Are there really socialist?

I got this from PJ media
Two unconnected developments were announced this past week. President Obama is releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, despite the absence of a global embargo or horrific natural disaster — and despite a litany of assertions from 2008 that drilling and increased supply might only have a marginal effect on prices.
Like the sudden Afghan withdrawal announcement, the tapping is largely explained by political worries about reelection, as in increasing oil supplies to lower gas prices by election time — and thus avoiding campaign ads equating Obama’s opposition to drilling with high prices at the 2012 pump.
In a second piece of news, the Europeans seem to be winning far more plane orders than Boeing. One wonders whether that fact is remotely connected with airlines’ collective worries about obtaining orders on time and as specified — as in uncertainty whether Obama’s NLRB ruling that attempted to shut down a nearly $1 billion new aircraft line in South Carolina translates into something like “who knows what those Americans are doing next?”
All this raises some questions. The strangest things about the global statist crack-up are socialists’ unhappiness with their socialist utopia, and their subsequent efforts to avoid the consequences of the very redistributive state that they themselves once so gladly crafted.
Greece is the locus classicus. Why are the Greeks protesting? Against whom? They obtained long ago the promised bloated sector and high taxes that all schemed to avoid. Their alma mater EU is hardly a demonic capitalist-run plutocracy, but a kindred socialist state. Is Greece an oil producer, industrial powerhouse, high-tech innovator — anything that might explain the sort of upscale life, modern infrastructure, legions of Mercedeses, and plush second homes that one began to see in Greece after 1985?
In truth, socialist Greeks are furious that they have impoverished themselves and demand that private money and far harder-working Germans bail them out — but why so, when socialism should not need outside capitalist-generated dollars? Could not the Greeks, Soviet style, set up a Cuban collective, and adjust their lifestyles (there goes Kolonaki culture) to their means, living in an opportunity of result utopia with a huge public sector, more siestas, high but ignored taxes — with a collective good riddance to those awful intrusive German bankers?
Here at home, Obama got his ObamaCare. Why, then, did he grant hundreds of exemptions — many to northern California liberals? Should they instead not have lined up to volunteer to implement such a wonderful, long-needed entitlement?
He said energy would rightly sky-rocket, given his determination to curb fossil fuel production (cf. “bankrupt” coal companies). Why then is Obama concerned that gas hit $4; is not such a high price a welcomed retardant to burning hot fuels? The higher the gas prices, the more that subsidized wind and solar power, and electric cars are attractive, and thus the more we enjoy “sustainable” power. Right? Am I missing something about this desire within our grasp of “living within our means”?
Obama enjoyed big majorities in both houses of Congress; and on the campaign trail he had promised a de facto amnesty under the euphemism of “comprehensive immigration reform.” So why did he not grant such exemptions, and absorb 11, 15, or 20 million new “citizens” from Oaxaca? Is not that the point of amnesty, to welcome in new constituencies who will remember a benefactor at the polls?
We have heard that taxes, more taxes, and more taxes are the cure for the massive deficits, run up by out of control spending. OK, fine. But why then does multimillionaire John Kerry go to great lengths to avoid taxes on his yacht (why a luxury yacht when so many have so little?); why are redistributive overseers like Timothy Geithner, Eric Holder, Tom Daschle, Charles Rangel, and Hilda Solis either late or delinquent in paying the federal, state, or local governments what they owe? Were not high taxes on the upper incomes like themselves the point of it all? Should not they pay all they can to ensure that their brethren receive needed entitlements? I thought Bono would lead an international effort of multimillionaire rock stars to relocate to socialist states like Ireland or Greece, so that they might gladly pay 75% of their incomes (which at “some point” they had enough of) to help others closer to home. Why instead is he fleeing to low-tax nations? Did not such socialists have enough money by now without undermining the socialist state?

     More here

monday music

Here is another installment of monday music.

  This song hit big while I was at Fort Devens in MASS

  I also added the following song

  Walk like an Egyptian..I though it was ironic that they had quadaffey in this video.

The true size of our debt.

The Congressional Budget Office released a new report this week showing that the federal government’s publicly held debt would top 101% of GDP by 2021, more than the value of everything produced in this country over the course of a year. Think of it like owing more on your credit cards than your entire family income. By 2035, the publicly held debt, CBO says, could top an almost unfathomable 190% of GDP.
And that was the good news.
The federal government actually has three different types of debt. Debt held by the public, which generated the headlines in the CBO report, is the type of government bonds that you — or the Chinese government — might own. Economists worry a lot about this type of debt because the government has to borrow the money from private credit markets. The government borrowing competes with investment in the nongovernmental sector, leaving less money available for private investment in such things as factories and equipment, research and development, housing, and so on. Growing levels of publicly held debt can drive up interest rates in the long-run, and may already be choking off interbank lending.

But that’s not the only type of government debt. For example, there is “intragovernmental” debt, which is essentially debt that the federal government owes to itself, such as debt it owes to the so-called Social Security Trust Fund. If publicly held debt is like the money you borrowed from a bank, intragovernmental debt is like the money you swiped from your kid’s piggy bank. It may not be on your credit report, but you still have to pay it back.
Today, intragovernmental debt exceeds $4.6 trillion. The good news here is that intragovernmental debt is not projected to grow much in the future. The bad news is that that is because both Social Security and Medicare are already running deficits — there’s nothing left to steal.
As if that’s not enough, there is also a third category of government debt: “implicit debt.” This represents the unfunded obligations of programs such as Social Security and Medicare — the amount that those programs owe in benefits in excess of the amount of taxes that they expect to take in. Think of it as bills you know are going to come in next month but haven’t been delivered yet.
According to the annual report of the Social Security system’s trustees, that program’s unfunded liabilities now exceed $18 trillion. Medicare is in even worse shape. The most recent estimate of its finances, also released this week, warns that Medicare owes $36.8 trillion more in benefits that it is expected to be able to pay for. And that is the optimistic outlook: It assumes that all the projected savings from President Obama’s health care reform actually happen as promised, something that even Medicare’s own actuaries are deeply skeptical of. If those savings don’t materialize, Medicare’s debt could actually top $90 trillion!
Add it all up, and total US debt actually exceeds 900% of GDP. That’s somewhere in excess of $120 trillion. We are beginning to talk real money here.
The CBO also contains bad news for those who believe that we can fix this problem simply by cutting “fraud, waste and abuse.” As CBO points out, the projected growth in the debt “is attributable entirely to increases in spending on several large mandatory programs: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and (to a lesser extent) insurance subsidies that will be provided through [Obamacare].” There is simply no way to deal with our debt problems without reforming those entitlement programs.
Finally, the CBO report makes it clear that we have a debt problem because spending is too high, not because taxes are too low. In fact, even though taxes are currently at a near historic low as a proportion of the economy, that is largely a result of the recession. If the economy returns to normal growth rates (a big “if”), federal revenues will not only rise, but will actually be higher than the postwar average percentage of GDP by the end of the decade. In fact, this will happen even if the Bush tax cuts are extended and the Alternative Minimum Tax AMT continues to be patched.
GOP lawmakers who left negotiations with Obama this week over his unwillingness to pledge no new taxes understand this. The problem is the money going out, not coming in.
We face a simple choice: Cut spending or face fiscal catastrophe. The question is: Is Washington listening?
Michael D. Tanner is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/trillion_the_shocking_true_size_tOxcrobUBUup9IEW3vQAhJ#ixzz1QUZJDo2G

literacy test

For those that pride their civic knowledge here is a test   I scored a 87%    The test was interesting.

TSA stealing from passengers.

   I listen to a show here in GA called the Neal Boortz show, who also have a very good website www.boortz.com.   The website is very informative..  he has stated on one of his trips, he saw a TSA agent remove an IPOD and some other stuff from his bag.  When he tried to get their attention that the theft was going on, they basically blew him off and stalled him long enough for the employee to depart and leave and go home.   And to his knowledge nothing was ever done to the TSA employee that went through his bag.  There were other examples given by other listeners.




Houston, you’ve got a problem. Every airport does, and it goes by a familiar name: TSA theft.
In the case of Houston, the problem was Transportation and Security Administration agent Karla Renee Morgan, who decided to augment her salary by helping herself to the contents of passengers’ luggage as it passed through her security checkpoint.
The solution for Houston Police was to lay a trap. An undercover cop turned a wallet containing $1,000 in marked bills in to Morgan, claiming he had found it. By a remarkable coincidence, when Morgan headed out at the end of her shift, authorities discovered an identical wallet with identically marked bills in her backpack. The “lost” wallet had never been turned in to airport lost and found.
The apprehension of Morgan, who has been charged with a misdemeanor crime, is a law enforcement coup. Or it would be if it weren’t such pitifully small potatoes in the world of TSA crime.
In 2009, a TSA screener at Newark Liberty International Airport by the name of Pythias Brown was sentenced to three years in federal prison on multiple counts of grand larceny. Known to eBay buyers as “Alirla,” Brown had run the largest one-man theft ring in the short history of the Transportation Security Administration, netting an estimated $400,000 via the resale of stolen high-priced electronics.
And even Brown represents just the tip of the iceberg. According to TSA records, press reports, and court documents, Brown is just one of some 500 TSA officers who have been fired or suspended for stealing from passenger luggage since the agency’s creation in November of 2001. The airports servicing New York City—John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark Liberty—harbor the most flagrant offenders, but virtually no city in the nation is safe from the TSA’s sticky fingers.
In 2009, a half dozen TSA agents at Miami International Airport were charged with grand theft after boosting an iPod, bottles of perfume, cameras, a GPS system, a Coach purse, and a Hewlett Packard Mini Notebook from passengers’ luggage. Travelers passing through the airport’s checkpoints reported as many as 1,500 items stolen, the majority of which were never recovered.
In May of this year alone, TSA agents were arrested on the suspicion of theft at airports in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Chicago.
So what’s the TSA’s response? That the ratio of crooks to non-crooks within the agency is minuscule—less than one half of one percent. The agency’s blog even assigns concrete numbers: Out of more than 110,000 employees, 200 have been accused of stealing. Assuming (big assumption!) that 200 is the absolute number of thieves within the agency’s ranks, that’s still 200 chances to pass through airport security and come out on the other side minus your valuables. In the meantime, you can look forward to invasive pat-downs, potentially dangerous irradiation from scanners, and the knowledge that the agency has an iffy record when it comes to detecting legitimate threats. If that doesn’t make you feel all warm and cuddly when you fly, nothing will.

American Idle

According to experts who get down on their knees every day and give thanks that there is still employment for "experts," there are now more Americans idled by joblessness than at any time since the Great Depression. Which, by 2012, we'll no doubt be calling "Great Depression One."

Estimates are that 10.5 million jobs have been lost in recent years...and they show no real signs of coming back. Perhaps ever. And the alleged unemployment figure of 9.1% is essentially a funny (but not hilarious) bit of shady government bookkeeping to hide a real figure that is closer to 16%.

None of which comes as news to regular readers of Hope n' Change...and neither is the fact that the Obama administration continues to do nothing to change this disturbing situation.

And why should they? More and more people are becoming entirely dependent on the government and developing bitter resentment towards those who have jobs, create jobs, or invest in job creation - an attitude which is being actively fomented by the Left.

But as bad as all of this is, the "oratorically gifted" Barack Obama continues to refer to our nation's joblessness as nothing more than "a bump in the road"... before heading out to the golf course.

All of which is, to put it mildly, Greatly Depressing.

humor

U.S. and Pakistan: Afghan Strategies

I got this from Stratfor, since I am a former intel weenie, I still like to get this kind of stuff, keeps me interested in what is going on in other places of the world.

By George Friedman
U.S. President Barack Obama will give a speech on Afghanistan on June 22. Whatever he says, it is becoming apparent that the United States is exploring ways to accelerate the drawdown of its forces in the country. It is also clear that U.S. relations with Pakistan are deteriorating to a point where cooperation — whatever level there was — is breaking down. These are two intimately related issues. Any withdrawal from Afghanistan, particularly an accelerated one, will leave a power vacuum in Afghanistan that the Kabul government will not be able to fill. Afghanistan is Pakistan’s back door, and its evolution is a matter of fundamental interest to Pakistan. A U.S. withdrawal means an Afghanistan intertwined with and influenced by Pakistan. Therefore, the current dynamic with Pakistan challenges any withdrawal plan.
There may be some in the U.S. military who believe that the United States might prevail in Afghanistan, but they are few in number. The champion of this view, Gen. David Petraeus, has been relieved of his command of forces in Afghanistan and promoted (or kicked upstairs) to become director of the CIA. The conventional definition of victory has been the creation of a strong government in Kabul controlling an army and police force able to protect the regime and ultimately impose its will throughout Afghanistan. With President Hamid Karzai increasingly uncooperative with the United States, the likelihood of this outcome is evaporating. Karzai realizes his American protection will be withdrawn and understands that the Americans will blame him for any negative outcomes of the withdrawal because of his inability or unwillingness to control corruption.

Defining Success in Afghanistan

There is a prior definition of success that shaped the Bush administration’s approach to Afghanistan in its early phases. The goal here was the disruption of al Qaeda’s operations in Afghanistan and the prevention of further attacks on the United States from Afghanistan. This definition did not envisage the emergence of a stable and democratic Afghanistan free of corruption and able to control its territory. It was more modest and, in many ways, it was achieved in 2001-2002. Its defect, of course, was that the disruption of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, while useful, did not address the evolution of al Qaeda in other countries. In particular, it did not deal with the movement of al Qaeda operatives to Pakistan, nor did it address the Taliban, which were not defeated in 2001-2002 but simply declined combat on American terms, re-emerging as a viable insurgency when the United States became bogged down in Iraq.
The mission creep from denying Afghan bases to al Qaeda to the transformation of Afghan society had many roots and was well under way during the Bush administration, but the immediate origin of the current strategy was the attempt to transfer the lessons of Iraq to Afghanistan. The surge in Iraq, and the important political settlement with Sunni insurgents that brought them into the American fold, reduced the insurgency. It remains to be seen whether it will produce a stable Iraq not hostile to American interests. The ultimate Iraq strategy was a political settlement framed by an increase in forces, and its long-term success was never clear. The Obama administration was prepared to repeat the attempt in Afghanistan, at least by using Iraq as a template if not applying exactly the same tactics.
However, the United States found that the Taliban were less inclined to negotiate with the United States, and certainly not on the favorable terms of the Iraqi insurgents, simply because they believed they would win in the long run and did not face the dangers that the Sunni insurgents did. The military operations that framed the search for a political solution turned out to be a frame without a painting. In Iraq, it is not clear that the Petraeus strategy actually achieved a satisfactory political outcome, and its application to Afghanistan does not seem, as yet, to have drawn the Taliban into the political process in the way that incorporating the Sunnis made Iraq appear at least minimally successful.
As we pointed out after the death of Osama bin Laden, his demise, coupled with the transfer of Petraeus out of Afghanistan, offered two opportunities. The first was a return to the prior definition of success in Afghanistan, in which the goal was the disruption of al Qaeda. Second, the departure of Petraeus and his staff also removed the ideology of counterinsurgency, in which social transformation was seen as the means toward a practical and radical transformation of Afghanistan. These two events opened the door to the redefinition of the U.S. goal and the ability to claim mission accomplished for the earlier, more modest end, thereby building the basis for terminating the war.
The central battle was in the United States military, divided between conventional warfighters and counter-insurgents. Counterinsurgency draws its roots from theories of social development in emerging countries going back to the 1950s. It argues that victory in these sorts of wars depends on social and political mobilization and that the purpose of the military battle is to create a space to build a state and nation capable of defending itself.
The conventional understanding of war is that its purpose is to defeat the enemy military. It presents a more limited and focused view of military power. This faction, bitterly opposed to Petraeus’ view of what was happening in Afghanistan, saw the war in terms of defeating the Taliban as a military force. In the view of this faction, defeating the Taliban was impossible with the force available and unlikely even with a more substantial force. There were two reasons for this. First, the Taliban comprised a light infantry force with a superior intelligence capability and the ability to withdraw from untenable operations (such as the battle for Helmand province) and re-engage on more favorable terms elsewhere. Second, sanctuaries in Pakistan allowed the Taliban to withdraw to safety and reconstitute themselves, thereby making their defeat in detail impossible. The option of invading Pakistan remained, but the idea of invading a country of 180 million people with some fraction of the nearly 150,000 U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan was militarily unsupportable. Indeed, no force the United States could field would be in a position to compel Pakistan to conform to American wishes.
The alternative on the American side is a more conventional definition of war in which the primary purpose of the U.S. military in Afghanistan is to create a framework for special operations forces to disrupt al Qaeda in Afghanistan and potentially Pakistan, not to attempt to either defeat the Taliban strategically or transform Afghanistan politically and culturally. With the death of bin Laden, an argument can be made — at least for political purposes — that al Qaeda has been disrupted enough that the conventional military framework in Afghanistan is no longer needed. If al Qaeda revives in Afghanistan, then covert operations can be considered. The problem with al Qaeda is that it does not require any single country to regenerate. It is a global guerrilla force.

Asymmetry in U.S. and Pakistani Interests

The United States can choose to leave Afghanistan without suffering strategic disaster. Pakistan cannot leave Pakistan. It therefore cannot leave its border with Afghanistan nor can it evade the reality that Pakistani ethnic groups — particularly the Pashtun, which straddle the border and form the heart of the Taliban phenomenon — live on the Afghan side of the border as well. Therefore, while Afghanistan is a piece of American global strategy and not its whole, Afghanistan is central to Pakistan’s national strategy. This asymmetry in U.S. and Pakistani interests is now the central issue.
When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Pakistan joined with the United States to defeat the Soviets. Saudi Arabia provided money and recruits, the Pakistanis provided training facilities and intelligence and the United States provided trainers and other support. For Pakistan, the Soviet invasion was a matter of fundamental national interest. Facing a hostile India supported by the Soviets and a Soviet presence in Afghanistan, Pakistan was threatened on two fronts. Therefore, deep involvement with the jihadists in Afghanistan was essential to Pakistan because the jihadists tied down the Soviets. This was also beneficial to the United States.
After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States became indifferent to Afghanistan’s future. Pakistan could not be indifferent. It remained deeply involved with the Islamist forces that had defeated the Soviets and would govern Afghanistan, and it helped facilitate the emergence of the Taliban as the dominant force in the country. The United States was quite content with this in the 1990s and accepted the fact that Pakistani intelligence had become intertwined not only with the forces that fought the Soviets but also with the Taliban, who, with Pakistani support, won the civil war that followed the Soviet defeat.
Intelligence organizations are as influenced by their clients as their clients are controlled by them. Consider anti-Castro Cubans in the 1960s and 1970s and their beginning as CIA assets and their end as major influencers of U.S. policy toward Cuba. The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) became entwined with its clients. As the influence of the Taliban and Islamist elements increased in Afghanistan, the sentiment spread to Pakistan, where a massive Islamist movement developed with influence in the government and intelligence services.
Sept. 11, 2001, posed a profound threat to Pakistan. On one side, Pakistan faced a United States in a state of crisis, demanding Pakistani support against both al Qaeda and the Taliban. On the other side Pakistan had a massive Islamist movement hostile to the United States and intelligence services that had, for a generation, been intimately linked to Afghan Islamists, first with whole-hearted U.S. support, then with its benign indifference. The American demands involved shredding close relationships in Afghanistan, supporting an American occupation in Afghanistan and therefore facing internal resistance and threats in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Pakistani solution was the only one it could come up with to placate both the United States and the forces in Pakistan that did not want to cooperate with the United States. The Pakistanis lied. To be more precise and fair, they did as much as they could for the United States without completely destabilizing Pakistan while making it appear that they were being far more cooperative with the Americans and far less cooperative with their public. As in any such strategy, the ISI and Islamabad found themselves engaged in a massive balancing act.
U.S. and Pakistani national interests widely diverged. The United States wanted to disrupt al Qaeda regardless of the cost. The Pakistanis wanted to avoid the collapse of their regime at any cost. These were not compatible goals. At the same time, the United States and Pakistan needed each other. The United States could not possibly operate in Afghanistan without some Pakistani support, ranging from the use of Karachi and the Karachi-Khyber and Karachi-Chaman lines of supply to at least some collaboration on intelligence sharing, at least on al Qaeda. The Pakistanis badly needed American support against India. If the United States simply became pro-Indian, the Pakistani position would be in severe jeopardy.
The United States was always aware of the limits of Pakistani assistance. The United States accepted this publicly because it made Pakistan appear to be an ally at a time when the United States was under attack for unilateralism. It accepted it privately as well because it did not want to see Pakistan destabilize. The Pakistanis were aware of the limits of American tolerance, so a game was played out.

The Endgame in Afghanistan

That game is now breaking down, not because the United States raided Pakistan and killed bin Laden but because it is becoming apparent to Pakistan that the United States will, sooner or later, be dramatically drawing down its forces in Afghanistan. This drawdown creates three facts. First, Pakistan will be facing the future on its western border with Afghanistan without an American force to support it. Pakistan does not want to alienate the Taliban, and not just for ideological reasons. It also expects the Taliban to govern Afghanistan in due course. India aside, Pakistan needs to maintain its ties to the Taliban in order to maintain its influence in Afghanistan and guard its western flank. Being cooperative with the United States is less important. Second, Pakistan is aware that as the United States draws down, it will need Pakistan to cover its withdrawal strategically. Afghanistan is not Iraq, and as the U.S. force draws down, it will be in greater danger. The U.S. needs Pakistani influence. Finally, there will be a negotiation with the Taliban, and elements of Pakistan, particularly the ISI, will be the intermediary.
The Pakistanis are preparing for the American drawdown. Publicly, it is important for them to appear as independent and even hostile to the Americans as possible in order to maintain their domestic credibility. Up to now, they have appeared to various factions in Pakistan as American lackeys. If the United States is leaving, the Pakistanis can’t afford to appear that way anymore. There are genuine issues separating the two countries, but in the end, the show is as important as the issues. U.S. accusations that the government has not cooperated with the United States in fighting Islamists are exactly what the Pakistani establishment needs in order to move to the next phase. Publicly arresting CIA sources who aided the United States in capturing bin Laden also enhances this new image.
From the American point of view, the war in Afghanistan — and elsewhere — has not been a failure. There have been no more attacks on the United States on the order of 9/11, and that has not been for al Qaeda’s lack of trying. U.S. intelligence and security services, fumbling in the early days, achieved a remarkable success, and that was aided by the massive disruption of al Qaeda by U.S. military operations. The measure of military success is simple. If the enemy was unable to strike, the military effort was a success. Obviously, there is no guarantee that al Qaeda will not regenerate or that another group will not emerge, but a continued presence in Afghanistan at this point doesn’t affect that. This is particularly true as franchise operations like the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula begin to overtake the old apex leadership in terms of both operational innovation in transnational efforts and the ideological underpinnings of those attacks.
In the end, the United States will leave Afghanistan (with the possible exception of some residual special operations forces). Pakistan will draw Afghanistan back into its sphere of influence. Pakistan will need American support against India (since China does not have the force needed to support Pakistan over the Himalayas nor the navy to protect Pakistan’s coast). The United States will need Pakistan to do the basic work of preventing an intercontinental al Qaeda from forming again. Reflecting on the past 10 years, Pakistan will see that as being in its national interest. The United States will use Pakistan to balance India while retaining close ties to India.
A play will be acted out like the New Zealand Haka, with both sides making terrible sounds and frightening gestures at each other. But now that the counterinsurgency concept is being discarded, from all indications, and a fresh military analysis is under way, the script is being rewritten and we can begin to see the end shaping up. The United States is furious at Pakistan for its willingness to protect American enemies. Pakistan is furious at the United States for conducting attacks on its sovereign territory. In the end it doesn’t matter. They need each other. In the affairs of nations, like and dislike are not meaningful categories, and bullying and treachery are not blocks to cooperation. The two countries need each other more than they need to punish each other. Great friendships among nations are built on less.

monday music

Crap..I forgot the monday music, oh well here it is:)

Till Tuesday
     "Voices carry"   Since I actually posted on Tuesday, it is appropiate

Level 42
            "something about you"

      This song hit the airways  while I was at Ft Devens in MASS.  When I hear this song I think of my time there and driving to Boston.  I hated the state but I love the city.

Why I believe that obummer will be a 1 term president

I got this off human events.    After putting some airplane stuff up, I figured I would go back and bash obama.  Especially since he went into campaign mode almost since he was elected.  Obummer is one hell of a campaigner, the "hope and change" thing was brilliant.   However with the exception of getting OBL, the only thing consistent is his golf game.

Less than two months ago, buzzing from the president’s gutsy call to eliminate Osama bin Laden, liberal pontificators had practically sworn in Barack Obama for his second term. “For the GOP the sands are rushing through the hourglass,” Roger Simon wrote in a column whose title had wondered whether the president was “invincible.” He claimed that with Geronimo KIA, “the Republican field has been fried like an egg.” In reality, the president’s short-term popularity boost had fried the long-term judgment of his supporters.

The reasons to believe Obama a one-term president are many and well-grounded.

10. The Declaration of Independents

Candidate Obama attracted independents. President Obama repulses them. The president entered office with the approval of 62 percent of independents. The latest Gallup poll shows support of just 42 percent of independents. Similarly, the political moderates key to his election have deserted the president as immoderate policies have emerged. There simply aren’t enough liberals for Democrats to lose moderates and win elections. No Democratic candidate over the last half century has won the presidency without winning moderates. 

9. A Redder America

Barack Obama faces a redder electoral map than he did in 2008. The 2012 presidential election is more than a year away, but the Electoral College has already shifted twelve votes away from blue states and toward red states. Most of the states gaining electoral votes in the census reapportionment voted for McCain. Almost all of the states losing electoral votes voted for Obama. Even the states that Obama carried that added electoral votes—Nevada and Florida, to name two—don’t seem locks to go for the president in 2012. The loss of electoral votes isn’t fatal to Obama. It is a handicap.

8. The Issues Have Changed

Gallup’s “Monthly Most Important Problem” survey is a problem for the president. What is troubling the American people? Over the first five months of 2011, Americans point to the economy (29%), unemployment (26%), the deficit (13%), and government (11%). The issues most salient to voters uniformly work to the incumbent’s disadvantage. When Iraq, health care, and Republican mishandling of the economy mattered to voters, Obama could go on the offensive. It’s difficult to see how he scores points in 2012 on the issues that resonate with voters. He will be on his heels.

7. The Blank Canvass Isn’t Anymore

Other than William Jennings Bryan and Wendell Willkie, who is the major party nominee with a skimpier record than 2008’s Barack Obama? He could vote “present” in the Illinois legislature and run away from U.S. Senate votes while running for higher office. But presidents can’t remain blank slates for long. Unpopular ObamaCare, a sedative stimulus, ineptness in the face of the BP oil spill, and defiance of Congress in starting a third Middle Eastern war have all painted a presidential picture that has calcified conservative opposition, alienated moderates, and disillusioned liberal supporters.

6. Demoralized Liberals

Left-wing activist Ralph Nader encourages a primary challenge. Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich sues the administration over Libya. Netroots conference goers boo White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. Rather than rejoice at a universal health-care bill that eluded predecessors or the introduction of open homosexuality in the military, liberals decry Obama for retaining Bush-era tax rates, playing warden over Guantanamo Bay, and launching a new war in Libya. Never can Democrats satiate their cannibalistic base. If you think this is an overstatement, feel free to examine the teeth marks on the political carcasses of Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, and Lyndon Johnson. Leftists may not primary this president or siphon votes through a suicidal third-party bid. But neither will they work or give at the levels they did in 2008.

5. Energized Conservatives

After eight years of big-government Bush, an underwhelming primary field, and a sclerotic general election campaign, conservatives could be given a mulligan for sleepwalking through the last presidential election. Conservatives, just 34 percent of the electorate in 2008’s election, comprised 42 percent of voters in 2010. From tea-parties to raucous town halls, the political dynamic of the country has been altered. It showed in 2010, when Republicans added 63 House seats, seven Senate seats, and six governors. Nothing invigorates a party’s base like an aggressive ideologue of the opposing party occupying the White House. The GOP clearly has the momentum heading into 2012.

4. The Political Ground Has Shifted Beneath the President’s Feet

A political lifetime has elapsed since Barack Obama’s election. Bailouts and big-government have yielded to tea parties and deficit angst. Gallup’s ideological identification survey registered the highest percentage of liberals in its history the year of Barack Obama’s election. Gallup’s most recent ideological identification survey registered its highest percentage of conservatives since the inaugural 1992 poll. Between the 2008 survey and last year’s, conservatives have gained seven points vis-à-vis liberals. To know liberalism isn’t to love it.

3. Historic Turnouts Aren’t Every-Four-Year Occurrences

Obama surfed to victory in 2008 on the crest of two historic waves. African Americans constituted a larger percentage of the electorate than ever recorded. And young people voted for the Democratic candidate by the greatest margin ever. Two-thirds of 18-to-29 year olds cast ballots for Obama. A staggering 19 out of every 20 African American voters pulled the lever for Obama. The precarious foundation of the Democrat’s election rested on the remarkable turnout, and the amazing one-sidedness, of two constituencies—African Americans and young people—who traditionally stay home on Election Day. That both groups have been hit especially hard by the economic slump makes it hard to envision a repeat of the amazing African American turnout and one-sided youth vote.   

2. A Low Ceiling

Roger Simon wondered if the president was “invincible” in the wake of killing bin Laden. More perceptive observers saw vulnerability. Counterintuitively, the assassination of America’s most reviled enemy revealed Barack Obama’s political weaknesses, not his strengths. The president’s weekly Gallup approval average topped out at 51 percent following the bin Laden operation. The best possible week of Obama’s presidency yielded barely half of the electorate’s support. His enemies should acknowledge the man has a floor of support. His supporters should acknowledge he has a ceiling, too.

1. It’s Still the Economy, Stupid

The Misery Index, popularized by Governor Carter to hound President Ford only to be President Carter’s undoing, haunts Democrats again. The combined unemployment and inflation rates are at their worst level in twenty-eight years. The stock market has just spent six weeks in the red. The GDP grows at an anemic rate of 1.8 percent. The housing market has been in shambles for five years, and seems to be double dipping. Debt approaches GDP. Flat-lining and nose-diving trend lines make the president’s reelection precarious. Even a browbeaten Bill Daley, the president’s chief of staff, conceded to an incensed National Association of Manufacturers convention, “Sometimes you can’t defend the indefensible.” He said it. 

Barack Obama is a formidable campaigner. His presidency is not without accomplishment (see, Osama bin Laden). And occupants of the White House have lost general elections just five times in the last hundred years. But he has governed ineffectively and stubbornly against the wishes of the American people. He could win reelection. But the preponderance of indicators suggests his defeat. This should make conservatives hopeful for change

Plane crash in Russia

MOSCOW (AP) — Forty-four people were killed when a passenger jet crashed late Monday in northwestern Russia, news agencies said.

RIA Novosti and ITAR-Tass, citing Emergencies Ministry officials, reported that the RusAir plane crash-landed on a highway en route from Moscow to the city of Petrozavodsk. They reported eight people who survived the crash were hospitalized in critical condition in Petrozavodsk.

There was no immediate explanation for the crash, but the Interfax news agency quoted the airport director Alexei Kuzmitsky as saying there were "unfavorable weather conditions."

Russian news agencies said the plane crashed on its final approach to the airport in Petrozavodsk, landing a few hundred yards (meters) short of the runway. Petrozavodsk is in the in the province of Karelia, 400 miles (640 kilometers) northwest of Moscow.

The plane was a Russian-made Tu-134 jet, the Emergencies Ministry said, carrying 52 people, nine of whom were crew, the news agencies said. They said Russian Premier League soccer referee Vladimir Pettay was among the victims. News agencies reported a Swedish victim along with Russians.

The ministry confirmed on its website that there had been an incident and posted a list of 43 passengers. The Karelia branch of the Emergencies Ministry said radio contact with the pilot was lost at 23:40 local time (7:30 p.m. EDT, 1940GMT). The black box flight data recorders had been recovered, the news agencies said.

Earlier reports put the death toll at 40.

Lights out for the Sea Shadow

I pulled this off Yahoo news

Call it a funeral at sea for the U.S. Navy's Sea Shadow. The stealth ship, which served as an inspiration for the supervillain's supervessel in the James Bond movie "Tomorrow Never Dies," is set to be dismantled and recycled.
The Navy had hoped that a private buyer would come forward and take the spy ship off its hands. Alas, there were no takers, so the bizarre black Sea Shadow is heading for the scrap heap.

Slideshow: More photos of the Sea Shadow

Time Life Pictures/Getty Images

News of the ship's inglorious end (which is probably coming soon) inspired waves of Web searches on Yahoo!. Over the past 24 hours, online lookups for "spy ship 007" and "james bond spy boat" sailed to big gains.
The ship, which resembles a stealth fighter airplane, cost the U.S. Navy $195 million to build and operate, according the U.K.'s Daily Mail. The ship was "never intended for missions, just testing."
If you're thinking the Sea Shadow would look pretty cool in your own backyard, here are a couple of things to consider. According to Fox News, it's about 160 feet long and 70 feet wide. And it hasn't exactly been getting regular oil changes either. A Lockheed Martin spokesman told Fox that the company "hasn't had anything to do with the ship for at least four to five years"--suggesting that the new owner could well be in for some heavy maintenance work.
But all is not lost.  Navy spokesman Chris Johnson told Fox that there could still be a last-second taker for the Sea Shadow. If that happens, it would be an escape worthy of 007 himself.

How environmentalism has caused war and repression.

I have long stated that the environmental wacko movement is marxist in belief.   They protest only here in the western based societies, where the rule of law will protect them.  In other countries the rule of law is a bullet, and due process is when they ask you where ear do you want it.  I have called the the environmental wacko's "watermelons...green on the outside and red on the inside."

     I got this from here   A good website and worth a bookmark

No other group has done as much to keep America dependent on foreign oil as the environmentalists have. After leading successful campaigns against nuclear power and domestic drilling, the green movement may lecture on "oil wars", but it is responsible for most of them.

The math of it is very simple. Resource shortages are a major cause of conflict. And environmentalists have dedicated themselves to creating resource shortages in prosperous nations. Their campaigns against nuclear, domestic oil and coal production have been big on self-righteousness and short on consequences. And the consequences are that their scaremongering has not only cost millions of American jobs, it has forced us to keep sending money to Muslim oil states who use that money for domestic repression and international terrorism.

The environmentalists have done the same thing in Europe and Asia, turning formerly moribund Communist powers, Russia and China, into energy and manufacturing superpowers. By making it more expensive and in some cases impossible to conduct manufacturing and energy production at home, they exported Western industries to the East, and enabled the transformation of struggling tyrannies into international superpowers.

China's domestic repression is made possible by its economic boom. A boom created when American companies found it cheaper to do business in a country where they weren't under siege by college grads with a specialty in pretending to be Rachel Carson or Erin Brockovich, both frauds turned into legends thanks to the mythmaking abilities of the left-wing movement.

The legacy of Tiananmen Square would almost certainly have been reform or revolution, if not for a limited prosperity created through outsourced industries and cheap manufacturing. When the question arises, who killed the pro-democracy movement in China-- it wasn't the tanks, but their enablers, the liberals whose regulation and exploitation had made America into an uncomfortable place to do business. Those companies went elsewhere and the money they brought, propped up the Chinese Communist party. And the industries of the Chinese boom created such intense pollution that it is worse than the worst nightmares of the environmentalists. Pollution that they can and should take credit for, because they were the ones who made it happen.

Environmentalists who agitate against pollution caused by foreign companies in the Third World need to take a long hard look in the mirror. In many cases it was their own campaigns which drove American companies into countries where they wouldn't be so tightly regulated. Rather than apply reasonable regulations, they made it their goal to wipe out entire industries. They didn't get their wish. Rather those industries moved abroad to places where there were no regulations at all. And the resulting misery that caused lies at their doorstep.

In Germany, the Greens have succeeded in their campaign against the domestic nuclear industry. What is the net result of this? It further degrades Europe's energy capabilities and moves it into Putin's orbit. That empowers Russia to begin another campaign of conquest aimed at its former republics. That is what a "Green" victory really looks like. People freezing in their homes while a dictatorship sends its tanks and infantry on a new campaign of terror.

The environmental response is always something about solar and wind energy, two technologies that are still unready to meet a major country's energy needs. But that's exactly why the environmental movement champions them. Aside from the optics of "getting your energy from mother nature", the real goal has always been to drive up the cost of energy. The environmental movement is not interested in cheap energy. If solar power provided energy cheaply, the greens would be marching against it. Any technology that provides cheap power is their enemy.

The mandate of the environmental movement is artificial scarcity. But artificial scarcity doesn't exist in a global economy. If you raise the price of energy production, resource mining or manufacturing, it will move abroad to less regulated countries. The price will still go up and there will be other long term consequences, but people will still find a way to get what they need. Like the rest of the left, the green movement has never learned that people will act in their own interests, rather than in thrall to their dogma. That if they can't get it legally, they will get it illegally.

Americans are not about to freeze in their homes in winter or die of heatstroke in the summer. They are not about to drive midget cars to the lumber yard or let their families go hungry so that they can buy local. And that means more money flowing to Saudi Arabia and to China. It means more war and more repression. It means more families making do without and more firing squads and terrorist attacks. All for the greater glory of the environmental movement.

It will take a lot more work to push down the poverty level to the extent that Americans will bike to work or root through the garbage for food-- two behaviors popular in the environmentally pretentious left. Until then there will always be other options. No matter how bad they are.

Wal-Mart owes more to the left's war on small business and manufacturing than either would care to recognize. Its Made in China merchandise sold at the lowest possible price is the aftermath of an outsourced economy which has brought formerly prosperous towns to the poverty level, and compensated for it with cheap goods from the country that has taken their industries. The left has created the poverty that it mocks. And it has created the slave labor that makes the products which they deplore. It is responsible for all of it and it should take ownership of it.

And as China approaches a new war for Pacific dominance, the left may as well take credit for that too. If it wasn't for the shift in economic power, driven by their job killing regulations, and their spending sprees, there might be reforms happening in Bejing, instead of the clatter of factories and war machines. And if a war does come, if tens of thousands or millions die, then it too will be on their heads. Along with the clouds of pollution and the body parts of political prisoners being shipped to America for their edification and exhibition.

These are just some of the green chickens coming home to roost. And there will be lots more of them flocking on over if this goes on.

The environmental movement's manifest hypocrisy is that it causes the very things that it deplores. Its campaigns against the nuclear industry, has sent billions overseas to countries which are developing their own nuclear weapons and intend to use them. By shutting down nuclear plants in America, they have made it much more likely that nuclear bombs will be detonated in America.

It destroyed American industry in the name of worker protection and pollution, and sent the factories to countries where workers have no rights and the pollution looks like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. And reduced those former workers to the point where they have no choice but to buy those same slave labor products at a non-union store with the profits going to China's war machine.

Domestic drilling? Allah preserve us. It's much better to send the money over to Saudi Arabia, which funnels it to terrorists, who kill Americans, and cause global wars. Wars that the left claims to deplore. Oil wars. Their own damn oil wars. Wars in which they are equal partners with the oil companies and the Gulf royal families who have fattened their pockets from the energy hunger of a country where there is plenty of oil, but no way to get at it.

These are all victories for the environmental movements and defeats for anyone with any sanity or sense. But the environmental movement refuses to acknowledge the consequences of its actions. Instead it champions further domestic and international repression. Like every tyrannical ideology it knows only one solution to every problem, more laws, more chains, more investigations and  prison cells for anyone who disobeys.

Repression and propaganda is the environmental movement's solution to everything. Its imperative is to destroy, impoverish, oppress and intimidate. It spreads hopeless misery around the world, with a smile. The countless victims of Rachel Carson's malaria or the prisoners of the EPA go unnoticed as the latest children's propaganda cartoon is rolled out. Its implicit message is always that there is a war on between the environmentalists and the people who just want to live their own lives. And that it is the obligation of the youth to put on their uniforms and enlist on their side.

Generations of tyranny later, the environmental movement has little positive to show for it, besides a few cleanups. But its leaders have profited from a regulatory state that impoverishes the country and promotes war and oppression around the world. It is time for those who have chosen to align themselves with a movement that exists to enrich environmental consultants, Saudi Arabia, the People's Republic of China and Wall Street, while impoverishing Main Street to take a long hard look at what they have done. Before all the chickens really do come home to roost.

The 8 rules of martial law....

I read this and figured that I would post this on my blog.

People, you know, if it continues, we're going to start to see civil unrest in this country. I hate to say that, but I think it's imminently possible.
James Carville, Democratic Party consultant and campaign manager, at Fox Business

Supported by a Supreme Court that has unequivocally demonstrated a willingness to ignore or sign off on egregious tramplings of the Constitution, the stage is set for the U.S. government to evolve into something far more dangerous on the domestic front.
David Galland, Police State Amerika, at Casey Research

Societal collapse and, as the faux-genteel put it, civil unrest scenarios are sure to include martial law. When the Department of Education places an order for police-style shotguns, when they mount—and botch—armed home invasions for what used to be routine process serving, when even the Railroad Retirement Board and the Small Business Administration are carrying, the citizen can be excused for thinking the entirety of government is thisclose to going Soviet. But don't look for a declaration of martial law, in the US the term for martial law is state of emergency. A state of emergency was declared during Katrina for instance, by the city of New Orleans and by Louisiana with federal assistance from FEMA. It was, in addition to being de facto martial law, a series of pathetic pratfalls which added to the suffering and death.

A "National State of Emergency" is national martial law plain and simple, other than in name. We were in a national state of emergency from 1939 to 1945 for World War II and from 1950 to 1978 for the Cold War. We are now in a national state of emergency and have been since September 2001. It's administered discreetly and with softened edges, but martial law it is. It's been made largely unobtrusive but forbearance is always at their pleasure, not ours. When the federal government declares a national state of emergency the lead agency is the Department of Homeland Security, under the direction of the Commander In Chief. It's why the TSA can grope you and your kids with impunity, it's why local police have been equipped with combat gear and armored vehicles and fill-in-the-blank search warrants, it's why the armed forces train for urban warfare and nation-building rather than to defeat other armies or repel invasion.

As extensive as the DHS's resources are, one component is notably shy about its presence: the military. Occasionally they've made cameo appearances, in New Orleans for instance, where federal troops conducted door-to-door home invasions to disarm the citizenry, a betrayal of their countrymen and of their oath to defend the Constitution* but not the full-on military occupation favored in movies and doomer novels. The Insurrection Act of 1807 really puts the martial in martial law.

The Insurrection Act remains as written two centuries ago, even after some legal waffling in recent years, and it's a show-stopper. Plainly put, it authorizes the President to deploy federal troops within the United States to put down lawlessness, insurrection or rebellion. Should he do so, the Executive Orders are in place and the military leadership is in place under the name The United States Northern Command. Not incidentally, "Northern" means the northern hemisphere, and for the reason the so-called tinfoil hats say it is. NorthCom is authorized to deploy foreign troops on US soil. The mobilization plan is called the Northern National Security Emergency Preparedness Directorate. It's the White House's "nuclear option." Under this plan, units from the armed forces would be deployed and directed by NorthCom, placing our beloved land under the sort of military regimes seen in occupied Europe during the 1939-1945 war.

Here is what to expect under "worst case scenario" martial law:

      You can get the rest here

e-mail....

Happy Fathers day to all the Dads out there.   And speaking of dads, mine sent me this e-mail and I read it and liked the contents and decided to post it.  


       Thanks Dad:)


by Mychal Massie

At a time when many Americans can barely afford Burger King and a movie, Obama boasts of spending a billion dollars on his re-election campaign. Questioned at a recent appearance about the spiraling fuel costs, Obama said, "Get used to it"  and with an insouciant grin and chortle, he told another person at the event, who complained about the effect high fuel prices were having on his family, to "get a more fuel-efficient car."

The Obamas behave as if they were sharecroppers living in a trailer and hit the Powerball, but instead of getting new tires for their trailer and a new pickup truck, they moved to Washington . And instead of making possum pie, with goats and chickens in the front yard, they're spending and living large at taxpayer expense  opulent vacations, gala balls, resplendent dinners and exclusive command performances at the White House, grand date nights, golf, basketball, more golf, exclusive resorts and still more golf.

Expensive, ill-fitting and ill-chosen wigs and fashions hardly befit the first lady of the United States . The Obamas have behaved in every way but presidential  which is why it's so offensive when we hear Obama say, in order "to restore fiscal responsibility, we all need to share in the sacrifice  but we don't have to sacrifice the America we believe in."

The American people have been sacrificing; it is he and his family who are behaving as if they've never had two nickels to rub together  and now, having hit the mother lode, they're going to spend away their feelings of inadequacy at the taxpayers' expense.

Obama continues to exhibit behavior that, at best, can be described as mobocratic and, at worst, reveals a deeply damaged individual. In a February 2010 column, I asked, "Is Obama unraveling?" I wrote that it was beginning to appear the growing mistrust of him and contempt for his policies was beginning to have a destabilizing effect on him.

At that time, I wrote that not having things go one's way can be a bitter pill, but reasonable people don't behave as he was behaving. He had insulted Republicans at their luncheon, where he had been an invited guest. I had speculated that was, in part, what had led him to falsely accuse Supreme Court justices before Congress, the nation and the world, during the 2010 State of the Union address.

It appeared, at that time, as if he were "fraying around the emotional edges." That behavior has not abated  it has become more pronounced. While addressing the nation, after being forced to explain the validity of his unilateral aggression with Libya , America witnessed a petulant individual scowling and scolding the public for daring to insist he explain his actions.

But during an afternoon speech to address the budget/debt, he took his scornful, unstable despotic behavior to depths that should give the nation cause for concern. Displaying a dark psychopathy more representative of an episode of "The Tudors" television series, he invited Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to sit in the front row during his speech and then proceeded to berate both Ryan and Ryan's budget-cutting plan. Even liberal Democrats were put off by the act. MSNBC's Joe Scarborough questioned the sanity of Obama's actions.

Today, criticism is coming from all sides. A senior Democrat lawmaker said, "I have been very disappointed in [Obama], to the point where I'm embarrassed that I endorsed him. It's so bad that some of us are thinking, is there some way we can replace him? How do you get rid of this guy?" ("Democrats' Disgust with Obama," The Daily Beast, April 15, 2011)

Steve McCann wrote: Obama's speech "was chock full of lies, deceit and crass fear-mongering. It must be said that [he] is the most dishonest, deceitful and mendacious person in a position of power I have ever witnessed" ("The Mendacity of Barack Obama," American Thinker.com, April 15, 2011).

McCann continued: "[His] performance was the culmination of four years of outright lies and narcissism that have been largely ignored by the media, including some in the conservative press and political class who are loath to call [him] what he is in the bluntest of terms: a liar and a fraud. That he relies on his skin color to intimidate, either outright or by insinuation [against] those who oppose his radical agenda only add to his audacity. It is apparent that he has gotten away with his character flaws his entire life, aided and abetted by sycophants around him.

With these being among the kinder rebukes being directed at Obama, and with people becoming less intimidated by his willingness to use race as a bludgeon, with falling poll numbers in every meaningful category and an increasingly aggressive tea-party opposition “ how much longer before he cracks completely?

The coming months of political life are not going to be pleasant for Obama. Possessed by a self-perceived palatine mindset, that in his mind places him above criticism, how long before he cracks in public? Can America risk a man with a documented track record of lying and misrepresenting truth as a basic way of life, who is becoming increasingly more contumelious?

Mychal Massie is chairman of the National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives-Project 21 “ a conservative black think tank located in Washington , D.C. He was recognized as the 2008 Conservative Man of the Year by the Conservative Party of Suffolk County, N.Y. He is a nationally recognized political activist, pundit and columnist. He has appeared on Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, NBC, Comcast Cable and talk radio programming nationwide. A former self-employed business owner of more than 30 years, Massie can be followed at mychal-massie.com

New 747 arrives in Atlanta

I work at the Atlanta airport and my favorite jet lands here to fanfare.

A brand new superjet landed at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Friday afternoon. The Boeing 747-800 made its certification flight to Atlanta.

Superjet Lands at Atlanta Airport

Updated: Friday, 17 Jun 2011, 6:34 PM EDT
Published : Friday, 17 Jun 2011, 6:34 PM EDT

By MYFOXATLANTA STAFF/myfoxatlanta

ATLANTA, Ga. - A brand new superjet landed at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Friday afternoon. The Boeing 747-800 made its certification flight to Atlanta.
Engineers say the freight plane can carry more cargo than the average 747. It’s expected to give airlines a 20-percent reduction in fuel costs.
Cargolux, Korean Airlines, British Airways, and Cathay Pacific Airways are all expected to use the superjet when it is delivered later this year.

Boeing unveils new 747-8 passenger jet

My favorite plane was updated again with the official release of the 747-8 intercontinental.

Boeing unveiled its new 747-8 Intercontinental, its new high-capacity passenger airplane, at its factory

Boeing Unveils New Jumbo Jet 747-8 Intercontinental

Updated: Monday, 14 Feb 2011, 3:03 PM EST
Published : Monday, 14 Feb 2011, 3:03 PM EST

(AFP) - US aerospace giant Boeing on Sunday unveiled its 747-8 Intercontinental, a longer and more fuel-efficient update of its emblematic jumbo jet, which it hopes will compete with Airbus A-380.
"Look at this marvelous flying machine, it's our future," Pat Shanahan, Boeing's vice president and general manager of commercial airplanes division, said at the unveiling ceremony at the company's plant in Everett, Washington near Seattle.
Jim Albaugh, president of the commercial aviation division, added: "We think our customers will value the low operating costs and passengers will enjoy the comfort of the striking new interior."
Boeing took all by surprise in unveiling a new color scheme -- red and orange, a departure from its standard blue, in honor of the cultures of Asian clients for whom the colors symbolize prosperity and good fortune.
An estimated 10,000 people attended the unveiling, which was broadcast on the company's website.
The 747-8 keeps its predecessor's humped shape, but is longer to allow for more seats and cargo space.
The new model, Boeing's largest, can carry 467 passengers and is designed for long haul routes. The Airbus A-380 has 525 passenger seats.
Its cost per seat is six percent lower than that of the A-380, according to Boeing.
Boeing has orders for 33 -- including from Lufthansa and Korean Air -- of its 747-8 Intercontinental, which is the passenger version. It has 74 orders for the freight version.
Lufthansa, which has ordered 20, will be the first to receive the new model, according to Boeing, likely in early 2012.
"We are looking forward to welcoming this new aircraft to our fleet next year as it adds to our ongoing fleet modernization and environmental efforts," said Nico Buchholz, executive vice president, Lufthansa Group Fleet Management.
The 747-8 uses some technological innovations from Boeing's troubled 787 Dreamliner, completion of which is three years late because of technical problems. The Dreamliner should be delivered late this year.
The 747-8's interior was inspired by that of 787, with a rounded staircase to the upper deck, higher ceilings and elongated windows.
The Dreamliner was heralded as a new generation of highly fuel-efficient mid-sized aircraft, but Boeing has encountered difficulties in bringing the plane to market due to its use of composite materials as well as integrating production at various sites.
In December, Boeing said it had installed updated power system software and conducted rigorous reviews to confirm flight readiness after it had to halt tests due to an electrical fire that forced an emergency landing.
Copyright 2011 AFP. All rights reserve

media bias

I got this from here
   Cal Thomas is a far better wordsmith than I am.

If the big media in 2008 had dedicated the resources they are now squandering on Sarah Palin's emails from when she was governor of Alaska and probed Barack Obama's background and associations, she might now be vice president of the United States and Obama might still be a junior Illinois senator.
Regardless of what you think of Palin, the vultures attacking her 24,000 pages of emails may represent the most flagrant example of bias since, well, since their attacks on any other Republican. "It could be fun," said Ken Schwenke of the Los Angeles Times about the email probe.
Three TV camera crews and 30 journalists waited for the release of the emails at a state administrative building in Juneau.
What has the public learned so far from this investment of media time and money? We have these great revelations from The Washington Post: "Palin felt passionately about issues of importance to her state, the documents show, and she waged battle with foes large and small"; and she showed "concern about alcohol in Alaska governor's mansion" because of the presence of young children.
This is news?
With so many far more important issues to be covered, why have these media outlets spent time, money and energy examining Palin's emails? What were they expecting to find? A message from Rep. Anthony Weiner? Clearly they are not looking for anything that would reflect positively on Palin.
London's liberal Guardian newspaper promised "live coverage" as the emails were released. The New York Times and Washington Post asked for volunteers to help sort through the documents, offering "credit" to any they used in news stories. How pathetic is that? Since most readers of those newspapers might be considered left of center, does anyone think this exercise in voyeurism will produce anything but their intended goal: the political destruction of Sarah Palin?
Yes, I know, some people think she daily commits political suicide.
ABC News, which, in partnership with The Daily Beast website, offered breathless updates of the email dump, lumped Palin in with Donald Trump as a "sideshow." If she's a sideshow, why are they paying her the kind of attention normally reserved for a main attraction?
The answer is that Palin, along with Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.), who is considering a presidential run, represent everything the liberal media hate: They are attractive women who are married to the same men they started with. They think big government is the problem, not the solution to our problems. They are pro-life and, gasp, believe in God.
In Palin's case, she and her husband have a Down syndrome child, which she refused to abort. Right there you have enough to offend pro-choice feminists, who treat abortion as a sacrament and appear to have no problem with eliminating the "defective," as was the case with their patron "saint," Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.
The big media, rather than being honest brokers in the process of selecting the next president, see themselves as players. Many regard themselves as kingmakers, or in Palin's case, "queen destroyers." Increasing numbers of the public regard their arrogance with disdain. It is a major reason why broadcast news ratings have been falling, along with subscriptions to the Times and Post. Rather than correct their ways, they keep on doing what is harming their publications and pretend the problem lies with the readers and viewers (now non-readers and non-viewers), rather than with themselves.
Sarah Palin's negatives are high enough and her support low enough to recommend against her running for president. But no one deserves this kind of treatment. Let her rise or fall on her ideas (or lack of them) and not on old emails.
Have they no shame? Obviously not.
(c) 2011 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

Here we go again...SSDD

This could almost be a spin on a classic joke: How come the new five-member Commission to Cut Government Waste has a glass bottom boat? So they can see the old three-member Commission to Cut Government Waste.
An election must be on the horizon, because everybody’s noticing that the government’s getting too large and wasteful again. This means it’s time to make government a little bigger so they can determine how to make it smaller, then have everybody report to Sheriff Joe Biden. Yeah, that sounds about right:

President Barack Obama will announce new steps Monday to reduce government waste, arguing that inefficiency, fraud and abuse are especially troubling during tough economic times.
Obama was to sign an executive order creating the Campaign to Cut Government Waste. According to a draft of the order obtained by The Associated Press, Obama will call for a new oversight board to work with federal agencies to cut back on waste and improve their performance. The order also requires cabinet secretaries to hold regular meetings with Vice President Joe Biden to report progress.
Monday’s announcement comes as the White House grapples for ways to both boost sluggish economic growth and quell public anger over the mounting deficit.

Speaking of the deficit, what happened to that Simpson-Bowles “Deficit Reduction Commission”? For starters, they recommended things that would reduce the deficit, and if there’s anything Team Obama can’t stand, it’s a bureaucrat who takes his title way too seriously.
More:

In prepared remarks for Monday’s event, budget director Jacob Lew said wasting taxpayer dollars through inefficiency “is particularly offensive at a time of such fiscal challenges.”

Therefore, the administration is pledging from this point forward to only waste taxpayer dollars efficiently.
Just one of the stated goals of the Campaign to Cut Government Waste is to stop wasting money creating unnecessary web pages. You can read all about that on the Campaign to Cut Government Waste’sweb page..

monday music

Here is another installment of monday music

Mike and the Mechanics