Turnabout is Fair Play

Hey, remember how all the Warmists and their political masters kept telling us over the summer how the heat records shored up their belief in Global Warming, or Climate Change or whatever today's buzz word is?

Yeah...well, I can be just as disingenuous:

Record cold in parts of Conn.
 

Oh Hell, I can be twice as disingenuous:

 Winter in October: Newark sees record-low temperature as cold hits N.J.

Biden in Repose: #13

 

 

"Paulie...let me tell you, I had a biker chick on my lap, and she was huge.  My knee hurt for a week, but I'm OK.  She even offered to buy me dinner.  She said...Joey, how about I toss your salad.  I said, no...already had a burger, but man she was huge...that's campaigning, boy, and Ole Joe's still got it.  I rule!"

FINALLY: Proof of Job Growth in the Black Community

Employees of Mi Casita Day Care have long been used to seeing prostitutes along their Broadway block in Camden, but not in the numbers they've been seeing of late.

"They've always been around, but they were more south . . . and not this many," Mi Casita executive director Flora Rivera said. In the last several months, a surge of "new girls" has arrived to do business in the city, Rivera and others have noticed.

The influx of young prostitutes, and the drug use that accompanies them, has become a concern for staff and parents at Mi Casita and other day-care centers and preschools in the area.
 

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Department of Labor has been counting this increase as proof of created jobs.  Not surprised at all.

Who's More Trustworthy...Obama or al-Zawahri?

CAIRO - The leader of al-Qaida has urged Muslims to wage holy war against the United States and Israel over a film that insulted Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

Ayman al-Zawahri praised as "honest and zealous" demonstrators who breached the U.S Embassy in Cairo and attackers who stormed the U.S. "embassy" in Benghazi in violence linked to the film. The American ambassador and three others died in the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in the Libyan city.
 

So...once again...the Cairo and Benghazi attacks had absolutely nothing to do with the hack film on YouTube, "Innocence of Muslims."  But, the White House pushed that connection to protect their own exposed posterior on foreign policy weaknesses and miscues.  The Muslim world picked up on the words of the White House (i.e. Barack Obama) and the State Department (i.e. Hillary Clinton) and used it as an excuse to destroy, kill, shout, and riot.

Now, al-Qaida is trying to use this falsley generated catalyst as the spark to wage Holy War. 

That's not what pisses me off about this article, however.  I expect the president and the Secretary of State to act stupidly, since they are both operating well above their pay grade.  Neither was/is experienced enough to be in the role.   What truly disturbs me is that the Associated Press publishes this story and never comments that Ayman al-Zawahri is pushing a false narrative concerning the motivation behind the Cairo and Benghazi attacks.  They didn't address this because it makes the president look weak and dishonest and they would have to explain where the false narrative originated.  They can't do that...there's an election to win.

Tunisia is a Viper Pit of a Place

A key proposal by Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party to outlaw blasphemy in the new constitution, which stoked fears of creeping Islamisation, is to be dropped from the final text, Assembly speaker Mustapha Ben Jaafar told AFP.

The agreement to drop the clause follows negotiations between the three parties in the ruling coalition and must still be approved by the committees drafting the constitution, which Jaafar said would be debated by parliament next month.

It comes after President Moncef Marzouki warned that militants pose a “great danger” to the Maghreb region, and following a wave of violent attacks — blamed on Salafists — on targets ranging from works of art to the US embassy.

“There will certainly be no criminalisation,” Jaafar, the 72-year-old speaker of the National Constituent Assembly, said in an exclusive interview.

“That is not because we have agreed to (allow) attacks on the sacred, but because the sacred is something very, very difficult to define. Its boundaries are blurred and one could interpret it in one way or another, in an exaggerated way,” he added.

Two things:  First...just because Tunisia will not validate "blasphemy laws" officially, do you think that those who support them would give up enforcing them in their own sick, twisted and violent ways?  No...of course not.

Second, there was a reason that George Lucas chose Tunisia to represent the most desolate, desparate and drecrepit planet in the Star Wars galaxy.   Having been there, I can tell you it was an inspired choice.  The damn place is infested with intolerant and abusive Tusken Raiders (aka: sand people) and folks like Ennahdha leader Rached Ghannouchi who is dreaming of a Sharia world.

Chinese Stimulus Program: Shovel Ready Graves

It said that the increase in evictions stemmed in part from a construction boom stoked by a government stimulus program implemented to ward off the effects of the 2008 financial crisis.

The loosening of credit allowed local governments to take out loans on an “unprecedented scale,” but local governments soon found themselves unable to continue financing the projects, “so they sank deeper into debt,” Amnesty said.
 

Wait...what?  China implemented a stimulus program to ward off the 2008 financial crisis?  Then, local governments took advantage of this by grabbing the easy to acquire loans, but overshot the moon, and needed to do some damage control?   That sounds feasible...as does the way they proceeded in damage control.

BEIJING: Violent forced evictions are increasing in China as local governments seek to pay off debts by seizing land and selling usage rights to property developers, Amnesty International said in a report on Thursday.

The report, Standing Their Ground, said that growing numbers of Chinese have been forced from their homes in both rural and urban areas, with evictees sometimes beaten, imprisoned, or even killed at the hands of authorities.
 

The thing about Communist China is that the people don't own the land.   The land is owned by the State.  However, residents can lease the land (buy and sell rights on usage) for as long as 70 years.  But, as is the case here, the State can grab it right back whenever they need it and good luck to the "squatter" in the process.  Most of the violent protests across China (which the US Media routinely ignores) are a result of these forced evictions to benefit the State or local province.

So...big deal...right?   Who cares...it's China.   And, no...I'm not going to give you some song and dance about that could happen here.  It won't because there are still too many folks who treasure the 2nd Amendment.  But, I thought it would be interesting to see how the US media portrays the Chinese handling of the 2008 financial crisis.

Here's Time Magazine's Tony Karon:

One of the great ironies revealed by the global recession that began in 2008 is that Communist Party–ruled China may be doing a better job managing capitalism's crisis than the democratically elected U.S. government. Beijing's stimulus spending was larger, infinitely more effective at overcoming the slowdown and directed at laying the infrastructural tracks for further economic expansion.
 

Heh...Tony and Time love those Commies. 

Watch the Media Spin to the Bottom of the Bowl

Four days before the Vice Presidential debate I wrote the following.  Biden did not disappoint.  He did, indeed, tell some absolute whoppers, and smiled the whole way whether appropriate or not.  And then, he went that extra mile and told us all he voted against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He contradicted his own State Department on Benghazi etc...  Now the media has to spin it in a fashion that it's about performance, not substance. 

This isn't going to be a debate where Paul Ryan outshines Joe Biden. On the surface it will look like an evenly matched competition. But, if anyone takes an opportunity to dissect what the candidates for Vice President actually say, it will be cringe worthy (to a level rarely seen in national politics).

Mark it...Joe Biden is going to tell some absolute whoppers. He is going to smile while he does it. The media is going to try and protect him the best they can. But, Joe always goes that extra mile and only looks around once he gets there. 

My prediction is that there will be no clear winner from the debate on Thursday. But, there will be a real clear loser. That will be the media trying to spin gold out of damp, rotting straw.
 

Here's the problem.  Even the performance was just plain disrespectful. 

Our Patronizing President's Week

The economy is on life support here and abroad.  The Middle East is burning with hatred and disarray.  North Korea has announced that it has missiles that can reach the continental United States.  So, let's see how our President is dealing with this fast moving world.

Barack?

President Obama visited the grave of Cesar Chavez in Keene, Calif., Monday, and dedicated a monument to the late leader of the United Farm Workers.

That's right.  Gotta get that Latino vote.  Romney just went up 7 in Florida.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- President Obama proclaimed Tuesday as Leif Erikson Day, honoring the first large group of Norwegians to emigrate to the United States.
 

Oh yeah...need to get that  Norwegian vote.  Minnesota and Washington must be running out of    Kool-aid.  What else?

WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- President Obama proclaimed Thursday as Pulaski Memorial Day in honor of Gen. Casimir Pulaski, one of the heroes of the American Revolution.
 

Ah ha...that Polish vote must be up for grabs...despite Lech Walesa endorsing Romney.  Wisconsin is already heading towards Romney, and the Illinois internal polls must be shakey.

He'll be wearing a yamaka before the end of next week.

How the Hell Do the Warmists Keep All the Lies Straight?

Is anyone else getting tired of these Global Warming cheerleaders (i.e. Warmists) covering both sides of the argument?  We're traipsing into cartoon territory here.  Here's the latest:

Experts: Global warming means more Antarctic ice
 

Yeah...that's the headline by Seth  Borenstein of the Associated Press.  Here's the problem.  The Antarctic produces an all time record in September for ice.  This is a problem (even admitted in the linked article) so a response is required less the Warmists lose more of their followers.  So, out comes the word of "experts" stating that the increase in ice in the Antarctic actually confirms global warming. 

However, how do they explain the IPCC (United Nations answer to climate omnipotence) citing this article in their reports on global warming:

Sea Ice Evolution Over the 20th and 21st Centuries
 

Specifically stated and accepted by the IPCC and Warmists everywhere (when it served their purpose) was this:

The climate change projections over the 21st century reveal that the annual mean sea ice extent decreases at similar rates in both hemispheres...

That's right there in the abstract of their cited paper.  And yet, now the poles are opposites.  How convenient.

PS:  Not that it's important or anything, but the Antarctic holds over 90% of the world's ice. 

Al-Qaeda in Yemen is Hardly Defeated

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — A masked gunman assassinated a Yemeni security official who worked for the U.S. Embassy in a drive-by shooting near his home in the capital Sanaa on Thursday, officials said.

Yemeni officials said the killing bore the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda attack, but it was too early to determine whether the group was behind it. The assassination resembles other suspected al-Qaeda attacks recently that have targeted Yemeni intelligence, military and security officials. The attacks are believed to be in retaliation for a military offensive by Yemen's U.S.-backed government against the terror group's branch in the country.

Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which Washington considers the most dangerous offshoot of the terror network, has called for attacks on U.S. embassies in a bid to exploit the anti-American sentiment that has swept the Middle East and other parts of the Muslim world in the past month over an anti-Islam film produced in the United States.
 

Got that..."Al-Qaeda has called for attacks on U.S. embassies in a bid to exploit the anti-American sentiment that swept the Middle East and other parts of the Muslim world in the last month over an anti-Islam film produced in the United States. "

Think about that.  The film had nothing to do with the attacks, but the White House pushed it as the spark for the unrest to cover its own posterior and failed foreign policy, and the Muslim nitwits latched on.  The White House, at least indirectly, is responsible for giving said nitwits the lit fuse they required.

On a side note...still no US media coverage on the murdered US doctors in Yemen at the beginning of October.  Try and find any references to Ali Abdullah Saif Al-Aghabri or Maraim Mohammad Al-Zahri anywhere other than the Yemen Post.

Brown v. That Fake Indian Lady

How many times is she going to mention the economic plans that were graded by the Boston Globe, and guess what, she came out ahead of the Republican! Who’d-a thunk it?

You want some more stats from the Globe, Granny? On Sept. 30, you were five points ahead in a poll, and the Globe put it above the fold on page one, the lead story. Yesterday, Scott Brown was four points ahead in a poll, and the Globe used it as a news-in-brief item on page B2.
 

Howie Carr sums up the most recent Scott Brown/ Elizabeth Warren debate for US Senate.  As usual, it's a colorful rendition.

The President is Spent (Excuse # 509 for the Debate)

You've seen all the excuses for President Obama's debate flub.  It was the altitude.  He looked tired.  He was worried about a scandal on campaign cash.  Blah...blah...blah...

However, here's my favorite to date.  It comes from an OpEd in the Seattle Times by Danny Westneat.

Part of the problem, ironically, is that most of the obvious tasks for a Democratic president are already done.

We can fight about the details, or whether you like these things, but he stopped the economic free fall, ended the Iraq war, re-regulated Wall Street, saved the car industry, passed national health insurance, got bin Laden, mandated a doubling of car-fuel efficiencies, ended 'don't ask, don't tell' and jump-started, via the stimulus bill, the green-energy industry.

He has gotten too little credit for all that. Still, he owns the resulting policy vacuum. Is he spent?
 

That's right.  Today's excuse is that President Obama is wiped because he was so darn successful.  The problem is that a majority (if not all) of those items Westneat calls accomplishments go directly against what a majority of the country wanted.  Therefore, they aren't items you want to tote to your favor in "polite" company. 

He states that "we can fight about the details, or whether you like these things," but I assure you he doesn't want to do that.  The economic free fall is still in motion and the only improvement to the unemployment rate is reflective of the CBO removing workers from the workforce.  Ending the Iraq war is an interesting accomplishment that is highlighted by Iraq entering into a multi-billion dollar arms purchase from Russia.  The abrupt withdraw of American troops encouraged that relationship and Russia has a foot in the door to influence their foreign policy.

Wall Street has not been regulated in the slightest by President Obama.  In fact, he gave blank checks to five Wall Street banks he deemed too big to fail.   In the most recent fairytale political ad by Obama on the issue, he spouts a record of indicting banking crooks, Ken Lay, Dennis Kozlowski, and Bernie Madoff.  The only problem is that all three were indicted by George W. Bush, not Obama.  Jon Corzine, head of MF Global lost tens of  billions in investor funds, could not explain the loss or detemine the ulitimate location of the funds.  Was he held accountable?  Of course not.  He is a campaign bundler providing millions to the Obama election campaign. 

President Obama hasn't saved the car industry.  For one, General Motors still owes the taxpayer over $46 Billion.   GM is currently selling at $23 per share.  In order for the US Taxpayer to break even, the price would have to reach $53.  How likely is that?

The President passed national healthcare.  Nice...except that over 70% of America didn't want it.   It's, also, become apparent that there are taxes stacked upon taxes associated with the legislation that we had to pass to see what it contained. 

Bin Laden?  Sure, Bin Laden is dead.  Great.  Fantastic.  I'm sure that tired the President out.  Valerie Jarrett must have been up all night making that decision.

And then, there is the "green energy industry" in which the Department Of Energy picked loser after loser to provide great gobs of taxpayer money to squander.   Amonix Solar, Solar Trust of America, Bright Source, Solyndra, LSP Energy, Energy Conversion Devices , Abound Solar, SunPower, Beacon Power, Ecotality, A123 Solar , UniSolar, Azure Dynamic, Evergreen Solar, and Ener1 all failed after they received billions and lost it all.  Of course, a significant number of these sham companies were run by Obama campaign bundlers, but what's tens of billions between pals...huh?

According to Danny Westneat, President Obama has gotten too little credit for all the above listed.  I agree.  Unfortunately, the media continues to protect him from his failures by outright ommission and mistatement.  However, the debates have no such reset button or protective sychophancy.  It's mano al mano, and you can't spin a record as atrocious as this.  In fact, you can't talk about it at all.

Supreme Court Taking Another Gander at Raced Based Diversity

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court is taking up a challenge Wednesday to a University of Texas program that considers race in some college admissions. The case could produce new limits on affirmative action at universities, or roll it back entirely.

The university says the program that fills roughly a quarter of its incoming classes uses race among many factors and argues that is necessary to provide the kind of diverse educational experience the high court has previously endorsed. The rest of its slots go to students who are admitted based on their class rank, without regard to race.

Opponents of the program say the university is practicing illegal discrimination by considering race at all.

Justice Elena Kagan is not taking part, probably because she worked on the case at the Justice Department.
 

25% of all classrooms are filled not based on performance, not based on SAT scores, not based on extracurricular activities, but based only on the amount of melanin in the potential student's skin.  This is entirely, and perfectly contrary to requirements under the law in hiring individuals who graduate college.

It is, also, a direct violation of the Equal Protection Clause under the 14 Amendment of the Constitution.

The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits states from denying any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. In other words, the laws of a state must treat an individual in the same manner as others in similar conditions and circumstances. A violation would occur, for example, if a state prohibited an individual from entering into an employment contract because he or she was a member of a particular race. The equal protection clause is not intended to provide "equality" among individuals or classes but only "equal application" of the laws. The result, therefore, of a law is not relevant so long as there is no discrimination in its application.
 

 The fact that such race based preferences still exist in academia is a blatant example of just how bent and fully removed they remain from true and realistic society.  

Biden in Repose: #12

 

"Boss...boss...check it out...foreign policy on the middle finger...that's how I remember Middle East...and I wrote the economic stuff on my thumb...I'm a debate machine...bring it on."

Liberals with a Singular Focus are the Best

Sometimes you find a few unbroken eggs in a muddy pasture.  That appears to be the case in the following article by Gareth Evans.  He is a former Australian foreign minister who co-chaired the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation.  Essentially, he's one of those guys that thinks every country should just get rid of all their nuclear weapons and live happily ever after. 

Ok..fair enough.  I'll get to that fantasyland thinking in a moment.  Instead, check out how he starts off his article.

U.S. President Barack Obama's foreign-policy landscape is littered with deflated balloons. Soaring speeches, high hopes and great expectations have yielded minimal returns.

Across the Islamic world - from North Africa to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan - we see fragile relationships, unhappy transitions, unresolved conflicts and outright attacks on the United States, despite Obama's case for a new beginning, movingly articulated in his June 2009 speech in Cairo. Israel, deaf to Obama's urging, is further from reconciliation with Palestine and closer to war with Iran than it has ever been.

Likewise, for all the effort put into improving America's most important bilateral relationships - those with China and Russia - ties with both countries have become increasingly tense, owing most recently to the Kremlin's intransigence over Syria and official Chinese behavior in the South China Sea.
 

That's pretty much dead on.  You won't see anything like this written in the US media despite the veracity.  In fact, this is an Australian published in the Prague Post while writing from Singapore which is the base for the Asia Pacific Leadership Network.

What I find amusing is that the author is stridently liberal.  Anyone who dreams of a non-nuclear world is hopelessly so.  The genie is never getting back in that bottle.  Only the delusional argue otherwise.   And, despite the liberal tendencies of the author, he is so focused on his singlular task of nuclear non-proliferation he overlooks his absolute evisceration of President Obama's foreign policy endeavors in the process.

What's received little play amoung the US media is that Obama has been dead set on destroying the United States' nuclear arsenal.  He requested that the Pentagon come up with a plan to reduce said arsenal by 80%.  This was a unilateral reduction.  Unfortunately, for President Obama (and Gareth Evans) the US general election got in the way.  You may recall that President Obama informed Medvedev that he'd have more flexibility after the election.  That was at the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul.

Now...how do I know that Gareth Evans (despite his take down of Obama) is a liberal.  Simple:

But it is hard to ignore the huge constraint that an intensely partisan and negative political environment in the United States has imposed. Republican intransigence has precluded U.S. ratification of the CTBT, which would be a big international circuit-breaker, almost killed the New START treaty at birth, and has caused the bar for further negotiations with Russia and China to be set almost impossibly high.

Nor is there any sign that any of these positions would be modified should Mitt Romney, the Republican challenger, become president. International concerns have been compounded - certainly for the APLN leaders - by the shrillness of Romney's statements on China and Taiwan, as well as his extraordinary identification of Russia as America's "No. 1 geopolitical foe."
 

Shrillness?  Is that what that was?  I thought it was an actual leader stepping to the plate and putting the Chinese and the Russians on notice that they will not be dictating our foreign policy as they have been for the last four years. 

PETA Becomes a Laughing Stock

PETA has a bone to pick with Pokemon, and it’s over how the popular Nintendo video game treats its big-eyed virtual characters.

The animal rights group, which normally focuses on the abuse of dogs, cats and other animals in the real world, has crossed over into the virtual world to launch a protest against Nintendo’s newest Pokemon game, “Black and White 2.”

PETA, which stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals,

complains the characters in “Black and White 2,” all of whom are collectively called Pokemon, are abused by their “trainers.”
 

It's not real.  That very simplistic sentence should be enough for the "animals are more important that humans (who in their opinion are not part of the animal kingdom) crew."  It's a video game. 

Here...try this.  Clap your hands.  There...you just killed millions of protozoa (one celled animals).  You are a murderer...and I have to ask why you think deer, dogs, or mink are any more important than those helpless protozoa you just killed. 

If you donate to PETA to feel good about yourself, you are a troglodytical moron.

No Hope and Big Change...

Some gave a sheepish smile, a slight nod or an apologetic shake of the head.

But most often, the University of Washington students flooding past Elise Randall on Monday didn't bother to look up as she waved a clipboard and loudly offered to help them register to vote on the last day to do so by mail or online.

In two hours standing in the busiest thoroughfare on campus — and directly beneath a statue of George Washington — the graduate student registered two people.

It's been that kind of year for voter-registration advocates.
 

No...it's been that kind of year for Democrat voter-registration advocates.   You have to have substance to generate interest from the constiuency.   With no substance, there's no enthusiasm. 

Here, again, we see why such democrat heavily weighted polls are such nonsense.

Hey Look...The State Department is Lying

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A State Department document shows the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, Libya requested that a 16-member security team remain in the country four months beyond the end of its scheduled deployment.

A department official says the request made in February was granted.

The commander of the security team that made the request told AB

C News that slain U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens wanted the team to stay even longer, past the end of its deployment in August. Stevens and three others Americans were killed in an attack in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11.

A State Department official said, however, that it never received any request for a post-August extension. The official added the team was replaced without any reduction in personnel or loss of skill sets.
 

And now...the truth from the head of the security detail directly as interviewed by one of the few journalists left in the US, Sharyl Attkisson:

ATTKISSON: Do you feel like there was a disconnect between what you saw on the ground and what the State Dept. folks thought was going on in Libya?

WOOD: There was certainly no disconnect in our transfer of information to them. They were getting the information on the situation on the ground. We sent it up through State Dept. cables and I sent it up to the military side on the D.O.D. side. So, there was awareness of what the situation in Libya was about.

ATTKISSON: How did you get the word that your team would not be allowed to stay?

WOOD: We knew that was coming through the cables and the draft cables that were going back and forth. The requests were being modified to say ‘don’t even request for D.O.D. support’.

ATTKISSON: So State Dept. was telling the folks on the ground in Libya ‘don’t continue to ask for this help’?

WOOD: Correct
 

How, exactly, does Hillary Clinton still have a job...huh? 

Interesting observations:

1.  The AP piece uses an unidentified State Department official for its information.  In other words, it could be made up, non-existent, or colluding with the AP to create the desired story. 

2.  Lt. Col. Wood, however, exists and provided comments that directly oppose the AP’s and USA Today's unidentified source.

3.  The DOD doesn’t usually allow their charges to go before the media’s microphone unless something is at stake.  This is unusual.  It could be a turf war.  It could be that the military is tired of the State Department fouling up, and then running for cover.  It could be that the military, in general, is just tired of the incompetence coming out of the State Department (which has been given seniority by the White House).  It could be a lot of things.  My guess is that it is a combination of all of them and more.

4.  Here’s a thought.  What if the military knows that the weapons used to gain access to, and kill the American’s in Benghazi were provided to the Libyan rebels by the Presidential Finding decision that circumvented  Congress back in March 2011.  Therefore, the White House (under the advice of the State Department) armed the rebels, who turned out to be terrorists.  Essentially,  the White House and State Department provided  the means and opportunity for terrorists to attack our Embassy and now they are focusing everyone on the opportunity to turn everyone away from the means (weapons).

There has to be a reason that the Associated Press, USA Today and the State Department would provide a bold faced lie this late in the game.  It’s not to discard blame, because they are caught with their pants down due to Lt. Col. Wood’s very words.  The alternative is they want you looking there so that you aren’t looking elsewhere at something even more egregious.

Big Government vs. Big Oil...Spot the Real Pig

Less than 3 percent of ExxonMobil’s earnings are from U.S. gasoline sales

ExxonMobil’s earnings are from operations in more than 100 countries around the world. The part of the business that refines and sells gasoline and diesel in the United States represents less than 3 percent – or 3 cents on the dollar – of our total earnings. For every gallon of gasoline, diesel or finished products we manufactured and sold in the

United States in the last three months of 2010, we earned a little more than 2 cents per gallon. That’s not a typo. Two cents.
 

That's right.  ExxonMobil made a total profit in 2010 of 2 cents on every gallon of gasoline sold in the United States.  Now...who wants to guess how much money the US Government/State Government/ Local Government made on each gallon of gasoline sold?

 Oink...oink...oink...oink...you hypocritical jackasses.

Heads I win...Tails I Win and You Disappear

In the re-election efforts of despot, Hugo Chavez we have the early exit polls showing this (from PJMedia):

The candidate of the “Mesa de la Unidad Democratica” (a coalition of opposition parties) …. the consulting firm Varianza has reported their exit polls show 51.3 percent for Henrique Capriles, the opposition candidate, to Hugo Chavez’ 48.06 percent.

However, Venezuela is run by an interfering, self-important, meglomaniac...so we have these results from the AP

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuela's electoral council says President Hugo Chavez has won re-election, defeating challenger Henrique Capriles.

National Electoral Council president Tibisay Lucena says that with most votes counted, Chavez had about 54 percent of the vote.

We should have threatened him with or super-secret earthquake generator.

Feinstein's Rather Large Ass is Showing

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Sen. Dianne Feinstein has called for a federal investigation into gas prices in California because she doesn't think they are related to supply and demand.
 

Dianne Feinstein wouldn't understand the concept of "supply and demand" if it bit her on her rather large posterior.  Simply put, the State of California has such stringent environmental laws in place, that it disallows out of state inport of fuel because other states don't use the same mixture.

Hence, California cannot produce the needed fuel stocks to support the necessity in the state.  The Supply is low.  The demand is high.  Prices reflect the demand.  Dianne Feinstein looks like an idiot while she sends nastygrams to the Federal Trade Commission and proposes another beauracratic committee ( permanent gas and oil oversight market committee) to address California's stupidity while being careful to blame "BIG OIL" for that same idiocy.

I can't help noticing the same issue of interstate competition being nulified by California's individuality just like it occurs in health insurance.  Were the states allowed to compete, prices would lower in both industries.  Essentially, what California consciously did is remove herself from capitalism.  They are no longer emersed in a national competition on fuel prices.  They are intrastate, which shrinks the market and raises the prices due to non-competition.  Incidentally, this is the basis for the Occupy Movement...detroying capitalism.  Here we have a microcosm of what they would call success...$5+ gasoline.

Cheers California...Enjoy.

Romney Wades Into the Foreign Policy Waters

WASHINGTON — Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is proposing the U.S. take a more assertive role in Syria, put conditions on aid to Egypt and tighten sanctions on Iran as he looks to use a planned foreign policy address to paint President Barack Obama as a weak leader who has limited America’s influence on global affairs.

Declaring that "it’s time to change course in the Middle East" and accusing Obama of "passivity," Romney plans to call Monday for the U.S. to work with other countries to arm rebels in Syria with weapons that can defeat the "tanks, helicopters and fighter jets" that make up President Bashar Assad’s army.
 

I was surprised to find this relatively bias free piece on Romney's foreign policy positions.  It's a good start.  For the last four years, the US foreign policy positions have been non-existent, or hidden from public view.  President Obama's theme has been to avoid spreading any undue influence throughout the world...just another seat at the table approach.  That's not who we are.

The United States has always been a leader, and advisor throughout the globe.  A lot of those positions reflected the specific interests and goals of our country, but no few of them were on a humanitarian basis because it was the right thing to do.

The AP does show a little bit of bias in this paragraph:

In the fall, Romney faced criticism for his hurried and harsh reaction to news of protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and the near-simultaneous attacks in Libya. Before the administration knew of Stevens’ death, Romney criticized Obama for sympathizing with the attackers. In the aftermath, top Republicans — including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the 2008 presidential nominee — urged Romney to give a speech laying out his vision for U.S. foreign policy.
 

The AP fails to point out that Romney's "hurried and harsh reaction" was dead on correct and eloquent as well as biting.  So, yeah...he faced criticism from the AP and just about every other liberal media outlet because it made President Obama look like a complete failure sticking to his internet video caused all the unrest position.   On top of that, I can pretty much say without equivocation, no one gives a crap what John McCain says, with the exception of the media.

Coming up in the not too distant future, the foreign policy Presidential Debate looms.  I keep reading all these anticipatory Op/Ed's from the usual liberal suspects stating that Obama will come back swinging.  I suppose it's unfortunate that he really hasn't had a foreign policy position worth noting short of egregious mistakes, oversights, and insulting of our allies. 

Biden Taking Six Days Off to Get Axelrod's Lies in Order

(From the Weekly Standard)

So while Biden is taking 6 days off the campaign trail at a crucial time in the presidential campaign, it's likely that he isn't completely off. He's most likely spending the time with David Axelrod preparing for Thursday's debate.
 

This isn't going to be a debate where Paul Ryan outshines Joe Biden.  On the surface it will look like an evenly matched competition.  But, if anyone takes an opportunity to dissect  what the candidates for Vice President actually say, it will be cringe worthy (to a level rarely seen in national politics).

Mark it...Joe Biden is going to tell some absolute whoppers.  He is going to smile while he does it.  The media is going to try and protect him the best they can.  But, Joe always goes that extra mile and only looks around once he gets there. 

My prediction is that there will be no clear winner from the debate on Thursday.  But, there will be a real clear loser.  That will be the media trying to spin gold out of damp, rotting straw.

Repercussions...California Gas Prices

Drivers in Southern California awoke Friday to find that their gasoline prices had spiked by nearly 20 cents a gallon overnight as a result of fuel shortages caused by a series of refinery disruptions in recent weeks.

Some gas stations around the Los Angeles area were forced to shut off their pumps because of rationing by suppliers, and they displayed makeshift signs explaining that the shortages were not their fault. Drivers formed long lines at stations that did have gas, with some stations raising prices to more than $5 a gallon for regular gasoline.
 

The New York Times goes on to pay a bit of lip service to the stricter environmental laws in California causing gas prices to be predominately higher than the rest of the country in general, but they don't dwell on it.  And, more importantly, they don't tell you how that specifically screws the typical Californian at the present. 

These environmental laws caused the true shortage, because they disallow imports from outside the state which don't hold up to their environmental idiocy.  The mixture isn't the same, so can't be sold in the Peoples' Republik or Kaleefornea.   They did it to themselves by electing local legislators who rammed this legislation down their throats (not really, because the Californians voted for them, and it).  Now, they reap their rewards....$5+ gas that will continue to rise. 

Any hopeful Republican candidates in that state who haven't succumbed to the environmental clap-trap should be all over this issue campaigning right at the Vine Street Exxon Station.  Any Pac organizations in their favor should be out there using their money to pay the difference between the actual California cost and the average in the rest of the country to gain voters one fill-up at a time.

Cold Hearted Bastard...That's Me...

With her 1-year-old slung across her lap and her 5-year-old in tow, Ieesha Kelly continued her search for what she has been trying for three years now to find: a job.

But ask Kelly if the presidential election is about unemployed voters like her, and she'll give you a polite but definite "Are you kidding?" kind of look.

"I just want to be employed to do better for my kids and succeed in life," said Kelly, 32, as she used the public-access computers at the WorkSource employment center in Renton last week. Kelly said she was working two part-time jobs before her hours were cut in one, and she was laid off from the other.
 

Yes...by all means sympathize and empathize...if you can.  Then, ask a simple question:

"If you were unemployed for three years, how it is you have a one year old child?  What exactly were you thinking?"

Personal responsibility seems to be in short supply these days.   The media helps ignore it by printing stories such as this one.  The government helps ignore it by bailing out car companies (General Motors), insurance companies (AIG), and banks when they make idiotic financial decisions and are on the cusp of failure.  What is learned when that occurs?  Nothing...or that despite the idiocy, there is always tomorrow.

I'm tired of it.  It's time to let businesses fail.  It's time to look women in the eye complaining about their straights, and tell them...getting pregnant while unemployed was stupid.

Instead, CNN is marching around telling everyone about "Funemployment."