The Government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. - Mark Twain

Sunday, January 31, 2010

......They usually find it.
In this case the Crap they found is Dale Robertson, founder and self styled leader of TEAPARTY.ORG. 

Dale who has been a persistent thorn in the side of the the Houston Tea Party Group.  Other than claiming that he is the leader of the national tea party, and owning a string of tea party related domains. his other claim to fame........... is THIS.

Yep that is Dale in all his Glory.
He shows up at the Houston Tea party with that sign and was asked to leave by its organizers, to which he claimed he was a organizer of this protest. A status he repetitively claimed in several interviews later.
Despite his lack of credibility among the tea party organization, the media still goes to him, when they want to get a quote from the Tea party representatives, such as in this story by the Washington Post.

But a merger has major obstacles—not the least of which is that tea-party leaders want nothing to do with any political party.

“People are so angry they don’t even want these political parties at their events,” said Dale Robertson, president and founder of TeaParty.org, which he said has 6 million members. “I’ve been attacked viciously by Republican groups. They’ve called me all kinds of slanderous names.”

Robertson said he has reached out repeatedly to Steele but has been rebuffed. “He hasn’t called me back,” Robertson said. “I find that disconcerting.”

Armey said tea-party activists resented that some Republican officeholders disparaged them when they began organizing last winter. “They said we’re not real, we’re unpatriotic, we’re cuckoo birds,” Armey said. “And these people are about as normal as anybody under the sun.”

I wonder why Steele would not want to talk to him?
The Houston Tea party, on of the most active and successful groups was not approached about this story, but Dale Robertson was. Any one care to guess why?
the Houston Tea party has their own article on how they view this bottom sucker.

A Note on Dale Robertson, self-described “tea party leader”
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
By Felicia Cravens

In response to questions we have received regarding Dale Robertson and his involvement with HoustonTPS, and specifically in reference to his attendance at our rally on 27 Feb 2009, we would like to state that:

1.  He is NOT a member of our Leadership team.

2.  He owns a website with which we have never been affiliated.

3.  He has never been a part of organizing any of the Tea Party rallies in the Houston area, or any other area that we can find.

4.  We addressed some issues involving him back in April.  Here it is on our website, where Mr. Robertson himself comments:  http://houstontps.org/?p=318

5.  We do not choose to associate with people that use his type of disgusting language.

A search on Google yields plenty of information about Mr. Robertson, and a search of the various leadership teams among legitimate national tea party organizations show him nowhere to be found.

So there you have it, a bottom feeder trying to attach himself to the Tea Party’s good name, and dirtiness with his stupidity. Just perfect for the Media to approach and and use for their own ends.

Update:
It seems, that i am not the only on zeroing in on this ass, MOTHER JONES, yes Mother Jones, have a very nice story about him and his delusions of grandeur.

While the last decade has been the warmest on record (and 2009 one of the warmest years), the temperature of the planet has not risen as quickly as expected by climate models.  A new paper may indicate why:

A 10 percent drop in water vapor ten miles above Earth’s surface has had a big impact on global warming, say researchers in a study published online January 28 in the journal Science. The findings might help explain why global surface temperatures have not risen as fast in the last ten years as they did in the 1980s and 1990s.

Observations from satellites and balloons show that stratospheric water vapor has had its ups and downs lately, increasing in the 1980s and 1990s, and then dropping after 2000. The authors show that these changes occurred precisely in a narrow altitude region of the stratosphere where they would have the biggest effects on climate.

Water vapor is a highly variable gas and has long been recognized as an important player in the cocktail of greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, halocarbons, nitrous oxide, and others—that affect climate.

“Current climate models do a remarkable job on water vapor near the surface. But this is different — it’s a thin wedge of the upper atmosphere that packs a wallop from one decade to the next in a way we didn’t expect,” says Susan Solomon, NOAA senior scientist and first author of the study.

As Ronald Bailey points out, this is yet another reason to take long-term climate projections with a heap of salt.  We don’t even know what’s causing this, least of all how likely it is to be sustained.  It could keep up and help hold down global temperatures.  It could reverse, as it did during the 90’s, and amplify global warming.  The point is, we don’t know.  This doesn’t “disprove” global warming; but it muddies the waters considerably.

This is precisely the reason why I am against the radical action favored by most greens.  As much as we’ve invested in studying the climate, most of the climate scientists who have ever lived are alive and working today.  We’re still learning.  To take steps that benefit everyone—cutting down on industrial methane emissions—is a no-brainer.  Cautious steps—like investing in R&D and a small carbon tax—are OK.  But carbon rationing and overly complicated treaties are absurd.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

As you have probably heard, Obama spoke at the Republican House Retreat yesterday.  He gave a 20 minute speech then spent about an hour answering questions and debating the Republicans.  I hope you watched it.  C-SPAN’s link is here.  It’s far better than the SOTU.

I really liked this and I really really hope we see more of it.  Some smart Republicans made some good points.  And Obama demolished those who were simply repeating talking points from the Right Wing Echosphere.  If this merely serves to encourage the former and discourage the latter, it will be fantastic for the GOP and the conservative movement in general.  I strongly believe that good debate is good for conservatism, both keeping it fresh and relevant and advancing it in the mind of the public.  And who knows?

This is also a reminder of what a formidable opponent Obama can be and why the GOP needs to get their act together.  Bailout anger will only carry us so far.

Update: If you watch just one clip, check out this one of Obama discussing the tone of the healthcare debate.

I agree and disagree with what he says.  I don’t think the plan is as “centrist” as he claims.  But I do agree with him that constantly portraying Obama as a crazy socialist lunatic is bad tactics for the GOP.  As Obama says, it gives them no room to maneuver.  They can’t possibly cooperate with him on anything because they have portrayed him—or tolerated people who portray him—as evil, rather than just wrong.  We can see this in the bullseyes that get painted on anyone who votes with the Democrats.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the Democrats fell through the same trap door in the 90’s and the Aughts and are only just emerging from it.  When you’ve claimed the GOP are nothing but a bunch of racist, sexist, homophobic monsters ... well, how you can then vote with them on good legislation?  It took them 15 years and one hell of a campaigner to recover from that.  We don’t have that luxury.

Friday, January 29, 2010

I’m sure there’s some excuse, but the GOP voted unanimously against the PAYGO law.  The claim I’ve heard is that it would be an invitation to tax increase.  Because, you know, high taxes would be so much worse than bankrupting the country completely.

Fiscal responsibility is not about low taxes.  It’s about not running up debts.  If that forces the Democrats to enact unpopular tax increases to pay for their shit, that’s all the better.  The taxpayer needs constant reminding that this stuff costs money.  We’ve gotten two used to thinking that federal money grows on trees—liberals and conservatives.  Just think how lovely it would be if every time Obama make some big promise in SOTU, he had to explain how to pay for it.

Over at Big Hollywood, James O’Keefe sets the record straight, and as I speculated before, the MSM was lying and making up shit. Dog, it looks like you lose.

The government has now confirmed what has always been clear:  No one tried to wiretap or bug Senator Landrieu’s office.  Nor did we try to cut or shut down her phone lines.  Reports to this effect over the past 48 hours are inaccurate and false. As an investigative journalist, my goal is to expose corruption and lack of concern for citizens by government and other institutions, as I did last year when our investigations revealed the massive corruption and fraud perpetrated by ACORN.  For decades, investigative journalists have used a variety of tactics to try to dig out and reveal the truth.

I learned from a number of sources that many of Senator Landrieu’s constituents were having trouble getting through to her office to tell her that they didn’t want her taking millions of federal dollars in exchange for her vote on the healthcare bill.  When asked about this, Senator Landrieu’s explanation was that, “Our lines have been jammed for weeks.” I decided to investigate why a representative of the people would be out of touch with her constituents for “weeks” because her phones were broken. In investigating this matter, we decided to visit Senator Landrieu’s district office – the people’s office – to ask the staff if their phones were working.

Dog’s “evil pimp daddy”, James O’Keefe, was basically doing what the MSM doesn’t: investigate the democrat crime machine and the lies they tell the people. This country could use a few dozen more people like James O’Keefe that are willing to get the job done, considering our MSM is nothing but a bunch of DNC apologists and talking points parrots. Can anyone say “correction”? Don’t hold your breath. These craven scum will not likely admit they lied. After all, the fascists have the tape, and they can prevent anyone from now seeing what really happened.

On reflection, I could have used a different approach to this investigation, particularly given the sensitivities that people understandably have about security in a federal building.  The sole intent of our investigation was to determine whether or not Senator Landrieu was purposely trying to avoid constituents who were calling to register their views to her as their Senator.  We video taped the entire visit, the government has those tapes, and I’m eager for them to be released because they refute the false claims being repeated by much of the mainstream media.

Release the tapes! How much you want to be that the government’s main priority right now is to keep these tapes from ever seeing the light of day and that every and all actions, including the bogus reports and the collusion with the MSM to create the illusion of criminal behavior, are all driven by what is on those tapes and their need to keep that away from the people?

BTW dog, about your dumb ass statements that O’Keefe was a criminal and hence his credibility should be in question, read this:

It has been amazing to witness the journalistic malpractice committed by many of the organizations covering this story.  MSNBC falsely claimed that I violated a non-existent “gag order.” The Associated Press incorrectly reported that I “broke in” to an office which is open to the public.  The Washington Post has now had to print corrections in two stories on me.  And these are just a few examples of inaccurate and false reporting.  The public will judge whether reporters who can’t get their facts straight have the credibility to question my integrity as a journalist.

Sucks to be you. His crime is that he exposes the left for the cesspool that it is and negates and circumvents the well orchestrated propaganda machine that is supposed to protect these leftist twits and their agenda from being found out. 

As you probably know, Chris “Leg Tingle” Matthews, after the SOTU, said that he “forgot Obama was black”.  The Daily Show lets him have it:

Ta-Nehisi has an even better response:

The “I forgot Obama was black” sentiment allows the speaker the comfort of accepting, even lauding, a black person without interrogating their invented truth. It allows the speaker a luxurious ignorance--you get to name people (this is what black is) even when you don’t know people. In fact, Chris Matthews didn’t forget Barack Obama was black. Chris Matthews forgot that Chris Matthews was white. 

The Left is no more immune to racial stereotyping and condescension than anyone else.  So they get shocked when a black politician plays politics just like and just as well as everyone else.  The defining characteristic of politicians is and always will be power.  Whether they use that power well or use it poorly, the common and over-riding denominator is their desire for it.  That’s much more significant than race, gender, religion or anything else.

I recently heard a great story of how an economics professor teaching an exon 101 class once and for all cleared the issue of whether socialism could work or not with his students. During the first day of class he basically made the statement that socialism was a doomed system and not workable, and that it would end in failure no matter the circumstances. Of course the “Hope and Change” and “Social Justice” mushheads immediately went bonkers and attacked him for it, so he proposed a simple experiment: he would give the class a collective grade, based on the average of all grades. The mushheads were ecstatic. They had a chance to show him how great they were! How plugged into the real system. They were going to show him how things could be different. Better. Fairer. How everyone would come together. After all, they knew it was a better system than what they had otherwise. They had been told so.

The first exam rolled around and the average grade was a B-. The half dozen or so kids that had scored clearly above the others, were not happy that their grade suffered, but the others, especially the bunch of D or worse students, were now even more ecstatic than before. This was awesome! They told the people complaining that their A+ was gone to just suck it up and move on. Nobody cared about those “complainers”.

The problems started around the mid term, which was the second exam. The class scored a collective C+. Many of the smart kids simply decided not to bother working that hard for the exam. If they were gonna get a B- anyway, why not just do the work to get that. Of course the pool of D and lower grades also grew larger as the usual suspects decided that others were gonna raise their grade anyway. Needless to say, the class was not happy with the C grade, and accusations and finger pointing started. There was resentment and anger.

It got worse for the next exam. The collective grade was a D-. Most people didn’t even bother with studying. And after the grade was given the hostilities went full bore. The slackers, now the largest group by far, were pissed that the others were not doing better. The others told the slackers they were nothing but leeches. It got nasty.

You know where this is going right? The finals came and the grade was a solid F. Nobody had bothered to do anything. Anger that others were not carrying their weight had translated to everybody simply deciding to screw the system. Human nature won over all the lofty talk and bullshit. Keeping to his word he failed the entire class. The professor’s point was made in spades, and those kids learned one of life’s most important lessons. I wonder if we yet again have to see the socialist system fail us utterly – it has failed miserably so far – before we will decide that all it does is breed sloth, anger, jealousy, and mistrust. Of course, after the fall of the USSR I was certain that the lesson was thought, but then again, here we are today.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

I hate to link to Cato twice in one day, but they are on fire.  If you watch one video today, watch this one.  It’s absolutely brutal and utterly substantive.

For all the talk of how grown up this President is and how he doesn’t want to spin or win the media war, this was nothing but a talking point show.  He did not ask Americans to sacrifice, did not offer any difficult choices.  He promised oodles of spending and tax cuts and called it fiscal responsibility.

No where have I seen this before?  Some party that I used to know about ... Shmepublicans ... Screwuplicans.  Don’t worry.  It will come to me.

You know what I would consider “change I can believe in”?  A politician who would stand up and say something like this:

My fellow Americans, we’re broke.  We’re fucking flat broke.  We have over $10 trillion in debt and trillions more staring us in the face.  We can not make this situation go away with wishful thinking.  Eliminating earmarks and cutting itty bitty programs is not going to get us from A to B.

To get our fiscal house in order is going to take sacrifice.  A lot of sacrifice.  This may mean slowing the pace of Medicare/Social Security growth.  This may mean raising the retirement age.  This may mean cuts in defense spending.  And this may mean raising taxes—not just on “the rich” but on everyone.

The task is to figure out how to do with the least amount of pain.  But there will be pain, no matter what.  That tends to happen when you go on spending binges.  So let’s buck up, quit whining and start fixing.

Of course, no politician would get elected on that premise.  It would be an even bet if he’d get out of town in one piece.  But that would a breath of fresh air.  Spare me your platitudes about a recycle speech from October 2008.

Last week, a British pseudo-scientist was found to have committed fraud in giving Iraqis bomb-detecting dowsing rods that did nothing.  Today, there’s another setback to medievalism—the General Medical Council has found that Andrew Wakefield, who initiated the “vaccines cause austim” scare (long since disproved) behaved unethically.

The verdict, read out by panel chairman Dr Surendra Kumar, criticised Dr Wakefield for the invasive tests, such as spinal taps, that were carried out on children and which were found to be against their best clinical interests.

The panel said Dr Wakefield, who was working at London’s Royal Free Hospital as a gastroenterologist at the time, did not have the ethical approval or relevant qualifications for such tests.

The GMC also took exception with the way he gathered blood samples. Dr Wakefield paid children £5 for the samples at his son’s birthday party.

Dr Kumar said he had acted with “callous disregard for the distress and pain the children might suffer”.

He also said Dr Wakefield should have disclosed the fact that he had been paid to advise solicitors acting for parents who believed their children had been harmed by the MMR.

Wakefield’s supporters were heckling the council when the verdict was read.

Just remember, neither of our Presidential candidates last year was willing to disown this claptrap.  You have to wonder when President Evidence-Based Medicine is going to speak out on this subject.

If you read any link today, read this one in which Ted DeHaven places quotes from last night’s speech side by side with quotes from Bush’s SOTU.  We are seeing the exact same ridiculous promises and claims --- bipartisanship, helping small businesses, investment in alternative energy (a promise every President since Carter has made).

Read it.  Forward it.  It’s critical that our electorate realize just how much of Obama’s policies are a thin veneer over Bush’s failed policies.  And Clinton’s, And Carter’s.  And Nixon’s.  And…

Update: And if you read two links today, read Gene Healy on the Cult of the Presidency and the awful pageantry that has becomes the SOTU.

Look at how SeeBS d reported the story. They were not alone in propagating this fantasy. But as I pointed out, eventually the facts would come out, and the accusation of wire tapping, breaking in, and so on, would all prove to be not just baseless, but meaningless. This is just the beginning of this story’s complete unraveling. I am not holding my breath for any real corrections. If they do it will happen with as little coverage as possible so they can leave the stink of their lies imprinted on the minds of morons. In the end however, the left will be made to looks stupid, the MSM to look like they are a propaganda arm of the DNC, and any idiot that tries to make a legal case out of this look like a fascist moron with an agenda. Dog, I am going to have fun making you look like the tool you are man. In the spirit of your entire prison joke, I might even consider tatooing some boobs on your back.

It has not been good for the cult of AGW this last couple of months. The defenders of the indefensible have been hard at work doing damage control. The usual apologists and crazies are trying hard to convince us that even if it was all fake, we should still let them do their thing - kind of like the fake but true TANG incident - because if they don’t get what we want we will be in big trouble. A step down from their previous claims we would all be living in a Waterworld, well those of us that survived the coming cataclysms would, but still much ado about nothing. Now they are being dealt another big bad blow.

The university at the centre of the climate change row over stolen e-mails broke the law by refusing to hand over its raw data for public scrutiny. The University of East Anglia breached the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to comply with requests for data concerning claims by its scientists that man-made emissions were causing global warming.

The Information Commissioner’s Office decided that UEA failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too late, The Times has learnt. The ICO is now seeking to change the law to allow prosecutions if a complaint is made more than six months after a breach. The stolen e-mails , revealed on the eve of the Copenhagen summit, showed how the university’s Climatic Research Unit attempted to thwart requests for scientific data and other information, and suggest that senior figures at the university were involved in decisions to refuse the requests. It is not known who stole the e-mails.

I mean, if the science was so clear cut and settled, why would you need to do stuff like this? Really? The AGW cult has done more damage to real scientific progress than anyone has yet understood. They are the ones that cried wolf. If the real wolf comes, most people will be too skeptical to even bother. I guess this is offset by the many and ever entertaining jokes we can tell at the expense of those that fell for this crap, and those that still continue to think there might be one once of truth to this bullshit. My fondest wish is that people can now actually do scientific research on warming. I am dying to be vindicated on the fact that the warming cycle is tied to solar activity.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

If there is one historian who has epitomized the Marxist bent of the American university, and the humanities in particular, it’s Howard Zinn, who kicked the bucket today.

I’m certainly not going to weep over his passing.  As a historian, the man was terrible: his works are prime examples of fallacious logic, Marxist hypocrisy, and contradictory, self-centered agit-prop. 

Having read this and few of Zinn’s other works, it’s pretty clear that the only reason he became as huge as he did is because he rubbed all the sections of the id that make leftists swoon, primarily the “the United States, and white people in particular, are responsible for everything bad that’s ever happened in the history of the universe” nub.  That he’s being promoted as an intellectual rebel is particularly humorous, because there’s absolutely nothing being taught or studied in the field of history now, or over the past 40-50 years, that differentiates his work from any other--the Academic Holy Trinity of Class, Gender, and Ethnicity is so common that history as a discipline has pretty much stagnated.  There’s only so many types of subjects entitled “A ______ of Her Own” before redundancy begins to set in.  By contrast, Paul Johnson’s A History of the American People stands out precisely because it doesn’t follow this boilerplate, and as much as I like to rag on journalists, some of them are writing sharp popular histories, such as G. J. Meyer’s A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918.

Dennis the Peasant put it best:

Howard Zinn was fool and a hypocrite; yet another armchair communist preaching the evils of capitalism and democracy while living fat off of both.

Maybe someone can spray-paint that on his tombstone.

Samuel Alito is being bashed for having “Joe Wilson Moment” when he mouthed “that’s not true” when Obama rebuked the Court for its recent decision.  I don’t see the big deal.  I can understand opposing heckling, but not wanting people to even mouth things?  Come on.

Oh, and or the record?  Alito was right.

I really hate polls. Why because they often ask leading questions and/or ask stupid or pointless ones, which get turned into a news event by the media.
Such is this recent poll in Which Scott Brown, recently elected Senator from Massachusetts, beats Obama in a hypothetical election.
Scott Brown, was just elected hes a unknown he never held a executive position, and he is a freshman Senator. there is now way in hell that such a fresh face in Congress, with no experience, could ever be seriously considered for the job of..........................................oh, wait..... never mind.