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Friday, September 21, 2012
Film Friday: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
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Con Law Scholar Russell Simmons Says It All
Said the rap fashionista: “It would be illegal to yell fire in a movie theater and it could be illegal to make [a] hate film which was obviously designed to cause alarm.” Here's an example of speech which should be illegal: “In America you'll never be free; Middle fingers up! F—k the police; Damn, can't a n----r just breathe?” Oh, wait. Wrong example. That one came from Simmons' new superstar rapper Nas. Nas is listed as one of President Obama's favorite performers and is on his I-pod.
Simmons has curried many rap stars, all of whom seem to have the same thoughts and the same foul vocabulary. Def Jam has made him the third richest rap music multi-millionaire. Def Comedy Jam on cable was the longest-running speed-swearing, cop-threatening, misogynistic “comedy” show in history. With the obscenities removed, the show was about three and a half minutes long. He and his recent ex-wife developed clothing lines called Baby Phat and Phat Farm (why the latter isn't Phat Pharm is beyond me). I think the lines were developed to teach young people how to spell.
But killing cops and raping women is nothing compared to an amateur video put together by a nutcase when it causes “alarm” for Muslims. In fact, it's so alarming that half the Middle East has gone up in flames over it, though it's unlikely that very many people ever saw it. But it was enough to stir Simmons up and call for the criminalization of “alarming” videos. Simmons didn't even attempt to define what comprises an alarming hate film, nor did he have any idea who would do the enforcing, and where they would get the legal authority to prosecute.
Obviously, Simmons is blissfully unaware that the only reason he and his “stars” aren't sitting in jail right now is the First Amendment. His recording collections include calls to urban rioting, killing public authorities, and raping and/or killing women. I don't know about you, but I find that alarming. Also, without the history of obscenity rulings that go back to the Earl Warren Court, the every-third-word f-bombs alone would put him and his stars in durance vile. Hate and violence are the core of gangsta rap, but we are required to consider that “art.”
Following his mentor's lead, Def Jam rap group The Roots' drummer, Quest Love, tweeted: “i was thinkin WE should not makin propaganda films that would endanger our country.” He was referring to the silly and obnoxious video attacking Mohammed. Perhaps some day Quest Love will inform us who “we” is. I didn't make it. You didn't make it. The government didn't make it. Nobody with an ounce of talent or common sense made it. But “we” shouldn't be doing it.
What Simmons and the Def Jam posse are telling us is that “alarming films” should be criminalized, and those connected with them jailed. Naturally, he or someone like him would be the unofficial arbiter of what is and is not alarming. Like the Obama administration, he believes that the Constitution, law and precedent are stumbling blocks inhibiting going after bad guys. Or at least what he defines as bad guys. Talk about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Wishing Will Make It So
This is what Brimmer had to say about the advent of the Obama era of peace and love. “At that time [January 2009], the United States faced serious questions about the future of our global engagement. We were deeply committed to two long and expensive wars, which hurt our ability to achieve other national goals and strained the fabric of global cooperation.” But now, everything is hunky-dory, and it's all because of the liberal agenda being run by the administration.
You can see the difference. Reagan generously offered the Soviet Union the technology for the Star Wars defense, just as long as they were willing to pay for it. He also met with Gorbachev and cheerfully told him that we had no intention of caving in to communist pressure. Against the advice of his staff and facing the enmity of foreign leaders, he installed cruise missiles in Europe. He told Gorbachev in Berlin to tear down the wall. Just after the end of his second administration, the evil empire collapsed.
On the other hand, Obama signed an agreement with Russia to reduce nuclear stockpiles without any verification procedures. He met with Medvedev (with Putin lurking in the background), and pleaded for Russia to be kind to him until after the next election so he could have four more years to kowtow to the Russian bear. Reagan bombed Libya. Obama led from behind, and managed to piss off just about all the Libyans without any corresponding demonstration of the power and will to prevent anti-American attacks. Reagan and Bush I both encouraged Polish independence from the Soviet Union prior to their presidencies, and both supported Poland as an ally. Obama sold out Poland and other Eastern European allies by canceling the plans for an Eastern European missile defense shield.
Reagan exercised America's power and determination worldwide, and though many nations resented and even hated him, they respected and feared him. They don't like Obama much better, but they neither fear nor respect him. At a meeting of world leaders a couple years ago to discuss world security and dangers, Obama wasn't even invited to attend, even though he was in the same hotel. He forced himself into the meeting, and was snubbed for the duration.
Reagan strengthened our alliances with the free world nations, becoming a personal friend of Britain's PM Margaret Thatcher. Obama has in one way or another insulted or betrayed our allies while bowing to the Saudi King and accommodating Islamists throughout the Middle East. Everyone knew where Reagan stood. Nobody, including Obama himself, knows where he'll be standing in the next five minutes.
Brimmer's tenure on the Human Rights Council advises her entire view of the strengthening of both the US and the UN. She truly believes that by joining the Council, America has made things better. Says Brimmer: “Since the U.S. joined, its leadership and collaboration with others has helped transform that body, into one that now regularly responds to pressing human rights situations with timely, concrete action.” Name one. She elaborates: “The Obama administration has succeeded in greatly reducing the HRC’s unfair bias against Israel, although more remains to be done.” No kidding.
All past presidents have announced our serious commitment to the continued existence of Israel, the only true liberal democracy in the Middle East. With the exception of Carter's lukewarm attitude and Obama's obeisance to Islamists, that is. Every President since Nixon has confirmed that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Obama says, “whoa, not so fast,” but backs down after a major brouhaha at the Democratic convention.
Obama certainly isn't the first president to be “engaged” in the Middle East and Jihadistan. All his immediate successors were to one extent or another. Some diplomatically, some militarily, but in either event Obama apologizes for our past actions. Even early president Thomas Jefferson sent Marines to the shores of Tripoli. Obama sent an ambassador to Benghazi amid 9-11 Muslim demonstrations, and nobody made sure the ambassador had an armed security guard. We all know the result.
Brimmer was woefully short on genuine examples of her thesis. So help her (and me) out here. Please give us some examples of how America is “more respected, more engaged, and more secure that it was prior to the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama.
I will be out of town for appointments from early morning to late afternoon. Please make your comments and have your debate in my absence. I'll respond as soon as I return.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Is Science Fiction A Genre?
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Why The Fake Polls?
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Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Naked Royal Flush
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Monday, September 17, 2012
Libya/Egypt: An Opportunity
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Will The Test Of Faith Come Early?
Rather than wait until a chaplain was disciplined for refusing to perform a same sex marriage, a group comprised largely of the Catholic Diocese for Military Service and the evangelical Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty sent a joint letter to the Department of Defense declaring that their priests and pastors will not perform these marriages. All Catholic chaplains are now forbidden to perform gay marriages, and 2,000 evangelical pastors have likewise declared their unalterable position against performing the ceremonies as chaplains.
So far, this has not become a true confrontation, since no chaplain has yet been ordered to perform a gay marriage, meaning that none have yet had to refuse. But as Bob Dylan said, “it doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Don't ask, don't tell (DADT) has been ended by executive order. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta first instituted a series of directives removing any traces of discrimination against homosexuals in the military. He followed up with encouraging military participation in gay pride celebrations.
So far, this has all meant that gay rights advocates are celebrating, gay rights opponents are upset, and people like me who don't much care either way are waiting for the other shoe to drop. That other shoe is the growing sentiment within the Obama administration to go beyond tolerance and equality and move on to direct interference with religious freedom. The first indication of pressure from the Obama White House came with the president's threat in May to veto a defense appropriations bill (HR 4310) which included a provision prohibiting the military from using military facilities for same sex marriage or marriage-like ceremonies. It would also have allowed chaplains to refuse to perform such ceremonies. The “offending” provisions were removed.
The next indication of how the Obama administration intends to push his gay agenda came with the official response to the Catholic/evangelical letter. It ordered that chaplains not read the entire letter as written to their congregants, and ordered that if the letter were to be read, it must be redacted so as to remove all references to chaplains refusing to perform same sex marriages. In other words, the letter would become meaningless.
Republicans in the Senate led by Jim Imhofe (Oklahoma) are now ready to propose legislation designed to protect military chaplains from being forced to act against their faith or face a military court martial. It's a preemptive strike, since we haven't gotten to that point yet. But even though I can't predict the outcome of the legislation, I support it. It doesn't try to reinstate DADT, nor does it attempt to ban gay marriage. It simply protects chaplains whose deep religious beliefs won't permit performing such marriages. It is not a solution without a problem. Foreseeing immediate or soon-to-be consequences are part of a conscientious legislator's job description.
The biggest flaw in the legislation is that it ties itself closely to the Defense of Marriage Act, which is itself under recent attacks from the White House and the Department of Justice. But whatever form such legislation might finally take, it is important that it be done. Gay marriage is busting out all over in the civilian arena, but the very first genuine test of religious freedom and conscience-driven opposition to the government may occur within the military.
Briefly, I have to re-state my position (which we have covered on this blog multiple times). I oppose gay marriage on religious grounds. But I also subscribe to the Constitution and secular government, and if the state wants to allow the trappings of marriage for same sex couples, so be it. It is not the joining of two people of the same sex by legal means that I oppose (though it does make me a bit queasy). It is strictly the religious aspect which troubles me deply. In the civilian arena, once gay marriage has become the order of the day, it will take years of litigation to reach the point that will be reached at a much earlier stage in the military. Allowing gay marriage is one thing, mandating that all chaplains perform them is quite another.
You see, each State will make its own determination of what a marriage is. The Supreme Court might even find that gay marriage is a federal civil rights issue and allow it without defining it. But when it comes to the military, enforcement would quickly be universal because of the nature of the military which expects orders to be followed. For good reasons, open dissent and free speech, so necessary in the civilian arena, are not particularly desirable in the military. For the time being anyway, it appears that the Obama administration would be more than willing to go from accepting gay marriage to celebrating gay marriage, to ordering the performance of such marriages by all military chaplains.
The substitution of the words of the First Amendment concerning religious freedom with vague “human rights” language leaves pastors, priests, rabbis and imams wide-open to the charge that by refusing to perform gay marriages, they are violating basic human rights. That problem will be attacked fifty different ways in fifty different states. But when it comes to the military, the rules and the objections will be the same throughout the various military branches. Each state sets its own rules, and the litigation would be multitudinous and complicated. But when it comes to the military, the rules are essentially monolithic. The Navy can't decide to require chaplains to perform gay marriages while the Army goes the other direction. They must all abide by the same rules and take their orders.
In the civilian arena, it is likely that many governments which institute gay marriage will do so in a way which starts out meaning, or is later amended to mean, that gay marriages have the same civil meaning, force and legal effect as traditional marriages, leaving individuals free to decide for themselves whether it is a valid religious ceremony. It will be lawyers and the courts that screw up that sensible solution by going into the “human rights” area, making a pastor's refusal to perform a gay marriage a human rights violation. It has already happened in Canada, and don't think it couldn't happen here.
In the military, policy and top-down orders stemming from changes in the Uniform Code of Military Justice would be a much different and much more immediate thing. Maintaining good order and discipline would be much less likely to cause so many different kinds of civil rights/human rights litigation, since good order and discipline are not major factors in civil litigation. For those reasons, I believe that Congressional action immediately following the defeat of Barack Obama in November could stave off further demoralization of our military. Gay marriage, OK. Forcing chaplains to perform them, not OK.
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Sunday, September 16, 2012
Four Dead? Party On!
I just had a thought. There's already a Vegas version of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and the Luxor pyramid. Why not a White House casino and entertainment center? It could include Obama animatrons making speeches, apologizing to Islamists, bowing to Arab royalty, and holding beer summits. Well, back to the topic.
Where better to mourn the death of four Americans and plan foreign policy than at a fundraising hip-hop event in Las Vegas? According to another stellar performer, Michelle Obama, the president doesn't need to be at the White House for major world events. She knows that The One dwarfs Thomas Jefferson in intellect and ability to absorb huge amounts of written material without any assistance. So having an encyclopedic knowledge of everything, including national security issues, can be done just as easily in Las Vegas as in Washington DC.
At the rally in Vegas, Barack Obama, foreign-policy-master-in-chief, said a few kind and dour words about the crisis in the Middle East, then joined the crowd in mutual chanting: “We love you.” “I love you.” “No, WE love You.” “No, I love YOU!” I haven't seen that much professed love since I accidentally wandered into the middle of a love-in in San Francisco in the 60s. Much finger-pointing at each other, and big grins and cheers. Apparently the crowd decided the crisis in the Middle East was already over. So did the Big Guy.
President Obama has attended fewer White House daily briefings than any former president in a comparable period of time. But he doesn't need to. The White House staff says that The One doesn't need to waste his time meeting with his national security advisers for the Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) because “he is one of the most sophisticated consumers of intelligence on the planet.” They took their lead from statements Obama himself made earlier: “I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters," Mr. Obama told Patrick Gaspard, his political director, at the start of the 2008 campaign, according to The New Yorker. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm going to think I'm a better political director than my political director.” Advisers? I don't need no stinking advisers!
That's one of the things I like most about Barack Obama. His modesty. As president, he doesn't need to participate in security briefings because he's so damned smart. Just like he didn't have to participate in any learned treatises while he was the editor of the Harvard Law Review. He doesn't need to communicate with others. He just knows. As the First Lady aptly pointed out, “he doesn't need to meet with the advisers because he reads every word, every memo, so he is better-prepared than the people briefing him.” Then she added “This man doesn't take a day off.” She forgot to add “except when he's golfing, loafing on Martha's Vineyard, surfing in Hawaii, or rapping in Las Vegas.”
Obama and his gang still seem to think that the Middle East riots are being caused by a half-assed video re-released on the internet in Jihadistan just before 9-11 (2012, not 2001). Maybe the daily briefs and memos were accidentally left behind at the White House (along with his advisers), so he hasn't read them all. It's hard to totally absorb a security brief that you haven't seen yet.
President John F. Kennedy once addressed a White House dinner honoring Nobel Prize laureates by saying that the dining room was filled with the greatest collection of human knowledge and talent in history, except for when Thomas Jefferson dined there alone. Well, move over JFK, you never got a load of Barack Obama.
Obama will return briefly to the White House (probably to devour all those national security briefings and ready his plans to save the world), and will then move on to the UN in New York for the latest gathering of cutthroats, dictators, international bureaucrats, and Islamist women's rights advocates. He has such a busy schedule that he simply won't be able to squeeze in a meeting with our only democratic ally in the Middle East, Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel. After all, as soon as he's done with the UN gang, he has to rush to the CBS studios to meet with his other national security adviser, David Letterman.
The Great (film) Debates vol. 53
I will follow the Commentarama Rules. I will follow the Commentarama Rules. I will follow the Commentarama Rules. I will follow the Commentarama Rules.What is your favorite Simpsons moment?
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Saturday, September 15, 2012
New York State of Mind[less] - Soda Wars Edition
So it finally happened this week. Mayor Doom...er...Bloomberg has gotten his way once again. Yes, this week, the New York City Board of Health voted to approve a ban on sugary drinks. Dubbed the "Soda War", it not only includes sugary sodas, but also tea and lemonade and pretty much any bottled soft drink containing more than 25 calories.
So here is how is supposed to work -
"Beginning March 12, [New York City] will prohibit restaurants, mobile food carts, delis and concessions at movie theaters, stadiums or arenas from selling sugary drinks in cups or containers larger than 16 ounces."
Here is what it won't do -
The ban does not include the following: sales in grocery stores, sugary fruit juices, dairy drinks, diet soda, unsweetened teas, multiple sales of 16oz sodas, or free refills in all the venues in which there is a ban. So, we will be able to go to McDonalds and Yankee Stadium and buy four 16oz Lemonades or get unlimited free refills, or to the organically-grown Whole Foods for a case of 64oz bottles of Coca-Cola or Pepsi. And included in the term "grocery stores" are the growing number of 7-Eleven stores, inventors of the Big Gulp and Super Big Gulp [see photo], opening all over the city.
Frankly, I do not have a problem with the City Health Department using taxpayer resources to warn the population on the dangers of too much sugar in sodas. We have a long and successful history of using public service announcements to inform and indoctrinate us to the evils of smoking, forest fires, littering, and to encourage the use of seat belts. But I really have a problem with this continued encroachment into our private choices. And if you think the Mayor Bloomberg will cease his campaign to fix us once his reign of terror ends, here is a quote from Bloomberg that should leave no doubt:
I can't wait to find out what his next target will be. I'm thinking it will probably be mandatory daily calisthenics for all city dwellers, or a ban on sharp pointy objects or elevators. Using the stairs is so much healthier...
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So here is how is supposed to work -
Here is what it won't do -
Frankly, I do not have a problem with the City Health Department using taxpayer resources to warn the population on the dangers of too much sugar in sodas. We have a long and successful history of using public service announcements to inform and indoctrinate us to the evils of smoking, forest fires, littering, and to encourage the use of seat belts. But I really have a problem with this continued encroachment into our private choices. And if you think the Mayor Bloomberg will cease his campaign to fix us once his reign of terror ends, here is a quote from Bloomberg that should leave no doubt:
"I just spent roughly $600 million of my own money to try and stop the scourge of tobacco, and I'm looking for another cause"
I can't wait to find out what his next target will be. I'm thinking it will probably be mandatory daily calisthenics for all city dwellers, or a ban on sharp pointy objects or elevators. Using the stairs is so much healthier...
Friday, September 14, 2012
TV Review: Face Off (2011-????)
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(P.S. I've added a Mission Statement at CommentaramaPolitics.)
Even Godless Communists Love God
Jones seems to have had some sort of epiphany somewhere along the line. Said he: “My advice is to the Democratic platform committee: Just pretend that the draft you submitted that didn’t have the word ‘God’ in it was just a draft, and in fact, the real draft was inclusive of people like myself who are people of faith, who are Christians, who go to church, and who are also progressive Democrats.” It's not my place to question Jones' sincerity, but when did he become a Christian? The best I can figure is that it has something to do with black liberation theology, which neatly combines Christ the Good Guy, race, religion and Marxism.
Jones contends that the clearly anti-religious thrice-taken vote on putting God back in the platform was the result of not being clever enough in the wording. It was an “unforced error and really quite foolish,” Jones said, adding that the Democrats “talk about faith all the time.” Well, so do Satanists, so what's his point? Jones is not the first to have the idea of obfuscating his real beliefs. He has a soul-mate in Prince Charles, heir-apparent to the British throne. One of the royal titles for the king of England is “defender of the faith.” Charles declared a couple decades ago (will that old woman ever die?) that he would take his kingly oath as “defender of faith.” Get it? Faith. Any faith, as long as it's faith.
Jones also added: “Dr. King was a Christian minister. Every Democrat loves Dr. King and celebrates him, and yet, somehow, we’re becoming this party where you can be spiritual but not religious. That’s gonna be the banner of the Democratic Party. It’s gonna leave out too many people.” Huh? So is it being Christian or being spiritual which will leave out too many people? But he did get in the obligatory reference to Martin Luther King, Jr. Maybe at the next convention they can have a mass séance instead of a public prayer.
Jones is indeed a man of faith. Except for faith in his own country. Good old Van is a 9-11 Truther. He has faith that our Islamist brethren have entirely clean hands, and that the destruction of the World Trade Center and the damage to the Pentagon was an inside job perpetrated by Bush war hawks and Jews. Since he and Obama are both Christians, but not very publicly so, I wonder if they attend the same
Those were just a few random thoughts for Friday, the day of prayer and protest.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
I'm Angry. Why Isn't The President Angry?
The State Department in Cairo responded to its attack by lecturing Americans on “hate speech” contained in an internet video which allegedly triggered the invasion of American soil in Egypt. That statement has since been withdrawn, but I don't care. It should never have been made in the first place. The default position of the Obama administration is to apologize, stuck in the mindset of asking “why do they hate us?” Well, let me answer that. They hate us because we're America. We're free. We respect the right of all religions to believe what they want to believe, and to practice their religion without interference from the state. And we tolerate offensive speech. Regardless of what the video may have said (I haven't seen it), our ambassadors and consular spokespeople should never, repeat never apologize for an American, however loathsome, who is exercising his First Amendment rights.
Better the ambassadorial staff had made no statement at all than to have apologized in a way which gave at least minimal support to the barbarians who invaded our embassy. The State Department didn't condone the attack, of course. But by using the anti-free speech announcement, it essentially said to the mob “you shouldn't have attacked our embassy, but we understand your anger.” That's just wrong, wrong, wrong. If any statement at all had been issued, it should have at least included the words “American territory has been attacked, and though we will do our best to work with the government of Egypt in stemming future attacks and punishing the perpetrators of this attack, we nevertheless are making it perfectly clear that every self-defense measure available to us will be used to prevent future invasions of American soil.”
The largest problem with the Obama administration is that it has been so solicitous of Arab and Islamic street thinking that the locals in Cairo simply didn't believe the Americans would defend their soil or take punitive action immediately. They were right on the former, and may be right on the latter. Mobs are like dogs. If you don't discipline them right after they commit their bad act, they don't make the connection when you discipline them later. In addition, American embassies should have sufficient contingents of Marines and other security personnel on site to protect the embassy and staff. The mob breached the walls of an American compound, and burned the American flag.
The Obama administration lives in a dream world of “democracy” and the “Arab spring.” In America's London embassy, two Marines and a part-time rent-a-cop are probably sufficient for embassy protection. But when our embassy staff is quartered in hostile territory, they need a lot more protection than that. Two things should guide this principle. First, London is not hostile territory, Cairo is. Second, the Brits are pretty damned good at keeping their citizens in proper behavioral mode. In Cairo the Muslim Brotherhood which now controls the government can't even control its own members, let alone fast-forming mobs filled with blood-lust for some real or imagined insult. In fact, in Cairo it's hard to separate the mob from the government (ask the Copts, if you don't believe me).
What provoked the Islamists in Cairo is still not entirely clear, but mounting evidence indicates that the deadly attack in Benghazi was planned, coordinated, and somewhat professionally carried-out. As evidence mounts, it seems the Benghazi attack had little or nothing to do with the offensive internet video which “insulted” Mohammed by offering facts. It is possible that the attack occurred only incidentally with the anniversary of 9-11. There are connections between the mob, revenge for the death of a major al Qaeda leader in June, and even the adherents of the blind cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman who is imprisoned in the US for participating in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Whether the Libyan government was itself involved remains a question to be answered definitively at a later time. There is an unverified story that the ambassador war taken to an emergency treatment area, and that Libyan security forces informed the mob that he was being moved to a hospital where he was subsequently murdered in cold blood. But one thing is clear. The Libyan security forces put on a short pretense of opposing the mob, then simply got out of its way. The result was an invasion and trashing of American soil and the death of four Americans, including the ambassador who had worked very hard to make friends of the Libyans and listen to their causes. It seems a rabid dog doesn't care if you've offered him food and shelter.
Like most people, I have daydreamed of being the President of the United States. But I'm not qualified, for multiple reasons. One of which is temperament. While Mr. Cool Obama issues dry, reasoned, empty words and empty threats which encourage the mob, bad-tempered me would be far too dangerously close to the nuclear trigger. What we need is a leader who can make it clear America will not tolerate attacks on American soil, and make it known to the enemy that we really mean it. We (and they) don't need details. The real pledge that the wrongdoers and all their enablers will be punished must be believable. And you can't defend an embassy or consulate with drones or apologies for being a nation which allows free speech.
The next step will be fussing over who was really behind the attacks. I'm going to go out on a limb here. In each and every case of attacks on America and Americans in the Middle East, there is one enemy—Islamism. I have done this before, but just in case somebody has read this and doesn't know exactly how I distinguish between Islam and Islamists, here it is. Islam is a religion, and like most religions, it has unique laws and rules, and would like to persuade everyone to become a Muslim. Not much different from evangelical Christianity. Islamism is the belief that Islam is the solution for all problems and the model that every society in the world must follow, and that the apparatus of the modern state must be applied to enforce Sharia law on everyone, everywhere.
Islamism is a zero-tolerance belief system. It won't tolerate other religions, civil/secular government, apostasy, or any “insult to Islam.” The solution to almost everything is to kill or enslave its perceived enemies. For the Islamist, the mere presence of an infidel institution in Muslim lands is an insult to Islam requiring death and/or destruction. That goes for Christian churches and American embassies. Al Qaeda has its roots in hatred of the presence of American troops and legations in Saudi Arabia, the home of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina.
The administration and its mainstream media hacks attacked Mitt Romney for criticizing the State Department's Egyptian “free speech” statement. Too early, they say. Using a serious crisis as a political tool, they say. Aw, hooey. It's never too early to tell politically-correct fools to quit apologizing for America's right of free speech instead of condemning an attack on American soil. It's never too early to say we must not let terrorists have a free rein. Whether they are right or not, it is hugely refreshing to see an American candidate for the presidency get angry about the loss of American lives and destruction of American property. Or call it righteous indignation. Obama has demonstrated neither so far.
Since I'm too hot-tempered to be President, I strongly suggest a vote for Mitt Romney, who at least has the decency to call an Islamist an Islamist and to get angry when Americans are killed and America's flag is burned on American embassy soil. Nobody is suggesting that American forces should go about shooting suspected terrorists willy-nilly (which is the line the mainstream media will take about Romney). But whatever threat Obama may make will fall on deaf ears because our enemies simply don't believe he has the backbone to follow his words with actions other than drone strikes. Romney at least looks and sounds believable.
Given what we know as I write this article, I have said what I think about the new crisis in the Middle East. I invite all our readers to do the same. I don't pretend to have a quick solution, and “nuke 'em” or “send in the troops” hasn't even entered my mind. Obama's response is to evacuate all diplomats and staff from Benghazi and Tripoli. I also recognize that new revelations are likely to emerge even by the time this article publishes. Feel free to point them out and include them in your comments.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Guest Review: Mission to Mars (2000) vs. Red Planet (2000)
With Mars in the news once again, I thought it might be a good time to take a look back at the two Mars films that graced the silver screen in the year 2000: Brian De Palma’s Mission to Mars and Antony Hoffman’s Red Planet. Neither film is very good but Mission to Mars is the bigger disappointment, having set its sights far higher. One thing is certain: the definitive Mars movie has yet to be made. Let’s start with Mission.
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Why Capitalism Has A Bad Reputation
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Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Politico: "Obama Falls Flat"
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With Friends Like Obama, Who Needs Enemies?
Obama, and particularly his senior adviser, David Axelrod, didn't hesitate to contact Gallup to complain, including veiled threats to publicly discredit the Gallup organization if it didn't change its polling methods (to put Obama back in the lead). Axelrod didn't object to Gallup consistently over-sampling Democrats. His complaint was that Gallup used “out-of-date” methodology in the form of the questions asked to reach the poll results. Axelrod damned Gallup for asking questions in such a way as to produce negative reactions toward Obama. Just for the record, the poll concluded that Romney led Obama 48%-43%, a figure even hardcore Republicans found dubious.
But rather than wait to see if the voters (i.e. Democrats) might come to their senses in the next poll, the pit bulls at the White House went to work, with Axelrod as their point man. Axelrod started out tamely enough, sending e-mails to Gallup indicating his displeasure and pointing out a somewhat negative analysis of Gallup methodology done by a political science professor writing at The National Journal.
The civility didn't last long. When Gallup refused to change its polling methods immediately, Axelrod started threatening. He demanded that a high-level Gallup executive report immediately to the White House to explain Gallup's failure to use the methodology that Axelrod preferred. Gallup refused to comply with the royal summons. Though still indicating that Gallup was willing to discuss possible changes, the pollsters refused to kowtow to the White House gang, and that caused Axelrod to turn implied threats into real threats.
Axelrod let Gallup know in no uncertain terms that the White House would do whatever was necessary to force Gallup into following the straight Chicago-thug line. A little background into what that threat actually meant is required.
Back in 2009, a Gallup employee, relying on the protection of the relatively-new “whistleblower” statute sued Gallup for terminating his services after he publicly accused Gallup of overcharging the government for targeted polling work. That lawsuit has been in the early to mid-litigation stages ever since. The lawsuit was largely unknown to the public, and thus would have had little or no national impact. None, that is, unless the government itself became directly and visibly involved. From the time of the Axelrod-Gallup confrontation, that lawsuit was thereafter a veiled threat.
Axelrod's calculation was that if all other forms of intimidation didn't work to bring Gallup to heel, a government intervention in the lawsuit on the side of the “poor whistleblower” against the miscreant Gallup organization would serve a dual purpose. It would make the White House look like a hero in joining the little guy's battle against a big corporation, and at the same time could be used as “proof” that Gallup was trying to squelch any criticism of its methodology which showed Obama trailing Romney.
In late July, after failing to get Gallup to do what the government told it to do, Axelrod quietly told Attorney General to get his political lawyers to work, and the Department of Justice subsequently joined as a party to the whistleblower's lawsuit, taking it out of the private realm and into the governmental realm. The DOJ joined in the plaintiff's allegations that Gallup had committed violations of the False Claims Act by billing the government for services it did not render, or rendered incompetently. In addition, just in case Gallup didn't get the message, the complaint was amended to include specific charges of bilking the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The lawsuit doesn't mention that the original complainant, Michael Lindley, was an Obama campaign operative in 2008, and had ever since bitched to his bosses at Gallup whenever was heard a discouraging word about The One. Up until the publication of Lindley's original allegations, Gallup had considered him to be more a nuisance than a threat. The whistleblower statute is designed to protect an employee from being fired or disciplined for making damaging facts public after attempting to have the company itself reveal those facts. It was not designed to protect the employee from making his opinions public while collecting a paycheck from the company he is “exposing.”
Lindley was publicly attacking his employer for using methods he didn't like, but within that framework, had stated no facts that would indicate that Gallup had done anything either illegal or far outside the standards within the industry. Gallup reacted accordingly. Axelrod has set in motion the awesome power of the federal government to punish a pro-Democratic company for not being pro-Obama enough. He has bootstrapped a contentious in-house lawsuit into what we all call “a federal case.”
This is the “Chicago Way” that Mayor Rahm Emanuel so strongly supports. Turn every minor family dispute into a national cause celebre. All politically-savvy political watchers and participants know you occasionally have to beat your opponent over the head. But only the Chicago pols think that punishing your friends and family for minor deviations in orthodoxy and group-think deserve a public and expensive thrashing. On the other hand, I can think of several past and present foreign governments which depended on just such actions. They were not and are not democratic governments. As a final note, I offer the old saying: “A fish rots from the head down.”
Note: Today is the anniversary of the terrorist attack on New York City and the Pentagon. I have it in my heart and on my mind at all times. We must never forget. My prayer is that the terrorists do not have plans to celebrate the anniversary with another attack on innocent civilians.
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Monday, September 10, 2012
GM Is Alive. ALIVE!
Dr. Frankenstein, aka Vice President Joe Biden reminded us at the Democratic Convention that GM is alive, and bin Laden is dead. Both true, to a certain extent. Bin Laden is dead, period. GM is alive, but on life support, artificially buoyed-up by government subsidies and government favoritism. The people who now control the corporation are the unions which were the source of GM's failure in the first place, and government bureaucrats deciding on which products should be on the market regardless of what the public wants. The bondholders who actually put their money into the company were cut out of the reorganization, and the outrageous union pensions were preserved.
So, how about them Volts, folks? They cost +/- $41,000 to build. They sell for +/- $41,000. So it's an even deal, right? Well, not quite. Using money borrowed from the taxpayers (only half of which has been returned), GM is spending millions of dollars to promote the Volt. So it's losing money—big time. Why does this remind me of the old joke about the TV used car pitchman? “We lose money on every car we sell!” Well, then how do you stay in business? “Volume!”
OK, then how about that “volume?” There isn't any. Purchasers are exiting Volt showrooms in droves. Beside the miserable sales, there is the small problem of Volts occasionally going up in flames because of a poorly-designed battery compartment. Never daunted, GM has spent more borrowed taxpayer money ($10.4 million more, to be exact) to build a Volt plant and put more union employees with outrageous pension benefits to work. No matter how much the gummint and the green weenies may try to convince the public otherwise, there's not much of a market for a car that gets only thirty-five miles to a twelve-hour charge. That won't get me halfway to civilization, and there aren't any charging stations on our mountain roads.
Well, maybe we should just count the Volt as a “loss leader” which props up an otherwise healthy corporation. Yeah, sure. Even liberal economists admit that the $82 billion auto stimulus will lose the taxpayers somewhere between $40 billion and $50 billion. About half of that loss can be attributed to re-funding GM's United Auto Workers union employee pensions and benefits. That is attributable largely to the Obama administration's insistence that the unions had to be protected to the detriment of the bondholders (that is an essentially unlawful act, comparable in effect on the taxpayers to the deal struck in the Solyndra bankruptcy). The inmates are truly in charge of the asylum.
Meanwhile, the administration insisted that GM had to get “leaner and meaner.” One of those efforts involved closing dealerships. Coincidentally, the vast majority of the dealerships closed were owned and operated by Republicans, employing as many as 100,000 workers and sales staff. As part of the reorganization, pensions were completely or partially cut off. But not for the union employees. The disappearing pensions occurred only at GM subsidiary Delphi (GM's major parts supplier), and Delphi was largely non-union (another 20,000 workers).
As bad as all that is, we can live with a revitalized General Motors which will now start adding large numbers of new American workers entering the work force. Or will it? The current GM business plan includes building new plants and hiring thousands of new employees—in China, Russia and Indonesia. That would be fine if the major emphasis were still on domestic production and hiring. But there are no new plants or major hiring in the American part of the formula. Just preservation of the status quo.
So the next time a Democrat crows to you about Obama “saving” GM, let him explain exactly what it is that Obama actually saved. In the long run, what we have is a union-owned government-controlled and subsidized GM and a Chrysler Corporation owned by the Italians. Other than overpaid and over-pensioned union employees, nothing worthwhile has been saved.
Mitt Romney, not Barack Obama, was right. Both corporations should have gone into genuine bankruptcy, and let the market and demand decide their respective fates. Far too many people who should know better think that bankruptcy=corporate death. Far from it. The main purpose of most large bankruptcies is to do what is necessary to make the corporations viable again. It includes belt-tightening, streamlining of the modes of production and marketing of the product, producing a better product than the competitors at a price that consumers can afford, and most of all, relief from the hideous union pensions and benefits packages foolishly granted during boom times. All without federal taxpayer subsidies. Had that been done, GM would have survived to fight another day. And if it didn't do what needed to be done during the reorganization, it would ultimately fail, as all inefficient businesses finally do.
If you're looking for a good comparison, consider this. Obama took a failed corporation and temporarily revived it with huge infusions of taxpayer money, totally disregarding all the flaws which caused GM to fail, and adding insane government-imposed “green” requirements on top. When the subsidies stop, and the bailout money dries up, GM is on a course for ultimate collapse. On the other hand, there is Mitt Romney, Bain Capital, and Steel Dynamics, Inc. Romney took a bankrupt company, did what needed to be done to restore it to profitability, and today, without government subsidies or government interference, Steel Dynamics is one of the largest, and clearly the most efficient of America's steel companies.
But you won't hear that from Obama or the mainstream media. They're too busy blaming Romney for the felonious death of the wife of an Obama-favored corporate “victim of vampire capitalism” resulting from the closure of GST Steel. GST simply couldn't be made either profitable or survivable. At the same time, they're too busy touting the administration's big lies about the wild success of General Motors.
Romney Flip-flops To Position He Always Held!
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