Sunday, July 20, 2008

"Let's try for a 0% approval rating!" - Democrats call for new gas taxes


Hoping to reach the magical zero-percent approval rating, Congressional Democrats are calling for new and higher gas taxes on the American suckers citizens who elected them.

Now, [Democratic] lawmakers quietly are talking about raising fuel taxes by a dime from the current 18.4 cents a gallon on gasoline and 24.3 cents on diesel fuel.


...Just three years ago, [the construction] trust fund enjoyed a surplus of $10 billion. Even without a tax freeze, the fund is projected to finish 2009 with a deficit of $3 billion. That that could grow as Americans drive less and buy less gas because of higher pump prices.

[Ed: I wonder what happened after 2005? Perhaps a new set of Congressional leaders were elected? Leaders of the Democratic -- spend first and ask questions later -- variety?]

Senate Democrats in May tried to add $5 billion to an aviation overhaul bill to replenish the highway trust fund next year; Republicans objected. Democrats tried again in June, but this time for $8 billion; Republicans objected to that, too.

Congress should first reduce spending on pet projects, known as earmarks, argued Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. "I'm not going to let the Senate spend all this money when nobody is looking, especially when we refuse to stop wasting billions of taxpayer dollars on earmarks."

There's an idea: perhaps our earmark-addicted leaders (Senators Obama and Clinton alone have combined on nearly a half billion dollars in pork) could start by cutting their own scandal-laced projects before socking American consumers with higher taxes.

But that would require a high level of ethics and a stand-up attitude: and neither characteristic seems to be a strong suit of our Democratic Congress.

Hat tips: STACLU and Macsmind.

Could Al Gore be any more full of crap?


Yesterday Al Gore thanked bloggers for promoting his global warming climate change agenda.

He also echoed Congressional Democrats' assertions that increasing energy supplies through drilling won't help.

Recent Republican calls to battle rising oil prices with more drilling is “absurd” and a bit like the old hangover cure known as the “hair of the dog,” or having another drink, Gore said.

Absurd? I'd say equating our transportation and energy systems, which today rely almost exclusively on fossil fuels, with a hangover qualifies as not just absurd, but borderline insanity.

Gore said he is trying to enlist 10 million grassroots environmental activists and asked the online organizers for help in doing it. He advocated moving all energy production to renewable sources, such as wind, solar and geothermal, within 10 years.

Meanwhile Gore's monstrous fleet of air-conditioned SUVs and limosines runs on premium unleaded, but not on wind, solar or geothermal.

The accompanying graphs ("Global Cooling (PDF))" were produced by The Herald-Sun of Australia.

A new paper published by the Astronomical Society of Australia has a warning to global warming believers not immediately obvious from the summary:

Based on our claim that changes in the Sun’s equatorial rotation rate are synchronized with changes in the Sun’s orbital motion about the barycentre, we propose that the mean period for the Sun’s meridional flow is set by a Synodic resonance between the flow period (~22.3 yr), the overall 178.7-yr repetition period for the solar orbital motion, and the 19.86-yr synodic period of Jupiter and Saturn.

Or as one of the authors, Ian Wilson, kindly explained to me:

It supports the contention that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 - 30 years. On each occasion that the Sun has done this in the past the World’s mean temperature has dropped by ~ 1 - 2 C. 

Oh. Global cooling coming, then. Obvious, really.

As if Gore needed any more support for his intractable position, The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, just reversed its position on climate change.

In the face of all of this, I simply ask: could Al Gore be any more full of crap?


Perhaps his limo drivers know for sure.

Update: Al Gore was a dolt as a student, too.

Linked by: LawHawk and Tom Nelson. Thanks! Hat tip: Catmman

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Free Gas Pump Stickers!


Mark Levin gave one of Atlas' readers an idea. He taped some pictures to the local gas pump.

The illustrations depict Congressional Democrats who've forced Americans to buy oil from the Middle East by criminalizing oil exploration in the U.S.

Need some to call your own? Click to zoom and then print away.

Here are closeups of all three versions (regular, extra, and premium).






Remember: only tape these to gas pumps if you have the owner's permission.


Linked by: Gateway Pundit. Thanks!

Barack Obama, Yesse Yehudah and the foul odor of corruption


The Chicago Sun-Times ("Obama's goodie bag") has produced a laundry list of State Senator Obama's grants during his brief tenure. Among the suspect donations: a $75,000 grant to a group called Fulfilling Our Responsibility Unto Mankind in 2001 (FORUM, a "21st Century e-family.com initiative").

In 2007, The Los Angeles Times offered the back-story behind the grant.

...In Springfield he once directed state funds to a nonprofit group headed by a Republican and former ballot foe, Yesse B. Yehudah... Yehudah barely registered a ripple of meaningful opposition, drawing only 10% of the vote in his 1998 challenge of Obama.

The following year, a nonprofit run by Yehudah, a social services organization called Fulfilling Our Responsibility Unto Mankind, began seeking state support. At the same time, Obama was considering mounting an ambitious challenge to U.S. Rep. Bobby L. Rush, a fellow Democrat.

Former foe Yehudah stepped up early to help. In November 1999, five people who worked for the Republican's nonprofit organization each gave $1,000 checks to Obama's congressional campaign committee. Yehudah [made] no secret of his goal...

...Obama lost his congressional bid [and was] left with a $40,000 debt.

Later that year, Yehudah associates pitched in an additional $5,000 to help retire Obama's debt. The contributions were recorded on Oct. 7, 2000, three days after the Illinois Senate, at Obama's behest, approved a $75,000 state grant to Yehudah's nonprofit, state records show.

In 2002, the Chicago Tribune ("2 Accused in Scheme at Pork-Rich Charities") noted the depth of suspect behavior related to FORUM and other "charities".

The head of a South Side Chicago group that has received millions of dollars in state contracts and special pork-barrel grants from top legislators was sued by the state Friday for allegedly siphoning funds from two charities... [the suit] accuses Yesse B. Yehudah... of misusing or failing to account properly for hundreds of thousands of dollars from FORUM and Elmhurst-based Life Education Center.

Also named in the suit is David S. Noffs, the former head of Life Education Center and a longtime friend of Lura Lynn Ryan's, the wife of Gov. George Ryan. Until last year, she served on the anti-drug charity's board along with Yehudah.

The suit charges that Yehudah and Noffs washed money between the two charities and companies they controlled, in the process converting accounts of the non-profit groups into personal piggy banks. They diverted state money intended for anti-drug programs to personal travel, health club memberships, auto repairs, dental work, phone bills and college tuition costs, the lawsuit charges.

...The so-called member initiative grants total more than $750,000, records show. All were sponsored by Democrats, including one by state Sen. Barack Obama of Chicago... Additionally, FORUM holds a $538,000 per year contract for drug-prevention and health programs funded by the Illinois Department of Human Services. The agency's payments to FORUM have exceeded $500,000 for the last four years.

Life Education Center leveraged its political ties to obtain more than $4 million in state grants since 1996, even though a 1995 state audit of earlier grants found "serious and significant" violations of state accounting rules. The governor's son, George Jr., once served as an assistant national director for the group and its insurance broker... More than $500,000 of the group's funds can't be properly accounted for, $180,000 of which appeared to be used for personal purposes, the suit alleges.

All of this stink hasn't stopped FORUM.

As recently as last month, the organization received $200,000 from the Illinois State Board of Education (PDF).

Images via: MyDD: Obama - the candidate of change - Chicago-style.

Waffle House Wedding


The Gwinnett Daily Post reports on a "Waffle House Wedding" (via Visual Consumer):

As the famous twang of Hank Williams Jr. blasted from an SUV stereo Friday afternoon, about 30 folks socialized, sipped soda and puffed on cigarettes... No, this wasn't a Fourth of July backyard barbecue. It was the run-up to a wedding... In a Waffle House parking lot.

The lucky couple, George "Bubba" Mathis and Pamela Christian - both 23 and employees at the Dacula diner located at the Ga. Highway 316/U.S. Highway 29 interchange - wouldn't have it any other way.











Check out the whole slide show at the Daily Post. I was moved to tears by the sheer beauty of the event.

Joke o' the Day: The Amish Farmer


Tom sends us today's winner.

Subject: Amish Farmer

An Amish farmer walking, notices a man drinking from his pond, with his hand.

The Amish man shouts: "Trink das wasser nicht. Die kuhen haben dahin gesheissen."

Which means: "Don't drink the water, the cows have pooped in it."

The man shouts back: "I'm from Chicago and just down here campaigning for Obama, I can't understand you. Please speak in English."

The Amish man says: "Use two hands, you'll get more."

Chuck Schumer: a hedge fund manager's useful idiot?


"Mick Danger" -- one of Donald Luskin's contacts -- wonders about Chuck Schumer's relationships with certain hedge fund operators. You may recall that Schumer touched off a bank run at IndyMac by releasing a letter that questioned the viability of the bank.


The director of the OTS noted that the letter frightened depositors, who withdrew funds at a catastrophic clip: "In the ...11 business days [following Schumer's letter], depositors withdrew more than $1.3 billion from their accounts." This Schumer-induced run proved fatal for the bank.

The SEC is investigating hedge funds to see if they circulate rumors, knowing they are false, and trade on them, manipulating the market... Someone -- with an interest -- brought Schumer information on IndyMac. Who? When? Why? What are the chances that Schumer was looking into irregularities into IndyMac because some hedgie with a big short position turned him onto it?

Well, they ain't zero.

What are the chances Schumer was "investigating" IndyMac because the Senate Banking Committee assigned that case to him? Zero.

What are the chances the SEC enforcement guys will get very shy, very fast if they pick up a trail leading up the Hill? Close to 100%. (Note, Senators have a constitutional shield against certain prosecutions of actions taken in the course of their work as Members of Congress.)

Most likely result? The SEC staff will pluck a few hapless hedgies out of the middle ranks and shoot them in the public square.

Is Schumer correct? Or did Schumer break a law by leaking his letter? What if he were a research director at a hedge fund and told people what he suspected? Would that be the kind of rumor the SEC is hunting?

Think there might be a clever hedge fund which might use Schumer to leak info so they can trade on it without fear of prosecution? Uh, yeah.

Jerry Bowyer also has a take on "how Schumer set off a bank panic":

Well, they went after Indymac, and the result is the second largest bank failure in US history. Of course, we’ll hear a lot about ‘greed’ this week, and we should. But whose greed? Schumer’s greed for power? Community activists' greed for shakedown money? Trial lawyers greedy for huge class action settlements?


Hedge fund managers who write big checks to these groups and the Democratic Party (including Schumer’s Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) and then turn around and make mountains of money shorting mortgage paper? No, we’ll hear about none of the above from most in the media. The real culprits will have gotten away with it, and the victims will bear the blame.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Ten things to change on the iPhone 3G


ZDNet offers a relatively compelling list of things they'd change on the iPhone 3G:

1. No keyboard...

2. The camera needs more megapixels...

3. Still no cut and paste...

4. You can't use the 3G iPhone as a modem...

5. SMS/MMS...

6. Where's the video record?...

7. Non-removable battery...

8. No pay-as-you-go iPhone--yet...

9. No built-in VoIP client...

10. Give us more colors--and more storage...

Boy Genius Report matched up the new Blackberry Bold with the new iPhone. Those are two niiiiiiiiiiiiice phones.

But a battery you can't remove or replace without paying Apple an exorbitant fee? I'm sorry, but that's just freaking unacceptable.

The #1 vacation destination for "progressives"



Idea: Reliapundit

Ad o' the day


Spotted this at Flopping Aces:

That's a damn good ad.

Line o' the day: McCain's candid feedback


Describing Barack Obama's magical mystery tour to Iraq, John McCain observed:

"He would be going to a very different Iraq had we done what he wanted to do. There would be chaos, there would be sectarian violence, and there would be increasing Iranian influence."

That's gonna leave a mark.

The runner-up? Charles Krauthammer:

If we had listened to him, we'd be looking at a strategic calamity.

Update: The Weekly Standard's Obama, Democrats, and the Surge (They were against it before it worked.):

Obama, then, was not only wrong about the surge; he was spectacularly wrong. And he continued to remain wrong even as mounting evidence of its success gave way to overwhelming evidence of its success.

But Obama is not alone. Virtually the entire Democratic party, including every Democrat running for president, opposed the surge.

Not to worry. The American Left has been spectacularly wrong on slavery, Nazism and Communism as well.

The word 'hypocrite' requires only four letters: G. O. R. E.


In a major announcement yesterday, Al Gore challenged Americans to switch from "carbon-intensive fuels to renewable energy" by 2018. Gore called for a multi-trillion dollar upgrade to the electric grid paid for, in part, by a colossal taxpayer ripoff in the form of a "carbon tax."

A film crew from Americans for Prosperty happened to be on the scene when Gore and his family arrived.









Oh. And more bad news for the global warming climate change scam artist formerly known as the vice president.

The American Physical Society, an organization representing nearly 50,000 physicists, just reversed its position on climate change.

Hat tips: Michelle Malkin, Gateway Pundit and Larwyn. Linked by: Denny and LawHawk. Thanks!.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

If Barack Obama played the lead in Star Wars


Based on a true story.

The time has come, young Skywalker.

***ZZZZZZZZHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMM***

Look, Lord Vader: I promise to cut the rebels' investments in unproven missile defense systems...

Eh?

...I will not weaponize space...

...

...I will slow development of future combat systems...

...and I will institute a "Defense Priorities Board" to ensure the quadrennial defense review is not used to justify unnecessary spending...

...I will set a goal of a world without any advanced weapons...

...and to seek that goal, I will not develop advanced weapons...

...

...I will seek a global ban on the development of light swords...

...and I will negotiate with the Emperor to take our starship fleet off of its hair-trigger alert.

So, Lord Vader. What say you to peace?

Let me consider your offer for a moment.

***SNICK***

***Thump***!!!

You'd think several millenia would have cured the "progressives" of their appeasement mentality. But nooooooooooooooooooo...

I wonder what the specials are in the cafeteria?


* * *

So that's why Obama didn't get the part. The movie would've been over faster than Michael Moore can down a bag o' sliders.

Related: If Barack Obama starred in Raiders of the Lost Ark and If Barack Obama starred in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Inspired by: Barry Rubin.