How they voted

If you want to know how your Senators and Congressman voted on a bill, or what’s coming up on the Congressional calendar, there’s a website at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/megavote/ that will send a weekly summary to your email address.  This is one of those rare occasions when Congress did something right (I think).

 

 

the "food crisis"

Sometimes Ann Coulter, besides being a funny lady, has a way of putting things into perspective.  The “food crisis” for example:

 

Isn't food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.

 

Here’s a link to her full column, which is excellent.

Portrait of a boondoggle

When I first saw this chart I thought it was a joke. After studying it for a few minutes and "googling" some of the box titles it started getting a little less funny. Now I understand that the Democrats are preventing Republicans from mailing the chart to constituents, claiming that it's inaccurate (link). Let me think...who should I believe?

It's not too late to sign the petition!
http://www.freeourhealthcarenow.com/form.php

ObamaCare music video

This is amazing! I just watched Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video for the first time in years, and the resemblance to the Democrat health care proposals now working their way through Congress is incredible! Thriller must have been filmed in Chicago. Where else will you find so many Democratic voters dancing in the street? Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgnlZs3uB2Q .

By the way, if you haven’t signed the petition to stop these zombies from taking over the health care system, stop wasting time and get over to http://www.freeourhealthcarenow.com/form.php . We need to deliver a million signatures to Washington.

We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do.

Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.          --Aristotle

 

EMP part 2

I neglected to mention in my last post that the “33 minute” missile flight time from Iran or North Korea is an unlikely scenario.  That’s actually much more warning than we’d really get, plus it would allow us to immediately retaliate against our attackers.  Much more likely is the scenario in “One Second After”—a shorter-range missile launched from a freighter in the Gulf of Mexico.  That would give us maybe 10 minutes, and no one to retaliate against.

 

 

EMP

We’ve all seen films and pictures of the horrific devastation caused by the detonation of atomic bombs in Hioshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II. Could the explosion of a single bomb—one that results in absolutely no blast damage—actually be worse?

I just finished reading the novel “One Second After”, by William Forstchen, about an EMP attack on the United States. EMP refers to the electromagnetic pulse that would be generated by a high-altitude nuclear explosion. The book has been reviewed by nuclear experts and is technically accurate.

It’s hard to imagine the impact of such a strike, but you don’t have to—Forstchen has done it for you. The stark estimates are that up to 90% of the US population would be dead within a year.

The Heritage Foundation has released a documentary called “33 Minutes”, which refers to the flight time of a missile from Iran or North Korea. You can see an excerpt at http://www.heritage.org/33-minutes/. EMP is also mentioned here.

Still not sure? The first and most vital duty of the Federal government is to "provide for the common defense". In 2001 Congress authorized “The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack”. Their report was issued in April 2008. Since that time, though, Congress has done nothing about this threat. In fact, they have reduced spending on missile defense systems!

This is a huge vulnerability. And our enemies know about it.

“Congressional hearing to barbeque Wall Street executives are as fun as a circus, but with more clowns.”    

--Alan Reynolds (Cato Institute)  [link]

Isn't this the way Hugo Chavez operates?

Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.  The incident - which gained national attention when it was captured on videotape and distributed on YouTube - had prompted the government to sue the men, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring would-be voters with the weapon, racial slurs and military-style uniforms. [Link]

 

"I do see this opportunity for climate change to be ... a game-changer."

"Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility."

-- Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca), speaking at Beijing's Tsinghua University, May 28, 2009 [Link]

 

 

Supreme Court nominee

—To oppose a nominee because of his or her sex, race, ethnicity, or background is to act on bad reasons.  Why then is it acting on good reasons to confirm a judge on such grounds—or to nominate one in the first place?

—The Republicans should thus do Judge Sotomayor the great honor of taking her thinking seriously, after the irresistibly ritual celebration of her story and background.  She has been a judge for years, and judges think for a living—so the focus should be kept on what she has done and said that gives us an inkling of her thinking.

Matthew J. Franck on NRO

http://bench.nationalreview.com/

Taking Chance

We just finished watching “Taking Chance”, an HBO movie about PFC Chance Phelps, USMC, who was killed in Iraq on April 9, 2004. The movie is based on the notes of the Marine officer who escorted the body home.  (If you want to read the original notes, click here.)

I’m not normally a fan of HBO, but Taking Chance is a perfect movie for Memorial Day. 

 

Nola

I sure do love playing the piano! Listening as my hands move over the keyboard I am always amazed that I can make such beautiful music. On occasion, of course, I accidentally hear a real pianist and am jerked unceremoniously back to reality. Still, I do have my aspirations. My new goal is to be either the best untalented pianist in Sugar Land, or the worst with even a modicum of talent. Either one would be, for me, a miraculous achievment!

Nola was written in 1915 by Felix Arndt for his fiancee. It could be the happiest piano tune ever written! Mister Arndt died at age 29, in 1918 during the flu epidemic.

Here's Richard Dowling playing 'Nola'.

Captialism

“The Heads of State and Government of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela” have issued The Declaration of Cumaná [Link].

The first three points are:

1. 1. Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction.

2. 2. Capitalism has caused the environmental crisis, by submitting the necessary conditions for life in the planet, to the predominance of market and profit.

3. 3. The global economic crisis, climate change, the food crisis and the energy crisis are the result of the decay of capitalism, which threatens to end life and the planet.

Since capitalism is the economic foundation of freedom, the only thing that surprises me is that Obama, Pelosi, Reed and Gore haven’t signed on yet.

That Americans generally don’t understand the difference between Socialism and Capitalism isn’t surprising, either. Who’s going to teach them…government schools?

Black liquor

Here’s a fascinating story by Kimberly Strassel in the Wall Street Journal about the wisdom of Congress.

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993344387627879.html

 

Tea Party!!!!

• CARACAS -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez moved to jail a prominent opposition figure for the second time in recent weeks, an apparent bid to tighten his grip on power amid a sharp downturn in economic growth. [Link]

The Dimocrats could learn something from this guy!

• The Justice Department moved to dismiss former Sen. Ted Stevens' indictment on Wednesday, effectively voiding his Oct. 27 conviction on seven counts of filing false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms. Stevens, who is 85, lost a close re-election bid in November to the former Anchorage mayor, Democrat Mark Begich. [Link]

Oh….never mind.

Believe in global warming...or else

 

James Hansen, a climate modeller with Nasa, told the Guardian today that corporate lobbying has undermined democratic attempts to curb carbon pollution. "The democratic process doesn't quite seem to be working," he said. [link]

 

 

B. O.'s Neighborhood

 

Broken Fences—A Stimulus Story

 

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House.  One is from Minnesota, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Chicago.  All three go with a White House official to examine the fence.

 

The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil.  "Well," he says, "I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me."

 

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me."

 

The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700."

 

The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys!  How did you come up with such a high figure?"

 

The Chicago contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence."

 

"Done!" replies the government official.

 

And that, my friends, is “hope” and “change”.

 

Obama's definition of success

Charles Krauthammer nails it in his column today:

…with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy. Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.

What's going on? "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before.”

Things. Now we know what they are. The markets' recent precipitous decline is a reaction not just to the absence of any plausible bank rescue plan, but also to the suspicion that Obama sees the continuing financial crisis as usefully creating the psychological conditions -- the sense of crisis bordering on fear-itself panic -- for enacting his "Big Bang" agenda to federalize and/or socialize health care, education and energy, the commanding heights of post-industrial society.

Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core. Health, education and energy -- worthy and weighty as they may be -- are not the cause of our financial collapse. And they are not the cure. The fraudulent claim that they are both cause and cure is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.

Read the full article here è [link]