Blog Heap o'Links for August 2011

Organizers of the [annual] San Antonio VFW event criticized the White House for not sending President Barack Obama or Vice President Joe Biden or a "first-tier speaker." ... Richard Eubank, the VFW national commander, called the absence of Obama and Biden "an insult of the highest magnitude," and the first time the organization has been so snubbed in its history. The criticism drew a rebuke from the White House. [I'm sure "rebuke" was a typo and they meant "abject apology."]

According to a recent poll commissioned by Generation Opportunity, 57 percent of Millennials participating said they will learn more about the policy positions of presidential candidates in the 2012 election than they did in 2008. This is bad news for Mr. Obama, who is encumbered with a record that hurts young adults.

A new poll by CNN and ORC International finds that 27 percent of Democrats would like to see their party nominate a candidate other than Barack Obama for president in 2012.

The end of the Progressive Era, eclipsing Obama, has come from two places -- one fiscal and pragmatic, the other ideological and visceral. First, the debt crisis and persistent economic woes have made it clear that the progressive agenda is unaffordable and unsustainable. ... Second... Americans without an ideology are finding that central planning madness from Washington is making their lives worse, not better. ... The liberal press are frightened out of their wits.

Uncle Omar.... brother of Auntie Zeituni and half-brother of President Obama's father... arrested for drunk driving last week... being detained on an immigration detainer. He did have a job... at a liquor store.... "had a valid Social Security number for at least 19 years, despite being an illegal immigrant ordered to be deported back to Kenya."

President Obama's Uncle Onyango Obama, currently in custody in Massachusetts on DUI and immigration charges, has much to teach Americans about how illegal immigrants have been able to get documentation and function in society.

"This guy thinks we were drug dealers. Rick is looking down a rifle but he keeps talking." By the time the conversation had finished, the rancher had written a cheque for the Perry campaign.

Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division in the Obama administration. ... Every single new attorney hired has a history thick with left-wing activism.

classic Obama: patronizing, dishonest, syntactically muddled, and grammatically challenged. ... Another distinctive Obama flaw is to allow a string of words to float in space.... an uninspired assemblage of words with a nearly random application of commas and tenses. ... tends to the awkward, passive, and verbose. ... Scarier than Obama's style, however, is his thinking....

Last week, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and a number of other Congressmen with states who rely heavily on energy production for economic stability, sent a letter to EPA head Lisa Jackson expressing some concerns over her agency's impartiality. At the heart of their complaints, a series of backdoor regulations the EPA has put into place in recent months: regulations that are not only harming American energy industries, but which are actively destroying jobs in a already troubled economy.

The majority of the American People are clearly seeing that President Obama's Brand of Hope and Change (Keynesian Economics) simply doesn't work. It is real hard to sell the American people on the myth that you are working so hard on our behalf, when we continue to get photo-ops of you on the golf course or on vacation in Martha's Vineyard.

John Lund wants to exclude himself and other union labor consultants from the onerous new "Employer" and "Labor Consultants" regulations that DOL is currently proposing. If union bosses were covered by the 'Employer' definition, then Big Labor law firms like the NEA's Bredhoff & Kaiser would be required to file the new reports in order to comply with its new regulations. This Employer definition change will effectively eliminate union bosses from ever having to disclose timely details of their payments to Justice for Janitors, Interfaith Worker Justice, or any other Big Labor front groups participating in their labor persuader activities.

Obama and Michelle closing down Bar Harbor, Maine to dine in upscale restaurants with a "Latin flair" is quite different from G.W. fishing on his family's estate in Kennebunkport prior to hosting a "Lobster Summit" for Vladimir Putin.

Borrowing Planned Parenthood's talking points almost verbatim, the Obama administration is now encouraging parents to begin thinking about their children, and even babies, as "sexual beings" who should be allowed to sexually stimulate themselves from infancy. ... parents are told to encourage children to keep masturbating in private. ...

A Concord man giving away lemonade at a farmer's market was threatened with wiretapping charges last Saturday when he refused to stop filming a police officer and a fellow vendor.

CHICKASHA, Oklahoma -- A Chickasha couple claims a group of angry teens beat them unconscious and are now bragging about the attack on Facebook.... "Bobby call me. I gotta tell you a story. I just beat this dude's a** and hit a b***h. I got my second assault & battery charge tonight." According to the Coopers, police haven't made any arrests, despite the admissions from several teens.

CAIR... sent Rep. Allen West (R-FL) a letter asking him to cut off ties with leading anti-Muslim activists like Pamela Geller and Brigitte Gabriel... a one-word response... "NUTS!"

If the claim is now being made that to be properly "Anti-Jihadist" you really now do simply have to be anti-Muslim, period, and cannot attempt any overtures or any sort of goodwill gestures towards Muslims you actually believe are moderate (and seem to be so), then sign me down because I'm not part of that. I think that is where people are driving this bus. It's easier to just dismiss them all than try to make distinctions.

...like so many information-based institutions, Wikipedia has also come under growing criticism from political conservatives who see a leftwing bias, sometimes overt and often subtle, in its entries. Some on the Right take the claim so seriously that in protest they created Conservapedia as an alternative. Finding examples of Wikipedia's bias is not difficult. One need only compare the entries of figures who do the same thing but from opposite sides of the political spectrum. Consider Ann Coulter versus Michael Moore. Coulter's entry (on August 9, 2011) was 9028 words long.* Of this longer-than-usual entry, 3220 words were devoted to "Controversies and criticism" in which a series of incidents involving Coulter and quotes from her are cited with accompanying condemnations, primarily from her opponents on the Left. That's 35.6 percent of Coulter's entry devoted to making her look bad. By contrast, Moore's entry is 2876 words (the more standard length for entries on political commentators), with 130 devoted to "Controversy." That's 4.5% of the word count, a fraction of Coulter's. Does this mean that an "unbiased" commentator would find Coulter eight times as "controversial" as Moore?

Officials in Longhui County, a rural area of Hunan Province, have a history of kidnapping unauthorized babies and selling them on the black market when the parents are unable to pay exorbitant fines that may amount to five times their annual income. ... Yang Libing, the father of a nine-month-old girl who was snatched from his parents' home in 2005 while he was working in another town. ... Yang's offense was failing to register his marriage, rendering any offspring illegal.

the Central Intelligence Agency is demanding extensive cuts from the memoir of a former F.B.I. agent who spent years near the center of the battle against Al Qaeda. ... Ali H. Soufan, argues in the book that the C.I.A. missed a chance to derail the 2001 plot by withholding from the F.B.I. information about two future 9/11 hijackers living in San Diego.... gives a detailed, firsthand account of the C.I.A.'s move toward brutal treatment in its interrogations, saying the harsh methods used on the agency's first important captive, Abu Zubaydah, were unnecessary and counterproductive....

As far as I'm concerned, much of government is a racket that uses coercion to reward interest groups with unearned wealth. ... Asset forfeiture occurs when government seizes property that is associated with a crime. That sounds reasonable — and it is reasonable if someone is convicted of, say, bank robbery and the government confiscates the stolen cash and any loot purchased with that money. But it is not reasonable (or moral, or just, or appropriate) when government seizes assets without a conviction. And it is downright disgusting when the government steals (and I use that word deliberately) the assets of innocent parties....

...text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005. ... three stories from my life... you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. ... getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again ... Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.... [h/t Cuz BD]

The 22-year US military veteran, freshman congressman, Tea Party darling and passionate Israel advocate talks to Herb Keinon.... West sat down with The Jerusalem Post and pulled no punches when talking about his view of the Palestinians, Iran, Israel and the African-American community, and Jonathan Pollard.

Scheutte, for example, has gone after registered patients who engage in the collective growing or sharing of marijuana plants on cooperative marijuana farms. Why? Because the law, he believes, requires each patient's plants to be grown and maintained in a "separate" enclosed, locked facility that is only accessible to the registered patient or the patient's registered primary caregiver. This is just, plain hazing—and he didn't even have to toke up to do it.

The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled earlier today that a 2008 state law legalizing the use of medical marijuana does not cover the sale of the drug

In recent years police forces across the country have become increasingly militarized. To a small degree, that trend represents a rational response in an arms race against the criminal element's escalating firepower. But more of it has to do with the lavishing of federal Homeland Security funds on local law-enforcement agencies. Local departments have used the money to buy themselves all kinds of fancy toys.... In "Overkill," a 2006 paper for the Cato Institute, Radley Balko traces the rise of paramilitary policing to the 1980s and the war on drugs. One of the earliest developments was the Military Cooperation With Law Enforcement Act, whose purpose was to let the military lend a hand in drug interdiction. In the three decades since, the trend has only spread. ... The paramilitary approach to law enforcement flies in the face of the idea that the police and the citizens are on the same side. Officer Friendly, strolling the block in a blue uniform and playing a paradiddle with his baton on a white picket fence, looks like he is ready to help carry groceries for the little old lady who lives on the corner. A cop in combat gear with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder looks like he is ready to go to war. In war, there is no presumption of innocence—and the opposing side is not a fellow citizen with constitutional rights. He is the enemy.

An Illinois Circuit Court judge upheld the state's decision to drop adoption and foster care service contracts with Catholic Charities Thursday, ignoring the group's claims that their contracts were discontinued because of its religion-inspired policies.

Back before FDR, there was a real economic theory that has died and we need to resurrect it, pat it on the back, and cheer for it like we cheer for Rick Perry. It was called Distributism. ... ownership of the means of production should be spread as widely as possible among the general populace, rather than being centralized under the control of the state (state socialism) or a few large businesses or wealthy private individuals (plutarchic capitalism). ...

we're on more equal footing than we may think when it comes to how our brains learn. And it's a mistake to assume students will respond and remember information better depending on how it's presented.

"A lone Tomb Sentinel, 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), walks his tour in humble reverence during Hurricane Irene in Arlington National Cemetery, Va., Aug 27. Members of The Old Guard have guarded the Tomb every second, of every day regardless of weather or holidays since April 6, 1948."

Two weeks away from the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, presidential candidate and Texas Rep. Ron Paul says that U.S. intervention in the Middle East is a main motivation behind terrorist hostilities toward America, and that Islam is not a threat to the nation.

Frank Luntz, formerly considered to be an objective pollster whose reports could be counted upon for their evenhanded dissemination of scientifically generated data, has just come out of the closet as America's newest Sarah Palin basher. According to the newly self redefined Luntz, "…there is no room for Sarah Palin…" to join the presidential race since she and Michelle Bachmann are basically the same candidate. ... I say it without hesitation that Mr. Luntz could not have been more completely wrong had he chosen to vent his partisan agenda on any other topic. That he could be so utterly incorrect about something so easily apparent to any who approach the topic with their eyes open is doubtless less than reassuring to those considering paying him for his opinion. ...

Palin hasn't officially entered the race she's already running third in primary polls in Florida. (Wow — running third although she isn't even a candidate yet.) So what happens if she gets in and gets the nomination? What if the race ends up being Palin v. Obama? If it does, Obama may find out how Walter Mondale felt after running against Reagan in 1984. But he will surely find out how Jimmy Carter felt when he faced Reagan in 1980. ... Palin v. Obama will be a landslide (and Obama knows it).

The Trans-Texas Corridor is one such emerging line of criticism against Gov. Perry. First proposed by Perry in 2002, the north-south running road would have also included a railway, petroleum pipeline, power lines, and communications cables. ... conservatives who criticize Gov. Perry over the proposed use of eminent domain to build a road aren't just wrong — they're actually advocating a position that is unconstitutional it its core. ... [Hmmmm. Not all the facts are included in this article.]

After some much needed rest at home, an Oklahoman traveling across the country on horseback will resume his journey Thursday. Luke Nowlin is going through Vinita, Nowata, Bartlesville and Pawhuska over the next few days. He's riding a horse nearly 4,000 miles, from sea to shining sea, to rediscover what makes America great. Nowlin and his horse Pirate are winding their way through the Ozarks in Missouri, 1,400 miles in the saddle so far.

This letter which details Senator Edward Kennedy's offer to help the Soviet Union defeat Reagan's efforts to build up the nuclear deterrent in Europe was unearthed by a Times of London reporter in the 1990s after the KGB files were opened. It got little or no attention, however, until the publication of Paul Kengor's book "The Crusader — Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism." But even then the actual text of the letter (which is in the book's appendix pp 317-320) has gotten short shrift.... "Kennedy believes that, given the current state of affairs, and in the interest of peace, it would be prudent and timely to undertake the following steps to counter the militaristic politics of Reagan and his campaign to psychologically burden the American people. ..."

My own theory is that we are in the middle of a dramatic and broad technological and economic shift in which software companies are poised to take over large swathes of the economy. More and more major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services—from movies to agriculture to national defense. Many of the winners are Silicon Valley-style entrepreneurial technology companies that are invading and overturning established industry structures. Over the next 10 years, I expect many more industries to be disrupted by software, with new world-beating Silicon Valley companies doing the disruption in more cases than not. ... Over two billion people now use the broadband Internet, up from perhaps 50 million a decade ago, when I was at Netscape, the company I co-founded. In the next 10 years, I expect at least five billion people worldwide to own smartphones, giving every individual with such a phone instant access to the full power of the Internet, every moment of every day. On the back end, software programming tools and Internet-based services make it easy to launch new global software-powered start-ups in many industries—without the need to invest in new infrastructure and train new employees. ...

Will he never be Forever Alone?

Popping up all over Bartlesville in recent weeks have been lily-like plants, their pink and aromatic blossoms held aloft by stems — but with no leaves to be seen. Area residents have been asking what these leafless flowers are, so 2News went to Green Thumb Nursery on Nowata Road to find out. "They are Lycoris," said a nursery employee Wednesday morning, explaining though they are locally known as 'Surprise Lilies' or 'Naked Ladies.' She said every year one or two people call asking about these leafless flowers — but in truth, they are not leafless.

Now, with nearly everything this president has touched lying in shambles, a shrunken Obama whines from town to town, transported in a taxpayer-purchased bus that resembles a big, fat hearse — the perfect symbol for the harbinger of economic death that Obama's presidency has become. [h/t Chrissy at PoliNation]

Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson's chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company's manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. "The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier," he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle. It isn't the first time that agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service have come knocking at the storied maker of such iconic instruments as the Les Paul electric guitar, the J-160E acoustic-electric John Lennon played, and essential jazz-boxes such as Charlie Christian's ES-150. In 2009 the Feds seized several guitars and pallets of wood from a Gibson factory, and both sides have been wrangling over the goods in a case with the delightful name "United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms." ... If you are the lucky owner of a 1920s Martin guitar, it may well be made, in part, of Brazilian rosewood. Cross an international border with an instrument made of that now-restricted wood, and you better have correct and complete documentation proving the age of the instrument. Otherwise, you could lose it to a zealous customs agent—not to mention face fines and prosecution.

[In the song] Cobwebs by… Loudon Wainwright III… Maynard G. Krebs… is blamed for starting the vogue of using the word 'like' as a quotative.

…racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard. The new planet is far denser than any other known so far and consists largely of carbon. Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond.

The earthquake Tuesday in the Eastern United States was felt at 13 locations with nuclear power plants, from North Carolina to Michigan, but reactors shut down at only one, North Anna in Virginia, 10 miles from the epicenter. There was no damage to nuclear systems at any of the sites, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. [And we believe them! They're from the government!]

The Federal Communications Commission says it is looking into the failures of cell phone service that occurred Tuesday afternoon after the East Coast earthquake. For as long as an hour after the quake, wireless customers in Washington and elsewhere reported being unable to get calls through. Jamie Barnett, chief of the FCC's Public Safety & Homeland Security Bureau, said that when the cell phone networks get overloaded by call volume, crucial calls might fail to go through. "We were very concerned with the fact that 9-1-1 calls were also congested," he said. "We want to make sure that people who need emergency help are able to get it."

Shortly after the rare 5.8 earthquake in Virginia rattled Washington D.C. Tuesday, a Park Service spokesman said there was "absolutely no damage" to the Washington Monument. A more thorough assessment discovered a crack in the landmark. Not long after, additional damage was found, including three or four "significant" cracks. The monument has been closed indefinitely for further inspection and repairs, which will take at least a few weeks

An unmanned Russian cargo ship carrying tons of supplies for astronauts on the International Space Station suffered a major malfunction after launching today and ultimately crashed back to Eart ... Ship was hauling 2.9 tons of food, fuel and supplies to space station; 2nd Russian spacecraft to be lost during launch in six days

Here is Rick Perry on the campaign trail recently, responding brusquely to an Iowa college student who asked him a well-researched question about his debt accumulation record in Texas. ... Perry pokes the student in the chest with his index finger and then gives him the complete brush-off telling him … "You obviously don't know what you're talking about, brother."

A renowned political cartoonist whose drawings expressed Syrians' frustrated hopes for change was grabbed after he left his studio early Thursday and beaten by masked gunmen who broke his hands and dumped him on a road outside Damascus. One of Syria's most famous artists, Ali Ferzat, 60, earned international recognition and the respect of many Arabs with stinging caricatures that infuriated dictators including Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Libya's Moammar Gadhafi and, particularly in recent months, Syria's autocratic Assad family. He lay badly bruised in a hospital bed Thursday evening with his hands swathed in bandages, a stark reminder that no Syrian remains immune to a brutal crackdown on a five-month anti-government uprising. Ferzat remembers the gunmen telling him that "this is just a warning,"

ACORN wants a cut of the huge international remittance business, valued worldwide at US$444 billion. So the organized crime syndicate is trying to shake down the financial services companies that handle those international money transfers. ... The real goal is to extort funds from deep-pocketed corporations. ACORN then uses the ill-gotten gains to fund its subversive political operations. ... America needs to know that ACORN is restructuring in time to help re-elect President Obama in 2012. Obama used to work for ACORN and represented the group in court as its lawyer. These radical leftists who use the brutal, in-your-face, pressure tactics of Saul Alinsky want to destroy America as we know it and will use any means to do it.

According to an article of the Greek newspaper "Eleftherotypia", under the scope of reforms in the Greek Family Law, the Shariah will be abolished for Greek Muslims.... [h/t Phineas at Sister Toldjah]

The 'top source' told the National Enquirer: 'It's disgusting. Michelle is taking advantage of her privileged position while the most hardworking Americans can barely afford a week or two off work. 'When it's all added up, she's spent more than $10million in taxpayers' money on her vacations.'

Obama HHS Spends Millions of Taxpayer Dollars on "Guerrilla Campaign" to Track Search Engine Web Traffic and Push Internet Search Engine Users to Government Website Promoting Obamacare; Propaganda Campaign Targets Key Obama Campaign Voter Demographics [h/t rdbrewer at Ace of Spades]

Following a design workshop and individual design consultations presented by Downtown Bartlesville Inc., of which 30 businesses and property owners attended, there has been a recent flurry of activity. The workshop focused on adding curb appeal to a downtown building by doing simple renovations. It showed how the removal of fake façade elements can reveal prominent architectural features, what the simple cleaning of dirt and grime from a building can reveal or what a new coat of paint can do to update the look.

Navy SEAL U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Jon T. Tumilson was among the 30 American troops killed August 6 when Taliban insurgents downed their Chinook helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade. At his funeral in Iowa, his dog Hawkeye paid his last respects, walking up to the casket, lying down in front of it, and heaving a sigh.

After scrutinizing several of the natural gas articles produced by ProPublica, the Independent Institute uncovered several "errors and exaggerations" that cast the industry in very bad light. There is, for example, a 2002 study from the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission that could not find any evidence of groundwater contamination resulting from hydraulic fracturing contrary to what was reported in ProPublica. The commission surveyed agencies in 28 states. This effort spanned the entire history of hydraulic fracturing in those states. Another key player here is the Heinz Foundation, which has expanded the number grants devoted to studying the natural gas industry. Heinz is headed up by Teresa Heinz, wife of Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) ... The slanted reporting and misinformation could come with a serious price tag

Whole Foods co-founder, John Mackey, makes a moral defense of business in The Morality of Capitalism, a new book from the Atlas Network and Students for Liberty. "...200 years ago, 85 percent of people on planet Earth lived on less than a dollar a day, 85 percent, we're down to 20 percent now."

Sarah Palin wrote a note titled On the Future of Libya: "We join the Libyan people in gratefulness as we hear of Col. Gaddafi's defeat. The fall of a tyrant and sponsor of terrorism is a great day for freedom-loving people around the world. But the path to democracy in Libya is not complete, and we must make wise choices to ensure that our national interests are protected...."

Obama's treasonous administration has turned the White House into a defacto agent of Muslim Brotherhood whose self described goal for America is to destroy it from within for islamic jihad. Obama recently held a dinner for radical islamic supremacists in which he spoke of the glorious sacrifices of muslims on September 11, 2001

While Congress was focused on increasing the debt limit and giving Americans the impression that they were actually working towards reducing our debt (which didn't happen), President Obama and his administration quietly piled on $9.5 billion worth of regulations to job creators...in just one month!... costs include 229 new rules and the finalization of an additional 379 rules, the majority of which came from (no surprise) the EPA, the new healthcare takeover law, and the Dodd-Frank financial takeover law. [$9.5 BILLION!]

Levin offered his support to Hatch on his radio show. In a Facebook note, he criticized FreedomWorks, chaired by former Republican leader Dick Armey, and suggested the group is not always in tune with Tea Party voters. "This is what happens when decisions are run out of offices in Washington," Levin wrote. "The Tea Party movement is a grassroots movement." He continued: "And as I posted earlier today, Armey had a radical, open-borders, pro-amnesty position record in Congress and has recently endorsed that position as head of FreedomWorks. Do most Tea Party activists agree? Of course not."

Steve Chabot, a Republican, had cell phones and cameras confiscated in order to "prevent an embarrassing Youtube video from making the rounds," according to Carlos Miller, who runs a blog documenting efforts by the state to stifle the First Amendment rights of photographers. ... Police said the cameras were taken "to protect the constituents." A local television station, however, was allowed to videotape the meeting and the brazen move by Chabot and the cops. [video]

COEUR d'ALENE - A man charged with unlawfully shooting and killing a grizzly bear had so many supporters at his arraignment Tuesday in federal court that the judge had to move the hearing to a larger courtroom. Even there, every seat was taken as his family, friends and neighbors, young and old, squeezed in. Jeremy M. Hill, 33, pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court to killing the animal with a rifle on his 20-acre property near Porthill, Idaho, at the Canadian border. He lives five miles from the closest grizzly bear recovery zone.

Twelve state and local water agencies in Southern California are suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its arbitrary decision last July to double the size of the habitat for a small algae-eating fish known as the Santa Ana Sucker. Wielding the all-purpose Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's no-explanation decision plants a Godzilla-sized footprint over local efforts to conserve the fish and its environment. But worse, it will cut water supplies for up to 3 million citizens in Southern California's Inland Empire region, raising water prices and straining water supplies elsewhere all in the name of "conservation." It's nothing but a power grab that will leave a new round of economic and environmental wreckage.

For more than three months, Prusinowski endured wind, rain and triple-digit temperatures to make a 2,000-mile journey on foot in order to connect with the Lenape Indians, also known as Delaware Indians, and their migration from the Delaware Valley in the northeast to their final stopping point in the Midwest. His solo trek began at his hometown of Fishtown, Penn., and ended recently in Bartlesville.

NATO's war planners call it the "iron mountain," the $2.7 billion mass of military equipment that will be dropped on Afghanistan over the next eight months... 22,000 vehicles, including 514 new four-wheeled "mobile strike force" armored vehicles yet to be used in Afghanistan, 44 airplanes and helicopters, 40,000 weapons, and tens of thousands of radios and other pieces of communications gear... President Hamid Karzai and others say they are not interested in fielding an army and police force they cannot afford or sustain as American troops withdraw... [And WHO exactly are we arming and WHAT guarantees do we have this stuff won't be taken and used against us?]

MOUNT DORA, Fla. -- A man and woman were arrested early Monday after they were found living with three children, one of whom had second-degree burns, inside a garbage-filled car in the parking lot of a Mount Dora Walmart… 1987 Cadillac Coupe Deville… said they had been living in the car for about three days.

Phillip Seaton went to a Kentucky hospital in October 2007 for a routine circumcision. When he woke up, his penis was gone.

A draft constitution for Libya's transitional period details numerous rights in the Western liberal tradition, but ominously declares that Sharia shall be the source of its laws. ... "Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia)."

To admit that over a thousand of its idealistic volunteers get raped in the countries they are coming to help, might make Americans think that those countries aren't worth helping. That maybe they aren't noble souls who happen to lack proper irrigation and classrooms, but that they lack those things because there is nothing noble about their cultural backwardness.

Alicia Bouchard even sat and watched while her 26-year-old husband had sex with the underage girl at their Florida home. [His mug shot: too telling.]

A U.S. businessman who went into a drunken rage on board a transatlantic flight to the UK was arrested after allegedly threatening to stab the pilots with a shard of glass. ... 'Petrified' passengers claimed 32-year-old ... was drinking large quantities of wine and beer before raving at passengers and attacking staff. [Petrified? Really? Over a "shard of glass"? In this post-9/11 day and age?]

Police have released video from a McDonald's security camera that show a police officer's final act of kindness shortly before he was killed in a random act of violence. The video clip shows Officer Jeremy Henwood paying for a 10-year-old boy's meal at a McDonald's restaurant in the San Diego, California, neighbourhood that he patrolled.

It is all planned. It appears to be laying the groundwork for an easy out. It is a clear signal that something is changing and that something may be a plan to allow Obama to leave office early and save face rather than face a dismal loss at the polls.... [h/t Ellen Koko commenting at HillBuzz]

An Archive of Superman newspaper strips, and other interesting comic book stuff. … Superman daily strips began appearing in newspapers across the country on January 16, 1939. … A long time ago I set myself the task of assembling a collection of each one of these daily strips, and while I have many individual strips I have been lucky enough to have put together a near complete set of the Superman daily newspaper strips from mid 1959 through the end of the run in April 1966. I have created this web site, proudly, so that these strips can be read and enjoyed by Superman fans for the first time in 50 years.

A 76-year-old man has been stabbed to death while leading Boy Scouts on a hiking trip in northern Indiana, and a suspect who battered his mother and killed a dog at their home nearby is under arrest

the Constitution would see a major overhaul if the Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate had his druthers. ... Perry laid out these proposed innovations to the founding document in his book ... He has occasionally mentioned them on the campaign trail. Several of his ideas fall within the realm of mainstream conservative thinking today, but, as you will see, there are also a few surprises. ... Despite saying last month that he was "fine with" states like New York allowing gay marriage, Perry has now said he supports a constitutional amendment that would permanently ban gay marriage throughout the country and overturn any state laws that define marriage beyond a relationship between one man and one woman. ... Perry said that he would support a federal amendment outlawing abortion because it was "so important...to the soul of this country and to the traditional values [of] our founding fathers." [h/t Mafia Rose commenting on HillBuzz]

The Gardasil debacle is just one of many concerns a wide range of grass-roots conservative activists have about Perry's record as governor. He's soft on illegal immigration despite a few recent nods to border enforcement. He's prone to crony capitalism. And as the vaccine mandate scandal shows, he demonstrated Nanny State tendencies that are anathema to Tea Party core principles. A clearer, more forthright apology about the Gardasil executive order would have helped. But in the end, I don't think there's anything he can do to 'fix' his political/ideological instincts. They are what they are. -Michelle Malkin [h/t Patti commenting on HillBuzz]

"Let me say this as plainly as I can. If you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired just like always," Obama said in a speech. "Your warranty will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it has ever been. Because starting today, the United States will stand behind your warranty."

General Motors Co (GM.N) is seeking to dismiss a lawsuit over a suspension problem on more than 400,000 Chevrolet Impalas from the 2007 and 2008 model years, saying it should not be responsible for repairs because the flaw predated its bankruptcy.

So much for dialing back the rhetoric, right? On Saturday in Inglewood, Calif., Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters had some harsh words for the tea party. "I'm not afraid of anybody. This is a tough game. You can't be intimidated. You can't be frightened. And as far as I'm concerned — the tea party can go straight to hell." [video]

told the officer she had been using methamphetamine and had last used it four days prior. She, however, claimed the meth lab was not hers and that she was only transporting it to a friend's house. [What friend? Who? Uh, no, I didn't mean a friend. I meant... uh.. I found it, yeah.. that's it....]

a 22-year-old woman, her mother and grandmother were killed when the family's SUV blew a tire on northbound I-95 in Wilson County, the driver lost control and the vehicle overturned.

Facebook said Friday it mistakenly removed a post in which Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer criticized a controversial policy decision by President Barack Obama's administration to limit deportations of illegal immigrants. ... Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes responded to a query by The Associated Press by saying in a brief email that Brewer's post was removed in error and that Facebook was sorry. ... Brewer reposted the item Friday, saying the original post was ``censored'' by Facebook. Both versions included a statement in which she criticized the Obama policy decision and the illustration, a color drawing of Brewer in a Rosie the Riveter pose. Brewer used the drawing in her 2010 election campaign. Its headline of ``doing the job the feds won't do'' refers to Brewer's clashes with Obama's administration on immigration and border issues. "Something that's been posted on there a lot of times....''

Earlier this month, Kazuma Obara became the first photojournalist to gain unauthorised access to the power plant and produced an exclusive glimpse of life inside the facility

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is paying $112 million in tax money to farmers and ranchers in 11 Western states to restore the habitat of the Sage Grouse, a bird that has not been listed as either threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species law because the government says there are too many of them.

On the Constitutional rights front, one has to wonder why no one in the Denver news media has explored the subjects of whether it's lawful for law enforcement agents to (1) step foot on someone's property without a warrant and (2) seize someone's private property (livestock) based solely upon an anonymous phone call to a hotline that pays up to $2,000 for tips.

hounded and threatened with massive fines by agents from the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Bell had to go face to face with her hare-brained local sheriff. ... hounded and threatened with massive fines by agents from the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Bell had to go face to face with her hare-brained local sheriff. ...

Israeli Air Force strikes numerous sites in Strip overnight, Palestinian sources say; Hamas targets hit, casualties reported. Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority warns Israel to act 'responsibly' in wake of terror offensive that left eight Israelis dead

Security tape allegedly shows a group of police officers beating two Chicago brothers Wednesday after apparently mistaking them for robbers while one was closing the store at which he worked.

out of the 13 items for sale, seven are Obama-related, in addition to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's memoir, "True Compass." The only CBS-related item is a DVD copy of "60 Minutes Presents — Obama: All Access — The Road to the White House."

reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim. Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control — and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain. [AND THE ALIENS ALL VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS? Sheesh!]

A man herding reindeer in Russia's Arctic found the perfectly-preserved, 40,000-year-old body of a baby woolly mammoth. The creature's carcass was sticking up out of the permafrost

altering chicken DNA to create embryos with alligator-like snouts instead of beaks. Experts changed the DNA of chicken embryos in the early stage of their development, enabling them to undo evolutionary progress and give the creatures snouts which are thought to have been lost in the cretaceous period millions of years ago. The scientific revelation of 'rewinding' evolution could pave the way for scientists altering DNA in the other direction and use the same process to create species better able to adapt to Earth's climate. [Yeah, right. Or, they could just be mucking things up for fun and profit. Which is more likely?]

Sarah Palin's Sept. 3 event has been relocated from Waukee to Indianola to better accommodate a larger crowd, organizers said.Palin is the keynote speaker at the Tea Party of America's 'Restoring America' event, which is free and open to the public.The event was originally scheduled at Hawkeye Antique Acres in Waukee. The event is now scheduled from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the National Balloon Classic field, east of Indianola.There has been speculation that Palin, a former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, could use the event as an opportunity to announce whether she plans to run for president in 2012.

Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan have had good, inspiring, on-target things to say about the US fiscal crisis. Michelle Bachmann has had good things to say. John Bolton had an important piece making the case that national security is inextricably linked with fiscal security, a much-needed point in the context of the recent debate. But Sarah Palin came through today with a Facebook post that strikes the right tone and is at once simple, direct, and comprehensive. It doesn't rail at past mistakes, nor does it come across as a raised-voice, you've-got-to-get-this-people communication. Palin takes it for granted — with refreshing common sense — that we are in a crisis, its features are obvious, and the task now is to deal with it, not continue to argue whether it's really a crisis or how big it is or whose name we can pin on it.

Blaming the Tea Party for our credit downgrade is akin to Nero blaming the Christians for burning Rome. Tea Party Americans weren't the ones "fiddling" while our country's fiscal house was going up in smoke. In fact, we commonsense fiscal conservatives were the ones grabbing for the extinguishers while politically correct politicians and their cronies buried their heads in what soon became this bonfire.

There is a meaningful, negative 45% correlation between the president's cumulative speeches and his popularity

Given the media and some liberal politicians were driving the "terrorists" meme home at every opportunity, Rasmussen asked 1,000 likely voters whether they agreed. Out of the respondents, 29% believed they are, while 71% believed it was an outlandish accusation. MRCTV's Joe Schoffstall went to the nations Capitol to see if people were buying into the organized effort to paint them as such.

Ed Schultz used a deceptive edit to misinform his audience about the content of Gov. Rick Perry's speech in Iowa yesterday. Schultz claimed that Gov. Perry was calling President Obama a "black cloud hanging over America" when in fact, the governor was talking about the national debt. [c/o Instapundit c/o commenter Lisette at HillBuzz]

A Philadelphia man will celebrate Wednesday night after walking 2 000 miles from Penn Treaty Park to Bartlesville Oklahoma to draw attention to ... "The Trail of Tears"

Scientific evidence for popular dietary supplements, showing tangible health benefits when taken orally by an adult with a healthy diet

The recent police-related deaths of 43-year-old Allen Kephart in Lake Arrowhead, California and 37-year-old Kelly Thomas in Fullerton, California have sent shockwaves through the their respective communities. Indeed, both are being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The death of Thomas, a homeless schizophrenic beaten into a coma by Fullerton police, is also being investigated by the Orange County District Attorney's Office. His case is not the first time Orange County law enforcement has been accused of applying excessive force to a mentally ill homeless man.

The documents we uncovered show that the Obama FCC was deeply involved in discussions with the radical leftist organization Free Press in the run up to the December 2010 FCC vote. How deep? Free Press reached out to the FCC to invite FCC Commissioner Michael Copps to write an op-ed for the Albuquerque Journal in advance of a November 16 hearing on Internet Access. Free Press helped coordinate a speaker's list for FCC "Internet workshops" — which was a "Who's Who" of liberal activists. ... Allow me to introduce you to the people who seem to be running the FCC's Internet policies ... Two socialists, a radical feminist, and a left-wing eccentric billionaire who uses his wealth to drive the liberal agenda ... Proponents of net neutrality, like Free Press, believe Internet access is a civil right. And what happens when you make something a civil right? You put the government in charge of "protecting" those rights. In the case of net neutrality, proponents want taxpayer-funded online access for everyone, most especially communities they deem "underserved." This, of course, would require government control. If allowed to move forward, the Left's version of "net neutrality" could stifle innovation by preventing Internet service providers from managing their information networks with any flexibility. And it could effectively kill the digital economy.

Special Guest Commentary by the Sarah Palin Homunculus that Lives Inside Liberals' Heads ... Well ya see, the deal is I'm not Sarah, but boy I gotta tell ya, we sure do get mistaken all the time! No, I'm just a plain ol' homunculus Sarah Palin that your own id created to sublimate your deep-seated psychosexual neuroses. Or so those egghead books say, anyway.

Ten years after 9/11, can't we nominate someone who can speak to the ominous threat posed by Islamic supremacists in this country? ... Rick Perry must not be the Republican nominee. Rick Perry must not be President. Have we not had enough of this systemic sedition?

it's tempting to be immodest when your admirers are so immodest about you. How many times have we heard it said that Mr. Obama is the smartest president ever? Even when he's criticized, his failures are usually chalked up to his supposed brilliance. Liberals say he's too cerebral for the Beltway rough-and-tumble; conservatives often seem to think his blunders, foreign and domestic, are all part of a cunning scheme to turn the U.S. into a combination of Finland, Cuba and Saudi Arabia. I don't buy it. I just think the president isn't very bright. ... He makes predictions that prove false. He makes promises he cannot honor. He raises expectations he cannot meet. He reneges on commitments made in private. He surrenders positions staked in public. He is absent from issues in which he has a duty to be involved. He is overbearing when he ought to be absent. ... politically inept habit of suggesting—whether the issue is health care, or Arab-Israeli peace, or change we can believe in at some point in God's good time—that the fault always lies in the failure of his audiences to listen attentively... [h/t rdbrewer at Ace of Spades]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked 66 years ago. 30 years ago Paul Fussell wrote this important essay, 'Thank God for the Atom Bomb'. 21 year old 2nd Lt. Fussell commanded infantry in WWII France. Later, he had to sit around waiting to invade Japan and die. That was the general expectation of the vets of the European theater - they didn't think they'd survive Japan. Then Aug 6th happened.

...confused? Don't worry. You're not alone. Most people are confused when they first hear about SlutWalk -- and they generally remain confused even after it's explained to them. In fact, by my reckoning, even the participants are confused. ... I'll try to unravel the mysteries of SlutWalk for you here. But there is simply too much to say, too much to deconstruct. Entire books could be written on the subject; PhD theses; symposia. (Trust me, people are working on them as we speak). ...

A 40-year-old Seminole County man arrested for allegedly attaching an improvised explosive device to a natural gas pipeline in Oklahoma... Daniel Wells Herriman of Konowa...

what is being called an "animal hoarding" case involving a reported Washington County SPCA employee... total of 81 dogs and cats were seized.... "a lack of clean ingestible water in the recent 100-plus degree temperatures...." "unbearable odor of 'dead animals', urine and feces..."

After confirming the baby was not in the car, the officer tried taking [his] information and learned he did not have a license. The officer then arrested [him] after dispatch informed him [his]license had been revoked in Oklahoma. The officer then impounding the vehicle opened the trunk and immediately smelled the odor of marijuana. In the trunk he found four trash bags.... slightly more than 3.8 pounds.... two notebooks bearing apparent delivery lists of different amount of marijuana, and $1,803 in cash. [Real coo', dood. Not like you're gonna have any friends after that one!]

A historic Ford Tri-Motor will make a stop at the Bartlesville Airport on September 15 — 18. ...played a major role in the development of safe and reliable air transportation in the United States.... manufactured on August 21, 1929....

Gone is the soaring rhetoric and promising tone. Absent is that special credibility he once held with voters who saw him as an adult promising to bring some common sense to Washington. That winning audacity has been replaced by stiff irritability. Hopeful visions have given way to scolding lectures. Watching him speak now is like watching Meat Loaf crash around onstage, all fat and sweaty, crooning his old love songs and trying to catch a spark — only to faint onstage, be revived by medics and insist on finishing his show. It is desperation defined.

Over the past 35 plus months, there has been a quantum leap in the number of really dumb lies that our government has foisted on what they assume to be an unsuspecting public. 30 of the most pathetically stupid

Mark Levin took a few moments to remind our 'Blamer-in-Chief' of what he really inherited when he became president... "The greatest nation on the face of the earth!"

Santelli slams the Obama administration for playing the blame game over the downgrade to our credit rating... also points out that without Tea Party, we would've had a clean debt ceiling increase and our credit rating would have likely been dropped even lower to BBB.... [video]

the possibility of an orchestrated ambush looks much more likely — as an Afghan official tells the press that's exactly what happened: "The Taliban lured US forces into an elaborate trap to shoot down their helicopter, killing 30 American troops in the deadliest such incident of the war, an Afghan official said Monday...." When morons like Biden run their mouths, they put good men at risk. When the Obama administration decided to release all the information about who killed bin Laden, they put good men at risk.

Joe Farah and private investigator Susan Daniels discuss Obama's Connecticut Social Security Number [audio]

The U.S. stock exchanges are plunging and the S&P has just downgraded the credit rating of United States federal government debt. So, how does the President respond to recent developments of the Obama Depression? He plays golf. [h/t Polination

The left-wing activist group MoveOn.org picked up the new liberal slogan bashing conservatives for Standard & Poor's U.S. credit rating downgrade: "Tea Party downgrade." President Obama's chief campaign strategist David Axelrod and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry both used the phrase on Sunday talk shows. [Heaping helping of Alinsky tactic anyone?]

Barack Obama uses a Social Security number belonging to man born in 1890? Snopes says no. Not even the same number, among other refutation. Snopes says.

Fox News has exclusively obtained a Democratic National Committee memo which paints the Republican field of presidential contenders as Tea Party flaks pushing tired, divisive policies which elevate the rich and predicts much of the same at tonight's Fox News co-hosted debate in Ames, Iowa. ... The memo is described as a state of play for media and "Democratic friends" which spells out the DNC's predictions for tonight's debate.

"Who has ever called a man 'The King of Rage?,' NOW president Terry O'Neil told TheDC. "The 'Queen of Rage' is something you apply to wrestlers or somebody who is crazy. They didn't even do this to Howard Dean when he had his famous scream."

The administration's knee-jerk responses are somewhat inconsistent: if S&P was wrong to downgrade the debt, and the downgrade was based on a mathematical error, then it is hard to see how the downgrade can also be the Tea Party's fault. (In the legal world, this is known as pleading in the alternative: when sued for borrowing a neighbor's pot and breaking it, the defendant answers that he never borrowed the pot; the pot was never broken; and the pot was already broken when he borrowed it.) Of the administration's alternative theories, the most ludicrous is the claim that the Tea Party, the one group dedicated to doing something about the nation's spending and debt crisis, is somehow to blame for it. Yet this is the theory that President Obama's political adviser, David Axelrod, tried to sell on Face the Nation this morning

Gawker may have put it best: "As you'll see, his hips most definitely don't lie." During an appearance on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show last night, Dem. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) joined to talk about the economy. During that discussion, the almost unmistakeable sound of Frank passing gas... [video]

When the FBI deactivated a ticking device on a gas line found around 11 Wednesday morning they got the gas line turned off and evacuated about 25 residents living a half mile from the danger zone. ... a crude explosive with batteries attached. The timer was set at 2. ... may have been waterlogged from the overnight storms....

The FBI says more information will be released about a possible explosive found on a gas line in eastern Oklahoma. ... found Wednesday on a gas line in Okfuskee County by a county deputy sheriff who thought it might be a bomb because of a timer attached to it. ...

It is hardly surprising that vigilantism is on the rise given a) the disastrous failure of the police to protect the homes and businesses of ordinary people over the weekend, b) the authorities' strange complacency about the destruction of property, and c) their strange obsession with not using baton rounds, tear gas or water cannon no matter how much damage and injury those non-lethal tools might save.

The image of Monika Konczyk (pictured) jumping from her first-floor flat as flames tore through the building became an iconic image of the riots.

A beautiful Brazilian soap star... 28-year-old Adriana Ferreyr yesterday filed a blockbuster $50 million suit charging, among other things, that the frisky octogenarian slapped her around while they were in bed discussing his real-estate betrayal.

A little nature lesson for ya, bubala; these people were camping amid wild animals.Wild animals have three tasks in life — eat, defecate, procreate. Been doing it a long time. The bear was underweight because midsummer is not peak feeding season.... —Pistol Pete at PoliNation

Jackie Onassis believed that Lyndon B Johnson and a cabal of Texas tycoons were involved in the assassination of her husband John F Kennedy, 'explosive' recordings are set to reveal. ... The then Mrs Kennedy, who went on to marry Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, had ordered that they should not be released until 50 years after her death, with some reports suggesting she feared that her revelations might make her family targets for revenge. She died 17 years ago from cancer aged 64 and now her daughter, Caroline Kennedy, has agreed to release the recordings early....

London's Metropolitan Police have created a Flickr page, entitled "London Disorder — Operation Withern," which includes the "first of many" CCTV images of rioters suspected of looting, committing violence and other criminal acts. Police hope the public can help identify the alleged criminals and bring them into custody. ... Police also launched the Twitter hashtag #tweetalooter, which they urge citizens to use if they have information about rioters or criminal acts. ... Police aren't the only ones setting up websites to help catch looters. ...

Pato Banton initially burst onto the international reggae scene in the same wave of British artists that included his friends and colleagues Ranking Roger and UB40. Over the years, Banton's music and lyrics have retained the lighter pop appeal of those performers, while incrementally adding depth and profundity. At this point in his career, Banton has become one of reggae music's most individual and powerful artists. ... Banton's motivation for making records clearly is not based on marketing strategies, however, as he has frequently worked on projects with a spiritual, rather than commercial, impetus. Banton has appeared on a series of religious albums titled "Words of Christ." Banton does not use his own lyrics on these works, but rather serves as a narrator, reading texts from the Urantia Book, also known as the Fifth Epochal Revelation, the central work of an esoteric Christian splinter group. "I've been very blessed to find the Urantia Book. After 21 years of studying it, I'm convinced that it is a revelation for the human race," Banton says. "It's a gift from the angels." Tenets of Rastafarianism also figure in Banton's lyrics, but he cherishes his role as a Urantian prophet. "It's become a tool not only that I give to people but also that I can use for my own edification," he says. Banton, who says he has the gift of revelation, explains that it becomes manifest in many ways. "In my travels, there have been times when I've seen miracles before my own eyes. I have to give thanks for those times," he says. "I don't talk much about them, because I don't want to freak people out or make people think that I'm anything special, but there have been times when God has used me to do certain things, and I just stand there in awe."

Some armed with swords, some carrying hockey sticks, defiant Sikhs stood guard outside their temples last night. More then 700 men, some in their 80s, took to the streets to protect the homes, businesses and places of worship in Southall, West London. The residents rallied together in a show of unity against looters echoed in other parts of the country as ordinary Britons attempted to reclaim the streets. ... It was only on Monday night that police tactics changed and armoured vehicles called Jankels were used to disperse the crowds. Large groups gathered in Enfield, north London, and Eltham, south east London, last night and joined police in patrolling the streets. ... Amarjit Singh Klair from nearby Hounslow, who helped rally the men, said: 'We are working along side the police, they're doing what they can but they are stretched. 'Why shouldn't we defend our homes, businesses and places of worship? This is our area. There's lots of talk about it kicking off here. But we're ready for them.' Hooded youths could be seen scouting the area but appear to be have frightened off. Only a handful of police could be seen patrolling the area.

Italian officials have detained a German couple who abandoned three young children earlier this week. The couple claims they had run out of money and had no food for their children. They could still face charges, though.

The Obama administration, at the highest levels, and likely Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama themselves, authorized the sale of at least 2,000 high-powered rifles and other sophisticated weapons to the "Sinaloa" Mexican drug cartel. As bad as that is, it doesn't stop there. It is now learned through sworn affidavits in U.S. District court that the U.S. government, at very high levels, "negotiated" to allow tons of Sinaloa cocaine into the country, supposedly in exchange for information about other drug gangs.

After Bin Laden was killed, Robert Gates was insistent that nothing be revealed about the unit that accomplished the deed. But one man could not keep his mouth shut: Joe Biden... Further irresponsible leaks from the Obama administration revealed the unit involved, causing the unit members to fear for their safety and that of their families... Gates specifically talked about the fear of potential retaliation... Today, that retaliation may have come to pass.... an important reminder why it's not just comedy relief to have cynical glory-seekers and complete buffoons at the highest levels of government....

Hours before the tunes started pumping and the booze started flowing at the White House, the Dow shed over 500 points, over fears of a Eurozone meltdown. Worries over a double-dip recession are reaching a fever pitch. Unemployment remains miserably high, even as hundreds of thousands of workers abandon the labor force. The national debt is pulling even with GDP. Growth has ground to a halt. And we may be on the brink of a wrenching national credit downgrade. Despite this gruesome economic backdrop, the President of the United States decided it would be a wise move to host an extravagant, star-studded birthday party for himself -- during which he led a conga line of celebs and other revelers through the White House.

Lucy Nashed, Deputy Press Secretary to Texas Governor Rick Perry, commented that the drug traffickers have become "increasingly confrontational in protecting their lucrative criminal enterprises ... It is an affront to suggest our border is secure as innocent lives on both sides continue to be threatened due to ongoing drug cartel violence. This administration's comments prove that they either don't understand or don't care about the turmoil occurring along our border." Arizona Assemblyman John Kavanagh was of the same opinion as Sheriff Larry Dever who warns that the "the tentacles of the drug cartels reach far beyond the border. They have a network throughout the entire country. Every community throughout the US is at risk. Those of us on the border fight the battle every day. These communities will be the first to state when they feel safe and their livelihood is protected." The drugs do not stay on the border as evidenced by Arizona Assemblywoman Peggy Judd's statistics: "Drugs coming across the border are worth $9/lb., in Tucson they are worth $400/lb., in Phoenix $600/lb., and in Washington DC $1000/lb."... The American public should wake up and realize how badly this problem is out of control. If it wants to address the problem effectively, the Obama administration needs to realize that superficial directives will not stop the cartels and that the federal government needs to make the border safe and secure to ensure America's sovereignty. [Alas, this is not what the Obamanation wants. Exactly the opposite.]

When discussing or debating the Birther issues with a newbie, in addition to a transfer education in law, the Constitution, the jurisprudencial system, and history, I frequently am a witness to the real-time acting out of the Kübler-Ross behavioral model of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.... Discussions with actual politicos, such as direct talks with Congressman Brian Bilbray, are particularly revealing, in that one presupposes that once the facts are discussed, there is a presumption that the revelation of truths will result in a commensurately engaged moral action. But this is not so. ... In the end, Birtherism would not be a big deal at all, if it weren't for the fact that we have nearly an entire executive branch engaged in the office of running guns to drug cartels in Mexico -- arguably an act of war, starting and perpetuating a war in Libya without congressional consent, "borrowing" billions of funds from the Federal Employees Pension Fund so as not to violate a debt ceiling that is already being violated, running election campaigns out of the White House, not enforcing polling place protection laws from Panther thugs, circumventing fed fund restrictions to abortion clinics, arranging Wall Street payouts to unions for stocks created out of thin air -- and probably more.

Ann Barnhardt: The so-called "right" or "Tea Party" in this republic is being so thoroughly rolled and defeated that I am struggling to come up with an adequate violent submission metaphor that does not involve prison rape . . . and they honesty think that they're "winning." Really? You call this winning? - Obama gets over $2 Trillion to spend before the 2012 election - There are no real spending cuts - There is a massive tax increase effective January 1, 2013.... Obama is going to embezzle considerably more than the entire economic output of Canada, India or Russia to his cronies before the 2012 election -- and that is just counting this round of spending. This doesn't include the other $5 Trillion he has already burned through since 2009.... Obama is a Marxist-Communist usurper and puppet front for a cabal of Marxist-Communists who are actively trying to destroy the United States of America. Everything they have done, are doing, and will do has the single goal of collapsing and destroying the U.S. economy, military, constitutional government and culture. What part of "Marxist Revolution" do you not understand? ...

With the economy sputtering, Democratic political operatives view former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as the main Republican threat to President Obama's reelection, according to this week's National Journal Political Insiders Poll. Democratic Insiders see Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has not yet declared whether or not he will run for president, as the second strongest against Obama. A separate poll of Republican insiders, released Thursday, also showed Perry as Romney's main GOP challenger.

NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre say Eric Holder must resign over the fast and furious scandal that sent thousands of weapons to Mexican cartels. ... Law-abiding Americans were blamed for drug crime and murder in Mexico, meanwhile, our own government was putting guns in the hands of known Mexican drug cartels. Now, more than 150 Mexicans and U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry are dead as a result of this criminal enterprise. ... Either Holder is truly incompetent and had no idea about the massive, illegal gun-walking operation that was taking place right under his nose, or he's lying to protect the Obama administration. Either way, he must cease to be our nation's top law enforcement official immediately.

a Cuban man who immigrated to this country 50 years ago to get away from socialism. While all of them took offense at being labeled as terrorists, the man from Cuba says he's seen this playbook before and he never thought he would see freedom in jeopardy here in America (video)

We have the apparent sale by a State Department directorate of some very serious firepower to a nest of cutthroat bushwhackers that go by the handle of "Las Zetas", flown out of an Airport in the Dallas area that just happens to be the same airport used by DEA Flight operations. ... What the map lays out are the routes used to airship the weapons to the border, where they are staged for ground shipment into Mexico.... "Phil Jordan, a former CIA operative, told the El Paso Times that the Zetas drug organization might be planning to disrupt Mexico's 2012 elections or use the weapons to fight other cartels...." CIA analysts say the weapons, which are purchased from the U.S. Government according to captured Zeta leader Jesus Enrique Rejon Aguilar, aka. El Mamito, are being stockpiled throughout Mexico for a potential upcoming overthrow of the Mexican government in 2012. ... So just where is all this leading? We have several either rogue agencies or at least rogue elements within said agencies ( I really hope it's the latter) delivering military grade weapons to narco-terrorists such as the Zetas that may be planning to disrupt elections and overthrow the Mexican government. The Zetas are capable of doing this, their core cadre are ex-Mexican Special Forces, more on them here. If I were a Conspiracy Theorist I would be tempted to say, that it just may be that the next "Crisis not to waste" will be a full blown civil war along our southern border.

Rep. West has come under criticism for supporting debt bill while fellow Tea Party favorites Michele Bachman and Ron Paul voted against it. (video)

U.S. federal agents allegedly cut a deal with the Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed it to traffic tons of narcotics across the border, in exchange for information about rival cartels, according to documents filed in federal court. ... The allegations are made by Vicente Zambada-Niebla, a top ranking cartel boss extradited to the U.S. last year on drug charges. He is a close associate of Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and the son of Ismael "Mayo" Zambada-Garcia. ... the deal was part of a 'divide and conquer' strategy, where the U.S. helped finance and arm the Sinaloa cartel, through Operation Fast and Furious, in exchange for information that allowed the D.E.A. and FBI to destroy and dismantle rival Mexican cartels. ... "from time to time, the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel was informed by agents of the DEA through Loya that United States government agents and/or Mexican authorities were conducting investigations near the home territories of cartel leaders so that the cartel leaders could take appropriate actions to evade investigators- even though the United States government had indictments, extradition requests, and rewards for the apprehension of Mayo, Chapo, and other alleged leaders, as well as Mr. Zambada-Niebla."

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. ... At one point, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives say guns sold under the program took just 24 hours to travel from a gun store in Phoenix to a crime scene in Mexico. ATF agents there pleaded for help but were told nothing about Fast and Furious, which was intended to let guns "walk" in order to track them to higher-profile traffickers. Meanwhile, the report claims the agents' superiors in Washington met every Tuesday, to review the latest sales figures and the number of guns recovered in Mexico.

You can see the Dems expected the media to parrot their recalcitrant-Republican talking point, while ignoring their choice to not pass a temporary extension because it included $16.5 million in cuts to a pork-rich rural airport program. Instead they were shocked and angered when ABC's Jonathan Karl asked some pointed questions. You've got to watch this video.

after the full ten minutes on Giffords, we get an update about the debt-limit situation (which is supposedly an Armageddon-level issue) and Kelly O'Donnell basically carries water for Biden on the issue by completely muddying whether he said anything of the sort at all. (His office says, no, no the vice president didn't call them terrorists, he just politely agreed with all the Democratic congressmen in the room that they "acted like terrorists." Ah, this is a distinction a team of a million Jesuits working around the clock would have a hard time slicing.) And yet you know the next time there's the slightest, remotely exploitable tragedy or hint of violence, the same reporters, editors, producers, and politicians are going to insist that blood was spilled because of the right wing's rhetoric. [h/t to Cuz BD]

The liberal penchant for referring to everything but terrorism as terrorism continues to mystify. ... they're worried that we won't believe whatever they tell us about the economy. That's why the full-scale hyperbole offensive has been launched by the Left. ...

These aren't pillow fights

Recently, reports surfaced of Iranian assistance to rebels fighting American forces in Iraq. In his first visit to Iraq as defense secretary, Leon Panetta stated, "[W]e're very concerned about Iran and the weapons they're providing to extremists in Iraq. We cannot sit back and simply allow this to continue." Yet thus far the United States and the rest of the world continue to sit back and wait -- wait for something to draw us into the inevitable. On October 14, 1962 President John F. Kennedy addressed the world: "It shall be the policy of this nation, to regard any nuclear missile, launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere, as an attack, by the Soviet Union, on the United States." We can only hope that it will not take a nuclear attack for this country to realize that we are already at war.

a mob of young people attacking innocent fair-goers at the end of the opening night of State Fair, with some callers claiming a racially-charged scene. Milwaukee Police confirmed there were assaults outside the fair. Witnesses' accounts claim everything from dozens to hundreds of young black people beating white people as they left State Fair Thursday night.

Four young men with gang ties were arrested Wednesday night for an alleged attempted mugging and mugging in separate incidents on the east side, Madison police reported. Police said that brings to 18 the number of suspects arrested since April for a string of strong-arm robberies, batteries and disorderly conduct cases involving weapons, as officers crack down on street violence.

I mean, really: parents having any say about schools? How regressive a notion is that?

"bizarre" is too mild a word to describe San Francisco's latest outburst; even from my pro-choice perspective, the city's attempt to essentially banish any counseling center which doesn't encourage or perform abortions is simply beyond belief.

One in every 31 U.S. adultsis in the corrections system, which includes jail, prison,probation and supervision, more than double the rate of aquarter century ago.... "Violent and career criminals need to be locked up, and for a long time. But our research shows that prisons are housing too many people who can be managed safely and held accountable in the community at far lower cost," said Adam Gelb, director of the Center's Public Safety Performance Project, which produced the report.

Interestingly, that congressional inquiry went on to state that the Founding Fathers "did not intend to spread over all the public authorities and the whole public action of the nation, the dead and revolting spectacle of atheistical apathy." And make no mistake, there are no better words to describe a lawsuit to obliterate the 9/11 cross than "revolting spectacle."

Quite a whopper of a claim -- human actions rivaling the asteroid strike that waylaid the dinosaurs. The "Humans as Gods" belief is a nice carryover from the global change wars that raged for decades. ... The upshot is that scientists are speculating based on very incomplete data and records. This is what passes for modern doomsday science. But gloomy scientists have an ace up their sleeve. They're citing Haiti as a prime example of humans' ability to devastate the animal kingdom. ... Never mind that Haiti is a grossly dysfunctional, poverty-wrenched society occupying a portion of a small Caribbean island. And never mind that frog species on Haiti's side of the island are dying off in no small measure due to a fungus brought by African frogs. Haiti, suggest biologists, is the world's future. Hubris, thy name is modern science

[The New Yorker's description of "what [might have] happened that night in Abbottabad, by Nicholas Schmidle]

The stock market is highly perceptive, and what it's perceiving now is that (1) the mediocre recovery of the last two years is stalling out and (2) our leaders in Washington haven't the vaguest idea of what to do about it. A big part of this pathetic recovery has to be laid at government's doorstep. Our top elected and appointed officials try to blame it on everyone else, but it's their incompetence that has brought us low.

Ann Coulter - A front-page story by James Risen in The New York Times on Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008, reported on a "troubling trend" of sexual assaults committed by American employees of military contractors in Iraq. The centerpiece of his story was Jamie Leigh Jones, who claimed to have been brutally gang-raped in 2005 while working in the Green Zone. ... But no one jumped on Jones' story with more self-righteousness than Sen. Al Franken. He used her story to jam through a grandstandy "anti-rape" amendment to an appropriations bill prohibiting defense contractors from including mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts, thus depriving mountebank trial lawyers like John Edwards from collecting massive damages awards from illiterate jurors. The 30 Republican senators who voted against Franken's pro-trial lawyer amendment were promptly denounced as "pro-rape" across the Internet, on liberal talk radio and in mass phone calls to their offices. ... And then a few weeks ago, the Times ran a microscopic, one-paragraph Associated Press story on page 13 of a Saturday paper, reporting that a jury looked at the facts and found that ... Jones made the whole story up. ... Maybe the Republican senators should have sponsored a no-false-rape-allegation bill for defense contractor employees.

Osage County officials seized 81 cats and dogs in a Tuesday raid on the home of an alleged animal hoarder. ... "a bunch of cats and dogs in cages outside." ... many did not have water and most of the animals had upper respiratory infections. ... "We also found three horses had minor problems with their hooves.... Most of the cats and dogs were in cages with wire bottoms, one kitten had its eyes matted shut and a lot didn't have water." ... eight dogs were left at the residence because they were not in a condition that they could be seized. ... "You can't leave animals chained in pens like that in this heat.... Most of the water bowls were bone dry and some had dust in them."

Dinsmoor's concrete sculptures soar over visitors' heads, silhouetted against the Kansas sky. From grieving widows to a conquering Goddess of Liberty, scoundrels and grafters of society to sweetly sentimental portraits....

Wreckage from shuttle Columbia was uncovered in East Texas this week, the result of a prolonged drought lowering water levels in a lake. The spherical tank, which is about four feet in diameter, is stuck in the mud alongside Lake Nacogdoches. ...part of Columbia's power-producing fuel cell system. ...thought to be either a liquid hydrogen or liquid oxygen tank.

The Moon's highlands, long a mystery, may have been thrown up billions of years ago by a slow-motion collision with a smaller companion moon knocked off its orbit.... At least one such mini-moon, about a third the diameter of the one we see today, could have been suspended between the gravitational pulls of the Moon and Earth for tens of millions of years, they calculated. Eventually, however, it would have lost its moorings and crashed into the Moon.... "According to our simulations, a large 'moon-to-Moon' size ratio and a subsonic impact velocity lead to an accretionary pile rather than a crater," Jutzi and Asphaug concluded. This scenario would also help explain why the farside's crust is so much thicker, and why certain minerals are concentrated there

American conservatism, the philosophy of smaller, Constitutionally-oriented government is extremely fragile in a world where a surprise event can "reset" the government to its 50-year default position of progressivism, socialism, and top down control.

Of all current or former governors among the leading candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, no one's record of dealing with his or her state's debt and unfunded liabilities compares with that of Sarah Palin during her three fiscal years at the helm in Alaska.

The problem for Perry, in the blinding light of the national stage, is that he may ultimately be seen as the swaggering rooster who believes the sun came up because of all that crowing. Texas was a conservative, small government, pro-business state long before he was in charge, and Texas will remain so long after he's gone. Americans may conclude that Texas jobs would have materialized whether Perry was governor or not, and it might just be to Texas business' credit, not Perry's, that they did.

the ONLY reason Perry keeps getting re-elected is because his challengers ALWAYS suck worse. ... Basically He's Mitt Romney light, a big government guy. ... Besides Gardasil, which Perry went around the legislature and issued an Executive Order trying to get in place, there was the Trans-Texas Corridor fiasco. ... more on Gardasil. It seems Perry and some of his cronies got big donations from the drug maker, Merck. ... There's a LOT more. Rick has sucked up to LULAC and La Raza (The Race) for a decades. He signed our version of the DREAM act, which, as RomneyCare was the blueprint for ObamaCare, serves as the blueprint for the federal version of the DREAM Act. Oh, and here's a lovely photo of Rick and his buddies from ACORN circa 2008....

President Obama delivered a high-profile speech to NCLR last week, letting the radicals know he plans on giving more to them than just cash. ... the NCLR is a radical racialist group — too many members have absolutely no respect for the United States, most especially not for our immigration laws! (This was evident when the NCLR crowd urged Obama to violate the Constitution during his speech and unilaterally grant amnesty.) Moreover, this is the same organization that supports "radical Chicano" groups that seek to conquer the American Southwest by force or by ballot box and return it to Mexico. ... No matter the reason why Obama is pushing his illegal immigration strategy — whether it's a deep-seated belief or a ploy to attract the Hispanic vote — his polices are downright dangerous and flagrantly unconstitutional.

A mystery company that pumped $1 million into a political committee backing Mitt Romney has been dissolved just months after it was formed, leaving few clues as to who was behind one of the biggest contributions yet of the 2012 presidential campaign. ... a vivid example of how secret campaign cash is being funneled in ever more circuitous ways into the political system. ...

Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, President-Elect Barack Obama's choice for chief of staff in his incoming administration, is co-author of a book, The Plan: Big Ideas for America, that calls for, among other things, compulsory service for all Americans ages 18 to 25.

Militants in Pakistan seized 13 Afghanistan-bound trucks — one carrying two Humvees — without firing a single shot. ... Pakistani Taliban militants hijacked a convoy carrying wheat and military vehicles headed for Afghanistan Monday, underscoring for NATO forces the vulnerability of their only practical supply route into landlocked Afghanistan.

Frank Hafemann never did care for Humphrey Bogart. "We didn't strike a chord," said Mr Hafemann of the famed 1940s Hollywood actor yesterday as he nursed a beer in Launceston's Lloyd's Hotel yesterday. "I got to know Bogart when I worked on Key Largo with him, not my type, so aloof, but John Wayne, now there was a guy, he'd have a drink with you anytime," recalled the retired Hollywood special effects man, who is in Launceston on what he termed "an indefinite holiday." "So how did I come to get here?" the spry 86-year-old white-bearded Mr Hafemann asked himself softly. "I was looking for a holiday in Australia, but I couldn't believe the noise in Sydney, I hated it, so I asked where would I find a place which was a bit quieter and I was told Tasmania was the answer," Mr Hafemann said. His Hollywood career as a special effects man and builder stretched from 1945 to 1981.

Fox has canceled one of its longest-running shows — the late-night sketch comedy veteran "Mad TV." The Saturday night mainstay's current 14th season will be its last on the network

Yma Sumac died Saturday at age 86. There may have been, at some point in human history, a singer with a wider vocal range than this woman. But that singer never entered a recording studio.

People in a vast seismic zone in the southern and midwestern United States would face catastrophic damage if a major earthquake struck there and should ensure that builders keep that risk in mind, a government report said on Thursday. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said if earthquakes strike in what geologists define as the New Madrid Seismic Zone, they would cause "the highest economic losses due to a natural disaster in the United States."

A bone marrow transplant using stem cells from a donor with natural genetic resistance to the AIDS virus has left an HIV patient free of infection for nearly two years, German researchers.

MEMBERS of frisbee team Mental Discs have thrown a wobbly after being told to change their name because it might offend mental health patients.

Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been indicted on separate charges related to alleged prisoner abuse in federal detention centers, Willacy County, Texas, District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra told CNN Tuesday. ... The indictment stems from Cheney's investment in the Vanguard Group -- an investment management company that reportedly has interests in the prison companies in charge of the detention centers, according to The Associated Press. It also charges Gonzales halted an investigation into abuse at the detention centers while he was attorney general.

A last-minute Bush administration plan to grant sweeping new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious or moral grounds has provoked a torrent of objections, including a strenuous protest from the government agency that enforces job-discrimination laws. The proposed rule would prohibit recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform or to assist in the performance of abortions or sterilization procedures because of their "religious beliefs or moral convictions."

A man wearing a McCain-Palin T-shirt during a Philadelphia celebration on election night was arrested, cuffed and stuffed into a police cruiser, and supporters said it was for no more than wearing the endorsement of the GOP nominees for president and vice-president. Although the man protested that he didn't want to cause any trouble, officers manhandled and arrested him, the video posted on YouTube shows.

Her face was plastered on billboards. The press had her staked out. She couldn't go anywhere without the Secret Service and an entourage, so when did she conduct these clandestine shopping sprees? If you believe that, than you are dumb enough to believe that the woman who took on corruption in her state and ousted a sitting governor from her own party didn't know that Africa was a continent, not a country, or the parties to the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Former U.S. presidential candidate John McCain on Tuesday shrugged off criticism leveled at his running mate, Sarah Palin, saying he expects her "to play a big role in the future of this country."

"I did not order the clothes. Did not ask for the clothes. I would have been happy to have worn my own clothes from day one," she says. "But that is kind of an odd issue, an odd campaign issue as things were wrapping up there as to who ordered what and who demanded what." She continues, "I haven't really heard how all of that evolved until we started getting criticized for supposedly asking for all of these clothes, my family and me. And I still don't have all of the answers. But it just seems like such an irrelevant issue when you consider what is going on in the world today and how a new administration is being ushered in and people being concerned about the direction of the nation and policies that will be adopted and also being excited about this moment in our nation's history, clothes just seem irrelevant." Governor Palin says she finds it "puzzling" that critics accused her of not knowing—among other things—what countries made up NAFTA or whether Africa was a continent or a country. "I remember that discussion," she says, referring to NAFTA. "But there was never a question about, well, who are the participants in NAFTA? So for my discussion there to be spun into something that it was not and then being broadcast on national television, again, based on anonymous sources, that's been another puzzling thing to me." So, is Africa a country or a continent? "Never, ever, did I talk about, well, gee, is it [Africa] a country or is it a continent?" she says. "I just don't know about this issue. So I don't know how they took our one discussion on Africa and turned that into what they turned it into."

Because it has abandoned moral absolutes and its historic Christian faith, the U.S. is moving closer to a Nazi-style totalitarianism, warns a former German member of the Hitler Youth in a new book.