Bud horses honor victims of 9/11

Hairstylists and others weigh in on canceled Koran burning

I thought this article was interesting, especially since it was from the perspective of people living in Gainesville. My favorite quote was from a 25-year-old Hair Stylist:

"I go back and forth," said Chris Leggett, 25, a hair stylist who grew up in Gainesville and was between customers at Hair Hunters, a mini-mall salon about a mile from the Dove church. Although he said he thinks Jones is "an idiot" for the Koran-burning plan, Leggett found himself in recent days wondering what the big deal was about an isolated incident that the whole community had rejected? A girl he knew burned the U.S. flag right after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and it was a big controversy in Gainesville for a couple days, but it blew over.

"What's the big deal? He might have a point," Leggett said. "We allow people to do whatever they want, why can't he? People do whatever they want to us, burn flags, why can't [Jones] strike back? Why can't we just let him do his thing in the corner?"

Another stylist, 59-year-old Mike Bennett, said he was disturbed that Dove was being presented as a face of Gainesville Christianity. Both men were annoyed to hear chat on talk radio that "makes Gainesville look like a bunch of rednecks," Bennett said.

I'd argue that Pastor Jones wasn't really doing "his own thing in the corner." He was trumpeting the thing far and wide. But Mr. Leggett's remarks are still worth noting in that the formula he uses is the same one that ACLU and other libertine fanatics use to justify many types of subversive behavior. Flag-burning is, of course, the common analogy, and Mr. Leggett provides a personal example. Did the ACLU step up to defend the proposed Koran burning? The answer is yes, but with added remarks of it being ugly, disgusting and vile. I don't know if they do that when they defend flag desecration and gay pride exhibits, but I'm guessing they don't. It's sort of a bonus you get if you're on the same side of the ACLU politically that you don't have to suffer their obligatory derision.

Union Re-fluffers

Scott Ott is too funny. Loved this part:

Due to the anticipated public reception of the Obama roads stimulus, the White House will reportedly announce next week a plan to increase taxes on airline tickets to fund a massive project to ‘re-fluff the clouds’, employing tens of thousands of unionized fluffers.

Rebellion, LRS style

Once again... hilarious.

Great idea for protesting "Big Tobacco"

Here’s my great idea. In order to protest the many abuses of the tobacco industry (aka “Big Tobacco”), we will publicly burn their most popular product: the so-called tobacco cigarette. We will stand in PUBLIC and light the cigarettes on fire, breathe in the smoke and blow it out into the air. Then when we are done, we will throw the cigarettes on the ground and stomp on them so they are utterly destroyed, after which we will throw them in the garbage. We’ll make a video about this and put it on Youtube so everyone knows where we stand with regards to the evil tobacco companies. Then we’ll do it again in several hours. We will keep doing this until everybody knows where we stand, or until we run out of cigarettes and have to bum them from people in restaurant parking lots.

We have been told by some that this will be playing into the hands of the tobacco industry and will just give them an excuse to produce more cigarettes. They say it will just enable big tobacco to recruit more people engaged in a dangerous practice known in the Tobacco World as "smoking". BUT WE DON’T CARE! WE WILL DO IT ANYWAY!!

What do you think? Good idea?

No More Unicorns, or Disorganization Equals Good News

Americans do best when they remain in a state of general disorganization with regard to politics. Yes, that's an assertion, that's my opinion. So I am as happy as Dan McLaughlin over at RedState as he reports on this Time article re: "Obama's Army": Excerpt from the RedState piece:

Ah, the perils of treating politics as a substitute for religion. George W. Bush never had that problem; nobody really came to politics for the first time in 2000 because they thought voting for Bush would make them feel personally fulfilled, would end politics as we have known it, would end the nation’s racial divisions and make the world love us, or that he would pay their mortgage and car payments. Bush got elected because he seemed like a guy who could be trusted to do the job. And of course, that’s before you get to Obama’s actual job performance:

WHY, asks a Democrat leading a training session for fellow activists, doesn’t “Yes we can” work as a slogan any more? “Because we haven’t,” a jaded participant responds.

TIME notes that the Obama team is now trying to rebuild OFA in time for 2012, but that’s cold comfort for Democrats across the country who never did have Obama’s personal glamor.

Here's an unsurprising revelation from the Time article:

So earlier this year, when the White House gave OFA a whopping $30 million — more than half of the party's entire budget for 2010 — senior Democrats suspected a hidden agenda. Several tell Time that OFA boss David Plouffe, who ran Obama's 2008 campaign, is using the cash to rebuild an army for 2012 under the cover of boosting turnout in 2010. OFA is putting staff into such states as Virginia, North Carolina and Arizona, which have few close statewide races this fall but which are all prime targets in an Obama re-election campaign. "This is totally about 2012," Cook says.

It's all about the Big Guy.

David Warren: "Insofar as we are adults, we have never required comprehensive daycare"

Now here's a Tea Party-friendly man north of the border with a great prescription, eh. Excerpt:

The closest thing I can see to hope is currently invested in the tea party movement of the U.S. Notwithstanding the slanders heaped upon it, this movement is good-willed, riot-free, indeed situationally non-urban, and under the leadership of basically sane people. Of course, there is no guarantee that any movement devoted to genuine political change can remain so, under the inevitable provocations.

But something must be done, and here is the closest thing, anywhere in the West, to a political movement committed to the only measure that can possibly save us from riding over that cliff. Merely slowing down won't do it.

That measure is, quite frankly, the complete dismantlement of the Nanny State, and the restoration of the status quo ante -- governments focused on the provision of national defence, and domestically on the machinery of law and order. Full stop.

Krauthammer on the Middle East talks

Krauthammer's predictions on what will happen based on history and the science of human nature and the nature of Palestinians. Here's the money line:

Indeed, this week Abbas flatly told al-Quds, the leading Palestinian newspaper, "We won't recognize Israel as a Jewish state." Nice way to get things off on the right foot.

Dinesh D'Souza: "How Obama Thinks"

This is a really great read. D'Souza's theory seems to fit Obama really well, and explains why he doesn't pursue the goals of a pure Socialist, but is rather using the tactics of Socialism and big government liberalism to fulfill an anti-colonialist agenda inherited from his father. Here is an excerpt:

Rejecting the socialist formula, Obama has shown no intention to nationalize the investment banks or the health sector. Rather, he seeks to decolonize these institutions, and this means bringing them under the government's leash. That's why Obama retains the right to refuse bailout paybacks--so that he can maintain his control. For Obama, health insurance companies on their own are oppressive racketeers, but once they submitted to federal oversight he was happy to do business with them. He even promised them expanded business as a result of his law forcing every American to buy health insurance.

If Obama shares his father's anti-colonial crusade, that would explain why he wants people who are already paying close to 50% of their income in overall taxes to pay even more. The anti-colonialist believes that since the rich have prospered at the expense of others, their wealth doesn't really belong to them; therefore whatever can be extracted from them is automatically just. Recall what Obama Sr. said in his 1965 paper: There is no tax rate too high, and even a 100% rate is justified under certain circumstances.

And he goes on to explain the support for the Ground Zero Mosque and the NASA/Muslim outreach absurdity. It's hard for us as normal Americans to see some of this stuff since we don't think in terms of "taking things over" via our accomplishments. I don't look at the Moon and say, "Yeah, that's ours, baby. American-owned & operated!" But as D'Souza points out, many people in other countries saw the moon landing as "one giant leap for the USA", not for mankind.

D'Souzas' theory also explains the recent revelations about the Obama regimes support of off-shore drilling as long as it's a different country doing it and not the USA. It all has to do with payback and achieving some sort of "fairness" in the distribution of goods. Fairness as defined and arbitrated by Obama, of course.

At the end, D'Souza explains why all of Obama's fiddling is so destructive and pointless, and the conclusion is pretty dark:

Colonialism today is a dead issue. No one cares about it except the man in the White House. He is the last anticolonial. Emerging market economies such as China, India, Chile and Indonesia have solved the problem of backwardness; they are exploiting their labor advantage and growing much faster than the U.S. If America is going to remain on top, we have to compete in an increasingly tough environment.

But instead of readying us for the challenge, our President is trapped in his father's time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father's dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done. America today is governed by a ghost.

Anger and Fear from Ted Strickland

Obviously Uncle Ted didn't get the memo. Anger and Fear out the wazoo.



Here is John Kasich's site in case you want to donate or just read up on the next Governor of Ohio.

Craigslist Founder's Democrat Contributions

From the OpenSecrets blog:

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark -- under fire by government officials and others who believe his namesake website's "adult services" section facilitates prostitution and child sex trafficking -- has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic candidates and committees, a Center for Responsive Politics analysis indicates.

Here are some of the beneficiaries of Newmark's $84,000.00 worth of donations over the last 7 years. Barack Obama, Barbara Boxer, Zoe Lofgren, Mary Jo Kilroy, Howard Dean, Al Franken, Dick Durbin and Nancy Pelosi. There are more; I listed more popular ones. Newmark hasn't given any donations to Republicans, funny thing that.

William Donohue: "Minister [Terry] Jones more than a disgrace"

Here's the Catholic League's statement on the proposed Koran burning:

BURNING KORAN IS DEADLY WRONG

September 7, 2010

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on reports that a Florida pastor is planning to burn a copy of the Koran on 9/11:

Minister Terry Jones wants to show his anger at radical Muslims by burning a copy of the Koran on September 11. He is wrong morally, and he is literally endangering innocent lives.

The Koran is embraced by Muslims who are law-abiding men and women, as well as by terrorists. Jones knows this to be true, but somehow in his twisted understanding of Christianity, he thinks he has a right to insult and smear all Muslims. Furthermore, he is endangering innocent lives—including Americans—as Gen. David Petraeus has warned. Already, there are Muslims who have taken to the streets in Afghanistan and Indonesia.

While it would be wrong to sustain the "heckler's veto" by giving in to those who seek to veto free speech by heckling, in this instance the "heckler's veto" is moot: no one is in jeopardy of losing his free speech rights. What is being requested is a plea not to inflame passions needlessly by assaulting the sensibilities of Muslims worldwide.

In 1998, I criticized gay radicals who burned a copy of the Bible at Syracuse University to protest an appearance by Pat Buchanan. Now we have extremists on the right seeking to stoke the flames of bigotry against Muslims. It, too, must be criticized.

Minister Jones is more than a disgrace—he is engaged in agitprop and must be unequivocally condemned. There are plenty of legitimate ways to protest the wrongdoing that took place on September 11, 2001. Burning copies of the Koran is not one of them.

So far it looks like unequivocal condemnation of this disgraceful and senseless action by a sweeping Christian majority will be forthcoming. Let's hope that this near universal Christian condemnation will alleviate any reaction at least somewhat. Also let's pray that these folks simply call it off.

We Stand With Brigitte Gabriel

Here is Brigitte Gabriel's statement on the Koran-burning nonsense. Est Quod Est stands fully behind her following statement delivered in an Act! for America email update:

We at ACT! for America denounce and condemn, in the strongest terms, the upcoming Koran burning event organized by Pastor Terry Jones and members of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida. Their proposed event is ill-conceived, counter-productive and unwelcome in a world where ideas and philosophies are best debated in the context of the issues and the facts. We find this an archaic act that serves no useful purpose, and as such is a regrettable instance of an inability or unwillingness to discuss the issues facing us in a reasonable and constructive manner.

ACT! for America is, and has always been, committed to exposing the threat of the political ideology of radical Islam and its sharia law through constructive debate, illumination of the facts, and a reasoned analysis of the implications of the threat.

Pastor Jones and his congregation are stooping to the tactics of and joining the inarticulate who express their anger and opposition through destructive and spiteful acts of denigration. What is the difference between his actions and the actions of Islamists destroying synagogues in Gaza or churches and Bibles in Lebanon, Bosnia and Egypt? We are better than that as Americans.

If you have absolutely no answer to something, or if you are itching to start fights, or if you are a perverted bed-wetting pyromaniac then I can see why burning the Koran is the option for you. But if you are a Christian then certainly you have an answer to the misstatements about God and His law which are made in the Koran. So start a blog or something, but put the matches away, Smokey.

Obama is a Dog?

Some more substance here.

Also, Chesterton comes to mind.

‘YES,’ said Father Brown, ‘I always like a dog, so long as he isn’t spelt backwards.’

"Don't paint me with a broad brush, man!"

Seth Leibsohn, the Producer for Bill Bennett's radio show, has been hosting the show while Bill is on vacation. He just made an interesting claim: every one of the 34 Democrats who has voted against Obamacare has made their NO vote a big part of their campaign.

I couldn't find verification of this in any articles, but I did find this on Politico, "Dems run away from health care". This doesn't sound like news because everyone has been predicting it, and to any of us who pay attention, it's just the way a democratic republic generally works. You do unpopular things, you pay for it with the populace. Excerpt:

A handful of House Democrats are making health care reform an election year issue — by running against it.

At least five of the 34 House Democrats who voted against their party’s health care reform bill are highlighting their “no” votes in ads back home. By contrast, party officials in Washington can’t identify a single House member who’s running an ad boasting of a “yes” vote — despite the fact that 219 House Democrats voted in favor of final passage in March.

One Democratic strategist said it would be “political malfeasance” to run such an ad now.

Democrats have taken that advice to heart; it appears that no Democratic incumbent — in the House or in the Senate — has run a pro-reform TV ad since April, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) ran one.

Most of the Democrats running ads highlighting their opposition to the law are in conservative-leaning districts and considered the most endangered. They’re using their vote against the overhaul as proof of their willingness to buck party leadership and their commitment to watching the nation’s debt.

So at least 5 democrats who voted NO are advertising the fact. And none of the 219 who voted yes are bragging about it.

Political malfeasance, uh huh. Political insanity more like. As my wife tells the kids, "You make your choices."

far out

Havona, baby.

Labor Unions Feed Joblessness

The New York Post shows us how the big labor unions kill jobs and celebrate corruption. Excerpt:

In Congress, union giveaways -- like the ever-upward minimum wage -- have helped feed a painfully high jobless rate, now stuck near 10 percent.

Union-driven pensions, health-care programs, overtime and other work rules have nearly bankrupted industries (Detroit), threatened the fiscal integrity of state governments (California, New Jersey, New York) and wreaked havoc on entire nations (Greece).

In New York, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. actually teamed up with the unions to kill 2,200 jobs at a planned Kingsbridge Armory mall last winter.

Arguing, bizarrely, that no jobs were better than "low paying" jobs, Diaz demanded retailers at the proposed mall guarantee pay and benefits of at least 60 percent above the minimum wage.

Understandably, the developer balked, the mall died -- and the jobs evaporated.

Terrific.

Near the end, the article points out that the labor unions used to play a part in helping the working poor become members of the middle class, but now they are foes of the people who are out of work and would take any job at all, i.e., the working poor. Why? Because they are anti-market.