Good morning. Today is a special day. Are you celebrating yet? That’s right. Today is United Nations Day.

The power grab by the United Nations over the USA has been incessant since the Democrats won a majority in both houses in 2007. In the past two years, the UN has been pressuring the US to accept the Law of the Sea Treaty, which would severely restrict the US Navy’s ability to navigate open waters. We are currently getting pressured to sign on to UN Treaty on the Rights of the Child. This encroachment on parental rights must be rejected by the US. (You can help by donating to the Eagle Forum at above link.) The December Climate Change/Global Warming/Mass Hysteria meeting in Copenhagen is repeatedly being called a last chance to succeed in getting the US onboard the highway to energy poverty.

The next chapter of UN US-bashing has begun. The UN Is investigating human rights abuses in the USA. At first thought, one would have to laugh. The mere presence of Sudan and Libya on this board speaks volumes. Well, now is not the time to laugh. From David Horowitz’ Newsreal Blog, we learn this:

For those of you who have never even heard of a “Special Rapporteur,” you may be surprised to find out that one has been appointed by the United Nations (UN), under a special mandate from the UN Human Rights Council (the successor to the corrupt and anti-Israel UN Commission on Human Rights), to open a probe—for the first time ever— into human rights violations by the United States because of a perception that there isn’t enough affordable public housing in urban areas.
…
The UN Human Rights Council believes that housing is a human right, and, because housing (especially “affordable housing”) is so tough to come by in places like New York City, there is a strong likelihood that the United States Government is guilty of gross human rights violations.

Not enough affordable public housing? My first reaction was this: If we put up huts like Obama’s brother has in Kenya, would that make them happy?

This is fully supported by the Obama Administration.

The report will be bad. That is a foregone conclusion. How will the UN punish the United States? That remains to be seen. Who gave the UN the right to send a Special Rapporteur on this tour of American cities in the first place, since UN Special Rapporteurs can only visit countries that have agreed to invite them?

After listening to Rush yesterday, the picture is becoming more clear to me every day on what the ultimate ambitions are of the Obama family. Rush stated that he believed that a possible goal of Barack Obama is to be the Secretary-General of the UN. Given his international apology tours, and his eagerness to submit to the UN in matters of Energy policy, naval navigation and parental rights, Rush’s theory really makes sense. After all, Obama will leave the White House a relatively young politician, without a definite career path. I don’t think he would follow Jimmy Carter’s path. His path will be one of power, and to get promoted to the highest governing position in the (or at least his) world. And then he will have all the power that he is handing over to the UN. Given how scary this scenario is, it is appropriate that Halloween is next week.

So, have a wonderful United Nations Day! it really should be on October 31st or April 1st instead.

A story broke on September 25th about a soiree hosted by the Obamas for visiting VIPs during the UN meetings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is another goof in the White House office of protocol. As with most parties, pictures were taken by the White House photographers. However, unlike past Presidents, POTUS Obama’s White House has a flickr website page. And they seem to enjoy building upon the persona of “The One”. So the pictures were placed on the website with no approvals requested of the people in the pictures. Well, that’s where problems arise:

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero was in for a rude shock if he thought the same privacy conventions that shield the children of public figures in his home country would extend to the United States. Zapatero brought his wife and two daughters along on his trip to New York for the opening session of the United Nations General Assembly, and on Wednesday he and his family posed for a photograph with President Obama at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The photo caused a huge stir in Spain because the public had never before seen an image of its leader’s children, ages 13 and 16, who appeared in the photograph sporting slightly gothic attire.

Oops. Another White House Protocol blunder. Between the DVDs to the British PM, the ipod to the Queen of England, returning the bust of Churchill to England, and bowing to Saudi king, this White House is an embarrassment to the citizens of the USA when dealing with the leaders of foreign countries. (Next thing you know, we’ll give Iran a Twitter account for negotiating a nuclear arms agreement.)

A week later, members of the IOC are voting for the Olympics site for 2016. Spain, along with Japan and Brazil, is competing with the US. Unlike the White House, these people are sensitive to matters of protocol and respect for the privacy of others. So, when choosing between the US and Spain, US came in last. One must question whether this protocol goof by Obama had any impact on the voting. I submit it very well could have.

People have debated the definition of a “green job” for a while. I have been skeptical about what really is a “green job,” but my eyes have been opened. According to the New York Apollo Alliance, a green job is one that is created in order to manufacture and install goods that are mandated by the government. Green jobs are created when a government enacts laws that require the private sector to spend money on “green” projects. Here is what I received in an email from the Apollo Alliance last week:

Dear friend:

Thursday, the New York State Senate is expected to vote on S.5888, the Green Jobs/Green NY bill.  This historic bill will result in 1 million new residential retrofits and thousands of new jobs.

Please contact your State Senator today and ask them to vote yes and that we look forward to working with them to implement the bill to ensure that the jobs that are created are good, green collar jobs.

So, by forcing the private sector to spend money on projects it does not deem to be profitable, green jobs are created. You might as well start breaking windows at all the storefronts to generate jobs.  But no, that would be too obvious. The New York Senate would rather disguise another government jobs program by labeling it “green”. It is really just another New York tax-and-welfare, smash-and-grab program that drives business and people from the Empire State. (As an aside, maybe the state nickname is appropriate.)
Check out what the NY State Senate website says about this bill.

Last night the Senate passed the grounbreaking (sic) Green Jobs/Green NY bill, a measure that will create thousands of jobs across the state and help hundreds of thousands of families and businesses from Montauk to Buffalo save up to a billion dollars annually in energy costs. The bill, which passed the Senate 52-8 and passed the Assembly unanimously, is a major step toward rebuilding New York’s crippled economy and rescuing the state’s energy consumers.

Senator Darrel J. Aubertine (D-Cape Vincent), chair of the Senate Energy and Telecommunications Committee and lead sponsor of the bill said: “This program will create jobs, save consumers on their energy bills and help get our economy back on track. By passing the Green Jobs/Green New York Act today with bipartisan support we have taken an important step toward improving our economy and helping our environment. This bill encourages conservation, helps consumers with the cost of capital improvements to their homes and businesses, and creates jobs in the new economy. It’s a win-win for New York State, especially Upstate New York where a well-trained workforce will be in demand to keep the heat in and energy bills down every winter.”

So, you can rebuild an economy by forcefully taking property from private individuals and using it to pay for pet projects for the public good. Sounds very much like Atlas Shrugged to me. Who will stand up in New York and fight this stuff? Or will they all just leave? If no one, you can look forward to this coming to a state (and country) near you. And if it comes to the country in such large portions, where will the people go?

With a hat tip to Dr. Walter Williams,

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
– French economist, statesman and author Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

Parade.com had an article in this past Sunday’s magazine discussing exclusivity agreements between cell phone manufacturers  and cell network providers.

Some lawmakers and industry experts say such arrangements limit consumer choice, stifle competition, and keep rates artificially high. “Consumers should be allowed to access any network with whatever device they choose, just as they do with their televisions and computers,” says Rob Frieden, a law professor at Penn State University.

It is ridiculous to compare cellphone networks, which are built and maintained by the network provider, to over-the-air television signals and the internet. Companies use the exclusivity agreements to provide better service at a lower price to consumers. For example, Apple gets some payment from AT&T for each iPhone customer they get, and AT&T gets a good set of customers and a better economy of scale. Consumers get an iPhone and plan at a lower rate than they otherwise could get. And if they are not happy, sonsumers get get another cellphone from a different provider. It even quotes Sen. Kerry (who served in Viet Nam, as Rush says):

The Federal Communications Commission is investigating whether exclusivity agreements “restrict consumer choice or harm the development of innovative devices.” Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) is considering legislation to ban such agreements.

The poll on the page was at 87-13 against the free markets, and for government regulation. Please go to the Parade article and tell them your opinion. Ignore the comments; they are quite predictable in content.

Thinking about this further, perhaps John Kerry would support getting rid of all exclusivity agreements. Erick spoke about one such agreement yesterday. Unions restrict the choice for consumers of labor, those, of course, being businesses who hire people to do things. These restrictions cause increased costs, and thus must also be on Sen. Kerry’s hit list.

July 4th (Korean time), the North Koreans launch their missile out towards the Pacific in direction of Hawaii.

Something goes wrong, and missile curves to the west.

The missile finds its way back down to earth’s surface and strikes,

destroying their ship carrying the nuclear materials, as it sits in a Yemen harbor.

I know, smacks of some James Bond movie plot, but hey, I would enjoy this.

My Senator, Bill Nelson (D-FL), states on his website that he is against increasing the national debt.  Nelson voted against the TARP bill, a vote that was cancelled by Sen. Martinez’ (rino-FL) YES vote. I had hopes that he might also vote against the Obama stimulus bill.  So I wrote him this optimistic letter of appreciation.

Thanks for being AGAINST STIMULUS!

I agree with your stance on the Economy as it is stated on your website. It is obvious from your views that you will vote NO on the Obama stimulus bill. Thanks for representing us.  Your stance against increasing the national debt is very welcome, and your opposition to Obama’s plan is very much appreciated!
From your website, Senator:
Since 2000, our national debt has grown by more than $3 trillion, placing a great burden on future generations. As a member of the Senate Budget Committee, I have worked to decrease our national debt by ensuring the federal government doesn’t spend beyond its means. With responsible spending cuts and limited tax cuts that will provide the greatest stimulus to the economy, we can keep our national debt under control and increase job creation.

Over the past five years, we have experienced the worst level of job creation since the Great Depression. Although 28,000 jobs have been created each month since 2001, we need 150,000 new jobs a month to keep up with population growth.

As a Floridian, I used the web pages to contact Maine’s US Senators. If their decisions affect me, then dad-gum they are gonna here from me. They claim to belong to the GOP, like me, so I should be able to contact these people who profess to believe in the GOP philosophy of limited government. Here is my message:

Please vote NO on the non-Stimulus bill! Do not give in to bribes. The American people will survive if the government lets us! Release the American people, through tax cuts, to recover. Weare ready if government will get out of the way.

Gorbachev (remember him?) asked British PM  Margaret Thatcher (remember her?) how she made sure the stores had bread to sell. She said “I don’t do anything.” Gorbachev, the Socialist Communist, could not understand how bread existed for everyone in England if the government did nothing.  There’s a good lesson, here, Senator.

There’s another lesson here. You pulldown for topics does not have an option for “Economy”. You know why? Because it is not the US Government’s role to provide the Economy, unless you are in China, Venezuela, and Cuba.

For now, I won’t comment on how the replacement of Senators goes: white woman for white woman (D-NY), white man for white man (D-DE), and black man for black man (D-IL). You know those stories. Even the “cannot-have-a-white-man-as-secretary-of-state” philosophy. These stories, while embarrassing to some, are true and the facts cannot be argued. But I am now told by my US Senator Mel Martinez, that we actually have specific positions in government for minorities.

I emailed my Sen. Mel Martinez (RINO-FL) about his recent statements that Eric Holder was a qualified candidate for AG and that he would support his nomination. In my letter, I told him that
Andrew McCarthy was a member of the Department of Justice under Eric Holder. Andy had prosecuted the 1993 World Trade Center Bombings. He knows what happened during the Clinton Admin under Holder. (He wrote an excellent book on Jihad too: Willful Blindness, a must-read.) And I referred the senator to Andy’s recent column about his knowledge of the pardon processing for Rich at the end of the Clinton years with Deputy AG Holder. Plus, we all know how Holder admitted he screwed up, and learned a lesson and will be a better person because of his past actions. (now, this sounds more like a defendant’s plea to a judge than an applicant for the top law prosecutor in the USA.)

Sen.  Martinez’s response had the usual drivel about a president getting the cabinet he wants (which applies to Dems only, but Mel missed that). He also said how Mr. Holder would  be “the first African-American Attorney General of the United States.” Strange way to put it. I just had to respond to Mel: “Holder will simply be THE US Attorney General. We don’t have separate slots for blacks and whites in the government, unless you’ve forgotten.” I could also say that isn’t it great that we now have the first five-figure tax cheat running the IRS. Is that a good thing too? Does that say how far we’ve come for meting out mercy for criminals’ rights in our country?

Now, maybe I should have asked to get into the safety tree before I started this diary (having learned the phrase from Glenn Beck).  But I am really started to get miffed with all this first-this and first-that stuff. We are all equal here, and we do not judge others by the color of their skin. I think I remember some words being re-played on January 19th along those lines. I think it was Rush or Glenn who said the other day that Barack Obama is simply the POTUS, not the African-American POTUS. He is simply the POTUS. That’s it. It is the division of the American people into all these special groups that brings us down, and the liberals have used this division masterfully to achieve power. We conservatives need to continue to avoid this whole mess. By the way, Gonzalez was the first Hispanic AG, and don’t remember anyone saying how great that was.

From the diaries by Erick

Case in point: Tom Daschle, former US Senator from SD, and Senate Majority/Minority leader in late 90s and early 2000s. Daschle, tapped by Mr. Obama to be Secretary of Health and Human Services next year, wrote a book that he likely now wishes no one would read. In fact, amazon.com and buy.com have no copies in stock, so he has hope.

Now why would he want to keep this book a secret? Well, do football coaches publish their playbooks? Of course not. You can read an insightful and not-so-favorable review by Tony Blankley at townhall.com here.

Now, you might say: “Well, Daschle wrote a book. So what? It does not mean he means it, or expects it to work.” Yeah, well, Hitler wrote a book too, and folks likely thought around 1942 it might have been a good idea to read it. Same for that guy behind the podium that has a “Office of the President-Elect” emblem on it (I know, the real election is next week at some college, but who cares.) He wrote a couple books too that not enough people must have read before November 4th of this year.

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NBC is re-running the Saturday Night (not-so) Live episode tonight that contained a skit that attempted to tell how the subprime crisis really started. The digs at Pelosi and Frank were great, so was the couple who were caught flipping when the downturn hit. Shortly after the original episode, in which the real story of the Sandlers was told, the Sandlers complained to NBC about their actual activities being represented in the sketch. Tonight, the Sandler bit was cut out of the re-run.

I can understand pulling material from the internet. But making money from a re-run while editing out parts that some thought objectionable (personally, I thought the poking-fun at President Bush really sucked) is really poor business decision, and really classless.

Written today in USA Today

In a sense, the Obamas face a dilemma that many upper-middle-class families do in most big cities: Open, egalitarian systems offer lots of school choices — but the best ones fill up fast (and admission each fall is by lottery if applicants outnumber slots). Still, few can match the offerings of pricey private schools.

So, with each of the them pulling in over $200K, plus increased book royalties, and the built-in equity from Rezco on their Chicago mansion, the Obamas are upper-middle class. That makes McCain’s scoffed-at response of $250K for middle class at the Saddleback Church interview spot-on according to USA Today. I find this humorous.

I understand why some folks voted Libertarian. I was confronted this year with a US House race (FL-15) where a qualified independent candidate was running. I feared that the Democrat Dr. Blythe, a Planned Parenthood supporter, could win without my vote for the GOP Posey (who won). Consider these cases from this 2008 election yesterday:

• If 90% of those 29,000 who voted for Barr (L) in Indiana had voted for McCain, McCain wins Indiana.

• If 60% of those 25,000 who voted for Barr (L) in North Carolina had voted for McCain, McCain wins North Carolina.

• If those 11,000 who voted for Barr (L) in Missouri voted for McCain, McCain would have a 17,000-win instead of a 6,000-vote recount-margin in Missouri.

• In addition, if those 13,000 people in Minnesota had voted for Coleman instead of the Libertarian candidate Aldrich, then we could definitely count on Coleman winning and not worry about Al Franken winning in the recount (500-vote lead for Coleman now) amid voting irregularities.

I am all for voting one’s conscience. But there are other ways of telling the GOP you are not happy with them: send a letter and withhold your money, but not your vote. Believe me, I doubt 13,000 Barr votes in Minnesota Senate race really tells the GOP anything. But it could mean that those 13,000 pay much higher heating costs the next six years under a steep carbon credit tax program. Unfortunately, the rest of the country will also suffer.

So, Joe sixpack in San Diego votes at 7:55 pm. It does not matter. At 8pm, his state is given to Obama. Why even bother going out in the 70 degree weather to vote?

So today, Delaware voters get to vote for Joe-the-six-term-Senator twice. How is this possible? How is his Senate seat filled should Obama win? How can he pick which position he wants? Why should the Dems get a free Senate seat? In the same way, I urge all Alaskans to vote for Stevens just so Gov. Palin can appoint a Republican replacement after the election.

Again, Biden runs for a position he has zero intention of occupying. Call me disgusted.

I don’t see anything on the front page saying anything about website issues. Is it just me?

I don’t see anything on the front page saying anything about website issues. Is it just me?

Back in the 1970’s William (then called Billy) Ayers wrote (or co-wrote with his now-wife, Bernadine Dohrn) Prairie Fire, the Weather Underground’s manifesto. A must-read blog on this appears at ZombieTime with all the links and text. This is a must-read. I won’t pull pieces here. I encourage you to read the article.

As a side-note, as a graduate of Knox College, whose school nickname is the Prairie Fire, I will now request that the school change its nickname again. It used to be Siwash, but someone realized it was a slur at one point for American Indians, so they changed it. I wonder if the Ayers’ family had anything to do with it…

Sunday, The Anchorage Daily News (ADN) endorsed Barack Obama for President. From the AP Wires:

The newspaper said Sunday the Democrat “brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand.”

From this account, we have some definitions from the ADN:

• Thoughtful Analysis: Leaving town and telling folks to call you if they need you; also, notify you when McCain makes a policy statement.

• Wise Counsel: Egotistical career politicians such as Sen. Biden, Sen. Dodd, and Sen. Schumer; wives you are ashamed of their country; self-proclaimed terrorist revolutionaries; black liberation theology preachers.

• Cool Steady Hand: Needed to hold the cellphone if Franklin Raines calls asking to provide advice; needed to deal with running-mate’s speaking gaffes.

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I saw this blog post by Average American Mom when reading about Biden’s international crisis prediction. and thought it was hysterically funny (hey, it was late, but it was funny). So I needed to share it. I was surprised to find a huge conservative crowd at an abc news site.

Why I am voting Democrat!

• I’m voting Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending MY MONEY than I would. I think when you spread the wealth around it is good for everybody! It’s Patriotic!

• I’m voting Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. All profits are evil and should be confiscated for Government Redistribution.

• I’m voting Democrat because I believe that MORE Government regulations and higher taxes on Business will stop Business from exporting their jobs to Countries with LESS Government regulations and lower taxes.

• I’m voting Democrat because I believe terrorists should be allowed to have trials in American courts. And be able to subpoena top secret documents, soldiers, government officials, etc. to cross examine for their defense. They should have ACLU lawyers who can help intimidate Americans who serve on the juries!

• I’m voting Democrat because I believe Gay Marriage should be the law of the land and will probably produce better children.

• I’m voting Democrat because I believe English should not be the official language of the United States. I don’t mind pushing one for English when I use the phone.

• I’m voting Democrat because I believe partial birth abortion is okay but water boarding a terrorist is disgusting.

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Halloween is next Friday, 4 days before Election day. Please contribute your favorite ways to dress up as a Obama supporter, Joe Biden (maybe have “Chuck” wheel around with you and stand up), ACORN community organizer, or whatever is popular this season. I am sure that the Joe-The-Plumber costumes will be out there as well. Also, propose your scariest politician award.