Friday, September 30, 2011

Friday Funny

From Flopping Aces.

Moochelle Goes Slummin

More likely she's trolling for votes by trying to look like one of the folks.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Gun crime continues to decrease, despite increase in gun sales

Counterintuitive? Not to those of us who have been paying attention for the last 20 years.
Despite increases in gun sales, gun crimes continued to decrease in the United States for the fourth straight year in 2010, according to the FBI.

The FBI recently released its Crime in The United States statistics for 2010. Overall, murders in the U.S. have decreased steadily since 2006, dropping from 15,087 to 12,996. Firearms murders — which made up 67 percent of all murders in the U.S. in 2010 — have followed this trend, decreasing by 14 percent.

At the same time that firearms murders were dropping, gun sales were surging. In 2009, FBI background checks for guns increased by 30 percent over the previous year, while firearms sales in large retail outlets increased by almost 40 percent. The number of applications for concealed carry permits jumped across the country as well.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Obama's Euro-Crisis Lecture Is 'Pitiful and Sad'

You bet, Obama's really making the world "love us".
US President Obama has given the Europeans a harsh lecture on the dangers of their ongoing debt crisis. Offended by the unsolicited advice, Europeans have suggested the US get its own house in order first. Obama's remarks were "arrogant" and "absurd" German commentators say on Wednesday.

Europeans are well aware of the seriousness of their ongoing debt crisis. But they don't, it seems, like to receive lectures from other countries -- especially the United States, which is struggling to deal with its own mountain of debt.

On Tuesday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble curtly rejected recent American criticism of Europe's approach to solving its debt crisis. "I don't think Europe's problems are America's only problems," said Schäuble. "It's always easier to give other people advice."

At an event in California on Monday, Obama warned Europeans that their inaction was "scaring the world." The Europeans, he said, "have not fully healed from the crisis back in 2007 and never fully dealt with all the challenges that their banking system faced. It's now being compounded by what's happening in Greece." He continued: "They're going through a financial crisis that is scaring the world, and they're trying to take responsible actions, but those actions haven't been quite as quick as they need to be."

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

NC governor recommends suspending democracy to focus on jobs

If you've ever suspected that liberalism is a mental disorder, question no more...
As a way to solve the national debt crisis, North Carolina Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue recommends suspending Congressional elections for the next couple of years.

“I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won’t hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover,” Perdue said at a rotary club event in Cary, North Carolina, according to the Raleigh News and Observer. “I really hope that someone can agree with me on that.”

Perdue said she thinks that temporarily halting elections would allow members of Congress to focus on the economy. “You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things,” Perdue said.

North Carolina Republicans immediately scoffed at Perdue’s proposal, pointing out to her that elections hold politicians accountable for their actions. “Now is a time when politicians need to be held accountable more than ever,” North Carolina GOP spokesman Rob Lockwood said in an email to The Daily Caller. “To suspend an election would be removing the surest mechanism that citizens have to hold politicians accountable: The right to vote.”

White House won't seek to delay High Court healthcare review

Somewhat unexpected.
The Obama administration opened the door Monday for the Supreme Court to decide the constitutionally of the healthcare law before the next election.

It opted not to seek a delay in the legal process, leaving little doubt that the court will rule on President Obama’s controversial legislation just months before he faces voters.

A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August that the healthcare law’s individual coverage mandate is unconstitutional. The Justice Department declined to ask the full 11th Circuit to review the decision, clearing the way for a petition to the Supreme Court.

Legal experts have said they expect the Supreme Court to rule on the mandate in the summer of 2012. If the Obama administration had wanted to try to slow down the proceedings — possibly delaying them until after the election — an “en banc” review from the 11th Circuit was seen as its best opportunity.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Sales of new U.S. homes dip in August

A 4% fixed rate on a 30 year mortgage and this, only in Obamaville.
Sales dropped 2.3% last month to an annual rate of 295,000, the lowest level since February, the Commerce Department said Monday. After peaking in 2011 at 316,000 in April, new-home sales have gradually declined...

The average sales price of a new home, meanwhile, sank 8.7% to $246,000, the lowest level since January 2009.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Solyndra saga is here to stay for House GOP

It darn well better be, it's classic liberal cronyism combined with agenda driven initiatives with little concern for the taxpayers. I wonder if Obama and his administartion pukes would be so cavalier with their own money.
House Republicans made it crystal clear this week that they’re not going to let the ongoing saga surrounding the bankruptcy of an Obama administration-backed solar firm fade away.

The company, California-based Solyndra, declared bankruptcy and laid off 1,100 workers this month just two years after receiving a $535 million stimulus-law loan guarantee from the Obama administration.

The incident has ignited a firestorm in Washington, leaving the White House scrambling to defend itself against Republican allegations that the administration missed a series of red flags that hinted at Solyndra’s pending financial collapse. The debacle is a messaging nightmare for the White House, which has invested huge amounts of political capital in the stimulus law and its clean energy agenda.

Republicans have seized the political moment, launching investigations, leaking damaging emails from the White House and blasting the administration on television and the radio.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Saturday Funny

Friday, September 23, 2011

STIMULUS: Gov't paid $600m in benefits to dead people

Why not, they've been voting Democrat for decades.
The federal government has doled out more than $600 million in benefit payments to dead people over the past five years, a watchdog report says.

Such payments are meant for retired or disabled federal workers, but sometimes the checks keep going out even after the former employees pass away and the deaths are not reported, according to the report this week from the Office of Personnel Management's inspector general, Patrick McFarland.

In one case, the son of a beneficiary continued receiving payments for 37 years after his father's death in 1971. The payments - totaling more than $515,000 - were only discovered when the son died in 2008.

Idiotic Quote of the Day

Obama speaking at the UN on Wednesday:
"The Qaddafi regime is over. Gbagbo, Ben Ali, Mubarak are no longer in power. Osama bin Laden is gone, and the idea that change could only come through violence has been buried with him."
WTF?

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Elizabeth Warren On Class Warfare: ‘There Is Nobody in This Country Who Got Rich On His Own’

Classic liberal thinking; Nobody's success is of their own doing nor is their failure.
In a recent appearance captured on video, Warren, who is perhaps best known for helping to launch the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, stated boldly that there is no such thing as class warfare and that there is “nobody in this country who got rich on his own.”

Below is a transcript of Warren’s remarks:

“I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever. No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody.

“You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Pic of the Day

The man is a social moron.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Snow fell in the Swiss Alps overnight on Sunday to levels unseen for the month of September, Swiss weather agency Meteosuisse reported on Monday.

Algore, please pick up the white courtesy phone...
Snow fell in the Swiss Alps overnight on Sunday to levels unseen for the month of September, Swiss weather agency Meteosuisse reported on Monday.

In the ski resort of St Moritz, in the southeast canton of Grison, a total of 45 centimetres (nearly 18 inches) of snow was recorded on Monday morning... the snow line to 800 metres (2,600 feet).

Construction of new U.S. homes falls 5%

I've said it before, I'll say it again.....untill this improves neither will the economy.
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Builders started construction on fewer new homes in August, government data showed Tuesday, underscoring how the depressed U.S. real estate market shows little sign of recovering.

Housing starts fell 5% to an annual rate of 571,000 last month, compared with a downwardly revised 601,000 in July, the Commerce Department said.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected housing starts to fall to 590,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Most of August’s decline took place in the Northeast and it was concentrated in multi-dwelling buildings such as apartments. New building tumbled 29.1% in the Northeast while the construction of multi-dwelling units sank 12.4%.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Wisconsin orders high school to change Indians nickname

This kind of crap is happening on a weekly basis and it's ridiculous. I'm Belgian by decent and would be thrilled to have a high school have the "Fightin Belgians" as a nickname. Unfortunately us Belgies are second only to France in our propensity to aquiesce.
Wisconsin education officials have ordered a high school to change its sports nickname from the Indians.

An alumnus of Berlin High School north of Milwaukee complained to the state Department of Public Instruction about the use of the nickname. That opened the door to the state ordering the school to change it.

DPI found the nickname is race-based and held a hearing in August. School officials argued that the nickname was not race-based, but the state has denied the school's appeal.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

The Solyndra Fraud

The Solyndra debacle is not just Obama-style crony socialism as usual. It is a criminal fraud. That is the theory that would be guiding any competent prosecutor’s office in the investigation of a scheme that cost victims — in this case, American taxpayers — a fortune.

Fraud against the United States is one of the most serious felony offenses in the federal penal law. It is even more serious than another apparent Solyndra violation that has captured congressional attention: the Obama administration’s flouting of a statute designed to protect taxpayers.

Homing in on one of the several shocking aspects of the Solyndra scandal, lawmakers noted that, a few months before the “clean energy” enterprise went belly-up last week, the Obama Energy Department signed off on a sweetheart deal. In the event of bankruptcy — the destination to which it was screamingly obvious Solyndra was headed despite the president’s injection of $535 million in federal loans — the cozily connected private investors would be given priority over American taxpayers. In other words, when the busted company’s assets were sold off, Obama pals would recoup some of their losses, while you would be left holding the half-billion-dollar bag.
Excellent article, read the whole thing.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Quote of the Day

Henry Waxman comenting on the shellacking in NY-9:

"There are Jews who are trending toward the Republican Party, some of it because of their misunderstanding of Obama’s policies in the Middle East, and some of it, quite frankly, for economic reasons. They feel they want to protect their wealth, which is why a lot of well-off voters vote for Republicans.”
Eric the Red at VM: The constituents of NY-9 may want to protect their wealth -- but in the same way that a mugging victim wants to protect his.

Well said young man.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Who Endorsed Obama Dissents! Resigns Over Global Warming.

Nobel prize winner for physics in 1973 Dr. Ivar Giaever resigned as a Fellow from the American Physical Society (APS) on September 13, 2011 in disgust over the group's promotion of man-made global warming fears. Climate Depot has obtained the exclusive email Giaever sent titled "I resign from APS" to APS Executive Officer Kate Kirby to announce his formal resignation.

Dr. Giaever wrote to Kirby of APS: “Thank you for your letter inquiring about my membership. I did not renew it because I cannot live with the (APS) statement below (on global warming): APS: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.'
This guy won a Nobel Prize when that actually meant something.

Jobless Claims, Inflation Rise, Manufacturing Gets Weaker

More great news from Obamaville.
Applications for unemployment benefits continued to rise in the past week, while inflation pushed higher and a key manufacturing index weakened.

The weekly jobless claims number, which is closely watched as an indicator for employment trends, unexpectedly rose 11,000 to 428,000, well ahead of estimates of 411,000.

The consumer price index, meanwhile, gained 0.4 percent when including volatile food and energy prices, after an increase of 0.5 percent in July. The so-called core CPI, though, gained 0.2 percent, which was in line with expectations.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Election Results For NY-9 from 1980 until 2010

Earlier today Debbie-Wasserman-Schultz stated straight faced:
“It’s (NY-9) a very difficult district for Democrats, its Democratic margins there tend to be the second lowest of all the districts in New York City."
Here's a breakdown of the last 16 elections:

1980 Geraldine Ferraro wins over Republican opposition by 65% to 35%.

1982: Geraldine Ferraro wins over Republican opposition 79% to 21%.

1984: Thomas Manton wins over Republican opposition 57% to 43%.

1986: Thomas Manton wins over Republican opposition 74% to 26%.

1988: Thomas Manton wins with no Republican opposition, 100% to 0%.

1990: Thomas Manton wins over Republican opposition 72.5% to 27.5%.

1992: Chuck Schumer wins with no Republican opposition, 100% to 0%

1994: Chuck Schumer wins over Republican opposition 75% to 25%.

1996: Chuck Schumer wins over Republican opposition 79% to 21%.

1998: Anthony Weiner wins over Republican opposition 73% to 27%.

2000: Anthony Weiner wins over Republican opposition 70% to 30%.

2002: Anthony Weiner wins over Republican opposition 67% to 33%.

2004: Anthony Weiner wins over Republican opposition 73% to 27%.

2006: Anthony Weiner wins with no Republican opposition, 100% to 0%.

2008: Anthony Weiner wins with no Republican opposition, 100% to 0%.

2010: Anthony Weiner wins over Republican opposition (Bob Turner), 64% to 36% (HT Recovering_Democrat at FR).

That's an average of 78D to 22R.

Her statement was beyond ludicrous. If every other Congessional District in the country would show the sea change toward Republicans that this election exhibited, The Dems will lose another 150 seats in 12.

Republicans Take the Day

Will be fun to watch the Dems try to spin this for the next few days.
With the outcome of his own reelection effort 14 difficult months away, President Obama suffered a sharp rebuke Tuesday when voters in New York elected a conservative Republican to represent a Democratic district that has not been in GOP hands since the 1920s.

Bob Turner, the winner, cast the election as a referendum on Obama’s stewardship of the economy and, in the state’s Ninth Congressional District, which has a large population of Orthodox Jewish voters, the president’s position on Israel.[snip]

The defeat came as Republicans trounced Democrats in another special House election Tuesday, in northern Nevada, where Republican Mark Amodei led Democrat Kate Marshall, 56 percent to 39 percent almost from the start.

In both contests, the GOP pulled ahead by linking the Democratic candidate to Obama and his handling of the economy. Both Republican contenders urged voters to “send a message” to the president.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Obama's Spending Plan: $250,000 Per Job

Typical result of Obama's twisted thinking.
For those eager to put some math to the rhetoric coming from the White House over the president's jobs creation plan, and that should be everyone, here is a quick and dirty estimate based on the numbers being thrown around of a 2 percent GDP increase in year 1 and 1.9 million jobs created or saved...most saved, as in those you can't really quantify. Said otherwise, roughly a $300 billion increase in GDP yields 1.9 million jobs. So far so good.

Now since the president is proposing to pay for the program over 10 years, let's assume the $475 billion in direct expenses is financed for 10 years at 2.5 percent which adds roughly $120 billion to the total cost of the program. In other words, as the calculations detailed and show below elaborate, the overall AJA plan will cost $250,000 per job created (excluding the interest expense) and $312,500 per union job created (including interest). And that's how much it costs for Obama to purchase one vote...created or saved. Keynesian efficiency strikes like a Swiss watch yet again.

So that's $250,000 per job, before interest expense.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Pic of the Day

One believes IN the Almighty, the other believes he IS the Almighty.

Gore Tries a Pi$$ Poor Imitaion of Jerry Lewis

The difference is this, a real tradegy and a totally created one.
Reuters) - Former Vice President Al Gore will renew his 30-year campaign to convince skeptics of the link between climate change and extreme weather events this week in a 24-hour global multi-media event.

"24 Hours of Reality" will broadcast a presentation by Al Gore every hour for 24 hours across 24 different time zones from Wednesday to Thursday, with the aim of convincing climate change deniers and driving action against global warming among households, schools and businesses.

The campaign also asks people to hand over control of their social networking accounts on Facebook and Twitter to it for 24 hours to deliver Gore's message.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Never Forget

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Bank of America retrenches, plans to cut 40,000 jobs

Wonder how the Labor Dept. will keep this off the books.
Bank of America is preparing to slash 40,000 or more jobs nationwide, a dramatic retrenchment that reflects the deepening woes of the country’s largest bank and the magnitude of the U.S. economic slowdown.

The layoffs will come mainly from the Bank of America’s sprawling consumer-banking operations. The bank’s workforce numbers nearly 300,000.

The details of the cutbacks were not officially announced, but the information was disclosed by three Bank of America executives who have been briefed on the plan but were not authorized to speak publicly. Brian Moynihan, Bank of America’s beleaguered chief executive, is expected to unveil details at an investor conference Monday in New York.

Friday, September 09, 2011

800,000 Years of Abrupt Climate Variability: Earth's Climate Is Capable of Very Rapid Transitions

Who would have imagined that coal fired electric plants heating caves and Neanderthals driving SUV's was the problem all along.
An international team of scientists, led by Dr Stephen Barker of Cardiff University, has produced a prediction of what climate records from Greenland might look like over the last 800,000 years.

Drill cores taken from Greenland's vast ice sheets provided the first clue that Earth's climate is capable of very rapid transitions and have led to vigorous scientific investigation into the possible causes of abrupt climate change.

Such evidence comes from the accumulation of layers of ancient snow, which compact to form the ice-sheets we see today. Each layer of ice can reveal past temperatures and even evidence for the timing and magnitude of distant storms or volcanic eruptions. By drilling cores in the ice scientists have reconstructed an incredible record of past climates. Until now such temperature records from Greenland have covered only the last 100,000 years or so.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Longshoremen storm Longview port, hold security guards hostage

The spirit of Hoffa Jr.
LONGVIEW, Wash. (AP) — Hundreds of Longshore workers stormed the Port of Longview early Thursday, overpowered and held security guards, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain that is the center of a labor dispute, said Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha.

Six guards were detained for a couple of hours after 500 or more Longshoremen broke down gates about 4:30 a.m. and smashed windows in the guard shack, he said.

No one was hurt, and nobody has been arrested. Most of the protesters returned to their union hall after cutting brake lines and spilling grain from car at the EGT terminal, Duscha said.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union believes it has the right to work at the facility, but the company has hired a contractor that's staffing a workforce of other union laborers.
So even union isn't good enough, it's got to be MY union. Entitlement thugs.

Real Wages Decline Again

Obama, the gift that's just keeps giving.
Real wages are falling sharply, pinching Americans' buying power and raising the risks for a fragile economy and President Obama's re-election hopes.

With more than 4 unemployed workers available for every job opening, pressure on wages has been intense.

Inflation-adjusted weekly earnings have fallen significantly in recent months, likely falling more than 1.5% vs. a year earlier in August. That would be the biggest drop since the height of the financial crisis in late 2008.

Real disposable income per capita — seen by some researchers as the most important factor in people's well-being and voting patterns — has leveled off well below pre-recession levels and may be rolling over.

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Pelosi Peeved Republicans Opt Out of Rebuttal to Obama Speech

Now this is funny...
Republicans have decided they're not going to give a rebuttal to President Obama's jobs speech later this week, a decision House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi took as a high affront to the White House.

At least three GOP lawmakers also have announced they're not going to show up for the presidential address. House Speaker John Boehner's office then confirmed Tuesday evening that nobody from the party would deliver an official televised response.

Pelosi said the party's "silence" would "speak volumes about their lack of commitment to creating jobs."

"The Republicans' refusal to respond to the president's proposal on jobs is not only disrespectful to him, but to the American people," Pelosi said.

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates: Israel an ungrateful ally

They would be a good deal more grateful if Obama would act like and ally.
Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates blasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that his policies were ungrateful towards the US and were isolating Israel on a global level.

Gates’ harsh words were said during a meeting of the National Security Council Principals Committee, Bloomberg’s Jeffrey Goldber reported Tuesday.

Gates believes Netanyahu’s government has offered the Obama administration “nothing in return” for its generous security aid, which includes access to top-quality weapons, assistance in developing missile-defense systems and high-level intelligence sharing.

The former defense secretary said that not only is Netanyahu ungrateful, but his polices were “endangering his country by refusing to grapple with Israel’s growing isolation and with the demographic challenges it faces if it keeps control of the West Bank.”

Monday, September 05, 2011

Happy Labor Day

Saturday, September 03, 2011

U.S. Debt Held by Public Tops $10T for 1st Time

Another dubious milestone for Captain O)
(CNSNews.com) - At the close of business on Aug. 31--for the first time in the history of the country--the publicly held debt of the federal government topped $10 trillion, according to data released by the U.S. Treasury Department at 4:00 p.m. yesterday.

During Obama's presidency, debt held by the public has now increased by $3.71694 trillion--or almost 59 percent from the $6.3073 trillion in debt held by the public that the government owed to its creditors on Jan. 20, 2009, when Obama was inaugurated.

Thursday, September 01, 2011

US productivity falls in spring, labor costs rise

More good news from Obamaville.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Worker productivity in the United States fell this spring more quickly than previously estimated while labor costs were rising at a faster clip. Both developments could pose threats to a fragile economic recovery.

The U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday that productivity declined at an annual rate of 0.7 percent in the April-June period, a bigger drop than the 0.3 percent decline reported a month ago. Labor costs rose at an annual rate of 3.3 percent, faster than the 2.4 percent increase originally reported.

Thursday Funny