Wow, that stunk. I really thought it would be better. . . so much better.What film disappointed you most?
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms
Sunday, September 30, 2012
The Great (film) Debates vol. 55
Wow, that stunk. I really thought it would be better. . . so much better.What film disappointed you most?
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Now Introducing....
Let's see. What can we talk about this afternoon? Well, we can ponder how over 70 students were caught cheating at the elite Stuyvesant High School in NYC and how the students justify it. Or we could talk about how the the Speaker of the NY State Assembly Sheldon Silver (D/Manhattan) used tax payer dollars to pay off a victim of our own serial sex offender slash State Legislator Vito Lopez (D/[expletive]). Naah, I think I'd rather talk about my new puppy.
I would like to introduce you to Hugo Chi-vez, my new 5-month old Chihuahua. So far he has not lied, cheated, or wasted one penny of taxpayer money, though he has had his way with a roll of toilet paper...
Here is his new bed...[note the "Dallas Cowboy" t-shirt in the corner. Yes, he has a t-shirt. Don't judge me...]
Many of you are long-time dog owners, so any advice you can give me on how to raise a healthy and happy dog will be much appreciated. Okay, cat owners can participate if you want because we do not discriminate here at Commentarama and cats are people too [and because Miss Kitty Kelly may be reading over LawHawk's shoulder]
FYI - I am currently in Texas picking up my new puppy and spending the afternoon eating Fletcher's Corny Dogs at the State Fair of Texas. I will be responding sporadically, but please feel free to change the subject Commentarama-style!
[+] Read More...
I would like to introduce you to Hugo Chi-vez, my new 5-month old Chihuahua. So far he has not lied, cheated, or wasted one penny of taxpayer money, though he has had his way with a roll of toilet paper...
Here is his new bed...[note the "Dallas Cowboy" t-shirt in the corner. Yes, he has a t-shirt. Don't judge me...]
FYI - I am currently in Texas picking up my new puppy and spending the afternoon eating Fletcher's Corny Dogs at the State Fair of Texas. I will be responding sporadically, but please feel free to change the subject Commentarama-style!
Man Bites Dog--Sort Of
But it might show up in the fashion section. It is common practice in both Saudi Arabia and Iran (and parts of Afghanistan) for the “moral police” to lecture women who appear on the street in less-than acceptable head-to-toe coverings. In the city of Shamirzad, Iran, one woman had just apparently had enough. When the local busybody cleric told her that she was not sufficiently covered, she looked him in the eye (not a good idea) and told him if he didn't like the way she was dressed, he should close his eyes.
The cleric, one Hojetoeslam Ali Beheshti, later reported to the government-supported newspaper Mehr that he continued to admonish the woman (as yet unidentified in the press). She wasn't having any of it. The more he lectured, the more she clenched her fists. “ Not only didn’t she cover herself up, but she started shouting and threatening me.” But being a good protector of the public morals, the cleric kept it up. At that point, she hauled off and clocked him.
Down he went, as the cleric describes: “She pushed me and I fell to the ground on my back. From that point on, I don’t know what happened. I was just feeling the kicks of the woman who was beating me up and insulting me.” By now this is becoming a juicy story, but it doesn't say much for the manliness of Iranian morality enforcers. He ticked her off so badly that he spent three days in the hospital. Who says violence doesn't solve anything?
The story was picked up by a correspondent from Radio Free Europe named Golnaz Esfandiari. After the obligatory “we don't condone violence” nonsense, Esfandiari, herself an Iranian woman, confirmed at least the general details of the story. She also told of how she had experienced similar treatment on numerous occasions while living in Iran. She even came close to sympathizing with the pent-up rage that a large number of Iranian women feel over being required to cover every part of their bodies except their eyes (in some regions, even the eye-slit must be semi-opaque).
Esfandiari went on to elaborate: “As a woman who grew up in Iran and was harassed many times for appearing in public in a way that was deemed un-Islamic, I understand the frustration that that woman in Semnan Province must have felt and why she lashed out at the cleric. For the past 30 years, Iranian women have been harassed by the morality police, security forces, and zealots over their appearance.” Prior to the Islamic Revolution, sophisticated Iranian women were noted for their Parisian sense of fashion. The older women remember, and the younger ones yearn for the freedom to look that way themselves.
Clashes between Iranian women (dressed very conservatively by Western standards) and the no-skin-showing police are becoming relatively common, according to Esfandiari, who still visits Iran frequently. The most common mode of dress that brings the morality police to a state of excitation is western-style jeans, combined with three-quarter length blouse sleeves,topped with a head scarf. Somewhat more conservative than the average twenty-something church-goer in America. Most of the young women insist that the Koran commands “modesty,” not head-to-toe coverings. But the easily-aroused clerics aren't buying it. The sight of a woman's wrist or ankle (let alone her lips) is just simply too much for a good Islamist to bear without turning into a raving sexual beast. The hijab, after all, is a rape-preventative, not an insult to or clothing slavery for women.
The reason I say I had to laugh ironically is that this story is very unlikely to end here. The cleric himself says it was “one of the worst days of his life,” but is willing to forgive and forget. Not so for the local police who are investigating the woman for religious violations as well as a charge similar to assault and battery. The chief prosecutor for the province calls the incident a “public beating.” I guess by a strict legal definition, it is. But if the cleric had done the beating, and the woman put in the hospital for dressing in a “provocative” manner, it would have been business as usual.
Note: I will be "babysitting" for six of my grandkids in Bakersfield on Saturday and most of Sunday while my daughter is attending a conference in Sacramento. I'll try to sneak in a few computer sessions, but if I don't respond as quickly as usual to your comments, please bear with me.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Film Friday: Real Steel (2011)
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms
All Holy Men Are Equal
At the United Nations General Assembly opener this week, we were treated to a speech from Mahmoud Imadinnerjacket, leader of Iran, who repeated that Israel must be wiped off the face of the map. Also appearing was Barack Hussein Obama, Apologist-in-Chief for the Western world. Making his first appearance before the Assembly was the new leader of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi. Morsi declared that Egypt doesn't much like violence, but understood the anger of the people who attacked the American embassy in Cairo.
Of course the big flap is about that fourth character in the illustration. Morsi said the following: “I condemn insults hurled on the Prophet of Islam, You-Know-Who,” and demanded that the UN immediately do something about those who do hurl those insults. He went on to say: “We reject this, we cannot accept this. And we will be the opponents of those who do this. We will not allow anyone to do this by word or deed.” The word “anyone” appears in the official UN translation of Morsi's speech, though it was not contained in the written version of the prepared speech handed out in advance.
Morsi announced that there is "an organized campaign against Islamic sanctities." He went on to say that the U.N. has a "main responsibility" in addressing Islamophobia, which "is starting to have implications that clearly affect international peace and security." He pleaded with the Assembly to pass resolutions which would punish “blasphemy” against all religions and religious figures. Wink, wink.
Says Morsi: "Egypt respects freedom of expression -- freedom of expression that is not used to incite hatred against anyone, not a freedom of expression that targets a specific religion or a specific culture; a freedom of expression that tackles extremism and violence, not the freedom of expression that deepens ignorance and disregards others.” In other words, a “freedom” which sounds very much like Barack Obama's liberal version of “hate speech.” Obama also opined from the UN pulpit that nobody should hurl insults at the Prophet Mohammed (OK, I let the cat out of the bag about the identity of the fourth figure).” This time he used the expression “the Prophet of Islam,” but more often he simply uses “the Prophet Mohammed.” He has called the Muslim call to prayer the most beautiful thing he has ever heard.
All of which brings me to the point of my mini-rant. What's with this “Prophet Mohammed” stuff? The president of the United States uses it, his administration uses it, and the mainstream media use it. When they speak of Jesus, do they add “Son of God, Savior?” When they speak of the traditional Western “God,” do they say “Yaweh, King of the Universe?” When they quote Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, do they say “the divine apostles of Jesus Christ?” When Jesus is put on the cross and dipped in urine, or the Virgin Mary is depicted covered in elephant dung, do they demand that the UN do something about it or else? And how about that Smithsonian Institution display showing Christ on the cross covered in ants? We don't behead people over these “works of art” or burn down buildings. Instead, we us public funds to support them. We can't say the same of depictions of the “Prophet Mohammed.”
Whatever else Mohammed may have been, he is only a prophet to those who follow the “religion of peace.” Ignoring the current violence and the Islamist view of jihad, do any of these “Prophet Mohammed” non-Muslim people find it blasphemous that the Koran denies the divinity of Jesus Christ? Those who conflate “God, Jehovah, Yaweh, and Allah” as different manifestations of the same god know nothing about theology, history or the derivation of the very basis of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim god.
We who believe in persuasion and the Constitution may criticize angry and violence-inducing attacks on any figure a world religion holds sacred, but we don't demand respect for our religion only, nor do we expect non-Christians or non-Jews to have the same view of and respect for our holy figures that we hold. So why do our elected officials and mainstream media find it necessary to honor the man Mohammed as “the Prophet” while not paying the same courtesies to our holy men and women? Why is it “free speech” and “art” when a work is entitled “Piss Christ,” but dangerous speech which should be suppressed if it merely refers to a criticism of Mohammed, or worse, actually does a physical depiction of him?
I certainly have an opinion on each of those questions. How about you?
Thursday, September 27, 2012
More Than One Kind Of Freedom
And then it dropped like a stone.
Since 2009, the economic freedom index for America in the world has dropped from twelfth place to eighteenth place. The most recent drop was when the last two industrialized nations dropped their integrated capital gains/corporate tax rates to a level below America's, which are now the developed world's highest rates. A recently published joint report from the Canadian Fraser Institute and the American Cato Institute is rather damning. Before anyone jumps on me, I am fully aware that both institutes are conservative/libertarian. But that affects their political side. When they crunch numbers and prepare correlations, their statistics are as good as anyone's.
Here is how they define economic freedom for purposes of the study: “Individuals have economic freedom when property they acquire without the use of force, fraud, or theft is protected from physical invasions by others and they are free to use, exchange, or give their property as long as their actions do not violate the identical rights of others. An index of economic freedom should measure the extent to which rightly acquired property is protected and individuals are engaged in voluntary transactions.”
The size of American government has grown by leaps and bounds, mostly to regulate or “assist” business and protect the environment. The legal structure, particularly during the Obama years, attacks private property and contract rights from every direction. Sound monetary policy which protects the nation's solvency and predictability has gone down the drain. Regulatory agencies (such as the Environmental Protection Agency) are having far too much influence on business and personal decisions. For instance, a landowner ought to be able to build a house on his own property without worrying that the EPA will suddenly decide it's a wetland which must be left in its pristine state.
The government has accelerated its statist march with bailouts, funded by already-burdened taxpayers and designed to favor businesses which are cozy with the government and the government's agendas. The use of eminent domain to determine economic outcomes rather than the traditional need for public spaces makes for over-cautious investment decisions. Even the so-called “war on terror” has had its effect. Not so much because the increased need for security requires increased money, but more because the government wants to retain much of the machinery for itself (the Transportation Security Administration, for example).
Unions play a part in this as well. They were a major cause for the collapse of General Motors and Chrysler Corporation. Rather than allow GM to go into bankruptcy, and either emerge better than ever or lose out because it didn't fix its business practices, the government took over the decisions for one of America's major industries. The “too big to fail” nonsense has now been translated into “GM is alive and bin Laden is dead.” That's only because the federal government didn't throw bad money after worse to rescue bin Laden. Considering its debts, its financial policies, its support with taxpayer money, and the federal subsidies of cars nobody wants, GM's day of reckoning is still to come. The walking dead, as it were. The big banks are in a similar situation, though unions do not play as large a part.
Not that long ago, a young, determined, fiscally-sound entrepeneur could form a basic business plan, put the money together, find a location, and open his new business within a matter of months, or even just weeks. Today, he deals with multiple layers of government, each wanting a piece of his business decision-making. An environmental impact report alone can take months to years, and there's no guarantee that the regulatory agency won't change the rules even after the business owner has complied with the original rules. Food and safety rules have gone from “be reasonable” to “you have to provide entrances and facilities for companion mini-horses." Elaborate and “dignified” handicapped facilities must be provided rather than simple entrances which will accommodate a person in a wheelchair or on crutches.
Complicated payroll taxes and the minimum wage must be considered. With today's volatile economic conditions, many potential employers are simply not hiring, are terminating employees, or moving full time employees to part-time status because they simply can't determine in a fiscally-sound manner what the future holds. Ditto for business investors. Obamacare alone has turned a bad economic situation into a potential massive disaster. About the only people benefiting from this are lawyers, accountants, and big corporation cronies of the administration. The middle class that the Democrats claim to love is being eviscerated. The government simply needs to back off and let the free market and the involved individuals make the decisions.
So who are those countries with more economic freedom than America? Glad you asked. The top ten that both institutes agree on are (from best to least): Hong Kong (still technically part of mainland China), Singapore, New Zealand, Switzerland, Canada, Bahrain, Mauritius, Finland, Chile and Denmark. There was a time, well within my lifetime, when America was so far out in front that the others were almost irrelevant. Several of the top ten are nations which only recently Americans would have laughed at because of their huge social welfare obligations. As they move toward economic freedom, America moves the other direction. At least until January, 2013, I hope.
Ve Vant To Ask You Some Qvestions!
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaPolitics
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Scott's Links September 2012
Scott roams the internet far and wide to ply his trade as a link dealer. Fortunately, Scott provides links free to us. Check these out. . . share your thoughts! And away we go. . .Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms
Somebody Think Of The Children!
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaPolitics
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
More Campaign News
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaPolitics
I Can View The White House From Here
An incumbent president may be a candidate for reelection, but he remains the president. The only thing which would have been purely political is if Obama had actually conducted the private meeting with Morsi while continuing to ignore Netanyahu. Rather than be presidential and meet with both leaders, Obama took the coward's way out, and will meet with neither. Obama's official mouthpiece
Well, no it isn't. Of the past four American presidents who attended the UNGA’s fall event while campaigning for re-election, only one held no bilateral meetings on the event sidelines. George H. W. Bush did not meet with foreign leaders during the UN fall event, largely because he was being criticized for his economic policies and decided that if he held meetings with foreign dignitaries at the UN, it would look as if he were more concerned with foreign policy than domestic policy. But it wasn't an act of avoidance of foreign policy.
George W. Bush met with the leaders of India, Japan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq at the 2004 UNGA event. In 1996, Bill Clinton met with the Japanese prime minister, and even signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In 1984, President Reagan met with the prime minister of Argentina, the exiled king of Cambodia, and held a confab with Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko – Reagan’s first meeting since taking office with a leader of the country he had just recently called the “evil empire.”
All of the presidents, including Obama, did (or will) meet with the UN Secretary-General, including Bush I. For Obama's predecessors, the meeting was pro forma, since the UN is the S-G's “home.” They would be rude guests if they did not at least press the flesh with the titular head of the UN. Obama will do so for that reason, plus his own personal belief that one-world leaders are worth more time than quarrelsome, self-interested heads of individual nations. Like Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, Obama is largely a worthless figurehead who believes that speeches are more important than actions. Kindred spirits.
Maybe it's just all a matter of Obama wanting to be present at the UN to hear the speech by Iranian thug Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, on Yom Kippur of all days. Obama has responded to questions about Israel and Iran by calling it "noise" to which he doesn't pay much attention. Well, let's move on.
Whoopi Goldberg will abandon her discussions of rape-rape, and lob softballs at Michelle. Barbara Walters might even conclude with “be good to us, Mr. President.” Since there will be no actual reporters present to ask hard questions, Obama might use this face time to 'fess up that he knows that the vast majority of the current violence in the Middle East was orchestrated in advance and had little or nothing to do with the obscure amateur videotape which "defamed Mohammed." This will be Obama's fifth appearance on The View, about equal to how often he has met with his own security council and economic advisers.
And finally, we have former Obama mouthpiece Robert Gibbs. Saving Carney's bacon as much as Obama's, Gibbs appeared on several TV shows on Sunday to reinforce the avoidance agenda. “They have telephones in the White House. Last week, he talked to the president of Egypt, he talked to the leader in Libya. We don’t need a meeting in Washington just to confer with leaders. This isn’t just about one meeting on one particular day in New York. The president is actively involved in engaging the most dangerous places in the world, every single day of the week.”
I'm glad to hear that Gibbs is aware of telephones. But his only experience with a president and meetings with foreign leaders is what he was fed for pre-staged press conferences. There is no substitute for face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball contact with the other guy in a private room, unattended by anybody but the two parties to the conversation. Winning poker players can tell you that watching every move and twitch of your opponent is as important as a good hand.
By the time you read this, the Obamas' View appearance will already have happened. Let me know what you think, including how close I got to what would happen at the meeting of the deficient minds.
Monday, September 24, 2012
Death In Very Small Doses
The proposition has many supporters, some of whom were earlier involved in reinstating the California death penalty in 1978, and even the author of an amendment which added additional crimes to the list of capital offenses. Though many supporters of the proposition are simply anti-death penalty, the number of those who still believe in the death penalty but are supporting the proposition is surprising. Unless you consider their reasoning.
To start with, there are 725 offenders on death row who have been convicted since the death penalty was reinstated in 1978. But in all that time, only thirteen have actually been executed. Nature, circumstances and the assistance of other states have been more effective than the penalty itself. Fifty-seven have died of natural causes. Six have died from other causes or at the hands of fellow inmates. Twenty have died from suicide. One was executed in Missouri (that's one way of solving California's prison overcrowding problem). Currently, the executions have been on hold since one judge decided in 2006 that lethal injection might cause discomfort before it caused death.
So for thirteen actual executions, the special death row facilities have cost the people of the state of California $2 billion since 1978, according to the nonpartisan California Commission on the Fair Adminsitration of Justice. The Commission also concludes that multiple, repeat, and redundant, but often successful appeals have cost the taxpayers another $2 billion. Meanwhile, the families and friends of the victims get little closure as the remaining 700 or so death row inmates await appeals. Most experts calculate the chances of any more executions occurring in California at near zero. So instead of seeing the law carried out, the families and friends cringe at the thought of reduced sentences or even release of the murderers of their loved ones.
Justice delayed is justice denied. Yeah, we have to give convicted murderers their day in court, but does it have to take twenty or thirty years? Over such lengthy periods of time, justice is denied to the families and to the people of the state of California. Art imitates life. A very popular TV show called The Closer starred Kyra Sedgwick as an oddball deputy Los Angeles police chief who regularly solved murders resulting in the death penalty. This season, Sedgwick is gone, the series renamed Major Crimes and Sedgwick's replacement, Mary McDonnell as the head of the unit seeks to get convictions resulting in life without parole. Why? Because it's cheaper, more likely to be accepted by a jury, and the appellate process is far less convoluted and less subject to creative lawyering.
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders recently wrote a column opposing Prop 34. On the Chronicle pages, Mark Klaas, father of kidnapped, tortured and murdered daughter Polly Klaas, says that the death penalty ultimately stops the nefarious activities of death row inmates. Polly's killer, Richard Allen Davis, has his own website. He has correspondence with young girls who don't understand what Davis did to Polly, and think of him as some sort of Justin Bieber of death row. Davis also shows his arts and crafts and personal photos on the website, hoping that enough people will see them to create a groundswell for getting him off death row.
Klaas and Saunders also argue that the death penalty results in plea deals for life without parole that would no longer be incentivized if the death penalty were repealed. Currently, life without parole is the backdown bargaining position of prosecutors in capital cases. Without the death penalty, the bargaining position would be backing down to a lesser charge which allows for parole.
I believe in the death penalty. But I also live in the real world, and have been an insider in the wonderful world of legal trickery. Though I have not yet made up my mind on Prop 34, I simply can no longer dismiss such legislation as being foolish heart-over-head liberal pap. Better a clear, and essentially final sentence of life without parole than a death sentence which will cost time, money, sorrow, and yet have little chance of ever being carried out.
So help me out here. What do you think? What are the death penalty statutes in your states, and how often are they actually applied? Each state is different, and California is not alone. In Pennsylvania, vile cop-killer Mumi Abu-Jamal finally wore the system down after thirty years of frivolous, lengthy and unsuccessful appeals. The state finally decided in December of 2011 simply to commute his sentence to life without parole to spare the wife and kids of the murdered police officer any further agony and the state any further expense of appeals.
97 Days To Taxmageddon!
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaPolitics
[+] Read More...
Sunday, September 23, 2012
March Of The Solyndra Clones
It's one of those classic examples of "it looked good on paper." To make the public feel good about action in the House, and probably to zap the administration, the authors gleefully nicknamed the legislation "The No More Solyndras Act." Sounds good, huh? Come January 1, 2013, there will no longer be a federal program to buoy up shaky and insolvent renewable/green energy schemes like Solyndra.
Small problem, there is still $34 billion dollars in approved green energy authorizations sitting at the Department of Energy, and any company which applied or will apply before January 1 will be eligible for the money. The parallels to Solyndra are downright frightening, especially since the Obama administration simply will not nix a project it considers “good for the environment” regardless of the likelihood of success and/or the actual environmental results.
The first and best example is an approved $2 billion application for a loan to build a uranium enrichment program. The company is United States Enrichment Company, which has already frittered away a previous $100 million loan (chump change by today's standards). Just like Solyndra, there are multiple indications that USEC is near insolvency, and has received a de-listing notice from the New York Stock Exchange.
Other questionable approvals include fifteen solar projects, at least ten wind projects, $8.3 billion for a nuclear reactor project in Georgia, $2 billion for a liquid coal project in Wyoming, and $1.7 billion for a coal gasification project in Indiana. In all, there are approximately fifty pre-approved projects waiting for the money to be distributed. Instead of concentrating on available fuel projects awaiting approval with no federal subsidies, the administration is approving applications for untried and unproven methods of producing “green energy/renewable energy” projects managed by companies of dubious fiscal reputation.
The simple rule here is that if there is money set aside, the government will spend it. Moreover, the Obama administration has proven it is very generous with the taxpayers money so long as the project fits the pie-in-the-sky green energy agenda, and the companies involved have been major contributors to Obama's election campaigns. At least some of the proposals include wording that favors private preferred management/investors over the taxpayers in the event of a company failure. Where have we heard that before?
If you remember, I've written before about Rep. Tom McClintock, my former Representative in Simi Valley/Ventura County who is now the Republican Representative in Congress from California's Fourth Congressional District (hundreds of miles north of Simi Valley). McClintock is one of the few remaining true movement conservative members of the California Republican Party. He attempted to warn his fellow Republicans about the new legislation, but his entreaties fell on deaf ears.
McClintock offered an amendment to the legislation which would have terminated the loan program entirely and immediately. He wasn't even allowed a debate on the amendment. Using his wry sense of humor in the face of defeat, McClintock entitled the final version of the legislation “The 50 More Solyndras and Then We'll Stop Wasting Your Money--Really--We Promise Act.”
What the Senate will do with the bill remains to be seen. But Harry (the Abominable No-Man) Reid may just be disposed to allow the legislation to go forward. After all, it would [foolishly] be a bill that appears to terminate silly green programs with little or no chance of success and make the Democrats look fiscally responsible. In addition, it would have the advantage of making the obstructionist Democrats in the Senate look like reasonable negotiators who are willing to pass a bill sent over from the Republican House. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose .
The Great (film) Debates vol. 54
There are films and there are films, and then there are EPIC films. You know the ones, they are eighty hours long and have lots of scenery. . .What is your favorite EPIC film?
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Quotes of the Week
What would you think tax returns, cheerleaders, and the Three Stooges have in common? Well, I'll tell ya'.... Here are a few quotes from this week that just have to make you laugh:
On Taxes -
Censured reprobate US Rep. Charles Rangel thought he would put his 2-cents in about Romney's May 2012 statement that 47% of our citizens do not pay taxes with his own official statement on his House.gov website. I have linked to the entire statement, but here are two quotes that are just laughable knowing the source:
On cheerleaders -
Current Vice President Joseph Biden landed safely (no pedestrians maimed or killed) at Newport High School in New Hampshire this week to talk (inexplicably) to some high school atheletes about who knows what. Good Ol' Joe scanned the crowd and asked which sports were represented. After all the regular team sports were accounted for, a group of cheerleader shouted out their participation too. And this is how the man who is a breath away from being leader of the free world responded:
And finally On The Three Stooges -
Here is a quote from a Three Stooges classic (Slippery Silk 1937) that I saw this morning that just seemed appropriate. [Yes, I watch the Three Stooges!]:
[+] Read More...
Censured reprobate US Rep. Charles Rangel thought he would put his 2-cents in about Romney's May 2012 statement that 47% of our citizens do not pay taxes with his own official statement on his House.gov website. I have linked to the entire statement, but here are two quotes that are just laughable knowing the source:
"Before he judges other people about paying federal income taxes, Gov. Romney should come clean about the tax returns he's hiding from voters."Oh, and this -
"[Mr. Romney] has absolutely no moral authority to accuse nearly half of the American people of being irresponsible and freeloaders".He actually used the term "moral authority". This from the man who was censured by the House in December 2010 for among other thing, failing to pay his income taxes. Well, okay, in all fairness to Rep. Rangel, he did not say that Romney said that 47% of our citizens FAIL to pay taxes like he does. He just said that Romney was wrong to say that 47% DON'T pay taxes.
Current Vice President Joseph Biden landed safely (no pedestrians maimed or killed) at Newport High School in New Hampshire this week to talk (inexplicably) to some high school atheletes about who knows what. Good Ol' Joe scanned the crowd and asked which sports were represented. After all the regular team sports were accounted for, a group of cheerleader shouted out their participation too. And this is how the man who is a breath away from being leader of the free world responded:
“Guess what, the cheerleaders in college are the best athletes in college. You think, I’m joking, they’re almost all gymnasts, the stuff they do on hard wood, it blows my mind.” [emphasis added]As always, this was one of Joe's unscripted and a just plain WTH moment. Oh, I know, that's just Joe being the creepy Uncle Joe with whom young girls are scared to be alone.
Here is a quote from a Three Stooges classic (Slippery Silk 1937) that I saw this morning that just seemed appropriate. [Yes, I watch the Three Stooges!]:
Man: "Is this work in competent hands?"It is almost as if they knew there would one day be an Obama Administration...
Curly: "Soitainly, we're all incompetent!"
Friday, September 21, 2012
Film Friday: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011)
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms
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?
Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)