That boring little snippet is only part of the response quoted by Elizabeth Rozenthal in a recent New York Times article. The quote is from Ben Stuart, who Ms. Rozenthal described as ”a spokesman” for GreenPeace.

Don’t you just love that photo. Mr. Stuart… all scruffy, wearing that fur lined hat to brave the cold while standing between you and the poor, starving and worried man in the polar bear suit? Of course, had that been a real polar bear, Mr. Stuart would have been the starving polar bear’s dinner.

Actually, Ben is the Media Director (sort of like Obama’s Axelrod) of GreenPeace. It is his job to keep “the environmental agenda in the headlines in Britain” and “He does it by understanding how the British press and the rest of the UK media operate, with all their widely differing sympathies and attitudes, and working pragmatically across all of them.” In other words, Ben Stuart is the director of pushing green propaganda and works at using his connections (like Ms. Rozenthal) in the media to craft his agenda in such a way as to be accepted by the general public and to encourage those who disagree to shut up. You see, Ben also understands how the media works over here in the United States and he takes advantage of this through his friends at The New York Times.

The title of Ms. Rozenthal’s article interesting. “Climate Fears Turn To Doubts Among Britons“. It made me want to read it. I mean, it was kind of encouraging to think “The Old Gray Lady” was finally starting to live up to the image the Nic Name implies… The Statue of Liberty… strong… courageous… a shining light of Truth in the dark, murky fog of deception and confusion of the turbulent waters of the vast Media Ocean, etc., etc…  But no. As usual, the New York Times chose this ”headline” (where words are chosen for the purpose of inspiring curiosity so the reader continues reading) to call attention to another growing trend (which disturbs/intimidates them) and the article that follows is another attempt to kill said “growing trend”. We’ve all seen how it works. They hear the voice of the “nay sayer” and immediately begin screaming at them, insulting their inteligence, calling them racists and comparing them to the likes of “Hitler” in order to humiliate them into silence. Can you say, “Tea Party”?

Elizabeth Rozenthal uses this spot in the New York Times to go the more subtle route… “whining”. She has tried the others to no avail… Insults, finger pointing, distraction… But this time she just wants you to feel sorry for her (and Ben) in the loss of momentum for the Global Warming in Europe…

Nowhere has this shift in public opinion been more striking than in Britain, where climate change was until this year such a popular priority that in 2008 Parliament enshrined targets for emissions cuts as national law.

She is sad to see the waning of those Global Warming Glory Days, admitting (to some degree) that enthusiasm is falling in America as well, and she looks back whistfully to the days when she and all of these other snarky, environmental activists (assisted by government officials they helped place in positions of authority) were boldly ascending Power Mountain with a firm belief that they were finally going to have the chance to plant their victory flag upon its peak and have the authority to force the rest of us to lower our standards of living while paying through the nose for substandard crap that is more dangerous, more toxic to humans AND the environment, costs more, doesn’t work or sucks up more energy to create than the “evil other method”…. Whatever. You got close but… no bananas for you.

Ms. Rozenthal likes writing about the environment… especially stories where she can describe in the most patient of condescending terms the pity/animosity she bears for the child-like/selfish ignorance of ”doubters/deniers” who refuse to just accept her cause and don’t want to keep funding the failing eco-idiocy programs it inspires. But the stories in which Ms. Rozenthal becomes most passionate is when she can move beyond the individuals who get in her way to vent her frustration and use her keyboard to stick her finger in the eye of America as a whole. In this particular article, Ms. Rozenthal begins by asking us a question.

If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?

(Well, could it be that it’s because “the idea that human activity is warming the planet” is… well… crap… no matter HOW many activist “scientists” refuse to accept reality.)

In the words of Ben Stuart (her pal at GreenPeace) Ms. Rozenthal (whether consciously or not) reveals the root fear she shares with him and other environmental activists and clarifies the reason she is writing the article:

“Legitimacy has shifted to the side of the climate skeptics, and that is a big, big problem,”

Yes, Ms. Rozenthal, it is “a big, big problem”… So glad you gave Mr. Stuart an opportunity to admit that for us… But what I don’t understand is why you and your “pals” don’t simply come up with some real scientific evidence to prove your point rather than make fools of yourselves by making lame attempts to deny that the GROWING evidence AGAINST the validity of the Global Warming even exists. And I’m not talking about “opinion” evidence here. You are denying blatant stuff… stuff that came from your own people. Evidence like:

1. E-mails between British climate scientists at the University of East Anglia reveal they intentionally ”overstated”, “distorted” evidence for global warming and repressed any evidence that conflicted with their position.
2. The discovery of errors in a United Nations climate report.
3. The unusually cold winter in Northern Europe, the United States and the rest of the world.

Ms. Rozenthal admits these key things may have indeed played a part in reinforcing the growing perception that the whole Global Warming things is and always has been… (again)… crap but instead of giving a good argument to put out the fire destroying their cause she hands us more fuel to throw on the pile .

In an attempt to discredit the significance of the hacked East Anglia E-mails, Ms. Rozenthal bravely puts forth a link she describes as the results of ”Two Independent Reviews, which she claims proves there is, in fact, no evidence that the East Anglia researchers had actively distorted climate data. So, I took the bait… I clicked the link… Several links later (having to pass through other articles witten by other activists denying the scientists did anything wrong) you arrive at an actual Report.

Top of the page reads:

Report of the International Panel set up by the University of East Anglia to examine the research of the Climatic Research Unit.

Hmmm… So, this report was an “independent review” “set up by the University of East Anglia” to investigate themselves and absolve themselves of any wrongdoing…? Interesting. And who comprised The Panel “set up by the University of East Anglia” to prove they are on the up-and-up? Why, it was The “Royal Society”. And what/who exactly is the “Royal Society”? Well, they are described as “a very small acedemic entity within the School of Environmental Sciences”. And, where exactly is the School of Environmental Sciences” located, wherein this “very small acedemic entity” resides?

Um… on the campus of The University of East Anglia.

And who did the “other” report? (Remember, Ms. Rozenthal tells us there were TWO “independent” reviews, which clear East Anglia of all charges. The second “independent” review was put forth by The Science and Technology Committee of the British House of Commons and she tells us outright:

The lawmakers emphasized that nothing in the more than 1,000 stolen e-mail messages or in the ensuing controversy challenged the scientific consensus that “global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity.”

You hear me? Nothing, nothing in those e-mails challenged the consensus that global warming is real and man made.

Really, Ms. Rozenthal? How about outright admission of their intent to deceive?

Well, maybe she missed this email:

From: Phil Jones. To: Many. Nov 16, 1999
“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature [the science journal] trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

And maybe she and her pals in The Science and Technology Committee of the British House of Commons didn’t read the email regarding the Scientists determination to omit the results of any studies, which conflict with their opinion:

From Phil Jones To: Michael Mann (Pennsylvania State University). July 8, 2004
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

And this email in which Kevin Trenberth flat-out admits they have no evidence to support the third point above, that temperatures have risen in the past ten years.

From: Kevin Trenberth (US National Center for Atmospheric Research). To: Michael Mann. Oct 12, 2009
“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t… Our observing system is inadequate”

Of course:

At the same time, the lawmakers stressed that their report, written after only a single day of oral testimony, did not cover all the issues…

Yeah… There is that whole “issues” thing. But not covering ignoring “issues” that contradict their message is about the only consistant thing the Global Warming Alarmists have going on.

And Point Number Two? Come on… The UN? Make mistakes? So what if 5,600 of the 18,500 sources in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Nobel Prize-winning 2007 report were not peer reviewed even though they insisted the entire report was… peer reviewed. So what if a lot of the scientific research published by the U.N. cited didn’t come from actual scientists who performed any actual tests or conducted any actual research to get actual results to back up their claims but came rather from selected press releases, newspaper and magazine clippings, student theses, newsletters, discussion papers and literature published by fellow green advocates?

So… Ms. Rozenthal asks:

If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?

Had she really wanted an answer to that question all she needed to do was stop asking the ”doubters/deniers” why they don’t believe and simply read her own news paper. One particular op-ed that appeared in the New York Times outlined precisely why “so many people have turned away” from the whole man-made global warming thing. It was written by another Nobel winner. Maybe she’s heard of him. Al Gore.

It is true that the climate panel published a flawed overestimate of the melting rate of debris-covered glaciers in the Himalayas, and used information about the Netherlands provided to it by the government, which was later found to be partly inaccurate. In addition, e-mail messages stolen from the University of East Anglia in Britain showed that scientists besieged by an onslaught of hostile, make-work demands from climate skeptics may not have adequately followed the requirements of the British freedom of information law.

Yep. Al is right. “We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change”. Facts are FAR more effective. We are simply wishing the activists who still keep trying to push this bogus green agenda down our throats would go away.

Mr. President,

My name is Patricia and I am one of the many thousands of Americans who, under the snowballing effects of your… interesting executive decisions, have lost their job. I use to be an Office Manager for a company that designed and built custom homes and office buildings. But, since you have begun your campaign of systematically deconstructing our economy about a year ago (with a particular blow being dealt to the housing/construction market here in Florida and elsewhere)… that’s about the time I was laid off.

I was angry at you for a long time. I mean, I am 50 years old and I have rarely been out of work. I actually like working. I like feeling productive, like I am contributing rather than taking from the world I live in.  I learned that work ethic from my grandmother, Elizabeth. Her name means, “With God”. When she died a few years ago I was devastated. The whole family was. We called her “Gibraltar” or “Weeble”. Remember those? “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down”? Yeah… that was her. In her honor I designed and had a tattoo inscribed on my back of a Scarab with wings. She taught me that it was the choices I made that not only determined my own destiny but affected the lives of others and by making the right choices you could literally change the world. Now, with the tattoo, she “has my back” so to speak. You see, since I was a kid I have had this fascination with Ancient Egypt and one of the first things that impressed me was learning one of their most basic philosophies… That one method for obtaining immortality was to leave behind something greater than yourself. That sort of echoed the things my grandmother was trying to teach me. And then I saw this movie called, “Pay It Forward” and I thought, yeah… and in my own small way I tried to follow these two principles. It started as silly but genuine ways. Singling out someone (or even a whole family) at a restaurant and secretly paying their tab… but you have to leave before they know it was you… That’s key. You can’t do it for recognition. Perhaps this is a novel concept for someone like you but when you do something for the purpose of ”receiving” or to “get back” something in return (like say, recognition or accolades) undermines the whole objective of “giving” and “paying it forward”.

Anyway, so here I was… out of work for a year and unable to find a job. Oh, I have looked. I went on literally hundreds of interviews. But, with the affects of your “stimulus/jobs bills” and such, there are thousands filling out applications for the six positions available each week so, needless to say, some of us are getting frustrated… Okay, maybe I am exaggerating on the number of available jobs out here. But not by much. I’ll bet if I use some of the creative math you used for that “jobs created saved” thing I could prove my numbers to be correct. But, since you haven’t shown us the formula yet, you’ll just have to take my word for it as well. So… I realize I am rambling but (unlike many of your speeches when you aren’t using your teleprompter) I do have a point here. Be patient.

As I was saying, this whole “pay it forward” concept has really been playing in my head lately, as well as that Egyptian philosophy of leaving something bigger than yourself behind… and then it dawned on me… Well, more like “consumed” me… nagged me… called to me… and while this was going on I got this hair-brained idea. Why not take some of the cash I have in the bank and use IT to make money… before it’s gone. Then one night I was watching one of my favorite shows about flipping houses, followed by another tear-rendering episodes of “Extreme House Makeover”… and it was like those moments you hear about… clouds parting/sunlight breaking through/angels singing… You know what I mean. Where your epiphany came when you found your calling to “fundamentally change” my country, mine was inspired as a means of undoing the damage caused by yours.

So, Mr. President. I am proud to announce the formation of my new company. Yep, I am staring my own business. No longer will I sit here feeling sorry for myself or wasting energy blaming you for my predicament. “When a door is closed, a window opens.” Instead, since you are in my way, I am going around you. May I present to you, “Khepri Company, Inc.”, or “Kheprico” for short. It is official yet. I am in the midst of filling all necessary paperwork and working on the website. But the principles are already in play and wonderful things are happening.

Remember that Scarab tattoo I told you about? It represents the Egyptian god named Khepri. That is my company logo now. In heiroglyphics, the scarab means, “to be transformed”. Pretty clever, ey? Not only does this honor the most influential person of my life it describes the purpose of the business. Yeah, part is to make a living. I have bills to pay… and there’s that insurance tab you’ve forced down my throat… Oh… by the way. I’m not doing it. Fine me if you want. I won’t pay it… Throw me in jail after, I don’t care. I think I will have a lot of company… Anyway…

I purchased my first house a month ago.

It was a foreclosure. Go figure. There are lots of those out here, in case you didn’t know. I wonder if Peggy Joseph still has her house… You remember her… that woman who attended one of your teleprompter readings and afterward, she wept with joy that she didn’t have to worry about putting gas in her car or paying her mortgage anymore… Yeah…

So, this house was a pit. It was vacant for about two years and it was the eyesore of the neighborhood. It’s small, around 900 square feet… but by opening up the enclosed porch…

(adding a door. venting some AC out there) we are now at about 1,200. The “transformation” has been incredible…

This is what one of the bathrooms looked like four weeks ago.

And this is what it looks like now.

But I’m not just talking about the house being transformed. I met the people to the right of the project. Chris and Cristina. They have another couple living with them… a couple who also are out of work and struggling. The man (also named) Chris use to make awnings. The house they live in was in need of some serious work as well but, with barely enough to support 4 adults and two children… groceries and utility bills came before landscaping and a new coat of paint.

When I first started out on this new adventure I had no clue how to make it work. All I had was the desire to make a living and a difference. Oddly enough, it has taken on that whole “If you build it/they will come” principle.

This is my brother, Ed.

He is a self-employed contractor in South Carolina – “Carolina Home Improvement”. He took time out of his schedule to contribute to the project. He renovated the kitchen.

After re-landscaping the flip for that “curb appeal” aspect I noticed how filthy the white picket-style vinyl fence was that belonged to Chris and Cristina, which ran between both properties up front. So, I pressure washed it. Looks new! The next day I noticed Cristina out raking her yard. She has a nice garden now too. And Chris (the awning maker) was out helping Chris (the owner) take down the dilapidated awnings from his house and making new ones with some reclaimed frames and some canvas that his former employer donated. My crew and I will be painting their house next week. Going to break out the grill, turn it into a party.

My “crew”? Well, there’s Jared.

He lives in the other end of the state but needs to find work here. His father has Diabetes and isn’t doing well so Jared wants to move closer to his family. I met Jared’s mom by chance at a cozy little Wine Bar we discovered a few months back called The Wine Toad… GREAT group of people…

Here are some of them with my brother, Ed

Visits there always wind up with a big cluster of people joining in and sitting around a growing table as we discuss current events and business opportunities and whatever pops into our heads while sharing a bottle of wine (or two… or… four).

And here is my brother (who never travels without his guitar) entertaining the gang.

Anyway…  my two newest crew members live just around the corner from the flip. Their names are Shannon and Kevin. They are out of work too… and, they just had a baby… who (as it turns out) has some health issues.

I met Shannon quite by chance as well. I was out back working in the yard and through the open garage door I heard someone calling. She was wheeling her newborn through the neighborhood trying to sell personal items to make money to buy diapers and formula. I hired her to help me clean and landscape the rest of the back yard. Her husband, Kevin? He is Jared’s new assistant. Kevin has absolutely no experience in renovating houses but we actually see this as a GOOD thing. You see, THIS way, Jared can spend his time training Kevin to do things the right way rather than spending it UNtraining bad carpentry/construction habits. Kevin is so excited. He only wanted a job… a chance to prove himself. The transformation in his self esteem alone is evident just in the way he stands there listening to what you want him to do next. Shannon, she is in charge of keeping the work site clear of clutter and cleaning rooms as they are finished. I am training her in the fine art of “staging” rooms for maximum visual affect. We have about one more week to go. Then Kheprico will be placing its first “transformation” back on the market. Then, we start all over again. I already have a good lead on another “pit”. Oh… and the neighbors to the left? Their names are Tim and Cheryl. We noticed them outside planting new gardens and spreading pine bark mulch and in the air could be heard the sweet chorus of several pressure washers. Most of these people have lived there for at least two years and had never met. Now they know each others names… and their stories. They talk to each other and are helping each other. Our Open House is scheduled for next Saturday and, as everything else, Kheprico will do things a bit differently. We are having a Bar-B-Que/Networking Party. I have invited many of the neighbors and some of the business owners from The Wine Toad as well as the gang (many of whom are business owners with contacts to a host of others)…. Oh yeah… and potential buyers will be able to meet and shake hands with their potential new neighbors while touring their potential new home with the very people who know every detail and every story of the home that took place during its renovation. Each room will have a easel with a poster displaying “before” shots and a list of everything that was done to produce what they see now including “during shots” of The Crew making the magic happen… and we are creating a book for the (as yet) unknown new owner(s) telling the whole story from each of our perspectives of how this project changed us is some way.

This is what the house looked like a week ago as the new roof was being put on.

So, you see, Mr. President. I am not angry at you anymore. I can’t be. It is because of your incompetence as the leader of my country that I have found what I am supposed to be doing… and it isn’t managing an office after all. I am doing what my grandmother taught me. I am making a difference and, in telling and demonstrating the lessons she taught me, I am teaching others to do the same thing… and they are paying it forward. Remember that silly thing I told you about… how I pay the tab for random strangers at restaurants? Well, we went back to one place where we had done that and the waitress who served us that day came over. She was in another area that day but she wanted to tell us what happened. When the people found out someone had paid their bill, they did the same thing… and so did the people THEY paid for. It went five tables that day! Isn’t that amazing?

So, you see, Mr. President, while you are out there trying to “fundamentally change” my country… I hate to tell you this but you are failing. In fact, as much as you think you are destroying the foundation this country was built upon you are actually making it stronger. People, who were once strangers, are now learning each others names and they are extending their hands to each other and we are joining together to create a bond that you can’t break. The harder you try, the stronger we will get and the tighter we will cling to each other. Some amazing and completely unexpected things are happening out here. I just thought I should warn you… and thank you. I for one am totally geeked… I have been enriched, empowered… and humbled as hell. Your arrogance use to bother me… the way you (and some of your supporters) seem to think yourself to be some sort of Messiah come to “fundamentally change” the world… But you are only feeding the outcome of your own Karma.  Even science backs up that little theory… “For every action will come an equal yet opposite reaction”, and (in your case)… I’d brace myself if I were you. You might think you are setting yourself up for some big returns on the investments you are making to tear this nation apart… But I promise you, Sir… you are wrong. “You reap what you sew”, “What goes around comes around”, “Karma”. Even Newton’s Law of Motion promises you that. But you aren’t paying attention. I know that… and that’s okay. I know you don’t realize that your Gravy Train is destined to derail. And, in the meantime, mine is finally on track… going in a direction I never anticipated to places I had never dreamed of. So… I guess it just goes to prove that the greater gifts and the most valuable rewards in this life are hardest to obtain because they have been set so high that the only way to reach them is from on your knees.

Sincerely,

Patricia Campion – Florida

“Good morning class.

Today we are going to have some fun with words.”

“This is Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is the woman who ran on the Republican ticket for Vice President of the United States and has now become an outspoken representative of the American People who are fed up with the out of control spending of our government in what is known as The American Tea Party. 

So, in honor of Sarah Palin, we are going to learn about palindromes. Unlike other words that get all jumbled up and make no sense when you look at them from another angle, PALINdromes are consistant no matter how you look at them. In other words palindromes spell the same thing backwards as they do forwards. For example…

“Isn’t that fun?……………Now class, can any of you give other fun examples of a palindrome?”

(children shout out other words – “tot”, “pop”, “nun”… One child says his dad’s name, “Bob” and another bright child even says “race car” is a palindrome.)

“Very good, class,” the teacher says proudly. ”Now, another interesting word that is not a palindrome but is just as much fun to play with is the word “eat”. ”Eat” is the only word in our English language where, if you take the first letter and move it to the end of the word, it spells the past tense of the same word…. See?

(The children “oooo” in wonder at learning “fun with words”.)

Then the teacher says:

“Another fun way to play with words is through “opposites. By changing the prefix of a word from PRO to CON, we can give that word an opposite meaning. So, if PRO is the opposite of CON… what would be the opposite of PROgress?”

“Now class, as you know, the school you attend is called a private school. Other schools are known as public schools. Can any of you tell me, in this case, what the difference is between private and public?”

“Yes, Bobby?”

“My mommy says, public school is where the government tells you what to learn and private means the government has to shut up.”

(snickers and laughs from the children – teacher smiles)

“Correct! Very good, Bobby.”

“Okay, class. Since we know that our president wants to take over our health care the same way he is trying to take over education,, what does that mean?………… Mary?”

 ”That would mean, if we get really sick… the government would tell us what doctor we can see and what treatment we can have and the people would have to shut up.”

(children stop laughing, fidget nervously - teacher smiles anyway)

“Excellent, Mary. So, since our president wants to take over your education, I am going to give you a very important spelling lesson before the government changes the rules of our English Language the way they have begun changing our American History……….. Okay?…………..Now…”

(Teacher writes the word American on the chalk board)

“This is the word, American.”

 ”Notice how the last four letters in American spells the words, I CAN. “

(children clap proudly)

“Now for another one,” the teacher says.

(Teacher erases “Amer” from the word and writes, “Republ” in its place.)

“This is the word, Republican.” 

“See how, just like in the word, American, the last four letters in Republican also spells..”

(The class shouts) 

“I CAN!”

“Very GOOD class!”

(children clap and cheer with great enthusiasm… except for one…)

“Well my mommy is a Democrat and she says Republicans should shut up.”

(Her classmates snicker and Teacher quiets them, giving the bratty darling child an endearing smile.)

“Well now that’s wonderful, Emily………….. Okay then………”

(… teacher turns and erases the word, Republican from the board and writes the word Democrats)

“Okay class. Now that we’ve learned that the last four letters in the word American and the word Republican spells “I CAN”… What do the last four letters of DEMOCRATS spell?”

(class explodes in laughter)

 ”… and, in honor of little Emily’s mom and her fellow Democrats, who are now giving American legal and civil rights to terrorists who are trying to kill us and who are going to use the 2010 Census to give American rights to illegal immigrants in order to add federal funding to their districts and add more democratic representatives for them in our Congress and grant them health care at the expense of American taxpayers in order to create a new base of voters in a lame attempt to salvage some prayer for victory in our next election, did you know that if you take the words illegal immigrants, and rearrange the letters… then add just a few more… it spells…

(class reads in unison as Teacher points to each word)

“Go home you cave-dwelling, freedom-crushing, bomb-making, homicidal maniacs and take those non-English speaking, ungratefgul, free-loading, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, cop-killing criminals with you.”

(Teacher smiles)

“I mean… How weird is that?”

(bell rings)

“Remember kids, leave your calculators at home tomorrow. We are going to learn Fun With Numbers through the new Democrat Job Saved/US Budget Math System.”

Class dismissed.

  In the spirit of Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, who, in a thoughtful demonstration of her concern for all Americans, took time from her busy schedule of kissing the president… … to demonstrate the government approved coughing procedure for prevention of the spread of H1N1:

Here… …. and here…………

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, (although quite busy in her struggles to shove pass Health Care down our throats) and therefore, having some difficulty in acknowledging this:… and this………

And this……

… has graciously provided us with one of her staffers to demonstrate the proper 2-Step procedure for preventing the spread of reality through the Great Right Wing Conspiracy to your home, her office and amongst those in her party who continue to insist “we will have health care, one way or another”.

This has been a Public Service Announcement, courtesy of your New World Parents in the democratic party.

UPDATE – In her weekly briefing on Capitol Hill, Pelosi seemed encouraged about passing health reform: “Our members are very excited about what comes next,” but she cautioned, “Every legislative vote is a heavy lift around here, assume nothing.”

“… heavy lift…”

Yeah…

Undaunted by set-backs, Pelosi says the American people need to know more about what she called “total obstruction” by the Republican Party in the Senate… You know, the minority Republicans (conspiring with democrats in her party) who seem hesitant to vote against  over 70% of the American people who have made it clear they don’t WANT what she offers. Referring to Sen. Jim Bunning‘s hold-up of unemployment benefits earlier this week by insisting she follow the rules, Pelosi said, “It’s not about rules, it’s about a decision they’ve made to obstruct (our plans by trying to make us follow the rules*).”

(* – clarification mine)

So, to dispell any rumors that Democrats are in crisis over all of these recent losses, failures and pending ethics investigations… simply repeat the above 2-Step protocol for Health Care Obstruction Resistance and everything will be juuuuust fine.

Obama and his Clueless Wonders have gone beyond comical and are wading about neck-deep in just plain hysterical now. From an inability to “show us the math” on “jobs saved” to the blatant refusal to admit their plans to use the hoax called global warming as the fear catalist to justify taxing the hell out of Americans… In honor of Rahm Enanuel’s admitted tactic to “never let a crisis go to waste” because “it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before”, White House economic adviser Larry (with the ironic last name of) Summers is using the record breaking cold and snow of this winter (a by-product of global warming, ya know) to do something the Obama administration ”couldn’t do before”… explain the annoying rise in unemployment numbers, which have consistantly contradicted Obama’s repeated assurance that he has brought us back from the brink.

You have to admit, while irritating as hell, it is a clever manouver… use the contradicting evidence against one hoax to explain another… I mean, like Kevin (hacked email victim – University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit) Trenberth said, “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it’s a travesty that we can’t”… In a moment of pure idiocy brilliance, Mr. Summers uses Trenberth’s inability to account for temperatures going down, not up to account for why unemployment numbers are going up instead of down.

I know it’s confusing but I think that’s the whole point. Toss out a bunch of mumbo-jumbo at the people asking too many questions. Move the Distraction Shells with blinding speed… keep the Truth Nut hidden… get them scratching their heads instead of pointing fingers… Like Mr. Summers for example (translations, mine):

The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics. So it’s going to be very important … to look past whatever the next figures are (ie: ignore reality) to gauge the underlying trends (that we can’t explain)…”

… then quickly change the subject. Mention another pending crisis you can’t let go to waste are working on… like, that the United States is closely monitoring Greece’s debt problems and imply that the point is to avoid our own economic collapse. It is important to give your implication of crisis/concern credibility so you have to drop big names and that assure people that because of this important person’s efforts, we will be saved (again)… U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, for example. Just say he is on the job and that he is ”encouraged by what he had heard from European officials”. And make sure you say it with a stern and convincing tone. This way, you can make people believe that “encouraged” means his plan is to use their example to avoid our own economic collapse when the truth is he is “encouraged” by learning a proven formula that works better than his to ruin our economy the same way!

I tell you, I am impressed, particularly with how well they have learned to say all of this bull with a straight face. Obama uses the “deep thought/I’m serious/scrunchy brow thing”… Pelosi uses the “point my bent claw-finger” or the “blink up a tear” thing. “Nobody messes with Joe” Biden uses “foot-in-the-mouth humor” and Harry Reid…. well… he just verbally rambles out across the Nevada desert until he’s lost and we fall asleep. All good tools, effective in lulling their base into a “can’t think for myself coma”, and their political anesthesiologists in the media keep the gas flowing, repeating (verbatim) the daily (faxed) talking points to keep their patients in la-la land and unaware that the brain-enlightenment sugery for which they have signed a Consent/Liability Release Form is actually for a lobotomy.

I could go on to their juggling act called Obamacare… But that’s another circus altogether.

I wrote a post not long ago wherein I compared the difficulty of trying to throw away a trash can with the challenges of getting Al Gore and his Global Warming Fanatics to either admit their “settled science” has been proven to be a hoax or to just shut up altogether and let us get on with our lives.

Well, no such luck. On February 27th, Al Gore came out of his self-imposed hibernation to assure us (through an op-ed in the New York Times) that, in spite of the mounting contradictory evidence, the falsified data, the admissions of publishing intentionally misleading or outright inaccurate reports, the resignations of those highest on the Global Warming Totum Pole and the pending threats of investigations and legal actions against those perpetuating the hoax… “We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change”.

Yeah, good old Al takes it all on, one embarrassing revelation after the next, in what amounts to a pitiful and cowardly attempt to salvage what little (if any) credibility he has left. He begins:

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it. 

First of all, it has been an enormous relief… and not so much because the recent (and successful) attacks on your fake science of global warming actually HAS indicated we are NOT facing “an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventative measures to protect human civilization as we know it”… but because we very much looked forward to the silence we hoped would follow after these many layers of “gotcha duct-tape” had been slapped across your mouth. But no… here you are again, giving us a lame (and frankly, insulting) attempt to deny the mounting evidence against your cause, to discredit the admissions of the guilty and to make an arrogant attempt to climb back on top of your crumbling, self-erected pedestal. Have you no shame, sir? You want to talk about some serious ”unimaginable calamity”? Are you aware that it is your campaign to “protect human civilization”, while originally just ridiculous and annoying, that is now the direct cause of the needless end of human life? What… You didn’t hear about that? Perhaps not. You see, your loyal supporters in the media ignored the story… I guess it didn’t quite fit into your whole “keep global warming alive” agenda… but it WAS reported in the UK’s Telegraph: 

Francisco Lotero, 56, and Miriam Coletti, 23, shot their daughter and her toddler brother before killing themselves.

Their son Francisco, two, died instantly after being hit in the back.

But by the Grace of God alone did their 7-month old daughter survive… after the bullet to her chest, fired by her father, missed her vital organs… She laid there… bleeding… next to the dead bodies of her family… for three days… for three, damn, days before neighbors found her.

Excuse me… what? How is this your fault, you ask?

Her parents said they feared the effects of global warming in a suicide note discovered by police. 

Just go away, Al.

Please… just go away.

You know the commercial… where the geeky-looking Orbitz guy tosses the keys to his hovercraft to the Valet while awkwardly stumbling over the Hispanic last name of the couple he is greeting. You can still view the original commercial here.

 It was funny… with emphasis on the word, “was”. You see, that version of the commercial isn’t used anymore. I noticed the edit right away. The last “es” has been removed. It’s just “Hernandezes” now. My boyfriend noticed the change as well and immediately I suggested, someone out there took offense to the humor and demanded that the humor be removed… and Orbitz caved. Now, the once humorously memorable spot is just another commercial… another victim of the “You can’t have fun” police. So, out of curiosity I took a little look/see through the internet and I discovered in short order that we were not the only ones who noticed.

Opinionopolis.com writes:

One of the most-aired, but somehow least-annoying commercials on is the Orbitz.com “Valet” spot: where the Orbitz Guy exits his hovercraft, thows the keys to the valet, and says “Ah… the Hernandez..ez..es..es..” to a surprised Hispanic-lite couple.

“Hispanic-lite”?

First of all, I never felt that the humor in this commercial was directed at the ethnicity of the couple but rather aimed rather at every-day people of ANY sexual, religious or ethnic origin who have difficulty pronouncing certain words. “Alunimum” and “ciminum”, for examples. In their discussion of this matter on YahooAnswers, most bloggers spent a greater deal of time debating whether or not the couple in the commercial even LOOK Hispanic with some suggesting they look more Irish/Italian. More evidence that the humor people found in this commercial was in poking a bit of light-hearted humor at the linguistically challenged who struggle with making an already plural word plural again than being directed at the ethnicity of the couple themselves. And, there wasn’t an uprising of ridicule and anger among people in that the Hovercraft driver who flubs the Hispanic name is potentially of Polish decent…

In the case of the “Hernandez…es..es” controversy, Opinionopolis agrees with me in the intent of the humor:

It’s subtle, but it’s a great opening. It’s a small, but ultimately pretty funny joke at the expense of trying to make a last name that is already plural, plural.

It’s something we’ve all stumbled with, and chuckled about, at some point in our lives. And it’s exactly the same as making the last name “James”, or any other word that ends in “s” or “z” plural.

Would the last name of “James…es…es” have conjured a such demand for “change”? And, whose commercial are we talking about here anyway?… Why, it’s ”Orbitz…es…es”, of course.

AdFreak.com writes:

Reports are coming in from outraged viewers that Orbitz has edited the commercial above to remove the hovercraft man’s comical flubbing of the name Hernandez in his attempt to pluralize it.

After quite as bit of rock-turning I have found that, not only have others noticed the change in the commercial, there are far more people outraged by this uncerimonious edit than were offended by the originial version.

YahooAnswers has a host of bloggers venting their anger over the thin-skinned letter writers who seem to have an inability to laugh at themselves as humans. A blogger on Comercialsihate.com sums up the feelings of most people who have made comment on this PC Commercial Invasion:

“Is everything off limits today? No one is allowed to chuckle anymore. I was disappointed to see that Orbitz took out the little comedic flare to the commercial with the Hernandezes, es, es.”

Orbitz commercials are in a unique category as they have inspired a loyal following, a following of people who notice any changes in their favorite spots. In another commercial where three men are approached by the Hovercraft Man on a golf course, one man asks why he didn’t just mail the $10.00 refund check. “We have a hovercraft,” he replied. In the new-and-improved(?) version, he says, “Because we have a hovercraft”—a small tweak that Orbitz Commercial Fans say ”ruined the whole damn thing”. The enjoyment of the Orbitz commercials to these fans hinges on little details like this. It is the removal of an extra “es” or the addition of an unnecessary “because” and not the ethnicity of anyone appearing in the spots that determine whether or not the moment is “funny”. But for some reason there are a small group of people out there who think that if someone is laughing it must be at their expense. One Hispanic blogger on Blogodara.com, in order to voice their anger over the mispronounced name in the commercial launches into a name-calling/threat laced tirade aimed not only at the rest of the bloggers and anyone one else who liked the commercial but toward the United States in general.

Oh, I see what the lunatic right wing fringe is up to now! They’re flooding internet websites dealing with social issues with racist, Limbaugh/Beck ditto-headed bull to create the false impression that America no longer cares about the concerns and grievances of its minorities and “doing the right thing”! That commercial was as insensitive, crass, and ignorant as the majority of people posting here. You don’t win new customers buy insulting them (And get over it. America will be a Hispanic nation just like the vast majority of other nations in this hemisphere in another 50 years — that is if the racists like the ones posting here haven’t destroyed it first! Orbitz was stupid to think that by appealing to hillbilly Republikooks they would boost business. I am glad they “fixed” that commercial. Take that you transparent devils!

No, you don’t “win new customers by insulting them”, just as you don’t win your argument of insensitivity by name-calling, insulting and threatening a take-over of the very country of anyone who doesn’t agree with you.

Opinionopolis also informs us that the inclusion of the stumbling over the name “Hernandez…es…es”  is what those in the advertising industry refer to as “truism”, the portrayal of a common experience, which endears viewers to your commercial. They explain that commercials and even entire ad campaigns like “Just Do It” are awash in “truism” but that most commercials are bland and unmemorable due to an inability to connect with its audience on a purely human level and, therefore, they simply fade into the woodwork.

A look. A unique line delivery. A perfectly-cast bit player with a strange face. Or, more often, as in this case, a seemingly “throw away” line, that people like. And remember.

Orbitz’s (“..ez..es..es…”) removal of this small-but-powerful moment is a big deal. Not because it made a pleasantly decent spot bad (it did), but because it’s a symptom of a bigger, more nefarious issue: Political Correctness.

Frankly, I am getting a bit tired of the Fun Police. Actually, I am a LOT tired. I am overly/worn out/sick AND tired of allowing “the generally always unhappy few” to have the power to take away the rights of the “typically always laid-back majority” to eat what we want, wear what we want or to even say “God” in our pledge of alegiance or wish for someone a ”Merry Christmas”. But even more frustrating is to be subjected to the chronic misery of the uber-uptight who, in their inability to laugh, refuse to allow (or even try to make it illegal for) others to enjoy a little bit of humor in recognizing those innocent moments of mutual, imperfect silliness that binds us all together as humans.

So, in the end, it is that poor Valet guy with whom we now identify when it comes to parking the PC Bus. The “truism” lies in our inability to steer with skill and confidence the unfamiliar hover-craft called, Our Rights. Put a few obsticals in our way and we go off crashing like a chromed orb in a Pin-Ball machine… Maybe, in these days of the chronic, PC Traffic Jams, it’s time we enroll in a Defensive Driving Course, lest our attempts to drive the Freedoms Vehicle be met with the words of the Hovercraft Man.

“How’s he doing… I don’t want to look.”

Seriously… Have you? I have… and I can tell you it’s dang-near impossible.

I once had one of those square, RubberMiad jobbies with the handles that doubled as locks for the lid and wheels to make the trip to the curb a lot easier. But, with the low-rider wheels the bottom edge on the other side would often drag on the cement driveway and eventually it gave way to a hole. Over time, the hole got bigger, creating an open seam on the entire edge of the plastic can… and the open edge sagged beneath the weight of the can’s contents, allowing the garbage bag inside to scrape ground… to open… and to leave a trail of coffee grounds, egg shells and other debris along the way back to the curb. The sagging bottom caused stress on the corners and the open edge on the bottom began to send cracks up the sides. It was time to throw it away.

• Trash Day #1 – Dragged the empty, broken can to the curb with it’s lid locked to the top and stood it next to another. The next morning after pick-up… both cans were still there.
• Trash Day #2 – Dragged the empty, broken trash can back to the curb with the other but this time turned the broken can over to reveal the broken bottom. The next morning… both cans… still there.
• Trash Day #3 – Dragged broken can back to the curb and propped the broken can on TOP of the other. The next day… both… still there.
• Trash Day #4 -  Dragged broken can to the curb… again… with tin snips. I cut the plastic can into pieces, stuffed the parts into the other can and propped the lid on top of the other lid. The next day… the pieces of the broken can had been hauled off… but its lid was on the ground next to the other can…

Where is all of this going?

From day one we have been trying to throw away the Global Warming Trash Can. Not only did we see the hole in the bottom we pointed it out to them when they first tried to sell it to us in the form of Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth.  But the Environmental Sanitation Engineers refused to take it. They refused to acknowledge the hole in the bottom and that we didn’t want it, forcing us to keep it and to maintain space for it in our lives and in our garages as they carried on about their duties to rid our neighborhoods and thus, our world, of trash. They even brought additional containers in which we were forced to separate our trash… “plastic”, “glass”, “paper”… In some states, yard waste was to be placed in clear, plastic, bio-degradable bags… which one could purchase from the city… for a fee… Back in Michigan the rules were so strict one nearly had to sanitize and alphabetize ones garbage or one would find the improperly catogorized trash still sitting at ones curb with a brightly colored rejection sticker affixed bearing intstuctions for proper “shipping and handling”. Where once there was one truck making its rounds on trash day… now there was a convoy of diesel belching utility vehicles… all in the name of a cleaner planet. The “hole” was getting bigger. Back then we called it “hypocrisy”.

When Al and his loyal anterage weren’t touring the world (in private jets) promoting his movie and preaching of the many ways we needed to adjust our lives to save the planet, he was at his house, which guzzled 20 times the amount of energy of the average American home. Entertainers took up the torch as well. Live Earth concerts, meant to encourage people to fight global warming, created mountains of trash and thousands of tons of greenhouse gases. 

Al won an Emmy, an Oscar and a Nobel… His answer to these invonvenient embarrassments problems? Carbon Credits. He bought them, encouraged us to do the same… from a (cough-cough) companyheowned (cough/ahem)…

The sides of the trash can were beginning to rip open…

Dr. Phil Jones, the director of the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit, was the target of a hacker who exposed incriminating evidence of a conspiracy to intentionally hide detrimental information from the public that disproved their theory of global warming.

One of the most damning e-mails published comes from Dr. Jones himself.  In an e-mail from almost exactly ten years ago, Jones appears to discuss a method of overlaying data of temperature declines with repetitive, false data of higher temperatures.

So now the bottom of the trash can is sagging down and the bags inside are tearing open and that trail of coffee grounds, egg shells and some other foul-smelling ooze is streaked down the length of the driveway…

In spite of the catastrophic predictions that we would see an increase in hurricanes, we would all be fried to crispy-critters as the earth’s temperature soared and sea levels would rise due to melting polar ice caps … We have had significantly fewer storms, record cold and snow is covering the planet and the Scientists (Mark Siddall, Thomas Stocker and Peter Clark) who published a paper predicting that sea levels would rise by as much as 2.7 feet by the end of the twenty-first century due to global warming were forced to retract their claims after elements of falsified data errors were discovered that supported undermined the results they wanted. The response of Mark Siddall after being caught ?:

 ”It’s one of those things that happens. People make mistakes and mistakes happen in science.”

Yeah… . No biggie. It’s just, “one of those things”.

“Retraction is a regular part of the publication process,” he added in his own defense. Yeah… retraction IS a regular part of the publication process for you guys lately, especially when you keep getting caught altering or outright faking data for the purpose of supporting a hoax theory that has direct influence on personal freedoms and a global economy. “Science is a complicated game,” he said further. (Isn’t it cute how people who have been caught lying feel compelled to keep talking?) Actually, Mr. Siddall, it is FAKING “science” that is a “complicated game”, sir… Although the research and tests to acquire real scientific knowledge is an arduous and time consuming task, the end results are usually (like “Occam’s Razor” – also called the law of economy) found to be quite simplistic, that “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity” and of “conclusions”, the simplest explanation or strategy tends to be the best one.  And yes, there are “set procedures in place that act as checks and balances.”  It’s called “common sense”… and lately, ”snow“, the latter, which (like your global warming lies) requires a shovel to be removed.

But still, in spite of our many efforts to throw away the crumbling global warming trash can, the EnvironmentalSanitation Department refuses to take it away. So… we’ve broke out the tin snips and have gleefully begun its dismemberment.

On February 23rd, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) challenged the Obama administration to investigate these matters of research misconduct and possible criminal actions by the scientists involved in what he calls “the greatest scientific scandal of our generation”. He requests specifically that the investigation by the Department of Justice include scrutiny of the activities of Dr. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, Dr. James Hansen of Columbia University and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Mr. Inhofe believes that the threat of possible criminal charges would act as incentive to inspire some of the people involved to spill the proverbial beans in order to gain immunity…

Mr. Inhofe also suggests that since, “every assertion has been rebutted,” that Al should be dragged out of hiding and called back before the Senate to defend himself and his “science fiction movie” before Congress.

Have you ever tried to throw away a trash can? I have… and I can tell you (just like trying to get rid of Al and his “consensus” of “man-made global warming/settled science”), it’s dang near impossible.

But maybe there’s an alternative…

In the beginning, the “Ode to Obama” was united and strong. The passion of his supporters, under the artful direction of the conductors in the mainstream media, was fueled to a raging fire, which lifted their chosen savior to such a vaulted place that nothing earthly could touch him. He was “The One”, “The Messiah”. Women fainted, children were taught to sing praises to his name and high priests of the Political, Religious and Entertainment churches rose to fan the flames of faith in “Hope and Change”…

Barack Obama is “a leader that God has blessed us with at this time.”- Nancy Pelosi

“When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking.” – Louis Farrakhan

Obama has the “gift of wisdom,” and a “tongue dipped in unvarnished truth.” – Oprah

In a post of long ago, I shared my own thoughts regarding what I saw as the Political Palm Sunday of Barack Obama… and I hinted of the danger and “The Trouble in Being a Messiah…”

“And they brought the colt to Jesus and cast their garments on him, and He sat upon him. And many spread their garments upon the way, and others cut down branches off the trees and strewed them upon the way. And those who went before, and those who followed, cried, saying, “Hosanna! Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord!” – Mark 11:7-9

… and we all know what happened three days later.

 Well, it has been a year and, while the choir is still singing, there is a noteable decline in their volume. There is less passion in the fewer voices and there are increasing numbers of sour notes as the media conductors grow weary and less confident… angry in the waving of their batons. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not so naive to believe that the media’s discontent is altruistic by any means. The new lean to Judas from faithful deciple is not born of the cries of the masses who are suffering beneath the rule of The One. It is not a revolt against his arrogance as he tells us to tighten our belts and stop going to Vegas while he eats Kobe Beef and jets off to play golf in Hawaii. It comes not from the broken promisses to his American subjects or the rest of the wretched world that “generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal… This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation.” Arrogance was something they had in common with The One and it was from the milk of their own, they fed his. No, the tide of adoration for The One has turned for one reason and one reason only… The One’s arrogance has grown so fat it no longer leaves room for them. Where Barack once sought them out and embraced them, he now avoids them and refuses to grant them pressence.

For his first year, Barack Obama holds 4th place for the number of solo press conferences. He is tied with George Bush in that 63% have been held in tandum with leaders from other countries and Obama takes home the proverbial Gold for holding court with members of the press outside of the United States.

The fires are lit… the cauldron is starting to boil…

For a long time, the gods of the mainstream media considered themselves to be not on the same but rather a higher level than those in politics, entertainment and certainly above the ignorant and stupid living in the private sector… for they are the Great Annointers. It is they who have the power to lift up or crush the aspirations of any mortal by expressing disapproval or favor in the weilding of their verbal swords… and the fastest way to earn their scorn is through what they see as the great blasphemy of failing to recognize their exhaulted status. It is THAT sin, the crossing of THAT line, through which The One will surely bring about his Good Friday.

And so, from the Associated Press, it has begun:

For all of its talk about transparency, the White House shut out the press Thursday when President Barack Obama met with the Dalai Lama.

Traditionally, when a high-profile foreign dignitary meets with the president, photographers and reporters are granted opportunity before the private Oval Office chat to ask questions and take pictures. Instead, for his meeting with the Dali Lama, a meeting which China (the holders of the majority of our debt) adamantly opposed, Obama chose to meet privately in the Map Room on the ground floor of the White House… and the press was not allowed inside. To further the insult, Press secretary Robert Gibbs stepped out to toss them a few bones… issuing a brief statement after the event and (like handing a kid a quarter for the gum-ball machine) they have been given the link to a website where they could go to get the single in-house photo approved for them to have of the two leaders.

Yes, for the most part, past presidents have also kept their encounters with the Dalai Lama private. But Kelly McBride, leader of the Poynter Institute’s ethics group, said it’s hard for the Obama administration to balance pledges of transparency with their effort to control media coverage.

Well, the Associated Press has declined to distribute the token, White House photo. The AP’s policy bars distribution of “handout photos” when they feel snubbed.

“Government-controlled coverage is not acceptable in societies that promote freedom,” said Kathleen Carroll, executive editor of the AP. “And that is why we do not distribute government handouts of events that we believe should be open to the press and therefore the public at large.”

So, today, on Drudge, the AP chose to release their own photo of the Dali Lama… the one they snapped as the Tibetan spiritual leader was being escorted out the back door of the White House Palm Room… walking across the wet, snow-slushed porch in his robes and sandals… past the stacks of garbage bags… What the photo does not show were the gifts, which The One, in his consistently familiar gift giving finesse, bestowed upon the man who lives by a vow of self-imposed poverty… cuff-links and a presidential golf ball…

Indeed… As it was known all too well by the TRUE Messiah, the adoration of worshipers can be a fickle thing. One day they give you a parade and see you as their savior who has come to heal our broken souls and lift from us the burdens of filling our gas tanks and paying our mortgages… and yes, to heal the very earth itself… Unfortunately, “The Trouble with being a Messiah is….” when you do not live up to their expectations, they turn on you, yank you from your donkey and start sizing you for a cross…

The U.N. nuclear agency has finally expressed “concern for the first time” that Iran may be working on ways to turn enriched uranium into a nuclear warhead after all.

No… really?

Yesterday, Hillary said, “Obviously, we don’t want Iran to become a nuclear weapons power, but we are not planning anything other than going for sanctions.”

(Yeah… THAT’LL scare ‘em. It sure got ‘em to stop enriching uranium, ey?)

“What we are focusing on is trying to change Iranian behavior, and the international community has been united in trying to send a message to Iran that it is time for it to clarify its intentions.”

“… time for it to clarify it’s intentions…”

Ummmm… How ’bout this?

•       “Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury,”
•       “…no doubt the new wave [of attacks] in Palestine will soon wipe off this disgraceful blot from the face of the Islamic world.”
• “The wave of the Islamic revolution will soon reach the entire world.”
• “The United States has the power to cause harm and pain. But the United States is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if that is the path that the U.S. wishes to choose, let the ball roll,”
•  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Iran would, “give all arrogant powers a punch in the mouth”.
• “With God’s help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine . . . By God’s will, we will witness the destruction of this regime in the near future.”
• “Remove Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations.”
• “The skirmishes in the occupied land are part of a war of destiny. The outcome of hundreds of years of war will be defined in Palestinian land. As the Imam said, Israel must be wiped off the map.”
• “If the West does not support Israel, this regime will be toppled. As it has lost its raison d’ tre, Israel will be annihilated.”
• “Thanks to people’s wishes and God’s will the trend for the existence of the Zionist regime is downwards and this is what God has promised and what all nations want…Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist, so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out”
• “Israel is destined for destruction and will soon disappear….a contradiction to nature, we foresee its rapid disappearance and destruction.”
• “Israel is a tyrannical regime that will one day will be destroyed.”
• “Israel is a rotten, dried tree that will be annihilated in one storm.”
• A new Middle East will prevail without the existence of Israel.”
• “The Zionist regime is counterfeit and illegitimate and cannot survive”

Clear enough yet?

How about all of those facilities where they are enriching uranium?

No? Intentions still not clear enough?

Hillary added:

“We want to try to get the strongest sanctions we can out of the United Nations Security Council…mostly to influence their decision-making.”

Influence their decision making….? Excuse me? You gonna threaten them with MORE SANCTIONS? Gonna yell at ‘em, say some “strong words” like your hubby? Pssst…. How do you come up with a threat to “influence” someone who is willing to DIE IN THEIR EFFORT TO KILL YOU???

Yo… Hillary… You still think it’s time for Iran to “clarify it’s intentions”?

What are you waiting for?….

THIS?

The FBI issues a statement that there is no indication the incident was an act of terrorism….

Then again, they issued the same statement immediately following the incident at Fort Hood… also in Texas. I hope, this time, they are right.

Please pray for those who were in the building and for their families.

UPDATE:

The National Transportation Safety Board says:

The pilot set his house on fire before taking flight and “this may have been an intentional act”.

I am curious, since they obviously know the identity of ”the pilot” as they have reported he set his house on fire before taking off… Why are they not releasing the name of the pilot?

2nd UPDATE:

Pilot’s name was: Joseph Andrew Stack

3rd UPDATE:

Joe Weisenthal of Business Insider has discovered a morbidly curious rant on EmbeddedArt.com (which Mr. Weisenthal calls “ The Insane Manifesto Of Austin Texas Crash Pilot Joseph Andrew Stack”), which is signed:

Joe Stack (1956-2010)

02/18/2010

The above link now appears to be “broken”… So here’s the link where he Smoking Gun has the complete text of the Manifesto posted.

FOX News just confirmed that the 12-year old daughter of Joseph Stack said her father did set the house on fire. Neighbors confirm that the fire was set with the wife and daughter INSIDE. The “explosion” blew out windows in nearby houses and it was neighbors who rescued the wife and daughter from the burning house.

FOX News now calling “Manifesto” a “suicide note”, which is currently going viral in the internet. Stack is confirmed dead. Officials say “Manifesto WAS from Stack, in which he rails against the IRS.

Obama just signed an executive order to create a Debt Commission aimed at reducing “red ink”… OH yeah… I kid you not. In (yet another speech/photo op) he even said, “The federal budget has exploded.”… Yep… just watched it on FOX… saw his lips moving… heard the words… (watched bobble-head Joe in the background)…and my first thought was… “Well, no duh!”… followed by… “And who do you think was responsible for that? Mr. President… sir? If you were so serious about reducing the national debt… why didn’t you come up with this little idea BEFORE you RAISED the national debt ceiling by another $2 Trillion dollars? Why are you seeking another Stimulus Jobs Bill while repeatedly telling us how successful the FIRST one was? Why are you still pushing to nationalize our Health Care? Why are you still pushing for climate legislation after it has been proven to be a hoax? Why are you trying to nationalize student loans? Why aren’t you slapping Nancy Pelosi around for her excessive travel/booze expenses for her family……. and how much is this “deficit commision” gonna cost us?……………………………..Why are you……………………..

Excuse me….. I think I just threw up in my mouth…………

Hailing the success of his great Stimulou Bill, Obama said:

“I’m grateful that congress agreed to my request that the bill include no earmarks…”

(snicker)

“That all projects receive funding based solely on their merits…”

(giggle/snicker)

“And despite that…, I was still concerned, Joe and I were just talking in the back… when this thing passed we said $787 Billion Dollars… somewhere, there’s gonna be some story…. of… some money… that…. ended up… being misspent. $787 Billion dollars being spent out over 18 months that’s, that’s a lot… that’s a lot of money. And it is a testimony… to Vice President Biden and his team… that… as Joe puts it, that the dog so far hasn’t barked…”

Okay… THAT’S it!

Ahem: Aside from the $1,047.00 lawn mower that was reported to have saved 50 jobs in Arkansas to that $6.8 Billion that went to create jobs in districts that do not even exist to the $350K in IPods for parents who fill out an on-line survey in Florida, we have the following:

$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
$380 million in the Senate bill for the Women, Infants and Children program
$300 million for grants to combat violence against women
$2 billion for federal child-care block grants
$6 billion for university building projects
$15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships
$4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion for “youths” up to age 24
$1 billion for community-development block grants
$4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”
$650 million for digital-TV coupons; $90 million to educate “vulnerable populations”
$150 million for the Smithsonian
$34 million to renovate the Department of Commerce headquarters
$500 million for improvement projects for National Institutes of Health facilities
$44 million for repairs to Department of Agriculture headquarters
$350 million for Agriculture Department computers
$88 million to help move the Public Health Service into a new building
$448 million for constructing a new Homeland Security Department headquarters
$600 million to convert the federal auto fleet to hybrids
$450 million for NASA (carve-out for “climate-research missions”)
$600 million for NOAA (carve-out for “climate modeling”)
$1 billion for the Census Bureau
$89 billion for Medicaid
$30 billion for COBRA insurance extension
$36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits
$20 billion for food stamps
$4.5 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
$850 million for Amtrak
$87 million for a polar icebreaking ship
$1.7 billion for the National Park System
$55 million for Historic Preservation Fund
$7.6 billion for “rural community advancement programs”
$150 million for agricultural-commodity purchases
$150 million for “producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish”
$2 billion for renewable-energy research ($400 million for global-warming research)
$2 billion for a “clean coal” power plant in Illinois
$6.2 billion for the Weatherization Assistance Program
$3.5 billion for energy-efficiency and conservation block grants
$3.4 billion for the State Energy Program
$200 million for state and local electric-transport projects
$300 million for energy-efficient-appliance rebate programs
$400 million for hybrid cars for state and local governments
$1 billion for the manufacturing of advanced batteries
$1.5 billion for green-technology loan guarantees
$8 billion for innovative-technology loan-guarantee program
$2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects
$4.5 billion for electricity grid
$79 billion for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund

Hmmmm…

And a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted last month found that three out of four Americans believe that half of the money spent in the federal stimulus plan has been wasted and that 63% thinks that projects in the plan were included for purely political reasons and will have no economic benefit, with 36 percent saying those projects will benefit the economy.

So, who is Obama trying to convince…? Us, or himself? Of course, he could have just asked Joe how he felt.

“We know some of this money is going to be wasted,”

Awww… say it isn’t so, Joe.

From Reuters:

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden launched a sweeping effort to convince skeptical Americans that the stimulus has been beneficial on the one-year anniversary of a plan that was pushed through the U.S. Congress by Democratic majorities.

Too bad that only 6% of Americans are buying that.

Addressing the joint session of Congress around this time last year, Obama promised:

My administration has also begun to go line by line through the federal budget in order to eliminate wasteful and ineffective programs. 

Soooo… can he please explain why over $3.5 billion in economic stimulous funds are going to programs that he wants to eliminate or trim in his new budget?

Today Obama says:

“Our work is far from over but we have rescued this economy from the worst of this crisis,”

Sooo, why is Joe telling us, “Washington right now is broken”, “I’ve never seen it this dysfunctional,” and the country is in “deep trouble” unless it attacks ballooning federal deficits.

I mean, you can’t pay someone to write better comedy than this.

In spite of all evidence to the contrary, Obama repeatedly insists that, because of him, we have been saved. While giving yet another speech, this time at a democratic findraiser in Miami, Florida, Barack said “prominant” economists from both sides of the economic spectrum were warning that America was ripe for another “great depression” and he wanted to address the rising fears that “things might start spinning out of control”, explaining:

… that’s why, working with Nancy Pelosi and the other Members of Congress here, we acted so swiftly and we acted so boldly to pass a Recovery Act that has pulled us back from the brink.

And Obama went on to say that, although he usually doesn’t try to “do a tally” of what he has accomplished… he followed with (yet another), “tally of what it was” that he has accomplished.

Then again, we know how Barack loves to talk about himself while reminding us, “This isn’t about me.”

And… maybe it’s just me and my twisted sense of humor but… I find it sort of funny that (in the wake of the economic arson they have wrought upon our country) Barack Obama and (more specifically) Joe Biden, would not see the irony of kicking off their One Year Stimulous Anniversary Party on Ash Wednesday with a photo like this:

Remember back when George Bush was in the White House… (pause… *** sigh *** “Miss me yet?”)
Back then, the liberal media seemed to have a morbid fascination with digging up stories about the homeless, mostly in an attempt to disprove the legitimacy of a report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development before Congress that the rate of homelessness was actually going down under George Bush.

In 2003, TIME wrote a piece slamming George Bush for his “freak-show economy in which unemployment has reached 6%” and whinning about how if the democrats were in charge things would be different:

“…there’s little appetite in Washington for the large-scale solutions the Democrats have been advocating for 40 years: creating affordable housing and strengthening programs that attack the causes of poverty by finding people jobs, teaching them skills, giving them transportation to jobs, getting them off drugs, providing medical care–essentially trying to fix entire lives.”

In 2008, TIME wrote:

…overall homeless numbers, taken from a one-day national count in January, were down 12% from 2005 to 2007, to just under 672,000 people, most of whom were on the streets only temporarily. Chronic homelessness is down even more, almost 30% lower than in 2005, from 175,000 to fewer than 125,000.

But they quickly tell you that this number is not real… It’s faked, brough about by the Bush administration’s redefinition of the word, “homeless” and their new system in counting…

Well, now democrats ARE in charge… WAY in charge… So, where is TIME’s ardent criticisms of Obama’s “freakier” economic show and their opinions on having unemployment hovering around 10%… and where is their mockery of how the Obama administration’s creative method in counting the ”unemployed” is what keeps the number from edging closer to 20%?

Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that current homelessness in rural and suburban America is straining shelters and that families who have never before sought government help are flooding the gates for assistance.

“We see a spiral in food stamps, heating assistance applications,” said Greg Blass, Commissioner of Social Services in Suffolk County on eastern Long Island. ”Medicaid is skyrocketing. It is truly reaching a stage of being alarming.”

Greta Guarton, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk Coalition for the Homeless on Long Island said, “One of the things that we’ve noticed is a lot more unsheltered, mostly men who claim this is the first time they’ve been homeless, who indicate that it’s due to a loss of wages or loss of job, because of the economy.”

Again… where is the media in holding Barack Obama accountable? Where is the outrage?

And why haven’t they shown you this?

This little reported event took place back in December, strung up one night over a fence near one of the many homeless tent cities popping up across the country. Liberal activists in Colorado were so afraid of it they even tried to cover it with articles of their own clothing and local news channel KRDO, in a failed effort to discover who financed the banner, made an effort to intimidate Spencer Swann of Colorado Canyon Signs for making the sign by naming him as the creator. Swann, in response to the attention the controvercial banner had stirred, said he has received 100 supportive phone calls and no negative ones since the media “outing.”

Even though the lamestream media ignored the story, Ralph Alter of American Thinker weighed in on the event:

A trillions dollars later, it’s a B.O. problem and the party-of-government media has forgotten all about the Obamavilles. While the Obamas jet back and forth from Scandanavia garnering Nobel loot and posing greenly for the Gropenhagen climate conference, many Americans will spend Christmas living in tents or their automobliles.

Yeah…  Sarah said it best… “How’s that Hopey Changey Thing workin’ out for ya?”

Drudge has an interesting heading to a story regarding a new CNN poll where 52% of Americans participating say Obama “doesn’t deserve reelection in 2012″. Of course, the key words here are “doesn’t deserve“. meaning, hasn’t done a freaking thing in his first term to earn the right to expect people to consider him worthy of another. It’s sort of like that “honor thy father and mother” thing in the Bible, that demand for obedience to children by their parents regardless of their behavior as parents. The key word there is “honor”, and “honor” is defined as something given to someone in accordance to their deeds… We “honor” soldiers for exemplary performance in carrying out their duties and award them medals when they surpass the performance levels expected of them. In other words, no deeds worthy… no honor should be expected. So… why is it such a “shock” that the majority of Americans do not consider Barack Obama “worthy” of a second term when only the first year of his first term had quadrupled our national deficit, put millions of Americans out of work and “exposed our crotch” to anyone who would want to kill us as his means of conducting measures of national security?

Let’s face it. His poll numbers have been in a terminal velocity nose dive for some time now. The only poll number he has his nails dug into to keep from tumbling down the side of the cliff he’s clinging to is his personal approval number and frankly… I ain’t buying the legitimacy of that. Personally, I am of the mind that this number has more to do with people still being too afraid of being called a “racist” if they dared to admit they don’t like the man. From day one, Barack Obama has been shielded from scrutiny because of his race but the irony here is, while he is half black, he is also half white. That little factoid seems to escape discussion. While one side fears saying what they really think because of his “black half” the other refuses to acknowledge his “white half”. It’s all quite ridiculous to me. The only time his racial origins are allowed to be a factor is when someone says something critical and it’s never the white half because that isn’t a viable tool when it comes to intimidating others through fear of having a legitimate criticism labeled as “racism”. The whole, “I like Barack Obama personally but hate everything he believes in and everything he is doing” position reminds me of the whole “I support the troops but not the war” meme. I mean, really… He’s trashing our economy and putting millions out of work. He bows to terrorist supporting dictators, apologizes for America’s existance, believes our Constitution is “fundamentally flawed” and pals around with a coven of rabid, anti-Americans but yeah…  I think he’s a cool guy and I’d have a beer with him.”

I don’t buy it. And I think more and more Americans (as well as people outside of our country) are becoming more confident in the inspiration of their feelings…. less intimidated to say out loud what they truly feel about “the man” and “his deeds” with less consideration of having someone else shout “racist” because that feeling may not be favorable. The shield of “racist” isn’t working so well anymore. So, in desperation they tried calling us “Nazis”… and then the reverse, likening any who opposed ObamaCare to ”Holocaust deniers”. All they seem to have left is name-calling and, frankly… We don’t care anymore. The man is destroying everything he touches, everything we hold dear… and it is starting to hurt… badly… Even those who were once part of the “racist/Nazi” shouts are starting to feel the pain… starting to see what we’ve been trying to tell them, that this man and his beliefs are dangerous and destructive, not instruments of Hope and Change.. and they are starting to get it. Perspectives change when the hammer falls on your head as well as on those you wanted to see hit. All of those 20-something liberals (making up the majority of the uninsured – through choice) who were once enthusiastic suporters of ObamaCare… “Yeah… healthcare for ALL!!!” Well, now they are feeling a bit different, considering that they are going to required to purchase insurance (whether they want to let go of that cash or not) or face fines and possible jail time. All of those people grinning with fiendish anticipation of watching “the evil rich” suffer under the strain of higher taxes and fees… Well, the enjoyment isn’t as glorious when “the evil rich” were their employers and had to lay them off to reduce overhead in an effort to save their business… Yeah… Funny thing about “perpectives” They always change when you find yourself affected by your hope that someone else whould get smacked down… when the losses you wished to be delt to another become your own.

A “shock” that 52% of Americans don’t think Obama “deserves” another term? Not really. That more and more people are finally getting to a point that their fear of losing the freedoms they have taken for granted all their lives outweighs their fear of being a target in the liberal name-calling shoot-out maybe… but not that people are waking up. It was inevitable… and I am glad it has come.

From the diaries by Erick

While conductiong a bit of research on the current report that federal investigators have discovered extensive waste of taxpayer dollars in the preparation stage for the 2010 Census I have learned some interesting things.

First, in testimony before the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security, the Committe on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and the United States Senate, the United States Government Accountability Office observed and reported that the Bureau (in its developmental stage) had not yet developed a comprehensive plan necessary to allow the Bureau to manage the operations and cost, nor had it updated the 2010 life-cycle cost estimate to reflect current information from testing.

In addition, the GAO observed technical problems with the handheld computing devices used by the staff during canvassing to varify addresses. and the LUCA had not yet fully tested the software tools intended to reduce burdens on the participants. It was also the opinion of the GAO that such overwhelming reliance on automation and technology made effective contractor oversight and risk management imparative in order to prevent costly budget over-runs. Officials say these problems could add as much as another $2 billion to the cost census and jeopardize the accuracy of the survey. According to an assessment by the GAO  the accuracy of the 2010 Census still remains threatened by these problems and thus far, I have found nothing to settle whether or not these issues have been rectified.

Read More →

The AP sums it up pretty clearly in the first sentence:

The Census Bureau wasted millions of dollars in preparation for its 2010 population count, including thousands of temporary employees who picked up $300 checks without performing work and others who overbilled for travel costs.

Points of waste include:

• Census employees were paid more than $300 each to attend training sessions but quit (or were let go) before performing any actual work. Cost to American taxpayers to pay over 10,000 people to simply walk in a pick up a check… $3 million.
• An additional 5,000 employees collected $300 (for an additional $1.5 million) for the same training to work for one day or less.
• Another 23 ”temporary” employees were paid 55 cents per mile even though the number of miles they reported exceeded the total number of hours they actually worked.
• Another 581 employees who claimed to have spent the majority of their time driving (instead of conducting field work) also received full mileage reimbursements, which investigators called “questionable”.

As far back as October, Census director Robert Groves admitted that the costs had already ballooned $88 million higher than the original estimate of $356 million… and this was for “preparations” alone… and it was 4 months ago. How big is the balloon now? How big will it be next month wehen the census campaign is launched… and how big will it be when it’s over?

Interestingly, Todd Zinser, the Commerce Department’s inspector general did suport the Census Bureau’s decision to spend $133 million on its advertising campaign to increase public awareness. He even considers the $2.5 million dollar tab for the 30-second Super Bowl ad, “appropriate”, even though he says, ”some (unspecified) Republicans” had criticized the expenditure as wasteful. Perhaps by, “some Republicans” Mr. Zinser meant the 3,854 people (91%) who responded, “Not funny, not worth the cost” to the question – “How would you rate the Super Bowl Ad” conducted by PollDaddy or the people on SuperBowlCommercials.org who give you the opportunity to watch the commercial in standard vision or to ”see your tax money wasted in HD!”

In the words of White House Press Secretary turned comedian, Robert Gibbs, “everyone should have a sense of humor, its needed more than ever in Washington.” So true… so true… and, on any given day, it is difficult to guess (either individually or as a group) just which of our liberal friends in Washington will provide us with the most entertainment. From the repeated need to cancel their scheduled summits on global warming due to record breaking snow storms to Joe Biden claiming that the success of the surge in Iraq (which he and Obama voted against) might just be one of the ”great achievements of this administration”. It’s all good… funny stuff… But not to be out done, Funny Harry has taken the stage at the Washington Comedy Club to tickle our funny bones again.

The joke…?

Gloria Navarro (42, a Las Vegas Attorney, his choice and Obama’s nominee to become a U.S. district judge in Nevada).

The punchline…?

“Let’s get somebody on the court that has not been a judge.”

(Laughter)

“They need to do more than thinking of themselves as these people who walk around in these robes in these fancy chambers.”

(Laughter/Applause)

Yeah… Who says a US District Judge should be required to have any experience as a real  judge? I mean, seriously now. She has experience… in private practice, as a public defender and chief deputy district attorney in the civil division of the Clark County district attorney’s office… Isn’t that enough? ”She has had experience in the real world of government, the real world of law.” Stop being so darn upity and seeing yourselves ”as these people who walk around in these robes in these fancy chambers.”  So what if she has no experience interpreting law as a judge. She’s a lawyer, for crying out loud. A lawyer! Isn’t that enough? I mean, come on… Obama is a lawyer and he even admitted he had had no executive experience… and he was elected president for Pete’s sake! So, what’s the big deal? Experience, exshmerience… Who needs it?

Well, according to the American Bar Association… people who want to be judges. That’s who.

Of members of the Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, a “substantial majority” rated Ms. Navarro as “qualified,” while a minority rated her “not qualified”… to be a lawyer. For consideration as a federal judge, a nominee’s “professional competence, integrity and judicial temperament” are rated as “well qualified,” “qualified,” or “not qualified.” and on this count, the ABA rated her as “not qualified”. After examination of her resume it is the opinion of several attorneys and academics that it was her lack of experience as a judge that inspired the “not qualified” rating. Funny Harry “just can’t accept that”.

“If they base their rating on people having judicial experience, that would mean that, according to them, every person that seeks a seat on the bench has to have judicial experience.”

(Laughter)

“Maybe a municipal court judge, maybe a justice of the peace.”

(More laughter)

“I think the ABA should get a new life and start looking at people for how they are qualified and not whether they have judicial experience.”

(Laughter/applause/standing ovation)

*** sigh ***

Good times.

Remember back when the left was freaking out about about the NSA terrorist surveillance program initiated by George Bush (in the wake of 9-11) whereby the NSA was authorized by executive order to monitor phone calls and other communications involving known or suspected terrorists (or their associates) coming into or going out of the United States without a warrant?

Among his many (unkept) promises, Obama posted this one on his own website page - “BarackObama.com”:

Eliminate Warrantless Wiretaps.

 

Barack Obama opposed the Bush Administration’s initial policy on warrantless wiretaps because it crossed the line between protecting our national security and eroding the civil liberties of American citizens. As president, Obama would update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to provide greater oversight and accountability to the congressional intelligence committees to prevent future threats to the rule of law.

In 2007, the Bush administration asked Congress to grant the telecom companies immunity from the lawsuits being filed against the telecom companies and while the majority of Republicans supported the measure. In the meantime, MoveOn and other extreme left liberal bloggers threatened to wage war against both Hillary and Obama in order to pressure them into supporting Chris Dodd’s vow to filibuster any Senate FISA bill containing telecom immunity. Both caved to the wishes of their base and Obama spokesman, Bill Burton issued a statement to the liberal blog TPM Election Central:

“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”

But after that amendment failed, Obama declined to filibuster the bill. In fact, against his promise to his liberal puppet-masters, he voted for it. Then, during his presidential campaign in July of 2009, Barack Obama back-peddled on his previous opposition of what the left called the NSA’s Domestic Spying Program (in spite of its actual title of FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillace Act), rather than DISA – Domestic Intelligence Surveillance Act) pledged that, if he were elected president, there would be “no more wiretapping of American citizens.”

Leaders on the left were so determined to prove to their base world they were committed to crushing this horrible breech of civil rights by George Bush they included the promise in their 10/8/2007 Democratic Agenda to:

Reimpose a strict ban on warrantless wiretapping of American citizens and block amnesty and immunity for telephone companies that illegally spied. 

Well, now Obama is president and, as we have become accustomed, The One who vowed Americans would no longer be subjected to wiretapping is all for a program to track the location of American citizens by way of their cell phones. Tomorrow, the Third Circuit federal appeals court will hear oral arguments in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices… and, therefore, the people who are holding them.

The Obama administration argues that, in this case, centered around drug trafficing (unlike an attempt to thwart terrorists from killing Americans), warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their–or at least their cell phones’–whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that “a customer’s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records” that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.

Imagine that… Where liberals once screamed foul that George Bush ordered the monitoring of phone calls going in to and going out of the US from, or to, known or suspected terrorists and phone companies who participated in that measure should be tarred and feathered… that when Obama says Americans should have “no reasonable expectation of privacy” and it is decided their “Fourth Amendment rights are not vilolated when a phone company reveals to the government its own records” it is fine and dandy and is met with silence…

My, what a difference a “historic” and “unprecidented” presidency makes.