2009: A Year Of Conservative Vindication

It's been a great year for conservatives. After the beat-down we took in 2008 when the "free" press smelled the blood in the water following a 6 year siege on the Bush administration, we rebounded better than even 1994.

Conservatives were right in opposing Bama's trillion-dollar "stimulus" plan, which was supposed to keep unemployment below 8%. It's now 10%, and the stimulus has been a near total waste.

Conservatives have been vindicated on "global warming." The email hack exposed the fraud at the core of the movement, and the data - the facts - have been exposed and we are proven correct. Man has had a negligible effect on the climate, and not even Al Gore can prove otherwise with actual science fact.

Conservatives were on the right track with the war on terror. Another Muslim extremist tried to blow up a plane this month, and yet many liberals refuse to go forward with targeted security measures, even as more practical voices on the Democrat side call for changes to the system. Iraq is no longer a story - Bush was ultimately successful, but Bama is trying to ruin prospects in Afghanistan with his arbitrary withdrawal deadline.

Sarah Palin has been vindicated for her faux pas during the 2008 campaign. We now know the communists at CBS roasted Palin under the lights for hours, and chose to air only the bits that cast the Governor in poor light. Meanwhile, her world tour has been an enlightening look into her unfiltered principles. Its clear McCain was the wrong candidate at the wrong time.

Nearly half of Bama's top-level appointments are tax cheats. That's criminal behavior. These people have broken the law, and now they help run the country. Any guesses where the money's going? That's right, the press has been negligent in reporting the Bama administration's ties to lobbyists. My guess is we won't hear about it next year, either. Nevertheless, Team Bama is exactly what conservatives knew they were - crooks from the seedy underbelly of the ages-old Chicago political machine.

Conservatives have been right all along about health care. The Dems tried at first for rushed chaos, but then crossed line after line on Bama's home state shores when the American public demanded more transparency and simple stuff, like that Congress should bother to read its own bills before voting. The country revolted, and Reid had draw the curtain on the whole process, draft the bill behind closed doors with no Republican input, and then collect a party line midnight vote to get it passed 2 days before Christmas when no one was looking. The nightmare will continue into 2010, when the Candidate-In-Chief's signature will sentence this country to economic despair and a short road to full-blown Socialism, and ultimately Communism.

2010 should be the turning point. Conservatives need to win back majorities in at least one house this year, and then take back the presidency in 2012 for any hope to turn the corner and head off the socialism train.

I'm optimistic, and looking forward to a great 2010!

The Happiness Pool

Merry Christmas!

I hope this season you are happy, but not too happy, because liberals would remind us that one person's happiness comes at the expense of another.

Think about that. Their is a fairness quotient that drives the progressive ideology - make everyone equal and there will be no jealousy or envy, and then everyone will be happy. In that way there is a pool of happiness - a finite amount, and if someone is very happy you can be sure that someone else is equally miserable. In the mind of a progressive these extremes are linked by the societal pressures which permeate everyday life.

Consider people who are deeply religious. Studies show that those who attend church regularly are generally happier than those that don't. It's because they appreciate what they have relative to what's needed. Needs include God and family, food and shelter, and the opportunity to work to provide for oneself and one's family. Societal pressure says, you deserve more, regardless of your motivation to earn or achieve it.

Simple principles are akin to happiness; there's no mystery, and government cannot create happiness by trying to take it from some and give it to others. Atheist displays at city hall do not make atheists happy because they do it to spite Christians. Those people only sow contempt. They envy the happiness of Christians and are driven by their own unhappiness to want to steal it from others. The government does the same thing. I try not to fall into the "Taxation is theft" crowd, but think about it. If you're a small business owner you have a heavy tax burden. Imagine you own a winery. You work hard to build the trellises, plan the grapes, prune the vines, harvest the fruit, mash the grapes, add the sugars, tend the fermentation, separate the blends, bottle and package everything, then market it and transport the end product, and after all that work the federal government comes in and says, now give me my share. You're share of what? Government did not help in any aspect except to regulate how you have to do everything and then come in and demand their cut. They don't deserve one single penny, and yet if you refuse they shut you down. There's no equity in that, and then your hard-earned money goes to provide services you're unlikely to use, except for perhaps the security provided by the military.

So in that sense the governrment is little different from the mob. Ok, I get it, government is little more than voter-sanctioned organized crime. They are happiness thieves, like the Grinch who stole Christmas, but without the happy ending.

Avatar Review

White man bad.
Native American good.
Military bad.
Science good.
Machines bad.
Trees good.
God is nature.
$500 million buys you a helluva show.

Framing The Argument

Unfortunately for everyone who values personal freedom, the Republicans were totally denied the opportunity to frame the issue of health care in their terms. It was always about helping the litany of sad stories and never about the 99% of the rest of us who were not jeopardized by the health industry's capitalist streak.

If only they had been better served by our unbiased free press in showing how health care reform, as put forth by Democrats, is an attack on personal freedoms and our very society; it places the majority at risk for the sake of the minority, and it exposes everyone to the inevitable regulation of every aspect of our lives in the name of health care.

You think the insurance companies ask a lot of qualifying questions? Just wait until Uncle Sam gets in the mix. Tax law will be a light read compared to what it will take just to cook breakfast. At first we'll barely notice the transgressions, but government will be working hard to regulate the food industry, including farmers, and that's going to mean more fees for those who produce, further driving down profit and ultimately the will to produce. Listen to small farmers today - they can barely make it as it is, and the carbon neutral/food agency nazis will drive out any who have persevered.

Next the food pyramid will be strictly enforced. All public school children will be forced to buy the school sanctioned meals, with their correct portions of protein, grains, and fruits and vegetables, and of course, serving size. Many years from now there will be no grocery stores, only vast government run food distribution centers that deliver the approved portions of what you are deemed to need, at a nominal fee.

Is it such a leap to merge genetic science with health care and imagine a future where only those who's DNA is approved may reproduce? We can't afford to take a chance that something as arbitrary as love between a man and a woman may result in offspring with "pre-existing conditions."

Liberals, lacking the ability to see the long-term consequences of their short-term decisions because of the emotional requirement, only think of the good this will do for the small percentage of Americans who for whatever reason actually cannot get health insurance and who otherwise could not receive care. So what's the value of that? If this costs 50 Trillion dollars over the next 25 years, will that be a good deal? Take $50 Trillion out of the economy and tell me we're still a nation of prosperity. No way. We're a nation of dependents.

We'll depend on government for everything, and that's the ultimate goal of progressives, for only when government regulates all aspects of life can society be made to be truly fair for all people. That's been the goal of the Democrat party for nearly 100 years, and it's taken just long lifespan to bring this nation to the precipice.

Voting for Bama and his Democrat villains one more time might just be enough to push us over the edge.

How Democrats Compromise

Right now the Dems are scrambling to get ducks in a row on health care to get something to Bama by Christmas. The Campaigner-In-Chief has met with the full Dem caucus twice in the last two weeks to address the concerns of "Problem Democrats." These half-dozen or so moderate Dems are holding out on a commitment to health care reform as it exists today because of some of the more controversial components, including federal funding for abortion and the so-called "Public Option."

The new tactic by Reid is to stuff the Senate bill full of ridiculous items only Russ Feingold could love, thereby creating a scenario where the subsequent removal of those items can be spun as a compromise.

Here's how it works:

"Conservative" Democrat senator from the Heartland says, "I won't vote for any bill with a public option." Some east coast snob senator retorts, "Don't worry about getting reelected, just vote for the public option." This statement gives away too much truth: constituent principles take a back seat to consolidation of power. Then Harry Reid steps in and says, "How about instead of a government run public option, we give everyone a big bar of gold, and they can use it to buy their own health care!" (Thanks to AlGore's "A Convenient Set of Lies" for the bar of gold idea.) Now this idea is obviously ludicrous, and yet the Dems spend a week debating it as if it were a plausible or practical plan. Now "Conservative" Democrat from the Heartland says, "I'll lead the fight against this unwise bar of gold idea," and Harry Reid responds, "Well if we can't give everyone a bar of gold I'm willing to meet you halfway. I propose a government run public option." Now the "Conservative" Democrat agrees, and will claim to have defeated the reckless bar of gold idea and agree to "compromise" and vote for the public option.

It's all smoke and mirrors - the Dems get what they want all along and the shifty "conservative" or blue-dog Dems from Republican-leaning states get to hold high the banner of principle and pretend to have represented their constituents, while what really happened was that they folded to the pressure put on them by party leadership and Bara Bama.

God, I hope John Stossel picks up on his one.

Doing the Hokey-Pokey On Pearl Harbor Day

68 years ago this morning the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the event that caused most Americans to change their opinion on entering another great war on behalf of the rest of the world. Without that event, the political will of the American people would have remained largely isolationist, and FDR would have had a hard time getting men across the Atlantic, and by the time most people understood the scope of the Nazi threat it may have been too late. FDR fought the hell out of that war - he clearly understood what was at stake and what was needed to win, and manipulated the domestic situation to meet the global need. His fiscal policies in response to the Depression may have doomed this country to economic disaster in the long run, but his effective response as a wartime leader likely saved it in the moment.

1 week ago today Campaigner-In-Chief Bara Bama committed another 30,000 soldiers to fight in Afghanistan. Bama clearly has almost no idea what it takes to win a war he doesn't actually believe in against an enemy he's trying to curry favor with. His "Hard deadline" to withdraw in July 2011, is proof enough of that. Once again, he's just trying to please all sides by seeming hawkish and judicious at the same time. He wants to put troops in them take them out - it's more of a game of hokey-pokey than an effective military strategy.

So this weekend Gates and Hillary were on every talk show saying that the date to withdraw is fixed, but the numbers are not, so the date really means absolutely nothing. Bama can fulfill that promise by taking exactly 1 soldier out of Afghanistan on that date.

Why does anyone believe anything that comes out of Bama's mouth? He talks out of both sides like it was an art form. Meanwhile, the troops get that the message is mixed, so the surge has no effect on morale except to make another 30,000 people miserable living in the dusty mountains of an impoverished country halfway around the globe.

Tell us what we're fighting for! Give the men an objective and the resources they need and then let them go do it! And stay the hell out of the way! Quit dancing, Bama!

The Politics of Science

Ever since the uncovering of emails two weeks ago indicting the global warmers for misconstruing data and thereby perpetrating perhaps the greatest scientific fraud of all time, the few conservative media outlets, most notably Fox News, have been on a fast-break to make up for years of being put down as being climate-challenged.

Every few hours Fox runs the story again and features another guest-expert who had previously been nothing but a skeptic and now looks like a hero. This is a welcome change in the debate, and now a majority of Americans fall into the skeptics camp, and the warmers are a dwindling if feisty minority.

On the other side, MSNBC has all but ignored the story, but finally this morning they found someone who would take the flag off a fallen comrade whose corpse, like the earth, is cooling, and wave it with the same bravura as if the whole email incident never happened. Indeed, the liberal media has focused on who hacked the emails, as if that was the crime, in a sad attempt to hide the elephant in the room with a washcloth.

The guest on Scarborough this morning eviscerated the Wall Street Journal for linking science to cash, which is a valid point, but he went to the extreme claiming WSJ was only fixated on the money angle, and seemed to be indicting science as a whole, in which case, "This country is doomed." As if an indictment of science could do worse than we're doing for ourselves already.

The obnoxiously biased, liberal pro-warmer was trying to put the skeptics back on the defensive, but what he doesn't realize is that we're really not skeptics anymore. Anyone who is still clinging to the 'earth is warming because of man' line is now the belligerent, or as Bara Bama put it, is like someone clinging to God and guns.

Science is not the problem. Science is a process, and is untainted. It is a pure quest for fact that begins with a theory - The earth's climate is heating up and man's emission of CO2 is to blame - and ends when the facts fail to prove the theory. Science does not allow for the Theory to remain even after the facts have proven otherwise. This problem is with the scientists.

For a long time scientists have been held up because they are just smarter than the rest of us, or so we are led to believe. The truth is that on the whole, the scientific community is only marginally more intelligent than the rest of society and no more capable or driven. Most theoretical climatologists work on the government dime - this is not something WSJ invented, it is fact! As such, these men and women are funded to research projects that titillate politicians, and for the last 10 years that has meant global warming. The scientists, whose livelihood requires continued funding from the same government sources, cannot quickly dispel the myth of warming just because the data doesn't work for them, so they fudge a few things and voila! The planet is warming (even though it's actually cooling). To disguise the obvious discrepancy, the warmer community changed tactics, going for "Climate Change", instead of just warming, thus justifying the fact that they really have no idea what the planet is doing now that all their fancy computer models are broken.

Is it so unlikely to say scientists can be biased or predisposed to support a political ideology over the scientific process? Consider that many of these scientists were environmentally-minded from a very young age, and chose to pursue earth sciences because of their formative experiences. To such a person, Earth is a god and environmentalism the true religion. Liberals blast conservative Christians all the time for our faith and our beliefs, and yet are incredulous when we question theirs. Yes, some people still believe the Earth is only 8,000 years old because the Bible says it's so, but most of us believe in the facts produced by science. Too bad the environmentalists still believe their religion over their science, but the tide has finally turned, and not because the icebergs are melting.

In desperation, the guest on MSNBC this morning appealed to common sense. How can one look at the smog in cities like Los Angeles or Beijing and not think that's harming the environment. This tactic is the warmer's last hope, as even now that the lies have become public, that in fact, the link between man's CO2 emissions and global temperatures is unknown or at worst insignificant, the warmers make their stand and fly in the face of the science they themselves created. I'll be honest, I like fresh air and clean water, but now I also want my due, and I want those nasty warmer bitches like Al Gore to be exposed as the hypocrites they are. What may have started innocently enough as a chance to improve our environment has turned into something very sinister, and following the money is exactly the right thing to do. Al Gore stands to make tens of millions of dollars or more selling worthless carbon offsets if Cap & Trade were to ever materialize, and the rest of us would suffer for it and almost no one would be any better off.

This debate is important for two very big reasons. One, we can bring visibility to the failures of scientists - not science - and expose the politicization of the scientific process. This will lead to better science in the long run. Two, we can expose Gore and his lackeys in the scientific community for the frauds they've always been. This will help restore common sense and intellectual honesty to the nations policy debate, which will align with more conservative principles. Both of these things are good for America and the world.

I read a headline this morning where two of the Oscar committee members demanded Al Gore give his trophy back. That's funny, but I say he keeps it - his performance in An Inconvenient Truth was some fine acting to have fooled so many people!

On Political Discourse

More and more we hear from the media that the political discourse in this country is nastier and more partisan than ever before. This is typically attributed to the awfulness of the Bush administration - God knows Bush deserved all the shrill hateful fervor directed toward him on websites such as MoveOn, DemocratUndreground, DailyKOS, and other completely partisan liberal hate sites. The message is that Americans' failures to communicate is the fault of Bush and Republicans.

Honestly, I don't mind sharing some of the blame with my liberal counterparts - this blog is my place to vent and I have made my positions more than obvious. I'm also not in denial that on many things politic I think I'm right, and that's true for most of us. The problem today is that people just cannot accept being wrong, and too often many out there have no interest in listening to the other side and risking challenging their worldview. In that regard I have the great fortune of being married to a wonderful woman with many opposing viewpoints who challenges me to refine my ideology every day.

I don't believe the level of vitriol has changed much - if you read transcripts from political encounters from a hundred or even two hundred years ago you'll find plenty of name-calling and incivility. What's changed is that despite what many would claim, Americans now expend a lot less effort educating themselves and will often take the first thing they read and form an opinion based off it. Add to that the traditional media is now in its death throes, and is selling out to specific ideologies just to sell copy instead of spending the time to provide accurate, diverse, and unbiased journalism.

That's a real shame, but it's also the nature of this changing world where information is in great supply and often unfiltered. More than ever, people need to shut up and absorb several sources before regurgitating anyone else's talking points.

What Do You Mean, No Global Warming???

Well this blows. I was really in favor of global warming - I'm pretty tired of these endless Wisconsin winters. And lately every year has been more bitter cold than the last. I guess I shoulda seen it coming. Now that I think back, it's been getting cooler every year where I live; I'm not sure we had even one 90 degree day this summer.

It's not all my fault - at some point the smart people who told us about the global warming changed the dialog to "Global climate change." I don't know what that means, I guess it's when some days it's warmer and some days it's cooler. Or like early in the year it's usually cold, and then the climate changes and it gets warmer and by the middle of the year it's very warm, but then the climate changes again and it gets cooler until by the end of the year it's cold again. That's all very complicated, so I don't worry too much about it.

Then they were saying the ice could melt and the oceans could rise, and I figured that wouldn't be too bad, because then there would be more water, and water is good. I don't live anywhere near an ocean, so if they rose I wouldn't be too upset.

Well now it turns out that these smart people weren't so smart, and the earth is either not warming or is actually cooling. So this really ticks me off, because of those Wisconsin winters.

I'm gonna try to make it right, though, and start burning tires in my backyard. I'll be encouraging my neighbors to do the same. Those scientists couldn't have been all wrong, so if everyone starts burning tires in their backyards maybe we can still get global warming back on track.

So please do your part! Start burning tires in your backyard so the earth will get warmer and I can be saved from more cold Wisconsin winters!

The Problem With Academia

On NPR yesterday the morning show host interviewed yet another Ivy League professor on the merits of health care reform, under the accepted premise that not only is it inevitable but absolutely necessary. At one point in the discussion the professor made the statement that the prime motivator needs to be cost reduction, as recent history has shown a dramatic increase in the average cost of care per capita in this country.

If he had stopped there I could have agreed with him - the evidence is overwhelming, and on the face of it a person with lackluster deductive ability and a bug in his ear might assume that this is some sort of effort on the part of the industry to gouge customers. Such was the professor's premise. He continued that without reform and government controls, costs would continue to escalate and become cost prohibitive for anyone but the super rich.

This point of view is obnoxious and demonstrates again that those mired in establishment academia have little contact or concept of the real world outside. The obvious problem with his argument is that health care is a private sector business entity, not some monster that exists to consume wealth. As I detailed in my very first post, Organizations in the business of health care exist to make money, and although it may seem to someone who's health care is paid for by the same Americans he turns his nose up at that that goal is accomplished by continually raising prices without regard to its customers ability to pay, that's simply not how successful businesses operate.

Health care providers must balance prices against costs while tip-toeing the line on government regulations and requirements unique to its sector. Its a herculean task, and many of these businesses do fail. But if a hospital increased prices just for the sake of making more profit, they would quickly price out many of their customers, who would then find a less expensive source for similar services.

THAT'S HOW CAPITALISM WORKS!

I know this is hard for most of academia to understand, but it is regulation and government interference limiting competition that leads to out of control costs and price inflation. If we could roll back a substantial amount of the taxes that get funneled through the health care sector and which escalate cost, and then charge people based on need instead of what's fair (with some easily identifiable exceptions), the average cost of health care would be lower, and the mean would be substantially less.

If 95% of health care costs are accrued by the elderly and the overweight, then why do I need to support people who either planned poorly during their lives or led a self-destructive lifestyle. That's the real problem, so call a like it is; old is old and fat is fat, and they can figure out for themselves whether they can afford the treatments they need to live or let live, but leave my paycheck out of it.

There's your thesis, professor.

A Firmly Applied Hammer

The White House has let it leak out that Bama has decided to give McChrystal his 40,000 troops, but will not do it quickly. The full buildup will take between one and two years, as opposed to the 60,000 men deployed to Iraq in less than 6 months under President Bush.

Bama's decision is not so much a surge as a gentle swell, and whereas the Iraq surge proved to be extremely effective, the results in Afghanistan I expect to be mixed. Try this analogy:

When you want to drive a nail with a hammer you have to swing the hammer, building up momentum and force and energy so when the hammer strikes the nail all that energy and force is communicated to the nail and the board below it. The nail is driven into the board in a decisive stroke. That's how Bush did it in Iraq. Now take the same hammer, the same nail, and the same board, and place the hammer gently on the head of the nail and gradually increase the downward force. Eventually you may be able to push the nail a short distance into the board, but force generated over time does not compare to the force applied to the nail in an instant.

The media will say Bama is being firm but measured, and will couch the decision as some kind of masterstroke and people will buy it because they don't understand anything about war or media, but this is really a political decision that makes Bama look tough on terror while giving him the opportunity to pull the plug at anytime.

He's clearly attempting to please everyone, and as always happens, he'll please no one. Imagine the message to the troops. A decisive build up says, "Here are the resources, here's the goal, now go get it done and come home safe." It establishes that there is a beginning and an end to the mission. A trickle of a build only says, "Get ready to be there for a while."

That was the mistake Bush made early on in Iraq, and it was the one he remedied with the surge. Bama is merely repeating old mistakes and doing it such a way that appears he is delivering dynamic solutions. It's all a charade.

Whatever happens, Afghanistan is Obama's war now. He owns it and everything that happens there going forward. I don't want to here him crying about some conflict he inherited or some mess he has to clean up. This mess is his doing now. If his gentle swell succeeds, I'll give him credit, otherwise he needs to get fired in 2012; we'll know the outcome by then.

Victimizing A Murderer

It should be no surprise that today the media is rushing to make the murderer at Fort Hood into a victim.

This morning on NPR they were extrapolating that because Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a psychiatrist he was probably working with soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of their deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and as a result he himself suffered the stress . Apparently among shrinks this is a common problem - that nobody is there to help the professional. The entire conversation was conjecture and not at all based on reported fact, nevertheless they ran with it.

Then the AP reported the Major was "harassed" for his Muslim beliefs. What does that mean - was he being teased for being Muslim? I remember Columbine, and the two teenagers who were reportedly teased by school bullies, prompting their rampage, yet those two white kids were never offered such generous treatment for their horrible response, nor should they have, but the media is desperate to report that a full grown man was subjected to insults concerning his faith and that contributed to him becoming a killer.

Based on that logic, I would think the media would want to be nicer in their daily commentary about Christians.

And then we learn that the Major was about to be deployed to the Middle East theaters, and that put him over the edge. The mainstream media expects that Americans will be sympathetic to this situation, since we're all so disgusted with the wars over there - who wouldn't take a rifle and shoot up a hospital?

We need to see this guy for what he is - a truly messed up individual who's fanatic beliefs allowed him to justify his actions. Americans know that most Muslims are not this extreme, and this shouldn't affect how most people think about that segment of our society. But the media is only fueling the fires by its extreme vicitmization of this guy. He deserves the maximum punishment the military can offer - execution.

I'm sure that will be a circus too.

Warren Buffet Is For Sale

I'm sure I wasn't the only person who thought it was strange that Warren Buffet started throwing his considerable prestige behind Democrats a few years back, and was eventually appointed Bara Bama's fiscal advisor during the 2008 campaign.

Well, somehow the media managed to not report that Buffet owns a wind farm company that is rapidly expanding its operations and stands to gain tremendously at taxpayer expense thanks to Bama and his energy policy.

How can this possibly be ethical? Buffet gained not only a strategic advantage, but set himself up to receive billions in taxpayer dollars to fund the growth of his company, which stands to profit from this growth while all we get is his wonderful power. It's not like just anyone can afford to own a share Berkshire-Hathaway, you know.

Also, this speaks to the incredible hypocrisy of Bama, who pledged to not have lobbyists as part of his administration, all the while he had perhaps the most influential covert lobbyist in the country trumpeting his economic proposals.

I don't fault Buffet, although this behavior certainly reveals a duplicitous side that is at odds with his high and mighty philanthropic image. But it once again shows that Bama has always just been a shameless politician who says one thing while blatantly doing another.

How On Earth Did Bama Get Elected?

HBO is running this thing on the Bama campaign, starting in 2007 pre-Iowa. There's some man-on-the-street stuff where people say things like, "Who's that," and, "I never heard of him," and this gem from a younger person, "Oh wait, is he African-American? Then I think it would be cool if he was our next president."

And there are the wonderful staffer stories that all begin, "I remember the first time I met Barack..." Followed by the meeting with all the young staffers where one of his campaign managers quotes his boss as having said, "I wanna do it for the kids."

Hook, line, and sinker.

And then there's the 9 year old child working phone scripts and getting frustrated with the people on the other end of the phone. Child exploitation, anyone?

Young people are starved for attention, and to feel like they belong to something greater. It's beyond debate that Bama's campaign was political genius, and when you look at the behind the scenes, objectively, you see just how cognizant Bara was of his place in the race and his opportunities at every turn. There are scenes of him discussing what to wear for a rural stop in Iowa, and then later about how to make the more spectacular entrance. And he's doing a great job acting like a normal person enjoying a day with his family at the Iowa State Fair.

But it boils down to the youth of America, their energy and idealism - that's what got him elected. Young people don't vote was the conventional wisdom and in 2008 that notion was blown to pieces. There's Axelrod and Gibbs, pinning their hopes on the young. "They think they're changing the world, and God bless 'em." But what, beyond the term "change", would they be affecting? By employing a man without experience, or understanding, or gravitas to be the most powerful person on Earth, they have sentenced this country to flounder in the wake of his ineffectiveness.

Here's the painful truth moment: Barack Obama played on the insecurity of young people. Who could go to a party and be the only one who didn't vote, or worse, voted against Bama. Only those secure in their own beliefs and mature beyond their years. An insecure electorate, beguiled by an arrogant fool of a candidate, have caused this mess.

Luckily, young people reliably don't vote - 2008 was an anomaly. People with life experience, who aren't naive and overwhelmed simultaneously by hormone-saturated arrogance and insecurity and blind, unsubstantiated idealism, will once again restore reason to the democratic process. Now we must hope the damage can be undone. At least so far, Bama's ineptness is serving the country well, and if the Democrats' bumbling can continue until next year we have a chance to turn Bama into a lame duck in about the same amount of time as it took him to get the job in the first place.

Here's to hope. ;)

What Tort Reform?

Remember Bama's big nighttime press conference a couple months ago where he said Republicans have some very good ideas on health care reform and how "Tort Reform" was high on his list of things he wanted to look at as a way of reducing health care costs? It was the same event where he blasted that white cop for busting his belligerent Harvard buddy, after which they all had a beer in the spirit of reconcilliation.

Well, he must not have looked too hard. Not only is there no tort reform in the bill, there's actually wording that penalizes states for enacting laws that restrict attorney's fees or limit malpractice liability!

http://biggovernment.com/2009/10/30/pelosi-health-care-bill-blows-a-kiss-to-trial-lawyers/#more-23042

This is bullsh!t, and it's just the beginning. Getting to be time to move to Texas.

Health Care Reform Will Be A Disaster

Here's just one reason why: In an effort to save costs, Bama and the Dems want to require all health care consumers to meet first with Primary Care physicians before consulting with specialists. The idea being that specialists are more expensive and many patient meetings with specialists could have been handled by Primary Care physicians. While this may be true, the fact is we have a nation-wide shortage of Primary Care physicians that is nearly a crisis of its own.

Of course Bama and the Congress have no idea this is the case, as they have their own set of personal physicians whose consumer base number 536 plus immediate family. Almost no one else in America has such luxury.

So the other 99% or Americans will be forced to wait in line to see a limited and over-taxed (in more ways than one) number of physicians before being OK'd to then see a specialist.

The result will be even longer waits to see your doctor. All the horrifying stories of inhumane waiting times we hear out of Canada and the UK will happen here, in America.

Of course we could just pump the system full of unqualified caregivers to handle the load...

Which brings me back to the point of the first blog post I ever made here: Costs can only go up, and quality of care can only go down!!!

Bara Bama's Latest Screwup: H1N1

Bama is so worried that H1N1 could be his Katrina that last week he took the extraordinary step of declaring a national emergency before there was one.

For months now we've known H1N1 was coming, and for months the CDC and it's small army of vaccine makers have been working feverishly to get doses made. And for months now they've known there would not be nearly enough for everyone, but they probably thought it wouldn't be a big deal because only a small percentage of the population even bothers with the seasonal flu shot, and H1N1 has been taking its sweet time infecting the population, and by most accounts has been significantly less severe than initially thought.

Unfortunately, the Campaigner-In-Chief, in an attempt to appear proactive, has actually single-handedly created a crisis. The CDC has now had to come forward and admit there have been complications in the vaccine creation, and because of that - just like a run on the banks - people are desperate to get what few doses are out there.

If Bama made the declaration without knowing all the facts, then he's both stupid and incompetent. If he knew there were not enough doses available and still went with the national emergency, making the declaration is no defense for incompetence. If anything it just reinforces it.

Make no mistake - this situation is almost entirely Bama's fault. If he had been paying attention and shifted the flu vaccine focus to H1n1 6 months ago, the CDC could have had an initial wave of doses to support demand for H1N1. But now they've had to stop making seasonal flu to focus solely on H1N1, and most people can't get either.

Bama created this panic - just one more example of how completely ignorant he is on how real people actually behave. How many more examples do we need?

A Nice Example About How Budget Projections Are A Farce

In the light of the CBO's projections on health care reform I thought it would be good to share a local example of just how badly budgeting can go wrong.

Last year in the city I live there was a fierce debate on whether or not the city should start its own ambulance service. The case for was primarily profit-driven; the city would recognize an additional $3 million in revenue every year from the service. This money could then be used to offset property taxes, which are very high, even for Wisconsin.

There were serious concerns with the proposal: the City did not have the personnel, so those people would have to be hired and trained, and it did not have the vehicles or equipment, so all that would need to be purchased. The initial startup costs would place a significant burden on the city's taxpayers. It was a risk, but the trend at the time was a steady demand for health service and emergency transportation, so the outlay could be recouped within the first year, according to projections.

Ultimately the proposal died in council. In the year since, demand for emergency transportation and health service on the whole has fallen sharply, such that the existing ambulance service has had to lay off workers to cut its losses. The hospitals in the area are already working near minimum staffing and have just approved further cuts. The immediate future for health care in this area as a whole is depressed, and the city almost bought into it.

Had the ambulance proposal passed we, as taxpayers, would be taking a bath right now, footing the bill for an investment gone terribly wrong.

Fundamentally I oppose the premise that government should compete with private enterprise for the purpose of supplementing tax revenue. Even if the ambulance service could have been profitable, its unlikely our taxes would really have been significantly cut - government can always find more ways to spend our money.

The CBO On "Saving Money"

The "Center for Barack Obama", or is it the Congressional Budget Office, has made the outrageous statement that the so-called "public option" in the health care proposal will actually save money. So now the projected cost of reform is only $871 Billion over 10 years. Of course, as has already been explained, the actual reform won't kick in until year 4 and the first 3 years will just be up front billings, so they really expect the cost to be $871 Billion over 7 years.

But what does it mean for the government to save money? Bara Bama has pledged not to deficit spend to pay for reform. This is of course a blatant slight of hand - he'll rob Medicare to pay for his reform, and then have to cover the holes he created in Medicare somehow, or just claim that it then also needs to be reformed. Ta-da, the Prestige!

Inclusion of the public option in the proposal saves money only when a specific number of people are included under the plan. Somehow, the CBO knows what that number is: 15-20 million Americans. This is within the 7 years of coverage. Beyond that is anyone's guess, but I'm guessing the number won't go down.

Here's the point: Government cannot save money. It can only spend money, and it acquires the money to spend either through taxes or by issuing new debt and running the presses, and eventually tax revenues pay for that debt. Either way, American tax payers pay for everything. Passing any health care reform proposal, by any estimate, will not save money; it can only cost more than what we are currently paying the government to do everything it does. In this case, according to the CBO, $871 Billion more.

This is a popular misconception among liberals, who are confused about the ownership of money. To Pelosi and her ilk, money is not yours or mine, it's theirs - the government - and as such we are only borrowing from the Great Provider, and if they want to take back a little more for the common good, we should all be thankful for their benevolence.

This mode of thinking is appalling; taxation is akin to legalized theft. Unfortunately, in this country those who do not contribute and who take are at least as valuable as those who provide, thanks to voting laws and widespread fraud, perpetrated almost exclusively on behalf of Democrats. So there's very little any sensible person can do about the current regime's theft policy, and the current slant is a lot to undo in a single election cycle. This is relevant because current polling (typically over-sampled with democrats) suggests people are actually in favor of a public option, and that is as good as currency for Congress to pass a bill to Bama's desk.

At this point I could take this post any number of ways but that would distract from the point. Government can never save money, it can only spend more than it currently is.

Dispelling the Audacity of Hope

Audacity: Arrogant disregard of normal restraints.

Hope: To wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment.

If you haven’t already wasted time reading Bara Bama’s books, but was interested in doing so for some reason, I’ll save you the effort. The title says it all – “The Audacity Of Hope.” What does that mean? We know Hope was one of two primary themes of Bama’s 2006-2009 presidential campaign, the other being Change, and the composite of these was/is Hope for Change.

Now isn’t that nice and comforting. Of course Hope for Change was an abstract concept; it meant whatever you wanted it to mean. Really, this was a political masterstroke, because anyone could interpret it to mean anything. The truth is that the slogan has no meaning, because if it did it would dispel the delusion of meaning for millions of people who had made their personal interpretation. So, in effect, a candidate who ran a campaign based on nothing won the election. It was all a scam, and a narrow majority of American voters bought in.

Now look again at Bama’s book title, “The Audacity of Hope.” Once again this is a meaningless slogan, but it betrays some truths about the man, err, chosen one. The first is that he is arrogant. In fact, Bama’s arrogance is his defining characteristic. In his mind, there’s nobody more important in the history of the world than him. People around him have told him this, and the election validated this perception. He is now free to strut around the globe exhibiting his eminence believing everyone should give a damn. Many of us knew this about him before election night, and his behavior since then has been extreme in its self-importance, but remarkably, millions of Americans can’t see the man’s complete lack of humility and disregard for the position of others, most of whom have earned their status while he has not.

The second trait is that Bama does not act; he merely expects. This trait has been on full display during his 2009 campaigning for such issues as economic stimulus and health care and the war in Afghanistan and the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs. He’s done absolutely nothing to improve the likelihood of success for any of these concerns, except to hope they get better.

Well, what has he done? He did ask for nearly a trillion dollars to “stimulate” the economy, but did not follow through. Only about 15% of that money has been spent, and even though the “experts” have declared the recession over, try telling that to the 17 million Americans out of work – almost double the number from when Bama took office.

He asked Congress to put a health care bill on his desk to sign and then created several deadlines, which have been ignored because the expectation was foolish, and all he’s been saying is that the opposition has posited “misinformation” which has stymied the process. Again, he’s done almost nothing to actively participate in the effort, he just has people hoping for it. Meanwhile, democrat politicians are hoping to survive the persistent anti-overhaul movement, which is actively working against them. Harry Reid’s days are numbered.

He scrapped the missile defense program for Poland so the Russians would be happy in hope they would be better partners in limiting Iranian nuclear aspirations. Yeah right. All he did was show weakness, and the Russians are playing him for the fool he is. Now the Russians and Chinese will be enriching the uranium for the Iranians for “medical purposes.” Uh-huh. Great leadership there, Bama.

And finally, he has hoped for a better outcome in Afghanistan. The strategy he developed during the 2008 campaign, without active participation from generals in the theater, was to pump an additional 17,000 men into the country when the real number needed has turned out to be closer to 60,000. Now he’s just hoping the problem goes away because the Norwegians have tied his hands with their diabolical Peace Prize.

Hope is always a passive action. When you hope for something, it means you either do not have the means to affect the outcome in your favor or are unwilling to put forth the necessary effort. The outcome for both situations is in someone else’s hands. People who voted for Bama hoped they would get something for it. In one sense, they actively participated in the voting process and affected the outcome in their favor, but they also bought into his bullsh!t campaign message, so what they hoped he would do for them as president cannot but disappoint. The guy has done nothing, and will continue to do nothing. You can hope all you want, it won’t change the fact that Bama is unprepared and unqualified to lead this country, and appears unwilling to put forth the effort it takes to get anything meaningful done.

The fact of the matter is that when you’re the President, there’s nothing less meaningful or useless than hope. You must affect change. You must lead. You cannot let everyone do your work for you and expect a favorable result. Barack Obama, if you fail it’s because you hoped for change but did nothing to make it happen.

Quick Hit: Bama's True Priorities

Yesterday, Campaigner-In-Chief Bara Bama had 2 major bullet points on his itinerary. The first was a stop in New Orleans. It was his first visit there since being elected, which is odd since New Orleans was such a major attack point for Dems and Bama last year against Republicans, but since last November they have all but ignored it.

Luckily for Bama, many of the residents of New Orleans have refused to move on with their lives, and the city as a whole, thanks in large part to its incompetent mayor, is still waiting for a handout. It should have surprised no one when the overwhelming demand of the attendees at Bama's "town hall" just wanted to get some of that Obama money that seems to be in rich supply these days.

Bama, as is his custom, fumbled a few empty promises and promptly got the hell out of there. He spent just over 4 hours in the area from wheels down to wheels up on Air Force One, causing even some of his supporters to wonder what just happened.

The second item on his day was a fundraiser in San Francisco, ever the safe haven of radical leftism, which no doubt gives comfort to Bama and his ilk. He raised millions of dollars for Democrat coffers, not one dime of which will go toward rebuilding New Orleans or helping one single person in Louisiana.

Bama spent about the same amount of time in each city, and proved once again that Democrats are free to ignore promises made to groups whose vote's they feel assured of, like the poor suckers in New Orleans, while they themselves luxuriate in the froth of rich and famous liberals who would rather throw money at Democrat reelection efforts than putting it to any real good use.

Imagine if Bama could have coordinated a fundraiser for New Orleans! Nah, never happen. Only people who depend on government reliably vote democrat, so keeping the population in need is Bama's #1 priority.

"I Wish I Could Write A Check," Says Bama

This is perhaps the most telling moment of who Bama really is that we've been allowed to see during his interminable campaignery.

He was in New Orleans yesterday giving a speech to another one of those highly-controlled favorable crowds, and the crowd wants to get paid, so Bama blurts out, "I wish I could write a check." Someone in the crowd yells out, "Why not?"

Now before I get to his answer - and believe me it's worth the wait - the very fact that he said what he said shows the true depth of his fanatical liberalism and disconnect from economic reality. You might think, that's just something people say, he doesn't really mean he wants to just write a check. Yes he does!! Bama wishes he could just write checks for everything without regard to any kind of review process. Writing checks is an exercise in power, and Bama is a power-corrupt megalomaniac. Also, he knows people want to get paid, and for Democrats, support = paybacks = continued support.

At this point in the event Bama has wandered well off the teleprompter and into was is for him a minefield of inept response, but he starts his answer anyway. The audio is linked below. By the way, if you start Googling the speech and read what the major news outlets are reporting and then hear it for yourself, you'll quickly see how abysmally he's being quoted in an effort to cover his stupidity. MSNBC, for example, quotes the question but leaves his response completely off, but anyone who doesn't know NBC is in the tank for Bama is brain dead.

So someone asks why not, and Bama starts stuttering his reply, and you can almost hear the voice in his head saying, "Uh oh, now what?" So he says, “Well, you know there’s this whole thing about the Constitution and Congress and… you know… I uh… Not to mention the fact that, you know, I’m always, (stutters), one of the interesting things you find out about being president is, ah, everybody will attack you for spending money, unless you’re spending it on them.” (Applause from idiots)

My first thought was, this guy still has no idea what it means to be president - he's still campaigning, not leading. Also, it's more obvious every day just how unprepared he and everyone around him was and still is to be leading this country. Finally, his statement is just wrong; conservatives do not want Bama to spend money on us, period. We don't need his handout. Only liberals want Obama money, and as evidenced in the Q&A in New Orleans, they all want to get paid, and yeah, they're pissed off when others are getting paid and they're not. They all want that Obama money, just like in Detroit.

Here's the audio:
http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=113840363&m=113841391
"Obama on defense in New Orleans"

The crowd was gracious to Bama, even though he has given them nothing but empty promises, err, hope, and booed governor Jindal, who has done more to reshape the mess that is Louisiana than any other politician in that state's history. It's funny how desperately people want Bama to be the messiah, and it's all his fault. Bama allowed himself to be packaged that way and was all too happy to roll with it and started to believe his own praise. That's the real problem with this guy and all of his followers - their near total disconnect from reality.

More Evidence The Stimulus Is A Scam

20% of all jobs "Created" by the Federal Stimulus in Wisconsin were seasonal summer jobs for teenagers. Those are exactly the kinds of great wage jobs we need more of!

Also, because the number of jobs "created or saved" is based on projections to make decisions based on government budget cuts that didn't happen, the States and Feds can claim to have "Saved or created" the same jobs more than once. In fact, they can do it for every budget cycle. So the same jobs not considered for elimination this year due to the stimulus could also be not considered next year due to the stimulus and viola! Two jobs saved!

Finally, during the same period, 189,000 private sector jobs were lost in Wisconsin. Way to go, Bama! Lets all cheer his wonderful policy of negative job growth!!

Massaging Federal Stimulus Results

I woke up this morning to the glowing report that Federal Stimulus money has, "Created or saved 8200 jobs in Wisconsin."

Well, which is it? Were jobs "created" or "saved"?

Just a few minutes of digging online revealed the truth I had suspected: 6000 of the 8200 jobs are existing public-sector jobs, including teachers, policemen, firefighters, etc. None of these jobs were even at risk unless the state and local governments decided budget holes would not be filled and those positions would have been cut. We hear that debate locally every year, but for some reason the politicians and administrators are never willing to eliminate the dead weight they themselves represent!

So obviously this is a total snow job. Anyone who takes this report at face value is a fool. All the stimulus has done is allow state and local governments to spend without restraint or regard for the current fiscal crisis. The Federal Stimulus will have exactly the opposite effect long-term, because it encourages governments to take money out of the economy by taxing wage earners and only extends or expands current government. This is obvious chronyism.

The other 2200 jobs supposedly "created"? All construction jobs, many of which are wasted on projects that are not needed. I know first hand that a large stretch of Interstate 90 between Tomah and La Crosse has been torn up as part of a "stimulus project", but the concrete had 3-5 good years left, and what'd they replace it with? Asphalt! So they replaced durable concrete with asphalt that will need to be replaced again in 5-7 years (asphalt doesn't last through Wisconsin winters). These are the constructions jobs being created - a permanent cycle or road repair due to the use of cheap and short-lived materials. Any guess who the asphalt lobby is throwing money at?

Is it even possible to spend $2 Billion is less useful ways? Give Bama, Pelosi, and Reid another year and we'll probably find out.

Passing the Hat for Healthcare

It looks more and more like a the Dems will get a bill to Bama's desk before the end of the year. Strangely, even though we'll start paying for health care reform next year, none of the provisions of reform begin until 2013. So that means Americans will be paying for 3 years for something before it comes into effect. Does that make any sense? Well, it's a key component of the scam to bring down the projected cost of the plan. By forcing all of us to pay into the fund ahead of time when no benefits are dished out, Democrats hope to make it look like it costs less than it actually does.

Meanwhile, all we'll hear about from Bama and the media is how he passed a successful health care reform law that will affect the lives of millions of Americans, blah, blah, blah. But in truth, not one single person will benefit from this law before 2013. Which means that all the negative aspects of reform - the huge cost passed onto all Americans and the reduction in quality of care - won't be realized before his reelection campaign in 2012, so Republicans won't be able to use it to sink the Campaigner-In-Chief.

So we've got two scams going on: the first is an effort to disguise the true costs of health care by making Americans pay up front, and the second is an effort to mislead the public on the effectiveness of the reforms by not implementing them before Bama runs for reelection.

It seems that many members of the"Greatest Generation", who have orchestrated 60 years of such reforms for their personal benefit and screwed everyone else in the process, are becoming increasingly confused about their own scam. There are those who actually blame Republicans for Medicare's shortcomings, and fail to understand that Bama intends to fund new health care by significantly carving up Medicare. There's a freshman congressman from Florida, Garvin, a trial lawyer and one of the wealthiest men in all of government, who is blasting away saying if you get sick, Republicans want you to die quickly. Instead of critical commentary about how ridiculous this is, the media is offering it as an honest spur to debate the issue. No Republican would get such benevolent treatment. Anyway, Garvin gets to state outright lies about Republicans and for some reason many seniors believe the crap that comes out of his stinking mouth. Hmmm, maybe sick old people should just be allowed to let nature take its course - at least then we'd have a less diluted pool of rational thinkers voting during the mid-terms.

I will soon be taking full advantage of the current American health care system, and will no doubt encounter many of its pros and cons. In the lead up, I'm hoping to not get messed with. My current situation is excellent, and I don't want a group of people who've had ample opportunity to live a long life affect changes that cut mine short just so they can squeeze a few more fuzzy days out of theirs.

Anti-Semite Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Of course Jimmy Carter's an anti-Semite. The guy has blatthered at length over the last decade his affinity for the Palestinian cause and his belief that the Jews are in the wrong and at fault for the continuing conflict in that region.

Now that Candidate-In-Chief Barack Obama has espoused essentially the same point of view in admonishing Israel for its West Bank settlements and even threatening to shoot down Israeli jets over Iraqi airspace, he has been honored with the world's most notorious prize for anti-Semitism, the Nobel Peace Prize.

Also, quite a lot has been made during the last 4 weeks about the lack of communication between Bama and his commander in Afghanistan. McChrystal had been trying to talk to his boss for weeks and was being ignored. Then Bama comes back from Copenhagen and finally sits down to talk about the future of our military presence in the region.

So why the wait? What did Bama's trip to pitch for the Olympics have to do with Afghanistan? Now we know. Bama almost certainly knew he was in the running for the Peace prize, and while in Copenhagen an emissary from Oslo got the message to him, the Prize is yours, just don't blow it. That's why he went to Copenhagen, not for the United States, but for his own ego.

Now that he's won the prize, expect a half-ass response for McChrystal. Enough troops to keep the situation in limbo another 2 years, and then a dramatic pull out in 2012 when the whole thing has fallen apart. The more appropriate response, the response Bush took in Iraq, would be to send in a troop force capable of winning, or at least cleaning out the organized elements of the Taliban. In other words, another surge. But that would look bad for the Nobel committee, and even the pundits this morning agree that this award is more of a proactive attempt to affect Bama's policy with regards to the Middle-East, even as the idiots in Oslo claim they are rewarding Bama's good intentions to make America a better world citizen.

And what is that all about? The United States is not in the business of bowing to dictators, even though Bama is. He does not represent us, and not even a majority approve of the job he's doing anymore. We don't need him to apologize for us, as if he speaks on behalf of every American. That's infuriating. This guy is a clown, only in it to fulfill a prophecy he and the media created for himself. Nothing short of the humiliation of Americans and the destruction of American values will suffice, and that's exactly why he's so popular in Oslo.

By the way, before Carter, Woodrow Wilson was the last American president to win the Peace Prize. Being a bigot and anti-Semite may not be a requirement for winning the prize, but it obviously helps.

How to Win in Afghanistan

The biggest problem we have in Afghanistan is the same problem we had in Iraq: American troops cannot secure the borders to contain the fight. Militants stream across the mountains from Pakistan everyday, and there's no way to stop them within the confines of Afghanistan. That's why we were launching drone attacks into Pakistan, but those only succeeded in inciting the Pakistanis against us.

Bama's current strategy is failing, and McChrystal's request for more troops may also not be enough. We're hearing today that many of our servicemen on the ground do not understand the goals of this conflict, and who can blame them? Afghanistan has no resources to exploit and no clout in the region. Victory there means freedom for it's people from the medieval Taliban regime, but for how long? I used to think freedom would instill desire to protect freedom from oppression, but that's not happening in America, so how can we expect it to happen anywhere else, especially in states such as Afghanistan that have no resources of their own to fight the well-funded extremist advances in the region.

So either the US needs to mount a thorough offensive with a lot more troops and remain installed to police the country from extremism indefinitely, or we need a new strategy that will reduce the burden on the troops inside the borders to focus on those Taliban forces and then turn it over to the Afghans to control their own destiny.

Here's the only way I see this working: The United States needs to incite a major conflict between Pakistan and India and secretly support India. At the same time, we need to use Bama's new-found influence with Russia, at the same time apply pressure with the continued presence in Poland and Russia's neighbors, to strictly control their own regional border with Afghanistan. The cost of prosecuting the war today would be shifted to the new strategy, but we'd be able to pull our troops out of Afghanistan after cleaning up the Taliban inside the borders, while the insurgents that had previously streamed in from Pakistan now focus on their sworn blood enemy, India. With the external pressure relieved, victory in Afghanistan becomes more clear, and as long as Pakistan/India does not escalate beyond a conventional conflict we can fund it indefinitely.

Insidious? Yes. This is definitely a move worthy of Emperor Palpatine, but it is also a path to victory, whatever that means.

The other remaining option is that we pull out of Afghanistan and then just try to kill Taliban remotely using drones or Special Forces, but that did not work too well at the beginning of the war, so the aim would be to continue to disrupt Taliban efforts to consolidate power for as long as possible while surveying the region for terrorist camps and then hitting them with drones and missiles and the occasional bomber run.

Bama would never go for it, and it's probably a bad idea, but we're pretty low on good plans right now.

At least with Bama we always have hope!

Hollywood is F***ing Dumb.

This post is primarily a movie review, but it is also politically relevant.

I was suffering a bit of insomnia last night and flipped to HBO after the ESPN bonus coverage of the MNF Packer-Viking game. The movie in progress was Shoot 'Em Up, an action movie that aspired to the slick stylings of the latest James Bond films, and with similar star power; Clive Owen played the dashing but dour, square-jawed hero to Paul Giamatti's archetypal one-dimensional completely evil villain.

The plot of the movie, if you can call it that, is that the hero, Smith, is trying to uncover some conspiracy that has something to do with infant bone marrow and a Democrat senator who is the front runner for the presidency because of his anti-gun stance. He's also a cripple and needs the marrow, so he's icky because he's breeding babies for the sole purpose of harvesting the marrow to treat himself. Unfortunately for the senator the major gun manufacturer has caught on and kills all the babies, except one, which has been saved by Smith.

The gun king has employed Paul Giamatti to find and kill the last baby to cover their tracks, so Paul, who just knows people, which is how it's explained that he is able to find Smith so easily, hires about 50 goons with automatic weapons to storm Smith's abandoned warehouse safehouse.

Unfortunately for Smith, he wasn't able to afford all the guns he wanted, so he gets a single box of shells for his pistol.

Now, there's also a woman in the film who's sole purpose is to breastfeed this baby Smith is trying to keep safe, but she's clearly a romantic interest if only Smith wasn't so disturbed.

I probably missed the part at the beginning of the movie where the story explains how Smith is so good at killing things, but it doesn't really matter. We do know that he has really good vision because he eats lots of carrots.

Once the goons start assaulting the warehouse, Smith kills nearly all of them. At first, because he has to conserve ammo, he kills about 10 guys with a single shot at each, all the while he's running directly at them and carrying the baby in his left arm. That's right - he's carrying the baby the whole time. Miraculously, none of the goons can hit him with their automatic weapons from 10 feet away, even as he has to rush them and wait for the perfect shot to conserve ammo. At the end of this scene he manages to pick up one of the sub-machine guns off a dead goon, jump out to a zip wire extending from the ceiling into the large, open square stairwell, and while he's spinning around and zipping down the line, he's shooting the goons on the stairwell, all while cradling the baby. He kills dozens of guys on his 10 second descent to the floor, all the while every one of them is shooting back, but they just can't seem to hit him. Rambo never had it so good. Heck, parodies of Rambo never had it so good. I couldn't help but think of Weird Al's hilarious spoof in UHF. That's pretty much the idea here.

In a subsequent scene the goons have him cornered in a warehouse full of guns, and to get away he fires his pistols in opposite directions while looking and running in a third, and of course the goons are both shot in the head. And then he has all these guns taped to posts that he's controlling with string and the rest of the goons just keep running into bullets. There's a quick second where he has to run to the next set of strings and the goons are following - two guys are literally within arms reach of Smith and firing their machine guns directly into his back at point-blank range and he is miraculously unharmed. The he escapes in a car and ends up crashing into a van full of goons, flying through both windshields and then neatly dispatching 6 more guys who don't even shoot back. I think his one-liner was something like, "Who says seat belts save lives?"

Smith then goes to meet with the senator, who it turns out is working with the gun manufacturers. So Smith kills the senator and jumps our of his plane and kills 20 more goons as he's plummeting to the ground.

Wait, it gets better. So Paul finally captures Smith and breaks some of his fingers and is about to cut his eye out and Smith headbutts Paul and then pushes the exacto knife through his own hand so he can whack goons in the face with it. The he sprays the gun king with blood squirting out of his hand and kills that guy, but he can't shoot straight with his broken hands so he can't kill Paul, who apparently would rather be shot at and taunt Smith than actually kill him. Paul's motivation for not killing Smith is that he has to be right about him because he knows people so well, so he's just wants Smith to confirm his ideas before he can kill him - typical stupid villain stuff.

So finally Paul is about to shoot Smith, who is sitting next to a fireplace with a roaring fire - we're not sure why, and then Smith reveals a handful of bullets, which he holds to the fire while aiming his hand at Paul, and of course the bullets fire out of his hand like a gun and Paul gets all shot up.

That's not even the end but I won't spoil it for you.

This movie takes comic violence to a new level, and I guess it's supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, except it's clearly not funny or even remotely clever. It's just stupid, with each action sequence more ridiculous than the last.

The movie is supposed to have an anti-gun message, but every single character, except for the baby, glorifies in the gun violence to such an extreme that it has the exact opposite effect. There's even an absurd line of dialog when Smith finds out the senator is working with the gun king; he says, "You know what I hate? Hypocrites." Except he's the biggest hypocrite of them all because supposedly despises the gun manufacturers while all he does in this movie is kill about 100 people with a gun. Giamatti has a similarly terrible line. "Guns don't kill people, but they help."

I get that that is supposed to be commentary on the pro-gun groups, and that the movie itself is some kind of statement about gun violence. But it's just so stupid and unbelievable in it's action sequences and characterizations that it comes off as a piece of Hollywood slop. It also suffers from the uniquely liberal trait of being unable to be a self-parody, because it tries to be serious even through the cartoon violence.

Somehow the Rotten Tomatoes crowd gave this thing good marks, but in the sort of self-loathing way that they also like Zombieland, the difference being that Zombieland knows what it is all about and Shoot 'Em Up clearly does not.

Clive Owen has made a few of these movies the past few years where his character is involved in some liberal silliness to fight evil corporations and whatnot, so I'm not surprised he took this role, even though this is clearly a B-movie. That he was passed over for the role of Bond is obviously a good thing. Paul Giamatti I can't figure. He has talent, and should not have relegated himself to the nonsense of this villain, more appropriate for a lesser-known actor not interested in a serious career. If not for John Adams, this role might have been the death knell in his own career.

Once again, Hollywood has made an absolute garbage movie that fails to either educate or entertain, and takes these absurd shots at conservative principles that miss the mark no less dramatically than the endless stream of extras who can't seem to kill the very unlikeable main character.

By the way, here are my bottom 5 most awful movies I've ever seen most of:

5. Tomb Raider
4. Joe Dirt
3. Freddie Got Fingered
2. Mannequin Too
1. Shoot 'Em Up

Yep, this one was that bad!

Rio in 2016 - What Happened?

Perhaps more shocking than Chicago not winning the 2016 Olympics is the fact it lost in the first round of voting, behind even Tokyo, which was not given a serious chance. Rio might have been the front-runner all along, especially after the IOC report of Chicago's preparedness to host the games came back ugly.

Still, the 3 most important people in America, and therefore the world, Oprah Winfrey, and Michelle and Barack Obama, all went to Copenhagen to pitch the games. Failure should have been impossible.

I mentioned in a blog a month ago about Bama's popularity overseas, specifically in Europe. He's far more popular there than here, and yet he failed to woo the IOC voters.

In fact, it appears he managed to turn a tight contest between Chicago and Rio into a last place finish behind Tokyo, considered a non-factor in the results.

Is it possible the Obama's managed to turn people off? If you read Michelle's comments from yesterday, you could certainly cross that bridge. "It's a sacrifice," she said of her time committed to elegant parties and schmoozing foreign dignitaries. Uh-huh, she's that self-important.

And Bama's ego is only slightly smaller than the sum total of everything else in the entire universe. How could the congenial world body stand to listen to the smug SOB? Especially after that ridiculous speech he gave last week at the United Nations where he basically told the world, I saved America, but the rest of you poor bastards are on your own. And then he flew in just for the day, and all the pundits were convinced that just his presence would be enough to land the games for the USA. Could it be the committee thought his manuever one of supreme arrogance, that one man is so important that voters would throw out all the work put in by other nations just at the sight of him?

That's Bara's MO, of course. He is the chosen one, after all, he shouldn't have to work for it, it should just magically happen when he thinks of it. Just like everything else he's thought about doing this year and not done any real work to accomplish except to blame others for his failures.

I can't really blame the committee for voting as they did - Rio deserved it. Also, Chicago may have dodged a bullet; Olympic games are notoriously over-budget and never come close to breaking even, and it's not like the residents of the city would be thrilled about having it torn up for the next 6 years. The IOC probably saved U.S. taxpayers from the inevitable Chicago Olympic Games Federal Bailout.

Personally, I'm disappointed. I live in Wisconsin and would have liked to have gone to some of the events. Thanks for nothing, Barack. Your jackassedness has screwed America again.

Recession? We Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

In 2004, the estimated future liability for all financial guarantees to U.S. citizens by all levels of government was - get ready for this - 53 TRILLION DOLLARS. That's not a typo, and it's not a joke. The liability is also totally unfunded - the money necessary to pay for it does not yet exist.

When all benefits for Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and the Prescription Drug Benefit, and all government funded pensions, are added together and projected for all citizens who are currently alive, the staggering amount of liability equals almost 4 times the entire US GDP.

In fact, the current liability is more than the total value of all goods and services created for the entire world!! So if every living person devoted an entire year's work to nothing but paying toward the United States' financial promises to its own people, we would still be short on the bill.

That's astonishing. But that's not all. The $53 (now $57) Trillion represents the value in today's dollars, not future dollars, which is how it will be paid out. The true cost of this liability is closer to $100 TRILLION when adjusted for the future value of the dollar over the term of payout.

Ok, the good news is that the Senate has just discovered $65 million in waste and fraud in the Medicare system, so let's see, that only leaves about $100 TRILLION!!!

You'll remember that George Bush tried to tackle part of the problem in 2005 when he proposed to overhaul Social Security, but no, we couldn't have that! Even though there was no risk to current beneficiaries, the Democrats waged a national campaign, complete with misinformation and fear-mongering among the elderly to defeat it. Sound familiar?

Here's the insidious part: All these programs, with the exception of Social Security, were created by the very people who stand to benefit from them, namely the so-called "Greatest Generation", a self-administered title, and their corrupt, entitlement-brained baby-boomer kids. These two generations absolutely lined their nest own eggs in gold at the expense of every other American who will ever live. Think about that - the people who paid in the least have the most to gain, and the looming insolvency of the whole shitpiece assures that future generations will either get nothing or see their own tax burdens doubled or tripled to pay for it. Either way we lose out, to the tune of more than a million dollars of lost income during our lifetimes.

What could you do with million dollars? Probably a lot, unless you're the government, in which case you sneeze it away. Think of it like this - how often do you count or keep track of pennies anymore? Never. Well, a million dollars is a like a penny to a US Senator or the president. It's meaningless, and that's how they treat it. 65 cents will buy me a can of Coke, and the Medicare fraud is like a can of Coke to the government - it takes about 5 minutes and it's gone.

Time to predict the future:
1. This will start to come to a head during 2012, Bara Bama's reelection year. If he manages to con the nation into believeing he has the best solution, all taxes on every working American will be doubled during his second term.
2. If a competent conservative is elected to the White House, along with a conservative congress, we still only have a puncher's chance at turning things around since all the clout will reside within the age groups that stand to get the benefits. The best we can hope for is a hard age cap on all government benefits that will limit the inevitable tax hikes. For example, if the cap is placed at anyone currently 50 years or older. That means the rest of us get stuck with the bill and get nothing, but at least the country as a whole still has a future.
3. Due to the current Democrat regime, out of control spending and debt issuance causes foreign lenders to balk kat future American debt risk. The US government can no longer print money without inflationary affects and the dollar crashes. Either the government immediately raises all taxes to cover the continued deficit spending and benefit payouts, which will almost certainly cause the economy to collapse, or all benefits are immediately cancelled. The government can do this simply by enacting new law.

I think the last option, as catastrophic as that may seem to the "Greatest" degeneration and the Boomer Babies, is actually the best possible outcome. It will take an economic crisis unprecedented in US history and not seen since Germany after Versailles to make it happen, and then only if we have courageous enough leadership to make it happen.

There's one more possibility, of course. That's when policitans do nothing, the economy collapses, and a liberal government federalizes all the nation's assets. It's not so far-fetched. FDR tried it in 1933 and to some extent succeeded, but the Great Depression will seem like a misplaced credit card bill compared to the inevitable chaos when the big bill comes due. Then it's Welcome to Communism!

Paying Debt With More Debt

Money is so cheap right now that many states are borrowing to pay off old debt. From a fiscal perspective this makes total sense; you exchange debt at a high interest rate for debt at a low interest rate.

The problem is rates cannot go any lower, so at this point the states are naturally going to load up on cheap money knowing it will be more expensive later. So states are taking on even more debt simply because of the rate - any sense of fiscal discipline is out the window. The low rate encourages states to spend to the limits of liberal imaginations, and that is not a good thing.

We're going to see states so heavily leveraged, with dubious likelihood of paying the borrowed money back. This is the perfect opportunity to cut costs, but that will never happen with fiscal liberals (Democrats or Republicans) in power.

I don't see how these states can remain solvent 5, 10, or 15 years from now given current projections for revenues vs expenditures.

Unless of course the states' budgets are federalized...

All This Phony "Debate"

The health care reform movement is trying out a new tactic this week. They are framing the "debate" as being between liberal, err, progressive Democrats who want a public option, and so-called "conservative" Democrats who, while they aren't opposed to the idea, know the public support is not with their more liberal colleagues, so they oppose the public option. (Anyone wanna guess where the polling is tracking in those "conservative" senator's states?)

I'm not shocked that the media is touting this as some great battle for pragmatism, but I am surprised at how many in the conservative camp have bought into it.

Hey out there, wake up! This is a phony scam to make the American people think that Democrats are everything to everyone! Have you even heard the term "Republicans" mentioned in the context of this new ploy? Of course not, because the press is in on it.

And it makes total sense. By apparently positioning one group of Democrats to the right, they confuse people into believing that group is conservative, when the opposite is in fact true. The second big win is that the now "Conservative" element of the Democrat party opposes only the contentious public option, but not the greater albatross of ObamaCare as a whole. The hoped-for effect is to make the American people think that even conservatives are now on board with the plan to overhaul the health care system, including public funding for self-assisted suicide, abortion, and illegals. And finally, it allows the ever-expanding progressive wing of the Democrat party to move even farther to the extreme left, where they wanted to go for so long but only now is it politically tenable.

This is a clever ruse, and it may work, based on the sleepy response from actual conservatives and the zero media coverage for Republican opposition. But hey, we don't need Republicans anymore - the left has everyone covered!