Jack Webb Schools Obama On Democracy

Just a clever bit of video I found at Breitbart.com

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The Demise Of Patriotism

Probably my most favorite classical piece of all time is Tchaikovsky's Overture 1812, which in retrospect seems at odds with my personal feelings about Russia or, more specifically, the Soviet Union. Tonight, seeking a brief respite from the world and politics, I decided to don the headphones and get lost in music, and the 1812 was one of my choices. As fate would have it, listening elicited thoughts which I needed to share.

I have long been aware of the significance of Tchaikovsky's 1812, but my love for the bare emotion of the piece has always been one of peripheral and generic appreciation for the brilliance of a mind that could create the glory of war and country with musical notes, combined into a magnificent tapestry of sound. Listening tonight, however, I achieved a cognizance that skirted my awareness before. For all of my past loathings of the Soviet empire, they did share one common thread with us, their mortal enemy; they loved their country with a pride that seems an alien emotion today.

Perhaps my epiphany can be attributed to the particular version of the Overture 1812 I listened to tonight, since I have never heard it performed with a choir of human voices. Hearing the singing mixed with strings and horns made me think of the movie Hunt For Red October when the crew broke into a spontaneous rendition of the Soviet Anthem. Their breast-bursting devotion to country was touching despite the nature of that particular beast, and it bears mentioning that at least the animosity of those days was contained within boundaries that today have evaporated.

But I do not write this to compare the current rules of engagement for our military to those of days of yore, although that may well be a discussion on the horizon, and part of what I have to say does indeed affect the sad state of affairs for our current soldiers. It is the dissolution of our spirit as Americans that has me troubled.

Many of us who have remained silent for generations as our world crumbled around us use the excuse of having been too busy building the nation into what it is to become involved with the urchins who take to the streets to attempt to tear it down. That excuse has been a valid one, make no mistake, but it has expired only because we assumed that our success would draw others into its wake. The few who slipped over the side of the rooster tail and floundered at sea have been busy multiplying and have formed a coalition of the "disenfranchised", and they have found it easier to develop into a powerful, plaintive lobby than to actually work harder to get ahead.

Thus it became fashionable to rally against the nation that made such a practice possible in the first place, and what have the plaintiffs accomplished? Nothing short of the steady decline and possible destruction of the greatest nation ever to grace the Earth.

The thought of national pride on even a small scale has been made into the act of radicals, to hear the networks tell it. The officials we elect, and who swear an oath to uphold our Constitution, work overtime instead to return our system to that which we fled to conceive America. Sovereignty is now considered xenophobia and pride ruled as dirty. I can't even smack the hat off of some idiot at a sporting event who neglected to remove it for the Star Spangled Banner. Most have lost their way.

There is hope, however. Whenever I see the Tea Parties in action, I think of millions of citizens who proudly sing the national anthem, even unabashedly in poor tune. I think of patriots who truly love their country not out of fear of the State, but out of confidence of control of that entity. I see people who have not let the fire die in the dead of night, who have remained vigilant with kindling to keep the others warm until morning.

And I see the dawn approaching. REM sleep is slowly fading as the slumbering begin to scratch itchy noses and fuss with the covers. As dark slowly yields to day, and the smoke thickens from a lovingly tendered fire, Americans are beginning to rouse from sleep.

A morning tribute to Francis Scott Key would be magnificent right about now. Then coffee... Sphere: Related Content

Try, Try Again

President Barack Hussein Obama is back on the attack against the banking industry, (which he blamed for his "inherited" economic woes) beseeching them to "help the economy" by restarting the very same practices that are responsible for the state in which we now languish. Incredibly, he reiterates the lies that helped get him elected, and no one in a position to effectively refute his nonsense has uttered a word.

Near the end of the Bush 43 administration, our banking system nearly crashed. With the inevitable economic cycle sliding toward recession, the problem was exacerbated by a rash of loan defaults that wreaked havoc on the housing industry and the banks themselves. Democrats - true to form - eagerly seized on the opportunity to exploit the misery of others for political gain, while successfully casting the blame on the opposition party with the aide of a compliant media and a myopic constituency.

Way back in late September 2008, I wrote about the criminal machinations of Congress regarding the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debacles in a piece titled Champions Of The Poor. In that article - which contains some useful links - I spelled out how the Democrats engineered the collapse by pretending to care for the downtrodden while effectively kicking the legs out from under our economy. It now seems that they have left the job incomplete and are intent on finishing it once and for all.

After magnanimously taking taxpayer money and riding to the rescue of the banks, Obama is beginning to yank the many strings he assumed were attached to those bailouts. Though he tried to resist, those banks have repaid the money they received, with interest. They wanted no part of the fiscal oppression being foisted upon them and, as a result, Obama has been pulling up empty lines. Not to worry, he is nothing if not persistent and cunning. And the masses who have been conditioned to despise success mindlessly cheer his version of "progress".

After the disaster of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac succeeded only in slowing the pace of America's economic juggernaut, Obama seems to have decided that the only way to acheive our ultimate ruination is to apply a fresh round of the same insanity. See the video below to hear him demand that banks begin anew to lend on a willy nilly basis:



Am I the only one who interprets this president's actions as akin to telling people to "douse this fire while I pour lighter fluid on it"? To demand that banks revert to the same practices that Congress insisted upon five years ago, and to ignore the lesson learned from that course of action, seems to me to be the definitive description of insanity.

In his press conference - which is part of the video - Obama pressed banks to refinance failing mortgages, despite the fact that many of those failures are due to the insistence of Barney Frank and Maxine Waters that Fannie and Freddie were "not in trouble". I can only equate this to telling your friend to hit his toe with a hammer.

"Did it break"?

Friend: "No."

"Hit it again, harder". Sphere: Related Content

Wild About HARRY

There has been much ado about the leaked - or hacked, depending on the point of view - emails from the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia in the U.K., not that the alleged "mainstream" media has paid much heed. But while the argument against their significance has been child's play for the likes of Al Gore, there is a much deeper problem with the "settled science" of which Gore proudly speaks, and it is revealed in the .txt file called HARRY_READ_ME.txt.

Just who is Harry? According to Pajamas Media, he is a researcher at the CRU named Ian “Harry” Harris. I have pored over the entire text file and, if critiqued as a novel, I could best sum it up as a poignant tale of relentless and bitter frustration as a man, tasked with the impossible and given faulty tools, tries frantically to meet an equally impossible deadline.

As we're constantly reminded in print accounts of the email scandal, the CRU of East Anglia is nearly always preceded by the word "prestigious". It should be, since most of the IPCC's findings are based on that institution's research. But reading the notes of "Harry" gives one pause when asked for explicit trust. Just a few examples of "Harry's" tribulations:

So, uhhhh.. what in tarnation is going on? Just how off-beam are these datasets?!!

Unbelievable – even here the conventions have not been followed. It’s botch after botch after botch.

22. Right, time to stop pussyfooting around the niceties of Tim’s labyrinthine software suites – let’s have a go at producing CRU TS 3.0! since failing to do that will be the definitive failure of the entire project..

How handy – naming two different files with exactly the same name and relying on their location to differentiate! Aaarrgghh!!

If the latest precipitation database file contained a fatal data error… then surely it has been altered since Tim last used it to produce the precipitation grids? But if that’s the case, why is it dated so early?

So what’s going on? I don’t see how the ‘final’ precip file can have been produced from the ‘final’ precipitation database, even though the dates imply that. The obvious conclusion is that the precip file must have been produced before 23 Dec 2003, and then redated (to match others?) in Jan 04.

There is no way of knowing which Tim used to produce the current public files. The scripts differ internally but – you guessed it! – the descriptions at the start are identical. WHAT IS GOING ON?

Where is the documentation to explain all this?!

So what the hell did Tim do?!! As I keep asking.

It’s halfway through April and I’m still working on it. This surely is the worst project I’ve ever attempted. Eeeek.

Oh bugger. What the HELL is going on?!

Considering the draconian impact the actions currently being proposed in Copenhagen would have on the world's economy and personal liberties, it stands to reason that they must be viewed as more than drastic given the tortured route of the diagnosis. And it may not be "Harry's" fault at all but, rather, the fault of those who placed the burden of time on him.

Imagine taking your new car for service because the "check engine" light is constantly lit. Not being a mechanic, you naturally take it to the experts. After an hour of watching the technician curse and scratch his head in confounded exasperation, you become suspicious that perhaps he is not so expert after all. Then, to make matters worse, the station manager comes to you and says that your best bet is to just buy another car.

Reading the "Harry" file is like watching the same, tortured process with an even more horrendous outcome. Cap and trade, and a global governance on carbon emissions based on the uncertain findings of a frazzled process is madness. Sphere: Related Content