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Hype: The Obama Effect

Obama; The Anointed One

The anointed one's pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a miracle in action - and a blessing to all his faithful followers

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.

When he was twelve years old, they found him in the temple in the City of Chicago, arguing the finer points of community organization with the Prophet Jeremiah and the Elders. And the Elders were astonished at what they heard and said among themselves: “Verily, who is this Child that he opens our hearts and minds to the audacity of hope?”

In the great Battles of Caucus and Primary he smote the conniving Hillary, wife of the deposed King Bill the Priapic and their barbarian hordes of Working Class Whites.

And so it was, in the fullness of time, before the harvest month of the appointed year, the Child ventured forth - for the first time - to bring the light unto all the world.

He traveled fleet of foot and light of camel, with a small retinue that consisted only of his loyal disciples from the tribe of the Media. He ventured first to the land of the Hindu Kush, where the Taleban had harboured the viper of al-Qaeda in their bosom, raining terror on all the world.

And the Child spake and the tribes of Nato immediately loosed the Caveats that had previously bound them. And in the great battle that ensued the forces of the light were triumphant. For as long as the Child stood with his arms raised aloft, the enemy suffered great blows and the threat of terror was no more.

From there he went forth to Mesopotamia where he was received by the great ruler al-Maliki, and al-Maliki spake unto him and blessed his Sixteen Month Troop Withdrawal Plan even as the imperial warrior Petraeus tried to destroy it.

And lo, in Mesopotamia, a miracle occurred. Even though the Great Surge of Armour that the evil Bush had ordered had been a terrible mistake, a waste of vital military resources and doomed to end in disaster, the Child's very presence suddenly brought forth a great victory for the forces of the light.

And the Persians, who saw all this and were greatly fearful, longed to speak with the Child and saw that the Child was the bringer of peace. At the mention of his name they quickly laid aside their intrigues and beat their uranium swords into civil nuclear energy plowshares.

From there the Child went up to the city of Jerusalem, and entered through the gate seated on an ass. The crowds of network anchors who had followed him from afar cheered “Hosanna” and waved great palm fronds and strewed them at his feet.

In Jerusalem and in surrounding Palestine, the Child spake to the Hebrews and the Arabs, as the Scripture had foretold. And in an instant, the lion lay down with the lamb, and the Israelites and Ishmaelites ended their long enmity and lived for ever after in peace.

As word spread throughout the land about the Child's wondrous works, peoples from all over flocked to hear him; Hittites and Abbasids; Obamacons and McCainiacs; Cameroonians and Blairites.

And they told of strange and wondrous things that greeted the news of the Child's journey. Around the world, global temperatures began to decline, and the ocean levels fell and the great warming was over.

The Great Prophet Algore of Nobel and Oscar, who many had believed was the anointed one, smiled and told his followers that the Child was the one generations had been waiting for.

And there were other wonderful signs. In the city of the Street at the Wall, spreads on interbank interest rates dropped like manna from Heaven and rates on credit default swaps fell to the ground as dead birds from the almond tree, and the people who had lived in foreclosure were able to borrow again.

Black gold gushed from the ground at prices well below $140 per barrel. In hospitals across the land the sick were cured even though they were uninsured. And all because the Child had pronounced it.

And this is the testimony of one who speaks the truth and bears witness to the truth so that you might believe. And he knows it is the truth for he saw it all on CNN and the BBC and in the pages of The New York Times.

Then the Child ventured forth from Israel and Palestine and stepped onto the shores of the Old Continent. In the land of Queen Angela of Merkel, vast multitudes gathered to hear his voice, and he preached to them at length.

But when he had finished speaking his disciples told him the crowd was hungry, for they had had nothing to eat all the hours they had waited for him.

And so the Child told his disciples to fetch some food but all they had was five loaves and a couple of frankfurters. So he took the bread and the frankfurters and blessed them and told his disciples to feed the multitudes. And when all had eaten their fill, the scraps filled twelve baskets.

Thence he traveled west to Mount Sarkozy. Even the beauteous Princess Carla of the tribe of the Bruni was struck by awe and she was great in love with the Child, but he was tempted not.

On the Seventh Day he walked across the Channel of the Angles to the ancient land of the hooligans. There he was welcomed with open arms by the once great prophet Blair and his successor, Gordon the Leper, and his successor, David the Golden One.

And suddenly, with the men appeared the archangel Gabriel and the whole host of the heavenly choir, ranks of cherubim and seraphim, all praising God and singing: “Yes, We Can.”

Gerard Baker; TimesOnline

Police: "Hand Over Your Guns"

Imagine with me, if you will, a quiet evening at home with your spouse next to you on the couch, the dog lying by the fireplace, and your kids playing in the back yard.  The tranquility of the scene is interrupted by an urgent knocking at the front door.  You are alarmed by the sight of three police officers on the other side of the peephole.  Something must be wrong in the neighborhood.  You open the door and are greeted with the question, "Good evening sir.  Do you have any firearms on the premises?"

A strange question indeed.  Since you do own a couple of weapons, both properly registered to you, you respond curiously, "Yes officer, I do."

The officers then begin through the door.  You protest.  But they push past you with the command, "Have a seat on the couch and tell us where the weapons are.  We'll be confiscating them."

Does this seem unreal to you?  You're  thinking, surely this could never happen in the United States of America.   It already has.

As you are celebrating your freedom today I want to plead with you to take about 10 minutes and do two things.  First, please watch the 8 minute clip at the end of this post and witness for yourself actual footage and citizen testimony of a mass city-wide confiscation of weapons from law-abiding citizens at a time when they needed to protect themselves more than ever.  In this footage you'll learn of a city stricken by two violent, marauding bands of urban terrorists.  One armed band is moving from business to business and home to home looting everything they can carry.  The other armed band is moving from business to business and home to home violently taking guns away from the people trying to protect themselves from the first armed band.

After you have watched the clip, come back here and follow this link to the July 3rd article in the Chicago Tribune calling for a repeal of the second amendment.

Socialists Say the Darnedest Things - The Sequel

I just came across this little quiz that has been circulating the internet.  Take a look at the following quotes and see if you can guess who said it.

No. 1: "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."

A. Karl Marx
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Josef Stalin
D. None of the above

No. 2: "It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few … and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity."

A. V.I. Lenin
B. Benito Mussolini
C. Idi Amin
D. None of the above

No. 3: "(We) can't just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people."

A. Nikita Khruschev
B. Josef Goebbels
C. Leon Trotsky
D. None of the above

No. 4: "We have to build a political consensus, and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own … in order to create this common ground."

A. Mao Tse-tung
B. Hugo Chavez
C. Kim Jong-il
D. None of the above

No. 5: "I certainly think the free market has failed."

A. Fidel Castro
B. Pol Pot
C. Nicolae Ceausescu
D. None of the above

No. 6: "I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched."

A. Avowed socialist Bernie Sanders
B. The late Communist Party USA leader Gus Hall
C. Angela Davis
D. None of the above

The correct answer to each of the questions is "none of the above." In fact, every single one of these statements was made by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton between 2004 and 2007.

The first was uttered June 28, 2004, at a fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer in San Francisco, according to a report by the Associated Press.

The second was made in a speech in New Hampshire May 29, 2007, according to a report in the Boston Globe.

      

The third, fourth and fifth came during a political forum telecast on CNN June 4, 2007.   

The sixth was in a speech in Syracuse, New York, Sept. 2, 2005 and was reported in the Washington Post.

Legislation Mandates Exertion Monitoring to Control CO2

A bill, recently passed through both houses of Congress will, for the first time, impose monitored limits upon human exertion in an effort to reduce harmful CO2 into the atmosphere. 

"The resting exhalation level of human CO2 release is approximately 1 kg per day.  At this resting level, the CO2 exchange between human and environment (through consumption of meat and vegetables) is, for the most part, neutral.  However, increased physical exhertion to the target heart rate heightens the release of CO2 to a positive polution rate of 6% per day.

Given the current population of 6.7 billion people, and given the extraordinary challenges we are now facing because of global warning, it is incumbent upon leading nations to take steps to reduce human exertion to the carbon neutral resting rate release."  ~Dr. Wayne Feller (testifying before Congress)

The legislation proposes the following:

• A 15% tax levied upon the healthclub industry as well as new licensing procedures required for the opening of all new clubs.  All clubs will be required to submit, on an annual basis, customer attendance records which will also be submitted by customers with annual tax returns.
• Tax breaks for labor intensive companies that agree to limit operations to two six-hour shifts per day.
• Reducing hours of accessibility at all national parks.  Tax incentives for states and municipalities that do the same at all state and municipal parks.
• Issuance of high-tech pedometers to all citizens to be used in qualifying for a federal tax credit.
• Modification of income tax forms for the reporting of annual exhertion-induced CO2 release to be documented by healthclub reporting and government-issue pedometer readings.

When asked about the inevitable impact of this legislation on obesity rates, one congressman responded, "To some extent, this is a concern which will be addressed by companion legislation focusing on food manufacturers and the restaurant industry.  But, we also recognize that, within reason, a heavier population is a slower population, and this contributes to the success of the legislation passed today."

This is one more example of American liberty being stipped away in the name protecting "Mother Earth."  Government is now finding ways to monitor our movement.

"The passage of this bill adds to the assurance that our children and our children's children will inherit from us a temperate earth with clear skies, lush green forests, wetlands teeming with life, all joined together in a chorus of hope for the continuing presence of a kind and ecologically senstive human race upon the planet."  ~Sylvia McMann (speaking to a reporter after passage of the legislation).

Michelle Obama: "We must change our history"

I have a Saturday morning routine.  I like to sleep in a little.  I like to have a cup of coffee as soon as I get out of bed.  While I sip coffee I like to get online, check my blog traffic and comments, read some blog feeds.  Eventually Lynn and I have breakfast and watch a little television through the morning.  Today I did something really strange.  I mean...really strange.  I watched over 30 minutes of Michelle Obama on The View.

I was looking for video evidence of this quote, made by her during the show:  “We’re going to have to make sacrifices, we’re going to have to change our conversation, we’re going to have to change our traditions, our history and we’re going to have to move to a different place.”

Naturally, the video uploaded by the Obama campaign had edited this out.  As I type I'm still listening to various clips trying to find one that has this quote still in tact.  As I continue listening, I'll share with you my thoughts about her statement.   If anyone reading this has it, please share the link in a comment.

It's clear that the Obama campaign believes that America must change and that Barack is the candidate to bring about that change.   The question that we all need to be asking is, "What do you want to change about America?"  He has made it clear that he wants to create a "heavy government hand to ensure that wealth is distributed more equitably."  He wants to bring the nation's health care system under the control of the federal government.  He wants to tax what he calls "windfall profits," (which really don't fit the correct definition of windfall profits) to make sure that no industry makes obscene profits (he considers 8% profit margin, what the oil industry makes, to be obscene).  In short, Barack Obama wants to take us further down the road toward Marxist socialism than any other president in history.

Now, how can a president of the United States of America shift us away from the form of government under which we became the wealthiest, most powerful, most generous and benevolent, and most respected nation on earth, toward the form of government that wrecked the Soviet Union and has been tried and is now being abandoned by many European countries because of its devastating effects?  How can a president get a people who are so deeply ingrained with and appreciative of the principles of freedom to abandon those principles and willingly surrender to the control of an oppressive central government?

One tactic is called negationism (also known as historical revisionism).  According to the Wikipedia entry for this term, negationism is:

The process that attempts to rewrite history by minimizing, denying or simply ignoring essential facts.  Perpetrators of such attempts to distort the historical record often use the term because it allows them to cloak their illegitimate activities with a phrase which has a legitimate meaning.

Illegitimate historical revisionists rely on a number of Illegitimate techniques to advance their views such as presenting as genuine documents which they know to be forged, inventing ingenious but implausible reasons for distrusting genuine documents, attribute their own conclusions to books and other sources that say the opposite, manipulating statistical series to support their views, and deliberately mis-translating foreign languages sources to support their views.

During the rule of dictator Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, a variety of revisionist tactics were employed to ignore unpleasant events of the past. Soviet school books would constantly be revised to remove or alter photographs and articles that dealt with politicians who had fallen out of favor with the regime. History was frequently re-written, with past events modified so they always portrayed Stalin's government favorably. The continual Soviet and current Russian historical revisions have led many people  to joke, "Russia is a country with an unpredictable past."

Here are my top five things to watch for as negationism is used to facilitate our slide into socialism (feel free to add to this list through your comments):

1.  Conversations about our founding fathers, founding documents, and founding principles will be removed from the public discourse.

2.  The heroes of our nation's founding will be recast as villains.

3.  The Constitution will be recast as a "living document" that must be interpreted according to the time we are in rather than the historical context in which it was written.

4.  It will become taboo, or possibly even illegal, to ask questions and speak against emerging socialist policy.  Labels such as "racist," "hate-monger," and "fear-monger" will be applied to anyone who dares question what is happening.

5.  New school curriculum will be written to favor the emerging system and discredit the former system.  Children will be forcibly indoctrinated in mass as government-controlled education is strengthened while private schools and home schools are gradually squeezed out of commission through legislation and/or judicial activism.

In closing, let me offer my translation of Michelle's comments.

“We’re going to have to make sacrifices..."

She's already made this clear in a previous speech.  Some of us are going to have to give up some of our pie so that others can have more (Source: The Weekly Standard).  Now, this sounds very nice if what she meant was that I should willingly give some of my pie to the person next to me who has none.  But what she really means is that I must accept that in the new America the government will, by force, seize some of what I have (which is already being done) and give it to someone else.  This is called redistribution of wealth.

"We’re going to have to change our conversation."

What she is saying here is that there is conversation that is acceptable in the new America and there is conversation that is unacceptable.  There are acceptable questions and unacceptable questions.  And my husband and his administration will help you to understand which is which.  This is called censorship.

"We’re going to have to change our traditions, our history and we’re going to have to move to a different place.”

The four-hundred years of tradition this country has enjoyed since the Jamestown landing must be re-examined and revised.  Tradition that celebrates and encourages personal liberty, personal responsibility, a free market, and a limited government of the people, by the people, and for the people must be understood as outdated and untenable so that the new traditions of a clandestine monarchy can emerge and flourish.

In the words of the prolific Ray Bradbury, "Something wicked this way comes."

Convenient Hypocrisy

This week I've been moving from one office to another at work.  I bought a couple of lamps at Target yesterday as part of my strategy to free myself from the fluorescent assault of the ceiling lights all throughout the building.  I stood in the light bulb aisle looking for the 150 watt incandescent bulbs required for my new lamps.  I noticed the selection of incandescent bulbs is much smaller than it was thirteen years ago when I was a Wal-Mart manager.

Did you know that the incandescent light bulb, one of the most venerable inventions of its era but deemed too inefficient for our own, will be phased off the U.S. market beginning in 2012 under the new energy law just approved by Congress (Source: US News & World Report).  Yep, that's right.  Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have taken it upon themselves to determine which light bulbs you should use in your house.  Their preference is that you begin using $3.00 bulbs that contain poisonous mercury and have to be disposed of by following hazmat guidelines instead of your safe 50 cent bulbs.  They claim, according to the US News & World Report story cited here that though the bulbs will cost you more, you will save more on your electric bill because of improved efficiency.  But remember, they also want to pass cap & trade legislation that will raise your electric bills much more than you'll ever save by using different light bulbs.

Of course, this law, and the many more on the way, are for the good of the planet.  They believe that you and I should see it as our national and global civic duty to do our part in protecting our "planet in peril."  And leading the way is the hero of the environmental lobby, the one, the only, Al Gore.  Read and be inspired by his brilliant leadership reported in this article from the Tennessee Center for Policy Research:

"In the year since Al Gore took steps to make his home more energy-efficient, the former Vice President’s home energy use surged more than 10%, according to the Tennessee Center for Policy Research.

“A man’s commitment to his beliefs is best measured by what he does behind the closed doors of his own home,” said Drew Johnson, President of the Tennessee Center for Policy Research. “Al Gore is a hypocrite and a fraud when it comes to his commitment to the environment, judging by his home energy consumption.”

In the past year, Gore’s home burned through 213,210 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, enough to power 232 average American households for a month.

In February 2007, An Inconvenient Truth, a film based on a climate change speech developed by Gore, won an Academy Award for best documentary feature. The next day, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research uncovered that Gore’s Nashville home guzzled 20 times more electricity than the average American household.

After the Tennessee Center for Policy Research exposed Gore’s massive home energy use, the former Vice President scurried to make his home more energy-efficient. Despite adding solar panels, installing a geothermal system, replacing existing light bulbs with more efficient models, and overhauling the home’s windows and ductwork, Gore now consumes more electricity than before the “green” overhaul.

Since taking steps to make his home more environmentally-friendly last June, Gore devours an average of 17,768 kWh per month –1,638 kWh more energy per month than before the renovations – at a cost of $16,533. By comparison, the average American household consumes 11,040 kWh in an entire year, according to the Energy Information Administration."

Here's the lesson boys and girls:  Socialist politicians are keen and quick on passing laws to take away your freedom to choose what's best for you and your family.  But their approach is reminiscent of that old parental saying, "Do as I say, not as I do."  It's up to you and me to remind these wannabe dictators that they work for us and their job is to represent our voice, not force their personal ideology and agenda upon us.  If they can't get that right, it's time for them to pursue other employment.  And it is you and I who have the authority to issue the pink slips.  Man up (or woman up) citizen!

Socialists Say the Darnedest Things

A June 17th story in the Wall Street Journal reveals, through an interview with Obama, some of his economic policies should he be elected president.  Read the following excerpts, pause and think about what he is saying, and then finish reading this post.

Sen. Barack Obama shed new light on his economic plans for the country, saying he would rely on a heavy dose of government spending to spur growth, use the tax code to narrow the widening gap between winners and losers in the U.S. economy, and possibly back a reduction in corporate tax rates.

...the U.S. becoming what he called a "winner-take-all" economy, where the gains from economic growth skew heavily toward the wealthy.

Sen. Obama cited new economic forces to explain what appears like a return to an older-style big-government Democratic platform skeptical of market forces. "Globalization and technology and automation all weaken the position of workers," he said, and a strong government hand is needed to assure that wealth is distributed more equitably. He spoke aboard his campaign bus, where a big-screen TV was tuned to the final holes of the U.S. Open golf tournament.  (Source:  The Wall Street Journal)

What Obama is saying here is that the free market system cannot be trusted to be fair to everyone, therefore the government must intervene to make sure that companies do not perform too strongly or too poorly.  This will be done through the redistribution of wealth from taxing companies which are performing "too well" and giving tax breaks, subsidies, and/or bailouts to companies that aren't performing "well enough."  This, my friends, is another technique right out of the Marxist Socialist play book.

For a fuller definition of socialism, here is the wikipedia entry.  Let me give it to you in layman's terms.

Three men live in a neighborhood.  Bob is a college graduate working for a successful marketing firm.  He has a nice home, two cars that he and his wife use to commute to work.  They also own a sports car that they take out joyriding on the weekends.

James lives a few streets over.  He dropped out of high school and, for most of his twenties and thirties, has bounced around from one job to another, never staying more than a year or two at each job.  He has finally decided to be "self-employed," and spends his time making popsicle-stick birdhouses to sell at the local flea market.  He recently had his only vehicle repossessed, which means he is now unable to transport his inventory to the flea market.

Karl also lives in the neighborhood.  He does pretty well for himself, though his standard of living isn't quite has high as Bob's.  He recently saw James walking down the street, picked him up, and gave him a ride home.  During the ride, James shared the story of his plight with Karl.  After dropping James off, he headed toward his own home and saw Bob and his family out in the front yard washing their three vehicles.  A surge of benevolence mixed with indignation rose up within him as he thought to himself, "Look at that.  The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  Why should Bob have three cars while James doesn't even have one vehicle to use for selling his birdhouses?"  Karl comes up with a plan.

Night fell, and at around 11:00 Karl called his friend Earl, who owns a towing service.  They met at Bob's house.  Quietly, while Bob and his family slept, Karl and Earl broke into the garage, found one of the vehicles to have the keys in the ignition, hitched it to the truck, and towed it to James' house.

Karl returned home, pulled into his own garage next to his second car, and slept soundly and peacefully, feeling good in his heart for taking care of those in need. 

You may not realize it, but this is happening to you just as it happened to Bob, every time you get a paycheck from which up to 40% has been taken.  Yes, some of your tax money is rightfully used for defense and infrastructure, but some of what is taken from you is being given to people who will not work, to starving artists, and for special projects in cities far removed from you and your life.  Obama now wants to expand this philosophy of wealth distribution to the industrial and commercial sector to "level the playing field."

How very interesting that while formerly socialist countries around the world are running from it toward capitalism, we are abandoning the market system that made us the most powerful and wealthiest nation on earth for that which the rest of the world understands to be a failed system ending in poverty and oppression.

Who's Stopping The Drilling?

You may not know this, but our government has deemed it illegal for us as a nation to undertake new exploration for and retrieval of our own natural resources for domestic use.  Meanwhile, Mideastern countries are building new refineries and Russia is offering tax cuts to their oil companies if they will expand exploration and retrieval.

In yesterday's edition of Glenn Beck's e-mail newsletter he names names.  Read below to learn which members of congress are for retrieving our own oil and which are against.

"So why IS gas so darn expensive? There are a lot of reasons, but somehow the biggest problem (as usual) points directly to Washington DC. Democrats yesterday in a subcommittee voted basically to kill going to the outer continental shelf to drill for oil because there are 'other things we can do'. Glenn would like to introduce you to the people who are preventing us from drilling here at home, because, as Glenn says, these people should be famous. When the pitchforks and torches start coming out---we'd like to help clarify who was for or against us."

AGAINST
Chair: Norman D. Dicks (WA)
James P. Moran (VA)
Maurice D. Hinchey (NY)
John W. Olver (MA)
Alan B. Mollohan (WV)
Tom Udall (NM)
Ben Chandler (KY)
Ed Pastor (AZ)
Dave Obey (WI), Ex Officio

FOR
Minority
Ranking Member:
Todd Tiahrt (KS)
John E. Peterson (PA)
Jo Ann Emerson (MO)
Virgil H. Goode, Jr. (VA)
Ken Calvert (CA)
Jerry Lewis (CA), Ex Officio

Visit the subcommittee website here to see how they voted down party lines.

McConnell Shuts It Down

Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell managed to shut down debate of the Lieberman-Warner "Cap & Trade" bill this afternoon by forcing an audible reading of all 500 pages of the bill before debate could continue.

If you are unfamiliar with with this bill, it proposes the largest tax increase in American history, the largest reorganization of the commercial and industrial sector since the New Deal, will result in the largest transfer of wealth from the commercial sector to the government in history, and in addition to raising the prices on everything you buy, will raise your per-gallon gas price by $1.50 a gallon (according to the E.P.A.) all to protect "Mother Earth."

Kudos Mitch!