Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Line o' the Day: The Earth will mend and Stock Prices will lower


Ace has the winnah.

The Age of Plenty Begins: Stocks Fall Nearly 500 Points/5% on Obama Win

The Dow Jones drop isn't bad news; Obama just lowered the price of stocks so the little guy has a chance to afford some, too.

Thanks, Barack!

Comrades in Grant Park


PatriotRoom pointed us to this stunning scene in Grant Park as our comrades celebrated the election victory of Barack Obama.

Hat tip: LGF Quicklinks.

FBI asking questions on Rezko-Obama land deal


Update on 12/9/08: Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was just arrested. Governor Rod (I think that's what he prefers to be called) and Barack Obama were both beneficiaries of convicted felon Tony Rezko's largess. More to come, I'm sure.


MarketWatch reports that (via The Washington Times) FBI investigators are asking questions about the Rezko-Obama land deal.

A former Illinois real estate specialist says FBI agents have questioned him about a Chicago property that had been bought by convicted felon Tony Rezko's wife and later sold to the couple's next-door neighbor, Sen. Barack Obama.

The real estate specialist, Kenneth J. Conner, said bank officials replaced an appraisal review he prepared on the property and FBI agents were investigating in late 2007 whether the Rezko-Obama deal was proper.

“Agents and I talked about payoff, bribe, kickback for a long time, though it took them only a short number of minutes of talking with me while looking at the appraisal to acknowledge what they already seemed to know: The Rezko lot was grossly overvalued,” Mr. Conner told The Washington Times Monday.

Rezko paid the asking price on the same day Obama paid $300,000 less than the asking price to the same seller for his adjacent mansion,” he said. “This begs the question of payoff, bribe, kickback.

...Chicago real estate developer Tony Rezko was convicted June 16 on felony counts of fraud, money laundering, and aiding and abetting a bribery scheme involving kickbacks from companies wanting to do business with the state... Conner said his appraisal of the Rezko property, held in Rita Malki Rezko's name, was replaced with a higher one and he was fired when he questioned the document.

...According to his complaint, Mr. Conner reviewed the appraisal of the Rezko property by another firm, Adams Appraisal, which had set the value at $625,000. The complaint said he told his bosses the property had been overvalued by at least $125,000 and that a “reasonable and fair evaluation” should have been no greater than $500,000.

Mr. Conner said the removal of his appraisal “seemed understood as a crime with respect to the subpoena” of the Rezko property and the FDIC audit.

Aerial photos of the buildings developed by Rezko, Valerie Jarrett and other friends of Obama will give you a new perspective on the meaning of "change".

Do Over! Do Over!


Dan sent this one:

Russia to move missiles to Baltic

Iran warns about US air incursion

Rockets fired after Gaza clashes

Baghdad rocked by fresh bombings

Stocks fall as investors ponder Obama presidency

Oh Mommy, where's uncle John? I'm scared.

Back in Arizona, my friend. Back in Arizona.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

The brilliant Thomas Sowell: Illustrated


Thomas Sowell:

Some elections are routine, some are important, and some are historic. If Senator John McCain wins this election, it will probably go down in history as routine. But if Senator Barack Obama wins, it is more likely to be historic — and catastrophic.

Once the election is over, the glittering generalities of rhetoric and style will mean nothing. Everything will depend on performance in facing huge challenges, domestic and foreign.

Performance is where Barack Obama has nothing to show for his political career, either in Illinois or in Washington.

Policies that he proposes under the banner of “change” are almost all policies that have been tried repeatedly in other countries — and failed repeatedly in other countries.

Politicians telling businesses how to operate? That’s been tried in countries around the world, especially during the second half of the 20th century. It has failed so often and so badly that even socialist and communist governments were freeing up their markets by the end of the century.

The economies of China and India began their take-off into high rates of growth when they got rid of precisely the kinds of policies that Obama is advocating for the United States under the magic mantra of “change.”

Putting restrictions on international trade in order to save jobs at home? That was tried here with the Hawley-Smoot tariff during the Great Depression.

Unemployment was 9 percent when that tariff was passed to save jobs, but unemployment went up instead of down, and reached 25 percent before the decade was over.

Higher taxes to “spread the wealth around,” as Obama puts it? The idea of redistributing wealth has turned into the reality of redistributing poverty, in countries where wealth has fled and the production of new wealth has been stifled by a lack of incentives.

Economic disasters, however, may pale by comparison with the catastrophe of Iran with nuclear weapons. Glib rhetoric about Iran being “a small country,” as Obama called it, will be a bitter irony for Americans who will have to live in the shadow of a nuclear threat that cannot be deterred, as that of the Soviet Union could be, by the threat of a nuclear counter-attack.

Suicidal fanatics cannot be deterred. If they are willing to die and we are not, then we are at their mercy — and they have no mercy. Moreover, once they get nuclear weapons, that is a situation which cannot be reversed, either in this generation or in generations to come.

Is this the legacy we wish to leave our children and grandchildren, by voting on the basis of style and symbolism, rather than substance?

If Barack Obama thinks that such a catastrophe can be avoided by sitting down and talking with the leaders of Iran, then he is repeating a fallacy that helped bring on World War II.

In a nuclear age, one country does not have to send troops to occupy another country in order to conquer it. A country is conquered if another country can dictate who rules it, as the Mongols once did with Russia, and as Osama bin Laden tried to do when he threatened retaliation against places in the United States that voted for George W. Bush. But he didn’t have nuclear weapons to back up that threat — yet.

America has never been a conquered country, so it may be very hard for most Americans even to conceive what that can mean. After France was conquered in 1940, it was reduced to turning over some of its own innocent citizens to the Nazis to kill, just because those citizens were Jewish.

Do you think our leaders wouldn’t do that? Not even if the alternative was to see New York and Los Angeles go up in mushroom clouds? If I were Jewish, I wouldn’t bet my life on that.

What the Middle East fanatics want is not just our resources or even our lives, but our humiliation first, in whatever sadistic ways they can think of. Their lust for humiliation has already been repeatedly demonstrated in their videotaped beheadings that find such an eager market in the Middle East.

None of this can be prevented by glib talk, but only by character, courage and decisive actions — none of which Barack Obama has ever demonstrated.

Let's hope he learns on the job. Quick.

And I hope his views aren't as radical and racist as his friendships might indicate.

Congratulations are due not only to the candidate, but to the most one-sided media coverage in history.

It's their last gasp, that much is certain.



Linked by: Marathon Pundit. Thanks!

Sports role model o' the day


Click to zoom it if you can't read the accompanying text.

Spotted in a doctor's office


Chris sent this one in.

Contact your electrician immediately if the light stays on longer than 4 hours or if it becomes painfully bright.

The appeal of Barack Obama reduced to a single photograph


Hope. Change.


And voter intimidation. Charles Johnson and Gateway Pundit have the back-story.

Perhaps these are premature volunteers for Obama's "civilian national security force."

Real-time election results map


Check back for real-time results.

Some motivation for the troops


W sends this reminder to get out and vote.

Immense turnout for this election is good for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Put it to the crypto-Marxists.

Monday, November 03, 2008

ExxonMobil's humongous, outrageous and egregious profits


The media loves to talk about the profits generated by ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) but never seems to mention their tax liabilities. Mark Perry at SeekingAlpha (via Bernie) offers a little context.

I'm pretty sure that Exxon's tax payment in 2007 of $30 billion (that's $30,000,000,000) is a record, exceeding the $28 billion it paid last year... over the last three years, Exxon Mobil has paid an average of $27 billion annually in taxes. That's $27,000,000,000 per year, a number so large it's hard to comprehend. Here's one way to put Exxon's taxes into perspective...

Total number of tax returns: 130 million

Number of Tax Returns for the Bottom 50%: 65 million

Adjusted Gross Income for the Bottom 50%: $922 billion

Total Income Tax Paid by the Bottom 50%: $27.4 billion

Conclusion: In other words, just one corporation (Exxon Mobil) pays as much in taxes ($27 billion) annually as the entire bottom 50% of individual taxpayers, which is 65,000,000 people! Further, the tax rate for the bottom 50% is only 3% of adjusted gross income ($27.4 billion / $922 billion), and the tax rate for Exxon was 41% in 2006 ($67.4 billion in taxable income, $27.9 billion in taxes).

Just think what profits would be like if XOM were permitted to drill for oil here in the U.S.

Krumm's prediction


Bob Krumm has John McCain winning the the electoral college but losing the popular vote. If he's right, my Y2K bunker will come in handy.


Though the canned goods may be a little ripe.

Update: VoxDay comes up with a similar result.

Cover o' the day: One More Mission


The Boston Herald has the winner.

Via Jules Crittenden (hat tip: Larwyn), who has the back story.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

If McCain springs the big upset, what are liberals to do?


If McCain springs the big upset, what are liberals to do? Click the image to watch what I call "The Baldwin Effect."

Update: Fat-fingered link is now repaired.

911, S5, Rapide


Autospies has a couple of good stories up.


Porsche 911 or Audi S5? Buy The Dream Or The Better Looking Car And Pocket $50G's?

Did Aston Martin price itself out of the market with its new Rapide? Four hundred grand buys a lot of cars. Or one Rapide.

In January Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle he intends to "bankrupt" the coal industry


Barack Obama told The San Francisco Chronicle that he wants to bankrupt the coal industry. His words, not mine:

Let me sort of describe my overall policy.

What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there.

I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.

That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.

Let me get this straight. A bankrupt coal plant will generate "billions of dollars" for solar and wind power?

That's math only a community organizer can understand.

Not to worry: only half of U.S. electricity is produced by coal. So we can live without it.

Request: Click here to email this story to everyone you know in coal-producing states like West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio.

Update: Ace's Dave in TX observes that skyrocketing electric rates are "just a small price to pay to pave the way for the coming energy utopia when we heat our homes with faerie farts and renewable rainbows."

Update II: Fausta offers the official map of coal-producing states.

Know anyone in those areas? Let 'em know about Barack "The Bankrupter" Obama's plans.

Update III: The West Virginia Record reports that a high-level official representing the West Virginia Coal Association calls the statements "unbelievable... his comments are unfortunate... and really reflect a very uninformed voice and perspective to coal specifically and energy generally."



Hat tip: Larwyn.

Riehl Change


Surf to http://www.ElectPalin.com for this eponymous image.

Flip it for maximum shock effect.

Yes we can! (Hijack Sarah Palin URLs)

Hat tip: Dan Riehl.

Just say no to vote fraud


Imagine a campaign website that intentionally turns off all credit-card security, an unprecedented step that allows fake names and addresses for donations.

Imagine a campaign that accepts made-up credit-card numbers, which are tried one after another until valid card numbers are found.

Or a campaign that retains forged computer addresses for its donations instead of the addresses of the real donors.

Or a campaign that accepts untraceable prepaid cash cards that can be used to evade contribution limits or mask contributor identities.

Or a campaign that secretly shares its donor lists with ACORN, a group reportedly under a RICO investigation for multi-state vote fraud involving hundreds of thousands of fraudulent registrations.

Now imagine hundreds of millions of dollars in undisclosed, suspect donations orchestrated by foreign nationals and other persons unknown.

Roughly two-thirds of Barack Obama’s record haul derives from a website that intentionally disables all security checks that prevent basic fraud. In other words, that facilitates crooked donations complete with fake names, phony addresses, no donation limits and untraceable cards.

Now imagine that the same campaign, through its corrupt practices, wins control of law enforcement and prosecution in the United States.

Regardless of your political affiliation, do you think there could ever be a fair election again?

Just say no to Barack Obama and vote fraud. Vote John McCain.

Update: Everything You Wanted to Know About the Obama Online Fundraising Scandal in Less Than 5 Minutes!

Pew Research Center confirms media bias affected race


New reports from the non-partisan Pew Research Center confirms what everyone knows. Namely, MSNBC is in the tank for Barack Obama. And the statistical techniques used by the Center reveal that Fox News has the most balanced coverage of the presidential election.

...MSNBC stood out for having less negative coverage of Obama than the press generally (14% of stories vs. 29% in the press overall) and for having more negative stories about McCain (73% of its coverage vs. 57% in the press overall).

On Fox News, in contrast, coverage of Obama was more negative than the norm (40% of stories vs. 29% overall) and less positive (25% of stories vs. 36% generally). For McCain, the news channel was somewhat more positive (22% vs. 14% in the press overall) and substantially less negative (40% vs. 57% in the press overall). Yet even here, his negative stories outweighed positive ones by almost 2 to 1.

...[the] study found that in the media overall -- a sample of 43 outlets studied in the six weeks following the conventions through the last debate -- Barack Obama's coverage was somewhat more positive than negative (36% vs. 29%), while John McCain's, in contrast, was substantially negative (57% vs. 14% positive). The report concluded that this, in significant part, reflected and magnified the horse race and direction of the polls.

In related news, day will be followed by night later this evening.

Update: NBC's SNL shreds the unhinged Keith Olbermann. Keith, they're not laughing with you. They're mercilessly laughing at you.

Saturday, November 01, 2008

Inside the Greenbrier's Secret Nuclear Bunker


ABC has some background on the COG (continuity of government) bunker aimed at protecting government muckety-mucks from a nuclear attack. The bunker was, for thirty years, a highly classified wing of West Virginia's prestigious Greenbrier Hotel.

Flashback to 1956: The fear of nuclear attack on Washington was real.

That spring Congress sent the Capitol's architect on a mission: persuade the Greenbrier to build a new underground wing. The new wing was to be a top secret bunker, designed to house more than 1,000 members of Congress and staff.

"They weren't just going to bring selected individuals," said local historian Robert Conte. "The whole point was that Congress could continue to function as the legislative branch of the federal government."

At first, hotel workers gossiped about the strange construction, but eventually those stories faded to whispers. Conte, who worked at the Greenbrier, remembered the day in 1978 when he stumbled upon a strange door while out on a wooded road nearby.

"I was afraid, I mean I was afraid," Conte said. "It was like, 'I'm not supposed to be seeing this, and I'm going to turn around and walk away and I'm going to pretend I never saw that.'"

If Conte had gone just a little farther, he would have found a 25-ton blast door. The entrance, called the West Tunnel, was a lifeline for the bunker, designed to bring supplies in at night undercover, or get a large group inside quickly.
"One of the keys to this whole operation is that the bunker was maintained at a constant rate of readiness," Conte said.

That meant the government had to think of everything -- a hospital clinic, a fully stocked cafeteria, a communications center, a power plant and beds already made. A hidden antenna would test for a nuclear fallout. There was even a television studio where Congress could speak to the public.

Even the hotel's two public auditoriums were side by side for a reason -- one for the House and one for the Senate.

Conte said that, looking back, it seems so obvious.

"It was right in front of our nose," he said. "One of the principles of the bunker was hiding in plain sight."

The Greenbrier Hotel -- still a popular resort in White Sulphur Springs, WV -- now offers tours for the bunker.
The bunker came to light in 1992 when The Washington Post revealed the secret. Improvements in weapons technology had reportedly superseded the ability of the bunker to protect its occupants.

PBS has the floor-plan and additional details.