Bill O-Reilly on the John Adams Project

Our Texas correspondent, J-Carp, send me this link regarding this alarming and developing story.

...[T]he John Adams Project, a group of subversive Americans affiliated with the ACLU who are sneaking around taking pictures of CIA agents who may have interrogated captured al-Qaida guys in the wake of the Sept. 11 attack.

This insidious outfit believes the CIA tortured casually and the U.S.A. is a “human rights violator.”

After taking the surreptitious photos, the Adams Project then passes them on to lawyers representing incarcerated terrorists, hoping that an accused man will, in turn, accuse a CIA agent of torturing him.

This nasty business is now being investigated by the Justice Department, but the Obama administration has kept very quiet about it and, strangely, so have the media.

Very few newspapers have reported on the John Adams Project, and there is something quite disturbing about that.

Remember Valerie Plame? She was the CIA operative publicly exposed by columnist Robert Novak in an Iraq weapons-of-mass-destruction controversy.

After that happened, the left-wing media went wild with indignation. How could anyone name a CIA person, thereby putting him or her in danger?

The New York Times was on fire over the story. But when faced with the facts about the John Adams Project, the Times buried the story on page A-20.

By exposing CIA agents to accused terrorists and their lawyers, the John Adams Project is obviously putting lives in jeopardy.

This is a thousand times worse than the Plame affair, which saw top Dick Cheney aide Scooter Libby convicted of a felony while the press largely celebrated.

But where is the coverage of the Adams story? Where is President Obama on the issue? Why are these people being allowed to terrorize the Central Intelligence Agency?

Meanwhile, the real John Adams is turning over in his grave. Here's liberal lawyer Nina Ginsberg spouting the standard "everyone-in-the-CIA-except-Valerie-Plame-is-evil" line:

Estimated 2,000,000 at Washington DC Tea Party

Two-minute montage.

Aerial time lapse photos, pretty cool.

League of American Voters Ad

Krauthammer on the Van Jones Resignation

To describe 9/11 Truthers, I said "bizzaro world", Charles Krauthammer says "hallucinatory alternative reality". Same difference, OK? Great piece.

In the White House no more. Why? He's gone for one reason and one reason only. You can't sign a petition demanding not one but four investigations of the charge that the Bush administration deliberately allowed 9/11 — i.e., collaborated in the worst massacre ever perpetrated on American soil — and be permitted in polite society, let alone have a high-level job in the White House.

Unlike the other stuff (see above), this is no trivial matter. It's beyond radicalism, beyond partisanship. It takes us into the realm of political psychosis, a malignant paranoia that, unlike the Marxist posturing, is not amusing. It's dangerous. In America, movements and parties are required to police their extremes. Bill Buckley did that with Birchers. Liberals need to do that with "truthers."

You can no more have a truther in the White House than you can have a Holocaust denier — a person who creates a hallucinatory alternative reality in the service of a fathomless malice.

But reality doesn't daunt Jones' defenders.

One Obama administration source told ABC that Jones hadn't read the 2004 petition carefully enough, an excuse echoed by Howard Dean.

Carefully enough? It demanded the investigation of charges "that people within the current (Bush) administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war."

Where is the confusing fine print? Where is the syntactical complexity? Where is the perplexing ambiguity? An eighth-grader could tell you exactly what it means. A Yale Law School graduate could not?

Fine print, right.

9/11: Bizarro World Editions

Well, it wouldn't be a real anniversary of 9/11 without hearing from the wacko contingent. So now we turn to this sophmoric blog post by a self-described "laid-off blogger" who asks the question:

How does a plane crash harmlessly into the farmland of Pennsylvania after some apparent "struggle" in the cockpit?

Wowwww... I'd never thought of that! We'll ignore the clumsy and imprudent use of the word harmless for a incident with 44 fatalities. Has this guy ever been on a plane? He should look out the window the next time and he'll see a lot of uninhabited land.

There is a lot of other stuff in his piece which might sound brilliant when posited in a barber shop full of unemployed and retired pontificators who think Bush is still President, or in a bar full of, shall we say, overly exuberant people on Friday night around 11:45pm. But it is wisest to never publish this material, and this example is a good reminder. The problem is that what happened on flight 93 is so well-documented at this point. The Black Box is public. And one could find many other examples of good material, and a good starting point would be here (1), to use as ammunition against those who for one reason or another fail to grasp that some people hate America due to their own belief systems. Our difficulty or our failure to understand or relate to these belief systems is hardly a basis for belief more compelling than hard evidence. It is always a good idea to have such information at hand if you're optimistic and believe as I do that we still may find cures for both cancer and "trutherism".

Near the end, an attempt is made to persuade his readers that it doesn't really matter what happened, let's just enjoy life and be grateful for what we have, yada yada yada. So it really doesn't matter, I guess, whether or not some shadow conspiracy inside the U.S. Government offed its own citizens and the war against Islamic extremists is completely farcical. Just give us some good ol' fashioned construction jobs and a couple cases of beer and we're set to sail.

His concluding paragraph throws a bone to those "that feel they deserve more answers and in-fact deserve the truth" by stating that the truth should be provided to them. He may as well have said that an explanation should be given to the "truthers" which satisfies their own criteria for an acceptable narrative of events. I'm not sure why they'd need that, and I don't know who he thinks could deliver it to them. They've thrown out the 9/11 Commission Report and the many articles debunking their theories. If they are so smart, they should just be content with their own Bizarro World version of events. Back in post-9/11 2001, before the rotten egg of "trutherism" was even being incubated, I personally talked to a liberal guy who claimed that he knew 9/11 was going to happen. And I worked with a conservative guy who actually said that if he had been in New York City on 9/11, "things would have gone down differently." What—would you have reached up and grabbed the planes, bringing them safely to the ground with your bare hands? So the history of 9/11 Bizarro cartoons go back to 9/12. Last thing I knew, both these geniuses were unemployed.

-----
Notes:

1 - 01/03/2019: I replaced a dead link with a better written debunking of the "truther" position with regard to the 9/11 attacks. The author, Jay Chambers, presents the case patiently as it has been done many times. Hopefully people will abandon their fantasies in favor of what is likely, however uncomfortable it makes them feel. We are at war.

2 - 01/03/2019: I did find a link to debunking material on Popular Mechanics's site. Why they don't update dead links to redirect to new locations is beyond me, but they are one of many "glossy" companies who fail at this.

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Barone: Obama's Convenient Fantasies

Lots of good points in Barone's piece yesterday.

Liberal columnists have been attacking Republicans because some of their voters are "birthers," believers in the absurd charge that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii and thus is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. But they have failed to identify any "birther" that occupied a position in the Republican firmament comparable to that of "truther" [Van] Jones in the Obama administration.

Reminds me of Mark Steyn's comment on Hugh Hewitt's show yesterday about those ACORN employees caught in a sting where they are giving out advice on how to file taxes for a prostitution ring and other money-laundering secrets. Steyn said something like "They talk about the right wing having a lunatic fringe, but here is the American left's lunatic mainstream." I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist.

If there were money to be made in green jobs, private investors would be creating them already. In fact, big corporations like General Electric are scrambling to position themselves as green companies, gaming legislation and regulations so they can make profits by doing so. Big business is ready to create green jobs -- if government subsidizes them. But the idea that green jobs will replace all the lost carbon-emitting jobs is magical thinking.

I have a good friend who truly believes that wind, hydroelectric and ethanol could be making everyone millions of dollars, providing jobs, getting us off foreign oil (sorry, Canada) and saving the Earth. But "these corporations" are too stupid to take advantage of these huge money-making opportunities. I've tried to reason with him, explaining that there are some smart people who actually work for some of "there corporations" who are exceptionally good at finding ways to make more money... but... well... (sigh).

There is an element of convenient fantasy as well in Obama's health care statements to date. We are going to save money by spending money. We are going to solve our fiscal problems with a program that will increase the national debt by $1 trillion over a decade. We are going to guarantee you can keep your current insurance with a bill that encourages your employer to stop offering it.

Another sigh is in order, I suppose. Anyway, I love how he ends: "No-enemies-to-the-left and convenient fantasies may work in Chicago. They don't work so well when your constituency is the whole United States." I surely hope not. But Obama sure is giving it the good ol' college professor try.

H/T Rerum Novarum.

Fouad Ajami on 9/11, Obama and Afghanistan

Fouad Ajami's WSJ article is a good way to kick off our 9/11 readings. Excerpt:

No Arabs had been emotionally invested in Mullah Omar and the Taliban, but the ruler in Baghdad was a favored son of that Arab nation. The decapitation of his regime was a cautionary tale for his Arab brethren. Grant George W. Bush his due. He drew a line when the world of the Arabs was truly in the wind and played upon by powerful temptations. Mr. Obama and his advisers need not pay heroic tribute to the men and women who labored before them. But they have so maligned their predecessors and their motives that the appeal to 9/11 rings hollow and contrived. In those years behind us, American liberalism distanced itself from American patriotism, and the damage is there to see.

While denying that somehow the Afghanistan war "is" Vietnam—good for Mr. Ajami—he does offer parallels.

This is LBJ in 1964, from a definitive history by A.J. Langguth, "Our Vietnam," published in 2000: "I just don't think it is worth fighting for, and I don't think we can get out. It's just the biggest damn mess." He would prosecute what he called that "bitch of a war" with a premonition that it could wreck his Great Society programs. He knew America's mood. "I don't think the people of the country know much about Vietnam, and I think they care a hell of a lot less." Yet, he took the plunge, he would try to "cheat"—guns and butter at the same time, the war in Asia and the domestic agenda of civil rights and the Great Society. History was merciless. It begot a monumental tragedy in a land of no consequences to American security.

Wars are great clarifiers. Barack Obama's trumpet is uncertain. His call to arms in Afghanistan does not stir. He fears failure in Afghanistan, and nothing more. Having disowned Iraq, kept its cause at a distance, he is forced to fight the war in Afghanistan. So he equivocates and plays for time. Forever the campaigner, he has his eye on the public mood, the steel that his predecessor showed in 2007 when all was in the balance in Iraq is not evident in Mr. Obama.

Steel is useful in warfare, or so I've heard.

CrankyCon presents some balance on the lie accusations

Here.

You know, the other thing that should be pointed out is that Obama played the "people are going to die" card last night also, claiming that every day his so-called health care reform proposals go unimplemented there are people dying under the current, horrible, outmoded system. If this is true, why is the point at which the whole travesty will go into effect post-dated to 2013? Oh yeah, that's after Obama's glorious re-election. That way we won't know the effects of the reform until he has secured a second term. So the question is this: will congress or the president be responsible for all the uninsured deaths between passage of the bill and the start date? Unclear.

Ohio Insurer Tom Montgomery Counters Obama's Lies About Insurance Companies

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT
Tom Montgomery 740-452-9559
Zack Space 740-452-6338

Local insurer Tom Montgomery calls President Obama "a liar,"offended by assertions in Obama speech, asks Congressman Zack Space to vote against health care bill

Zanesville - Tom Montgomery has been insuring Ohioans for 35 years and has never once dropped a policy because a patient became sick.

"It's an out and out falsehood," said Montgomery in reaction to an assertion made by President Barack Obama during Wednesday's speech in reference to health insurance providers.

For fifty minutes Wednesday night, President Obama addressed the nation and a joint session of Congress in an attempt to buttress his sagging numbers regarding American's confidence in his ability to transform American healthcare. Over the month of August, the disapproval of President Barack Obama's handling of health care has leaped to 52 percent, according to Associated Press-GfK poll.

During the speech, the president made a few overtures to the republicans regarding perennial conservative concerns like tort reform and a more limited public option, but the speech did little to alleviate partisan tensions.

"The American people spoke loudly in August," says Montgomery. "With last night's speech, President Obama virtually dismissed the clear voice of the American citizenry. He was arrogant and condescending. He suggested that we are too dumb to understand what's in the bill. We are not misled. We are not misinformed. We do understand his bill, and we simply don't want it."

And one unaltered mainstay of Obama's argument continues to ruffle the feathers of insurance providers.

"We, insurance providers, have been demonized at every turn by the president, and I've had enough of the dishonesty," insists Tom Montgomery of Tom Montgomery Insurance. "Dropping a client's policy because one becomes sick is about the most reprehensible thing an insurer can be accused of."

"President Obama makes it sound like it's a common practice," continues Montgomery. "I'm offended by the accusation. I've never done it. My colleagues have never done it. We've covered patient's for $500,000 and $600,000 treatments and procedures. I've gone out of my way to provide a safety net for my clients, and it's about time that President Obama stops looking for bogeymen and starts getting pragmatic about the real problems at hand."

Montgomery has recently been in the news for requesting Ohio's 18th district representative Zack Space to host a town hall on health care.

"The rhetoric has changed a little, but the President is just playing with words and using scare tactics to cloud the serious flaws in this 900 billion dollar bill," says Montgomery. "Zack Space needs to stand up for Ohio and vote against any health care bill until this administration starts talking straight with the American people."

Harry Jackson Jr. on Van Jones

I don't agree with everything written by Harry R. Jackson, Jr., a Protestant minister in Washington, DC, but here's an example of his writing with which I can heartily concur. He discusses what Van Jones was hired to do, i.e., construct a narrative to recast environmentalism as a civil rights issue. Excerpt:

Once one discovers that the book has a major Marxist agenda, it becomes fascinating to discover who is the target of the book. The Green Collar Economy paints the “new green movement” as full of virtue, while actually attacking large, Bible-believing churches. Specifically he stated, “Mega-church pastors with mega-white teeth assured their far-flung flocks that, with the right amount of prayer and right mental attitude, great abundance, tons of wealth, and high profits were sure to be enjoyed by all ... So we ordinary people...ran after every solo solution we could find. We worked longer hours. We worked extra jobs. We hocked our homes. We bought lottery tickets. We sought shelter under a house of credit cards.”

I have no idea what churches Jones observed or how he decided that mega-churches contributed to the economic problems of the nation. One thing is sure - Van Jones’ work is socialistic in its leanings and seeks to rewrite history. The book ends with an interesting call to action. Jones asks the reader to lobby his/her mayor to sign a local government green job pledge.

As I started this article, I asked the question, “Who helped this community organizer move from community activism to a New York Times Best Seller?” Although I cannot specifically name Van Jones’ mentors and sponsors at this time, it’s obvious that Jones was groomed to be a new green spokesperson. His job was to change his movement’s elitist image, while promoting its new manifesto.

The truth is that radical environmental groups believe the country should produce less energy, driving prices up in order to force energy conservation. The movement will wind up constructing financial hurdles that will raise the cost of goods made in America. The Cap and Trade bill passed this summer creates such a hurdle. Cap and Trade is, at root, a “massive” tax. In a manner of speaking it is a regressive tax, because the poor spend more proportionally on energy than others. Therefore the disposable income of the poor will decrease because of energy costs.

That emphasis at the end is mine. Jackson understands what many people don't about energy costs and the working poor. This practical knowledge might be a result of actually knowing and working with acutal poor people instead of dealing with the poor as an abstract concept and/or a lever to implement radical agendae. Even so, I'm not sure any of the members of Harry Jackson's church go by the name of Pookie.

Here's one for the cry baby file

I'm on the email lists of several leftist organizations whose emails I gladly receive and sometimes read. It's good to know what the enemy is thinking and saying, and ofttimes amusing. Yesterday I received an email from Josh Silver, Executive Director of the the oxymoronically-named association Free Press.

Dear Paul, [ed: I was surprised to discover that we're on a first-name basis.]

I can't believe what I'm watching.

Fox News Channel headliner Glenn Beck has turned his nightly program into a megaphone of misinformation. He just took down presidential adviser Van Jones, one of our most visionary and principled young leaders. [ed: FTR, Van Jones took himself down by his own assclownishness.]

What happened to Jones is outrageous. President Obama should have ignored the media's smear campaign and rejected all calls for Jones' ouster.

This madness is a failure not only of the media, but of our president to stand up against modern-day McCarthyism.

Emboldened by their success, Glenn Beck and other right-wing blowhards have begun media witch hunts against people in all aspects of public life. If we don't speak out now, the champions of the issues you care about will be run out of Washington.
Surveys show that most Americans want health care reform, good schools and clean air. But if you watch Glenn Beck's show, you would think the opposite is true: that the only proponents of these ideas are dangerous, anti-American radicals operating out of the White House basement.

I'm urging you to take a stand with me and sign this open letter to the president. Glenn Beck's fear-mongering is endemic to a media system that cares more about ratings than about the truth. We need President Obama to take a stand against such hysteria, which only distracts us from the real issues at hand.

President Obama Must Stand with Us for More Diverse Media. Beck has a First Amendment right to stoke fear and prejudice -- and we're not asking for him to be censored or silenced [ed: riiiight....]. But we all have a responsibility to condemn his behavior and defend the public servants and innocent people who are being attacked. This is not about censorship... It's about sanity.
Mainstream media have failed. Too many of our leaders have stayed quiet. We must speak out now.

Thank you,

Josh Silver
Free Press

Well, I would also urge you to go to the link my old buddy Joshy provided. You can change the subject and message body to whatever you'd like it to say. For example, you could put "Thanks, Mr. President, for sacking Comrade Jones" in the subject, then in the body you could write. "Mr. Jones can now go back to the hood to smoke crack with Pookie and the boys." That's just an idea; by creative!

Joe Wilson owns Obama: "You Lie"

First of all, the proponents of so-called health care reform have totally asked for this charge to be made by including the number of illegal immigrants in the number of uninsured they advertise. I've heard the number quoted anywhere between 46 million and 50 million, and regardless of what the exact number is, 12 or 13 million of these folks are here illegally.

Thank you, Joe Wilson. Sometimes two words are all you need. The calm reaction from the President is indicative of someone who knows he's lying. People show more passion when falsely accused of telling an untruth.

Free Our Health Care Now Petition Break Record with over 1.3 Million Signatures

Nice work everybody! This is a cheap post, basically a reprint of an email from Jeanette Nordstrom of NCPA.org, the people responsible for the Free Our Health Care Now petition.

* * * * *
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Thanks to your hard work, the "Free Our Health Care NOW!" petition ( www.freeourhealthcarenow.com ) which is your statement that you do not want government run health care, is now the largest health policy petition ever delivered to Congress. More than 1.275 million Americans have joined you in fighting government-run health care.

Sign, Sealed, Delivered. Today is a historic day! On Wednesday afternoon, Governor Pete du Pont, Chairman of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), and Dr. John Goodman, President of the NCPA, along with Mike Gallagher and other Salem Radio hosts Dennis Prager, Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt will deliver the "Free Our Health Care NOW!" petition to the leaders of Congress. At 1:30 pm the petition will be driven to Capitol Hill in an ambulance; when it arrives, volunteers will stack the petition- 55,000 pages contained in 15 boxes -on a gurney and deliver this incredible expression of America's voices to Congress at a 2:00 pm EDT press conference.

Your Identity is Secure. Some of you have asked if the government will know your email address because of your association with the petition. Please know that we have not and will not release your personal information to any other party, including the government. The petition only provides your first and last name and the state of your residence.

Thank you for your support! In response to our requests, many of you have given to the "Free Our Health Care NOW!" petition. We appreciate it. Please know that your support is crucial to keeping the fight alive! We are now on to the fall debate, Phase II Solutions. If you can afford to give to help us with Phase II, please do so.

Showdown at Capitol Hill. Yours is not the only voice that's trying to be heard on Capitol Hill. In an attempt to regain control of the health care debate, President Obama plans to address a joint session of Congress only hours after the delivery of the "Free Our Health Care NOW!" petition. Call your Congressmen - tell them that yours is the voice that they should remember.

The Fight Continues! Join Freedom Works Foundation for the 9.12 March on Washington: The Tea Party Movement Comes to Capitol Hill! Please join thousands of grassroots Americans from across the country in our nation's capital to tell the politicians the era of big government is over! For more information, see www.FreedomWorks.org/912.

Britain: Where It's Better to be a Prisoner than a Patiet. An examination of Britain's government-run health care system reveals how terrifying nationalized health care can be.

• This article in the Daily Telegraph explains that the British government's National Health Service has promulgated a policy which wrongly determines some patients as "close to death" and deprives them of the basic care that would otherwise sustain them.
• Meanwhile, this article in the Daily Mail reveals that British prisoners have a better diet than patients in National Health Service hospitals.
  

Welcome to Massachusetts, Welcome to Rationed Health Care. As this New York Times article reports, Massachusetts has begun rationing its state-sponsored health care after only three years since the state adopted a government-run health care system. Last week, Governor Deval Patrick announced that 31,000 legal immigrants will no longer receive dental, hospice or skilled-nursing care because of scale-backs.

In response to rationing falling on her constituents, Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said she was worried about immigrants' having to find new primary care doctors at a time when the state is suffering from a shortage of such providers. The question observant Commonwealth residents must be asking now is, "Am I next to see a reduction in benefits, services and care?"

The British and Massachusetts experience: government-run health care leads to higher cost, lower quality, and reduced access. As taxpayers and as patients, Americans simply can't afford government-run health care!

Worried about the cost, quality and access of government-run health care? You should be. The good news is that a growing number of Americans share your concern. If you'd like to find out more about the problems of cost, quality and access, you can here.

There are lots of ways to get involved!

There is also a wealth of other educational and resource material available, including better alternatives to government-run health care:

Health Care Solutions: http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Health_Care_Solutions_072909.pdf

Five Steps to a Better Health Care System: http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/Five_Steps_to_a_Better_Health_Care_System_Web.pdf

Dr. John Goodman's Blog - Current, up-to date information on the debate: www.john-goodman-blog.com

Heartland Institute's Health Care Solutions: http://www.chcchoices.org

Thank you again for your support of the "Free Our Health Care NOW!" and for fighting against government-run health care.

Jeanette Nordstrom
National Center for Policy Analysis
www.ncpa.org

Sarah Palin on Health Care

I'm betting that Sarah's WSJ Article makes more sense and includes more specifics than Obama's upcoming helath care rah-rah speech to Congress can hope to. Mrs. Palin agrees with President Obama on one thing:

Writing in the New York Times last month, President Barack Obama asked that Americans "talk with one another, and not over one another" as our health-care debate moves forward.

I couldn't agree more. Let's engage the other side's arguments, and let's allow Americans to decide for themselves whether the Democrats' health-care proposals should become governing law.

She disagrees with him on another:

How can we ensure that those who need medical care receive it while also reducing health-care costs? The answers offered by Democrats in Washington all rest on one principle: that increased government involvement can solve the problem. I fundamentally disagree.

Common sense tells us that the government's attempts to solve large problems more often create new ones. Common sense also tells us that a top-down, one-size-fits-all plan will not improve the workings of a nationwide health-care system that accounts for one-sixth of our economy. And common sense tells us to be skeptical when President Obama promises that the Democrats' proposals "will provide more stability and security to every American."

Face it, people. Sarah Palin is smart, she's cute and she's here to stay. Her looks are merely a bonus; I like her because she doesn't talk down to me like Mr. Community Organizer does.

Barack Obama is not stupid. Sarah Palin rightly scares the shit out of him.

Wonder why they wouldn't publish it?

I'm intrigued. I just got this email back from the intellectuals Urban Dictionary informing me that they decided not to publish my alternate definition for concerned parent. Here's the content of the letter:

Subject: Urban Dictionary - concerned parent was not published

Thanks for your definition of concerned parent!

Editors reviewed your entry and have decided to not publish it.

To get a better idea of what editors publish and reject, sign up as an Urban Dictionary Editor here: http://editor.urbandictionary.com/

Urban Dictionary

-----

concerned parent

The person who just killed one of your friends for messing with his/her kids. Don't worry; it was most likely painless. Parents don't have a lot of extra time to enjoy this sort of work.

concerned parent: That was for f*cking with my kids. Think you'll try that again?
dead person: (no reply)

You don't think it's too violent? If so, how do you explain this, or this? (Warning: very, very offensive material.)

I think I'm just going to keep submitting this from time to time. Their "editors" probably die from AIDS and drug overdoses a lot, so maybe someone will indulge my specific mode of parental sarcasm.

We're Just Friends

Great shirt.


Nothing like damning with faint praise.

Tomorrow is Doomsday

Batten down the hatches because, I forgot to tell you, tomorrow is doomsday. Don't worry about getting a flu-shot; instead just store up 100 or so gallons of water, lots of duct tape and plenty of toilet paper. Tomorrow is 09-09-09 and will cause computers to fail all over the planet which will cripple the economy and crash all the markets.

Well, not really, but it is sort of funny since one company for which I'd consulted used the "fake date" of 09/09/09 as a code for "backordered" or some such thing when placed in the due date field of an order. They had started the practice in the mid 1990s. I kept telling them, "You know guys, that is a real date, and it's not too far off...." They would laugh and say "Yeah, we know...."

But that plant has closed down, everyone is laid off and the business has all been moved to Singapore. So they dodged a bullet; let's hear it for offshoring.

Here's a little bit of numbers fun from an amateur numeralogist who evidently has not yet been confined to a rubber room.

Also witness here the height of the Beatles' drug abuse.

Nice Thread over at Midwest Conservative Journal

Hat tip goes to Dianonymous for this MCJ post countering Mr. Dreher's latest episode where once again he is embarrassed by frothing Republicans. It is concise and informative:

I don’t have any kids, Rod. Always wanted ‘em but, like I said before, Hemingway married three St. Louis women for a reason. Anyhoo, if I had kids, I’d kind of insist on parenting them myself; I’m funny that way. Whatever “stay in school and get a good education” lectures my kids get would come from me and nobody else.

Given the nature of the current administration(the campaign’s over but that damned O symbol still keeps turning up on everything), if the first lesson plan these people issued before the firestorm hit doesn’t alarm the crap out of you, then you’ve drunk the Obama Kool-Aid, my man.

I'm not sure it's Kool-Aid so much as a really big blind-spot, which I'll leave other optometrists to diagnose. Anyway, the blog comments are mostly good after you get beyond the usual incomprehensible blather from an online Orthodox guy (whose primary trademark appears to be that when he has nothing to say, he says it anyway.) I liked this one from Bill2, which gets to the point:

Presidents make speeches at schools all the time about their various education initiatives. It looks like it was just covered by the usual media suspects. I’d be willing to bet a fin that Bill Clinton and George Bush (43) gave a speech or two at a school too.

Were there guided discussion sheets from the executive branch? Was there any expectation that it be broadcast to the school kids throughout the nation? I don’t see any indication of that from your link. It just looks like a speech given at a school. That’s way different than a presidential “back to school” to the total student body of the US. The intent is way different.

If Obama chose one of my kid’s school to be the stage for the run of the mill inspirational/policy speech that was broadcast on CNN, Fox news, ABC, etc., I’d think was pretty cool. This just seems like the kind of over-play/over-reach we’re getting used to from Obama.

That's my point also; I left this comment which as of this point in time hasn't gotten approved by the moderator:

Isn't it funny how this "Reagan and Bush Sr. did it and no one complained" is spreading among the left as a hypocrisy charge? Reagan did an "informal exchange" at Bayou View Elementary School in Gulfport, Mississippi. And Geo. Bush I gave a speech at Alice Deal Junior High School in Washington D.C. Is there anyone who isn't too stupid to note a tiny difference between what President Obama is doing and those one-offs? To quote Sesame Street, "One of these things is not like the others."

I think this really needs to be hammered on. The left has this knee-jerk response that is weak, weak, weak. No one has done what Obama is doing here. This is not a whistle-stop campaign spot or an appearance at one school in DC to deliver a speech. It's like Mark Steyn said on the Rush show last week, that it's not so much the content of a speech which offends as it is the ubiquity of this President, his continued attempts to inject himself everywhere via mass media. That sums up my main problem with it, and everyone else I know has the same reaction. This objection is what lies behind Kathleen's letter, and anyone who bothers to read it will note that words like socialism, dictator and fascism do nowhere appear in it. The President showing up at a school is a sort of nice occasion, and of course we'll let him speak if he makes an appearance. But the concerted effort to broadcast on the part of the President is the message moreso than any of the text of the speech. If you have kids, or if you deal with kids in any serious capacity, then you know this implicitly.

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Note to Daily Kos Hobbyhorse Riders

Just for the record, I never accused anyone of being "unpatriotic for disagreeing with Bush". I'm not sure anyone I know did, to be honest. I know some people accused opponents of the Iraq war for being unpatriotic—I think Tom DeLay did, but he's gone now, or maybe they didn't notice. This could be placed under the general heading of not allowing politics to end at the water's edge, as was at once precedent. That is a little different than "disagreeing with the President" which seems to me to be a respectable American tradition regardless of one's political stripe. However this GWB squelching of dissent meme is a sacred mantra and a hallowed hobbyhorse on the left at this point, and I suppose I am guilty of religious discrimination for relegating it to fairy tale status.

But go on ahead and try to mock Kathleen's letter. Ridiculing parents' concern for their children should serve to further marginalize your radical views.

And thanks for reprinting the letter. I'll bet Kathleen is happy you reprinted it which is more than the moldy pigskin blogettes did.

New Movie "2081" Based on Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron

Via Kathleen...

Whoa -- Tammy Bruce as Diana Moon Glampers? She'll hit that out of the park.

I never saw the other version. I heard negative things about it, for example I guess Sean Astin ironically turned in a performance far below his talent level as the main character.