Monday, July 13, 2009

Modern Ghana News: Africa 'Continent of [Obama's] Birth'


Well, I'm certainly no conspiracy theorist when it comes to Barack Obama's birthplace, having done my best to help debunk the birth certificate controversy. But this article, from Ghana's leading newspaper, certainly won't help dull the outcry any.

History Beckons - As Prez Obama Arrives Tomorrow: US President Barack Obama is expected to announce a major foreign policy for Africa during his historic two-day visit to Ghana, beginning Friday, July 10, 2009.

Although Mr Obama has made foreign policy pronouncements for some parts of the world since assuming office in January, this year, he is yet to make one for Africa, and his visit to the country, which the White House describes as “one of our most trusted partners in sub-Saharan Africa”, is expected to be used as a platform to unveil his foreign policy for Africa.

“It is expected that President Obama will make a major foreign policy statement on Africa”, Ghana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni, told the Daily Graphic.

For Ghana, Obama's visit will be a celebration of another milestone in African history as it hosts the first-ever African-American President on this presidential visit to the continent of his birth.

The Air Force One, carrying the 44th American President, his wife, Michelle and two daughters, as well as a retinue of senior US government officials, is expected to touch down at the Kotoka International Airport at 8:30p.m. tomorrow amid tight security by US and Ghanaian security agents...

Hat tip: Michael Z.

My First Ever Photo Caption Contest


I've been blogging for more years than I care to remember and have never held a photo caption contest. Until now. Perhaps that's because I have only six regular readers (which includes Mom. Thanks, Ma!).

Have at it -- and remember, please extend the utmost respect to our Representative-for-Life Frank, whose vast knowledge of the financial system and incredible business acumen -- while heading the House Financial Services Committee -- protected us from a catastrophic financial meltdown.

The winner receives a $10 PayPal credit and whatever other crap I can find in the bottom of the closet.


Via: DealBreaker.

Larwyn's Linx: He thinks you're stupid, and he could be right

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email or reply via Twitter.

Nation

Obama Op-Ed defends Failed Porkulus Package: Morrissey
Yep, Dems lied about warrantless surveillance: AT (Feldman)
Growing worries about our Pied Piper: Hanson

The Feminist Way of Interviewing: AT (Knight)
The Anti-Reagan: PJM (Hawkins)
Preventing a Massive LA Terror Attack: GWP

Climate Czar Browner: Break Federal Law: BlogProf
Goose, Gander: Health Reform Political Judo: TigerHawk
First Lady Requires 20 Attendants: CFP

Obama's Op-Ed, Annotated: Corner

Economy

Federal Government Chief Culprit in Meltdown: CNS
Oh, the damage he'll do: MoneyRunner
He thinks you're stupid, and he could be right: Dinocrat

Responding to the President's Op-Ed: Hennessey
50% of homeowners in or near underwater mortgages: ILB

World

Obama Frees Iranian Terror Masters: NRO
Iranian Ayatollah Montazeri Issues Fatwa Against the Regime: AT (Lifson)
Kim Jong-Il has Pancreatic Cancer: Surber

Death in the dorms: Iranian students recall horror of police invasion: Guardian (UK)
Angry: Shayne
Saudi Arabia's religious police undergoes change slowly: Miami Herald

Zelaya Removal is Required by Honduras’ Constitution: STACLU
Selective Meddling: Charlie Foxtrot
Those whacky, riotous French "youths": GoV

Media

ACORN's billion-dollar propaganda man: Blatt
MSM: Cheer up! Obama Economy Could be Worse: GWP
Distracting the public with a head-fake: AT (Baehr)

Daily Kos Racist Nutjob Caught In Blogging Scandal: GWP
David Brooks' Thigh: Fausta
Decontructing Dershowitz: JPost (Phillips)

Free the Herald One!: Crittenden

Cornucopia

Enlarge Your Economy in Just Days with Stimulus Package: Cube
Cooling Out: From Spare Change to No Change: AmerDig
Bruno interviews a terrorist: YouTube

Sunday, July 12, 2009

E-mail from an M&A specialist reveals the true depths of economic despair among business owners


Z writes to describe the current economic environment from a firsthand perspective. He is a veteran mergers-and-acquisitions (M&A) specialist who works exclusively in the middle-market.

My clients are all entrepreneurs having built successful businesses with sales of $5 million to $50 million. My prospective buyers are typically companies with sales of $50 million to $200 million. Every one of these companies (buyers and sellers) today shares these common denominators:

1. Their businesses are down 10, 20% or more.

2. They have either laid off staff or have reduced hours to 4-day weeks trying to keep key staff.

3. They have reduced their own salaries and in many cases have implemented “cross the board” salary reductions.

4. They (for the first time in their lives) have no ability to forecast beyond 4 weeks.

5. They see nothing good on the horizon that would benefit them re: sales, cost reduction, efficiency, etc.

6. In other words, they are experiencing a loss of optimism and any positive outlook on the future.

My hope is to at the very least to try to sell these 5 businesses [information redacted].

Prospects are slim. M & A deals are down (depending on the source) anywhere from 60% – 80%. I used to receive 20 – 40 inquiries from buyers every week. I now receive a handful a week.

For me, the worst part is my favorite part. I love to open up new clients! This is the most enriching and fun part. I stopped trying to “build my pipeline” about 3 months ago. I no longer follow up on prospects. Why? Any private business owner would be insane to sell his business now. He will be hit with excess taxes and so many unknown consequences. Do you know that part of the “Cap and Trade” bill includes a provision that if you sell your house, it must conform to new “green standards” which reportedly could cost a seller many thousands of dollars? How many unknown consequences are built into a 1,300 page bill that no one has read?

Any future seller prospects that I encounter, I will urge them to continue operating their business and take from the business everything that they can legally do for as long as they can. They are far better off. It is quite likely that I will have to revisit some of my existing clients and tell them the same thing... something that I dread.

I am so outraged as to what is happening to our country. This is no longer a political issue [because] we will all lose. We are all casualties of the new paradigm. There will be many more as we continue into a morass that will take generations to recover, if we can. Be it “Cap and Trade”; government-run health care; TARP; bailouts; “stimulus”; business takeovers, etc.; our future is being controlled by bureaucrats and politicians who never, ever, ever ran a business and knew the “gut-check” of filling out and paying their “941’s”.

How could they know how to create a job? Throwing billions at states and municipalities with payoffs to unions, lobbyists and partisan sectors? Sadly, the worst is yet to come with job losses, cost increases, inflation, etc. Just look at the job numbers released today.

Forgive my blathering. I went through the 50’s, the 60’s, the price restrictions and gas shortages of the 70’s, the 22% interest rates into the 80’s, the many frustrations of the 90’s, etc. They all pale in comparison to what we face now. Whether it’s “tea parties”, a realization by the silent majority of what is happening, or some miracle that stops this ongoing disaster, I hope and pray for an awakening. I think we can make it and I only hope that my children and grandchildren are as fortunate as we were to continue to have opportunities.

I’m mad as hell and I wish that there was something more that I could do about it.

The economy's flat on its back and what have Democrats done? They've jammed a banana in the economy's tailpipe.

Consider what you, as an entrepeneur or business owner, face:

• If your business uses energy (and heaven forbid you have a fleet of delivery trucks), you await the looming tax impact of Waxman-Markey's disastrous "Carbon Cap-and-Trade" bill, a 1,400-page behemoth that no one read before passing it. What will it mean in terms of new costs, regulations and taxes?

• If your business has employees, you face an uncertain cost structure for health benefits as Democrats bandy about a complete takeover of the nation's medical system. Will there be an employer mandate? Will employer-provided insurance lose its favored tax status?

• And your workforce faces an uncertain future given the Democrats' incessant attempts to ram forced unionization into non-unionized workplaces. The Pravda-esque Employee Free Choice Act (or "Card Check") eradicates the secret ballot requirement for unionizing and mandates government arbitration of wages and benefits if an agreement cannot be reached in a short period of time. The government, then, would be setting wages for business owners! Will small businesses be forced to replicate the extraordinary success stories of Chrysler and GM through Card Check?

• The Obama administration also appears to be pushing an initiative that could take equity stakes in small businesses using the $700 billion rescue program for the banking system. What would that mean to business owners who needed capital to keep their operations going? What would the impact be of government ownership stakes in thousands of small businesses?

Who could possibly hire in this environment? The economy is flat on its back because Obama and the Democrats put it there; and their policies continue to suck the life out of the most productive members of society.

Writing at Townhall, Dan Kennedy calls the economic environment a "climate of fear". He relates a conversation with a board member of one of "the largest and most successful... regional banks". The director stated, "Our bank’s leadership team and others I know at the local or regional level feel paralyzed and intimidated by the climate of fear created by the Obama administration... The new and proposed regulations will remove every competitive advantage of the community bank, and make every bank identical, forced to operate exactly as does Bank of America..."

New regulations, new taxes, new health benefit dictates, forced unionization... who could possibly be hopeful in this sort of environment?

Mark Levin calls the economic environment a "repression". And I'll say it for the record: Obama is a failed president and his is a failed presidency. His Statist ideology has failed in every place and every time it's been tried. And it's failing now, as anyone with half a brain knew it would.


Linked by: Dan Riehl. Thanks!

19-years old and dying 12,000 miles away from home


You're a 19-year old kid. You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley. The date is November 14, 1965. You're lying near LZ X-ray in Vietnam.

Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 to 1, and the enemy fire is so intense from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the Medi-Vac helicopters to stop coming in.

You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is halfway around the world -- 12,000 miles away -- and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.

Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it...

Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come. He's coming anyway.

And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load two or three of you on board. Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the Doctors and Nurses.

And, he kept coming back... fourteen times in all... and took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.

Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman, died in August 2008 at the age of 80, in Boise, ID. May God rest his soul.


Via: Burning Platform and Larwyn. Related: Crandall and Freeman win Congressional Medals of Honor. Post edited: to correct a date, per commenter David.

Yes, there really is a restaurant called 'Heart Attack Grill'


Only in America: Chrissie sent this one.







The restaurant is located in Phoenix (actually Chandler), where state law requires the proprietors to issue the following disclaimer:

Arizona State Law Requires Us To Inform You That The Women Who Work At The Heart Attack Grill Are Not Actually Nurses And Do Not Have Any Real Medical Training.


Larwyn's Linx: The War Against Society's Producers

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email or reply via Twitter.

Nation

"Michigan could hit 20% jobless thanks to Obama": Norwood
Fear of Rationing: Slate
FCC sets stage for censoring talk radio: CNS

Cantor rises as Obama falls: PJM (Simon)
The Only Reason for the Second Amendment: Scipio
ACORN sues two states over voting forms: Courthouse

Everybody Hates the Teachers' Unions Now: Kaus
ObamaCare == General Motors: Kesler
Going Galt over Obamacare: SIGIS

Economy

The War Against the Producers: PJM (Hanson)
CIT Bankruptcy To Crush Middle America?: Zero Hedge
Economic Credulus: Crittenden

Robert Reich: PWNT: Charlie Foxtrot
Universal Health Care Economy: Next Right
End of the road for many GM and Chrysler lawsuits: LAT

Stimulus: Bush vs. Obama: BizBlogger
Innovation after Obamacare: TigerHawk

Climate & Energy

96 months left to save the planet: Steyn
Gore: U.S. Climate Bill Will Help Bring About 'Global Governance': Depot
Exxon Shale-Gas Find Looks Big: WSJ

World

Marines Pour Into Afghanistan: Denver Post
'We want him to rule all African countries': Independent
If there's nothing morally wrong with it...: BlogProf

Media

How much damage did the Times do?: Power Line
AP: Jobless Rate Slows (But Hits Record): S&L
MSNBC: Obama critics "racist" for noticing booty-check: GWP

ABC News Spins on Obama's Check-Out: Ace
CNN hosts gets a smackdown: NewsBusters
Palin, the MSM Death Spiral, and the Gestapo: MoneyRunner

Cornucopia

The Top Eight Reasons America Kicks Ass: Spike
Calorie restriction can make you live a very long miserable life: BlogProf
The Seven Types of Employees You Meet at Best Buy: Gizmodo

The Bizarre Czars of Barack Obama


At last count, Barack Obama employed some 22 "Czars" in his administration. These men and women represent unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats with immense power. As best I can figure, the current list stands as follows.

1. AIDS Czar: Jeffrey Crowley
2. Bailout Czar: Herbert Allison Jr.
3. Border Czar: Alan Bersin
4. Car Czar: Steve Rattner
5. Counterterrorism Czar: John Brennan
6. Cyber-Security Czar: Melissa Hathaway
7. Drug Czar: Gil Kerlikowske
8. Economic Czar: Larry Summers
9. Deputy Economic Czar: Paul Volcker
10. Energy Czar: Carol Browner
11. Green Jobs Czar: Van Jones
12. Guantanamo Closure Czar: Daniel Fried
13. Health Czar: Nancy-Ann DeParle
14. Info-Tech Czar: Vivek Kundra:
15. Intelligence Czar: Dennis Blair
16. Regulatory Czar: Cass Sunstein
17. Religion Czar or Faith-Based Czar: Joshua DuBois
18. Science Czar: John Holdren
19. Stimulus Oversight Czar: Earl Devaney
20. Trade Czar: Ron Kirk
21. Urban Affairs Czar: Adolfo Carrion
22. Weapons of Mass Destruction Czar: Gary Samore

Just for the fun of it, let's examine the policy positions of some of the key Czars.

• Obama's "Science Czar", John Holdren, is a horrifying loon whose positions include supporting mandatory (forced) abortions, mass sterilizations and a planetary government that rules over the United States. These ideas, and other equally outrageous recommendations, were articulated in one of Holdren's books. In it, the "Science Czar" endorsed policies such as:

      o Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;

      o The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food;

      o Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;

      o People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" -- in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.

      o A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans' lives -- using an armed international police force

• Obama's "Regulatory Czar", Cass Sunstein, is a well-known law professor from Chicago who believes the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are mere roadblocks on the Democrat highway to totalitarianism. He "explicitly supports using the courts to impose a 'chilling effect' on speech that might hurt someone's feelings." That includes bloggers, who Sunstein insists must be responsible not only for their own posts but also for those of their commenters. The New York Post's Kyle Smith puts it simply: "Sunstein is an enemy to [the First Amendment, ] every news organization and blogger. We should return the favor and declare war on him."

• Obama's "Energy Czar", Carol Browner, is a self-acknowledged Socialist, and -- as recently as January -- was listed as one of Socialist International's climate change directors. The group seeks to undermine the American government and set policy through international legislation that supersedes U.S. law.

Is this what mainstream Americans desired when they voted for "Change"? I think not.

In 2010, I believe that we will witness the full fury and vengeance of the American people, who were subjected to the most egregious lies imaginable during the Czar of Czars' presidential campaign. Congress will see a dramatic reduction in its Democrat numbers and, I predict, a full-fledged mutiny by a substantial number of Congressional Democrats shortly thereafter.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

'Conveyer belt to terrorism' to host conference in Chicago


Delightful news out of Chicago. The Investigative Project on Terrorism reports that the pro-Jihadist group Hizb-Ut-Tahrir America (or HT) plans on raising its profile in the U.S. by hosting a conference in one of the metro area's suburbs. What is HT?

HT has been banned in Turkey and Germany for distributing literature that includes incitement to hatred and violence against Jews...

...In a paper for the Manhattan Institute, Gruen pointed to one leaflet distributed by the group titled: "And Kill Them Whenever You Find Them, and Turn Them Out From Where They Have Turned You Out." It stated that:

"Jews are a people of slander. They are treacherous people who violate oaths and covenants. They lie and change words from the right places. They take the rights of the people unjustly, and kill the Prophets and the innocent."

According to IPT, some of HT's literature also encourages "martyrdom operations" (e.g., suicide attacks) against Jews in locations unspecified. Presumably that includes here in the U.S., like at the mall or the corner pub.


Further, HT preaches the establishment of Sharia (Islamic) law and the eradication of both the U.S. Constitution and our legal system.

The duty of the State is to implement Islam as a whole and to deem its implementation upon the non-Muslim as an invitation to Islam for them, because Shari’ah is ordained upon mankind; thus the State implements it upon every country that comes under its authority with the aim of conveying the Da’awah to it, because the secret behind the Islamic conquests is to carry the Da’awah to Islam.

      -- The Concept of Hizb ut Tahrir, page 30

As for the useful idiots who believe the cavalier exhortation that Jihad is a spiritual battle within oneself, HT helpfully clears that matter up quite succinctly.

...supplication is an action that achieves a spiritual value and Jihad is a physical action that achieves a spiritual value. However, although supplication is a physical action, it achieves an impalpable result, which is the reward, though the intention of the performer is to achieve a spiritual value. This is in contrast with Jihad, which is fighting the enemies and is a physical action that achieves tangible results, such as the conquest of a fortress or a city, or the killing of the enemy...

      -- The Concept of Hizb ut Tahrir, page 31

Just in case the message wasn't clear, another of HT's readings spells it out in blood:

...Jihad is the quality that should become second nature to the Islamic Ummah because it is the method of carrying the Da'awah to the world. The question that may be asked here is: will the struggle be with all these states at once, which is not a wise policy, or will the struggle be with some of them while the others will be covenanted, lest all the forces gather against us?

...The answer to this is that the struggle with the Kuffar takes two aspects, the first is the intellectual struggle, which is known as the political conflict, and the second is the bloody struggle, which is the actual war, which is Jihad. As for the intellectual struggle, i.e. the political conflict, this must be with all these states at once and no truce will be concluded with any state with regard to this conflict, because the nature of the contradiction between the ideology of Islam and the Capitalist ideology necessitates this confrontation...

      -- The Duty of Islamic Ummah, page 7

Further, HT's agenda is codified quite nicely:

...Hizb-ut-Tahrir is a political party with Islam as its ideology. Its objective is to resume the Islamic way of life by establishing an Islamic State that implements Islam and carries its Da’awah to the world...

      -- The Concept of Hizb ut Tahrir, page 44

Put simply, the mission of HT is to overthrow the United States government and replace it with Sharia (Islamic religious) law.

On July 19th, the group Responsible for Equality And Liberty (REAL) will be protesting the conference in Oak Lawn, IL. The conference is scheduled to run from 11AM to 5PM (CT) at the Hilton Hotel Grand Ballroom, 9333 South Cicero Ave., Oak Lawn, IL 60543.

If you can join or support REAL, please email realpublic@earthlink.net before July 18th.


The $400 Million Club


The top-grossing movies of all-time, via the invaluable Rotten Tomatoes.



Juxtaposing Two AP Headlines


Headline 1: "World has avoided economic disaster, Obama says."

Headline 2: "Jobless rate hits 9.4 percent in May; layoffs slow"

Sweetness & Light observes:

... the bad news is buried in the article:

If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included, the unemployment rate would have been 16.4 percent in May, the highest on records dating to 1994.

And this:

Economists say the job market may not get back to normal — meaning a 5 percent unemployment rate — until 2013. Economic recoveries after financial crises tend to be slower, economists say.

Are there economic recoveries after non-financial crises?

Anyway, lest we forget, unemployment during the Bush administration was never anywhere near this bad:

Unemployment rate

This chart, like the one [above], is from the US Bureau Of Labor Statistics.

You won’t be seeing these anywhere in our watchdog media.

They're a courageous lot, what few that remain, that is.

Christians thrown to the lions in Dearbornistan


Is this the United States of America? In Dearborn, Michigan, the answer appears to be "no".







Gateway Pundit has additional details.


Hat tip: Contrairimairi.

Larwyn's Linx: How to distribute wealth, Chicago-style

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email or reply via Twitter.

Nation

How to distribute wealth, Chicago-style: NewEd
About that CIA lie: WSJ
What the GOP will ask of Sotomayor: York

Fleming: Congress must use their National Healthcare: SIGIS
Political opposition may soon be a 'hate crime': Examiner
Unions gave ACORN nearly $10 million: Examiner

The State Despotic: Steyn
MoveOn holds rallies for health care reform: NewEd
Hoodwinking the Health Lobby: Strassel

Economy

Why we'll leave L.A.: WSJ
What if a bumpkin like Palin were president?: Harsanyi
Anti-foreclosure plan results in more foreclosures: Aces

China Panic: Zero Hedge
Marie Antoinette in the White House: Bookworm

Climate & Energy

Electric cars run out of juice: IBD
Heavy rains due to warming, despite record cold: AT (Sheppard)
Kooks to the Left, Kooks to the Far Left: GWP

A "Climate Change" Reminder: Q&O
Report: electric cars to hurt carbon emissions: BlogProf

Media

SEIU’s Chavista Legal Team Cribs from Obama, Threatens Broadcasters: Instapundit
Comparative Coverage: Netword
Newsweek: Obama represents Catholics better than Pope: GWP

Sotomayor backers urge media probe of firefighters: Lucianne
Varney calls Dems' Stimulus "Immoral" in Heated Showdown: FreeLight

World

The 9th of July, the 18th of Tir: Ledeen
Plumage... at a price: Hammer
French Court Convicts Islamic Gangbangers in Anti-Semitic Murder: Babushka

Ten days that shook Honduras: PJM (Hoft)
Dershowitz still doesn't get it: Phillips

Cornucopia


Hitler really pissed that Michael Jackson died: Denny
Lou Ferrigno takes a man down: YouTube

Ralph Peters, on FNC, describing the Russian government's treatment of Barack Obama:

"The Grizzly bear is huge and wild; He has devoured the infant child. The infant child is not aware He has been eaten by the bear." -- A.E. Housman