What a Kick!

Obama leaving a meeting with Congressional leaders after [Rep. Eric] Cantor told the president that Republicans would not vote for his proposed tax hikes.



It's reassuring that our president is always the smartest person in any room as well the one with the most judicious temperament.

A Picture is Worth ...

No further comment necessary.

The Zuccotti Lung

Can dysentery and cholera be far behind?

From the NYT, an article not to be believed.

Soon the discussion had devolved into a fit of wheezing, with one protester blowing his nose into the mulch between clusters of tents.

“It’s called Zuccotti lung,” said Willie Carey, 28, a demonstrator from Chapel Hill, N.C. “It’s a real thing.”

These are our children on whom we've showered every conceivable privelege and sheltered from every conceivable responsibility.

Emergency Testing

Getting the machinery ready to declare martial law in case We,the People, wake up and want the madness to stop.

Video Metaphor

Economics seemed a lot harder to understand when I was in school. Maybe I got smarter.

Let Them Eat Brown Rice ...

and more unintended irony from the New York Post!

The Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a “counter” revolution yesterday -- because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.

For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.

They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day.

To be this clueless is an extraordinary gift.

The Smirk!

Every Republican ad from now until the election should include this picture guaranteed to make any voter's blood run cold.

They Want Paperwork!

 ... the next thing they'll want an accounting department.

From Big Government, another hilarious article about the "Gimme Your Money" crowd ripping off each other just like they've ripped off the rest of us all their lives.

Occupy Wall Street’s Finance Committee has nearly $500,000 in the bank, and donations continue to pour in — but its reluctance to share the wealth with other protestErs is fraying tempers.

Some drummers — incensed they got no money to replace or safeguard their drums after a midnight vandal destroyed their instruments Wednesday — are threatening to splinter off.

“F–k Finance. I hope Mayor Bloomberg gets an injunction and demands to see the movement’s books. We need to know how much money we really have and where it’s going,” said a frustrated Bryan Smith, 45, who joined OWS in Lower Manhattan nearly three weeks ago from Los Angeles, where he works in TV production.

Smith is a member of the Comfort Working Group — one of about 30 small collectives that have sprung up within OWS. The Comfort group is charged with finding out what basic necessities campers need, like thermal underwear, and then raising money by soliciting donations on the street.

... “The other day, I took in $2,000. I kept $650 for my group, and gave the rest to Finance. Then I went to them with a request — so many people need things, and they should not be going without basic comfort items — and I was told to fill out paperwork. Paperwork! Are they the government now?” Smith fumed, even as he cajoled the passing crowd for more cash.

The Finance Committee dives on whatever dollars are raised by all the OWS working groups, said Smith, and doesn’t give it back.

...  So, the Working Groups want to keep more of the money they’ve earned, rather than turn it over to a central authority. Imagine that!

 Unintentional irony is the best kind.

Chinese Wisdom?

From the FT:

China searches for the next Steve Jobs

Wouldn't it be a kick in the head, if the next Steve Jobs, was among the millions of little Chinese girl babies killed because they weren't male.

This Will Make You Smile ;-}

Via hotair, an article in the New York Post:

Thieves preying on fellow protesters

Occupy Wall Street protesters said yesterday that packs of brazen crooks within their ranks have been robbing their fellow demonstrators blind, making off with pricey cameras, phones and laptops -- and even a hefty bundle of donated cash and food.

“Stealing is our biggest problem at the moment,” said Nan Terrie, 18, a kitchen and legal-team volunteer from Fort Lauderdale.

“I had my Mac stolen -- that was like $5,500. Every night, something else is gone. Last night, our entire [kitchen] budget for the day was stolen, so the first thing I had to do was . . . get the message out to our supporters that we needed food!”

[...]

Meanwhile, the Rev. Jesse Jackson was at Zuccotti late last night as he and about 50 protesters formed a human chain in front of a medical tent after police officers came over to ask about the tent, cops and protesters said.

“Jesse dropped in like a ninja,” said Stephanie Perricone, 21. “He came out of nowhere and helped us all out.”

The officers were asking about the size of the tent when the crowd of demonstrators -- including Jackson -- stood en masse in front of it.

The cops said didn’t ask for it to be taken down and the issue was quickly resolved.

Unintentional irony is the best kind.

Help!

Don't get this xkcd carton entitled, Dorm Poster

I think I get that the person on the right is a new roommate who has a similar poster to the one already there, except it has a lens through which the light passes and inverts the image, but don't get why there are two chairs at the desk on the left and no chairs at the desk on the right and definitely don't get why this is funny.

Help.

Hiroshima - Sorry About That

NO PHOTO WITH THIS POST -- I TRIED TO UPLOAD SOME PICTURES OF THE JAPANESE ATROCITIES COMMITTED AGAINST OUR TROOPS DURING WW2 -- BUT I REMEMBER VIVIDLY THE TIME WHEN THOSE PICTURES WERE TAKEN -- AND I COULDN'T DO IT. NEEDLESS TO SAY, NO APOLOGY WAS REQUIRED FROM US.

This IBD editorial can't be true.

Apologies Not Accepted

Leaked cables show Japan nixed a presidential apology to Hiroshima and Nagasaki for using nukes to end the overseas contingency operation known as World War II. Will the next president apologize for the current one?

The obsessive need of this president to apologize for American exceptionalism and our defense of freedom continued recently when Barack Obama's State Department (run by Hillary Clinton) contacted the family of al-Qaida propagandist and recruiter Samir Khan to "express its condolences" to his family.

[...]

Kafka or Calvin?

From the Washington Times, a list of demands by Occupy Wall Street (OWS).

These demands are truly Calvinesque and show the spoiled brats have zero grasp on reality. 

1. Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs ...

2. Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market ...

3. Guaranteed living wage [See No. 1 above] income regardless of employment.

4. Free [Taxpayer funded] college education.

5. ... bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy [and in their spare time teach pigs to fly] economy up to energy demand.

6. One trillion dollars [$1,000,000,000,000] in infrastructure ... now.

7. One trillion dollars [$1,000,000,000,000] in ecological restoration ... and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

8. Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

9. Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live. [They got so excited even their punctuation escaped them here]

10. Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

11. Immediate across the board debt forgiveness ... for all. ... And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

12. Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

13. Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

At the end of the article, the author Kerry Picket asks the 64 trillion dollar question: ... if these demands are not met, then what?   

In a sane world, Calvin and his pal Hobbes grab some comic books and sit under a tree.   In Obama's world??????????

Alice Call Your Office II

From The American Spectator, more absolutely stunning hypocrisy from one the left's primier spokesmen who while publically slamming and smearing corporate America and Wall Street has sweet deals with some of those self-same entities.

Alec Baldwin Fund Tied to Wall Street, Big Oil, by Jeffrey Lord

Isn't this rich?

Morgan Stanley, the legendary Wall Street investment banking company founded by J.P. Morgan that took $10 billion in federal bailout funds back in 2008 during the financial crisis, is a "Corporate Partner" providing funding to the Carol Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund. Named for and listing as chairwoman actor Alec Baldwin's breast cancer survivor mother.

With Alec Baldwin himself serving on the Fund's "Advisory Board.

Merrill Lynch, owned by the Bank of America, is also a "Corporate Partner" with the Baldwins, the company famously teetering on the edge in the 2008 crisis and being purchased by BOA. It was eventually revealed that Merrill Lynch used some $3.6 billion to pay out in "bonuses" -- approximately a third of the amount received in federal TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program).

Exxon Mobile has pitched in as well. The very emblem of Big Oil, Exxon Mobile is another "Corporate Partner" funding the Carol Baldwin Breast Cancer Research Fund.

It's long, but definitely worth your time to read the whole thing and learn that the upshot is that it's all perfectly legal.

I've actually run out of synonyms for the words, outrage, mind-boggling, hypocrisy, disaster ...

Alice Call Your Office

Ya just can't make up this stuff -- and I mean even people like Lewis Carroll, noted genius and satirist.

From Ace 

Curious: Management Company That Runs Zuccotti Park Recently Received $135 Million in Tax Money for Wind Farm [JWF]

Remember back in the day when the mere appearance of impropriety was enough to launch investigations? Good times, good times.

Well, if anything ever needed to be inspected more closely, this is it.

In the name of “green energy,” the Obama administration is using taxpayer money to subsidize a New Hampshire wind farm that is a subsidiary of a hugely profitable company.

New Hampshire’s largest wind farm, the Granite Reliable Power project under construction in Coos County, is jointly owned by BAIF Granite Holdings, LLC and Freshnet Wind Energy, LLC. BAIF owns 75 percent of Granite Reliable. BAIF Granite Holdings was created earlier this year by Brookfield Renewable Power, which is a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management of New York.

That company, which runs clean energy operations around the world, has deep pockets. It reported net income of $454 million in 2009 and $3.2 billion in 2010. Brookfield Renewable Power financed the creation of BAIF Granite Holdings from its Brookfield Americas Infrastructure fund, which was reported in February to have $2.7 billion in assets. With that kind of backing, it is curious that the U.S. Department of Energy announced it would guarantee up to 80 percent of a $168.9 million loan for the Granite Reliable wind farm project last week.

Why would a company created by a $3.2 billion company and backed by a $2.7 billion private fund need federal loan guarantees? That would be an important question at any time, but it is more pertinent after the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar-panel maker that got a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Obama administration last year.

But wait, there's more!

Now why does a company worth billions need taxpayer funding for some green energy project? Something surely smells here. Let's see: They opened the park in mid-September, and magically on September 23, here's a windfall of taxpayer cash.

You'll never guess who lobbies for Brookfield. The firm of Oldaker, Biden & Belair, founded by Joe Biden's son. Well, isn't that a cozy relationship?
In another remarkable coincidence, Mayor Bloomberg's girlfriend, Diana Taylor, is on the Brookfield Board of Directors.

There's actually more to it, as someone here has sifted through all the connections. Frankly, it reeks of cronyism and backscratching.

The surprise isn't that this is happening, the surprise is that the perps don't even seem to think there's a need for subterfuge.

As we trendy nerds say;
The Chicago way;
Has gone viral.

Steven Jobs RIP

Toby Tunes cartoon via Big Government.

I've been thinking about Jobs' death at 56 and modern health care in general. Assuming that he didn't just ignore signs of ill health and did seek medical attention early on, it makes the health care debate even more confusing.

So much of the blather is about people dying because they can't afford health care insurance and here's probably one of the most wealthy men ever to have lived and he succumbed at such an early age.

May he Rest in Peace.

A lot of people are reading his obit on devices that wouldn't exist without his genius.

These Little Pigges Went to Congress

While the media were turning over rocks looking for racism on the right, this has been going on out in public and under our noses.

FTA:

One of the key attorneys in the Pigford “black farmers” lawsuit has confirmed, on camera, what we at Big Government have argued for months: that the $2.7 billion Pigford settlement has been corrupted by fraud on a massive scale.

On September 23, 2011, at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., attorney Faya Rose Toure (a.k.a. Rose Sanders) described a conspiracy to defraud the federal government, involving claimants, attorneys, and members of the clergy.

The original Pigford plaintiffs were black farmers who sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture for racial discrimination.

Sanders related how class-action lawyers later recruited claimants by sending representatives to black churches, where they allegedly told congregants that they were eligible for “reparations,” even if they had never farmed.

[...]

Capitalism at Work

I love this one from xkcd.com.