Archive for February, 2009
Give Your Opinion To The RNC From Here!
Friday, February 20th, 2009Some of you guys have already given me great ideas that will be presented to the RNC Technology Grassroots team. If you want to get your name attached to the idea and become a part of the change, please fill out the forms below and go for it!
Not So Stimulating
Friday, February 20th, 2009What if you spent one million dollars every day since Jesus was born? You still wouldn’t have spent as much money as is in the spending bill:
From the Politico:
The American Issues Project, which briefly aired a TV spot in last year’s presidential race, will go up on Friday with a TV spot that marks the dollars spent with the passage of time.
“Suppose you spent $1 million every single day starting from the day Jesus was born — and kept spending through today,” says the announcer as an image of the three wise men flashes on the screen. “A million dollars a day for more than 2,000 years. You would still have spent less money than Congress just did.”
According to Chris LaCivita, an AIP consultant, they are spending just under $1 million on the ad, which will be aired on national cable.
The 60-second ad also singles out an eyebrow-raising statement made by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on the Senate floor.
“Let me say this, to all of the chattering class that so much focuses on those little tiny, yes, porky amendments — the American people really don’t care,” Schumer said.
Then, echoing one of Obama’s signature campaign slogans, the announcer asks: “Is this change you can believe in?”
This is grassroots activism. Get involved on Facebook. Join me on Twitter to talk more about what can be done to change this fetid government.
Dispensing With Social Niceties
Thursday, February 19th, 2009Dating can be a hot mess and not the so-bad-she’s good Tara Reid kind, either. As I wrote last week, with the new technology, lack of family cohesion, and cessation of social rules governing all sorts of behavior, people are doing some crazy things (face licking) and thinking it’s normal.
Exhibit A:
If you’ve watched the news at all (I don’t, but I saw the cover of the National Enquirer and other weeklies at the grocery check-out on Sunday), you know that the pop singer Rihanna (featured on this blog in the song Life Your Life) got tuned up by her boyfriend Chris Brown. And by tuned up, I mean her face was severely beaten and she was choked and had to go to the hospital for chronic and persistent head aches (I’m guessing a concussion.)
Now, the reaction by the guys at the counter at H.E.B., one black two white, was this: Rihanna must have done something horrible like give Chris an STD or something because a dude just doesn’t hit the face of a woman because he’s angry.
Exhibit B:
A friend of a friend got tuned up by her husband (who is, by the way, a worthless slug, but that’s another story) because she cheated on him. The person who relayed the story to me defended the husband’s behavior and said that it was understandable that he would beat her like that because of how she disrespected him.
There used to be rules governing this sort of thing. Women stayed virginal and prized that virginity because it gave them great power. Men knew that in order to get nooky from a respectable woman, he’d have to make a commitment and then, once the commitment was made, he received, in return a woman who would more likely be faithful to him and who would be a good mother to his children, etc. She knew that he had self control and respect for her.
Another rule: A man simply would not hit a woman. Period. Ever. These days, though, women are portrayed in movies, on TV, in books, etc. as equal to men in physical strength which is simply not true. So you have guys beating on women and women winning, when, in real life the likelihood of that happening is slim and none. In addition, people possess less conflict-resolution skills and resort to unhelpful behaviors like yelling, screaming, name-calling, physical aggression and sometimes ending in physical violence. This used to be unacceptable. These days, three guys in a grocery store and an acquaintance can spend time arguing to me that it’s acceptable for a guy to beat the heck out of his woman when he’s “disrespected”.
This is what happens when there is no honor and there is no shame and there are no rules for engagement.
So that’s social norms. And the new norms breed babies, STDs, beatings, and misery.
Pajamas Media’s Charlie Martin
Thursday, February 19th, 2009About Face-Book
What legal agreements have you signed today?
“It’s worse [Obama's Administration] than I could have imagined possible.”–UPDATED
Thursday, February 19th, 2009A blogger friend and I were talking yesterday and she lamented the Obama administration’s long-lasting affects and it was only one month into his presidency: the drive to nationalize banks, the class-warfare, the hostility toward achievement, the secretiveness, the cult of personality, the talk of inclusion then the actions of exclusion, etc.
The current push by the administration is to pass Employee Free Choice Act (more double-speak, this law is about everything besides free choice) that would eliminate secret ballots–so employees could be intimidated into voting for a union. At first blush, this seems like no big deal. Unions have been known to be heavy handed but so what. So what? So, this legislation would go to the heart of the economy where it is still humming: the South. Businesses in the sunshine belt, where unions and taxation are less likely, thrive precisely because there is no collective bargaining to coerce the companies into bad business practices. Even further, the employees in these places live as well or better because the states have less personal income tax (Texas has none, for example) and can make up in cost-of-living savings anything a union might be able to gain.
But this legislation isn’t about what’s good for the individual, business, community or state. This is about evening the playing field. That is, states with egregious taxation suddenly retain businesses because the business environment everywhere in the United States is made universally punitive. Unions represent more workers because workers are coerced into unionizing. As it is, the unions are aggressive and seem to not comprehend that many workers don’t want unionization.
That workers resist unions shouldn’t be difficult to understand, really. Look at what the UAW is up to in Michigan. Once again, even in the face of GM, Chrysler and Ford failing, they concede nothing. This will mean, of course, that business leaves Michigan and jobs are lost. Sure the few jobs that remain will be flush, but the vast majority of workers won’t have a job. Flint is a ghost town for precisely this reason. Workers in the South have seen the “benevolence” of the unions (many are transplants after all) and want no part of it.
Taking away secret ballots would create a hostile work environment for those who resist the union. What if the union takes hold and you, the worker, fought against it? Yeah, life will be hard. {More on the outrage that is Card Checks here.]
And this is just the beginning of Barack Obama’s drive to reshape the American landscape into one of “fairness”, i.e. mediocrity. Fairness means those who achieve and thrive are penalized and those who, say, can’t afford a house, buy over their ability to pay, and default are rewarded–with the money of those who live within their means.
There are plenty of Americans who have lived within their means over the last few years even with banks sending outrageous numbers of credit cards with “O% Financing!” and “No Interest For A Year!”, etc. And there were people who did not. The banks gave money to people who shouldn’t have been given money. The people who could not handle the money not surprisingly spent it all without considering tomorrow. Then the banks saw the impending balance sheet woes and lobbied Congress to make filing bankruptcy more difficult. So people were forced to keep paying enormous amounts of interest, enslaving the debtor for years and years. And then, when the person got overburdened, he walked away from his house–his largest liability. And then, the banks asked for a bailout for all their stupid lending decisions.
Now, Barack Obama (and President Bush started this before him), bailed out banks that gave money irresponsibly. But then again, that was because they were coerced by Congress to give money to people who couldn’t afford to pay. See what happens with the government tries to make things “fair”?
All these attempts to “level the playing field” and promote “fairness” sound great. What it means is that the people who make bad decisions control those who live responsibly. And really, that’s the ultimate goal.
While I find Europe’s soft socialistic society pathetic, American Democrats look at the various countries with envy. Barack Obama’s language in both Germany and France revealed his contempt for America and Americans. He saw their world and wanted to transport that society to America.
Far from being the agent of hope and change, Barack Obama represents hate and contempt. He fundamentally despises the individualistic American impulse. He scorns the notion of hard work and achievement. He believes America is a bad place that needs to be changed into something good. Something, say, like Europe.
He is succeeding in fulfilling his dream. It’s going to be a nightmare for America.
P.S. Ultimately, the problem is that to far too many Americans, Barack Obama’s words and actions appeal to them. The same people who couldn’t see to the end of their own misfortune, can’t see how Barack Obama is promising them “easy credit”, too. There ain’t no free lunch–this bill will be paid.
UPDATED:
My co-blogger John Hawkins of Right Wing News, interviewed economist Walter Williams about his latest book. This is what Williams says about rich people verses the government:
…There is so much demagoguery against the rich and in that column I was asking the reader: Bill Gates, the richest person on the face of the earth — what can Bill Gates make you do? That is, during the 70s and 80s, the era of busing, could he have made you send your kid to a school that you did not want him to go to? Can Bill Gates deny you the right to dig holes on your property or put up a little shed on your property? He cannot do any of those things, but a lowly town clerk can…destroy your life just by denying you a permit to add an addition to your house. Bill Gates can’t stop you from doing that. I think that politicians and those that want to control our lives get us to focus away from the power that government has over our lives and cast our attention to rich people.
It’s working.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews
Michael Williams
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009Texas Honors Michael Williams With Social Media Award
You will love this guy. Watch the video!!
What If America Plunged Into Great Depression II?
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009Matt Lewis poses the question, since references to FDR and The Depression seem all the rage now that Obama is in office. It’s disturbing that the Left thrills at the notion of economic devastation just so their guy can have a platform to shine. If it’s not bad enough, make it worse! President Obama will play FDR and not really save the day, but look sympathetically like he’s trying. People will love that he tries.
Matt Lewis doesn’t think Americans would be as tolerant as they were in FDR’s time:
… My question is: In terms of the political ramifications, would this scenario repeat itself? Suppose the economy were to get worse — not better — would Barack Obama and the Democrats still be rewarded for merely trying to help things, via the stimulus?
Based on his swagger, Barack Obama seems to think he would. Additionally, it appears that many worried Republicans, at least, fear history would repeat itself (remember Dick Cheney’s warnings of “Herbert Hoover” time?)
Of course, the obvious (though overlooked) point is that times have changed.
Americans — who once looked up to presidents and baseball players, have lost confidence in politicians and institutions. For better or worse, we are less naive and more cynical than our grandparents. The mainstream media is also less likely to censor unflattering portrayals of the president, be it pictures of FDR in a wheelchair — or JFK’s infidelities.
The highlighted text is where I disagree with Matt. Only an idealistic, superficial electorate could put the most inexperienced, liberal politician in the most powerful office in the land based on vague promises of “hope” and “change.” These same people could reward Obama for “trying” very easily–especially if the Republicans keep putting forth willy-nilly, out-of-touch candidates forward.
But another thing occurs to me. A Great Depression Part II is worrisome because America is not the moral, cohesive society it was in the ’20s and ’30s. When my great grandparents endured that time, they were farmers. People walked along the train tracks at the back of their property. They fed countless families and survived on the farm themselves.
How would people do that now? That’s why Obama’s public works language seems laughable. We’re not an agrarian or industrial society anymore. We’re technological and service oriented. Times have changed, indeed, and most people who can program a computer wouldn’t know their way around a jack hammer if they had a week-long tutorial. Even more, they’d have no interest in using it even if they could figure it out.
I’m probably being pessimistic, but I see Americans used to getting paid a certain amount or working in a certain industry, waiting it out or waiting to be saved. If even CEOs are begging the government for salvation, why would the common guy be different? And worse, when those who are irresponsible are reinforced with special financing and for corporations and banks, big bailouts, what reason do law-abiding Americans have for living moral? Why pay taxes? California will see that soon. People will just stop paying since they won’t be getting returns. It will cause a further implosion.
Matt is right, Americans are definitely different, but not in the ways that I think make for a better society. If Barack Obama could be elected once, he can be reelected, because performance obviously is not a criterion. He could be FDR II. Americans are both the same–human nature hasn’t changed–and different. An entitlement attitude that didn’t exist back then exists now, a moral code that used to be widely held is no longer the governing principle, and really Americans are just more superficial and soft.
Let’s hope we don’t find out what happens if there’s a Depression Part II. Leftists need to be careful what they ask for.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews
“Fair Test”
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009A friend sent me this article last week and I am just now getting around to it. Evidently, the Standard Achievement Test (SAT) is unfair and so a “fair test” must replace it. Before even reading, I had pictures in my head of dullards finally having self-esteem because the test is easy enough that “everyone’s a winner!”
Oh there’s that, alright. But what’s more important than the feel-good ideas behind the group is who makes up the group itself. A little Bill Ayers, a little George Soros, a little Jesse Mernell (go look in the article to find out about this shining beacon of leftism) and you have a group giving college admissions advice to and gets an endorsement from the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). From CNS News:
The incestuous nature between a blatantly political organization like Fair Test – which is funded in part by radical foundations – and a professional organization for admissions practitioners is disturbing. Either NACAC shares Fair Test’s political agenda or is negligent in ascertaining the credentials of experts they cite in reports. The same can also be said of media organizations that routinely quote Fair Test officials.
Such ties between a political group advocating the end of standardized testing and an academic professional organization overseeing college admissions are troubling. The relationship between those entrusted with making college admissions fair and those with a larger political goal merits investigation particularly in light of the conclusions of education researcher Jonathan Epstein, who has studied the impact of test-optional policies in college admissions.
Writing in May 2008 for the education consultancy Maguire Associates, Epstein reveals that test-optional policies at colleges and universities lead to artificially inflated average SAT scores among incoming freshmen, which, Epstein warns “may completely disorient prospective students and families.” Epstein concludes that such disorientation in the market, which is fueled in large part by Fair Test political activists, “is not in the best interest of any institution or higher education in general.”
This risk alone provides sufficient reason for media and academic organizations to reassess their reliance on Fair Test and other political organizations for meaningful input in the college admissions debate. Whether they will take this course of action remains to be seen.
Translation: Dumb kids who have no business in college get a pass and get in, only to fail. The SAT would screen these kids out, but in the interest of politically correct diversity, everyone deserves a chance.
The more disturbing trend overall is how leftist organizations now seems to influence and dominate education at every level. Future American citizens will be little more than indoctrinated, underperforming automatons ripe for the collective mentality. Conservatives need to fight back–not only by fighting outside of the system with home schooling and private Christian schools, but from within. It is our tax dollars, too. It matters how it’s spent.
The Angry Rant
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009Stupid Parents
Who buys dirt bike boots for a two year old?
Breitbart
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009Fetal Stem Cells Cause Tumors In Sick Boy
Perhaps if they’d used his own stem cells?
