Kinda joking, but I see no other way out.) 
Guess who the Allen High School Libertarians thought won the debate? 
Jeff Daiell. 
Jeff Daiell has read, researched, campaigned, and fought for the Libertarian Party for ages.  Jeff isn't in the best health and therefore is kind of frail looking, and he's got hair made for radio.   
And one of the Allen High School Libertarians said "Jeff Daiell rocked." 

Our children (my own little Aggie among them) are figuring this stuff out.  They know they're the ones who will have diminished lives if present trends continue. 
I was impressed with all four of our candidates for governor. 
I was blown away by the audience. 

Here's The Who, from 1965.  The Kids Are Alright. 



I feel better about my country than I did yesterday. Thank you, Texas gubernatorial candidates for putting yourselves out there for us.  Thank you SMU Libertarians and Dallas County Libertarians for hosting, Thank you Paul Peterson for moderating, and thanks to the Allen High School Libertarians for improving my outlook.

From David Plouffe: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS ?

President Obama can't seem to get out of campaign mode.  His campaign manager sent me the following email this morning, with the subject line HAVE YOU SEEN THIS? 

Dear Whited --

Wondering what the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- President Obama's stimulus bill -- has accomplished? Look at this:

One year ago tomorrow, after tens of thousands of you shared stories and called your representatives, the President signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

And while this anniversary isn't a cause for celebration, there is reason to be optimistic. This chart makes it clear: We're on the road to recovery.

Still, we know there is a long way to go. Many Americans are still struggling, and creating jobs remains President Obama's top priority.

Click here to learn more about the President's record on the economy, what we're doing to put more Americans back to work, and get easy-to-share information you can pass on to friends and family:

http://my.barackobama.com/Recovery

Thanks for making change happen,

David Plouffe

Here's an appropriate reply:

Dear David,
Thanks for your timely email, as I would love to hire one more driver, but am concerned about what insane stunt you people are going to pull next. 

And by the way, HAVE YOU SEEN THIS? 

Note how the numbers on this chart are large enough to be read without 300X reading glasses.  It's how people design charts when they aren't trying to be deceptive.  Take notes. 

Your Chicago gang is going to try to back the getaway car up to the Treasury one last time before the November elections, but people are catching on.  Try to find another war, another climate crisis, or some other demon to do battle against.  Or better yet, stay home and enjoy the loot you've raked in so far.

Thanks for the email,

Whited 

John Cougar Mellencamp for Senate ! On the anti-corporate ticket !

Here's Reason magazine's "Hit and Run" section, on a movement to have Seymour Indiana's favorite son John Cougar Mellencamp run for the U.S. senate. 

Don't get me wrong about what follows.  I love me some Mellencamp, especially the later stuff.  His Life, Death, Love and Freedom is in the CD changer of the Blackened Whitedmobile at this very moment. 

But Here's a statement from a Mellencamp supporter:
Mellencamp for Senator from Indiana! He's heartland rocker who tackles corporate power on behalf of family farmers/fighting foreclosures.

Corporate power?  Are the Mellencamps of Seymour, Indiana, oppressed by corporate power?  Here's Matt Welch, of Reason: 

According to the good folks at the Environmental Working Group, who maintain an eminently searchable database of farm subsidies, there were 34 recipients with the last name of "Mellencamp" between 1995-2003. Of those, a full 22 come from the Hoosier State, including 12 in the small town of ... Seymour! Here's a list of Seymour's subsidized Mellencamps:

$383,673.00 James A. and Michael Mellencamp
$249,590.95 George Mellencamp
$157,219.56 David K. Mellencamp
$152,639.65 Mark Mellencamp
$152,424.00 Gary W. Mellencamp
$110,052.72 Mary Mellencamp
$46,172.47 Elsie Mellencamp
$30,527.87 Matthew Grover Mellencamp
$10,929.31 Frederick J. Mellencamp
$2,582.14 Jerry Ross Mellencamp
$1,015.00 Victor H. Mellencamp
$420.00 Andrew Mellencamp

Compare those corn subsidies (1.14 million dollars) to those received by your family.  

The Mellencamps have met the corporate power ! !  And it is them ! ! 

One other thing.... As Mellencamp has grown older, the obsession with "corporate power" has popped up more and more in his interviews, especially during his support of the John Edwards campaign.   
Well, here's a video of Mellencamp shilling for the biggest corporate power of them all - The U.S. Government's Automobile Division, formerly known as Chevrolet. 



The lesson from all this?  There's a much bigger power out there than corporations, and that's the U.S. government.  John Cougar Mellencamp And Company ®  have done very well by their association with it. 

Oh, but ain't that America, kickbacks for me,
Ain't that America, something to see baby
Ain't that America, Big Subsidy,
Little green payoffs for you and me....



Mellencamp is a great performer, a brilliant songwriter, and a crappy crusader.  Physician, heal thyself.

Remember when the absence of snow was a sign of Global Warming?

Lest anyone forget....

It was only two or three years ago that the absence of snow in D.C. was a sign of global warming.
(This video begins with a statement from a former Community Organizer for the Ku Klux Klan. I don't have the technical know-how to delete his statements from the video. I apologize to my more sensitive readers.)



Snowing, not snowing, Cooling, not cooling, Warming, not warming - there is only one constant. Give them more control and more money.  They are the only ones who can save you.

Enjoy.

Let's meet our gole of 92 - 95 %

Why would you want your kids to show up?

A fresh coat of Whitening to The Libertarian Enterprise.  I suspect it won't be their last. 

Hitler finds out that we've found out the truth about Global Warming

This was bound to happen.....
Here's Hitler learning that Professor Mann has admitted that there's been no warming since 1995, that the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than it is now, and all the other nasty secrets that people discovered when they went outside and checked their thermometers. 



I love this genre.
And I'm glad I got to be alive for this moment.

Rachel Maddow eats a Republican Congressman's lunch

They had a new Republican Congressman on Meet The Press yesterday, and Rachel Maddow took his lunch, carved it up into little bite-sized pieces, dipped it in Ranch Dressing, and ate it.  This is from The Huffington Post:
 
A heated exchange took place during NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday when MSNBC host Rachel Maddow accused Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) of hypocrisy for railing against a spending bill in public while touting its benefits in his home district.

Schock was introduced as our youngest Congressman, and the first to be born in the 1980's. 

Appearing alongside each other during a panel session, Maddow pivoted from a discussion on job creation to note that Schock had appeared at an event on Friday touting a grant program that he had voted against.

Get the kids out of the room, finish digesting your breakfast, and hit that link.  Ughhh....

"You, in your district, I just read that you were at a community college touting a $350,000 green technology education program, talking about how great that was going to be for your district," she said. "You voted against the bill that created that grant. That's happening a lot with Republicans sort of taking credit for things that Democratic bills do and then Republicans simultaneously touting their votes against them and trashing them. That, I think, is a problem that needs to be resolved within your caucus. Because you seem like a very nice person but that is a very hypocritical stance to take."

Where to begin, where to begin....Let's start with the "Green Technology Education Program" concept.  Since almost all government funding for Green Technology is a massive waste, and since the word Green is now nothing but a feel-good righteousness blanket, would it not be cheaper to eliminate everything but the education component of Green programs?  Eliminate the research, engineering and manufacturing, and go straight to the indoctrination component, which is what this mess is all about?   
"Ok, kids, get ready.  I'm going to say a magic word 3 times.  Please write a 750 word essay on how righteous you feel afterwards.  'We are Green, Green, Green.'  Start typing.  Don't you all feel better about giving these nice people your money?"

A somewhat taken-aback Schock insisted that Republicans were "not consulted on the stimulus bill" and shouldn't be blamed for the lack of a bipartisan vote for its passage. This didn't really get to Maddow's point. So after some back-and-forth among the other panelists, Schock jumped back in.

"I think the argument that liberals are making is absolutely ridiculous," he said. "With all due respect, Rachel, does that mean you are going to give back your Bush tax cuts that you continue to rail against. The fact of the matter is our country operates and is governed by a majority. And I, along with almost all my Republican colleagues and a good number of Democrats, have voted against the stimulus, the omnibus and all this runaway spending. But we lost those battles in the House... At the end of the day my constituents and their children and grandchildren will be on the hook for the deficit being created by this majority and they deserve to their fair share of federal spending."

And Schuyler Colfax, Jr. was Vice President during the Ulysses S. Grant presidency, and Colfax later died due to cold and exhaustion while walking 3/4 of a mile to change trains.  What the hell does that have to do withy anything, Mr. Schock????  The Democrats dumped a fat, juicy, artery-clogging chunk of rancid, maggot-infested, greenish pork into your district.  You should have avoided it like it was Rachel Maddow's boudoir.  But instead, you had to slide up next to it, roll in it, lift your leg on it, mark it as your own, and talk about how stealing from the many for the benefit of the few was going to create jobs.  Rachel Maddow, of all people, called you out on it.  More power to her.   

New York Times columnist David Brooks -- appearing alongside Maddow and Schock -- chimed in to suggest that the argument over who should take credit for the stimulus' successes exemplified what was wrong with Washington. But that debate seems likely to only grow in prominence leading up to the 2010 elections. This past week, the Washington Times reported that a host of Republican lawmakers were doing exactly the same thing that Schock was -- only with a bit more insincerity.

"More than a dozen Republican lawmakers, while denouncing the stimulus to the media and their constituents, privately sent letters to just one of the federal government's many agencies seeking stimulus money for home-state pork projects," the paper reported.

I saw this analogy in somebody's Comment Field.  Will give credit later if I can find it: 

Think of the Republican Party as an abusive husband, and the wife has locked him out of the house.  He's now pounding on the door in the middle of the night, drunk out of his mind.  "But, honey, I'VE CHANGED !  I'VE CHANGED !  I'M A DIFFERENT MAN NOW ! ! ! " 

Bullshit. 

They don't want to decrease the size of the mega-state.  They just want to be the ones driving it. 

Regarding Schock's appearance at the green technology education program ribbon-cutting ceremony, the bill providing funds for that program was an omnibus-spending bill that Congress took up last spring. Maddow's point, nevertheless, remained the same.

"If you vote against the omnibus bill," she said at the end of the exchange, "if you complain about the omnibus bill, if you tout your vote against the omnibus bill, it is hypocrisy to then go to your district and go to a ribbon cutting ceremony for something that is funded by the omnibus bill that you voted against."

Precisely.  One cannot effectively lead The Sheeple of Illinois to believe that this behavior is wasteful by showing up for these ribbon-cuttings and touting the benefits of stolen, tainted pork.  Well said, Rachel Maddow. 
Here's a Youtube of the exchange.  You can jump to the 1:00 mark and get the general feel of the thing.  Note to Congressman Schock:  Please, please, please, don't make people agree with Rachel Maddow.  Please.  Stay home if you have to.   



Just to get this unpleasantness out of my system, here's a picture of Rachel Maddow wearing tennis shoes to interview Barney Frank.  Doesn't mean anything.  Just trying to change the subject. 

A portrait of the Na'vi People of Hometree Wisconsin

L.A.R.P. - Live Avatar Role Playing. 



I just blew coffee all over my laptop.

California Detective says that "open carry" supporters should be shot

A couple of readers sent me this after my recent post about Starbucks being safer than Fort Hood.....
Ever notice how much some government entities hate competitors?  Like, the U.S. Post Office is about to go broke, but won't allow anyone else to carry 1st class mail?  Remember when FDR wouldn't allow citizens to own gold, because they would've abandoned the dollar?  Or, in the case of guns.....

Gun rights advocates have a California police detective in their crosshairs after he apparently posted comments on Facebook advocating that "open carry" supporters should be shot.

I understand why Detective Tuason would be threatened by "open carry" advocates.  After all, when seconds count, the police are just minutes away. 


East Palo Alto Police Det. Rod Tuason apparently posted the remarks on his Facebook page in response to a friend's status update, which suggested that gun advocates who carry unloaded weapons openly — which is legal in California — should do so in places like "Oakland, Richmond and East Palo Alto" and not just in "hoity toity" cities.

"Haha we had one guy last week try to do it!" Tuason replied. "He got proned out [laid face-down on the ground] and reminded where he was at and that turds will jack him for his gun in a heartbeat!"

That's a picture of a suspect in a not-quite-prone position. 
Let's get one thing straight here.  Which would you rather have with you if you had to live in Oakland, Richmond, or East Palo Alto?  A pistol, or Detective Tuason's cell phone number? 

Several comments later, the detective suggested shooting the gun rights advocates, some of whom have carried firearms openly in recent weeks in California's Bay Area, particularly at Starbucks locations.

"Sounds like you had someone practicing their 2nd amendment rights last night!" Tuason wrote. "Should've pulled the AR out and prone them all out! And if one of them makes a furtive movement … 2 weeks off!!!" -- referring to the modified duty, commonly known as desk duty, that typically follows any instance in which an officer is investigated for firing his weapon.

Sigh.....These are our employees.  How much time off would this clown get if we started acting like employers?  I suspect it would be more than two weeks. 

Those comments caught the attention of a California attorney and blogger, as well as a Virginia man who started a Facebook group calling for Tuason's termination.

John Taylor, whose Facebook group had 54 members as of midday Friday, said the Facebook thread confirmed gun owners' worst fears.

As of Sunday afternoon, it has 1,900 members.  Hit the link.  But that's nothing to quibble over. 

"Any sworn officer who suggests shooting law-abiding citizens for exercising their most basic constitutional rights deserves the full wrath of America's gun owners," Taylor told FoxNews.com. "It's an affront."

What we have here is a free speech vs 2nd Amendment vs freedom of contract issue.  Detective Tuason should have the right to say what he wants to say about shooting citizens.  I say, let him say whatever he wants.  The 2nd Amendment states that we can keep and bear arms without having to worry about Det. Tuason shooting us.  And "freedom of contract" implies that the unfortunate citizens of whichever city Tuason works for should be able to fire his butt back into the private sector whenever they please. 
I see no reason why this can't be resolved quickly. 
 
Go here for a screen shot of the conversation.  The picture of the Glock in a not-quite open carry situation came from Free Market Fairy Tales. 

Climate Change journalism outsourced to the U.K.

I recently vowed not to write any more about the Climate Change Scam, figuring I could content myself with sitting back and watching the thing die a lonely miserable death.  (The U.S. mainstream media has apparently taken a similar vow.  But go to almost any British newspaper site, and you'll see that they're all over it.  Some are downplaying the significance of the scandals, but some are ripping the lid off the thing.  James Delingpole, in particular.) 

But enough about the problems of the U.S. State-controlled media.....  Here are three of my favorite British ranters, on why it isn't a good idea to destroy manufacturing, trucking and agriculture because of some of the sloppiest science in history (or since the last witch-finders died.)  Because of long-standing tradition, I must start with Counting Cats.  Hit that link.  Save it.  Bookmark it.  Read these guys daily.   

Let's start with the question of "settled science" vs. the scepticism that all scientistst are supposed to bring to the table.  Here's NickM of Counting Cats:

For the umpteenth time us “sceptics” (in any case isn’t that what a scientist ought to be at all times - I mean if you have faith take holy orders and if you are a sceptic get thee to a laboratory!) are generally not ideologically driven we just ain’t convinced. It’s the raggle-taggle collection of liars, Greens, scumbags, scientists making sub-Faustian pacts with funding bodies and complete f***ing charlatans like the former senator from Tennessee (snow be upon him).

He’s (Professor Peter Liss, acting head of the East Anglia Climate Research Unit) is asking us for evidence. Him, yes, him, the boss man of a research unit not noted for it’s transparency with data is asking us for evidence!

Yeah, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  And it's up to the person making the claim to bring some bulletproof evidence to the discussion.  Especially if he wants to take over manufacturing, trucking, and agriculture.  I hope you have time to read Nick's complete rant.  It's one of the better word-for-word Fiskings I've seen.  

Our next batter is Obnoxio The Clown.  Here's a link to everything he's done on GLOBAL WORMENING.    

Obnoxio (briefly) took off the clown mask for this post, written a couple of days before Christmas.  I still think of it every time I see or hear a "green" advertisement.

Bleary eyed, as usual, I staggered down to the kitchen to make myself my morning cup of coffee. While waiting for the coffee machine to do its thing, something tugged at my vision. It was the box of dishwasher soap tablets that I'd left out and on it was the catchy marketing slogan:

Brilliant results, even on eco programs

It's been bugging me for a while now. "Even on eco programs"? Does this imply that the manufacturers have done some research and discovered that actually, making obeisance at the altar of Gaia means that you may have to wash your plates twice? Are detergents becoming stronger to counteract the effects of people using colder water to "save the planet"? Does this mean even more (but different) pollution to worry about later on?

This is what aggravates me about the warmists. They're banging on about how we have to be more energy efficient, while ignoring the fact that their approach may not be the most pollution efficient and it's almost certainly not the most cost efficient.

Ignoring the fact that I think (especially this morning!) that an ice age is much more likely than a boiled planet (in the short term, anyway - in a couple of billion years, a boiled planet is inevitable) I am actually a firm believer in efficiency.

Any believer in the free market and especially anarchist-inclined libertarians is a believer in efficiency. I believe that the free market is far and away the most efficient way of delivering goods and services - but a free market, not a regulated market. And as an milquetoast anarchist, I also believe that there are a handful of services that can be more efficiently provided by the government than by the market. So I'm willing to compromise my loathing of giving money to a bunch of legalised thieves in exchange for those services. Although I accept that there are anarchist alternatives, I'm not sure that they are necessarily the most efficient alternative.

Hit the link to read the rest.  I kinda like the phrase milquetoast anarchist.  My belief that government is a necessary evil because of the need for roads, sewers, defending the borders, and a courts system makes me a milquetoast libertarian. 

And then there's The Devil's Kitchen.  What can be said about Mr. Kitchen that hasn't already been said elsewhere? 

Here's everything Mr. Kitchen has written on  "Climate".  Well worth browsing and saving, especially if you're trying to explain to warmists why all the snow in your Fort Worth, Texas, yard really is not a sign of warming.  These aren't typical D.K. post, though. 

I bookmarked this one sometime last week.  Mr. Kitchen doesn't have much memorable to say here, but it's a good collection of links to IPCC mistakes. 

Now THIS little rant is a typical D.K. download of rage.  It's about assisted suicide, which we would be commiting if we allowed Saint Albert, The Goracle Of Music City, to have his way with our economy.  Best think I've ever read on who owns me and who owns you.  Warning to devout Baptists:  if you can't take the heat, stay out of The Kitchen.  

Thanks to all three of these guys for stepping in where others have failed.