Monday, June 06, 2011

Phones getting down to Zoolander-size

At some point, reducing the size of a phone hits the point of diminishing returns.


A smartphone the size of a credit-card appears to be nearing that point.


Unless you're Zoolander.


The Daily Weiner (Degenocrat-NY) #weinergate

If you've been away much of the day and missed all of the pants-busting excitement, here's a quick recap in reverse chronological order:

• 18:30 Woman Who Corresponded With Weiner: He Said He Was Stalking Me - oh, that should help with the female vote in New York.

• 18:03 Weiner One Week Ago: "I Was the Victim of This" - not the young women, no. Weiner was the victim.

• 17:55 Nancy Pelosi calls for Anthony Weiner ethics inquiry - When you've lost Pelosi... say, don't the Republicans control the House? Where the hell is their ethics inquiry of this dirtbag-o-crat?

• 17:48 Anthony Weiner admits tweet, will not resign - of course he won't; he's a Degenocrat.

• 17:45 Should We Care About Anthony Weiner's Photo Scandal? - that's a moonbat periodical, of course. And the answer is no: Democrats operate under a different set of rules than everyone else. They're above the law - remember, their great hero, the famed 'Lion of the Senate' left a woman in his car, which happened to be underwater, for about 16 hours or so.

• 16:26 "I apologize to Andrew Breitbart" - Those thumps you heard in the distance were liberals' heads exploding all over the United States. Breitbart and Michelle Malkin are among the best investigative journalists working anywhere in 2011.

• 16:20 Rep. Anthony Weiner: 'The Picture Was of Me and I Sent It' - Oh. Wow. We would never have guessed.

• 15:30 Weiner Used Jewish Sexual Stereotype To Facebook Sexting Partner - and that should help with the Jewish female vote in New York.

• 12:40 Weinergate Grows: Another Woman Provides Sex Messages From His Account - The woman says she has 200 sexually explicit messages from Weiner's account - that hacker is a busy little guy!

Lesson learned:

Only a Degenocrat could -- remember Gerry "Dial-a-Page" Studds and Barney "I didn't know that gay prostitution ring was operating out of my condo" Frank? -- possibly get away with this sort of thing. Ethics? Family values? Shame?

No, no, and no.

For Weiner not to resign in utter ignominy reveals how little regard he has for New Yorkers and women, in particular.


Kudos to: Ace o' Spades, Robert Stacy McCain, Patterico, Gateway Pundit, Verum Serum, Ironic Surrealism, Big Government, Michelle Malkin, and many others for their relentless pursuit of this story. Hat tip: Memeorandum.


Google's Chrome OS Can Fake a 'Blue Screen of Death' for Old Time's Sake

I think this officially qualifies as poking a metaphorical finger in Microsoft's eye.

...A couple months after Easter itself came and went, the Easter egg Google shipped with its Chrome OS prototype laptops has finally been discovered.

Brad Wells found the Easter egg. Aided by a little Google searching, found out how to activate a fake blue screen of death--one of the "legacy" leftovers from the PC era Google hopes to banish with its browser-based operating system. Then, with an ASCII code converter, he found a parody of the legalese that causes me a lot more heartburn these days than BSODs...

Truth be told, it will be a long, long time before Windows PCs are supplanted by Chrome OS or anything else. There's so much legacy software out there -- especially in companies -- that Microsoft's desktop OS will have a truly long tail.


Image credit: Brad Wells.

Larwyn's Linx: Why is the White House Collecting Emails?

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Nation

Why is the White House Collecting Emails?: RWN
That Stupid Palin Woman: Tatler
Michelle Antoinette?: Surber

Why Palin Matters: PW
Wasserman-Schultz leads Dems into battle: PJM
Wasserman-Schultz looking ridiculous again: AT

Great 2010 Cashout: Obey joins Gephardt's lobbying firm: WashExam
Herman Cain Hits the Big Time: RSM
Why 2012 looks like a lot like 1860: Parker

Economy

TN Trumps WI: Kills Teacher Collective Bargaining. Dead.: BG
Hard to get good goons these days: Reynolds
What is the difference between the SEIU & an armed robber?: RS

The Job Market: Far Worse Than It Appears: Blumer
Obama Blames Europe, Earthquakes For Failed Policies: GWP
Gutting It Out: Driscoll

Confirmed: Obama monetary policy causing pain at the pump: GWP
Class-Warfare Charlatans: Driscoll
Medicare: the heart of the controversy: RWN

Weinergate

New Weinergate Bombshell: BigJournalism
More Weiner Messages to Young Girls? Evidence the Media Was Duped into Dropping the Investigation: Patterico
Wasserman-Schultz on Weinergate: It's Okay, He's a Democrat: LegalIns

Climate & Energy

Leftwing Science -- the List: JPA
BBC unintentionally admits that global warming is a hoax: BlogProf
UN Warming Chief: We Must Build Machines To Suck Greenhouse Gases From The Air: WZ

Media

"How Low is Low Enough?: PW
But None Dare Call them National Socialists: Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Now Hiring: Exquisite Tension

‘The Undefeated’ could be a game-changer for Sarah Palin: DC
Palin Lounge Sunday: Reviews of “The Undefeated” Are Out!: Bruce
Fox News shows Tina Fey in on-screen graphic for Sarah Palin: TRS

Roger Ailes: 'Palin's So Smart She’s Got the Press Running Up the East Coast Behind Her Bus': NB
Idiotic NYT Piece of the Day: Pakistan is the Ultimate Tea Party Nation: LCR
Limbaugh speculates on what gave rise to Krauthammer as an opinion maker: DC

World

Normandy Beach: Stupid art is objectively pro-Nazi: Zombie
Bad news for the hemisphere: Humala wins in #Peru: Fausta
Weiner Fails to Stand Up for Israel, Skips Annual NYC Parade: WZ

Arab protesters marking Six-Day War anniversary storm Israeli borders with Molotov cocktails: JihadWatch
Report: Syria’s Assad Regime Paid Protesters $1,000 To Storm Israel’s Border: WZ
Klavan's One-State Solution: Give The Middle East To The Jews: RCP

Good News: 81% of U.S. Mosques Promote Jihad: WZ
"Youth" charged with slaughter of Israeli family: "I don't regret what I did, and would do it again.": JihadWatch
Provoking the Whirlwind: NoisyRoom

SciTech

Senators Want To Put People In Jail For Embedding YouTube Videos: TechDirt
How Sustainable Is Groupon's Business Model?: Wharton
Kodak Wants Your Old Cameras, Electronics: Consumerist

Cornucopia

This Week in Automotivators: RWN
May I suggest that Mr. Bond be armed with a revolver?: Letters of Note
Obama hears it from Jeep employees after underestimating Wrangler: AutoBlog

Image: Big Journalism
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: TrendingRight.com - the first real-time conservative headline service

QOTD: "The same people who whine that Sarah Palin is unqualified to serve as president have no problem uttering the following phrase with a straight face: 'Vice President Joe Biden'". --Me, just now.

Sunday, June 05, 2011

Yoo-hoo! Anyone in legacy media wondering why President Obama is on his third White House counsel in two-and-a-half years?

Isn't this the kind of story 60 Minutes used to investigate? I mean, before it became the public relations arm for the Democrat National Committee?

President Obama has named a new top White House lawyer, the third of his two-and-a-half-year tenure.

New White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler will replace Bob Bauer, who is returning to private practice -- including service as general counsel to the president's 2012 re-election campaign and as Obama's personal lawyer.

...Ruemmler is already working at the White House as principal deputy counsel to the president. She officially becomes White House counsel at the end of June.

...Washington attorney Greg Craig served as Obama's first White House counsel, but resigned after a year amid controversy over failed efforts to close the terrorism prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

What is going on in the Obama White House that has counsel playing musical chairs?

Though it does look like Ruemmler's released her college transcripts. So she's got that going for her.


Linked by: Ace o' Spades. Thanks!

We got a bleeder! Weiner trapped by TweetCongress.org

No wonder Anthony Weiner's been so evasive about the photo of privates sent from his Twitter account. It turns out that the same application used to send Weiner's other messages that night also sent the bulging pantie shot. The Daily reports (via Weasel Zippers):

...according to data provided exclusively to The Daily from TweetCongress.org, a nonprofit website that captures each member of Congress’s Twitter feeds in real time, the shot seen round the world was transmitted using TweetDeck — a popular Adobe desktop application that links up with social networking sites. A review of Weiner’s Twitter stream from May 27, the day of the crotch pic, shows that Weiner had been posting only from TweetDeck — one of many ways to post messages to Twitter — that entire night.

Chet Wisniewski, a senior security adviser at security software company SophosLabs, said the TweetDeck stamp “does make it more plausible that it did come from him.”

...Robert Stribley, a senior information architect at Razorfish, a social media strategy agency, reasoned that if Weiner used the TweetDeck app, “it would probably make it less likely his account was hacked.”

...Matthew Green, chief technology officer at Independent Security Evaluators, said that if the offensive tweet had been transmitted through something other than TweetDeck that night, it might have gone a long way to exonerate Weiner.

... “Here’s the thing that solves it all,” said McCroskey, “for him to call for a criminal investigation. All they have to do is look at his TweetDeck and see if it came from there, see what IP address [it had]. The local police department or Capitol Police could probably figure this out in 15 minutes.”

Indeed.

Which is why he'll never voluntarily request an investigation.


Related (in reverse chronological order):
Short-fused Weiner visibly stiffens when confronted by local CBS reporter, calls police
Kudos to CNN's Dana Bash: Absolutely Shreds Anthony's Weiner
Weiner stiffens defenses against #Weinergate "distraction", lawyers up, and insists that we all "move on"
Weinergate Timeline
Now that @GennetteNicole has broken her #Weinergate silence, I have just a couple of questions
Photos: Anthony Weiner's Self-Proclaimed Girlfriend
Anthony Weiner makes underwhelming Twitter debut

What took so long? White House website now an official advertising arm of the Obama campaign

For a president whose administration has already been held in contempt of court by a federal judge and whose 2008 campaign openly accepted illegal foreign contributions, transforming the White House website into a voter outreach platform shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

Visitors to WhiteHouse.gov are now confronted with an email collection script.

It is entirely possible, and perhaps extremely likely, that collection of these emails crosses the line into an illegal use of government property for partisan purposes. The Clinton administration's Justice Department issued a 1999 memo that outlined prohibited behavior.

...activities in the workplace directed toward the success or failure of a political party, a candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group, would violate the Hatch Act and also would violate the [DOJ]'s rules. For example, inviting individuals to attend a political event, recruiting campaign volunteers or dispersing campaign literature over the Internet is prohibited...

There is only one reason that the White House is collecting email addresses.

It is to promote, directly or indirectly, the reelection campaign of Barack Obama.

Not that legacy media will scrutinize this behavior -- no Weiner involved -- but a few questions spring to mind:

• Why are these email addresses being collected?
• With whom will they be shared?
• Who initiated the redesign of the White House website?
• What kinds of communications will be sent to these email addresses?

The musky scent of David Axelrod is all over this.



Hat tips: JTT, Granny Jan and Jihad Kitty. Linked by: Protein Wisdom and Publius Forum. Thanks!

Larwyn's Linx: Paul Ryan Gave One Hell Of A Campaign Speech Last Night

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Nation

Paul Ryan Gave One Hell Of A Campaign Speech Last Night: Ace
The Truth About Sarah Palin and ‘Independent’ Voters: C4P
Howard Dean warns Sarah Palin could beat Obama in 2012: Hill

Faith in God Signals Good News for Civil Society: Foundry
FBI's 'Muslim Outreach' Welcomes Another Terror-Tied Man: PJM
Teachers' Union, NAACP Lock Black Kids in Failing Schools: RS

Economy

Obama’s Mess and Allen West’s Solution: ConBlkChk
The Age of Obama #fail: Blaze
50 Things Americans Should Know About Our Economic Loss: SHN

Some Jobs to Save: IBD
White House 2009 Predictions Show Stimulus Hurt Economy: IBD
SF First-Responders Watch Man Die: RWN

Quotes o' the day: 'a horrow show for the economy': HotAir
Half of Last Month's New Jobs Came from... McDonald's: WS
The News From Cali Isn't Getting Any Better: RWN

Climate & Energy

Are we sitting on unlimited fossil-fuel resources?: HotAir
Germany Opts for Economic Suicide: AT
Romney: “The world is getting warmer”: BlogProf

Media

Liberal Pundit on Palin: 'Refreshing to See Someone Say Screw You to People Who Treat Her Like Garbage': NB
Are Time and Mark Halperin Racist? Herman Cain Omitted Twice in GOP Oddsmaking: NB
MSM/lefty bloggers work in concert to discredit Palin, but she wins in the end: Toldjah

Levin to the rescue: Radio host “sick and tired” of pundit’s Palin smears: HotAir
Sarah Palin's bus tour: "A rolling menace": BrutHon
Paul Krugman -- In Favor of Learned Irony: RWN

The Good Candidate: RWN
‘UR SO HOT! C MY WANG?’ (Or, #WeinerGate Explained): RSM
Even Lefty Website Mediaite Says Breitbart Did Not Lie about Weinergate: RWN

World

Britain and France to Share Aircraft Carriers: AmPower
Top jihadist leader killed in drone strike: AT
Superman? British soldier single-handedly defeats 30 Taliban: IHTM

The Coming of the Mahdi: AT
Robert Spencer faces leftist, jihadists in Germany: Creeping
Making Sense of the Syrian Uprising: AT

Why Is a California Teachers Union So Anti-Israel?: Blaze
Egyptian cleric: We ask non-Muslims to convert, but if they don't convert or pay jizya, we fight them: JihadWatch
American Muslim calls on Muslims in America to buy guns, wage jihad (video): Creeping

SciTech

LulzSec versus FBI Affiliates + Whitehats: Pastebin
Apple Is Now Worth More Than Intel And Microsoft Combined: Insider
Did Google Geek Discover ‘Space Station’ on Mars Surface?: Blaze

Cornucopia

Let’s Talk Baseball: Terrible Ted At the Plate, Weiner’s On Deck & Michelle Obama In the Dugout: MOTUS
How The Roastmaster General Jeffrey Ross Saved Charlie Sheen: AtlCityWkly
Choose MyPlate Logo Design ‘Only’ $2 Million: SHN

Image: Sad Hill News
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: TrendingRight.com - real-time conservative news


Saturday, June 04, 2011

GOP Beltway Insiders Charles Krauthammer and George Will Describe the Substantive Reasons Sarah Palin Can't Win

Charles Krauthammer's substantive reasons that Sarah Palin can't win in 2012:

I think it would make no sense for her to run. I think her chances of winning the nomination are small. The chances of winning the general election are probably nil. I think, for the same reasons you articulated, 60 percent negatives. That's almost impossible to overcome. And it isn't as if that is forever. Hillary Clinton had very high negatives at many points in her career. But over time, they tend to soften.

...The problem with her, I think, is that she is not schooled. I don't mean she didn't go to the right schools... But when it comes to policies, she's had two and a half years to school herself, and she hasn't. And that's a problem. You want a president who will be able to not have to learn on the job. We've already had that... ...with President Obama and with others... It's the lack of effort to school herself and the lack of insight to see that she needs it...

...I think if you're going to master policy, especially world affairs, you've got to know history. As you said, you have to know how things evolved, and she is weak on that. It's not as if she can't learn. The fact is it doesn't appear as if she wants to sort of sit down, spend some months schooling herself, as many people have done in preparing for the presidency. If you're a governor of any state, you face a narrow range of issues, and you don't have to deal with the world. It's incumbent on you to actually learn about it.

So, just to recap, Sarah Palin can't win against Barack Obama because she has high negatives, she hasn't "school[ed] herself", and she's weak on history. But an incompetent community agitator with no executive experience, no private sector experience and who is an acolyte of Alinsky is qualified because he has a beautiful, cultured speaking voice.

George Will's substantive reasons that Sarah Palin can't win in 2012:

The independent voters have made up their minds about her, and it is a negative judgment they’ve made... After the 2008 campaign she had two things she had to do: she had to go home to Alaska and study, and she had to govern Alaska well. Instead she quit halfway through her first term and shows up in the audience of ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and other distinctly non-presidential venues...

Just to recap: independent voters have a negative opinion of Palin. And the fact that Democrat operatives had filed 18 frivolous lawsuits -- all later dismissed -- against her (source: Associated Press), which were bankrupting her family, had nothing at all to do with it. That, plus appearing in the audience of Dancing with the Stars, disqualifies her.

Is this really what passes for informed commentary inside the Beltway?

Remember: Krauthammer worked for Walter-Freaking-Mondale in 1980. George Will endorsed Howard Baker in 1980. Both of these guys completely missed the Reagan revolution.

Krauthammer and Will are certainly smart dudes, but their political instincts appear to be for s***.

Palin can win. Bachmann can win. Cain can win. Ryan can win. Santorum can win. Obama is a sitting duck if confronted with a true, articulate Constitutional conservative. He's a walking, talking disaster as President. And everyone knows it.


Hat tips: Mark Levin and Gateway Pundit.

One Obama Chart to Rule Them All

By the way, I've been out of town for a while.

How are those Stimulus, HAMP, Cash-for-Clunkers, Weatherization, Green Jobs, Obamacare, "Banking Reform", drilling moratorium, First-Time Home-Buyer Credit, auto company takeovers and QE2 programs working out?


Hat tip: The Blaze

The Daily Weiner

All the Weiner news that fits, we print:

Echoes of Weiner’s womanizing past ring in his present day package predicament

Even before the current #Weinergate scandal broke, Rep. Anthony Weiner had quite a history of lewd behavior towards women.

A 2001 Vanity Fair article about a young woman using her sexual proclivity to climb Capitol Hill featured a large section on her interactions with Weiner. In early fall 2001, the New York Democrat introduced himself to a Congressman Mike Rogers staffer, Diana Davis, as an “auto-parts salesman.” He rambled on and on about how politically connected he was and boasted about a trip he was scheduled to take with President George W. Bush to Ground Zero. He was going to fly with the president on Air Force One. Despite his attempt to impress Davis, Weiner couldn’t seal the deal with her that night, so he tried again.

“The next day, New York’s Anthony Weiner finds the time to hunt down Diana’s E-mail address... He writes that he hopes they might meet again..." In his email, Weiner told Davis she should come visit his office "in person." Ward wrote Davis “left Anthony Weiner dangling,” because she thought the “in person” comment “was kind of cheesy.”

Even after he emailed her, Davis had no clue Weiner was a United States congressman. She thought he was just a cute car parts salesman. It wasn’t until later that her friend Caroline Chatterton told Davis over lunch that Weiner was a member of Congress...

...Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin told The Daily Caller Weiner’s “long history” of “skirt-chasing” raises more questions about the New York Democrat’s Capitol Hill sexual secrets and expects more women with similar stories to come forward... The photo gallery of his select group of young female followers/followees on Twitter suggests a continued hunt.”

...The latest buzz from D.C. Democrats is that other pictures of Weiner’s package are out there. This raises troubling questions about who the recipients might have been, how old, and whether they worked for or under the congressman (NO pun intended!)...

Weiner still can’t answer with “certitude” whether it’s his penis in the picture sent via his official verified Twitter account to Seattle-area college student Gennette Cordova. Since folks in Washington have been asking Weiner about the details surrounding the photo, he’s called a CNN producer a “jackass” and dialed 911 on a CBS reporter. Weiner has tried to deflect attention away from the major questions in the storyline and has tried to say outright he’s not answering any more questions...

Weiner's wife puts on brave face amidst Twitter-photo scandal

Rep. Anthony Weiner's humiliated wife sheepishly showed her face at a Washington event yesterday, keeping a stiff upper lip amid the swirling scandal surrounding her husband's tawdry Twitter photo.

Huma Abedin, 34, briefly hesitated at the State Department ballroom door before working up the courage to go in... At first, she seemed to be a no-show at Clinton's morning event, where the secretary hosted a session of the Iraq Business Roundtable for companies including Caterpillar, FedEx, Microsoft, Citigroup and GE.

But shortly after the event began in the ornate Ben Franklin room, Abedin opened a door, peered into the room, then strode over to another Clinton aide 20 feet away from the secretary.

Wearing a black pant suit and a prominent pearl necklace, Abedin never cracked a smile and kept her distance from the former first lady. She ducked out long before the event finished.

Anthony Weiner's bulging controversy a classic example of abysmal damage control

Weinergate ain't Watergate, not even close... But they're both classic examples of abysmal damage control.

...His less-than-forthcoming answers to the frenzy over a lewd photo have made matters worse for the congressman who aspires to be New York City's next mayor, raising fresh questions and fueling even more media scrutiny.

When a reporter asks if you've ever taken photos of your nether regions like the one purportedly hacked from Weiner's Twitter account, there's only one acceptable answer.

But Weiner didn't just say no - he just ducked... He also couldn't say "with certitude" the offending photo wasn't him, an unfortunate non-denial denial.

* * * * * * * * *

Interesting tangent on the Weiner story: two of the three story headlines from above were edited. The New York Post story (the second item, above) on Huma Weiner was originally entitled "The Good Wife".

The New York Daily News article (third and last item) was originally headlined "His Biggest Boner? Being So Coy".

These writers are having a field day with the Weiner -- and who can blame them?


Illinois Has an $8B Budget Deficit, So Dem Governor Guarantees No Union Layoffs in Exchange For a Whopping... $50 Million in Concessions

If they weren't entrusted with power, Democrats would be useful only as comic relief.

... Ninety-six percent of state workers are in collective bargaining units, and there are petitions pending before the state labor board that could increase that proportion to 99 percent, said House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago...

...Rep. Rosemary Mulligan, R-Des Plaines, said the governor is to blame for reaching a no-layoff agreement until June 30, 2012, with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in exchange for $50 million in concessions.

“Didn’t he think everyone was going to join the union?” Mulligan said. “They’d have to be stupid not to.”..

Because big government and the Democrat Party are one and the same, Governor Quinn appears unable to address the state's $8 billion budget deficit in sensible ways, like eradicating collective bargaining, privatizing much of the state's workforce, promoting charter schools and otherwise letting the free market unleash entrepreneurship, innovation and private sector growth.

As for all of the hospitals, vendors and suppliers to the state who are owed money -- much of it six months in arrears -- the news just got worse thanks to the Democrats' intransigence.

The Senate rejected four bills sponsored by state Sen. John Sullivan, D-Rushville, that would have sold more than $6 billion in bonds to pay vendors to whom the state owes money. That means, for now, school districts, local governments, vendors and other providers won’t be getting paid any more quickly.

As of last week, Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka had more than 130,000 unpaid bills dating back to December that total just over $4 billion.

“Vendors should know that there will still be substantial delays, but the situation will slowly begin to improve if we hold the line on new spending,” she said.

I wonder how bad it will have to get for the righteous taxpayers of Illinois to rebel?

That's a rhetorical question. I suspect that it is too late for the state. It would appear that the intertwined, interdependent gang of Democrats and union hacks are so powerful, so corrupt and so malevolent that they simply can't be dislodged from the halls of power.

And so people and businesses will simply flee rather than deal with the United States' own version of East Germany.


Update: IL comptroller: None of Quinn's "temporary" tax increase has gone to pay off old bills.

Larwyn's Linx: NAACP Fights To Keep Kids Trapped in Failing Schools

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

Nation

NAACP Fights To Keep Kids Trapped in Failing Schools: BG
Big Government Decrees Big Brother For Your Car: RWN
Stunning Bipartisan Rebuke To Obama on Libya mission: NiceDeb

Conservatives press Boehner on debt ceiling strategy: DC
Don't like Obamacare mandate? Earn less money: BlogProf
John Edwards indicted by grand jury: Does anyone care?: ITHM

Economy

How Low Can We Go?: Ashbrook
Bailouts for Big Business, Bankruptcies for the People: RWN
Fiddling while Rome burns: AT

Obama plans victory speech for losing $1.3B on Chrysler: LoneCon
Dems too scared to produce budget: Pundette
Liberal Washington State Tries to Kiss Medicaid Goodbye: WSJ

UNEXPECTED: Socialism fails yet again: ColdFury
Walsh 'Disgusted and Discouraged' After Geithner Meeting: NiceDeb
FL Dems, Hispanics blast Obama's Dept. of Education: Tatler

Obama's Chrysler Lies: WZ
TSA Gets A Pat-Down on Screener Privatization: Foundry
Michelle's Next, Expensive, Taxpayer-Funded Vacation: HySci

Weinergate

Dan Wolfe Steps Up: VS
Anthony Weiner’s college sweetie may have figured out the whole Weinergate scandal: IHTM
Anthony Weiner and the law's peril: Politico

Climate & Energy

Fabulous! Romney Believes in Man-Made Global Warming: Bruce
Team Obama to push back anti-energy regulations in favor of politics; ‘Brownerites’ at EPA Steam: Tatler
Sigourney Weaver Tells Us The Secret To Stopping Globull Warming: Abortion On Demand: RWN

Media

Markos Moulitsas: Daily Kos' Anti-Semitic 'Decline and Death of Israel' Not Offensive: AmPower
Daily Kos: Hey, You Know What America Needs? Sharia Law!: WZ
Jews Funding Jewish Annihilationists: Atlas

Progressive nut job vandalized Sarah Palin tour bus in New York – “I, the media whore”: FAM
Andrew Sullivan: Hey, Why Is Piper Palin Not In School?!? She’s On Summer Break? Oh, Never Mind: WZ
Palin ain't it either: Gormogons

World

Proof that S.F.’s circumcision ban Is anti-Semitic: Tatler
Anti-Israel Activists to Converge On Israel Soon: LegalIns
Protective Intelligence Lessons from an Ambush in Mexico: Stratfor

Egypt: Tahrir Square Protesters Demand Sharia Law, Want Tourists To 'Respect' Islam: WZ
Coptic Bishop Warns Native Germans About Islam: “You´re up Next!”: Creeping
Socialist Spain Melts Down: No Money to Pay 70,000 Employees In Castilla-La Mancha Region: Mish

SciTech

Why Daily Deals Are Becoming A Raw Deal: TechCrunch
IBM Settles zPrime Lawsuit: Cravath
Social Listing Lets You Create Instant Classified Ads Right From Your Phone: TechCrunch

Cornucopia

10-Year-Old Sensation Delivers Rousing Rendition of National Anthem at NBA Finals: Blaze
France restricts mentions of Twitter and Facebook on the airwaves: GlobPost
The Official Anthony Weiner “My D*** In A Tweet” Video: WZ

Image: Weasel Zippers
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Stand with Paul Ryan to Save Medicare

QOTD: “I don’t think he should pull out (of the mayor’s race) on the basis of this. I still think that Twitter aside, his private life should not trump his public career.” — Ernest Gilman, 65, West Village

“He’s beating around he bush, the fact that he can’t say for certain that the picture is of him. I think the outcome of this might affect his mayoral run. If no questions are answered by that time it would have a very negative impact.” — Casey Fulgenzi, 23, East Village

(via AMNY on Weinergate)

Friday, June 03, 2011

Funemployment in Obama's third consecutive Summer of Recovery™: "Things are much worse than the reported numbers would have you believe"

Mike Shedlock lays bare the official job numbers and finds things are far, far worse than the administration would have you believe.

For the last two months I commented "It is very questionable if this pace of jobs keeps up." Clearly it didn't and this certainly cannot all be blamed on a Tsunami in Japan. The entire global economy is slowing rapidly...

...In the last year, the civilian population rose by 1,814,000. Yet the labor force dropped by 544,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,358,000...

...Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 11%...

...The official unemployment rate is 9.1%. However, if you start counting all the people that want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.

While the "official" unemployment rate is an unacceptable 9.0%, U-6 is much higher at 15.8%...

Things are much worse than the reported numbers would have you believe, and for the second consecutive month the beneath the surface numbers were bad-to-awful.

Gee, Mish, that seems so hard to believe.

After all, President Obama and his Democrat sycophants have only destroyed the housing, energy, auto, banking, health care, and insurance industries.

I mean, how many jobs could those tally?


Will the last person to leave Mitt Romney's campaign headquarters please turn off the lights?

I supported Mitt Romney in 2008 because he was far, far preferable to the abysmal John McCain. But spewing this kind of pablum is simply unacceptable for any legitimate GOP candidate in 2012.

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney broke with Republican orthodoxy on Friday by saying he believes that humans are responsible, at least to some extent, for climate change.

"I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that," he told a crowd of about 200 at a town hall meeting in Manchester, New Hampshire.

"It's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may be significant contributors."

There is no -- and I mean no -- scientific evidence of anthropogenic global warming.

Put simply, it's a scam foisted upon America by the United Nations. Don't believe me? Read the illustrated comic book version of the IPCC warming grift.

When both the far left World Rainforest Movement and the conservative American Enterprise Institute agree that "global warming" is a trillion-dollar bunko scam, I think we can safely assume that it is just that.

Mitt Romney's regurgitation of this Leftist tripe disqualifies him from office in my humble opinion. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum are the only legitimate candidates for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012 (and if Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, or Allen West decide to leap into the fray, they'll be welcomed with open arms).


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Suddenly raising the debt ceiling just became a whole lot less important: China sells almost all of its U.S. Treasury Bills

By that I mean, raising the debt ceiling becomes a lot less important when no one will loan you money. And China ditching our debt simply means that fewer and fewer investors are willing to front the spending-addicted Obama administration any dough.

China has dropped 97 percent of its holdings in U.S. Treasury bills, decreasing its ownership of the short-term U.S. government securities from a peak of $210.4 billion in May 2009 to $5.69 billion in March 2011, the most recent month reported by the U.S. Treasury.

Treasury bills are securities that mature in one year or less that are sold by the U.S. Treasury Department to fund the nation’s debt... Until October, the Chinese were generally making up for their decreasing holdings in Treasury bills by increasing their holdings of longer-term U.S. Treasury securities. Thus, until October, China’s overall holdings of U.S. debt continued to increase.

Since October, however, China has also started to divest from longer-term U.S. Treasury securities. Thus, as reported by the Treasury Department, China’s ownership of the U.S. national debt has decreased in each of the last five months on record, including November, December, January, February and March.

The hysteria generated by TurboTax Tim Geithner and the Democrats in Congress -- translating roughly to 'if you don't raise the debt ceiling, the four horsemen of the apocalypse will take a collective dump on the world economy' -- is utter bunk.

While it is true Congress has never before refused to raise the debt ceiling, it has frequently taken its sweet time to do so. In 1985, Congress waited nearly three months after the debt limit was reached before authorizing a permanent increase. In 1995, 4 1/2 months passed between hitting the ceiling and congressional action. And in 2002, Congress delayed raising the debt ceiling for three months. In each case, the U.S. and the economy survived.

... The people running this government are never going to deal with this untenable situation unless and until it becomes untenable for them. The only way that will happen is if Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling and forces the administration to prioritize payment of those obligations that must be paid to maintain our full faith and credit — for as Kevin and Veronique point out, this already perilous situation could be blown sky high if the interest rate we must pay to borrow spikes. Only when there is no way around it will we get serious consideration of what government should and should not do, and what kind of welfare state the public is willing to pay for.

If we put it off, if we expand the credit card of a bankrupt Washington whose credit card needs to be cut to pieces right now, not only will our dire straits get worse. We won’t get to deal with them — we will be at the mercy of how they deal with us when the music finally stops.

It turns out that 150 prominent economists back the GOP on the debt ceiling fight.

More than 150 economists back U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner's call to match any increase in the debt limit with spending cuts of equal size, according to a letter released by the Republican leader's office Wednesday... Signatories include Nobel laureate Robert Mundell of Columbia University and economists from schools like New York University and Georgetown University, as well as conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute... Republicans say they will not back any increase that does not include steep spending cuts and other limits to ensure that debt stays at a manageable level.

Hey, Speaker Boehner: it's a real simple message. Try writing it on your palm, if you need to, for the Sunday talk shows.

President Obama better start slashing the federal government right this instant if he wants to avoid a downgrade or a default. He's grown the federal government by a phenomenal percentage in only two-and-a-half-years. And now it's time to balance the books.

Don't you dare raise the debt ceiling, Mr. Speaker. Period. Let Obama figure out where to start slashing this immense, unconstitutional federal leviathan. A default or a downgrade will be on Obama's head alone.


Hat tip: TrendingRight.com

Larwyn's Linx: Amid media circus, Palin lays out policy positions

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

Nation

Amid media circus, Palin lays out policy positions: York
Boehner Pushes New Libya Resolution: RollCall
Sen. Rubio: "Where Is President Obama's Plan On Medicare?": RCP

GOP blocks Obama land grab: Malkin
Why Obama may be heading for electoral disaster in 2012: Gardiner
Paul Ryan on Foreign Policy: AmSpec

Economy

Geithner picked wrong week to praise auto bailout: WashExam
Obama’s Auto Bailout Promise Reaches Its Expiration Date: NRO
Moody's Leaked Again: Gave Inside Info to Nancy Pelosi: ZH

Moody’s: Debt-Fueled Economic Collapse May Be At Hand: RWN
White House: Avoid Individual Mandate by Becoming Poor: Malkin
Palin dismisses Geithner’s warnings about debt ceiling: WaPo

Reflections on the Revolution in France: NRO
The Tea Party and America’s Debt Crisis: GM's Place
Horror for US Economy as Data Falls off Cliff: CNBC

Weinergate

Uh-Oh… Mother of Weinergate Coed Is Furious! Demands Weiner Fess Up: GWP
The Ick-arus of Capitol Hill: Malkin
Weinergate: Weiner's Wiener Problem Hard To Forget, Harder To Let Go: Gothamist

Hey, I Don't Want To Cast No Aspersions Or Nothin', But Anthony Weiner May Be Lying: Ace
The Wolfe At Anthony Weiner's Front Door: TSG
Embarrassing emails from Weiner tweeter leaked: Salon

Climate & Energy

The inconveniences (big and small) of environmentalism: Bookworm
Obama Nominee: Redistribute Wealth To Keep Poor From Cutting Trees: CNS
Obama Commerce Nominee: US Must Transition to "Radically Different" Power Production: BlogProf

Media

Facebook – self appointed arbiter of “free speech” – tells Tea Party: no more organizing: Flopping Aces
Hollywood Execs Caught on Tape Admitting Liberal Bias: Hollywood Reporter
Bigotry in Hollywood (Jon Stewart Busted): Crowder

Limbaugh speculates on what gave rise to Krauthammer as an opinion maker: DC
NBC News Hires Woman Who Fired Juan Williams: LegalIns
Unlike ABC and CBS, NBC’s Williams Spikes Weinergate Yet Has Time for Christie’s Helicopter ‘PR Problem’: NB

World

Iran Tests Nuclear Missile Warhead Design: Timmerman
Obama White House Tells Jewish Chorus to Take Down Their Pro-Obama Video: GWP
How EU spends £20m a year promoting left-wing causes in the U.S.: Daily Mail (UK)

Birthers, Truthers and Interrogation Deniers: Hayden
Arab Spring… Ahmadinejad Meets With Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Leaders in Tehran: GWP
FBI investigates Gmail hack: Politico

Obama and the Coming World Tax Organization: RWN
Van Jones: Paul Ryan Worse Than Al Qaeda: Jawa
Israel Delivers Payback For Gilad Schalit One Bullet At A Time: RWN

SciTech

Google Mail Hack Blamed on China: WSJ
Book Excerpt: Always On: How Smartphones Change Policing: Wired
Data guzzlers: Economist

Cornucopia

Is this Trump's REAL motivation?: Zilla
Michelle Obama in the Pour House? : MOTUS
Just Exstrawdnary: iOTW

Image: Palin dismisses Geithner’s warnings about debt ceiling (WaPo)
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: TrendingRight.com

QOTD: "On this morning's John Gambling show on WOR710 AM in NY, a caller [credible Republican] called in to say that a "gorgeous" female friend of his received similar communications from Weiner. John Gambling had the caller speak to his staff offline after the call and apparently this was not a fluke incident. Stay tuned." --JS

Thursday, June 02, 2011

Short-fused Weiner visibly stiffens when confronted by local CBS reporter, calls police, and refuses to come out of office

Someone in the public relations industry ought to do a case-study on this cyber-perv esteemed Congressional hacking victim.

Kramer walked in to Weiner’s office, announced herself as being from CBS 2 in New York City and said she’d like to see the congressman. Those few words created quite the stir. Doors slammed and people pretended she wasn’t there.

Finally, brave press secretary David Arnold arrived. The following is the exchange Kramer had with him:

Kramer: “All I want is for him to say something to his constituents, the people who have to vote for him.”

Arnold: “I don’t think you can say he hasn’t said anything to his constituents. He spoke for nine hours yesterday.

Kramer: “But not to anyone in New York. You know, this is the sort of in-the-bunker in the capitol, not to anyone in New York.”

After Kramer left Weiner’s office, his staff called the Capitol Police.

Police officers asked for identification. One cop told Kramer that if she went into Weiner’s office and didn’t leave if she was asked, she could be arrested.

Sorry, folks. I just couldn't resist. Yes. It's immature. But I don't care. It's Anthony Freaking Weiner, for heaven's sake. Congress' own Tiny Dancer deserves it.


Hat tip: Memeorandum.

Craptastic: GM stuffs the dealer channel to pad sales numbers; Nissan Leaf "easily outsells" the Chevy Volt in May

The phrase "stuffing the dealer channel" describes a method that automobile manufacturers use to pad their sales numbers. They deliver vehicles to dealers, count them as sold, but until actually accepted by customers, the cars just languish on lots.

And channel-stuffing is a tactic that the UAW-controlled General Motors has raised to an art form in its ill-fated attempt to continue operating as if it's 1963.

That GM sales declined in May by 1.2% on expectations of a rise of 1.5% in May is not really surprising: as we have been saying for a nearly three months now, the Japanese earthquake, far from adding points to US GDP, is now impacting every aspect of the US and global economy...

...Furthermore, the bulk of these purchases are the government-funded equivalent of subprime home purchases from 2005-2006: take away government funding and the sales collapse would be historic. Yet what is surprising, and what continues to be the only important metric in the monthly GM sales report, is the monthly channel stuffing update, aka the "month-end dealer inventory." We hope nobody will be surprised to find that it just hit another all time record of 584,000, 7k more than April and 177 more than a year ago. Although in reality, considering that GM car assembly should have been impacted by the Japanese earthquakes, one would have hoped for this inventory to decline. Which is the truly surprising part. In other words, in May, channel stuffing at GM went into overdrive.

Emblematic of this union-orchestrated malaise is the following delightful missive, entitled "Nissan Leaf easily outsells the Chevy Volt in May 2011":

Since the first official month of delivery late last year, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt has held an overall lead in sales over the 2011 Nissan Leaf but in April, Nissan was able to boast of being the bestselling electric vehicle in the US for the first time as their all-electric vehicle outsold the extended range Volt sedan by a margin of 573 to 493... General Motors stated that deliveries were slow because they were working on getting demo vehicles to dealerships but as the May numbers have come in – things haven’t improved for GM. In fact, they have gotten worse as the number of Volts delivered last month was down to just 481; compared to the 1,142 Nissan Leaf units delivered.

But don't worry kids, this little experiment in giving the union bosses control of two auto companies will only cost us $12 billion. So far, that is.


Another Record Shattered: This is 'a Great Depression in Real Wages'

Oh, this president is 'historic' all right.

The past decade of wage growth has been one for the record books — but not one to celebrate.

The increase in total private-sector wages, adjusted for inflation, from the start of 2001 has fallen far short of any 10-year period since World War II, according to Commerce Department data. In fact, if the data are to be believed, economywide wage gains have even lagged those in the decade of the Great Depression (adjusted for deflation).

Two years into the recovery, and 10 years after the nation fell into a post-dot-com bubble recession, this legacy of near-stagnant wages has helped ground the economy despite unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus — and even an impressive bull market.

Over the past decade, real private-sector wage growth has scraped bottom at 4%, just below the 5% increase from 1929 to 1939, government data show.

To put that in perspective, since the Great Depression, 10-year gains in real private wages had always exceeded 25% with one exception: the period ended in 1982-83, when the jobless rate spiked above 10% and wage gains briefly decelerated to 16%.

Obama's record is a perfect one -- he's ruined the housing, energy, auto, banking, health care, insurance and probably other industries I'm forgetting.

His swollen bureaucracies and regulations are strangling the private sector and, by extension, our livelihoods. What the ideologue-in-chief has yet to figure out is that his leviathan -- his unconstitutional federal bureaucracy -- can't exist without us. Without the taxpayers. By strangling us, he'll end up strangling the federal government. It's simple mathematics. And whether through total systemic collapse or by booting his incompetent rear out of office in 2012, it will end.

Let's work to make it the latter.


Hat tip: TrendingRight.com