Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: The Leveler

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email!

Obama is a leveler: Krauthammer
Repealing the Declaration of Independence: Morris
'Rhetorical Contradictions' Explained: Dr. Sanity

Obama defends Bush wiretaps: LGF
About that nuclear bomb thingy: AT (Anderson)
Bolton: Obama needs additional 'schooling': Greta

I told you the UN is useless: Big Dog
Big fail for US over NK missile launch: Aces
Liberals accuses conservatives of it, while bathing in it: Surber

Schindler's list found in Australian library: AFP
How to defeat a pro-Palestinian boycott: Israel Matzav
Farewell to Zion: AT (Thier)

Liberal math: R&R
Shutting down property rights in Tennessee: STACLU
Just When You Thought PuffHo Couldn't Get Any Crazier: Hawkins

TOTUS in Turkey: We're Not at War: Atlas
Harvard's Muslim Chaplain: Killing Apostates Required of the Devout: Secular Right
Respect the blood libel and calls for annihilation: Atlas

An avant-garde play revives an ancient hatred: WSJ
More gun stupidity from the left: Surber
Facebook pages we'd like to see: PC World

Freaky owl video: Ace
Maybe they'll call it the "Noway": GM, Segway to make vehicle: WSJ
Gateway Pundit hits talk radio: Gateway

My reaction to President Obama's serial denigration of America in foreign venues across the planet:

"They hate us anyway. Deal with it, Carter."

Monday, April 06, 2009

Change: $8B for ACORN while missile defense slashed $1.4B


Perhaps a wandering Democrat can enlighten us on the merits of this decision by President Obama.

SECDEF Gates announced today that U.S. missile defense programs would be slashed by over $1.4 billion (roughly 15%).

This decision comes on the heels of North Korea's ICBM launch; Iran's continued development of nuclear weapons and advanced missile technologies; and the disturbing buildup of China's defense infrastructure. Iran's president went so far as to publicly state his goal of a world without America and Israel.

We are in the process of an historical war between the World of Arrogance [the West] and the Islamic world, and this war has been going on for hundreds of years... ...In this very grave war, many people are trying to scatter grains of desperation and hopelessness regarding the struggle between the Islamic world and the front of the infidels...

Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? ...you had best know that this... goal [is] attainable...

While slashing $1.4 billion from strategic missile defense programs, President Obama found more than $8 billion for a liberal activist group entwined in "a pattern of crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style 'protection' racket."

ACORN's associates have been implicated in the alleged creation of hundreds of thousands of fraudulent voter registrations in more than a dozen states. Among the low-lights: "a worker for an Ohio ACORN affiliate was given crack cocaine in exchange for fraudulent registrations, which included the underage, the deceased and names like Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy and Jive Turkey."

Earlier this year, a former ACORN employee testified that more than half of all voter registrations turned in by its canvassers were fraudulent.


It's gotten so bad that even Rep. John Conyers, a highly partisan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has described the allegations as "a pretty serious matter... I think that [an investigation] would be something that would be worth our time... I think in all fairness we ought to really examine it."

And how much did President Obama find in the budget for his friends at ACORN? According to Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, ACORN is eligible for roughly $8 billion in block grants and redundant increases in the budget for the U.S. Census.

And that's not counting the $5.7 billion devoted to the "Obama Youth Corps" for which ACORN is substantially eligible.

The equation is simple. President Barack Obama wants to slash a critical national security program -- missile defense -- by $1.4 billion while offering as much as $13.8 billion to ACORN.

It's all about priorities for Obama. "Fairness". And "change". But everyday, working Americans like you and I? He could care less.

Update: Senators from both parties are speaking out about this travesty.


Related: Full transcript of briefing (WSJ). Image credits: New York Daily News (AP); Flap's Blog; Fox News. Linked by: Gateway Pundit, Conservative Grapevine, Lucianne, Protein Wisdom, Prairie Pundit and Say Anything. Thanks!

How'd you like to have this on your resumé?


Fairfield Greenwich Group was the largest "feeder fund" for disgraced financier Bernie Madoff's firm. Its Sentry family of funds is said to have lost around $7 billion to Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme.

And how did Madoff get away with it when probed by Fairfield's officials? He simply "refused to answer or he lied."

According to a complaint filed April 1 by Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William F. Galvin, that was the extent of Madoff's evasions. The complaint seeks restitution for Fairfield's Massachusetts investors and claims the firm tolerated Madoff's deflections. Fairfield collected "hundreds of millions in fees on money sent to Madoff's firm."

In October, when Fairfield Greenwich sought the names of key personnel and asked how Madoff monitored trades, he just ducked the query, according to Galvin’s civil suit.

“Secrecy as to information is a key issue for everybody,” Madoff told Fairfield Greenwich executives on Dec. 19, 2005, according to a transcript of a taped call included with the complaint. Madoff advised them on how to fend off federal regulators’ queries. “Just say I -- you know, don’t answer,” said Madoff, who began the call with: “Obviously, this conversation never took place."

"They were blinded by the fees they were earning," Galvin said, noting that they had seemingly ignored "any fact that would have burst their lucrative bubble."

Fairfield's response was swift, claiming that Galvin's assertion that the firm had failed to exercise proper due diligence is "false and misleading."

Fairfield “conducted vigorous and robust monitoring on an ongoing basis of the Madoff investments,” the statement said. “This monitoring was consistent with the representations made to investors in the Sentry funds.”

The 110-page complaint offers new detail on how Madoff orchestrated his scheme and managed to dupe what Galvin says was a willing, gullible investor. The regulator bores in on an Oct. 2 meeting that Fairfield had with Madoff after one of its investors withdrew $75 million because the firm couldn’t answer Madoff-related questions.

There were “gaps in our knowledge,” complained Fairfield Chief Risk Officer Amit Vijayverjiya, according to Galvin.

Joining Madoff at his headquarters in midtown Manhattan’s so-called Lipstick Building that day were his aide Frank DiPascali and Fairfield executives Walter Noel, Jeffrey Tucker, and Mark McKeefry. Noel and Tucker are founding partners of the firm, which began investing with Madoff in 1989. Vijayverjiya listened in by phone, according to the complaint... From the start, Madoff let it be known that he wouldn’t be forthcoming about his business, according to an internal Fairfield report included in Galvin’s filing. The money manager recounted how a friend at JPMorgan Chase & Co. asked Madoff to meet with colleagues who had questions about Madoff’s operation.

“BLM refused,” according to the Fairfield report, whose author isn’t identified, referring to Madoff’s firm... The Fairfield investors sought answers to 42 questions they’d previously given to Madoff, including the identities of “key personnel” overseeing his secretive “split-strike conversion” investment strategy, his procedures for trade processing and his compliance practices.

The Fairfield team was satisfied with Madoff’s evasions, Galvin said in his lawsuit.

“Have there been any changes to these models/algorithms in the past 3 years? If yes, please describe,” the Fairfield executives asked, according to the report.

“Yes,” Madoff replied, adding that he’s “always looking at the models and fine-tuning them,” the report says.

Did Madoff require dual signatories on documents and, if so, who were they? the Fairfield Greenwich investors asked. “Yes. Names not provided,” they wrote, summarizing Madoff’s response.

“Who is responsible for actually placing the trade order of the SSC?” the Fairfield Greenwich Group queried, referring to the split-strike strategy. “Traders,” Madoff replied, “under the direction of supervisors.”

...Irving Picard, the bankruptcy trustee liquidating Madoff’s firm, said he’s found no evidence Madoff made any trades for decades.

...On the day before Madoff’s arrest, Fairfield’s Tucker wrote a letter to Madoff outlining his firm’s strategy for its Madoff- invested “capital to be replenished,” following large redemptions. “Our firm is very dependent on its relationship with your firm,” he wrote.

So Fairfield (FGG) held a meeting with Madoff on October 2nd that was spurred by an investor withdrawing $75 million due to FGG's inability to answer questions about Madoff's firm.

In the meeting, FGG posed 42 questions. They received, essentially, no answers.

My only response: how'd you like to have "Chief Risk Officer of Fairfield Greenwich Group" on your resumé?


Hat tips: Greenwich Roundup and Bernie Madoff's Scam.



He has healed our relations with the Arab Street, brothers and sisters!


Remember how the mainstream media ceaselessly marketed the proposition that Barack Obama would heal relations between the U.S. and the "Arab Street"?

Arab commentators make no secret of their relief that Bush is finally leaving, and Arab leaders must privately be breathing a sigh of relief to see the exit of the man whom many admit as having been both the worst American president and the closest friend the Israelis ever had since setting up the Jewish state in Palestine in 1948.

It seems that was as much a crock of manure as everything else the MSM hawked regarding Obama.

Demonstrators protest at Taxim square in Istanbul on Sunday April 5, 2009 against the visit of US President Barack Obama. The posters read 'Obama go home'. President Barack Obama arrives in Ankara Monday for a two day visit to Turkey. (AP/Ibrahim Usta)

Change!


Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Kim Jong-Il to Iran: 'Follow me!'

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email!

The first 70 days really does make sense: Hanson
Arrogant, Dismissive and Derisive: PJM (Priestap)
Social Security crisis to arrive six years early: PJM (Blumer)

The New York Times' paranoid loon: Charles Blows: AT (Moran)
Punk Jihad in war-torn Strasbourg: Atlas
Steyn vs. the Binghamton SWAT team: Surber

Online ads closing in on newspaper ads: BI
Israel's attack on Iran is coming: Israel Matzav
Free speech then and now: Surber

Chill wind blows over Bill Ayers: This Ain't Hell
Axelrod's Hypocrisy Watch: Mac
Moyers drops bailout bomb on Obama: Kos.

Memo from Kim Jon-Il to Iran: follow me: Yahoo!
Larry King: "Somebody's got to think for the masses": JWF
Robotic publisher tells stunned employees everything's fine: McClatchy Watch

No free health care my a$$: Austin ER had 2,678 visits from 9 people in 6 years: S, C & A
Obama seeks "Friendship and Cooperation" with murderous, savage Sudanese government: Atlas
Rangers kick ass: just ask 'em: Ace

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Stunning: TARP's Cost to Taxpayers Increases


Via Twitter, the Wall Street Journal reports that the original TARP estimates were woefully understated.

In January, the CBO pegged the ultimate cost to taxpayers of the $700 billion TARP at $189 billion. When the agency issued revised numbers in late March, it revised that to $356 billion, a change that drew little attention...

...The larger estimate reflects, among other things, the Treasury's move to use the TARP to help avoid foreclosures, as well as the changing details of its aid to American International Group Inc., and the deterioration of financial conditions and of banks in which the Treasury has invested TARP money...

...The CBO's new figures suggest its estimate of the ultimate cost to taxpayers of coming up with $750 billion for financial institutions would be closer to $375 billion than the administration's $250 billion projection.

Let's look on the bright side: we're not completely a Marxist country yet.


Online ad revenue set to eclipse newspaper print ads


From Silicon Alley Insider:



Hat tip: Patrick Ruffini's Twitter feed.

If Barack Obama directed Raiders of the Lost Ark


Based on a true story.

What the...?

**Whish**

...

**Whhooossshh**

**Whhhhish-whhishh**

The essence of this tragedy...

...it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the violent.

An inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others.

Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity...

It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics...

Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and desp - - -

**Swwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssssssssshhh**

* * * Thump * * *


Linked by: Conservative Grapevine. Thanks! Idea: Barry Rubin via Larwyn

Welcome to San Francisco


San Francisco prides itself on a secular, non-religious, free-spirited way of life. Right?

Last month, Zombie took time to discover the source of these signs, which are easy to find throughout the city's public transportation system. CAIR -- an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a major federal case involving U.S. citizens who funded the terror group Hamas -- is one of the organizations behind the signs.

Irony, thy name is the silence of Castro Street.


Shocker: IKEA agrees to buy General Motors!


IKEA's approach to selling cars is certainly unique.



Hat tip: Papa B.

RED ALERT: In Europe, Obama calls for America to Unilaterally Disarm


Remember this campaign video, which received attention only on a few center-right blogs? In it, then-Senator Obama promised to unilaterally disarm America in order to prove its pacifism. He stated:

...I will cut investments in unproven [sic] missile defense systems...
...I will not weaponize space...
...I will slow development of Future Combat Systems...
...and I will institute a "Defense Priorities Board" to [prevent] unnecessary spending...
...I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons...
...and to seek that goal, I will not develop nuclear weapons...
...I will seek a global ban on the development of fissile material...
...and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert...
...and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals...

While in Prague yesterday, Politico reported that Obama fully intends to follow through with those promises.

Obama calls for 'world without' nukes

Just hours after North Korea launched a long-range rocket, President Barack Obama called for "a world without nuclear weapons" and said the United States has a “moral responsibility" to lead the way, as the only nation ever to use them.

...[He called] the remaining nuclear weapons “the most dangerous legacy” of [the Cold War] era... He again pointed to history to say that America must lead. “As a nuclear power – as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon – the United States has a moral responsibility to act,” he said.

Obama proposed doing so by reducing America’s arsenal, if not altogether eliminating it; hosting a summit on nuclear security; seeking ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; and pursuing a new agreement aimed at stopping the production of fissile materials.

...Speaking to Iran, the other nation widely thought to be pursuing nuclear weapons, Obama reiterated his campaign pledge to engage the Tehran regime, winning applause for saying, “We believe in dialogue.”

...Going off script to borrow his signature campaign line, Obama acknowledged a nuclear-free world will not happen easily... But the broad goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons is not one that even the most ardent arms control advocate believes can be accomplished during Obama’s first term.

...Also, Obama did not lay out as specific plan or timetable for convincing countries such as China, India and Pakistan, each of which possesses a small nuclear arsenal, to give up the weapons that they see not only as vital for security but a measure of their international stature.

Let me repeat the key sentence:

"Obama proposed doing so by reducing America’s arsenal, if not altogether eliminating it."

Obama promises nothing less than unilateral disarmament, a witheringly stupid idea that will increase the odds of conflict, not reduce them.

Don't believe me. That's only what all of history tells us.

When it comes to security posture, Obama makes Jimmy Carter look like Darth Vader.

Update: There's a name for the program: "Strength through Weakness."

* * * * * * * * *

"We know only too well that war comes not when the forces of freedom are strong, but when they are weak. It is then that tyrants are tempted." -- Ronald Reagan



Linked by: BizzyBlog. Thanks!


A Tea Party in Pennsylvania


West Chester, Pennsylvania, to be precise. Click any of the photos to visit the underlying albums.






Flopping Aces has the full report and linkage. Sean Carpenter also has an excellent collection of photos from the event.

Attendance, as you can probably tell, was far beyond expectations.

National Tea Party Day is April 15th. To find your local Tea Party, click here.


Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Private Equity Says No

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email!

Private Equity rejects the Obama plan: Say Anything
Obama Endorses Soros Plan to Loot America: AIM
The battle against creeping Sharia is joined: Power Line

The Most Important Book of the Year: PJM (Chapin)
NYT: Hitler's Stimulus Package Worked in '36!: Mere Rhetoric
Deputies angered by racial profiling allegations: Gannett

"Think Progress" Borkers Now Object To Borking: LegalIns
Hamas Fundraiser to headline CAIR event: PJM (Poole)
Summers earned millions from funds, banks: Bloomberg

Gun control fails again: Holy Coast
Krauthammer smacks down Strausborg: YouTube
Flubbing Lines off the Teleprompter: JWF

Voicemail is obsolete: OTB
MacBeth continues exposing IVAW: This Ain't Hell
Today's Cartoon: Surber

Justice sues New York over disenfranchised military voters: Hill
Seeking control of the Internet: LegalIns
Cramer: Dems are 'Bolsheviks'; Card Check is 'Anti-Business, Earnings-Destroying': NewsBusters

Phoebe Has a Baby!: LGF
Exclusive photo of the new American zero dollar bill: Denny
Government DMV Automotive Repair Center: YouTube

Image hat tip: Take Five.

Saturday, April 04, 2009

A most despicable crime


Nothing gets my dander up like someone who hurts a child. Who abuses a child. Who steals from a child.

Last month in Greenville, South Carolina, a man approached a mother and daughter selling Girl Scout cookies at the Bi-Lo on West Wade Hampton Boulevard.

He asked to buy a box of lemon cookies. When the mother turned around, he grabbed their money box -- which contained $300 -- and fled.

The suspect was described as "a white male with dirty blonde hair between the ages of 25-35, approximately 5’8 and 170 pounds, wearing blue jeans, a denim coat and a baseball hat."

The little girl -- a first year Girl Scout -- was heartbroken. The suspect has not yet been identified.

Recently, Idaho high school students visited Washington and carried with them a petition. The students -- fearful of massive deficit spending -- called for a balanced budget.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, President Obama's 2009 budget triples the annual deficit: the record setting figure is $1.8 trillion. His claim about cutting the deficit in half in a few years is a wives' tail -- like "slashing prices" by 50 percent the day after you’ve doubled them.

And the administration blatantly lies, stating that tax increases will not affect 95 percent of taxpayers. New taxes on energy -- under the fraudulent "cap-and-trade" regime -- will force every business in America to raise its prices. Taxpayers will be wounded... directly and indirectly,

The budget also attempts to slide socialized medicine -- a failure everywhere it's been tried -- into the Statists' plans. As for the $45 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities represented by Medicare and Medicaid? On that subject, Obama is utterly silent.

Obama and the rest of the Democrats want to tell you how much energy you can use ("smart grids"), whether you can give money to charities and which kinds of toilets you can buy.

Even ignoring his oppressive energy taxes, every dollar of Obama's new debt means that future taxes must be $1 higher in present-value terms. This translates to a discounted present-value legacy of $6.5 trillion of new, future taxes.

The tax burden each family of four can expect? $163,000. Let me repeat that: $163,000 for each and every tax-paying household in America.

Your children... my children... our grandchildren... are all slaves to the Obama budget. Because Barack Obama and his comrades in Congress are ideologues. They could care less about the economy.

They're beholden to ACORN, the SEIU, the ACLU and trial lawyers of every vintage and variety.

As subscribers to a failed ideology, Obama and his posse of Statists are consigning our descendants to slavery. Girl Scouts. Boy Scouts. Toddlers. Infants. The unborn.

Welcome to Zimbabwe.


Linked by: Family Security Matters. Thanks!