A Weekly Roundup -- Enjoy!

TSA Humor Alert 2: Comply With Me

 

Dick Armey: "The  rule of conservatism is to accept that if you are true to yourself, Hollywood celebrities will never hug you in public. Ultimately, serving the people and upholding the Constitution will be much more satisfying."

 

New Jersy Democrat Councilman calls police to shut down children's cupcake stand.

 

"Let them ride buses" -- "And so it is now with the latest waving-away of the concerns of American citizens subjects by Homeland Security Secretary Queen Janet "Antoinette" Napolitano. Responding to the widespread protests against the TSA's "naked body" airport scanning and near-sexual-assault patdowns, she said plainly that if people don't want to submit to scanning or groping, they may "travel by some other means, of course that's their right." Thank you for that concession, highness. "Let them ride buses" if they don't like how we run our hands over their private parts - or their children's."

 

James Carville on President Obama: If Hillary gave Obama one of her balls, he'd have two...

 

Joan Baez wanted to sleep among real birds and fell out of a treehouse. It could of been worse... at least she wasn't sleeping with the fishes.

 

Dennis Prager returns to Seattle Radio -- Happy days are here again!

 

Where have the happy days gone? Did I speak too soon? Obama's Democrats are in disarray over expiring tax cuts.

 

Texas Governor: "How about we take all those TSA agents and put them on the border with Mexico where they can do some security...

 

Willful Ignorance: Syndicated columnist and PBS regular Mark Shields on Friday actually said (at 3:12) that he has never heard a Democratic leader or presidential candidate accuse former President George W. Bush of lying America into the Iraq War.

 

Bill Whittle on Gun Rights: "Just because something is fun and scares away weenies doesn't mean that it's stupid"

 

General Motors: I guess it depends on your definition of success. The government bought the company at $53 per share and its recent successful IPO sold 'em for $33 per share -- an estimated $9.4 billion loss on the deal. Why is this a success? Because the IPO's underwriters initially forecast a share price of $26 to $29 per share. Get it? Even though the taxpayers lost over $9 billion, the IPO was successful because it closed higher than the forecasted share price. But, it's even worse. Since GM operates under a virtual guarantee that it will be bailed out should it again go bust, why wouldn't its IPO be a "success"? Many would buy stock in a company if they knew it had a government guarantee for its mistakes, as GM's IPO shows.

 

Chicks on the Right: Another Happy-Feely Trophy For Seventh Place.

 

The Freedom of My Chains

 

 

ObamaCare and Its Waivers

Remember when ObamaCare was made law? And remember that during the debate over the costs of ObamaCare, businesses and conservatives claimed that the requirement to apply high-benefit policies to low-paid workers would push companies to drop health-care for their lower-paid employees?

If you do, then you'll understand why, within the first month after the law was passed, 33 companies (including McDonald's, Aetna, etc.,) applied for a waiver that would allow them to continue offering low-cost health-care to their hourly workers and other entry-level employees -- 33 waivers!!!!

Now this...



111 waivers and the year isn't over yet!!!

What are we to make of a policy, enacted into law, that permits the well-connected or the influential to avoid the stringencies of ObamaCare?

UPDATE: Of that the list  among the 111 waivers granted so far are a substantial number of unions

School Makes Boy Remove American Flag From Bike

When thirteen-year old Cody Alicea rides his bike to school he…

"…flies the flag of the United States from the rear fender of his bike. He flies the flag to express patriotism and to honor his grandfather and other veterans.

Well, a few days before Veteran's Day he was told by officials at Denair Middle School that he had to remove the flag. The reason: the school superintendent, Edward Parraz, explained to a local news station that certain students were complaining. Parraz said the United States flag was causing "racial tensions" and school officials were concerned for Cody's safety. They didn't want Cody to "get jumped or hurt."

My God, what has this country become? Criminals, terrorists, and bullies threaten us and our children and our first reaction from those institutions established to protect us is to restrict us – the victims of those thugs. Just like all this TSA stuff.

I have a suggestion – first go after the bullies! Superintendent Parraz should have said, "If anyone touches a hair on that kid's head I will see that he is punished and punished hard. I will personally kick you out of school and have you prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

 

Rolling Thunder - A Marine's Vigil

Prophetic Wisdom

On the day after the election of Barck Obama to the Presidency, Stephen Den Beste published an article, Not The End of the World. Here are 3 of the introductory paragraphs.

I think this election is going to be a "coming of age" moment for a lot of people. They say, "Be careful what you wish for" and a lot of people got their wish yesterday.

And now they're bound to be disappointed. Not even Jesus could satisfy all the expectations of Obama's most vocal supporters, or fulfill all the promises Obama has made.

I think Obama is going to turn out to be the worst president since Carter, and for the same reason: good intentions do not guarantee good results. Idealists often stub their toes on the wayward rocks of reality, and fall on their faces. And the world doesn't respond to benign behavior benignly.

Read the whole article because Den Beste end's on a hopeful, albeit realistice note.

Sarah Palin Takes Aim at the Fed

Yesterday, Sarah Palin issued a call  for a return to a monetary policy whose objectives would serve the goal of a stable dollar. As it stand, the current monetary policy proposal under Obama and Bernanke is designed to shore up the faltering economy by injecting another "stimulus" by what is termed "Quantitative Easing" – basically printing dollars out of thin air.

Well, as you might imagine, the halls of academia stunned stunned that this vacuous woman would weigh-in on such an important and "sophisticated" issue (google "palin bernanke" if you feel the need to enjoy the lefty rage at this afront to wisdom).

Then, today, there is this WSJ article, "Palin's Dollar, Zoellick's Gold", the last paragraph of which is important:

In their different ways, Mrs. Palin and Mr. Zoellick are offering a better policy path: More careful monetary policy in the U.S., and more U.S. leadership abroad with a goal of greater monetary cooperation and less volatile exchange rates. If Mr. Obama is looking for advice on this beyond Mr. Zoellick, he might consult Paul Volcker or Nobel laureate Robert Mundell. A chance for monetary reform is a terrible thing to waste.

 

I'm quite sure that Sarah Palin is not to be misunderestimated.

The Silence of Real Regret

As Elizabeth Scalia observes…

Almost going unnoticed in the continuing analysis of last week's election has been the absence of the sort of high-drama and neurotic self-indulgence that followed Democrat losses in 2004. Where is the "Sorry, Everybody" movement of 2010?

This is truly worth your time – especially if you're a lefty and down-in-the-dumps about the shellacking of 2010.

For what it's worth, I suspect the lack of morel preening this time around is due, in part at least, to the realization that the excesses of the Pelosi-Reid-Obama policies were, well, excessive. In other words, lefties, who in their heart-of-hearts are able to recognize a folly, are not also able to rise above their pride and admit that perhaps those who differ with them are not knuckle-draggers or intellectual cretins to whom the favors of the elite are to be apportioned.

Body Scanners? No Problem

FINALLY — A great alternative to body scanners at airports…

The Israelis are developing an airport security device that eliminates the privacy concerns that come with full-body scanners at the airports.

It's a booth you can step into that will not X-ray you, but will detonate any explosive device you may have on you. They see this as a win-win for everyone, with none of this non-sense about racial profiling It also would eliminate the costs of a long and expensive trial.  Justice would be swift. Case closed!

You're in the airport terminal and you hear a muffled explosion. Shortly thereafter an announcement comes over the PA system .. . "Attention standby passengers — we now have a seat available on flight number 1234. Shalom!"

Hats off to the Israelis!!!!

h/t Kathy R.

 

Sara Palin's Morning in America

When You've Lost Chris Matthews...

Civics 101: Gridlock is an American Achievement!

On ABC's this week, the lefty internet publisher Arianna Huffington was unhorsed in the midst of battle by both Dick Armey (former Republican House Majority Leader) and Cokie Roberts (ABC news commentator). I really hope you are able to take a few moments and watch the videos and read the transcripts. They're not long and offer a great lesson in American civics.

Then, at the end of the piece, George Will ties it all up in this beautiful, beautiful knot:

Let me just say this. The Republican Party is being told to be the party of no. No more stimulus spending. No cap-and-trade. No card check. None of this other stuff. Gridlock is not an American problem. It's an American achievement. The framers of our Constitution didn't want an efficient government; they wanted a safe government. To which end they filled it with slowing and blocking mechanisms. Three branches of government, two branches of the legislative branch, veto, veto override, supermajority, judicial review.