Thursday, December 31, 2009

Limbaugh Update

From RushLimbaugh.com:

Rush was admitted to a Honolulu hospital today and is resting comfortably after suffering chest pains. Rush appreciates your prayers and well wishes. He will keep you updated via RushLimbaugh.com and on Thursday's radio program.

Mr. Limbaugh probably had a heart attack and now faces a period of recovery and rehabilitation.

Which means that he is going to have to do a bunch of that exercise that he hates so much.

Oh well, into each life a little rain must fall.

Get well soon Rush, we wouldn't want to give the Obots the pleasure of reading about your funeral.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Blue Man Group

Here are two videos of one of my favorite . . . whatever you call them, Blue Man Group.



Rush Limbaugh taken to hospital

HONOLULU (AP) - A Honolulu television station is reporting that conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been taken to a hospital with chest pains.

KITV reported Wednesday that paramedics responded to a call at 2:41 p.m. from the Kahala Hotel and Resort where Limbaugh is vacationing.

The station, citing unnamed sources, said paramedics treated Limbaugh and took him to The Queen's Medical Center in serious condition.

Queen's spokeswoman N. Makana Shook says the hospital is unable to comment on the report.

Television station KHON quoted unidentified sources saying Limbaugh was taken from the hotel in an ambulance.

Limbaugh was seen golfing at Waialae Country Club earlier this week. The country club is next to the Kahala Hotel and Resort.

As of 10:56 PM on Wed. this is all anyone knows.

To any readers who believe in the power of prayer I ask you to say one for Mr. Limbaugh's quick recovery.

Dirty Bomb Diaries, episode 8

Think about this

Hi everybody. I'm working overtime to get all work orders completed and all paperwork done for the end of the year so I won't be around much till Friday.

If you are all like me you are watching the developments in the case of the "underwear bomber" and the Obama administration's attempts to spin their way out of the growing scandal of how this jihadi was able to so much as buy a plane ticket to the United States much less board the plane with a bomb.

Here's another question that needs to be seriously asked and seriously answered. Since the Department of Homeland Security was created in the Bush administration every person to hold the cabinet level post of Secretary of Homeland Security, whether under the Republican Bush or the Democrat Obama has had all the intelligence of a number 2 lead pencil.

Why?

Why have two presidential administrations been unable to find a person to head up that very important department who isn't an abject moron?

Now I leave you with this Very Short Story that I wrote three years ago. I hope I don't wind up giving anyone ideas.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Dirty Bomb Diaries, episode 7

He just can't help himself

From The Hill:

Al Franken, the Democrat from Minnesota who won election to the Senate after a successful career as a comic and author, has begun to show the sharp-tongued side of his personality by ripping into GOP staffers behind the scenes.

Franken has worked diligently to keep a low public profile in Congress while focusing on wonky policy debates. But he has been unable to completely repress the fiery passion that made him a hero of the Democratic Party’s liberal base.

Franken has teamed up with GOP colleagues to introduce a variety of legislation, something that may surprise fans who read his books, such as Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.

But he has also pummeled Republican senators and their aides, showing a glimpse of the pugilistic style of his best-seller, Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations.

Franken has surprised some of his colleagues behind the scenes by getting into heated tangles with GOP staffers.

One such exchange took place in Franken’s office during a recent meeting with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and his aides.

Franken invited Corker to his office to discuss an op-ed that Corker penned in a Tennessee newspaper opposing an amendment Franken offered to a defense bill. The measure gave the employees of defense contractors who suffer rape or sexual assault at the workplace the right to sue in court.

The meeting quickly deteriorated when Franken began berating one of Corker’s aides, according to GOP aides familiar with the incident. Franken’s sally was so harsh that Corker told Franken to lay off his aide and direct the comments at him instead.

Franken’s tough approach came as a surprise because Corker scheduled the meeting to mend fences after Franken confronted him about the op-ed during an angry exchange on the Senate floor.

Another GOP staffer, an aide to a Senate Republican leader, found herself at the sharp end of Franken’s wit at a recent reception in the Senate’s Mansfield Room. The tongue-lashing took place at an event to celebrate the swearing-in of GOP Sen. George LeMieux (Fla.).

After the conversation began ordinarily, Franken started to grill the aide about what he sees as the failings of the GOP. Franken demanded to know why it had become the "Party of No" and had exaggerated facts in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, according to another GOP leadership aide.

A spokeswoman for Franken declined to comment on either exchange.

There were two schools of thought about how Franken would conduct himself should he win election to the Senate. One was that he would continue to act the brainless ultra-left bomb throwing buffoon. The other was that he would be so desperate to prove himself a serious politician that he would control his tongue and avoid the spotlight. Instead seeking to build a solid record as a legislator.

It seems that both views were correct.

Franken is trying but at the end of the day we are what we are.

A snake is a snake, a spider is a spider, a scorpion is a scorpion and Al Franken is Al Franken.

Christmas airline bombing foiled - Updated

ROMULUS, Mich. (AP) - An attempted terrorist attack on a Christmas Day flight began with a pop and a puff of smoke - sending passengers scrambling to subdue a Nigerian man who claimed to be acting on orders from al-Qaida to blow up the airliner, officials and travelers said.

The commotion began as Northwest Airlines Flight 253, carrying 278 passengers and 11 crew members from Amsterdam, prepared to land in Detroit just before noon Friday. Travelers said they smelled smoke, saw a glow, and heard what sounded like firecrackers. At least one person climbed over others and jumped on the man, who officials say was trying to ignite an explosive device.

"It sounded like a firecracker in a pillowcase," said Peter Smith, a passenger from the Netherlands. "First there was a pop, and then (there) was smoke."

Smith said one passenger, sitting opposite the man, climbed over passengers, went across the aisle and tried to restrain the man. The heroic passenger appeared to have been burned.

Afterward, the suspect was taken to a front-row seat with his pants cut off and his legs burned. Multiple law enforcement officials also said the man appeared badly burned on his legs, indicating the explosive was strapped there. The components were apparently mixed in-flight and included a powdery substance, multiple law enforcement and counterterrorism officials said.

The White House said it believed it was an attempted act of terrorism and stricter security measures were quickly imposed on airline travel. Dutch anti-terrorism authorities said the U.S. has asked all airlines to take extra precautions on flights worldwide that are bound for the United States.

The incident was reminiscent of Richard Reid, who tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes, but was subdued by other passengers.

Multiple law enforcement officials identified the suspect in Friday's attempted attack as Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab. He was described as Nigerian.

One law enforcement official said the man claimed to have been instructed by al-Qaida to detonate the plane over U.S. soil, but other law enforcement officials cautioned that such claims could not be verified immediately, and said the man may have been acting independently - inspired but not specifically trained or ordered by terror groups.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

Intelligence and anti-terrorism officials in Yemen said they were investigating claims by the suspect that he picked up the explosive device and instructions on how to use it in that country. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

It would be easy to write this guy off as a moron wannabe because his bomb fizzled out but remember nearly all terrorist plots look like something cooked up by the Three Stooges conspiring with the Keystone Cops - until they pull them off successfully. After all if the 9/11 terrorists had been caught the evening of 9/10 the idea that they were going to hijack four airliners and fly them into major American landmarks while armed only with box-cutters would have been greeted with howls of laughter.

I hope that there is some recognition for the quick-acting passenger who jumped the terrorist. Before 9/11 that article would have went out of its way to quote law enforcement and airline officials saying that what the man did was "brave but also foolish". That the best thing to do in that situation is to remain in your seat and allow the flight crew to deal with the problem.

No one thinks like that any more.


UPDATE -

This is from American Thinker:

The passengers of Northwest/Delta Airlines Flight 253 are lucky they are still alive. They should be the last passengers in the US exposed to this kind of risk because of political correctness.

The incident would have never happened on a plane flying out of Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, because the Israelis do it right. They try to find out what is on the passenger's mind, not what is in his bag or shoe.

How many dead innocents will it take before the US realizes it has to do the same? Since almost all the terrorist are jihadists who are either Muslims or converts to Islam, security personnel should concentrate on finding out who are the passengers such a mindset, instead of wasting time randomly checking everybody with the same intensity.

At what point will the responsible authorities realize they have to change policy? Is anybody looking forward to being in the unfortunate group whose killing will finally trigger a change? Why not do it NOW?

We all know what the problem is. After Fort Hood only the most stubborn ostriches refuse to acknowledge Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan motives displayed in his power point presentation available in the Washington Post.

It is time to hold politicians who refuse to protect their fellow citizens from jihadi terror accountable. Or would the majority of Americans rather be dead than viewed as politically incorrect?

Here's the problem. The left has succeeded in using America's past racial sins as a stick to beat the nation over the head with to the point that the average American can think of nothing worse than to be branded a racist.

Now the average American knows in his head that it is better to be called a racist than to be killed by a terrorist BUT the average American doesn't really believe in his heart that he is in much danger from terrorism.

Yeah, 9/11 happened but that was over 8 years ago. . .

What it will take to change the average American's mind on these things is for America to experience the kind of terrorism that Israel has experienced.

When Americans know in both their hearts and their heads that a plane which is not screened by Israeli methods will probably be hijacked by jihadists then we will change airport security.

When Americans know in both heart and head that sometime in the next few months that they are going to be on the street of their hometown and a car full of Muslim terrorists will stop and those terrorists will start spraying automatic weapons fire into the crowd. When Americans know that the only thing that can stop a massacre is for the ordinary citizens to be armed and ready to put the terrorist down then average Americans will start carrying pistols and sub-machine guns.

When Americans know in heart and head that Muslim suicide bombers WILL target the places where they and their children shop, eat, work and play they will demand that both their police and private security guards at places like shopping malls be trained to recognize the warning signs of a suicide bomber and be ordered to shoot first, even if they are not 100% sure.

In short nothing will cause America to change its ways other than the average American coming to believe that his life and the lives of his loved ones are in constant danger from Islamic terror.

If that day ever comes I believe that Americans will look at Israel's security measures as a starting point and move well beyond them in order to keep Americans safe.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Dirty Bomb Diaries, episode 6

A Christmas present for all my readers

Merrry Christmas

1In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3And everyone went to his own town to register.

4So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christa]">[a] the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger."

13Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."

16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

21On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.

22When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord"b]">[b]), 24and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: "a pair of doves or two young pigeons."c]">[c]

25Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord's Christ. 27Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, 28Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:
29"Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismissd]">[d] your servant in peace.
30For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
32a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel."

33The child's father and mother marveled at what was said about him. 34Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: "This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, 35so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too."

36There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37and then was a widow until she was eighty-four.e]">[e] She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. 38Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

Luke 2:1-38

1After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magia]">[a] from the east came to Jerusalem 2and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the eastb]">[b] and have come to worship him."

3When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christc]">[c] was to be born. 5"In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:
6" 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'d]">[d]"

7Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him."

9After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the easte]">[e] went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. 12And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

Matthew 2:1-12

Christmas cards and manger scenes often show the shepherds and wise men together worshiping Jesus as he sleeps in the manger surrounded by Mary, Joseph and the animals.

However in Luke's account we see Joseph and Mary offering two doves when they presented Jesus at the temple. Two doves were allowed by the Law for those in poverty but if the Magi had already presented their very expensive gifts to them a couple as devout as the Holy Family would have used part of the gold to purchase a more appropriate offering for a child which they both new to be the long prophesied Messiah.

You will also note that by the time the Magi arrived the crowding in Jerusalem had eased to the point where Joseph was able to secure lodgings for his family in a house.

The timing of events is significant. The Christ Child is born and his birth is announced to Jewish shepherds who find him and worship him. Then He is presented at the temple where two Jewish prophets independently confirm his identity as the Messiah.

Only after this do the Magi, holy men who preside over the coronation of kings in their homeland, show up to present Him with gifts associated with both the birth and coronation of royalty.

In the events of Christ's birth we see his life foreshadowed. He is offered to Israel after being foretold in the Old Testament whose prophets are represented by Simeon and Anna, and later by John the Baptist. He is confirmed by the testimony of Heaven as seen in the angels and the star and later in His life by the voice of the Father Himself. He is recognized by the believing remnant of Israel symbolized by the shepherds. And finally He is offered to the gentile world which accepts Him to a far greater degree than His own Jewish people. This being symbolized by the Magi who offer gifts worthy of a king and the worship due to God.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Dirty Bomb Diaries, episode 5

Miss Ann is talking

That means that YOU are listening!

IN OTHER WORDS ...
by Ann Coulter
December 23, 2009


Irritated at the bumps on the road to the Democrats' Thousand-Year Reich, liberals are now claiming that Republican Senator Tom Coburn requested a prayer for the death of Sen. Bob Byrd during the health care debate last Saturday night.

Here is what Coburn actually said: "What the American people ought to pray is that somebody can't make the vote tonight. That's what they ought to pray."

After reporting Coburn's remark, The Washington Post's Dana Milbank added: "It was difficult to escape the conclusion that Coburn was referring to the 92-year-old, wheelchair-bound Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.)."

Contrary to Milbank's claim, I find it extremely easy to get away from that conclusion. In fact, I'm a regular Houdini when it comes to that conclusion. That conclusion couldn't hold me for a second.

There are a million ways a senator could miss a vote, other than by dying. Ask Patrick Kennedy. At 1 a.m. on a Sunday night in the middle of a historic blizzard in the nation's capital, I don't think the first thing that came to anyone's mind was death. More likely it was: "Last call."

Milbank was employing the MSNBC motto, "In Other Words," which provides the formula for 90 percent of the political commentary on that network. The MSNBC host quotes a Republican, then says "in other words," translates the statement into something that would be stupid to say, and spends the next 10 minutes ridiculing the translated version. Which no one said. Except the host.

Also, by the way, Sen. Coburn did not "go to the Senate floor to propose a prayer," as Milbank reported. He was giving a floor speech in which he used the turn of phrase, "What the American people ought to pray is ..."

Inasmuch as liberals want to talk about anything but their plan to take over one-sixth of the American economy, let's talk about health care!

Democrats tout Medicare as their model for a government-run health care system, bragging about what an extremely popular government program it is.

Medicare is tens of trillions of dollars in the red. It is expected to go bankrupt by 2017. In order to pay for Medicare alone, the government will either have to cut every other federal program in existence, or raise federal income taxes to rates as high as 77 percent.

Medicare is like a $500 hamburger: I assume it's good -- it had better be -- but no one would say, "THAT'S A FANTASTIC SUCCESS!"

Until 10 minutes ago, the liberal argument for national health care was that it wasn't fair that some people -- "the rich" -- have access to better health care than others.

In liberals' ideal world, everyone lives in abject poverty and stands in long lines, but we all live in the same abject poverty and stand in the same long lines -- just like in their beloved Soviet Union of recent memory! (Except the commissars, who get excellent health care, food, housing, maid service and no lines.)

Instead of being honest and telling us that their plan is to make health care worse and more expensive -- but fairer! -- liberals have recently begun claiming that providing universal health care will actually save money. Overnight, they went from wailing about basic human needs being "more important than bombs" to claiming: "Our plan will be cheaper!"

Hmmm, I didn't make any notes to debate the manifestly insane points. But I'm pretty sure that extending full medical benefits to 30 million people who don't currently have them -- 47 million once the federal health commission rules that illegal aliens are covered -- will not be less expensive than the current system.

You can say -- mistakenly -- that the liberals' plan is more compassionate. You can say -- also incorrectly -- that it will be fairer. On no set of facts can you say it will be cheaper.

Democrats keep citing the Congressional Budget Office's "scoring" of their bills as if that means something.

The CBO is required to score a bill based on the assumptions provided by the bill's authors. It's worth about as much as a report card filled out by the student himself.

Democrats could write a bill saying: "Assume we invent a magic pill that will make cars get 1,000 miles per gallon. Now, CBO, would that save money?"

The CBO would have to conclude: Yes, that bill will save money.

Among the tricks the Democrats put into their health care bills for the CBO is that the government will collect taxes for 10 years, but only pay out benefits for the last six years. Will that save money? Yes, the CBO says, this bill is "deficit neutral"!

But what about the next 10 years and the next 10 years and the next 10 years after that? Will the health care plan continually pay benefits only in the last six years of every 10-year period? I think their plan assumes we'll all be dead from global warming in a decade.

Also, I note that the Democrats claim it's urgent that we pass ObamaCare by Christmas, but the bill doesn't get around to paying out any benefits until 2014. Poor uninsured chumps.

In other words ... Democrats are praying for the death of Bob Byrd!

COPYRIGHT 2009 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK
1130 Walnut, Kansas City, MO 64106


Analyzing the moral and intellictual bankruptcy of the Democrats and their program is becoming too easy. Almost boring in fact.

You just want to say, "Alright already! They're evil, point proven beyond any reasonable doubt. Now when do we start shooting them?".

But that would be wrong, so we don't say that.

Did he suddenly realize that there might really be a God?

ATLANTA (AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter apologized for any words or deeds that may have upset the Jewish community in an open letter meant to improve an often-tense relationship.

He said he was offering an Al Het, a prayer said on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. It signifies a plea for forgiveness.

"We must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel," Carter said in the letter, which was first sent to JTA, a wire service for Jewish newspapers, and provided Wednesday to The Associated Press. "As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so."

Carter, who during his presidency brokered the first Israeli-Arab peace treaty, outraged many Jews with his 2006 book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." Critics contend he unfairly compared Israeli treatment of Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza to the legalized racial oppression that once existed in South Africa.

Israeli leaders have also shunned him over his journey to Gaza to meet with Hamas, considered a terror group by the U.S., the European Union and Israel.

Carter's apology was welcomed by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League and a vocal critic of Carter's views on Israel.

"When a former president reaches out to the Jewish community and asks for forgiveness, it's incumbent of us to accept it," he said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem. "To what extent this is an epiphany, only time will tell. There certainly was a lot of hurt, a lot of angry words that need to be repaired. But this is a good start."

7But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance: 9And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. 10And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 11I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: 12Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

In other words if Jimmah doesn't want to be an anti-Semite any more he needs to prove that he has changed his heart through consistent action over the long term.

A note saying "I'm sorry if you misunderstood my attempts to make you better people" doesn't come anywhere close to cutting it.

If Carter really wants to be believed he can start by telling us how his former attacks on Israel were wrong headed and harmful.

Now that would be a good start.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

All is not well for the little messiah

From Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday shows that 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-six percent (46%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21 That’s the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President (see trends).

Fifty-three percent (53%) of men Strongly Disapprove along with 39% of women. Most African-American voters (58%) Strongly Approve while most white voters (53%) Strongly Disapprove.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republicans Strongly Disapprove as do 52% of unaffiliated voters. Forty-seven percent (47%) of Democrats Strongly Approve.

For the second straight day, the update shows the highest level of Strong Disapproval yet recorded for this President. That negative rating had never topped 42% before yesterday. However, it has risen dramatically since the Senate found 60 votes to move forward with the proposed health care reform legislation. Most voters (55%) oppose the health care legislation and senior citizens are even more likely than younger voters to dislike the plan.

One bright spot in the numbers for the President is that 51% of voters still say former President George W. Bush is more to blame for the nation’s economic woes. Just 41% point the finger of blame at the current President.

The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates are also available on Twitter and Facebook.

Overall, 44% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President's performance. Fifty-six percent (56%) now disapprove.

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Democrats approve while 88% of Republicans and 62% of unaffiliated voters disapprove.

One thing I don't understand about this is that his negatives go up after the Senate coughs up the 60 votes needed to advance a socialized health care bill.

Why didn't the people already "strongly disapprove" of the little tin messiah for wanting the Senate to pass socialized health care?

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Why we fight

Pamela Geller, who normally blogs at Atlas Shrugs. has a nice essay on American Thinker today:

Gone with the Wind, a national treasure, turned seventy on Tuesday. Turner Classic Movies aired it Tuesday night to commemorate the anniversary of its 1939 Atlanta debut. For an old movie aficionado like me, it was the Super Bowl. The love story depicted in Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind is irresistible to a romantic realist (man as he ought to be in the low state of the world). And Selznick's uncompromising vision and execution of Mitchell's epic novel is thrilling, no matter how many times you see it.

But it is more than just entertainment. This is one of the films that reflects American culture's finest hour. Essentially, such films are a reflection on our values, morality, and art. Ayn Rand said it best:

"Art is a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments. An artist recreates those aspects of reality which represent his fundamental view of man's nature."

The fundamental view of man's nature reflected in American films of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s was noble, just, and courageous. Gone with the Wind was made was 1939. ‘39 was the apex, the zenith, of the golden age of Hollywood. The thirties, forties, and fifties boast a treasure trove of classic, brilliant film masterpieces, but ‘39 was unmatched. Movie historians and cinemaphiles alike agree that 1939 was the greatest year in film history. Consider the exceptional Dark Victory, Ninotchka, Rules of the Game, The Wizard of Oz, The Young Mr. Lincoln, Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Juarez, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Destry Rides Again, Gunga Din, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Of Mice and Men, Stagecoach, The Women, Wuthering Heights, and Gone With the Wind -- all made that year.

When America was America, films like these were made in large quantities. Rita Hayworth, Humphrey Bogart, Cagney, Ingrid Bergman, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Ava Gardner, Sophia Loren, Deborah Kerr, Cary Grant, Robert Mitchum, Paul Muni, John Garfield, Hedy Lamar, Gene Tierney, Taylor, Burton, Vivien Leigh, Laughton, James Mason, Marlene Dietrich -- I derive succor from these people the way the folks on the Left pop meds.

This is why I do what I do. Islamic law forbids representational art. It forbids music. With its laws allowing polygamy and wife-beating, it forbids love. And these are the kinds of laws they are trying to bring in to Europe and America today, right under our noses.

And so that is why I fight: for art, music, and love.

And in American films of the golden age, you can find them in abundance. American music of the same period is just as great also. Ella Fitzgerald, Betty Carter, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington. Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention Frank Sinatra's Only the Lonely -- on which art, music, love and film all come together. This is my most favorite and deeply personal Sinatra album. The whole album is a masterpiece. Sinatra's finest. His voice was never smoother, richer, deeper, more pained. At the time of the recording, Sinatra's break-up and divorce from Ava Gardner had been finalized. He was so crazy for her. It was one of the great loves of the era. And the arranger of the album, Nelson Riddle, had recently suffered the deaths of his mother and daughter. Riddle remarked at the time, "If I can attach events like that to music...perhaps Only the Lonely was the result." Sinatra was asked at a party in the mid-1970s if he had a favorite album of his, he said straight away: Only the Lonely.

It is a uniquely powerful and uniquely American translation of events and emotions into art that speaks to everyone.

American music, American film. These things should rightly be considered one of our unquantifiable gifts to the world. We ought to look back in order to go forward in the right direction, and so it is useful to revisit them. Grab the popcorn, dim the lights, sit down, kick off the jihad and indulge in a thoroughly Western past time! Revisit the days when America was still America. And gather the strength to fight - for art, for music, and for love.

One of the things I'm doing this long snowed-in weekend is catching up on my movie watching. I have the new blu-ray boxed sets of both Gone With The Wind and Wizard of OZ that I'm looking forward to watching as well as a standard def DVD of They Were Expendable which is probably the best war movie ever made. For more on this masterpiece check out this seven-part essay by Leo Grin on Big Hollywood. And a note to the copyright holder, a film this excellent deserves a restored version on blu-ray with plenty of extras - like maybe, among others, a history of the movie adapted from Mr. Grin's work.

Ms. Geller is correct. Islam not only wishes to deny us freedom but to rob all joy from life and it must be opposed.

In fact all such anti-life absolutist philosophies must be opposed whether they call themselves religions like Islam or political movements like the modern neomarxism of the American Democrat party or religions masquerading as scientific theories like human caused global warming.

All are anti-life, anti-liberty and anti-joy and the best any of them deserve is an unmarked plot in the graveyard of discarded lies.

Dirty Bomb Diaries, episode 2



Bear in mind that this was all done on a budget of $600.00.

Tiger's lament

From The New York Post:

After all that time cavorting with an endless stream of floozies, Tiger Woods is now just a sad lone wolf.

The golf great has been spending his days in seclusion -- eating cereal and watching cartoons -- and his nights hitting golf balls to clear his head since his carefully crafted world unraveled following revelations of rampant womanizing that drove his wife out the door, it was reported yesterday.

Woods has isolated himself from even his closest friends since wife Elin Nordegren learned of his philandering ways, leading those close to him to worry he might be "cracking up."

[. . .]

Woods has not been seen in public since a bizarre Thanksgiving-weekend car crash outside his Florida home led to an endless stream of stories about steamy affairs, several of them long term.

But neighbors in the gated community where Woods lived with Nordegren say they spotted him coming home for therapy sessions with his outraged wife following their initial split.

"[He would] come by in the early evenings only for their counseling and therapy," a neighbor told Us Weekly.

During the agonizing sessions, Woods would "just apologize over and over again" for his sexual transgressions during their five-year marriage. Then he'd go to a local golf course to hit some balls.

"He goes after dark so he can't be seen," a source told the magazine. "For him, what's more therapeutic than hitting golf balls, the thing he's best at in the whole world?"

The therapy sessions did little to help. Nordegren has made it clear she is filing for divorce. She reportedly reached out to a top LA divorce lawyer to renegotiate her prenuptial agreement. She was spotted recently without her wedding and engagement rings on her finger.

The collapse of the marriage began Thanksgiving week, when the first of a bevy of Tiger birdies emerged. Nordegren reportedly chased Tiger out of their home with a golf club, which led to Woods crashing his SUV into a tree.

The floodgates then opened, with as many as 13 other women coming forward claiming steamy in-the-sheets action with Woods during the course of his marriage. There has been widespread speculation that Nordegren -- with whom Woods has two young children -- could try to take her hubby for half of his billion-dollar fortune.

OK, so Tiger is your average young male horn-dog who happens to be really good at playing golf. He turns pro and starts winning. The winning helps him chase more, and more high quality, skirt but then something weird happens.

The golf world, and the greater popular culture, look at Tiger and don't just see a young man who is really good at golf who has the potential to break all the records in the golf record book.

They look at Tiger and see a young man who can do all those things and who is also BLACK and have a collective orgasm.

Golf, like everything else in America, can now be regarded as "legitimate" only if it is dominated by a black man or woman.

If you doubt this just listen to our cool young and very "historic" president as he travels the world apologizing for the United States and asking our enemies to look beyond our wretched past in which "white (American) man's greed ran a world in need" and see our bright future now that we have properly placed the government of the nation into the hands of an African-born black man of the Third World* who understands that America's wealth, military power, liberty and world influence must be dramatically diminished if the world's downtrodden masses are ever to see true social justice.

But back to Tiger.

So young black Tiger looks around and realizes that because of the crushing load of white liberal guilt - not to mention the sheer stupidity - of the popular culture in general and the left-loon sports media in particular - that he is destined to be treated as a demi-god and that he can leverage this demi-god status into a truly massive fortune, but to get to the folding money he needed a squeaky-clean image because that is what corporate sponsors will pay the most for. A hero who not only turns in wins but who looks like Ward Clever (only black) while doing it.

So Tiger stops openly chasing skirt and bags himself a beautiful white supermodel wife and has the requisite 2.1 children and the comfy little mansion in the (high-end gated community) burbs.

Only one little problem.

This ain't who Tiger really is.

The real Tiger is a young horn-dog who loves to chase tail.

So when you are a billionaire demi-god who is constantly getting the message from society that he is perfect and can do no wrong and can have anything he wants.

And when women are throwing themselves at you 24/7 when you are traveling (while the wife stays home with the 2.1 kids) - you tend to reach up and pluck the low hanging fruit.

Then you get caught on film with your hand down one of your doxy's pants - in the parking lot of a church, no less - and the reporters and their magazine prove what total whores they are by spiking the story in exchange for an interview and a magazine cover.

Other golfers keep your secrets. PGA officials keep your secrets. Reporters keep your secrets. Sponsors keep your secrets.

All because you are a demi-god and a cash cow.

Then one day your wife finds out about one or more of the other women and goes ballistic by coming after you with a sand wedge. She goes upside your head with that thing and whacks you so hard that you get a concussion. You stumble out to the SUV and try to flee, maybe to the emergency room. But you are in and out of consciousness and the enraged woman that you had hired to be your perfect storybook wife is chasing the damn car and trying to smash out the back window so she can get in and finish the job of turning your brain into a shapeless mass of blood pudding and you run over a fire hydrant and hit a tree.

Thankfully someone calls the cops before the wife can get to you and after spending enough time at hospital for the doctors to see that you aren't about to slip into a coma you embark on the next great adventure life has for you.

Damage Control!

You offer the wife millions and a re-negotiated prenuptial agreement to stay with you for a couple of more years so you can rebuild your demi-god status with the sponsors and you make what is probably the second worst mistake of you life.

You appeal to the press to respect your privacy.

Ain't gonna happen even if you are black and a demi-god.

They lied for you in covering up your true character.

Now everyone knows that they aren't really a corps of responsible sports journalists. Instead they are a gang of star-struck fanboys who are willing to lie to their readers for the opportunity to hang out at the clubhouse with you (where they also cover up what a nasty piece of work you are, treating wait staff and anyone else beneath you on the pecking order like toilet paper).

No, you made the press look bad and for that there will be no forgiveness, unless you manage to get back on top, then they'll crawl back and beg for the chance to lick your black ass again, but for now they are in damage control mode of their own and will pick and pry at the scabs of your personal life and spread out all the pus for the world to see.

So enjoy your self-made bed Tiger.

If you had been willing to be worth a couple hundred million instead of a few billion you could have been honest with the world and chased as much tail as you wanted. But the brass ring wasn't enough for you. You wanted the gold ring - and you got it.

But you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Finally let's talk about the wife.

When she signed a prenuptial agreement she turned her marriage into a business contract. So what is happening between her and Tiger right now is basically a dispute between management and labor. Right now the shortest road for Tiger to regain billionaire demi-god status runs right between her. . . let's not go there. Let's just say that it runs through her willingness to publicly forgive and trust Tiger.

But that doesn't seem to be happening because it seems that Mrs. Tiger actually managed to delude herself into believing that a genuine marriage with genuine love and commitment could be hiding behind a prenup in which she had to stay married a certain number of years for it to "vest".

No wonder Tiger's depressed. His wife has gone from being a necessary component in his carefully crafted public image and is now in full bore "woman scorned" mode and every week that she seethes and consults with lawyers about just how big a check she can force him to write he loses tens of millions of revenue from lost sponsors.

And to top it off the demi-god who could do no wrong and who could have anything he wanted and who got off on the feeling of power that came from abusing anyone who couldn't fight back now has to watch himself being reinvented as the favored target of late night talk-show hosts and the punchline of a million dirty jokes told in thousands of working class corner bars across the fruited plain.

Well, here is a nice video from The Bangles to help set the mood.


Friday, December 18, 2009

Dirty Bomb Diaries, episode 1

As promised.

Mill Ann is talking

That means that YOU are listening!

LESS HEALTH CARE FOR MORE MONEY: WHAT'S THE CATCH?
by Ann Coulter
December 16, 2009

The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof recently wrote a column about John Brodniak of Oregon, who developed a cavernous hemangioma, causing him great pain as blood leaks into his brain.

According to Kristof, Brodniak can't get medical help because we don't have universal health care. Senators who vote against ObamaCare, Kristof said, are morally equivalent to someone who would walk past a man "writhing in pain on the sidewalk."

In another article in the Times, William Yardley wrote about Melvin Tsosies -- also of Oregon -- who ended up with $200,000 in medical bills after having a heart attack.

As of March 2008, Yardley reported, Tsosies was waiting to find out if he would win the Oregon lottery for health insurance. But with 600,000 uninsured state residents and a "universal" health care program with only enough money to pay for about 24,000 of them, Tsosies is more likely to win a Powerball lottery.

How can this be happening? Oregon already has "universal health care"! (Probably just a coincidence, but isn't Oregon also the only state with physician-assisted suicide?)

Once again forgetting about the existence of the Internet, the Times neglects to mention its own erstwhile enthusiasm for Oregon's universal health care plan, introduced back in 1990.

Back then, the Times published an editorial titled "Oregon's Brave Medical Experiment," hailing this technocratic monstrosity as an example of "hardheaded compassion" designed to make "health coverage available to many more families."

Ron Wyden -- then a congressman from Oregon, now a U.S. senator at the forefront of pushing "universal health care" onto the nation -- said: "This is a strong dramatic step toward universal access of health care." He predicted, "this is going to be copied everywhere."

No wonder Wyden is such an ardent proponent of national health care -- it will force states that didn't adopt these idiotic universal health care schemes to bail out the ones that did.

Liberals cite medical horror stories from the very states they once cheered for enacting universal health care in order to argue for a national health care plan that will wreck the entire nation's medical care the same way liberal states already wrecked their own medical care.

Only Democrats could propose fixing one Bernie Madoff-style scam with an even bigger Bernie Madoff-style scam.

Maybe when national universal health care fails, we'll be able to go international. Then interplanetary -- then interstellar! Why should I pay for my gall bladder surgery when some Venusian could?

Eighty-five percent of Americans are happy with their health care, but Democrats have a plan to make it worse for more money. As a bonus, national health care will add trillions of dollars to the national debt, and your insurance rates will skyrocket.

Democrats are being utterly disingenuous to say that you won't have to leave your current plan under national health care. Maybe, but it won't be your choice: Your employer will be making that decision for you.

Recall that one of the big selling points of national health care is that it is supposed to reduce costs for American businesses. The only way national health care will make American companies "more competitive" is if they dump their employees into the public health care system.

It's so weird! We expected X number of people to show up for health care and instead 75X showed up! Yeah, just like every other government program in the history of the world.

Ten years from now, we'll be talking about cost overruns of $6 trillion -- but by then, national health care will be an untouchable "third rail" of politics, just as Medicare is now. (Ironically, injuries sustained from actually touching the third rail won't be covered under ObamaCare.)

As with Medicare, voters will be terrified to go back to even the wisp of a free market system we have now, afraid that they'll never be able to get health insurance without the government providing it. Having been dragged unwillingly into the government plan, how will a 58-year-old be able to leave the public system and get insurance on the free market?

Speaking of which, how many of you are planning to retire on your Social Security benefits? Just you there, with the shopping cart full of cans?

The only solution will be for the government to keep running up gigantic deficits and raising taxes on "the rich," which, in turn, will stifle job creation and economic growth in a phenomenon known to economists as "the Carter years."

In addition to forcing Americans into dealing with surly government workers in order to obtain medical care, sooner or later, there's no free lunch. (And if government X-rays are anything like the photos the DMV takes for your license, count me out. I don't want my lungs looking like they had a bad hair day.)

Even if national health care puts the screws to doctors and pharmaceutical companies by reimbursing them below cost -- so all future doctors will soon resemble DMV employees and no new drugs will ever be invented -- the government is still going to have to cut services and pay for the system with massive tax hikes.

Which is exactly what happened with Oregon's "Brave Medical Experiment."

COPYRIGHT 2009 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLICK
1130 Walnut, Kansas City, MO 64106


For every scare story one can find about an uninsured person in the USA finding it difficult to get treatment there are several from nations with socialized medicine that can be cited to prove that even though our system isn't perfect it is still far better than any other.

Take this example from Canada brought to us by our friends at City Journal:

Mountain-bike enthusiast Suzanne Aucoin had to fight more than her Stage IV colon cancer. Her doctor suggested Erbitux—a proven cancer drug that targets cancer cells exclusively, unlike conventional chemotherapies that more crudely kill all fast-growing cells in the body—and Aucoin went to a clinic to begin treatment. But if Erbitux offered hope, Aucoin’s insurance didn’t: she received one inscrutable form letter after another, rejecting her claim for reimbursement. Yet another example of the callous hand of managed care, depriving someone of needed medical help, right? Guess again. Erbitux is standard treatment, covered by insurance companies—in the United States. Aucoin lives in Ontario, Canada.
Or here is British parliamentarian Daniel Hannan discussing the United Kingdom's socialized health care system:



Or you can follow this link to a story about how a prominent French expert thinks that France needs to copy the US in order to save its "broken" and "unsustainable" health care system.

Any way you look at it America has nothing to be ashamed of, and plenty to be proud of, when comparing the quality of health care available to the typical citizen here versus any other nation in the world.

The American health care system is also the driver of research and innovation for the entire globe. The above mentioned City Journal article contained this interesting fact.
M. D. Anderson in Texas, a prominent cancer center, spends more on research than Canada does.
That's right. M. D. Anderson, a part of the University of Texas does more research in their field of cancer treatment than the entire nation of Canada.

The same thing holds true in every other areal of medical research whether you are talking about new drugs, new procedures or new technology, America leads the way by a very large margin.

It is true that other nations fund some R&D and so you will occasionally hear of a breakthrough coming out of Europe or Asia. The most prominent example that comes to my mind is laser eye surgery, which was developed in the Soviet Union. But ask yourself this, how many other major breakthroughs came out of Soviet medical research? . . . I can't think of any either.

And there are similar stories about good work being done in the laboratories and hospitals of the UK, France and Germany, but compare the trickle of medical innovation coming out of Europe over the past 20 years with the flood coming out of the United States. Then ask yourself how much of that work being done in Europe is building upon work originally done in the United States.

Much is made of the fact that the US government is already involved in paying over half of the health care costs in the US through Medicare, Medicaid the Veterans Administration and various other programs. And the rest of our health care system, while private, is heavily regulated.

Ask yourself two questions.

1. Do we really want to kill off the portion of our health care system which is producing so much good for so many people?

2. If a little less than half our system which is bound and hobbled by thick chains of government regulation and taxation can still manage to be the engine which drives medical innovation for the entire world how much more could it accomplish if it were all private and freed of all but the most basic government interference?

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Dirty Bomb Diaries

H/T to Big Hollywood for turning me on to these. I'll post start posting one episode per day starting tomorrow morning.

The Great RINO Hunt of 2010

MIAMI(CBS4) -- A new poll has found that Florida Governor Charlie Crist's campaign for the U.S. Senate is currently in deep trouble. The new Rasmussen poll of likely GOP voters found Crist and his Republican opponent, Marco Rubio, are tied with 43 percent of the vote. This is a huge swing from just a few months ago when most experts believed Crist would win in a landslide.

While Crist's numbers have been in an almost free fall, Rubio's name recognition amongst Republicans has rapidly grown. The new poll found 34 percent of GOP voters now view Rubio "very favorably." In the same poll in August, Rubio's "very favorable" ratings were at 18 percent.

On the flip side, Crist's numbers have fallen off a cliff. Only 19 percent of likely GOP voters have a "very favorable" opinion of the governor. According to Rasmussen, that's a double-digit decline since August.

The big story in next years elections will be less about how many seats Republicans win than about what kind of Republicans win them.

The rank and file of the Republican party has had it up to here with RINOs and isn't going to take it any more.

Look for next year to be a blood purge of Republicans in name only as the conservative base of the party rises up and retakes control of the GOP.

Why is POTUS at war with US

James Lewis wrote this piece for American Thinker a few days ago. It adds to the body of work out there which attempts to explain the very strange behavior of Barack Obama. Strange that is if we assume that his goals are to keep the nation safe, free and prosperous.

That is, after all, the goal that every other president has pursued. Even the extraordinarily bad ones like Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter were at least trying to keep the nation safe, free and prosperous.

But not Obama. Only someone with the limited knowledge base and lack of sophistication of a relatively young child could actually believe that things like closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and bringing the dangerous terrorists being held there into the US prison system is a good idea. Or believe that trying the 9/11 mastermind in a civilian criminal court in New York City is a better idea than trying him before a military tribunal.

Only someone like the above mentioned credulous child could believe that the government could take over auto companies and manage them better than the free market - despite the disastrous examples of the government run auto industries in East Germany, the Soviet Union and even the United Kingdom.

Or that a bloodthirsty enemy whose minds are in the grip of a 7th century religious ideology which tells them that we must die both as individuals and as a culture because we have emancipated our women and refuse to stone homosexuals and behead those who criticize Allah, his prophet or his book will experience a change of heart because our leader travels the world apologizing for our past acts of malfeasance in which we actually had the gall to stand up and defend our vital interests and our allies.

No, the sane adult mind finds Barack Obama's actions since taking office to be extraordinarily difficult to understand if we start from the position that Obama is a patriotic American, however misguided. So the minds of political observers have began to think what would have before been unthinkable. That perhaps the president isn't screwing up the country by accident.

Which brings us back to James Lewis and his essay, Obama the Red Avenger.

The French called Hitler a revanchiste -- a Kaiser soldier of World War I aching to avenge his old defeat. Hitler made no secret of his desire for revenge. He made it a Nazi slogan. Well, you can have ideological revanchisme as well -- for instance, a Marxist determination to take revenge for America's victory against worldwide Communism in the Cold War.

The word "Marxist" is now used as a kind of a sly boast in academia; I just talked with a professor who calls himself a "Marxist historian" and smiles to himself when he says it. He obviously thinks he's a hero by being a Marxist in America. But according to Marxist historians themselves, Red regimes killed at least 100 million people in "crimes, terror and repression," with still more dying today in North Korea. That's not even counting the dead and wounded in wars fought by Communist regimes.

Obama's early life indicates that young Barry may have been brought up as a Red Avenger against America. We know that he talks like an anti-capitalist and an anti-Constitutionalist, and that he compulsively apologizes for American actions during the Cold War. The Cold War was not something we started -- it was started by Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and other totalitarian mass murderers long before the Korean War and the Vietnam War, our two hot proxies in the Cold War.

What we haven't understood is how deeply Obama was indoctrinated from childhood onward in the war against America. But every intelligence agency in the world has to have figured it out, because it's all in the public record. Leftists around the world have also known it from day one, and that includes leading Democrats. Obama was not an unknown to Democrat Party apparatchiks. Or the media. Only the American people were kept in the dark. The media and the Democrats are still doing their Obama cover-up today and hoping they will get away with it.

Why is Obama so deeply, emotionally opposed to America's defense of freedom and democracy in the Cold War? Because Barry Soetoro was born in 1961 and lived in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta from age six to ten, the years 1967-1971 --- right after the bloodiest civil war in Indonesian history, which took place from 1965 to 1967. The Indonesian Communist Party, the PKI, was wiped out and massacred during that civil war. There is absolutely no way a left-wing family living in Jakarta could not have been in a constant uproar during those years, even after the massacres had died down. After all, Barry's parents were active sympathizers, if not party members themselves, as was his biological father

Indonesia was host to millions of ethnic Chinese, some of whom were slaughtered in the "communal violence" which followed a failed coup. China was then in the middle of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which killed from 50 to 70 million people. Ann Dunham, Lolo Soetoro and Barry Soetoro were living in the very midst of the hottest front line between the West and totalitarian Communism.

Indonesia's dictator General Sukarno was overthrown in 1965 by either the Communist Party (the PKI) or the Indonesian army and Islamic parties -- and probably by all three. The PKI was the third biggest Communist Party in the world outside of the Soviet Union and Communist China. (See The Year of Living Dangerously.) PKI members were killed in the resulting riots and massacres throughout 1965 and 1966, starting in Jakarta, where Barry Soetoro's family lived. Imaging living in Atlanta, Ga., right after General Sherman finished marchin' through Georgia, and not knowing anything about it.

There is simply no way those earth-shattering events could not have touched Barry Soetoro's life in Jakarta from the age of six to ten. Barry's temporary dad Lolo Soetoro was originally a supporter of General Sukarno and the Left; Sukarno's party had sent Lolo to Hawaii to get a graduate degree, where he met Ann Dunham. There is no real safety in such conditions. Revenge killings happened after World War II in Europe and after the Civil War in the United States.

The big question is, Why did Ann Dunham risk bringing her young child to Jakarta? She must either have been utterly naïve politically, or, much more likely, she knew that she and Lolo were protected by powerful political forces.

Ann Dunham was at least an active fellow traveler with the Communist Party. Remember, this was just fifteen years after the death of Stalin and the American domestic reaction to Stalinist infiltration, now dubbed "McCarthyism." We now know with historical certainty that the U.S. government, including the State Department and the White house, was in fact infiltrated by Stalin's Communist Party members, and that secrets of U.S. nuclear bombs were instantly passed to the Soviet Union by Manhattan Project member Klaus Fuchs, who was honored by the East Germany Communist Party when he went back there. Stalinist Communists were also very powerful in Hollywood, the newspapers, and the universities.

Barry's childhood and education under the guardianship of Communist Party representative Frank Marshall Davis, followed by an endless parade of far Leftist mentors from Hawaii to Harvard and Chicago, were all shaped by an identical political narrative. Every adult he ever knew told the same story. Everybody hated the same satanic enemy: American capitalism -- also known as freedom and democracy -- the CIA, the U.S. military, Senator Joe McCarthy, President Eisenhower, and Richard Nixon. We now know that Nixon was overthrown by the American Left using the Watergate scandal, including the Washington Post's Ben Bradlee, in close coordination with the FBI's Assistant Director Mark Felt, who was Woodward and Bernstein's Deep Throat.

The Jesuits used to say, "Give us a boy before he is ten and we will have him for life." That's why the Ranting Reverend Wright's Church of Marxism was such a natural place for the Obamas to go every Sunday and bring up their own girls. It's what they were used to; it had that old home feeling.

When kids believe that their mothers and fathers are in danger, they often imagine themselves to be the saviors -- they can get a Savior Complex. (Sound familiar?) Children in abusive families often feel that way. Barry Soetoro grew up needing to rescue his side in the Cold War -- the Red side.

Human beings who think they are world saviors are narcissists from day one because they believe they have God-like powers. How else can you Save the Planet? How else can you "keep the seas from rising," as Obama said in his acceptance speech to the Democrats? Narcissism is a standard character trait on the Left. It's one of the basic differences between ideological Leftists and conservatives. Edmund Burke, the granddaddy of Anglo-American conservatism, pointed that out in his most important book, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1791). Conservatives are generally normal people. Ideological Leftists are ambitious World Saviors who turn out to kill a lot of people who resisted being saved by coercive force. Can you think of any American conservative who acts like Obama?

Take a kid with a savior complex and raise him with an endless slew of Leftist mentors, from Mom onwards. He is the savior child as far as they are concerned -- the Red Avenger. He will redeem them in the bitter aftermath of the defeat of Communism. Barack Obama has had substitute parents -- patrons who eased his way -- throughout his life, including Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and Emil Jones.

Notice that I have not said that Obama is dangerous. A lot depends on defeating ObamaCare, cap-and-trade, EPA regulation of CO2, and dozens of other mad and foolish schemes.

The American political system is resilient, but we must know the truth. I believe that "the Red Avenger" is the ground truth of who Obama really is.

It's not Obama's blackness that's at issue. It's his redness.

When the facts are laid out like that it becomes all but impossible to dispute them.

Barack Obama was born into a bubble universe of profound leftism in which the United States occupied the role of evil empire. The USA was the malignant force threatening human civilization which had to be defeated if there was to be any hope of a true and lasting peace or genuine social justice for the peoples of the world.

Barack Obama never heard this worldview seriously challenged from his parents or grandparents or their friends. He never heard it challenged in school right on through his Ivy League education. He never heard it challenged by anyone in his circle of friends and associates in Chicago - men and women like Bill Ayers and his wife, both unrepentant communist terrorist bombers. He never heard it being anything but reinforced during the nearly 20 years he sat in Jeremiah Wright's church. He never heard it challenged in the daily newspapers he read or on the nightly network news broadcasts he watched or on taxpayer financed public television or radio.

And he never heard that anti-US mindset seriously challenged by any person of significance in the Democrat party.

The only serious challenge to the worldview that the United States sits like a giant poisonous spider in the center of a web of evil which reaches around the world raping, pillaging and polluting everything it touches that might have ever made it over the high walls of the Marxist compound in which Barack Obama's mind has been stewing since birth might have come from talk radio or Fox News. Two sources which Obama's ideological training would have taught him to instantly label as part of the right-wing hate machine and discount - without consideration.

Barack Obama is what he is and if the United States wishes to remain what it has been (a free and prosperous nation kept safe in a dangerous world by our willingness to defend ourselves and our allies) then we must resist with every legal means almost every action of this president.