Happy New Year !!!!

Happy New Year to the Blogosphere!!  I promise to keep bashing Obungler, Having a sense of humor and I will throw in airplane stuff and anything else that catches my fancy.    2012, the end of an error...unless the GOP nominates another RINO and Obungler class warfare rhetoric pays off.

A day in the life of a checked bag.

I picked this up from the local airlines here in Atlanta.

Delta’s new music video, A Day in the Life of a Checked Bag, went viral this week shortly after it was released on YouTube.
Media outlets throughout the U.S. and the U.K. picked up on the video, including the NBC Today Show; USA Today; WNYT-TV; Tuscon Weekly; Digital Journal.com; Tnooz and the Mirror in the United Kingdom. The two minute-43 second clip even had some people blogging and twitting about it on Twitter.
On Thursday, the NBC Today Show featured the video on its morning news program, pointing out all the buzz surrounding it.
“This video has curious travelers flocking to YouTube,” the NBC anchor said. “It gives a suitcase eye view of just what happens to your bag after they’re pulled away on the conveyor belt. It’s an ad for Delta Air Lines promoting its new smart phone app that let’s passengers track their bags in real time.”
Recently Delta rigged a bag with six video cameras and sent it on its way from Atlanta to New York for a revealing look into the day in the life of a checked bag.
The new video offers an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at some of the people, places and things bags encounters on their way from Point A to Point B.
“But promotional gimmick or not, the video gives airline buffs a fun view of the journey a bag takes en route from check-in to pick-up,” said USA Today.
“Nice video and a nice look at how my luggage makes its way through the airport system,” a reader responded to the USA Today blog.
“Awesome video,” twitted a viewer after watching it on YouTube.

New Purchase

I bought my first pistol in 11 years,  I have purchased a couple of long guns since 2000, but bought my first pistol in 11 years.  I have several pistols, but most of them are too large to carry comfortable, and my little CZ-50 is great but the little .32 ACP round isn't an effective manstopper.  I want to carry more because face it, it is dangerous times we live in and nobody will take care of you except you.  When seconds count, the cops are minutes away.  I purchased a Taurus millennium .40 caliber, same round as my S&W Sigma.  I paid a fair amount from Academy Sports.  it was a good deal.  I had checked several pawn shops first, but their inventory was varied and they didn't have exactly what I wanted for the price range I paid.  I paid $369 plus tax, got pistol, extra clip, box and cleaning brush.

Now it is time for range, gotta find a good holster for it for CCW applications.

California has to cut welfare rolls

Got this off the AP(Associated Press)

Remember this video...?

When you make the benefits so generous, that the parasites come to Cali to get the benefits and the productive and companies are going to Nevada and other states to escape the crushing burden of regulations that are foisted on them by the anti-business climate, you will have a deficit when the freeloaders outnumber the productive.

Nation's largest welfare state makes deep cuts

By SHEILA V KUMAR | AP – 6 hrs ago

• This photo taken Tuesday, July 12, 2011, Dana Woolsensack plays with her son, Darris …
• In this photo taken Tuesday, July 12, 2011, Dana Woolsensack holds her son, Darris …

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Advocates of welfare reform in California often cite one, eye-popping statistic as they have pressed for cuts and changes to the program in recent years: The state has one-eighth of the nation's population but one-third of all welfare recipients.

Yet steps taken in recent years to cut costs and get more recipients back in the workforce have run head-on into the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression. Recipients have been left with fewer training programs, shrinking welfare checks and a shorter period during which they are eligible to receive assistance at a time when employment prospects for even highly qualified job-seekers are dim.

That has led to fear and uncertainty among welfare recipients, many of whom have spent a year or more in job-preparation programs without success.

"I've been trying to look for work, but everyone has been losing their jobs and work was hard to find," said David Balaba of Sacramento, who has been on welfare since being laid off in 2009 as a merchandiser for a beverage-packaging company.

His wife lost her job working at a cafe in the Sacramento Zoo a month before his layoff, and their daughter was born shortly after.

"From there, it started to go downhill," said Balaba, 27. "We couldn't find work, we lost everything. It was like a snowball effect."

To help cut their childcare costs and living expenses, his family moved in with his parents in south Sacramento, a few miles from the state Capitol. For almost two years, Balaba has been drawing welfare checks while participating in state-funded programs designed to help him find work.

None of those programs has paid off, and with state spending cuts to welfare programs, he is receiving $300 a month from the state, less than half his previous check of $661.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Balaba is one of 4.6 million Americans on welfare amid a lasting recession that has forced lawmakers to slash budgets across the country, including for many safety-net programs.

California will spend $6 billion this fiscal year on its welfare programs, or roughly 7 percent of a general fund budget that has shrunk by $17.5 billion over the past three years.

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republican lawmakers pushed successfully for welfare reforms in 2004 and have won other cutbacks and concessions since then.

Funding for CalWorks, the welfare-to-work program that is the state's main welfare service, was cut by $1 billion this year. The legislation that reduced the spending also shortened the amount of time a recipient can stay on welfare, from 60 months to 48, while also reducing monthly checks by at least 8 percent.

Lawmakers also suspended a program called Cal-Learn, which offers incentives and services for teenage parents who had dropped out of high school.

Many Republican lawmakers say the cuts need to continue because California can no longer afford all the program's costs. They say the relatively generous benefits have made California a magnet for those seeking welfare assistance.

The Legislature's budget cuts and reform measures in recent years are steps in the right direction but don't go far enough, said state Assemblyman Brian Jones, a Republican from La Mesa, near San Diego.

He said he would support cutting the amount of time adults can remain on welfare even further.

"By the time someone is on welfare for 48 months, I think they're trained to be on that system," he said. "I think we need to make it more attractive in California to get folks off of welfare instead of onto it."

       Read rest here

Ron Paul's Army told to shave...

Some of what Ron Paul espoused like the limited government and sticking with constitutional limits has appeal for me, but his foreign policy is extremely naive and idealistic and don't take into account places like Iran and Venezuela.  His ideas might work if everybody had the same value system, but some people are Klingon's.   Ron Pauls followers are devoted and loud, you hear them in the debates screaming for their leader.  This leader worship reminds me of Obungler and the people that put their own ideals on hope and change.

Ron Paul's Army Has Been Ordered to Shave

Associated Press

Elspeth Reeve 9:23 AM ET

Ron Paul's army of college kids went through boot camp outside Des Moines where they were drilled on how not not scare Iowans either IRL or on Twitter. The New York Times' Richard A. Oppel Jr. reports that just like in a real military, enlistees in the Paul army must shave, cover their tattoos, and abstain from drinking, drugs, and "fraternizing." No tweeting. Only an inoffensive biz-cas uniform will do.

Presumably the ban covers even on-message tattoos like this:

(Photo via Reuters.)

 

There's also a code of silence. Oppel reports that the Paul army is skeptical of the press:

Much of their efforts have been cloaked in secrecy: They said that once they arrive at the camp they are under orders not to speak to journalists or make postings on social media sites about their activities in Iowa, a provocative limitation for a movement lubricated by the effective use of the Internet. A half-dozen Paul aides declined to comment or allow a visit to volunteers. “We’re keeping our cards close to our vests,” said Jesse Benton, the national campaign chairman.

The campaign is following Howard Dean's example in 2004 by deploying hundreds of youngsters to help get Paul's voters to the caucuses next week -- minus the part where they scared the old people with their weird young person haircuts.

Migraines and triggers

I saw this when I googled "migraines".  I suffer them so I avoid chocolates( man I love kit kats though) and bright lights, I wear sunglasses a lot.  I figured what else could trigger them.  I do drink coffee though

Potential migraine triggers

Trigger Category	Potential Trigger Examples
Diet	Skipping meals Fasting Specific foods Food preservatives (e.g., nitrates, MSG) Alcohol and red wine Coffee, tea, and cola Artificial sweeteners Excess sugar
Sleep	Changes in sleep patterns Oversleeping Sleeping too little Napping
Hormonal changes	Menstrual cycle
Weather	Weather and temperature changes Barometric pressure changes
Lighting	Bright or glaring lights Flashing lights or screens
Odors and pollution	Smoke or smog Chemical odors Perfumes and fragrances
Stress and emotions	High or accumulated stress Anxiety, depression, or grief Stress letdown on weekends, vacation, or after ending a stressful project
Physical factors	Physical overexertion Exercising in the heat Becoming overtired Eyestrain

Some common food triggers

Below is a list of common food triggers. However, food triggers can vary widely, and yours may be different.

• Aged cheese (and other foods, such as smoked fish, that contain tyramine)
• Alcohol and red wine
• Artificial sweeteners
• Chocolate
• Citrus fruits
• Coffee, tea, and cola
• Monosodium glutamate (MSG)
• Nitrates in cured and processed meats (hot dogs and lunch meats)
• Nuts and peanut butter
• Salty foods

North Korea doctoring photo's

I had seen the same thing with the Soviet Union back in the day, image is everything where the news is controlled and disseminated to serve a purpose.  We almost have the same thing here where the fawning media covering the Obungler administration.  I do see cracks in the facade though.  The rule of any totalitarian regime is control of the media.


I pulled this off the Atlantic wire

North Korea Doctored a Photo of Kim Jong-il's Funeral for No Reason

Korean Central News Agency, via The New York Times

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Dashiell Bennett 2,095 Views 5:38 AM ET

The North Korean state news agency has been caught manipulating photos from the memorial service of Kim Jong-il, but in such a minor and pointless way that it underscores the paranoid insanity of totalitarian regimes.
The picture above is one that was distributed by the official state news agency (and passed along to other outlets by the European Pressphoto Agency) taken high above Pyongyang as Kim's funeral procession makes its way past the crowd. Here's another shot, taken from the same vantage point, a split second earlier by Japanese agency Kyodo News and distributed by the Associated Press.

(Photo: Kyodo News via AP)
Notice the difference? Probably not at first, but check out the six men (one operating a TV camera) lingering off to the side in the lower left corner. Here's a comparison, put together by The New York Times: 

As the Associated Press noticed first, the six men were digitally removed, using a quick and crude Photoshop technique. It calls to mind Stalin's frequent practice of removing banished enemies from old photographs, only in a more mundane and clumsy way . The men weren't doing anything wrong. They weren't standing out or drawing attention to themselves in any way. There is no state secret being revealed by their presence. But someone, somewhere decided they didn't belong in the picture, so they were erased from history by the "clone" tool. (Check out the NYT Lens blog for a deeper analysis of the changes.)
Like the overly emotional crowds captured on television at the memorial, no one really knows if this change was mandated from on high or done routinely, out of the ongoing understanding that this behavior is what is expected of you in an authoritarian culture. There was no reason at all to do it other than to keep up appearances, but appearances are always vitally important to dictators. In fact, it's the organizing principle of North Korean society — looking like a strong, well-run nation to outside observers supersedes the actual building of a strong, well-run nation. Getting caught in a such silly lie is just another reminder that when dealing with a totalitarian state, the truth is almost never what it seems

History Lesson

I got this e-mail from my Dad, I shamelessly lifted it.  Since I am busy reloading my 'puter after I wiped it clean and having to reload everything on it.  Those that have formatted and reinstalled software know the fun that I am having*blech*

This is just a History lesson. I am sending it to all regardless of party . I bet I know who wouldn't read it -- those afraid of the truth. It is history and nothing can change it.

The day the Democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009, it was actually January 3rd 2007,the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress. The Democratic Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995. For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault", think about this: January 3rd, 2007, the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress: The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77 The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5% The Unemployment rate was 4.6% George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB CREATION! Remember that day... January 3rd, 2007 was the day that BarneyFrank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES! THANK YOU DEMOCRATS(especiallyBarney ) for taking us from 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP and 4.6% Unemployment...to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES! (BTW: Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie -starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy).Barney blocked it and called it a "Chicken Little Philosophy" (and the sky did fall!) And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie? OBAMA and the Democrat Congress, especially BARNEY!!!! So when someone tries to blame Bush... REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!" Bush may have been in the car but the Democrats were in charge of the gas pedal and steering wheel they were driving the economy into the ditch. Budgets do not come from the White House.. They come from Congress and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party.Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009 as well as 2010 & 2011. In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases. For 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budget. And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete 2009. Let's remember what the deficits looked like during that period: If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets. If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself. In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is "I inherited a deficit that I voted for, and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th." There is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on! "The problems we face today exist because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living."

The Love Dress

I got this from my Dad, and since his sense of humor is as warped as mine I get a chuckle out of them.

The Love Dress

The Love Dress

A woman stopped by, unannounced, at her son's house.
She knocked on the door then immediately walked in.
She was shocked to see her daughter-in-law lying on the couch,
naked. Soft music was playing, and the aroma of perfume filled the room.

"What are you doing?!" she asked.

"I'm waiting for Mike to come home from work," the daughter-in-law answered.

"But you're naked!" the mother-in-law exclaimed.

"This is my love dress," the daughter-in-law explained.

"Love dress? But you're naked!"

"Mike loves me and wants me to wear this dress," she explained. "It excites him to no end. Every time he sees me in this dress, he instantly becomes romantic. He can't get enough of me."


The mother-in-law left. When she got home, she undressed, showered, put on her best perfume, dimmed the lights, put on a romantic CD, and lay on the couch, waiting for her husband to arrive. Finally, her husband came home. He walked in and
saw her lying there so provocatively.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"This is my love dress," she whispered sensually.

"Need's ironing," he said. "What's for dinner?"

He never heard the gunshot.

White House will ask formally to raise the debt limit...again

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House plans to ask Congress by the end of the week for an increase in the government's debt ceiling to allow the United States to pay its bills on time, according to a senior Treasury Department official on Tuesday.

The approval is expected to go through without a challenge, given that Congress is in recess until later in January and the request is in line with an agreement to keep the U.S. government funded into 2013.

The debt is projected to fall within $100 billion of the current cap by December 30, when the United States has $82 billion in interest on its debt and payments such as Social Security coming due. President Barack Obama is expected to ask for authority to increase the borrowing limit by $1.2 trillion, part of the spending authority that was negotiated between Congress and the White House this summer.

Under the agreement struck in August during the showdown over the government's debt limit, the cap is automatically raised unless Congress votes to block the debt-ceiling extension. Lawmakers have 15 days within receiving the request to vote, which is largely symbolic because the president can veto it and Congress would be unlikely to muster the two-thirds majority to override it. Moreover, the U.S. House of Representatives also is in recess until January 17.

The deal called for raising the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion to serve the nation's borrowing needs into 2013 and also included mandatory cuts to the federal budget deficit. Since then, the extension has been increased twice by a total of $900 billion.

The debt limit currently stands at $15.194 trillion and would increase to $16.394 trillion with the request.

(Reporting By Margaret Chadbourn; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

     Run up the debt again.....stuff that our kids will have to pay off.  Because the gov't has no fiscal discipline, everybody else except the feds have to budget their money.   The senate hasn't passed a budget in over 1000 days.  No problem, they have an unlimited credit limit......and our kids and grandkids will pay it.

Offering the koolaid

De Havilland Mosquito

I am watching "633 Squadron" with Cliff Roberts and they featured the popular DeHavilland Mosquito, a wooden airplane that rose to fame and prominence during the 2nd world war.  The airplane remained in service until the 1960's  in reconnaissance versions.

    This from Wiki
The de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito was a British multi-role combat aircraft that served during the Second World War and the postwar era. It was known affectionately as the "Mossie" to its crews^[3] and was also nicknamed "The Wooden Wonder".^[4] It saw service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) and many other air forces in the European theatre, the Pacific theatre of Operations and the Mediterranean Theatre.
Originally conceived as an unarmed fast bomber, the Mosquito was adapted to many other roles during the air war, including: low to medium altitude daytime tactical bomber, high-altitude night bomber, pathfinder, day or night fighter, fighter-bomber, intruder, maritime strike aircraft and fast photo-reconnaissance aircraft. It was also used by the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) as a transport.^[5]
When the Mosquito entered production in 1941, it was one of the fastest operational aircraft in the world.^[6] Entering widespread service in 1942, the Mosquito supported RAF strategic night fighter defence forces in the United Kingdom against Luftwaffe raids, most notably defeating the German aerial offensive Operation Steinbock in 1944. Offensively, the Mosquito units also conducted nighttime fighter sweeps in indirect and direct protection of RAF Bomber Command's heavy bombers to help reduce RAF bomber losses in 1944 and 1945. The Mosquito increased German night fighter losses to such an extent the Germans were said to have awarded two victories for shooting one down.^[7] As a bomber, it took part in "special raids", such as pinpoint attacks on prisoner-of-war camps (to aid escapes), Gestapo or German intelligence and security force bases, as well as tactical strikes in support of the British Army in the Normandy Campaign. Some Mosquitos also saw action in RAF Coastal Command during the Battle of the Atlantic, attacking Kriegsmarine U-Boat and transport ship concentrations, particularly in the Bay of Biscay offensive in 1943 in which significant numbers of U-boats were sunk or damaged.
The Mosquito was also used in the Mediterranean and Italian theatres, as well as being used by the RAF in the CBI Theatre, and by the RAAF based in the Halmaheras and Borneo during the Pacific War.

Read more here

Justice Dept rejects S.C Votor law

Justice Dept. rejects South Carolina voter ID law, calling it discriminatory

BENJAMIN MYERS/REUTERS - Attorney General Eric Holder holds a news conference at the DOJ in Washington D.C. December 21, 2011. (REUTERS/Benjamin Myers)

The Obama administration entered the fierce national debate over voting rights, rejecting South Carolina’s new law requiring photo identification at the polls and saying it discriminated against minority voters.
Friday’s decision by the Justice Department could heighten political tensions over eight state voter ID statutes passed this year, which critics say could hurt turnout among minorities and others who helped elect President Obama in 2008. Conservatives and other supporters say the tighter laws are needed to combat voter fraud.

      Justice Department lawyers, facing intense pressure from civil rights groups to act against the new laws, are still reviewing Texas’s statute.
In its first decision on the laws, Justice’s Civil Rights Division said South Carolina’s statute is discriminatory because its registered minority voters are nearly 20 percent more likely than whites to lack a state-issued photo ID. Under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, South Carolina is one of a number of states that are required to receive federal “pre-clearance” on voting changes to ensure that they don’t hurt minorities’ political power.
    Read more here

     I see this stuff coming from the Eric  Holder's"My People" Justice dept you know the justice dept that refused to prosecute the white voter intimidation, the same one that equal rights division don't believe in equal rights, only rights for "his people" and they are using the excuse that minority and others will be denied a vote.  What a croc of crap.  They say that having to provide State I.D. in order to vote is a hardship.  I bet they willingly provide the I.D to get the assorted benefits that they get.  But having to show I.D to vote is a hardship?  To protect the sanctity of the voting process having minorities provide I.D is a hardship?   I was really steamed but not surprised.  How much voter fraud is tied to the democrat party.  You know..the democrat party,  the vote early and vote often party. in 2008 elections, in Philadelphia they had more ballots cast for Obungler than they had registered voters.  The democratic party,   the party that invented gerrymandered. 

      This racial crap will never end, the continued reprisals against the sins of slavery that ended with the civil war 150 years ago.  We are being continually being punished for the sins of our forefathers.  My ancestors were dirt poor farmers in middle Georgia that never owned slaves, but they did fight in the war between the states because they believed that it was their duty against the invaders.  All this stuff is doing now is angering a new generation of whites and also creating a generation of professional victims that blame whitey for their failure to pursue the American dream.  This will continue while the professional race baiters keep playing the victim card.  It is their way to have power and maintain their relevance in the black community.  They tie their fortune to the democrap party, you know the party that destroyed the Black nuclear family in the name of the "great society" programs of LBJ in the 60's.  When will it end? the constant repercussions,  the hunt for payback.  All this does is create a cycle that will never end.

Merry Christmas

To all in the blogosphere, Merry Christmas, during all these turbulent times we need to realize that we are all Sons and Daughters of the United States and in the coming future we will need to remember that.

Class warfare we could use....

By Steve Conover Saturday, December 10, 2011

Filed under: Government & Politics, Big Ideas, Culture, Public Square

The class deserving voters’ wrath is composed of society’s predators and parasites, who span all rungs of the income ladder. Class warfare is emerging as a major theme for the 2012 presidential election campaign. “Millionaires and billionaires”—a reliable phrase that apparently continues to test well with the Democrats’ focus groups—are the easy target, because even though they receive a large portion of national income, they represent only a small fraction of the electorate. But are the millionaires and billionaires the right enemy? Not according to the Republicans, who warn that the major victims of a class war against millionaires would be small businesses. In short, the class war as it stands today finds "Democrats accusing Republicans of siding with the rich, and Republicans countering that Democrats were taxing small business owners who create jobs." Voters are faced with an apparent dilemma, a contest between the two powerful emotions of envy and fear: should we let our envy of the supposedly too-wealthy, too-powerful “rich” outweigh our fear of damaging the economy’s ability to create private sector jobs? Which side should we take in the unfolding class war: the Democrats’ message exploiting envy, or the Republicans’ message exploiting fear? The true heroes in our economy are the producers and earners; they can be found all the way up and down the income ladder, and class warfare should defend and reward them instead of targeting them. It’s a difficult dilemma—but, fortunately, it’s also a false dilemma. Why? Because, as it stands today, the class war has misidentified the enemy. Not all of the rich are the “bad guys” who deserve targets on their backs. By the same token, not all of the remainder are the “good guys” who deserve to be defended—and that includes the middle class, the poor, small businesses, and any other group we don’t usually think of as rich. It’s just not as simple as “the rich versus the rest.” The graphic below illustrates the underlying error: the class of people who deserve our enmity is not precisely “the rich” at the very top of the income ladder; instead, the class deserving voters’ wrath is composed of society’s predators and parasites, who span all rungs of the income ladder. The point is this: If we’re going to have a war, let’s do it right. The battle lines should be drawn orthogonally to the oversimplified “rich versus the rest.” A virtuous war would be one that rewards society’s honest earners and productive contributors, while punishing society’s predators, pirates, and parasites—all without regard to anyone’s income level. It is a target-rich environment that includes anyone (of any income level) who is cheating to win, any business or union (of any size) with its snout in the public trough, any politician filling that trough and feeding those snouts for reciprocal gain, and any group using the political system (at any level) to maintain its monopoly, or its winning “edge” against less-well-connected competitors. Among “the rich” are many entertainment superstars, artists, CEOs, inventors, and entrepreneurs. Are all of them villains because of their huge incomes? Of course not. Most of them get where they are because they produce things that entertain us, make us more productive, save us money, or save us time. Most are “rich” because they earned it—and because they earned it, they do not deserve to be targets in the class war. It’s just not as simple as ‘the rich versus the rest.’ It’s also true that not everyone at the top earned their way to that position. For example, a few are the well-positioned rentiers leveraging their strategic position at a bottleneck in the financial system. As economist Tyler Cowen points out, "The high incomes in finance should give us all pause." Why? Because much of it was not earned; it was instead obtained by gaming the system, by staying a step ahead of the statutes, by keeping profits privatized and risks socialized, and by monetizing moral hazards. This group includes Wall Street firms employing high-speed data feeds into computers programmed to beat less-sophisticated market participants by using a trading technique known as “quote-stuffing,” a method designed to submit-and-retract thousands of dummy bids per second in the profitable quest for fleeting arbitrage events worth pennies each. This group stays one step ahead of the letter of current laws and regulations, lobbies to prevent unfavorable changes in those regulations, nudges the free market a step closer to a fake market, and extracts the resultant economic profits from a comparatively inexpert investing public. As economic historian Joel Mokyr said of some past economic successes, “Prosperity and success led to the emergence of predators and parasites in various forms and guises who eventually slaughtered the geese that laid the golden eggs.” Might today’s Wall Street situation be a contemporary example of history repeating itself? Cowen’s article implies as much. In any case, any Republicans (or Democrats) who think the profitmaking methods described above are worth defending will have an increasingly difficult time doing that, and deservedly so. As the above diagram depicts, some of “the rich” fall into the class known as “predators and parasites” whose profits are large but not earned. Some businesses—large and small, national and local—are sufficiently well-connected politically to maintain their comfort and longevity by extracting government subsidies for their special interest. However, predators and parasites inhabit more than just the ranks of “the rich.” Examples abound. Some tech-savvy individuals and small businesses prey on the elderly, on government programs, or on vulnerable computer systems in governments and other businesses. Some public-sector union bosses are powerful enough to swing elections toward the candidates who will sit on the other side of the negotiating table, thereby bending the public trust to their special advantage. Some businesses—large and small, national and local—are sufficiently well-connected politically to maintain their comfort and longevity by extracting government subsidies for their special interest, or by getting their political friends to pass favorable legislation against competitive threats. The politicians on one side of crony capitalism, as well as the business managers on the other, are part of the problem a virtuous class war should be designed to fix. A proper class war would require Democrats and Republicans to admit that the distinguishing characteristic of the enemy is not the level of income or wealth; rather, it is whether that income or wealth was earned. The true heroes in our economy are the producers and earners; they can be found all the way up and down the income ladder, and class warfare should defend and reward them instead of targeting them. Conversely, the proper targets are the class that includes cheaters, predators, pirates, and parasites—who can also be found at all income levels. If class warfare is inevitable, let’s at least go after the right enemy. Fingering “millionaires and billionaires” as the culprits is the easy way out; it might pass muster in focus groups and might fit well into campaign speeches, but it doesn’t even come close to a proper description of the true enemies of economic growth and broadly shared prosperity. If we can target the right enemy, we’ll be fighting a good war; in that case, by all means, let the 2012 class war begin in earnest.

How To start a trade war....

The EU: How To Start a Trade War

– December 22, 2011Posted in: Homepage Slider

Here it is, in one easy lesson: Decide, as the EU has, to unilaterally impose a carbon tax on airlines. And watch what happens:

China has warned the European Union to abandon its controversial carbon tax on airlines, or risk provoking a global trade war. Adding weight to the warning, an industry insider told the Financial Times that the Chinese government was seriously considering measures to hit back at the EU if it insists on charging international airlines for their carbon emissions. –Simon Rabinovitch, Financial Times, 22 December 2011
The U.S. has threatened to take retaliatory action against the European Union unless Brussels drops its plan imminently to start charging any airline flying into the bloc for its carbon pollution.In a sharp escalation of tensions over Brussels’ move to bring aviation into its emissions trading system from January 1, Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State, has written to her European Commission counterpart, Catherine Ashton, and other top commissioners, to “strongly urge” the EU to halt or suspend its plan. –Pilita Clark and Andrew Parker, Financial Times, 20 December 2011
The Indian government has asked the country’s airlines to refrain from submitting carbon emissions data to the European Union (EU) for a new tax that will become applicable from 1 January for flights to Europe, hardening its stand further against the imposition of the levy. — Tarun Shukla, Live Mint, 18 December 2011

The EU is already in financial trouble, and now it wants to compound that problem with something as silly as a carbon tax to support a very specious premise concerning global warming. It’s all about agenda politics, and its timing couldn’t be worse, given the financial crisis in the EU. This is either EU stupidity or bureaucratic inertia, but in either case the stances taken by the U.S., China and India are not particularly “mild.” The attempt to impose the tax on January 1st could cause quite an uproar and a suspension of flights into the EU until the outcry makes them back off. And, of course, it won’t be the airlines who pay the tax, will it? It will be their customers.
The EU has more problems than it can handle now. Starting a trade war over a carbon tax would be the cherry on top of the “stupid” sundae. But then, for years—and contrary to logic—they thought “other people’s money” would never run out, didn’t they?

Good Morning VIetnam

I was over at my Dads house and "Good Morning Vietnam" came on.  We watched it and commented on it.  My Dad remembers listening to "GOOOOOOD MOOORING VIETNAM"  on his first tour as an MP when it was broadcast out of Saigon.  He also talked about the private and public persona's of the people that came there to do shows.  As always it is good to visit Dad.
       When I got home I had a bit of free time and figured that I would do a bit of research on this show.  It was filmed in Thailand and they have a lot of American equipment from that time it adds to the realism to the movie.  Everybody has seen Robin Williams as Adrian Cronauer, but thereal Adrian is a different personality.


   In the movie:
Good Morning, Vietnam is a 1987 American comedy-drama film set in Saigon during the Vietnam War, based on the career of Adrian Cronauer, a disc jockey on Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS), who proves hugely popular with the troops serving in South Vietnam, but infuriates his superiors with what they call his "irreverent tendency." The film was written by Mitch Markowitz and directed by Barry Levinson.
Most of Williams' humorous radio broadcasts were improvised.^[1] Williams was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. The film is number 100 on "AFI's 100 Years…100 Laughs."

    Here is some tidbits about the real Adrian Cronauer:

Military service

Cronauer co-wrote the original story for the film Good Morning, Vietnam, which was based on his experiences as a Saigon-based deejay during the Vietnam War, where he served from 1965 to 1966.^[4] His program was known as the "Dawn Busters
Adrian Cronauer is no Robin Williams. He knows Robin Williams; they're friendly. But he's no Robin Williams.
Cronauer, who keynotes this year's IWCE 2005, will be forever linked with the manic comic thanks to the brilliant riff Williams turned on Cronauer's military service memories in the movie “Good Morning Vietnam.”
“If I were half as funny as Robin Williams, I'd be out in Hollywood going na-noo, na-noo and making a million dollars,” said Cronauer in a mellifluous voice that immediately identifies him as a veteran of the radio booth. “Once people get to know me, they realize very quickly that I'm not Robin Williams, and it doesn't seem to bother them after that.”
Unlike Williams' disruptively manic disk jockey, Cronauer is a “lifelong card-carrying Republican” who took active roles in both the Dole and Bush/Cheney presidential campaigns. Another big difference between the two:while the movie's Cronauer character always seemed a hairline from full military establishment ostracization — or worse — the real-life Cronauer played within the bounds of the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) format.
“I was faced more with apathy than opposition,” recalled Cronauer, who developed his morning radio shtick listening to Rege Cordic's radio shows in Pittsburgh in the 1950s. “That meant I wasn't doing exactly what Robin Williams did. He did a lot of one-liners. Mine was more situational humor.”
Cronauer honed the morning gig at Iraklion Air Station, evolving a “calm, matter-of-fact ‘Good Morning Iraklion’” into the Howard Dean-like primal yell immortalized by the movie.
Cronauer's deadpan delivery hides a quiet sense of humor that will never be confused with Williams' mania. That sense of humor seeped through the material he compiled about his Vietnam experiences and drew the attention of the comic actor and his agent, Larry Brezner, who bought an option on a 1979 screenplay Cronauer wrote as a TV sitcom.
Before Brezner and Williams stepped in, rejection was a general rule for the project.
“I guess it was just a little too close in time; nobody believed you could do a comedy about Vietnam,” he said.
But Williams saw the potential.
“He read it and said, ‘Oh, disk jockey, [a] chance to do all my comic shtick,’” Cronauer said. “Every year they'd renew the option. About four years later, they called me up and said, ‘We've decided to throw away the original and start over again.’”
Cronauer went to Hollywood, spilling his guts about his experiences in Vietnam.
“It went through five different versions. I'd noodle some suggestions for additions and deletions and changes; a few of them they accepted; most of them they ignored,” he said.
The end product had audiences laughing, and Cronauer, sitting in a screening room watching it, amazed.
“‘Son of a gun,’” he recalled thinking, “‘they actually made a movie out of this thing.’”
Perhaps most important, the movie gave the disk-jockey-soon-to-turn-lawyer a bully pulpit for his job today as special assistant to the director of the Pentagon's POW/MIA Office. It's a job he took because of his political connections and his desire to help his fellow veterans and their families.
“When the [first term George W. Bush] administration came in, they asked if I wanted to join them. Their thinking was that I'm a high-profile veteran and well-known in the veterans' community,” he said.
He was mulling the offer when terrorists brought down the World Trade Center towers and got him thinking about rejoining the military. Instead, he says, he followed his wife's advice and entered public service.
       You can read more  here





    

The Obungler Reset on foreign policy..........

 

 I shamelessly lifted this from Charles Krauthammer, I consider him very learned and a Genius.  That man can turn a phrase like few can.

 

By Charles Krauthammer, Published: December 15

“Ask Osama bin Laden . . . whether I engage in appeasement.”
— Barack Obama, Dec. 8

Fair enough. Barack Obama didn’t appease Osama bin Laden. He killed him. And for ordering the raid and taking the risk, Obama deserves credit. Credit for decisiveness and political courage.
However, the bin Laden case was no test of policy. No serious person of either party ever suggested negotiation or concession. Obama demonstrated decisiveness, but forgoing a non-option says nothing about the soundness of one’s foreign policy. That comes into play when there are choices to be made.
And here the story is different. Take Obama’s two major foreign policy initiatives — toward Russia and Iran.
The administration came into office determined to warm relations with Russia. It was called “reset,” an antidote to the “dangerous drift” (Vice President Biden’s phrase) in relations during the Bush years.
In fact, Bush’s increasing coolness toward Russia was grounded in certain unpleasant realities: growing Kremlin authoritarianism that was systematically dismantling a fledgling democracy; naked aggression against a small, vulnerable, pro-American state (Georgia); the drive to reestablish a Russian sphere of influence in the near-abroad and; support, from Syria to Venezuela, of the world’s more ostentatiously anti-American regimes.
Unmoored from such inconvenient realities, Obama went about his reset. The signature decision was the abrupt cancellation of a Polish- and Czech-based U.S. missile defense system bitterly opposed by Moscow.
The cancellation deeply undercut two very pro-American allies who had aligned themselves with Washington in the face of both Russian threats and popular unease. Obama not only left them twisting in the wind, he showed the world that the Central Europeans’ hard-won independence was only partial and tentative. With American acquiescence, their ostensibly sovereign decisions were subject to a Russian veto.
This major concession, together with a New START treaty far more needed by Russia than America, was supposed to ease U.S.-Russia relations, assuage Russian opposition to missile defense and enlist its assistance in stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
Three years in, how is that reset working out? The Russians are back on the warpath about missile defense. They’re denouncing the watered-down Obama substitute. They threaten not only to target any Europe-based U.S. missile defenses but also to install offensive missiles in Kaliningrad. They threaten additionally to withdraw from START, which the administration had touted as a great foreign policy achievement.
As for assistance on Iran, Moscow has thwarted us at every turn, weakening or blocking resolution after resolution. And now, when even the International Atomic Energy Agency has testified to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Russia declares that it will oppose any new sanctions.
Finally, adding contempt to mere injury, Vladimir Putin responded to recent anti-government demonstrations by unleashing a crude Soviet-style attack on America as the secret power behind the protests. Putin personally accused Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of sending “a signal” that activated internal spies and other agents of imperial America.
Such are the wages of appeasement. Makes one pine for mere “drift.”
Even worse has been Obama’s vaunted “engagement” with Iran. He began his presidency apologetically acknowledging U.S. involvement in a coup that happened more than 50 years ago. He then offered bilateral negotiations that, predictably, failed miserably. Most egregiously, he adopted a studied and scandalous neutrality during the popular revolution of 2009, a near-miraculous opportunity — now lost — for regime change.
Obama imagined that his silver tongue and exquisite sensitivity to Islam would persuade the mullahs to give up their weapons program. Amazingly, they resisted his charms, choosing instead to become a nuclear power. The negotiations did nothing but confer legitimacy on the regime at its point of maximum vulnerability (and savagery), as well as give it time for further uranium enrichment and bomb development.
For his exertions, Obama earned (a) continued lethal Iranian assistance to guerrillas killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, (b) a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador by blowing up a Washington restaurant, (c) the announcement just this week by a member of parliament of Iranian naval exercises to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, and (d) undoubted Chinese and Russian access to a captured U.S. drone for the copying and countering of its high-tech secrets.
How did Obama answer that one?
On Monday, he politely asked for the drone back.
On Tuesday, with Putin-like contempt, Iran demanded that Obama apologize instead. “Obama begs Iran to give him back his toy plane,” reveled the semiofficial Fars News Agency.
Just a few hours earlier, Secretary Clinton asserted yet again that “we want to see the Iranians engage. . . . We are not giving up on it.”
Blessed are the cheek-turners. But do these people have no limit?

When you care to send the very best.

Air Force One

It's hard to believe that CBS actually said something that wasn't flattering to this so-called President! Air Force One:

This is from Mark Knoller of CBS.

The pilots and crew of Air Force One are flying more hours than a rookie on a beer run.

They are tired of it too, and are adding more crew to Air Force-1, - I know this for a fact because I'm one of the instructors that trains the crews. Our company (Atlas Air) has had the Air Force-1 and E-4 contract for over two years and I've been doing it for about 8 months now.

Last year (2010) Obama flew in Air Force One 172 times, almost every other day. White House officials have been telling reporters in recent days that the Democrat doesn't intend to hang around the White House quite so much in 2011.They explain he wants to get out more around the country because, as everyone knows, that midterm election shellacking on Nov. 2 had nothing to do with his health care bill, over-spending or other policies, and everything to do with Obama's not adequately explaining himself to his countrymen and women.

And with only 673 days remaining in Obama's never ending presidential campaign, the incumbent's travel pace will not likely slacken. At an Air Force-estimated cost of $181,757 per flight HOUR (not to mention the additional travel costs of Marine One, Secret Service, logistics and local police overtime), that's a lot of frequent flier dollars going into Obama's carbon footprint.

$8 Million every time it lands & takes off.

We are privy to some of these numbers thanks to CBS' Mark Knoller, a bearded national treasure trove of presidential stats. According to Knoller's copious notes, during the last year, Obama made 65 domestic trips over 104 days, and six trips to eight countries over 22 days. Not counting six vacation trips over 32 days. He took 196 helicopter trips, signed 203 pieces of legislation and squeezed in 29 rounds of left-handed golf.

Obama last year gave 491 speeches, remarks or statements. That's more talking than goes on in some entire families, at least from fatherly mouths. In fact, even including the 24 days of 2010 that we never saw Obama in public, his speaking works out to about one official utterance every 11 waking hours. Aides indicate the "Real Good Talker" believes we need more.

Related: Obama spends nearly half his presidency outside Washington, plans to travel more.

Related: Vacationer-in-Chief Spends $1.75 Million to Visit Hawaiian Chums.

Obama has spent over $100 million taxpayer dollars flying around in Air Force One, and probably another $100 million on his entourage

    Something to think about on the next election cycle

Translations of Common Euphemisms

Translations of Common Euphemisms

DEMOCRAT	REPUBLICAN
Arsenal of Weapons	Gun Collection
Delicate Wetlands	Swamp
Undocumented Worker	Illegal Alien
Cruelty-Free Materials	Synthetic Fiber
Assault and Battery	Attitude Adjustment
Heavily Armed	Well-protected
Narrow-minded	Righteous
Taxes or Your Fair Share	Coerced Theft
Commonsense Gun Control	Gun Confiscation Plot
Illegal Hazardous Explosives	Fireworks or Stump Removal
Non-viable Tissue Mass	Unborn Baby
Equal Access to Opportunity	Socialism
Multicultural Community	High Crime Area
Fairness or Social Progress	Marxism
Upper Class or "The Rich "	Self-Employed
Progressive, Change	Big Government Scheme
Homeless or Disadvantaged	Bums or Welfare Leeches
Sniper Rifle	Scoped Deer Rifle
Investment For the Future	Higher Taxes
Healthcare Reform	Socialized Medicine
Extremist, Judgmental, or Hater	Conservative
Truants	Homeschoolers
Victim or Oppressed	Criminal or Lazy Good-For-Nothing
High Capacity Magazine	Standard Capacity Magazine
Religious Zealot	Church-going
Reintroduced Wolves	Sheep and Elk Killers
Fair Trade Coffee	Overpriced Yuppie Coffee
Exploiters or "The Rich "	Employed or Land Owner
The Gun Lobby	NRA Members
Assault Weapon	Semi-Auto (Grandpa's M1 Carbine)
Fiscal Stimulus	New Taxes and Higher Taxes
Same Sex Marriage	Legalized Perversion
Mandated Eco-Friendly Lighting	Chinese Mercury-Laden Light Bulbs
Accepted Facts	Horse Shit