Blog Heap of Links for the day 26 July 2011

Barack Obama, once perceived as extraordinary, now just seems extra-ordinary. He has gotten politically boring. And America does not re-elect boring presidents. ... he is tiresome, unpersuasive, divisive, repetitive, predictable, and cynical -- importantly, the opposite of everything advertised himself to be. Somewhere along the way, the once-soaring speeches of The Great Orator degenerated into longwinded clichés delivered in a grating, repetitive cadence. The electric smile morphed into a frequent scowl. Inspiring messages have given way to blaming everyone else for the lack of success of his policies and scolding his subjects for not "stepping up their game." His every word seems politically calculated rather than anchored by principle. He's shown little ability to electrify, motivate, persuade or unify anyone-except his political opposition. The country seems tired of him. ... Somewhere along the way, the once-soaring speeches of The Great Orator degenerated into longwinded clichés delivered in a grating, repetitive cadence. The electric smile morphed into a frequent scowl. Inspiring messages have given way to blaming everyone else for the lack of success of his policies and scolding his subjects for not "stepping up their game." His every word seems politically calculated rather than anchored by principle. He's shown little ability to electrify, motivate, persuade or unify anyone-except his political opposition. The country seems tired of him.

"The idea of doing things on my own is very tempting, I promise you, not just on immigration reform. But that's not how our system works. That's not how our democracy functions," Obama told the National Council of La Raza. Speaking at the organization's annual conference in Washington, Obama said passing immigration reform measures will require support from both sides of the aisle in Congress. "Let's be honest, I need a dance partner here, and the floor is empty," he said. ... "Feel free to keep the heat on me and the heat on Democrats. But here's the thing you should know, the Democrats and your president are with you, don't get confused about that," he said Monday. La Raza is the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, and its meetings regularly draw top political leaders.

"I wanted to give you an update on the current situation around the debt ceiling," Mr. Obama said at 6:06 p.m. OK, that wasn't a lie — but just about everything he said after it was, and he knows it.

If Obama truly believed we all can pay a little more, he could put his money where his mouth is. Mr. President, save $12 billion by abolishing the IRS and instituting a national sales tax of 26% on our $15.2-trillion economy to raise the $4 trillion to run your federal social justice program. Everybody would pay their fair share of the ever-escalating costs of government entitlement programs. Add in the local sales tax, and one third of every dollar goes to government costs! In about a week, everybody would be willing to cut government spending.

The failed federal anti-gunrunning program known as Operation Fast and Furious got so out of control in November 2009, it appeared the U.S. government was single-handedly "arming for war" the Sinaloa Cartel, documents show, even as U.S. officials kept lying to fellow agents in Mexico about the volume of guns it helped send south of the border. Those shocking allegations are revealed in the latest congressional report investigating the operation. ... "How long are you going to let this go on?" Steve Martin, an assistant director of intelligence operations asked the ATF top brass at meeting Jan. 5, 2010, according to a transcript of the meeting contained in the congressional report. None of the men responded and several quickly left the room ...

The known leaders of the Libyan rebel forces on the ground are all former LIFG fighters, some with documented personal connections to al-Qaeda.

Every other suggestion was some variant of Boost Workers' Pay! And Stop The War On Workers! Stop the waste of wars and invest the money in peace-building. Tax speculation. Get corporations to pay. Robin Hood tax -- tax Wall Street speculation. Tax "dirty energy" -- in which they include oil, gas, coal, and nuclear. Leaving...ummm?

Top US officer Admiral Michael Mullen on Monday acknowledged NATO was in a "stalemate" in its Libya campaign but still voiced optimism the strategy would lead to the departure of Moamer Kadhafi.

The officers approached the man who was walking down the middle of the street with the child in his hands when he turned and threw the baby in the direction of one officer who caught the baby.... As the officer gave the baby to the mother, the suspect then began punching the officer's partner and a struggle ensued with the three, lasting several minutes

Islam does not require second wives, so Muslims in the West must "follow the laws," Badawi wrote in a May 2005 Islam Online fatwa. Yet he claims that Western prohibition of second wives for Muslims denies "a particular right according to [our] own sharia." Western democracies should "reciprocate" what Badawi considers Islamic tolerance of religious minority worship, teachings, family law, and estate division with equal "autonomy in [Islamic] issues ... , including marriage." They should except their own laws to legalize Muslim sharia, making Islamic polygamy "quiet [sic] legitimate," and superior to Western secular laws allowing homosexual marriage. Often, he claims, no "solution would be better than polygamy" -- for men with barren wives "instinctively aspir[ing] to have children or heirs," for example, or whose "chronically ill" wives they must divorce or forever "suppress ... instinctive sexual needs" and secretly take "one or more illicit sex partners." Forget women's wants or needs. Polygamy is an "optional solution," Badawi claims.

Cultural Marxism is holding hands with the most malignant elements of radical Islam. What we saw last week was pure barbarism. I don't care how much this ruthless maniac claims to stand for European civilization, his actions make him a barbarian.

The iconic World Trade Center cross -- two intersecting steel beams that held up when the Twin Towers collapsed on September 11, 2001 -- was moved Saturday to its new home at the nearby 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

At least 32 people died when a high-speed train smashed into a stalled train in China's eastern Zhejiang province Saturday, state media said, raising new questions about the safety of the fast-growing rail network. The accident occurred on a bridge near the city of Wenzhou after the first train lost power due to a lightning strike and a bullet train following behind crashed into it.... The total power failure rendered useless an electronic safety system designed to warn following trains of stalled trains on the tracks up ahead, and automatically halt them before a collision can occur.... The flagship Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail line has been plagued by power outages, leaving passengers stranded on stuffy trains for hours at least three times since opening a month ago.

When you first began Bone, did you ever expect the comic to become as big as it is? Oh no, my big hope was just that I'd be able to pay for my print run. When I first started, my best hope was just to make it through the first year because I had promised my wife that if it didn't work out in the first year — if I didn't have some reason to believe it would make money — I would actually give it up and go back to my day job as an animator. So I'm very grateful it worked out.

21 hours after his family called in an undertaker who sent him to the morgue after an asthma attack. Kupelo says the man started yelling, prompting morgue workers to run away in fear. They eventually returned and removed him from the fridge. He was then taken to a nearby hospital and later discharged by doctors who deemed him stable.

Be near them, Lord Jesus, in the midst of this great horror. Gently touch their wounds and gather together the pieces of their shattered hearts, for they will need every fractured piece of it in the days, weeks and years to come.

ut in the first direct comparison of humans to chimpanzees, a brain-scanning team led by George Washington University anthropologist Chet Sherwood found that chimpanzees don't experience such brain loss. From that, researchers concluded that only people are afflicted by this oddity of longevity. "We are very weird animals," said Emory University anthropologist Todd Preuss at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, who wasn't involved in the study. "Among neuroscientists, the assumption has been that species are all the same, but this shows there is something really unusual about the late-life biology of the human species."

Our recent piece on Americanisms entering the language in the UK prompted thousands of you to e-mail examples. Here are 50 of the most e-mailed. What kind of word is "gotten"? It makes me shudder.

With all of the spotlights on the high-stakes debt maneuverings by President Obama and Speaker John Boehner the last few days, few people noticed what Vermont's Sen. Bernie Sanders said: "I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition." This is political treason 469 days before a presidential election.... Now, comes a new ABC News/Washington Post poll with a whole harvest of revelations, among them, strong indications that Obama's liberal base is starting to crumble. ... Obama's overall job approval on the economy has slid below 40% for the first time, with 57% disapproving. And strong disapprovers outnumber approvers by better than two-to-one.

We need to become a little tougher-minded, and cease believing things simply because we saw them on the Net. The left has this stuff scoped out. They know exactly what kind of effect they want, and exactly how to create it. We are well aware that a considerable amount of cash, time, and effort goes into monitoring our sites, including our comment boards. We know full well -- having dealt with them endlessly -- that there are individuals, very likely on the payroll of a certain gentleman from Hungary, who are always available to throw a wrench into things when called for. These people are out to create uncertainty, hopelessness, and paranoia by whatever means they can. They will be doing this on the grand scale during the upcoming election. From here on in, we need to at least consider the possibility that the people promoting visions of chaos and disaster on conservative websites and elsewhere may well be out to push an agenda utterly opposed to our own. Our response must be to think hard and don't jump to conclusions.

Two rounds of QE have now been completed and, as a result, the Fed owns approximately $1.7 Trillion of US Treasuries or around 12% of the US debt. In fact, the amount held by the Fed far exceeds that held by China, Japan or any other foreign government. ... So, what if the Fed... unilaterally decided to cancel those debts? ...wipe all or part of the $1.7T US obligation from their books and notify the US Treasury that they are canceling the debt? ... The US would then be seen as just another banana republic, able to do whatever it wanted in the fiscal monetary arena. This view would place us on the same paths taken by Weimar Germany, Zimbabwe and innumerable other countries who deliberately destroyed their currencies.

Nothing Democrats did helped; everything they did hurt. Everything. Min wage. TARP. Stimulus. ObamaCare. The Gulf oil spill. Every budget they ever proposed, written or not. Every little czar they put in place to spend other people's money and to bully the only productive people still toiling away at the thankless tasks of making stuff and providing jobs. At every point, the Tea Party and its sympathizers tried to stop these idiocies, only to be called ignorant racists. You might want to ask yourself why so many people talk of the "Tea Party," whatever that is, the way Lenin and Stalin talked of kulaks and saboteurs, whoever they were.

Big Government never really was a part of the American ethos and culture. The proper role of government...now that is a story that needs retelling in every generation, and it seems that it is going to happen again very shortly.

Gardens of Southgate filed the suit this month against Timothy and Jodi Burr, who have lived in the subdivision since 2006. The Burrs placed a large multicolored banner with a picture of their 20-year-old son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Corey Burr, and the phrase "Our son defends our freedom" in January after Corey Burr was deployed to Afghanistan. Jodi Burr says her family will fight the suit and do not intend to remove the sign.... Burrs contend signs supporting a school or team are visible throughout the neighborhood.