Oh my goodness! Was that racist of me?? I’ll make a note to lose some sleep over that one. I just can’t think of a more apt metaphor. And take my word for it…if the President was a white dude doing what He’s doing, I’d use the same one. I’m piqued in a very equal-opportunity way here.

Consider: No Way No How!

President Obama declared Wednesday that “you will not see bin Laden walking on this earth again” but said he would not release photos of the terrorist leader’s corpse as proof that he is dead.

“It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence, as a propaganda tool,” Obama told CBS’ 60 Minutes in an interview to be broadcast Sunday. “You know, that’s not who we are. You know, we don’t trot out this stuff as trophies.”

Got that? But then there’s…Yes We Can!

President Barack Obama is to release up to 2,000 photographs of alleged abuse at American prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan in a move which will reignite the scandal surrounding Abu Ghraib prison in 2004.

The decision to make public the images sought in a legal action by the American Civil Liberties Union comes amid a political firestorm over alleged torture of detainees under President George W. Bush.

Some of the photographs, which will be released before May 28, are said to show American service personnel humiliating prisoners, according to officials.

The images relate to more than 400 separate cases involving alleged prisoner abuse between 2001 and 2005.

I admit my 8-ball analogy falls apart here a little bit, for “McCarthy”-ite reasons. If President Obama were merely a fickle flibbertigibbet who doesn’t know up from down, rather than an impassioned anti-American douchebag who paid way too close attention during the sermons of that bigoted asshole pastor of His, Jeremiah Wright, the laws of probability dictate that these decisions would promote American interests fifty percent of the time. The Magic-8 ball would respect this, I think. But with our Man-God-Boy-King President Holy Man, the laws of probability are not to be so appeased.

And so I object to the situation that, time after time, the decision made is opposed to the interests of the country over which He is supposed to be presiding…or “rule”-ing…or whatever. I object to the notion that there’s no rhyme or reason to them, and there’s no place for anybody to ask the questions looking for rhyme-or-reason in them; I object to the peeved attitude we’d get back if anyone did so ask.

But I object even more to this:

With respect to Afghanistan, Jennifer, I don’t think this is a matter of some datum of information that I’m waiting on. It’s a matter of making certain that when I send young men and women into war, and I devote billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money, that it’s making us safer, and that the strategies that are placed not just on the military side but also on the civilian side are coordinated and effective in our primary goal…

…blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But did you catch that first part? No particular datum. President Smarty-Pants, President Knows-What’s-Up, will take just as long as He wants to eke out some answer while not awaiting any particular datum.

The decision will not necessarily be consistent with other decisions, prior or subsequent. So we know there is no methodology at work. None other than…whatever diminishes America. That part does seem consistent.

But there’s no methodology apart from that. No data being accumulated or even absorbed. Just President Think-A-Lot needs more time. The question that naturally arises is, in what way would a decision made after ten months, become meaningfully different from a decision made after nine? If there’s no datum? Well the question is not asked, and if ever it is, it means racist!

That is what really sticks in my craw. Obama will take just as long as He wants, and the 310 million or so people who share a country with Him are just supposed to pipe down, go about our meaningless lives, wait with baited breath while He announces that next month He just might announce when He will announce that He’s going to announce His decision. Just like shaking a Magic-8 ball and seeing what comes up. Except this one gets back to you on its own sweet time and you don’t get to shake it again.

Once again: It seems like a fitting situation for an emperor, or a king. It doesn’t fit a constitutional republic operating under a government designed with separation-of-powers in mind.

Update: I thought this was a masterful job of scribbling that Neal Boortz did yesterday. In fact, it captured my thoughts verbatim…as in, syllable for syllable. Until somewhere around ten hours ago.

I’m not exactly a fan of our current president. I feel that he’s dangerous to the cause of liberty, and I earnestly hope that every single day I’ll manage to say something – to put across one small point somewhere – that will cause someone out there who supports Obama to pause for a minute and to say to themselves “maybe, just maybe, there are some things about this man I haven’t considered.” In order for that to happen, listeners – whether friendly or unfriendly – have to believe that I’m trying to be honest with them. And just how will listeners believe I’m trying to be objective and honest if I am completely unable to give credit where credit is due, or if I have to grudgingly give credit laced with sarcasm. So you’re now going to see hear me (or see me) use a phrase I generally try to avoid. That phrase? President Barack Obama. When considering the operation that turned bin Laden into fish food Obama showed himself to be presidential. Maybe it’s early in this particular game, but I can’t think of one single area in this entire scenario where Obama comes in for any legitimate criticism. That may change tomorrow or next week as we learn more … but for now it’s “job well done, Mr. President.”

What happened ten hours ago? “Oh no, we can’t release pictures of the dead bin Laden because I’m a big ol’ pussy!”

Just…dis…gust…ing…

My theory as of now: No masterful plan for manipulating the masses. Just raw, ignorant narcissism. “They are my subjects, they must believe Me!”

The result: A net P.R. loss. Obama stood a better chance, such as it was, of winning re-election of 2012 earlier this weekend, before the first Black Hawk left for that compound, than He does now. This is not ugly just to right-wing zealots; it is creepy to classic “middle America” voters. Creepy and downright weird.

More of my wisdom, from Daphne’s place. Just a note I’d like filed away that, in its own way, is important I think…

There is one wrinkle in the fabric that I wish were explored in great detail. Barack Obama is famous for using the word “I” in His speeches very often, up to & past the point where it becomes self-parody. You would think that the few times such a person uses the word “we,” He really & truly does mean to activate and implement the concept of “we.” But that’s not the case here.

The option was put on the table to raze the compound to the ground with missiles but, from what they’re saying, President Obama immediately ruled this out because “we” had to have absolute, irrefutable proof that Osama bin Laden was eliminated, and not some imposter. This significantly elevated the risk to the troops engaged in the mission, as well as to the success of the mission itself.

We-ell, Mission Accomplished, as they say. Then what? The DNA test to make absolutely positively sure…the President makes His announcement…it seems at least one photograph was taken, and I would assume — hope — there were some meaningful remnants kept of this DNA testing process. And then whoosh. The body is treated according to Islamic tradition, “buried at sea,” with not even the name of the body of water disclosed, so it is absolutely impossible to build any kind of temple. Okay, as I said before I can see the logic in that.

B-u-u-u-t…

Here we are at end-game, and “we” didn’t have a single thing proven to “us.” Barack Obama made sure things were proven to Barack Obama for the benefit of Barack Obama.

For the record, I don’t think this will have a meaningful impact in this particular situation. Osama bin Laden is dead; I believe he was killed this last Sunday, as we were told. We’re going to get at least one gory photograph to support this, and I’m all-but-certain that there is, indeed, some useful remnant from this DNA process to accommodate an enlarged audience of neutral arbiters, should that need somehow arise.

It’s the mindset that irritates me. “No rockets because we need do make sure it’s really him” — fast foward to — “Okay, I am sure it’s him now I’ll make my announcement in a couple hours so go ahead and get that thing out of here.” So the corpus delicti is fish food before we even find out there is a corpus delicti because, well hey, what the hell do we need to know? Other than Obama Is Awesome.

(Video leads with thirty-second advertisement.)

“The rule of law is what separates us from the monsters.”

Update 5/24/11: A lately-published private paper from the desk of Victor Davis Hanson seems apropos:

The world must now realize that the domestic antiwar movement is dead, kaput; it cares not a whit whether we assassinate bin Laden or a son of Qaddafi or go into Libya. Everything is on the table now and there are no self-restraints, no snickers on The Daily Show, no quirky insider winks on Letterman, no Barbara Streisand crazy faxes. A Nobel peace laureate is now the Left’s totem and he can send quite deadly Americans on quite deadly missions as he sees fit — and without worry about a New York Times op-ed barrage or an ACLU lawsuit. That gives the US newfound advantages, a veritable blank check, from keeping Guantanamo open indefinitely to using a Cheney “assassination” team and valuable water-boarded intelligence wherever it wishes to.

Militant feminism took a hit, from which it has never recovered, when it sought a waiver from its own militancy for the benefit of President Clinton. People may overlook this, may choose to deny it, but this is only achieved by means of a derelict long-term memory. Two or three decades ago, if you were in a position of authority and the feminist movement came gunnin’ for you, you were gone — it was a when, not an if. You were history. That isn’t true anymore.

Militant anti-war advocacy is now in the same position, forced to seek a reprieve from its own militancy for the benefit of President Obama.

Militancy is like a windshield, or a soap bubble — it retains a certain structural strength until such time as there is a breach. It doesn’t work well with these breaches. But politics is ultimately all about breaches; give a little to get a little; half-a-loaf and go onward. And so these militant movements enjoy a working timespan in full vigor until there is a breach, then they deflate.

I’m very happy to see the anti-war movement deflate. But then, of course, there is Judge Napolitano’s concern from the video.

I’m not cool with the President noodling over His decision carefully, with His “dithering,” careful and meticulous as it might be, even if it took Him sixteen hours. Say what you want about George W. Bush, but that President had to make the case to somebody; to prove something to somebody.

Still happy bin Laden is dead. I still think about that scene from the Warner Brothers Batman movie — keep hearing Jack Nicholson’s voice in my head saying “You’re a vicious bastard, Rotelli, and I’m glad you’re dead!” But you know, it is possible to come to the correct decision following the wrong process. And when that happens, it can still be a problem. I believe it’s a problem here. And it will probably bite us in the butt down the road.

Vote here. It’s a pie chart that looks like Pac Man’s head, in mid-gulp with the mouth barely open. With the right side winning.

I’d like to know what the “no” people are thinking. Seems to be typical liberal stuff — I don’t want to see it, therefore they shouldn’t be in view anywhere. In other words, looking away is simply not an option. You know what they say…”If a conservative doesn’t like a radio station he turns the dial, if a liberal doesn’t like a radio station he wants it banned.”

Wall Street Journal is wondering if the Bush administration should get some credit for finding bin Laden so he could be killed. Over on FARK, there were 141 comments about fifteen minutes ago and as of this writing there are 377. Mmmm yes…FARK kids…I’m sure they’re going to weigh the evidence, evaluate both sides fairly and come to a reasoned decision on this.

More Hello Kitty of Blogging wisdom from Yours Truly:

If you can use time as an excuse for Obama, as in “He still needs time to fix” blah blah blah blah…then Bush gets to use the same excuse, as in “It took more than eight years to use OUR intelligence to bring down bin Laden.” Can’t have it both ways.

If this was fiction with no parallel with reality, I would have guessed the job of finding bin Laden and putting a slug between his eyes…at somewhere between two and three years. Pretty close to what it took President Obama’s administration. But it’s pretty clear He didn’t start from scratch, and it’s therefore pretty clear this is a much more involved and complicated task, full of false leads. My two-year guess would be exceptionally weak, I wouldn’t have put any “gonna feel that” money on it at all. None. I can see it taking a decade of steady, incremental progress.

Hey, timelines are hard. Sixty-some years from the maiden flight of a heavier-than-air vessel, to a successful moonshot, and then another forty years of not quite being able to get around to doing it again. A full decade to send bin Laden to meet Allah? I can certainly see it.

Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, EIT for short, has been shown to be part of it — I don’t hear anyone, anywhere, in a position of knowledge, saying otherwise. Assassination, reprehensible in any form to the extremist left in America that forms Obama’s base, was undoubtedly a part of it. It’s a core piece of the official narrative. “Kill, not capture.”

No matter who you choose to believe, this ends up being just another revolution on the merry-go-round of “When liberals absolutely positively have to deliver results, they make their decisions the way conservatives do.”

Hey, that would be a decent slogan for 2012. Wonder how much intel we’d have on bin Laden if Al Gore was our President when the towers came down?

Update: Drudge is reporting Obama has decided to release one photo. Just heard the guys on the radio report on this as well.

If that is true, this means we are going to have conspiracy theories. It can’t go any other way. There are n photos, Obama has decided to release one, and n>1. And so there is going to be speculation about what is in the (n-1) photos.

Obama’s bump in the polls — and let’s be clear about this, it is well-deserved — is going to be over pretty soon, I think. If I were an Obama fan I’d be coming off it right about now. There will be conspiracy theories about the photos because Obama’s releasing only one, or a selected subset anyway. If Obama cannot see this coming, He’s an idiot. If He can, then He’s a manipulator. But also, there’s this “when and if they decide to release it” business. What they mean by that is when/if He decides to release it…

It all seems so imperious and imperial. This one guy, this Man-God-King guy, decides moment to moment how the public’s right to know is to be interpreted. Anyone who disagrees is called a racist.

You knew it was coming.

From Jawa, by way of Terri.

Okay now this is cool. You mean every time I write something that says Obama is a one-termer, His political life gets a new lease by means of a terrorist getting killed? Is that karma or something?

I can deal with that. Obama is a one-termer, Obama is a one termer, Obama is a dead duck, Obama’s gonna lose, Obama is a one termer.

Seriously, America’s worst President does deserve some credit on this. Still waiting for the details to come out, but that much does seem clear. At the very least, He deserves credit for not getting in the way when the military did what it’s supposed to do, just like with the Somali pirates getting skull-capped.

Now things get bizarre in lefty-land. President Obama delivered a speech carefully stripped bare, by which I mean right down to the bones, of any “Hoo-rah” stuff. No foam rubber finger with “We’re Number One” on it, no don’t you go fucking with the USA or we’ll get ya. Not a trace. It’s clear He was trying not to piss off the internationalists, the anti-patriots, the anti-exceptionalists.

But something funny happened. He got to “killed Osama bin Laden” and there was no euphemism. Went ahead & used the k-word, just like that.

This tells me we’re nearly unanimous in agreeing with my fringe-kooky outlook on capital punishment — at least, the essentials of it. That we’ve got these bad people living among us who, for one reason or another, aren’t capable of living among us and tossing their bad asses in a cell isn’t good enough. Obama delivered this weird speech, syllable by syllable, trying His darnedest not to piss off His base…then used the word “killed.”

There are no concerns that I’ve found, anywhere, about the World Community trembling in agitation and fear about those out-of-control Americans and who are we gonna come after next. I imagine that’s because Obama’s a lefty. Kind of an “Only Nixon Can Go To China” moment in reverse.

Another weird thing: From what I’m hearing, President Obama made His announcement last night once the DNA match confirmed the identity of the deceased, at which point said deceased was deceased “about a week.” (Update: This does not seem to be the case…) That would mean Osama met Allah sometime really close to Easter Sunday, which would be pretty cool…but it also means the sequence of events goes like this:

Which provides a further answer to what I was asking on Birth Certificate Day, “why release this document on April 27 of the third year of Obama’s term?” I say “further” because the answer to that question is compatible with the interests of President Obama…not to the interests of America. We already had that much. I’m still not sure how it helps the country to release that personal record on that particular date, but now it’s a little clearer why that decision was made.

(Update: Looks like some things will have to remain a mystery.)

Lefties are now bragging rather brazenly that Obama was in the Big Chair when Osama flatlined, and President Bush couldn’t get this done. We’ll see a lot more of this, and there’s a concern that it might change the result of the election. Could be. Why worry about that one today; America will vote the way it’ll vote, and whatever that is, that’s how it will go. But do I need to backpedal on my prediction? I don’t think so. You can’t win re-election presiding over a crappy economy.

In fact I have another prediction:

“What exactly did Barack Obama do to bring down bin Laden?” is going to net me the same blank stares I used to get when I asked “what exactly did Bill Clinton do to revive the economy?” To date, it looks like the most logical answer to that is “use George W. Bush’s idea of putting General Petraeus in charge of things.”

You’re getting an object lesson in how crappy leaders do their so-called “leading,” although anyone who’s ever had a crappy boss already knew about this. They sit, like scavengers, waiting for something to happen that doesn’t completely suck. Then they swoop in and claim credit. In the meantime, while things continue sucking, they change the subject or blame the predecessor. So you see it’s a very simple process…blame predecessor, change subject, blame predecessor, change subject, when something happens that doesn’t suck you claim credit. Then the next day you change the subject and blame the predecessor. It will be this way as long as it works, and this has always worked.

Update: Wisdom from my Hello Kitty of Blogging account:

You spend three solid years explaining to me the evils involved in fruit, sugar, pastry, shortening, etc…then after all that one day you say “look, I made a cherry pie!” Of course I’m going to look at you funny. Any rational person would say “Okay, so you want credit for the pie…but you clearly have no idea what goes into one…or you think I don’t…or…that’s not a real pie.”

Assassination squads is bad. Aggressive action is bad, especially in a “sovereign nation.” Decisive action without years and years of “due process” based on presumption of innocence, with “he did it and he knew what he was doing but he might be clinically crazy” being defined as innocence…is bad. Guns is bad. Anytime good guys win and bad guys lose, there’s some way to make it bad.

And then Obama zoinks Osama and that’s supposed to be good.

I don’t know why liberal democrats continue to pretend to be supporting some kind of principle, as opposed to a nakedly partisan agenda. Oh wait — yeah, I do know now that I think about it. They’re accustomed to talking to people unwilling or unable to retain and process meaningful information.

Jeffrey Lord is writing in the American Spectator…

President Obama will not be re-elected. Period.

…very, very boldly, as you can see. Why’s he being so bold? What prompts him? Why does he think such heresy let alone scribble it down?

Let us read further:

Obamaflation has arrived, and this is what it looks like.

Milk. A gallon of skim. At the local Giant in Central Pennsylvania:

January 11, 2011: $3.20
February 28, 2011: $3.24
March 6, 2011: $3.34
April 23. 2011: $3.48

That would be a 28 cent rise in a mere 102 days, from January to April of this year. The third year of the Obama misadventure.

Then there’s the celery. Same sized bag. Same store.

January 11, 2011: $1.99 a bag.
March 6, 2011: $2.49 a bag.

A rise of 50 cents in 54 days.

You can stand on your soapbox and loftily intone “I don’t care Obama is awesome!” until you’re blue in the face. You can throw out all the platitudes you care to…Can’t Explain It There’s Just Something About Him…The Real Deal…Breath of Fresh Air.

But when you climb off that soapbox you need to go home, and to get home you need to buy gas. Economic realities set in.

WHAT SEEMS TO HAVE LEFT Obama strategists clueless is the fundamental historical fact that inflation comes slowly. Milk today, celery tomorrow, and gas almost every day. Then, too late, there’s a collective gasp of recognition by Americans walking around the grocery store that it’s no longer just the milk and the celery but the soup, the chicken, the hamburger and perhaps now critically — the Excedrin. Don’t forget the rent, either. The shock of realization dawns that somehow the patient — America — is suddenly in dire economic health and the only way out is a brutally painful form of political surgery.

But what about the swaggering and the smirking, the bigotry and the xenophobia, the — what did they call it? Jingoism, hyper-nationalism, extremist patriotism and exceptionalism. The Won was going to fix all that with a dose of much-needed humility and then we were going to be fashionable, followed by popular, around the world.

Popular hasn’t materialized. Fashionable seems to be fleeting. Humble is here, for sure…hard not to be humble when your President is bowing to everybody.

But you know what they say about humility. It’s expensive. How much humility can you afford?

Ah, but then there is the media. The media will keep Holy Man all propped up, net Him His 270 electoral votes just barely. It’s their job to tell everybody what to think after all!

Problem: After they’re done doing that — they need to buy gas too.

Obama’s a one-termer, because He hasn’t done anything that makes a second term worthy of consideration. Just give awesome speeches and make things cost more. I don’t need to double my budget for gas, to listen to awesome speeches, and neither do you. Just hit “record” and “play.”

Click for larger.

Many other journeys within the boundaries. The perimeter itself is formed by, I think if I’m recalling this right, three trips. That’s a little tricky, since as the perimeter is pushed outward some older trip loses its significance in favor of the newer one…

Some of these will be pushed outward very soon I think, if all goes right. Some others will be staying where they are for quite some time; they’re representing a frontier I’m not feeling too enthused about expanding. Low on the excitement and high on the sunburn, boredom, sore butt. People don’t realize, we have lots of farmland here. Depressingly, that’s what makes this “pedaling universe” as expansive as it is. Light on the hills.

Although I would point out in my defense that when you lose hills, you gain a whole lot in terms of wind. And by “gain” I mean lose. In mid-afternoon, sixty miles into it, your tenth hour in the saddle or thereabouts…well hey, that’s what makes beer taste good right?

Smitty (hat tip to Gerard) explains it:

Jobs are what matter. Product? Not so much. Thus, if the State of Illinois pays for signs with spelling errors, that isn’t a bug, that’s a feature! Workers and materials suppliers will be kept busy moving the location of the typo all around the sign. It’s all about jobs saved or created, man!
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Full circle, then: this humble sign in Illinois, far from a sign of stupidity, is a harbinger of winning the future, full employment, and portion controlled servings.

Yeah, Progress: yeah!

I wish Smitty’s humor tidbit was as big a waste of time as your average Huffington Post article or Daily Show segment, which is to say I wish it was an exercise in “wouldn’t it be funny if this thing happened, how about you go off and pretend like it really did, since if you part company with reality in that particular way it helps my agenda.” Otherwise known as I Can See Russia From My House! humor.

Sadly, though, he’s nailed it. Among the things that have people shouting and yelling and calling each other racists, is a debate about Keynesian economics — this thing we call an “economy,” do we owe it to the activity involved in the churning-around of this other thing we call “money”? Or is it necessary to the long-term well-being of this thing called the “economy” that something of practical use be created where it did not exist before? Is it some kind of heresy to believe in the creation of wealth?

It’s a good discussion to have, I think…although my mind happens to be pretty much made up on it.

Somehow, though, the people who disagree with me don’t feel particularly motivated to list their reasons for disagreeing with me. It’s much more common for them to call their detractors racist. That would be desperation if they were doing it as a ploy to get ahold of capital to try out their “economic activity without wealth” schemes…but that isn’t what is happening here. They got ahold of the capital just fine, then they spent it, then the plan didn’t work and then they called people racists for noticing it didn’t work.

…run by a disgruntled delivery man.

“15 Percent is a blog documenting people, and companies who have never seemed to work in the service industry, or don’t think to tip at least 15% on deliveries, and instead opt for 2 dollars on everything,” the site says. “This is for all the people who have been handed $80 on a $78 order and told “keep the change”. Thanks a**-h***.”

The “<=15%" blog is here.

I guess he’s talking about me. I’ve never worked in a “service industry”…except I did work once in retail which I’m guessing is not what he’s talking about. Retail people don’t get tips, do they? I didn’t.

I do think it’s a good point to be made about delivery people. I tend to agonize much more about take-out. I drive over, she swipes my card, out comes a paper tape for me to sign and it’s got “gratuity” on it — I’m not even looking at my food yet and here I am filling the damn thing out. What’s the food gonna be like? Are they going to bollux it up? Lose track of the order and make me wait an extra twenty minutes? If I don’t know any of this, then why am I tipping?

You know what this guy’s problem is — at least, in my household. The check is made out before the guy ever shows up. See, tipping is supposed to be all about, “I appreciate that, you did everything I wanted or needed.” It makes sense. You value the service more than the money in the first place, right? Otherwise you would not have placed the order. So when the service commands special leverage in determining that the order was a good call, the message needs to be sent “make sure it goes that way from now on.” And y’know, just telling the guy that isn’t going to get the job done. Put your money where your mouth is, and it happens. Win-win.

In this way, a blog dedicated to bitching about tips below fifteen percent, misses the point. What kind of service did you render in order to net two dollars on a $78 order? Maybe the customer is trying to send you a message.

I’m old enough that I can’t give you an age when I started working, because I started in childhood, and people my age don’t consider that to be real “work.” Although if I tried to force my kid to do it today, California would squawk, the county would squawk, something about “child labor laws”…wouldn’t want to go back to the days of Oliver Twist, would we. But little kids don’t command a concept of time very well. They need to be given an incentive. That’s how tipping got started isn’t it? Boys selling newspapers, shining shoes, delivering hay bales, carrying luggage. I had the opportunity to earn tips, but I didn’t earn that many and I probably wouldn’t have tipped me if I was the customer. I wasn’t a very good paper boy. Had a rather thick skull when it came time to get the message through “move on my timeline and not yours, and this partnership will work for both of us.” Somehow I didn’t quite catch on.

But if I did, and some jackass failed to appreciate it monetarily, I wouldn’t have acted all abused about it. That’s not quite right. In fact, I’m doubting it is my natural biases that incline me to believe the following: A feeling of entitlement to the other man’s coinage, is a far bigger problem for our society today than some newspapers showing up late. Therefore, there is a line we should be trying not to cross; a line of entitlement.

Starting a blog about shitty tips, crosses the line. Why is this customer rounding up to $31.00 when the bill is $30.21? Maybe that’s a lack of education, in which case I’m all for the education. But ya know, I’m thinking there might be more to it than that. Did you talk to the customer and find out what’s going on?

I just do…

Flashback —

Regrettable statement. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t like paying four dollars a gallon for gas.”

From here. Hat tip to Instapundit.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “Obama” — Kenyan word that means “failed experiment.”

A royal wedding, and the long-awaited release of a document from Hawaii. The week certainly does finish up with a feeling of genuine accomplishment, doesn’t it?

I say, not so fast. If there is any positive development for the civilized world this week, it is that a problem gnawing away at all of us, invisibly, undetected, has been brought to the surface. It stares at us defiantly threatening to destroy us if we do not destroy it first — if, that is, we are willing to look at it.

I like to foster a spirit of optimism about these things. But there is no call for it here, none whatsoever. Consider what just happened:

Pompous ass Barack Obama, who occasionally pretends to preside over the United States, finally released the long form birth certificate that has been causing all this trouble. The certificate He has been using as an instrument of disunity to cause all this trouble…for no good reason whatsoever…purely for partisan, politically strategic purposes. He said “We do not have time for this kind of silliness. We have more important things to do. I have more important things to do.” Then flew off to appear on the Oprah Winfrey show.

The New York Times says it shouldn’t have happened. We should have taken Obama’s word for it and it’s a national tragedy that some among us did not.

With sardonic resignation, President Obama, an eminently rational man, stared directly into political irrationality on Wednesday and released his birth certificate to history. More than halfway through his term, the president felt obliged to prove that he was a legitimate occupant of the Oval Office. It was a profoundly low and debasing moment in American political life.

The disbelief fairly dripped from Mr. Obama as he stood at the West Wing lectern. People are out of work, American soldiers are dying overseas and here were cameras to record him stating that he was born in a Hawaii hospital. It was particularly galling to us that it was in answer to a baseless attack with heavy racial undertones.

Mr. Obama practically begged the public to set aside these distractions, expressing hope that his gesture would end the “silliness” and allow a national debate about budget priorities. It won’t, of course.
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It is inconceivable that this campaign to portray Mr. Obama as the insidious “other” would have been conducted against a white president.
:
Mr. Obama was tactically smart to release the certificate and marginalize those who continue to keep the matter alive. It is tragic that American politics is fueled by such poisonous fire. Mr. Trump quickly moved on to a new fixation, questioning Mr. Obama’s academic credentials. Mr. Boehner, and other party leaders, have a new reason to call a halt to the politics of paranoia and intolerance.

Now on the way to making my point, I ask that we just let this situation sit here while we go on to other things — other pompous asses. Forget about the Oprah point; the proves nothing except that our pompous ass of a President has a priority system that is all cocked up, or no priority system at all. Consider: Obama showed a document to make a controversy go away. Whether this is successful or not, the take-away is that we have some vocal critics who don’t think this should have been necessary and the feeling that it was, should be an embarrassment to those who asked for it and it represents some event of oppression against President Obama. With thick racial undertones. Or overtones.

President Obama should not have to prove things. That’s the take-away.

Pompous ass Robert Gibbs, who used to be the President’s Press Secretary, issued a challenge — a reminder, really — to pompous ass Donald Trump who is now claiming victory in the birth certficate matter: Where are the tax returns? The Donald said he’d release them if Pompous ass Obama would relent on the birth certificate question. Pompous ass trump pompously replied…

Asked later about Gibbs’ comments, Trump told POLITICO: “Gibbs is a loser.”

That’s an end, not a beginning. Go follow the link. If Trump said anything following the word “loser” it wasn’t anything worth including in the article. It was a brush-off.

Much as it amuses me to watch Gibbs get brushed off the way I’ve seen Gibbs brush off so many others — the man is a pompous ass, just like the other two, after all — I have to side with him on this one. Trump said he’d do X if the President did Y. Pompous ass Gibbs is just calling on pompous ass Trump to make good. But there’s a problem, see: Pompous ass Trump is above it. Just like pompous ass Obama was above releasing the damn birth certificate, or at least, the pompous asses at the New York Times thought He should’ve been.

Kate Middleton is marrying Prince William of Wales this morning. I’ve already given my thoughts on the inherent anti-Americanism of royal weddings, particularly this one. I hesitate to call this girl a pompous ass, from what I’ve seen of her she’s lovely, polite, well-mannered et al. Looks to me like the prince is getting a real prize. But I’ve had my fill of this:

Independent Woman: Kate Middleton Won’t ‘Obey’ Prince William

The future princess is reportedly following Diana’s footsteps in dropping the word from her wedding vows.

Diana broke from royal tradition and protocol when she left “obey” out of her vows to Prince Charles in 1981, and the decision caused much controversy. But befitting this royal wedding’s more modern tone, Middleton’s choice feels appropriate. She’ll promise to “love, comfort, honor and keep” her husband instead.

Give it a rest, you pompous asses. If Diana did the same thing, there is nothing ground-breaking here.

It isn’t that I want wives to “obey” their husbands, it’s that the entire fuss misses the point. Wives and husbands, at least on the big stuff, need to come to agreement on things. It really doesn’t matter if they do that by means of her obeying him or him obeying her, or a midnight round table, plates breaking, whatever. The problem is — and this was the problem back in Diana’s day, as well — there are a whole bunch of messages coming out of this “Kate won’t vow to obey” story.

I happen to agree that “obey” is antiquated, so in my view one of those messages might be called the right one. All the rest are bollywonkers though. And you just know the one message that is most popularly received, is that wives & husbands don’t need to agree on a damn thing. Followed closely by: Wives don’t need to obey husbands, husbands need to obey wives.

Because wives are above. This is the common feeling of female pompous asses.

Those of you still just starting to recover from the topic-change whiplash of a few paragraphs above, I think can now see the logical connection. Sad, pathetic, dissatisfied people — homely fat women who wish they had the nerve to rebel in some way against their husbands — are living vicariously through Kate Middleton. Just as sad sacks who wish they could tell someone to “take this job and shove it,” or something, are living vicariously through President Obama. Or Donald Trump. This ceremony of “I don’t owe you” spectacles is all about proxy living.

That’s the monster of which I speak. It threatens to destroy civilization.

The Last Son of Krypton, Man of Steel, Man of Tomorrow, Scion of the House of El, renounced his American citizenship or at least announced that he’ll renounce. What a pompous ass. Superman, you see, is tired of having his actions construed as maneuverings by the United States government, and so (from what I understand) he is taking this action to gift himself to the world as a “citizen of the universe.”

I’m somewhat sympathetic with this, actually, if only in the sense that yes this is probably what would happen. Superman flies off to Libya to help overthrow the evil government of Khadaffi, and the angry voices from around the world say…the United States, through its spy Superman, went and did this thing. I don’t agree with the solution but I can recognize the problem.

Before we get to that, though, a real-life Superman would run into the problems faced by The Incredibles, wouldn’t he? The liability. (“I saved your life!” “You ruined my death!”)

But the hyper-nationalism, the blame-America-first-ish-ness…let us call it “anti-patriotism”…that isn’t the biggest problem. It’s a problem, to be sure, but I see a bigger one: Superman being above the citizenship. See, there’s that word again. Pompous ass Superman is just too big to fit into a country.

The theme persists. We’ve got an awful lot of pompous asses being above things.

The problem is that western civilization is made possible by the opposite sentiment. What we have built runs on a foundation of “as a matter of fact, I do owe you something.” Or, “for value received, I am going to do X.” This permeating stench of a story, that some modern Ivanhoe or Perseus is just so super-duper wonderful that nobody should ask anything of him, is contradictory to the motor that has moved everything in any way that has ever helped us. Even the ancient Greeks, who inspired us in so many ways, believed in it. Twelve labors of Hercules and all that. Jason can’t have the Golden Fleece until he does X, says King Aeetes of Colchis. Jason doesn’t say “Omigaw! That’s so unfair!” Jason does the labors and then King Aeetes doesn’t say “Yeah but you’re a loser!”

Actually he does if you read the mythology. But that’s part of what makes him the villain.

Fast forward to 2011 Common Era and we see yesterday’s villain is today’s hero. We worship the pompous ass who can’t be counted on for anything because he thinks all this stuff is beneath him. The golf-playing trust fund baby jackass.

It implies something toxic about us that all these examples are crammed into one awful, odious, pompous-ass-filled week. Implies but doesn’t prove — it might all be a coincidence. But if it is, we should make the most of it. We have met the enemy and he is us; our tolerance for pompous asses who regard themselves as being above things…who insist that the rest of us also regard them as being above things…is our undoing. We are far too deferential to these pompous asses.

And they aren’t above jack squat. Not in America, at least. Maybe it’s time we reminded ourselves of this simple egalitarian fact of life, and then after we’re done doing that, we can clue the pompous asses in on it as well.

Civilization requires it.

Cross-posted at Washington Rebel and Right Wing News.

Okay…it’s pretty hard this morning to find some news that doesn’t have to do with that damn birth certificate, so let’s just wind the whole thing up here.

Neal Boortz points to Glenn Reynolds’ round-up, which is pretty good.

My Hello Kitty of Blogging update, if I dare say so myself, offers a salient summary:

Document Drop Day Plus One: This is the hard part. It took Obama three years to provide His real birth certificate. The challenge to Obama fans is to take this, and make it look like there’s something wrong with the people who were asking to see it. Tall order. But they’re trying…oh, Lordy, they’re trying real hard.

They’re in a jam. Think about it: How do you say “you never should have asked to see this…uh…this piece of paper…right over here.” It’s taking the position of, you shouldn’t have insisted on this thing you wanted us to do — after our side caved. Now that we have caved and you’ve lost nothing, there’s something wrong with you that you kept insisting on this. How do you do that?

I think behind closed doors they’re protesting that very thing.

We know we’re not going to turn to stone, or cause the universe to supernova, just by looking at it. We looked at it yesterday. Just a boring piece of paper, and the question that pops up after you’re done looking at it is: What is someone thinking when He refuses to release it? Who does that?

At least one argument they could’ve used up until now, and in fact have used, has completely imploded: You stupid crazy racist birthers are insisting on seeing something that doesn’t exist! Destroyed in fire, shredded when the department went to electronic records, etc. Now we know that was a lie. The hunt for hard links is time-consuming, which is to be expected…maybe I’ll pick that up and maybe I won’t. It happened. Lots of Google histories and 404 links out there. Quite the Tidy Bowl operation that seems to have taken place since.

My favorite analogy is one of my own inventions: Two jackasses you unfortunately have as extended relatives, have gotten into an extended altercation in which one demands to see written proof of something from the other. See, generally you take a lot of emotion out of things by getting rid of the whole democrat/Republican thing and keeping everything else.

Your family gets together frequently because you live close together. You are the host for nearly all of these. Picnics, ball games, funeral wakes, bridal showers, whatever…these two idjits keep getting into the same tired old argument. Your furniture is getting broken.

First couple times it happens, you might take the attitude “C’mon uncle Jack, his word is good, you don’t need to see the piece of paper.”

Then it goes on into the third year.

And then you find out the other guy has the piece of paper. Furthermore, the reason he isn’t showing it to the other guy, is his position is the other guy should take his word for it — I’m-just-so-completely-wonderful-and-awesome. Anybody who doesn’t believe every little thing I say, has something wrong with him. So I’m going to convert this other guy, see. Force him to believe me by not showing him the piece of paper. Which I have.

We’re in our third year of this nonsense.

You’d have to conclude:

1. The guy with the piece of paper is responsible for the conflict.
2. This doesn’t have anything to do with facts. It’s about privilege.
3. The guy wanting to see the paper isn’t exactly vindicated…but this other guy who has the paper? It might be time to look into assisted living. The guy’s whacked.
4. You’d probably want to be reimbursed for broken furniture. And not on a 50/50 basis. The guy with the piece of paper should pay all of it.
5. And finally…Jesus Fucking Christ just show him the paper you asshole!

You know, it’s funny. At this point, the kindest thing you can say about Obama is that He can’t actually run anything, but He’s gifted at coming out on top in these conflicts and whether we knew it or not, that is what the country was voting for.

But then things like this happen, and you realize — waitaminnit, He doesn’t even have what it takes to come out on top. You can’t conclude Obama is good at something unless you started examining the situation with that bias firmly planted in your mind already.

He commands an emotional vibe when He appears before a crowd of people. He can do that much pretty well. But what is that, exactly?

In sustained factional conflicts like this one, He doesn’t emerge victorious any more often than the average guy. And, based on what I’m picking up on Document Drop Day Plus One…I don’t think He’s come out on top here. He’s got some people in His corner, true. But that’s bedrock for Obama.

I think He’s hurt badly. Ready for another analogy? You’re in the Donner party. After you’re done cannibalizing each other and you get rescued, during the helicopter ride home you find out one of your companions had a stash of chocolate and energy bars the whole time. That guy who’s been holding out on you then, somehow, has the job of sustaining some kind of “personal approval rating.” That’s Barack Obama.

You wanna be Barack Obama right now?

So that’s why He finally released His long form birth certificate…

U.S. economic growth slowed more than expected in the first quarter as higher food and gasoline prices dampened consumer spending, and sent a broad measure of inflation rising at its fastest pace in 2-1/2 years.

Big debt, fast inflation. They go together like bacon and eggs…but what do I care? My god-king president was born in the USA! Yay!

Hat tip to Kate at Small Dead Animals.

Update: They’ve configured their embed code to auto-play, so I have replaced the embed with a link.

I want to bitch up a storm when other blogs have auto-play, see. Can’t go bitching about it if I’m doing the same thing…cool video though. I could go fiddling around with the code trying to shut the auto-play off, but there’s no time for that right now.

We do not hand out the coveted Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) award casually. We certainly do not hand it out just because certain individuals out there deign to request that it be granted to them.

But ya know what? That isn’t a disqualification, either.

Mike Simone, one of my friends over at the Hello Kitty of Blogging, is well deserving of the one hundred thirteenth BSIHORL award because of this bumper-sticker-suitable entry:

If you voted for Obama in ’08 to prove you’re not a racist, you’ll need to vote for someone else in ’12 to prove you’re not an idiot.

I’m sad to say, the evidence of Mike’s correctness is all around us today, April 27, 2011, the day His Holiness decided to release His own long-form birth certificate. The blogosphere has gone supernova over this. Actually, not really. It is faintly rumbling. Maybe we should call that “stirring.”

The right side of said ‘sphere is yawning, saying (roughly paraphrased) “Good. Now we can stop paying attention to whether He’s a legal President, and start paying attention to what a gawdawful President He is.”

And the left side of it is screaming “RAAAAAAAACISM!” So you see, nothing is really changed too much. Except, those birthers who were supposed to be maniacal and never satisfied by anything, so what’s the point of releasing the long-form? Actually they’ve been reasonably quiet.

And the end of the day, it’s looking like just another thing King Barry The First should’ve handled differently from the way He did. Oh, and the date 4/27/11? I have a standing challenge for any Obama fan to argue this particular date was a good one to release the long form…according to the interests of the country. I have no doubt it was in the interests, or at least perceived to be in the interests, of the democrat party or of Obama’s re-election campaign. Even then, it looks like an asset that quickly turned into a liability, like something that exploded out of control. Some “tiger by the tail” thing that escaped inept management.

But show me how it was in the interest of America for its President to release His birth certificate on Wednesday, the twenty-seventh of April, in the third year of His first term.

And oh my goodness isn’t this more than a little bit awkward:

“We don’t have time for such silliness,” the President said this morning. And then he flew off to Chicago to be on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

It’s just strategic thinking beginning to end. And I mean that adjective literally, the way you read it straight out of the dictionary:

strategic : designed or trained to strike an enemy at the sources of its military, economic, or political power.

So if you grant Barack Obama the benefit of every possible doubt — and in His world, you damn well better, because as I explained in the post previous He isn’t used to anything else — He really came out on top here! He really socked it to those birther teabagger Republicans. And that’s what it’s all about!

Go look up at that definition again.

Well, two problems with that. One, I don’t think so. I don’t think “Teh Won” won. My standing question “how does it help the US of A to release this on April 27, 2011?” remains a standing question; it is unanswerable. Unless you’ve been living in a hole, you know Obama was painted into a corner by that fellow with the bad hairpiece whose name cannot be mentioned out loud on April 27, 2011. Rhymes with “plump.”

Obama let go of the saucepan handle after He already got a third-degree burn. He didn’t release any document; the document jumped out of His scorched fingers. Once again, inept management. And it looks like it.

Two: My April 27 query is unanswerable because the plain fact of the matter is Obama did not act out of concern for the welfare of the country. Obama acted — again! — to the benefit of Obama.

Obama failed to preside. He acted, again, as His own public-relations manager. And then He failed to attend even to that relatively miniscule task with any degree of competence.

My friend Mike addresses those who labored to prove to — whoever — that they weren’t racists back in 2008. The one flaw in this message is that those who are capable of hearing it, don’t need it. It is self-evident that Obama is not a healer of racial divisions, and cannot be one. He’s too…strategic. And therefore He is inherently divisive. It’s always going to be that way because it always has to be that way.

Add up the following: the attack on the “stupidly” acting Cambridge police, Eric Holder’s “cowards” and “my people,” Justice Sotomayor’s “wise Latina,” Van Jones’ rants against white polluters and mass murderers, the president’s declarations like the following: “And if Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘we’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us….’” Or the following, “We can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.” Or the race, class, gender video appeal to “young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women who powered our victory in 2008 [to] stand together once again.” What, then, is left of a supposedly racially neutral presidency?

In other words, if Obama had modeled his presidency after a Colin Powell’s or Condoleezza Rice’s tenure as secretary of State, then race would have been seen as incidental, not essential, to his character and agenda, and support for his presidency would have been predicated solely on principles rather than appeals to particular identity groups. The current rising racial awareness is no accident, but essential to focus support for liberal issues in traditional terms of polarization, victimization, and increased racial identity — especially as independents get frightened and peel off. Since 2009, we are less seen as an integrated, assimilated, and intermarried melting pot, but more a mosaic of competing interests that predicate their rival claims on society based on race, class, and gender.

Bloc voting and identity — the “base” — aid the Obama agenda; race as inconsequential does not. Before Obama, the now explosive and globally viral video of two young black girls’ savage beating of a white transgendered victim in a McDonald’s would have been one of many tragic morality tales about the generic dangers of drifting into the wrong places at the wrong times in an unsafe contemporary America. But after the precedent of the Skip Gates presidential intervention, the question naturally arises — when and when not does the president intervene in local issues, in symbolic terms, to offer the nation a teachable moment on racial bias: when an elite professor is inconvenienced in private or an adolescent is almost beaten to death in public?

Hat tip for that last one to blogger friend Rick.

Obama’s many shortcomings, I’m afraid, are much bigger than Obama. George Washington would have been horrified at the “brand-name politics” that engulfed the presidency sometime during the twentieth century. Every single President [insert surname here] has to demonstrate what is uniquely wonderful about a [insert surname here] administration. The presidency is supposed to be bigger than any one man, bigger than any one name. When the nation first got started, the vision was that these executives would be mere custodians, or stewards, each attending to the task in a way that would be most obviously beneficial. They had their partisan squabblings about what that was, to be sure. But the dream was that this squabbling would recede into the background. It’s a dead dream, now.

In fact, it’s much worse in this century than it was in the last one. We take it for granted that a “wonderful” administration is only supposed to be wonderful to a select few people. This President here, will deliver things to that constituency over there…everyone else should just resign themselves to going without. And then when he gets voted out of office, it’s that other constituency that will benefit from it, and the previous beneficiaries need to become accustomed to not counting for anything for the next four years…and so it goes.

So these three years without showing anybody the long form? That was a clue. Maybe, for the kind of healing our nation really needs, the right president has yet to be born. But if he is living among us, over thirty-five, ready to assume the mantle of that executive power…Barack Obama was not the guy. Because we knew early on that He fits the mold of my Monopoly-brat. He runs into a rule, and where George Washington would dismount his horse, bow courteously, and comply with the rule — it seems to be Emperor Barack’s place to exploit every little margin of doubt, every little loophole, to His advantage so He can stick it to the people who need to have it stuck to them.

What else would you expect from the guy who thinks it’s His place to make the oceans recede? No, that is not a manufactured quote. He really said that.

Twenty-twelve is coming fast. Prove you’re not an idiot.

I have to admit, if you woke me up out of a sound sleep this morning — and although tortured and interrupted with sneezing fits, it was sound — and said “Hey Morgan they’ve found life on Mars…OR…President Obama has released His birth certificate,” I’d have snuffled, rolled over, sneezed yet again, reached for a hanky and murmured something like “Slithery-wriggly or creepy crawly? Animal or plant? Does it look like a Jim Henson muppet?”

So Birther Zero has ceased to be Birther Zero — about three years too late. Who’s nuttier, the guy who refuses to release it for no reason, or the guy who insists he should be able to see it?

Obviously Obama has been painted into a corner; wouldn’t have done this if it were not for The Trumpster. So He’s going to turn this to His advantage, try one last play at the roulette wheel of “make the birthers look nutty and therefore make Obama look un-nutty.” I predict He’s overplayed His hand on this one, and it won’t pan out. Obama looks strange; not just to me, but I think to “middle America.” There was no reason to sit on this thing — but He did.

What’s the most innocent explanation for this bizarre, strange behavior of Barack Obama?

Ever play Monopoly with a five-to-seven-year-old who you can already tell is going to grow up to be a lawyer? Four rolls of the dice out of every five, leads to someone reaching for the box lid for yet another reading of the rules — because the kid has picked up, from somewhere, that he can always win whenever there’s doubt. Just make a grab for the benefit-of-doubt and if it doesn’t work, hey, nothing lost. The game takes freakin’ all day. And always, always, always, you’re the nutty one…even on those rare occasions when the box lid declares future-lawyer to be so unquestionably in error, that even he accepts the result (with a big ol’ pout), even then you’re nuts for having made an issue out of it. Even when it turns out your understanding of the rules was the correct one, you’re still in error for having said so.

Imagine the tot growing up with that personality, and then learning how to manipulate people politically on top of it all. Refuse to release the long form birth certificate, unilaterally dictate “this is good enough” when the rules don’t actually say one way or another…a big fight erupts coast to coast and…the patient watches it all go down. With a sick kind of a smile on the inside. His one motivation is “how do I play this to my advantage.”

That’s a mental illness, I think. But that’s who’s in charge. Scared yet?

Back to my old stand-by question: Is this someone you’d want to have watch your house when you go on vacation for a week?

I’d rather the newspapers get collected and the plants get watered by…a birther. An average birther. Seriously — he’s got a “McCain/Palin” or “Ron Paul” bumper sticker and he insists on seeing documents? Stacked up against my watch-the-house test — that’d be a plus.

But Barack Obama II has a quirk. He thrives on conflict and He’s gifted at making it look like it’s the other guy who’s doing that. I don’t want Him watching my house, let alone my country…and I don’t think your typical die-hard democrat wants Him watching his house, either.

Update 4/29/11: Gold.

Obama’s greatest victory of the entire past year — his crowning achievement for the past twelve months in the most powerful office in all the world — is his celebrated triumph in successfully producing a common form of secondary identification.

As of right now, that’s what he’s running on: That he, like 88% of all non-incarcerated adults in America, has access to his own personal records.
:
And for the past two nights I’ve endured Chris Matthews telling me about Obama’s “brilliant” “Perry Mason moment,” how masterful he was in all of this.

This is what he’s doing victory laps on right now. That’s what Chris Matthews is praising him to the heavens for. He’s grinning like King Shit of Fuck Mountain, and bathing in rapturous applause, because he accomplished something considerably less difficult than opening a Netflix account.

Pardon the word — are we not treating the President of the United States like a retard?

Obama 2012: Because Yes, We Can. Two, three years…that’s our turn-around.

Obama 2012: He has access to His personal records.

Obama 2012: If by “awesome” you mean “can produce ID,” then He definitely is.

Obama 2012: Yeah, really, that’s who He is. Take our word for it, or else!

“Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.”

— Susan Ertz.

Heh. Yeah, that works…

Credit to Bud Hammons.

Update: Michael O’Hare, in one of the private groups over on the Hello Kitty of Blogging, threw together a nice little list of one-liners with an interesting point on the end:

Obama Admin is
1. obstructing exploration.
2. Obstructing drilling.
3. Denying oil drilling permits
4. Applying tough EPA regulations on the oil industry
5. Obstructing Canadian Shale Oil pipeline
6. Printing more money
7. Messing up the Middle East Policy
But MSM says its oil speculators.

There’s another item that needs to go on though. And this item is part of an issue that is bigger than the gas industry or the oil industry.

Think back: When a commodity — any commodity — begins to increase in price, and the commodity is a staple of life, or could be thought of as a staple of life, particularly for the indigent and the rustically-living…how do democrats go about bringing the price of that commodity under control?

Think of health care and rent and retail gasoline…and breakfast cereals…and automobiles…

There ya go. Hearings. They investigate. Investigate and regulate. They shove their fat putrid faces into the teevee cameras, jam that index finger straight up into the air, stand on a soapbox and make solemn vows “to get to the bottom of this” by golly. And then they start sniffing under the skirts. Hold circus sideshows. Then they put a bunch of requirements on the books that the “corporations” open their doors to “regulators” and boy oh boy, they’d better not even think of shredding anything!

Which creates what those corporations call a “cost of compliance.” Which is then passed on to the consumer.

Actually the whole thing is bigger than the petroleum industry. The democrat party actually makes use of a very narrow selection of tools for bringing prices of things down. They provide cosmetic and substantial hostility to the process of bringing the whatever-it-is to market…increasing regulation…fighting the production of the raw materials. Along the way, they make some friends, and it seems only natural that their friends should be given control of the distribution of the whatever-it-is. Control of distribution, and monopolistic marketing power — usually, to the overseas producers of the commodity in question, in this case Brazil.

Don’t forget the labor. It has to be unionized. Naturally…these things do not bring the price of the widget down, they shove the price up skyward. It’s very predictable. I’d be disappointed in an eighth-grade graduate who couldn’t predict it. But they don’t get caught at it, because by this time the emotions are running high and too many people have stopped paying attention.

The democrat party doesn’t make things more affordable. It isn’t supposed to. I don’t understand why people think that is within its function or its intent.

Update: Back to the subject at hand…more visual evidence of the “sticky note campaign” in action from the fine food stores in Georgia, thanks to Melissa…

Join the campaign here, and help support it here.

My country, the United States, does not have royal weddings because we do not have royalty. We also have not plunged headlong into the black hole of western socialism, unlike Mother England. But seeing that we’re skating along the event horizon and have been for awhile, can this Yankee be blamed for his obsession with the latter?

The royal wedding seems, to me, a perfect metaphor for socialism. I would be shocked if it were confirmed to me I was the first to see it.

This unspoken silly agreement that all of us “commoner” folk are exactly alike, is buttressed by this equally silly and equally unspoken agreement that these few special people in the spotlight are somehow different. And here is unleashed a whole panoply of bizarre contradictions. Elizabeth rules by the Grace of God, her son Charles and grandson William next in line also because of the Grace of God. But is it not also through God’s Grace that the Monarch of Great Britain has been stripped of all constitutional power?

See all the throngs of people lining the streets, so anxious To Be A Part Of This Thing. But what thing is that? The promise is one of consistency, just like you can go into any MacDonald’s all over the world and expect the same menu and same experience. Today, Christmas Day 1066, all the days in between. It’s all the same. But — that would be boring. So we have these events like royal weddings. Events don’t count unless the situation afterward is different in some way from the situation before…but the situation is supposed to be unchanging. It is the promise of consistency, itself, that has produced this hungering for an event that would not otherwise be there. Another commonality with socialism.

But the similarity that really makes an impression on me is the promise of the happy ending. The air in London is fairly crackling with the electrical excitement over it. Good manners dictate you’re not supposed to mention what happened last time. You’re not supposed to say “I hope it goes as well as last time” and you’re not supposed to say “I hope it turns out better.” You keep that unsaid and un-thought.

Just like socialism. It’s tradition…but we’re all going to pretend this is the very first time it’s been tried. Without mentioning that out loud.

Nine hundred forty-five years since the arrow pierced King Harold’s eye at Hastings. Nine hundred forty-five years since the comet, since William landed at Pevensey and ate the sand. Their country is four times as old as ours, and yet their tradition is for those with short memories.

File this one under “Yep, I’ve met my share of people like this”:

“The President’s title, as proposed by the Senate, was the most superlatively ridiculous thing I ever heard of. It is a proof the more of the justice of the character given by Dr. Franklin of my friend. Always an honest man, often a great one, but sometimes absolutely mad.”

Thomas Jefferson on the proposed presidential title of “His Highness the President of the United States and protector of their liberties” advocated by Vice-President [John] Adams in the Senate; in a letter to James Madison (29 July 1789) [emphasis mine]

Life would be pretty boring if we all had the same ideas all the time. But still…

The latest winner of the Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) award is Adobe Walls, who comments poignantly at Bob Belvedere’s place and thus earns a post linking back there. And here as well.

The biggest problem for Conservatives is that none of our leaders are as pissed as we are or, if they are, they are afraid to show it. Trump isn’t going away unless and until somebody can capture that anger. Trump is expressing that anger without really giving policies that address that anger. Until somebody does that, get used to seeing Trump on the news and in the Blogs day in and day out.

It still doesn’t seem to me, though, that self-identified “conservatives” have a shot at winning this election. They don’t have the numbers right now and they’re not going to have the numbers in November of 2012.

For the vote to be wrestled out of the grip of Obama, it is going to have to be decided by people who are paying more than they want to for gas, and understand it is Obama’s policies making it that way. But of course, for that to work, that selection must be made out of the people who need to pay for their own gas…

So now is it a bit clearer why democrats don’t like individual responsibility?

But that first sentence, that’s the Best Sentence. The conservative movement does not have any leaders who seem to be as pissed off as the people within it. Liberals don’t have this problem, I notice. Candidate Obama actually got points for being smiley, sophisticated, mature…”no-drama Obama” they called Him.

He came out on top after liberals evaluated His ability and potential to sell things.

Conservatives evaluate their candidates on their ability & potential to fix things. See, that’s an important difference. It is not one that works to conservative advantage.

“Thanks for nothing, Paris Hilton.” The article is a year and a half old, but it’s my understanding this problem has only gotten worse in the meantime.

California is seeing an influx of chihuahuas popping up at animal shelters, and it’s becoming too much for the state to handle.

Rather than take these unwanted pooches out back, and deal with them Old Yeller style, California shelters are pawning these rat-dogs off on the Grand Canyon State.
:
Shelter officials are associating the rise in the abandoned pooches to celebutards like Paris Hilton, who popularized use of animals as fashion accessories. When the reality of having to care for the dogs kicked in, it proved to be too much for a lot of wanna-be heiresses, and they dropped the quivering canines off at animal shelters.

According to California shelter officials, more than 100 of the dogs have been driven to shelters in other states, Arizona included.

I just thought of this when I saw a commercial for some Ashley Tisdale pop-music high school made-for-teevee whatever, with some warm gooey shapeless plot to it in which she runs around with some purse-dog in tow. I really don’t know what it’s about, but I do know the presence of the little rat-dog is much more important to the production than the contents of any particular story-line. Right afterward there was a PSA from some dog pound pleading for support to help keep the surplus animals from being neglected & abused…

Interesting juxtaposition.

This “rodent-dog in a purse” thing has gotta stop.

Mark gets the prize for the best Easter graphic. Blue Ribbon? What a dumb-bunny.

Happy Easter everybody.

Blogger friend Phil has a Thing I Know #34:

If A is “political” and B is opposition to A, then B is also “political”.

I find it funny that politicians are always accusing each other of doing things for political purposes.

Oooh…let that one sink in for awhile.

Don Surber:

From Paul Krugman: “Here’s my question: How did it become normal, or for that matter even acceptable, to refer to medical patients as ‘consumers’? The relationship between patient and doctor used to be considered something special, almost sacred. Now politicians and supposed reformers talk about the act of receiving care as if it were no different from a commercial transaction, like buying a car — and their only complaint is that it isn’t commercial enough.”

An economist would not write that paragraph because an economist would know that a patient is indeed a consumer, a person who makes decisions on this product line called medicine. As a consumer, the patient usually decides whether to buy medical services or products, when, where and how much.

Commenter Drake says:

What kills me is that the NY Times continue to pay six-figure salaries to guys like Krugman and Friedman who just mail in twice-a-week columns that are honestly on par with twice-a-day posts from probably the top 50 liberal bloggers. Who pays attention to these guys anymore?

What is Krugman supposed to be doing, anyway? Maybe he’s what Thomas Sowell is talking about, when Dr. Sowell uses the word “intellectual” as a put-down: Krugman’s specialty begins in the arena of ideas, and ends there as well, so there’s no way to measure how well the idea meshes with reality, therefore no way to measure Krugman’s competence.

Either way, it’s clear to me Krugman isn’t supposed to put down in writing anything truly edifying — the reader is not supposed to know any more after having finished a Krugman column, than he knew when he started reading. And I think it’s been clear to Surber for awhile too; he’s a bright guy, I’m sure he’s not just figuring this out for the first time. Krugman’s columns are just so much liberal agitprop, calculated to motivate the reader into voting for liberals next time the opportunity arises. He writes it, the Times prints it, and then Memeorandum ratchets it to the tippy-top of their scroll and anchors it there for a day or two.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

…when he’s making a mistake.

Janet Daley writes in Telegraph:

Like a mythical traveller seeking truth, a think tank has asked a profound question: what is fairness? And lo, the people have answered with (almost) one voice: what “fair” means is that those who are deserving shall receive, and those who are not shall be – well, not exactly cast out, but certainly not entitled to everything that’s going.

As we report today, Policy Exchange – supposedly the Prime Minister’s favourite ideas outlet – has done a brave and unusual thing. Rather than polling the public just on policy and voting intention, it has put a far more abstract moral issue before them. It instructed the pollsters at YouGov to find out precisely what the public thought the most powerful term of approbation in the political lexicon – “fair” – actually amounted to.

The quite unequivocal reply that was received (with breathtakingly enormous majorities in some forms) came as no surprise to this column. To most voters, fairness does not mean an equal distribution of resources and wealth, or even a redistribution of these things according to need. It means, as the report’s title – “Just Deserts” – implies, that people get what they deserve. And what is deserved, the respondents made clear, refers to that which is achieved by effort, talent or dedication to duty: in other words, earned on merit.

You know, it’s awfully funny. We’re pretty good at marginalizing opinions and ridiculing them if complete strangers tell us those opinions should be marginalized and ridiculed. We marginalize and ridicule the idea that Barack Obama should have been required to prove His place of birth with some piece of evidence more authentic than a pink piece of paper fresh off the printing presses that essentially says “the people running Hawaii right now believe it.” We ridicule people who think babies might be alive before they actually breathe air. Ridicule mothers who homeschool their kids, or show some kind of affection toward their father, acting like he matters. And oh yes, we are great at ridiculing people who have found Christ. These people are minorities and minorities are there to be mocked.

But this toxic minority of people who think of “fairness” as “everyone has the same amount of stuff no matter what”…they’re allowed to live among us. They won’t keep their opinions to themselves, either. Unlike the homeschool-Moms, they can’t point to a single productive thing they’ve managed to achieve with this, uh, unique opinion they’ve got. Not one.

In fact, there isn’t a single appealing thing about it other than this phantom mirage illusion they manage to put out, that their outlook on the word “fair” represents a majority opinion or consensus. Well, it doesn’t.

People want to help other people who are in need, but there’s a big difference between helping the local widow and helping the town drunk.

That name, Sarah Palin, brings out such eloquence from the Palin haters. Just wow…these people want more power and control. Well, can’t fault them for lacking enthusiasm I suppose.

Hat tip to Rebel Pundit, by way of At The Point of a Gun.