Thursday, September 02, 2010

Gulf rig owner Mariner Energy: It's not paranoia if they really are trying to kill you

Someone must have sobered up at ThinkProgress when they allowed Ben Armbruster to post "One Day Before Its Gulf Oil Rig Exploded, Mariner Energy Said Obama ‘Is Trying To Break Us’ With Moratorium".

Now, I'm no conspiracy theorist, but the entire scenario is bizarre. It it were the plot of a Tom Clancy novel, it would be considered too far-fetched.

The U.S. Coast Guard said this morning that a natural gas and oil drilling platform exploded 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana. A Coast Guard spokesperson said the platform, Vermilion Oil Rig 360, is an oil and gas platform in 2,500 feet of water and is owned by Houston-based Mariner Energy. It is not currently producing oil or gas...

Just yesterday, however, the Financial Times reported that employees from Apache and Mariner, along with thousands of oil industry workers, rallied in Houston to protest the Obama administration’s offshore drilling moratorium that was designed as a safety precaution after BP’s disastrous Gulf oil spill. A Mariner Energy employee chastised the Obama administration for its drilling moratorium, which would not have affected the rig that exploded today:

Companies ranging from Chevron to Apache bussed in up to 5,000 employees to the Houston convention centre to underline to Washington the industry’s contribution to the country. [...]

“I have been in the oil and gas industry for 40 years, and this administration is trying to break us,” said Barbara Dianne Hagood, senior landman for Mariner Energy, a small company. “The moratorium they imposed is going to be a financial disaster for the gulf coast, gulf coast employees and gulf coast residents.”

...Thirteen workers were on the rig when it exploded; the Coast Guard has said that “all 13 workers involved in the production platform explosion are accounted for, but one person is injured.”

As expected, Armbruster conveniently forgets to report that "Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and the Obama job-killing machine [just got] kicked in the ass one more time... They wanted federal judge Martin Feldman to dismiss the drillers’ lawsuit challenging their original moratorium. No dice."


Only $19.1B in the Red, Cali's Democrat Legislators Concentrate on the Important Stuff, Like Passing Laws That Protect Celebs From Paparazzi

As California's Democrat legislature dithers, its borrowing costs keep rising. The decreased market for its debt reflects worries about its ability to enact a real budget, which is months behind schedule and already $19.1 billion in the hole.

The extra yield investors demand on 10-year California bonds rose to 124 basis points above AAA rated municipal securities yesterday, up 14 percent in a week, Bloomberg Fair Value Index data show. The increase comes as the state will need to borrow as much as $10 billion in short-term notes within four weeks of any budget agreement and more than $6 billion in longer-dated bonds by December for public-works projects.

California hasn’t had a budget since the fiscal year began on July 1... The state may need to issue IOUs to pay bills by next month and Standard & Poor’s has said it may cut California’s A- rating, already the lowest among states.

What is the Democrat-dominated legislature actually doing instead of passing a budget? The Mercury News reports upon the eclectic genius of the left coast Democrats. Among the amendments they've proposed:

• Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, SB 722, which would have required utilities to generate 33 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020.

• A bill to end an injustice to low-income and minority children in public schools also failed, and the reason here is even more embarrassing: Assembly leaders refused to stand up to teachers unions.

• Similarly, massive lobbying by the banking industry killed SB 1275, which offered a small but important bit of protection to homeowners: forcing banks to finish determining whether borrowers qualify for a loan modification before foreclosing.

• But wait. Perhaps we're wrong. One critical protection was indeed given the red-carpet treatment in this session: a law penalizing paparazzi for hassling celebrities.

There has got to be something in the water in California. Like some left-over acid from Timothy Leary's hidden stash.


The Genius of Mark Levin: The Time Is Now

On 6 January 2009, I transcribed -- pretty much as I heard it -- the first half hour or so of Mark Levin's radio broadcast. I didn't realize it at the time, but it represented one of the finest chapters of his soon-to-be bestselling book, Liberty and Tyranny.

The Left is using this economic crisis to destroy the firewalls in the Constitution, to further crush the free market.

These are the plans that they devised decades ago.

The free market is the most transformative of economic systems. It fosters innovation and invention.

It produces new industries, products and services and improves upon existing ones.

Millions of individuals freely engaged in an infinite variety of actions each day, it is impossible to even conceive all of the benefits that occur in our economy at any given time.

The free market creates more wealth and more opportunites for more people than any other economic model. This is exactly why the Left -- be they socialists, or Marxists, or left-leaning Democrats -- attack it relentlessly.

That's why they lie, describing the free market as the cause of the current financial crisis. But it was in fact they, through onerous and arbitrary regulation and out-of-control governmental appendages like Fannie Mae, who twisted and distorted the free market.

The free market promotes self worth, self-sufficiency, shared values, and honest dealings. That doesn't mean to say there aren't crooks: they exist in every endeavor (especially government). But when you consider the trillions of transactions that make up the free market, the number of crooks is relatively tiny.

The free market enhances the individual, the family and the community. And it discriminates against no race, religion or gender.

The truck driver does not know the skin color of the individual who helped create the diesel fuel that powers his vehicle.

The cook does not know the religion of the dairy farmers who delivers milk to his restaurant.

The airline passenger does not know the gender of the factory workers who manufactured a critical component of the aircraft.

Nor do they care. The free market is an intricate system of voluntary economic, social and cultural interaction that are motivated by the desires and needs of the individual and the community.

Private property and the Left's attempts to co-opt it


The key to understanding the free market is private property, which is why the Left does not believe in it.

Private property is the material manifestation of the individual's labor: the material value created from a person's physical and intellectual efforts.

Oppressive taxation and regulation of your private property can become a form of servitude, particularly if such confiscation occurs because of arbitrary and illegitimate decisions on the part of a government bureaucracy. That is: decisions that are not Constitutional.

That is why the Conservative believes the federal government should only raise revenue that the Constitution authorizes and no other.

Otherwise, what are the limits on government power? What are the limits on taxation and regulation of the individual's labor? How do we contain and limit government? How do we draw the lines -- and on what basis?

The Marxist class struggle formulation pits the working class against the wealthy (sound familiar?). It serves as the Left's principal rhetorical argument for the confiscation of private property.

But it is anathema to the free market, for the individual has the power to make for himself anything he or she wants! There is no static class structure layered atop the free market! The free market is mutable, dynamic and vibrant.

And for this reason, we Conservatives believe the free market is a vital bulwark against totalitarianism. And it would appear the Left agrees for it is relentless in its assault on the free market.

The Left's rejection of Constitutional limits on government power is always justified on material grounds. In the name of "economic justice", "equality" and "fairness."

The Left creates an illusion of class struggle through a variety of inventions like the "Progressive" Income Tax. But the bottom 40% of wage earners pay no income tax!

"Economic equality" is unachievable, even in the most brutal and oppressive socialist states.

The mirage of "class struggle"


But it serves the Left's purpose to create a class system: artificially created economic categories. In this way, the Left stirs up class envy. The free market, therefore, is said to be incapable of serving the public interest because it produces "unjust results." This requires further government intervention.

The Left tries to intensify class struggle by routinely redefining categories and levels of wealth: who qualifies as the detested rich? The righteous middle class? The disenfranchised poor?

Thus community organizer and Obama mentor Saul Alinsky explained, "Organization for action will now and in the decade ahead center upon America's white middle class. That is where the power is."

Tax cuts for people who don't pay taxes aren't tax cuts. That's welfare. Tax cuts for businesses that can't make money: that's socialism; redistribution of wealth.

This isn't about creating jobs in the private sector. The left hates the private sector. They hate profits. They hate anything that doesn't require government subsidies, that can operate without government involvement. Those entities have to be destroyed.

The modern left is an explicit enemy of the Constitution. The modern left dominates the Democrat Party. And that is why the Democrat Party must be wiped from the political landscape in November. And in every election henceforth.

It is time for action. And you must be an evangelist for the destruction of American socialism in our time.


Dummies

The Bad writes, "On the left is Walter, Jeff Dunham's dummy. On the right is Obama's."



Let Them Eat Sole

Last December, the Obama family went on one of their many vacations since the 2008 presidential election. At that time, an observant author at the Republic noted the egalitarian nature of the first family, since highlighted by, oh, 60-room vacations at 5-star hotels. Anyhow, 'kristinn' wrote:

The Obamas are staying at an $8.9 million estate for an estimated $4000 per night. To cover the Obama's ten night stay, the minimum wage worker would have to work two-and-a-half years (before taxes) to come up with the $40,000 Obama is reportedly laying out.

And the First Lady was photographed last night in Hawaii wearing designer shoes by Maison Martin Margiela.

The shoe style is called "Leather open toe flat pumps." It features a "thin nude leather strap across the top of the toe."

Thee shoes are $635 per pair.

A woman lucky enough to have a job in this economy and working for the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour would have to work 88 hours (without taxes taken out) to make enough to pay for Michelle Obama's shoes. If she can get them on sale, they would only set her back $445 for 62 hours work.

Obama has lectured Americans about how they can not expect to live their lives as indulgently as they have in the past. He has lectured businesses about their travel and pay. Yet Obama and his wife live like royalty.

The news media has yet to call him out on his extravagance when there is 10% unemployment with no sign of the employment picture improving this coming year.

Kristin N. was prescient, as evidenced by the latest employment numbers. Hint: it's Jobless Thursday. Again.

A little splash of less-bad-than-expected news today, as initial unemployment claims came in at 472,000, slightly better than the 475,000 forecast. That was a drop of 6,000 from last week's upwardly revised number.

Two consecutive weeks of declines is a welcome departure from recent trends (the less volatile 4-week average had moved higher for each of the prior four weeks), but not enough to reverse much of the carnage wrought by Recovery Summer.

Joblessness remains stubbornly worse than at the beginning of the year.

'Let them eat sole!'

As in shoe leather.


Only in Texas -- T-Shirt Edition

Bernie writes:

Like they say: 'Only in Texas'. I must tell you this Texan Redneck made my day.

Only in Texas -- T-Shirt EditionThis guy basically got thumbs up and chuckles from everyone.


Spy Photo: DOJ Mobile Unit -- Lawsuit Delivery Vehicle

DOJ Mobile Unit -- Lawsuit Delivery Vehicle
Via: Sad Hill News.

Larwyn's Linx: Arizona vs. the U.N. human rights police

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email. You can also install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget.

Nation

Arizona vs. the U.N. human rights police: Malkin
Feingold blames conspiracy to destroy Obama: GWP
Gunman at Discovery: Ace

UCLA Cans Professor for Thought Crimes: RWN
Black Civil Rights Mafia Betrays Black America: AT
White House Flirts with Mayor Bloomberg: Post

Economy

Chicago SEIU Protest Report: Marathon
Paul Ryan: Obamanomics Has Failed!: RWN
Indoctrination Nation: Zombie

Don’t ever complain to me about the money spent on Iraq, again: Toldjah
$300 Cash Offer For Elementary Students: SHN
Tulsa area home sales plunge: TulsaWorld

Wyden (D-OR) Never Heard of Health Care Mandate: Malkin
An Obama September Surprise?: Instapundit
Wheels continue to come off economy: GWP

Climate & Energy

Progressives Against Progress Redux: Driscoll
Another ass-kicking: Judge rejects Obama drilling ban again: Malkin
An Inconvenient Hostage-Taker: JOM

Media

The Beck/Sharpton Rallies: A Telling Dichotomy: GrandRants
Something I Will Not Do: LegalIns
Joe Miller on Obama: 'He’s One of the Major Forces Moving This Country Towards Socialism': GWP

The Right Side Of The Blogosphere’s Reaction To Obama’s Speech Last Night: RWN
Copycats: Liberals to hold their own Beck-like rally on Oct 2: AnBlkCon
Beck's 'Obsession' with Black Liberation Theology Thoroughly Justified: AT

Detroit Free Press: Sure, Obama lied last night, but it was all Bush's fault--so that's OK or something: BlogProf

World

The Cordoba House and the Myth of Cordoban ‘Ecumenism’ Debunked: PJM
Thanks to Obama, in Le Monde's Eyes, America Has Turned the Page on Bush's 'Disastrous Experience': GWP
I Like Bush MORE Having Read This: iOTW

Muslim Groups Ask DOJ To Hold 'Haters' Accountable: RWN
Iraq: The Good War: AT
The Drug Culture In Mexico Spawns Its Own Language Called Narco-Speak: GWP

SciTech

Apple TV: Still a hobby after all these years: CNet
Oil Should Be $10 a Barrel: Jalopnik
Security Questions To Ask Your Cloud Provider: InfoWeek

Cornucopia

Ersatz: C&S
We redecorate: the Oval and beyond: MOTUS
Blowin' in the Wind: SondraK

Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Support Christine O'Donnell for U.S. Senate; Spike Democrats' Lame-Duck Agenda

QOTD: "Does the makeover of the Oval Office include new prayer rugs?" -- 'Harry Reid's Body Odor'


Wednesday, September 01, 2010

Really crappy branding decisions

Chicken of the Creek-brand Tuna Fish

* Raid! Ant & Roach Jihad

I Can't Believe It's Not Sausage!

Food Slug Supermarkets

Cream of Weasel Breakfast Cereal

Buckeye Fish Brittle

Zygotes 'R' Us Fertility Clinics

Somalia's Finest Anchovies

Hebrew National Pork Loin

"National Security" Democrats


Harry Reid Throughout History

After Harry Reid's egregious 2007 statement concerning the Surge in Iraq ("This war is lost!"), I decided to do a little genealogical research. My question: how had some of Reid's more obscure ancestors behaved during previous military engagements?

Revolutionary War: Jebediah Reid, commenting on Valley Forge: "But, General Washington, this war is lost, I can most assuredly promise you. General Cornwallis will treat us with dignity if we only raise the white flag now. And it's awfully cold out here."

The War of 1812: Jethro Reid, speaking to William Henry Harrison: "Tippecanoe and surrender, too, my dear Governor Harrison!"

Civil War: Benedict Reid at Gettysburg: "Four score and seven years, my a**! This war was lost three frickin' years ago!"

Spanish-American War: Desdemona Reid: "Remember the Maine... after we surrender! ¿Se Habla Español?"

World War I: Nebuchadnezzar Reid comments upon military actions in the Argonne Forest: "Over there! Over there! We are losing badly over there!"

Pearl Harbor: 'Stubby' Reid: "Do you see? Do you see?? How can we possibly fight the Imperial Japanese war machine? This war is over!"

War of the Worlds: Harry Reid, expressing concern over resistance to an alien invasion: "It's pointless to fight these beasts! We must surrender immediately to survive! And I, for one, welcome my new alien overlords!"