May 2, 2011

AP Provides The Viewpoint From An Al-Qaeda “Ideologue” On Osama

A top al-Qaida ideologue vowed revenge Monday for the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces, in the first jihadist admission of the militant leader’s death.

The reaction of the online jihadi community to their hero’s death varied between expressions of disbelief mixed with protestations of revenge and vows to continue the fight against Islam’s enemies.

The prominent commentator, going by the online name “Assad al-Jihad2,” posted on extremist websites a long eulogy for bin Laden and said the Islamic holy war against the West was far from over.

“Woe to his enemies. By God, we will avenge the killing of the Sheik of Islam,” he wrote. “Those who wish that jihad has ended or weakened, I tell them: Let us wait a little bit.”

In my world, I call that a stone cold Islamic jihadist. How about in yours?

It gets better

Hussein bin Mahmoud, a prominent and respected writer for the militant web forums wrote a long article Monday, entitled “Osama is not dead … he is alive with his message.”

He said Americans would be allowed to celebrate a few days and then “we will resume the Islamic war … wait for the worst to come for you and the agents in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Europe.”

Hmm, wackjob Islamist jihadi leader is “prominent and respected” in the eyes of the Associated Press.

Anyhow, yeah, I haven’t been excited and stuff, but, after long reflection, the emotions I am looking for are “relieved,” “satisfied”, and, perhaps, after all this time “vindicated.”

Oh, and, just for clarity (slight gross out warning)

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ObamaEconomy Jacking Up The Price Of Sweet, Sweet Bacon

Now it’s personal, and, as DrewM points out, it’s a friggin’ brilliant DC idea to turn food and feed into fuel

Mr. Pope is the chief executive officer of Smithfield Foods Inc., the world’s largest pork processor and hog producer by volume. He doesn’t mince words when it comes to rapidly rising food prices. The 56-year-old accountant by training has been in the business for more than three decades, and he warns that the higher costs may be here to stay.

Courtesy of? “I’m not going to say, ‘a political policy,’” he tells me. (His senior vice president, a lawyer by training, sits close by, ready to “kick his leg” if his garrulous boss speaks too plainly.) But politics indeed plays a large role, as Congress subsidizes favorite industries and the Federal Reserve pursues an expansive monetary policy.

We’ll ignore the part about Smithfield Foods hiring low income workers, many of who were illegal aliens, um kay?

It’s also a business under enormous strain. Some “60 to 70% of the cost of raising a hog is tied up in the grains,” Mr. Pope explains. “The major ingredient is corn, and the secondary ingredient is soybean meal.” Over the last several years, “the cost of corn has gone from a base of $2.40 a bushel to today at $7.40 a bushel, nearly triple what it was just a few years ago.” Which means every product that uses corn has risen, too—including everything from “cereal to soft drinks” and more.

What triggered the upswing? In part: ethanol. President George W. Bush “came forward with—what do you call?—the edict that we were going to mandate 36 billion gallons of alternative fuels” by 2022, of which corn-based ethanol is “a substantial part.” Companies that blend ethanol into fuel get a $5 billion annual tax credit, and there’s a tariff to keep foreign producers out of the U.S. market. Now 40% of the corn crop is “directed to ethanol, which equals the amount that’s going into livestock food,” Mr. Pope calculates.

Not just Bush, Clinton pushed it too, as have then Senator campaigning for President Obama. This is a D.C. problem of both parties, who are slowly getting wise (too slow) to the hard fact that using food as fuel is a Bad Idea.

Now food price inflation is popping up across the country. A pound of sliced bacon costs $4.54 today versus $3.59 two years ago and $3.16 a decade ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Ground beef is $2.72, up from $2.27 in 2009 and $1.74 in 2001. And it’s not just Smithfield’s products: “You eat eggs, you drink milk, you get a loaf of bread, and you get a pound of meat,” he drawls. “Those are the four staples of what Americans eat in their diet. All of those are based on grains.”

Hey, remember when Liberals and wishy washy Republicans gave Sarah Palin a load of guff about food price inflation? Oh, and, hey, remember one of the news sites giving Palin crap was …. The Wall Street Journal, the same outlet the above story is from? Me thinks the WSJ owes Sarah a wee bit of an apology.

Food price inflation isn’t a problem confined to America’s shores. “This ethanol policy has impacted the world price of corn,” Mr. Pope says. The Mexican, Canadian and European industries have “shrunk dramatically. . . . We have an unsustainable meat protein production industry,” he says. “We’re built on a platform of costs, on a policy that doesn’t make any sense!”

Nor does the science. The ethanol industry would supply only 4% of the nation’s annual energy needs even if it used 100% of the corn crop. The Environmental Protection Agency has found ethanol production has a neutral to negative impact on the environment. “The subsidy has been out there since the 1970s,” Mr. Pope says. “If they can’t make themselves into a viable economic model in 40 years, haven’t we demonstrated that this is an industry that shouldn’t exist?”

Darn it, we really need to breed the unicorns to provide fuel quite a bit faster!

Anyhow, what does this all mean? Higher bacon prices!

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Osama Bin Laden Killed In Pakistan

Perhaps I’m not telling you anything new at this point. I missed this important news last night, I rarely look at the news late on a Sunday night’

Osama bin Laden, hunted as the mastermind behind the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, has been killed, President Obama announced tonight.

The president called the killing of bin Laden the “most significant achievement to date” in the effort to defeat al Qaeda.

“Justice has been done,” Obama said.

Bin Laden was located at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, which was monitored and when the time was determined to be right, the president said, he authorized a “targeted operation.”

“A small team of Americans carried out the operation,” Obama said. “After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.”

DNA testing confirmed that it was bin Laden, sources told ABC News.

Congratulations to President Obama, our awesome folks in the military who carried this out, and to America. Fighting the war on terrorism overseas is one of the things you’ll remember that I mostly agree with in the way Obama is handling it. But, what does this mean?

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s death is politically momentous for US president Barack Obama – witness the cheering crowds which gathered outside the White House even before his speech on Sunday night.

Its impact on al-Qaeda, though, is harder to measure.

Peter Bergen, an American journalist, said on CNN that bin Laden’s death marked “the end of the war on terror”. But many other analysts would disagree: Al-Qaeda, after all, is a very different organisation in 2011 than in 2001, with a new cadre of leaders and a wider range of affiliate groups.

It is by no means the end of al Qaeda and Islamic jihad. They’ve lost a figurehead who makes pronouncements, but, has he really been in control? While Americans were cheering in the streets last night, and rightly so, expect the Islamists to look to ramp up their attacks in short order for this. Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas in the Gaza strip said

We condemn the assassination and the killing of an Arab holy warrior. We ask God to offer him
mercy with the true believers and the martyrs.

We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood.

And the Democratic Underground reaction

Now can we leave Iraq and Afgan??
End The War Mission Accomplished!
The making of a Martyr. They knew that. What better way? to ensure that “the terrorists” have a renewed reason to “attack” us. It’s not enough to kill women and children, daily, to guarantee high “recruitment” numbers for “the terrorists” than to martyr their “leader”…aka..an old Arab man hiding in a cave with a dialysis machine.
yellow terror alert – campaign time – bullsh*t detection now put my show back on – this sucks
This is what they interupted “Brothers & Sisters” for? I thought the big announcement was going to be something important. I wonder what the excuse(s) for continuing the war(s) will be now.
I think I am going be sick…

Granted, and to be fair, there are also several comments saying this is a good thing there. But, it looks to me that more are using this as a political kudos for Obama than a win for America. We’ll see what happens with the Islamists now.

Of course, DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC make it All About Obama

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) praised Obama and specifically credited Obama for “refocusing” U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which Wasserman Schultz asserted led to bin Laden’s death.

“President Obama’s leadership in making the targeting of Osama Bin Laden our highest military and intelligence priority, warrants our gratitude,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement. “He deserves credit for refocusing U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan to root out terrorism which no doubt helped lead to this historic announcement.” (snip)

Beyond the Wasserman Schultz statement, the DNC is looking to add bin Laden’s death to Obama’s mantle.

The group wrote on Twitter: “#ThankYouPresidentObama” before adding an updated iteration: “Thank you to our men and women in uniform and #ThankYouPresidentObama.”

President Bush comments

Earlier this evening, President Obama called to inform me that American forces killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al Qaeda network that attacked America on September 11, 2001.

I congratulated him and the men and women of our military and intelligence communities who devoted their lives to this mission. They have our everlasting gratitude.

This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.

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May 1, 2011

Osama Bin Laden Killed

Killed in a mansion in Pakistan.

Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in a mansion outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad along with other family members, senior U.S. official tells CNN.

Lots of good questions come up about this. Why did he drop off the grid for so many years? Just a coward? What role did Pakistan play in this? Lots of good feedback at Hot Air. How much should we be worried about retaliation terrorism? Security levels have been raised at US bases worldwide.

CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces. While details are still sketchy, CBS News correspondent Chip Reid reports from the White House that officials are saying bin Laden was shot in the head.

The long-lost terrorist mastermind had eluded an aggressive hunt by U.S. authorities for nearly ten years since the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 11, 2001.

Bin Laden’s death is a major accomplishment for Mr. Obama and his national security team, as the administrations of both presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush hunted the Saudi-born terrorist.

Security at “strategic places in Pakistan has been beefed up as a precaution against any retaliation to news of Osama bin Laden’s death”, a senior Pakistani security official told CBS News early on Monday. “If he(bin Laden) is really dead, there will be attempts to seek revenge,” said the official who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity.

Former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said on Twitter: “#BinLaden’s death does not eliminate the threat from #alQaeda, but it is hard to see anyone playing the same organizational role he did.”

Some are saying he was actually killed last week. So, as Sister Toldjah says, this is a good time to remember all the victims of 911.

Update – 11:41PM: The President says that the kill happened today after days of intelligence reports indicating where OBL was. He says he authorized an operation to take him out.

I definitely didn’t think today would be a day in history when I woke up. Whoever pulled the trigger is a new hero and the new most interesting person in the world.

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Good News! PowerShift 2011 Climate Alarmists Plan To Walk The Talk!

Just kidding. They plan to organize instead of agonize

Two weeks ago, over 10,000 students activists descended on Washington, D.C. to collaborate, train, motivate, and take action at Powershift 2011. They made enough of an impact that President Obama took notice and invited 12 student leaders for a conversation. Powershift happens once a year, but a new website just re-launched aims to keep up the momentum by providing a place for youth activists to come together to organize.

Let me ask: if the (ahem) science says that anthropogenic global warming is so bad, why do the majority of True Believers fail to drastically change their own lives and take serious measures to reduce, and eliminate, their own carbon footprints? It’s almost like this is some sort of …. political movement.

Energy Action Coalition Online Director Jeff Mann wrote in a blog post:

Our stories, and our work, can change the world. That’s why today, PowerShift2011.org is re-launching as WeArePowerShift.org — a new grassroots-driven online community for the organizers powering our movement. WeArePowerShift.org is your space to stay connected to the Power Shift movement – to continue telling your story, to collaborate, and to share the work you are doing with fellow organizers across the country.

Everyone who attended Power Shift 2011 already has an account. Login with the username and password you received when you registered*, and kick things off by sharing your thoughts, photos, and next steps from Power Shift 2011. If you need some help getting started or you have any questions, shoot us an email at contact@wearepowershift.org and we’re happy to help.

I’m missing the part where they pledge to stop using large amounts of fossil fuels to get to conferences like PowerShift. And evil coal to provide energy to run their website. They should make sure the servers are run strictly on solar and wind and hydrothermal…wind kills birds and water displaces fish? OK, solar….they’d have to clear cut a large swath of woodland? Oh, well.

Mann promises that the site will continue to add bells and whistles over the next few months, making the site an even greater tool. If you are interested in getting active, you can also go to ItsGettingHotInHere.org to hear more from today’s youth climate activists. As the 2012 election nears, you can be sure that both of these sites will be crackling with both solid information and inspiration for all climate activists

Oh, good, they’ll have information and inspiration. How about personal actions? And, yes, I will continue to ask that annoying question until you Warmists match your own actions to your talking points. You want me to stop? Show me you actually believe the science and change your own lives, instead of wanting to simply make everyone else change theirs, and slap on “carbon” taxes.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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April 30, 2011

Think Progress Doubles Down On AGW Caused Tornadoes

Their first stupid article wasn’t enough, so, like any good unhinged Leftist climate moron, they double down with

Top Climate Scientist On The Monster Tornadoes: ‘It Is Irresponsible Not To Mention Climate Change’

Who are those top climate scientists? Michael Mann (with his discredited hockey stick), Gavin Schmidt, and Kevin Trenbarth. Let’s see what Kevin had to say

Well I have my own article on where the heck is global warming? We are asking that here in Boulder where we have broken records the past two days for the coldest days on record. We had 4 inches of snow. The high the last 2 days was below 30F and the normal is 69F, and it smashed the previous records for these days by 10F. The low was about 18F and also a record low, well below the previous record low. This is January weather (see the Rockies baseball playoff game was canceled on saturday and then played last night in below freezing weather). …

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Oh, wait, sorry, that was from one of Kevin’s Climategate emails, as Powerline points out.

TP has this from Michael Mann

The fact remains that there is 4 percent more water vapor–and associated additional moist energy–available both to power individual storms and to produce intense rainfall from them. Climate change is present in every single meteorological event, in that these events are occurring within a baseline atmospheric environment that has shifted in favor of more intense weather events.

And Gavin Schmidt

It is a truism to say that everything has been affected by climate change so far and therefore this latest outbreak must in some sense have been affected, but attribution is hard and the further down the chain the causality is supposed to go, the harder this is. For heat waves it is easier, for statistics on precipitation intensity it easier – there are multiple levels of good modelling, theory and observations to back it up. But we have much less to go on with tornadoes.

Interesting. I say interesting because all the little climate morons keep telling us that we should only listen to climate scientists. In fact, we were told not to talk to someone who isn’t a climate scientist at last weekends PowerShift 2011 summit. Mann and Schmidt do not have higher education degrees in climatology or meteorology. Trenbarth has a degree in meteorology, so, we should listen to him when he says he has no clue what’s going on.

The folks at Watts Up With That? are livid over the TP post. Anthony Watts says his original article had no headline, because it would have used naughty words solely. Watts also mentions the folly of linking tornadoes to anthropogenic global warming. And both posts use that science thing. Watts also has a degree in meteorology. I’ll listen to him.

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Weekend Link Love: Tower of Power Edition | All American Blogger pinged this post.

Chumps Weekly Address: Hey, Let’s Blame Oil Companies For High Prices!

The difference between a demagogue (interestingly, ye olde Thesaurus has the word “politician” as a synonym) and a leader: the first yammers on and blamestorms, the latter comes up with a real world plan to address the issue and attempts to resolve it. Guess which one Obama is?

After the worst recession since the Great Depression, our economy is growing again, and we’ve gained almost 2 million private sector jobs over the last 13 months. But I also know that a lot of folks aren’t feeling as positive as some of those statistics might suggest. It’s still too hard to find a job. And even if you have a job, chances are you’re having a tougher time paying the rising costs of everything from groceries to gas. In some places, gas is now more than $4 a gallon, meaning that you could be paying upwards of $50 or $60 to fill up your tank.

Of course, while rising gas prices mean real pain for our families at the pump, they also mean bigger profits for oil companies. This week, the largest oil companies announced that they’d made more than $25 billion in the first few months of 2011 – up about 30 percent from last year.

Up partially due to the anti-oil policies Team Obama has put in place.

Now, I don’t have a problem with any company or industry being rewarded for their success.

But, he just told us that he had a problem, and is about to tell us what he wants to do to magically lower gas prices

The incentive of healthy profits is what fuels entrepreneurialism and helps drives our economy forward. But I do have a problem with the unwarranted taxpayer subsidies we’ve been handing out to oil and gas companies – to the tune of $4 billion a year. When oil companies are making huge profits and you’re struggling at the pump, and we’re scouring the federal budget for spending we can afford to do without, these tax giveaways aren’t right. They aren’t smart. And we need to end them.

And that will solve the rising gas prices how, exactly? Show your work, Mr. Obama. Let’s see the plan, and we need to see concrete cost decreases included. Just a quick PowerPoint SMART plan, which includes the action steps, who’s in charge of each step, when each step is due, and the predicted outcomes.

That’s why, earlier this week, I renewed my call to Congress to stop subsidizing the oil and gas industries. Understand, I’m not opposed to producing oil (ROTFLOL!). I believe that if we’re serious about meeting our energy challenge, we need to operate on all cylinders, and that means pursuing a broad range of energy policies, including safe and responsible oil production here at home. In fact, last year, America’s oil production reached its highest level since 2003.

OK, what say we cut the subsidies on all energy, including “green”? Oh, wait, sorry, Chump has a different idea

But I also believe that instead of subsidizing yesterday’s energy, we should invest in tomorrow’s – and that’s what we’ve been doing. Already, we’ve seen how the investments we’re making in clean energy can lead to new jobs and new businesses. I’ve seen some of them myself – small businesses that are making the most of solar and wind power, and energy-efficient technologies; big companies that are making fuel-efficient cars and trucks part of their vehicle fleets. And to promote these kinds of vehicles, we implemented historic new fuel-economy standards, which could save you as much as $3,000 at the pump.

Let’s see, subsidizing vs “investing”. He’s talking about where we should go with energy, but, are not even close to being there. One day we will. Yet, we aren’t there yet, and replacing oil, coal, and natural gas with what is mostly fictional means that prices on what most people use goes way up. Furthermore, those “historic” fuel standards (because no other administration has ever implements fuel standards) might save you $3k at the pump, but cost you $7k more for the vehicle.

Now, I know that in this tough fiscal environment, it’s tempting for some in Washington to want to cut our investments in clean energy. And I absolutely agree that the only way we’ll be able to afford the things we need is if we cut the things we don’t, and live within our means. But I refuse to cut things like clean energy that will help America win the future by growing our economy and creating good-paying jobs; that will help make America more secure; and that will help clean up our planet in the process. An investment in clean energy today is an investment in a better tomorrow. And I think that’s an investment worth making. Thanks for listening, and have a great weekend.

A better tomorrow. Fantastic. Most people don’t give two [edited] about that when they are suffering NOW. None of what he is yammering on about will help the plight of Americans now. But, now he’s off to the White House Correspondents Dinner. And I’m waiting for someone, usually CBS News’ Mark Knoller, to report that Obama’s playing golf again, having driven over to the links in his behemoth limo with motorcade, using $4 gasoline paid for by you, the taxpayer.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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» Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Anti-Capitalism, Bald-face lies, Barack Obama, Coal/Energy Resources, Communism, Delusional Dupes and DUmmies, Democrats, Economy, Energy, Government malfeasance/misfeasance, Government tyranny, Liberal Media/Bias, News, Socialism, Statism, Taxes, class warfare, liberalism

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April 29, 2011

Geithner’s Spin: Auto Bailout A Success

-By Warner Todd Huston

At the Detroit Economic Club today, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tried to claim the auto bailout is a success.

It certainly doesn’t seem like a success for the taxpayers. GM stock is about $30 today, and unless it gets up to $54, the taxpayers lose money on the deal. Why would it go up? You want to fight high gas prices by buying a Volt? How does $41 grand a pop sound? And still GM loses money on every one it sells even at that price. Not only that but we are seeing that government subsidies for electric cars is good tax money wasted in any case.

It doesn’t get any better. Worldwide, U.S. cars aren’t selling worth beans and domestically, GM is lagging because people who hate the bailouts won’t support it with their car-buying dollars any more than they did with their votes last year when they kicked out every incumbent they could find who’d been for it. And GM still has all its old problems, too, like those big fat union pension obligations. Sadly, nothing that caused GM’s financial trouble has been fixed.

But the spin continues. Last December, Geithner said the auto bailouts were “investments,” which “will show a positive return, not a negative return.”

As the 2010 midterms proved, the people know better. They know government can’t run an automobile company and they know the deal was mostly political payback to the UAW, the biggest culprit in why GM and Chrysler were in trouble in the first place — not that company execs did themselves proud, either.

People didn’t believe Geithner when he said we’d make money on the deal, and they were right. Today’s speech was more of the same, and it still won’t fly.

Geithner, Obama and the rest of the gang that brought us this monstrosity may or may not actually still think they kept the economy from chaos by the bailout, but they’re just believing their own scare tactics if they do.

As George Mason University Professor Todd Zywicki pointed out in depth, a normal bankruptcy would have worked just as well. Sorry, Timmy. Your spinning wheel is getting us nowhere.

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When You’ve Lost Grist On Corn Ethanol……

….you’ve lost the backing of one of the Internet’s most hysterical (both meanings of the word) enviroweenie/climate alarmist websites: Government-backed corn ethanol lurches on, paving a road to nowhere

During the Bush II administration, I used to groan that the closest thing we had to a concerted policy response to climate change was the federal government’s slew of goodies for corn-based ethanol. It was a monumentally depressing situation, because propping up corn-derived fuel is expensive and (despite industry hype) doesn’t actually do much, if anything at all, to mitigate climate change — but contributes actively to ecological disasters like the Gulf of Mexico “dead zone.”

Now, two years into the Obama administration, we still have no concerted policy response to climate change, and the corn ethanol program abides, sucking up resources that could be going to actual green technologies. Groan.

I’ve got news for you, Chump: blaming Bush is idiotic, when Obama himself is a huge supporter of corn ethanol. Furthermore, Clinton supported corn ethanol, and, that was about the extent of his caring about globull warming. Remember, he refused to sign Kyoto, because it would destroy the US economy. Given a chance, Clinton might have signed legislation banning Obama, because Obama would destroy the US economy. Anyhow, what is Tom Philpott really mad about?

To me, the insane thing here isn’t the idea of government investment in public infrastructure; we meed much more of that. What galls me is the demand for government investment in ecologically useless public infrastructure — when we actually need to be investing much more in real green transportation systems like high-speed trains, powered by an energy grid shifted as much as possible over to wind and solar energy.

So, it’s not that the Government is spending foolish amounts of money turning food into fuel, along with government requirements to do that, which drives up food prices overall and is, by some reports, actually worse for “climate change” than pure fossil fuel usage. No, it’s that we don’t have friggin’ high speed trains which few will actually take.

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» Filed Under AGW hyposterics, Agenda based science, Barack Obama, Collapsing Science, Energy, Fiscal Responsibility, Global Warming, News, Science/pseudo-science, environmental activists/terrorists, pork spending

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Ohio Gov. John Kasich Tells Obama To Do His Own Job First

Of course, Obama is way too busy enjoying the trappings of the Oval Office, putting his 2012 election campaign into high gear, and getting revenge on reporters who actually report to actually do the job of Chief Executive. Obama was recently in Ohio to do a taped interview with WKYC Cleveland, and said, vis a vis SB5, which “removed sick time, pension benefits and healthcare from negotiations between unions and the government” that “this was blaming public workers for the public problems.”

Kasich was asked about the president’s strong opinion. And Kasich offered his own strong response. The full answer is on the video below, but Kasich said in the 1990s he had been House Budget Committee chairman and chief architect of the last federal budget to be balanced.

He noted that Ohioans’ elected representatives had reached this legislative agreement and, as required by law, balanced the state budget while preserving tax cuts. Then, he added:

“The president of the United States has I think a $13 trillion debt. Why doesn’t he do his job? When he does his job and gets our budget balanced and starts to prepare a future for our children, then maybe he can have an opinion on what’s going on in Ohio.”

Andrew Malcolm also has the latest from RNC Chair Reince Priebus, who said

“We’re borrowing four and a half billion dollars a day and this president is more worried about birth certificates, Oprah Winfrey and fundraisers at the Waldorf Astoria,” Priebus complained on “CNN Newsroom” Thursday, a day after the president released his long-form Hawaii birth certificate and then jetted to Chicago for a long-scheduled interview with the daytime queen of talk.

“It’s maddening and I just wish the president would engage in the real issues that are affecting America,” Priebus, who recently replaced Michael Steel, said. “We’ve got him going to Jonas Brothers, golfing, doing everything except figuring out a way to save Medicare that’s going to go bankrupt in nine years,” he added.

The problem here is that asking Obama to work is a double edged sword, because when he does actually Do President, things get much, much, much worse. His policies bear no likeness to reality, except in the 1950’s Soviet Union. Of course, what Kasich and Priebus are doing is highlighting Obama’s inability to do the job as President, which should be apparent to everyone who has cognitive abilities.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

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» Filed Under Barack Obama, Elections, Fiscal Responsibility, Government malfeasance/misfeasance, News, Obama Birth Certificate, Politics As Usual, President, Republicans, State Government, Union Mafias/Thugs, Video, public employee unions, transparency/accountability

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April 28, 2011

“White House officials have banished one of the best political reporters in the country from the approved pool of journalists covering presidential visits to the Bay Area for using now-standard multimedia tools to gather the news”

◼ Obama Administration punishes reporter for using multimedia
- – SF GATE/Bronstein at Large

The Chronicle’s Carla Marinucci – who, like many contemporary reporters, has a phone with video capabilities on her at all times – pulled out a small video camera last week and shot some protesters interrupting an Obama fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel….

Just the day before Carla’s Stone Age infraction, Mr. Obama was at Facebook seated next to its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and may as well have been wearing an “I’m With Mark” t-shirt for all the mutual admiration going back and forth.

“The main reason we wanted to do this is,” Obama said of his appearance, “first of all, because more and more people, especially young people, are getting their information through different media. And historically, part of what makes for a healthy democracy, what is good politics, is when you’ve got citizens who are informed, who are engaged.”

Informed, in other words, through social and other digital media where videos of news are posted.

The President and his staffers deftly used social media like Twitter and Facebook in his election campaign and continue to extol the virtues and value. Except, apparently, when it comes to the press….

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» Filed Under 1st Amendment, Anti-free speech, Barack Obama, Gov.Censorship, Hypocrisy/Situational Ethics, News

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Oil Fracking Booms in North Dakota: Obama Admin Shuts Down Millions of Energy Acres

North Dakota has the lowest unemployment rate in the U.S. and a “boom town” atmosphere is underway there, all due to “fracking” for oil and gas. “Fracking” is a method of drilling “down” and then curving the pipe and drilling “over.” A procedure of small explosions occurs in the pipe that has traveled horizontally. Those explosions blow through the top and bottom of the pipe and “fractures” the shale in a “veiny” manner, which releases the oil or natural gas to flow back into the pipe and eventually be brought to the surface.

Bakken Shale Drilling Fields

Liberals hate it. A couple of New York towns have banned it. North Dakota is booming and in February the state had the lowest unemployment rate in the U.S. (3.8%). If you need a job, try the oil and gas fields in North Dakota.

The point of this post is to direct you to an excellent video that explains exactly how fracking works. View it at NorthernOil.com. The second point is to mention that the Obama administration is doing everything it can to claim millions of acres of oil and gas rich land resources for “Wild Lands,” rendering them energy-useless.

The New American published an exposé on Czarist regulations that rained-down upon us on the Tuesday before Christmas 2010, which they refer to as Tyranny Tuesday. The author Michael Coffman address the millions of acres of land the administration (and others before it) have taken possession of under the “Wild Lands” provision of the Department of the Interior. Under the heading Czar Salazar Locks Up Trillions of Barrels of Domestic Oil and Gas, Coffman says:

As I discuss in my book Rescuing a Broken America,⁹ there exists enough oil and gas in shale oil formations in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to completely supply all U.S. needs for several hundred years with current technology and oil prices. The BLM [Bureau of Land Management] estimates that “1.2-1.8 trillion barrels of oil is available in Wyoming’s Green River Formation alone. A moderate estimate of 800 billion barrels of oil that would be recoverable from oil shale in the Green River Formation is three times greater than the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.”¹⁰ That is about a 100-year supply of oil at present U.S. consumption rates — just from Wyoming.

In spite of the fact that analysts unanimously celebrate this potential bonanza to America using environmentally-sensitive technology, progressives in Congress have systematically stalled on allowing its development. The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 forever locked up much of this shale oil from being developed. The Heritage Foundation found that “331 million barrels of recoverable oil and 8.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas were taken out of exploration in Wyoming. The total amount of energy that would be restricted is equivalent to the amount of natural gas the entire U.S. produces in 15 years…. The law could not only restrict conventional energy resources, but it could also restrict access to oil shale in parts of Colorado and Utah as well.”¹¹The “Wild Lands” decree by Salazar could lock up even more, if not all, of this priceless resource.

And that does not include the Bakken or Three Forks/Sanish which is believed to lie just above the Bakken. A couple of good articles on the Bakken that are understandable can be found at The Oil Drum and Oil Shale Gas. My previous article on the effect of the new industry in North Dakota is here.

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie’s Notebook

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Posted by Maggie Thornton at 12:33 pm | Comments (3) | Trackback (1)

» Filed Under 10th Amendment, Anti-Americanism, Anti-Capitalism, Barack Obama, Coal/Energy Resources, Communism, Congress, Democrats, Economy, Energy, Government corruption, Government malfeasance/misfeasance, Government tyranny, House, News, Politics As Usual, Senate, States Rights, Taxes, Unemployment, environmental activists/terrorists, liberalism, progressivism
» Tags: Department of Interior,Energy,Gas Fracking,Ken Salazar,Natural Gas,News,North Dakota,Oil Fracking

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Westboro Baptist’s Jonathan Phelps Comments at STACLU on Story of US Marine Funeral

On April 21st I wrote a post about the loss of a Brandon, Mississippi Marine who died in action in Afghanistan on April 7th. I posted it at my blog and here at Stop the ACLU. Fox News reported that Westboro Baptist Church turned up for the funeral services to lay the Warrior to rest. Jonathan Phelps from Westboro Baptist left a comment for me on the STACLU post, and friends, he thinks I am AWESOME! Here’s the rest of the story. See an update below.

GENERALLY I HAVE A PHOTO WITH MY ARTICLES. THIS TIME I LEAVE THIS LINK SO THAT YOU CAN SEE WHAT WESTBORO IS ALL ABOUT.

First, I’m not mentioning the name of the Marine who died on the same page with Jonathan Phelps’ name. Second I have thought about whether giving Phelps a forum here is a good idea, but he seems to be callingFox News and The Hayride News and Commentary, the source for the Fox story, liars. And then there’s this, The Hayride apparently got their story from “an Ole Miss sports message board,” so…. Finally, since this is the Internet, I must acknowledge that it’s possible this comment was left by someone other than Jonathan Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church – a joke or a prank, perhaps?

The story was that some unnamed members of Westboro Baptist went to Brandon for the Marine’s funeral service. The town of Brandon, Mississippi was ready for them. If true, what Rankin County Mississippi did is the stuff of legends, especially considering the heartbreak Westboro has brought to the families of our Warriors. Phelps says the story is “fiction,” they were not in Brandon. At least now Rankin County won’t have to worry about a First Amendment lawsuit from this bunch of haters.

Jonathan Phelps left the following comment at STACLU:

Dear Friends:

Just when we thought there was no completely new and original way to get the whole nation talking about the faithful ministry of WBC, you found one. You are AWESOME!

Never mind that the story was complete fiction (since we never have and never would waste time driving that far when a plane and rental car is far more efficient), you got people to get an accurate picture of the face of a doomed nation that will no longer endure sound Bible doctrine and therefore God sends them a spirit of lawlessness as divine judgment.

You saved us funds to attend funerals for soldiers and others in Nebraska, Iowa, and Oklahoma, while still guaranteeing that our core message (God is bringing this evil nation into judgment in an open and notorious manner, chiefly by slaughtering their young and their soldiers, because you have turned the country over to the sodomites) has reached a huge audience AGAIN!

Thank you for your faithlessness and your rage against God (that He turns as a testimony for us). If we weren’t busy planning funeral pickets for the latest GodSmack victims, we would send a representative to come and give you a BIG hug!

These words we preach are going to be heard in the ears of 310 million american brutes, by hook or crook, and you are powerless to stop them. That’s how God rolls.

Jonathan Phelps on behalf of Westboro Baptist Church

Mr. Phelps has been busy tonight. He’s left the same comment on several other posts around the InterTubes. My friend Lobo, an administrator here at Stop the ACLU, left the following comment for Jonathan Phelps:

Jonathan,

The US Supreme Court in Lawrence vs Texas turned this country over to the sodomites. Did you picket them?

Several of the states’ Federal, Supreme and Appellate courts have turned their states over to sodomites. Are you picketing them?

State legislatures? No? US Congress? No?

Are you picketing any schools?

How about the many ‘gay pride parades’ from NY to Chicago to San Fransicko?

It’s not about sodomites or even a country turned over to sodomites…it’s about money. It’s about a family of scammers playing the ‘taxpayer lotto.’

You’re not going after the target rich environment because there isn’t enough money in it. The money is in the government awards for failing to protect and serve.

You and your family are not against sodomites, Jonathan. You, and your “church” depend on them to make your living.

You and yours won’t go after that which you rail against when you can go after the dead and poke people’s emotion, hoping to turn it into cash.

Dry bones, Jonathan, dry bones!

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie’s Notebook

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Posted by Maggie Thornton at 12:16 pm | Comment (1) | Trackback (1)

» Filed Under Afghanistan, Anti-Americanism, Fallen Heros, Fox News, Hypocrisy/Situational Ethics, Moral Relativism, News, Obscenity, liberalism, military, political opportunism
» Tags: Jonathan Phelps,U.S. Military,US Marines,Westboro baptist church

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Reading Books Is Apparently Bad For Globull Warming

All you folks who read books, you are killing Gaia, and need to immediately buy an e-reader (until the alarmists determine that they are bad for Gaia). From TerraPass

Unfortunately, the business of publishing books, newspapers, and magazines has a large environmental impact. In addition to the tens of millions of trees harvested every year, paper manufacturing is responsible for 11 percent of all freshwater consumed by industrial nations, and is associated with an annual discharge of 153 billion gallons of wastewater. (snip)

According to a 2009 brief by the Cleantech Group, an average book has a carbon footprint of about 7.46 kg of CO2. By comparison, the average Kindle has a carbon footprint of approximately 168 kg of CO2 over its lifetime. This means that if you were to purchase a Kindle, you would “break even” on the greenhouse gas impacts once your use of the Kindle led you to avoid the purchase of 22.5 physical books; any ebook purchased beyond the first 22.5 books would be akin to preventing 7.46 kg of CO2 emissions, in addition to reducing the use of natural resources (e.g. water and wood fiber) that would have gone into a physical book.

You know what’s really amazing? Someone actually took the time to figure out the “carbon footprint” of a book. If that doesn’t tell you how obsessed these climate alarmists are, nothing else will.

But, you know what this means? It means that I, your humble pirate writer who thinks that anthropogenic global warming is a load of mule fritters, am quite a bit more “green” and better for Gaia than most of the Warmists. I have a Kindle. Had it since 2008. I read quite a few books, averaging one every week or two, and read almost exclusively on the Kindle at this point. Once you get used to using it, you almost do not want to read paper books. I gave Mom one for Christmas, and she is already hooked. I’ll actually hunt down a book I’ve read before and want to read again on the Internet, rather than reading my paper copy or going to the library. And, I save money over purchasing books at the bookstore. Plus, I find all sorts of cool books that one rarely, if ever, finds in the bookstore. And I help out small and unknown authors.

And, I will go to the library now and then, and “share the environmental impact”, as the Warmist writer says.

So, are all you Climate Realists more “environmentally friendly” than the Warmists? Hey, I wonder what the carbon footprint is of all the corporate made liberal protest signs and Che pamphlets?

Oh, and what are you reading now? I’ve gotten caught up with zombies and end of the world stuff lately.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach

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» Filed Under AGW hyposterics, Collapsing Science, Global Warming, Technology, man-made science

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Birth Certificate Controversy Proves New Age Of Accusation Or Something

And it’s all because you stupid, mean, uncivil (and probably raaaaacist) American civilians have access to the Internet (can we blame Al Gore?): A new era of accusation and innuendo

President Barack Obama’s appearance Wednesday in the White House briefing room to present a documented rebuttal of suspicions that he was not really born on U.S. soil was more than just a surprise. It was a decisive new turn in the centuries-long American history of political accusation and innuendo.

By directly and coolly engaging a debate with his most fevered critics, Obama offered the most unmistakable validation ever to the idea that we are living in an era of public life with no referee—and no common understandings between fair and unfair, between relevant and trivial, or even between facts and fantasy. (snip)

It’s hard to imagine Bill Clinton coming out to the White House briefing room to present evidence showing why people who thought he helped plot the murder of aide Vincent Foster—never mind official rulings of suicide—were wrong. George W. Bush, likewise, was never tempted to take to the Rose Garden to deny allegations from voices on the liberal fringe who believed that he knew about the pending September 11, 2001 attacks ahead of time and chose to let them happen.

Obama did something like the equivalent of this, by releasing complete documentation from his Hawaii birth and then making a sober West Wing appearance to explain himself.

I do believe that there is a slight difference between conspiracy theories about Clinton/Bush and a freaking birth certificate, a document could have provided when Team Hillary started the rumor. There is a huge difference between the conspiracies, and there was no reason to address the Foster or 9/11 idiocy.

He did so, senior Obama advisers say, because of the radical reordering of the political-media universe over the past 15 years or so. The decline of traditional media and the rise of viral emails and partisan Web and cable TV platforms has meant the near-collapse of common facts, believed across the political spectrum.

If you read on and on and on, we learn that only the traditional media, newspapers and the Big Three network news outlets, can be those fair and impartial….I’ll wait till you are done laughing and clean the drink off of your computer, tablet, or smartphone screen……in providing the real and truthful news. You know, like the Dan Rather/cBS story about Bush’s military service.

“We’re dealing with a lot of the same things Clinton and frankly Bush dealt with but we’re dealing with them at 1000 times the speed and with fewer referees,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director. “That is the downside of the disaggregation of the media. If you don’t want to believe what someone is telling you, you can go somewhere else. If you believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that the president is not American you can go somewhere to find somebody to validate that fact.”

Really? More than Bush? 9/11 Truth. Iraq was over oil, and he planned to attack Iraq even before 9/11. The liberal internment camps. Bush made up all the evidence for Iraq (though he was supposedly very stupid). He had a neurological disorder. The 2004/2006/2008 elections would be suspended. He left Blacks to die in New Orleans on purpose. He was drinking again. They go on and on and on.

When my side of the political aisle accuses Obama of willful murder of his own citizens, then he might be in the same ballpark as Bush. And where was the media in debunking most of the Bush conspiracy theories? Mostly absent, other than mentioning them.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.