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Archive for October, 2010

Another veterans group I’ll no longer support

Posted by Richard on October 11, 2010

I used to donate to the Disabled American Veterans from time to time. I stopped after learning that the DAV funneled lots of money to Socialist Democrat candidates. I've been a regular contributor to the Veterans of Foreign Wars for years, but I've made my last contribution to that organization, and for the same disgusting reason:

You might think that a prominent veterans organization like the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) would actually reserve its political endorsements for, you know, veterans, or at least those politicians that actually demonstrate some level of respect for the military.  But you would be wrong.  And the problem is not just the VFW; rather, the VFW’s current lobbyist-driven fiasco simply serves to illustrate how out-of-touch the Washington in-crowd is with the feelings of us benighted souls dwelling outside the beltway.

In the Florida 22nd Congressional District race, incumbent Democrat Ron Klien is running against Republican challenger Allen West.  Actually, he’s properly addressed as Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Allen West, a decorated combat veteran who commanded a battalion in Iraq until he was forced to retire after making a 9mm suggestion to a captured terrorist that it would be a very, very smart move to give up some information about future attacks against LTC West’s men.  Now, that’s not to say Congressman Klien does not have a distinguished military record of his own – to be fair, apparently he saw most of Saving Private Ryan on AMC once, though he found it pretty scary.

After due consideration- which apparently means the VFW’s lobbyists told it to do so – the VFW endorsed Klein.

Okay, sometimes an organization makes a mistake.  I mean, it’s not like the VFW decided to endorse, say, a liberal Democratic senator who tried to humiliate an Army general testifying by demanding that he call her “Senator” instead of the perfectly appropriate “ma’am,” or who allowed her fundraisers to be hosted by the likes of Hanoi Jane.  That would be, well, crazy.

Oh, wait.  The VFW is endorsing leftist Senator Barbara Boxer.  Yeah, the same Barbara Boxer who voted to undercut us troops as we sat out in the desert waiting for Operation Desert Storm to start.  Yeah, the same Barbara Boxer who undercut the troops by voting to cut and run in Iraq.  Yeah, that Barbara Boxer – the one who will be running around using the VFW’s shameful endorsement as a shield against the truth of her track record of contempt for our military.

Like so many institutions, the VFW’s connection with Washington has dragged it away from its roots.  The organization’s relentless lobbying on behalf of veterans for more and more benefits has meant cozying up to any politicians who will trade their votes for the credibility the VFW’s endorsement provides.  But now, the VFW’s Washington operation is only about getting more and more benefits, and this has created an unholy alliance with politicians who detest the military yet crave the ability to play the veterans card.

Read the whole thing. According to Blackfive, the VFW has also endorsed Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter against challenger and Navy veteran Ryan Frazier. Along with Alcee Hastings, Barbara Lee, Chuck Schumer, Pat Leahy, … the list goes on.

But Perlmutter?? Seriously? Even the Denver Post, a reliably Democrat-leaning rag, has endorsed Frazier over Perlmutter! And the VFW still snubs the veteran Frazier for the Socialist Democrat Perlmutter? Unforgivable.

I've just made another donation to Frazier for Colorado. And a first donation to Allen West for Congress. I've also sent an email to vfwpac@vfw.org informing them that the VFW will never get another penny from me, and why. 

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Joe Walsh: This year’s different

Posted by Richard on October 9, 2010

I've been a fan of Joe Walsh the musician for many years. Now I've become a fan of Joe Walsh the congressional candidate. He's running against incumbent Melissa Bean in Illinois' 8th District, and he's got one of the most effective one-minute videos I've seen in a while. I hope he's putting this message in ads, and not just on YouTube.


[YouTube link]

The race is a dead heat (41-41), according to the most recent polling. Polling firm We Ask America has moved the contest from the "probable Democrat" category to "too close to call." 

Check out Joe Walsh's political philosophy and his six-point pledge:

  1. I will not serve more than 3 terms in the House (6 years), if so privileged.
  2. I will not receive any health plans or retirement benefits that only congressmen get and that aren’t available to all Americans.
  3. I will not vote for any legislation which increases the size of government or isn’t supported by the Constitution.
  4. I will never add an earmark to any bill.
  5. I will always speak my mind and tell my constituents the truth.
  6. I will always be accessible to my constituents and hold town halls on a regular basis, in good times or bad

If you're in that part of Illinois (northwest of Chicago), lend this man a hand. Wherever you are, consider making a donation to his campaign. I did.

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Bad news, good news

Posted by Richard on October 9, 2010

James Taranto, commenting on news that three dozen people at an Obama rally received medical treatment after become dizzy and fainting:

The bad news is, President Obama made them sick. The good news is, they can still get insurance even though they have a pre-existing condition.

<rimshot />

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A necessary fight

Posted by Richard on October 9, 2010

Human Events' Eric Erickson (emphasis added): 

Most everyone is convinced the Republicans will take back the House of Representatives. The Senate was never likely, though the seats the GOP will pick up will move the Senate decidedly to the right.

What is little noticed, however, is that 80% of incumbents will be re-elected. That is pitiful. In a year where “throw the bums out” has become a mantra for many, an 80% re-election rate is a rate too high.

According to Ballotpedia, 843 Democrats are guaranteed election to state legislatures on November 2 because no Republicans are running against them. On the other hand, 1,057 Republicans — most of them long-term incumbents — are guaranteed election to state legislatures because no Democrats are running against them. That represents one-third of state legislative races in the country.

For the nation to really change course, the revolution at the ballot box we are seeing at the federal level must over time move to the state and local level. It is a necessary fight, but one that will take time.

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Giving thanks for John McCain

Posted by Richard on October 8, 2010

In a deliciously well-written piece (you should read it just to enjoy the alliteration and word-play), Gregg Opelka argued that Republicans should be ever so grateful that John McCain was their nominee in 2008. Why?

Because McCain did the one thing that none of those other men would have dared to do. And in so doing he unwittingly introduced kryptonite into the presence of Barack “Superman” Obama. In 2010 political lingo, kryptonite is spelled in the form of ten other letters: Sarah Palin. When McCain astonished with his choice of Palin as vice-presidential running mate, a chain of events unfolded that created the arch-nemesis of Barack Obama, the one force that would torment the would-be Social Justice-draped crusader more than Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh combined could ever do.

Make no mistake, DC comics readers: Sarah Palin is the agent of paralysis that is now crippling Democrats in the 2010 midterms. “Ah, but the Democrats brought it on themselves,” you cry in rebuttal. “They passed Obamacare and the stimulus bill and cap-and-trade and Cash for Clunkers, all bills that the American people overwhelmingly disapprove of. That’s what’s behind the imminent Republican rout.”

A valid point, granted. But even in the face of the their Saharan thirst to rebuff the will of the center-right American people, Democrats could have averted catastrophe, and Superman could have escaped the mid-term elections with bruised, but intact, majorities in both House and Senate-had it not been for that pernicious half-baked Alaskan. (Gee, Superman, it sucks to have a nemesis, doesn’t it?)

“But Palin isn’t even running,” you astutely ratiocinate. To which I humbly reply, “Nonsense.”

Liberal media punditry was positively Nureyevian in its grand jeté to denigrate Palin when she announced in July of 2009 she was abandoning her Alaskan gubernatorial post. “Quitter. Coward. Lightweight,” it intoned. The tasty chum chucked from the Palin prow did not go undevoured by the circling liberal media sharks, who fed for weeks on what they thought was the last of Sarah.

But as admirers of Conan Doyle’s Dr. Moriarty know, a worthy adversary has two invaluable qualities, patience and perseverance. It hardly seems a coincidence that there is a city in Alaska called Perseverance.

“The tasty chum chucked from the Palin prow” — marvelous writing! And it gets even better. Read the whole thing.

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Nobel committee makes great choice

Posted by Richard on October 7, 2010

Congratulations and thanks to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for awarding the Nobel Prize in literature to Mario Vargas Llosa, a most worthy recipient. Vargas Llosa has been a principled and inspiring advocate of liberty for many years (and that alone makes him an unusual and surprising choice for the Nobel committee): 

Mr. Vargas Llosa is an unusual figure in Latin America where writers and intellectuals are often deeply influenced by leftist revolutionary rhetoric through their careers. He has become a staunch advocate of free markets and representative democracy, as well as a fierce critic of authoritarianism in all of its guises. He has been particularly skeptical of the new strain of leftist populism embodied by Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez, who last year challenged a group of intellectuals including Mr. Vargas Llosa to debate on his television program. He declined when the group said Mr. Chávez should debate Mr. Vargas Llosa one to one.

I can recall the high hopes many of us libertarians had for Vargas Llosa's Peruvian presidential campaign in 1990. At a time when the left in that country was thoroughly discredited, he appeared poised for a victory that might transform that nation into a very libertarian, pro-freedom place.

Unfortunately, Alberto Fujimoro triangulated himself into office by running as the slightly more moderate, "practical" free-market advocate (sort of a "compassionate conservative"), and therefore the somewhat safer choice for Peruvians ready to reject socialism, but a bit nervous about the Democratic Front's "extreme" (i.e., principled) positions.

Fujimoro was eventually exposed as a crook and now resides in prison. 

The Wall Street Journal has reposted a 2007 interview with Vargas Llosa that's well worth your time. Well, well worth it.

Vargas Llosa's son Alvaro is a Senior Fellow at the libertarian Independent Institute and the author of The Che Guevara Myth and numerous other books and articles. His writings are a great way to keep up with events in Latin America from a pro-freedom perspective. 

On a related note, the awarding of the Nobel Prize for physics to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov strikes me as an excellent — and somewhat daring — choice. It's only been six years since the pair discovered/created graphene, a remarkable one-atom-thick sheet of carbon. And they did it using a pencil and a piece of Scotch tape. 

My friend David clued me in to the fact that Geim is the first person to win both an Ig Nobel Prize and a Nobel Prize. This year's Ig Nobels were announced last week.

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McMahon body-slams Blumenthal

Posted by Richard on October 7, 2010

The first debate between Connecticut Senate candidates Linda McMahon and Dick Blumenthal included a couple of minutes that, by all rights, should seal a McMahon victory. But then, I don't understand how Blumenthal can even be in it after the revelation that he repeatedly lied about serving in Vietnam. 

McMahon asked Blumenthal a simple question, "How do you create a job?" His response was just pitiful in presentation and clueless in content — he thinks that to create jobs we need much more government regulation. At the end, McMahon just destroyed him. If the rest of the debate offered anywhere near as stark a contrast, this was what pro wrestling fans call a squash match. 


[YouTube link]

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More green supremacist imagery

Posted by Richard on October 7, 2010

On Tuesday, I posted the environmentalist 10:10 Campaign's execrable little movie, "No Pressure," and quoted James Taranto, who dubbed these anti-human slimeballs "green supremacists." On Wednesday, Ed Driscoll posted about green supremacists, too, and added another disturbing example of the mindset:

And of course, as was the wont of the original White Supremacists, the Green Supremacists really dig fantasizing about a few lynchings, as Australian journalist Andrew Bolt recently discovered. …

Writing in Australia’s Herald Sun, Bolt notes that the photo below is a screen capture of a flier promoting a tradeshow last year put on in Cannes by ACT-Responsible — the ACT stands for “Advertising Community Together.” Not at all surprisingly, Kofi Annan was announced as attending, meaning that presumably he was OK with this image:

green supremacist lynching ad

Read the whole Driscoll post, which has much more fascinating information. This image is apparently admired by the leftist advertising community and enviro-bloggers.

Then be sure to check out this Photoshopped version of the above ad, which says all that needs to be said. 

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Eco-fascist humor

Posted by Richard on October 6, 2010

The big-name, big-budget environmentalist mini-movie "No Pressure" has drawn sharp reactions in the last few days, with criticism coming from both the right and the left. James Taranto did the most thorough job I've seen of taking apart this light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek, gory eco-fascist murder fantasy. He observed that in the past, white supremacists have blown up children, as have Islamic supremacists. "Green supremacists" are still only joking about it — for now: 

There's a new kind of supremacist on the scene: green supremacists. They haven't blown up any children–not in real life. But they've been thinking about it.

A British outfit called the 10:10 Campaign hired Richard Curtis, a writer and producer of cinematic comedies, to produce a four-minute video promoting its effort to encourage people to cut "carbon emissions." The result, titled "No Pressure," struck James Delingpole, a global-warming skeptic who writes for London's Daily Telegraph, as "deliciously, unspeakably, magnificently bleeding awful." He's being too kind.

Read the whole thing. And watch the movie: 


[YouTube link ]
[alternate YouTube link]
[another alternate YouTube link]

Taranto closed with: 

One may hope that Jim Edwards is right when he denies that "this is actually what environmentalists want." But it's bad enough that this is what they fantasize about–and that they manifestly felt no inhibition about airing such a depraved fantasy in public.

But we have plenty of evidence that this — or much worse — actually is what quite a few environmentalists want. We have their own words

We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion — guilt-free at last! — Stewart Brand

Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed. — Pentti Linkola

I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems. — John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs. — John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing….This is not to say that the rise of human civilization is insignificant, but there is no way of showing that it will be much help to the world in the long run. — Economist editorial

We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight — David Foreman, Earth First!

If radical environmentalists were to invent a disease to bring human populations back to sanity, it would probably be something like AIDS — Earth First! Newsletter

Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, is not as important as a wild and healthy planets…Some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. — David Graber, biologist, National Park Service

The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans. — Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project

If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels. — Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

That's just a portion of the quotes collected at one site. There are many more here, here, and elsewhere. 

The leadership of the environmentalist movement is full of people who are anti-capitalist, anti-industrial-revolution, anti-modernity, anti-progress, and ultimately anti-human. There's nothing amusing about the sick self-loathing that causes a person to wish most or all the members of his species were dead. 

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Gold or house?

Posted by Richard on October 6, 2010

Gold hit another new record today. Richard E. Band recently noted (in a subscriber-only journal entry) that the price of gold has been rising as if a "tsunami of inflation" were about to hit, but in the here and now, quite the opposite is the case (emphasis added):

Recently, Enid and I spent a night at the brand-new Country Inn & Suites just south of Toledo, Ohio. Beautiful room, freshly decorated, better-quality furniture. Breakfast included. Cost of our stay: $59. That's less than I would have paid 10 years ago in the same region, when we were visiting our girls in college. (And there was no free Wi-Fi then, either.)

Sure, prices continue to rise for some products and services (notably, healthcare and education). However, broad swaths of the economy are locked in a vicious deflationary undertow.

Meanwhile, gold goes its merry way. Today, it costs 138 ounces of gold to purchase a typical existing home in the United States. Ten years ago, the same house cost 498 ounces of gold.

In other words, home prices have dropped 72% in terms of gold. Is gold the better buy now, or a house? To anyone who focuses on long-term value, the answer should be obvious.

That's a compelling factoid, and one worth thinking about before placing that order for Gold Eagles, Maple Leafs, or Krugerrands.

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Obama to negotiate with wildfire

Posted by Richard on October 5, 2010

This "Breaking News" parody is really funny because the premise is completely ridiculous, and yet in character. Enjoy!


[YouTube link]

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Colorado Christians outraged by Jesus art

Posted by Richard on October 5, 2010

An exhibit at the Loveland Museum/Gallery in Loveland, CO, includes a twelve-panel lithograph by Enrique Chagoya. One of the panels apparently depicts Jesus engaged in oral sex with a man, and it's sparked outrage among Colorado's Christian community.

On Sunday, police used tear gas to disperse a violent mob of Christians attempting to storm the museum. One man was killed and seven injured, including three police officers. In nearby Boulder, roving gangs of Christian youths vandalized storefronts, defaced a mosque and a Buddhist ashram, blocked streets, and torched at least a dozen vehicles. Riots have broken out in several other Front Range cities with large Christian populations.

The Loveland City Council is expected to address the issue at its Tuesday meeting, and more violence is feared if the artwork isn't ordered removed. Museum employees, city council members, and their families are under 24-hour police protection due to numerous threats. 

… 

Of course, none of that's true (except the part about the lithograph). The outraged Christians are peacefully protesting with signs outside the museum — signs like "Would you portray Mohamad this way?"

I made up the part about rioting Christians. But you already knew that, didn't you? Because you know that Christians — at least modern Christians who come from a culture that, thanks to the Enlightenment, has largely embraced reason and tolerance — simply don't behave like that. Oh, maybe an isolated nut-case — but large, violent mobs of Christians? It just doesn't happen.  

Just as a reminder, here are the Mohammed cartoons that sparked massive riots throughout the world in which many people were killed. Not a sex act depicted among them.

Mohammed cartoons

BTW, I'm an atheist, so I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm just calling 'em as I see 'em.

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