From: NY Times
“Rule one: Never allow a crisis to go to waste,†Mr. Emanuel said in an interview on Sunday. “They are opportunities to do big things.â€
It didn’t take long did it?
From: WND
One of Obama’s 63 questions for applicants who wish to work for the federal government is:
Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage.
The only discernable reason this question about handgun, rifle or shotgun ownership would be asked is the same reason employers used to ask job seekers about their race, gender, age or ethnic background – that is, solely for the purpose of discriminating against the applicant. Indeed, this marks the first time a president has ever asked potential administration employees if they are exercising one of their constitutional rights as part of the weeding-out process.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81321
I just finished reading a very interesting article at Ars Technica in which the author discusses the the way we view history through the eyes of video games. In the new Call of Duty game the “bad guys” are the Nazis. When referring to World War II we separate Nazis and Germans. The author takes issue with this separation stating:
Saying there is a huge gulf between the German people and the Nazi characters would would be like saying it’s okay to kill Republicans in a game, but you have issues with Americans being the bad guys.
The reason we separate the two is because of what the Nazis represented: the Holocaust and their dangerous ideas of fascism.
It seems at least one person in Washington has been paying attention these past months.
From Breitbart:
“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force,” Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. “I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may—may not, I hope not—but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.”
Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.
“That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did,” Broun said. “When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”
Some people dismiss my insistence that Obama is a communist (Marxist) as the ranting of a racist, hate-filled, redneck who is just opposed to change.  Well if you believe that is that path that brought me to this point then please don’t bother to read this and certainly do not respond. To quote that brilliant statesman Al Gore, “The time for debate is over.”
If you can read (or better yet listen) to the man’s actual words and still maintain that he is not a Marxist, bent on the complete reinterpretation of the constitution and dismantling of our capitalist society, then all I can say my friends is, get your excuses ready because the train’s a come’n.
The transcript below is from a radio interview on Chicago Public Radio from 2001. I heard it for the first time yesterday. If you don’t understand what it means, just watch The Daily Show or Saturday Night Live. They will explain it to you in a way that will make you laugh at what a fearful buffoon I am.
Barack Obama, in 2001:
You know, if you look at the victories and failures of the civil-rights movement, and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at a lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it, I’d be okay, but the Supreme Court never entered into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.
There is no end in sight to Fascism in the name of Public Welfare.
From: Boston.com
Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the city’s Public Health Commission, said she doesn’t want any more young people to pick up the deadly habits.
She said she wants to “de-normalize” smoking.
The restrictions, which face a final vote by the commission’s seven-member board on Nov. 13, also would ban smoking on outdoor patios at restaurants and other businesses and prohibit tobacco sales on college campuses and by all drug stores in the city.
“Ideally, I’d like to say by 2025 that we don’t have anybody smoking,” Ferrer said.
The push has sparked debate about how much government intervention is too much, how far into private lives government should reach, and why, in a tough economy, the city would propose shutting down viable businesses.
Cigar Masters co-owner Brett Greenfield said he and his partners invested $270,000 in the Back Bay bar, relying on the smoking ban exemption.
“We’re in a 20-year lease and they want to shut us down,” Greenfield said. “There aren’t people who are in there who are expecting to not be around second-hand smoke.”
From the 1982 documentary “No Place to Hide”
While many defenders of Weather Underground co-founder William Ayers have sought to minimize his bomb attacks on the U.S. Capitol and other landmarks because they purportedly did not target people, a former FBI informant who penetrated the group claimed he witnessed a meeting in which members discussed a future communist takeover of America in which some 25 million “diehard capitalists” would need to be killed.
Video clip of the interview with Larry Grathwohl:
Sony, like Comedy Central and the Danish newspapers before it, has bowed to the threat of terrorism. A few verses from the Koran were combined with music in a new game that was to be released this week. Instead the game will be delayed while Sony removes the “offensive” lyrics and music after receiving a letter from a muslim demanding it be taken out of the game. Everyone in this country says we are for freedom, but when no one is willing to stand up and defend it, the words we speak are simply that and nothing more. Our ideas mean absolutely nothing unless people are willing to defend them, with their life if it must come to that. I am sick of people cherry-picking what causes to defend and which ones to let fall and die. If we are for freedom then we are ALWAYS for freedom everywhere for everyone. I fear that we are no longer producing the type of people willing to take a stand and fight back against the forces that would run us over. If you think this is trivial, you are in denial.
Some Missouri Prosecutors and Law Enforcement Officials say that Obama is a Christian who wants to cut taxes and that they will prosecute the producers of political ads that say otherwise.
The Missouri Governor is not happy. Says these prosecutors meant to intimidate, and that kind of abuse of power is a federal offense.
Sunspot activity is at a 50-year low.
From: SpaceWeather.com
“There is also the matter of solar irradiance,” adds Pesnell. “Researchers are now seeing the dimmest sun in their records. The change is small, just a fraction of a percent, but significant. Questions about effects on climate are natural if the sun continues to dim.”
From: Fred Thomson
For many years we have failed to address looming problems that will prove catastrophic to our nation. It’s not because we are bereft of leaders with great experience. And it is not because they do not understand the “essential current of events.†They know these things all too well. It is because they do not have the political courage to do anything about it.
From: Michael Yon
PRIVATE JASON LEE RAWSTRON
2ND BATTALION, THE PARACHUTE REGIMENT
12TH SEPTEMBER 2008
Lieutenant Colonel Joe O’Sullivan, Commanding Officer 2 PARA paid tribute to Private Jason Rawstron on the night of his death:
Early this morning C (Bruneval) Company were conducting a patrol from their base at Forward Operating Base GIBRALTAR when they were engaged by the Taliban, and in the exchange of fire Private Jason Rawstron was killed. Jason Rawstron began his service with C (Bruneval) Company 2 PARA, and although he later moved to the Assault Engineer Platoon, it was to Bruneval Company that he returned for the Battalion’s tour in Afghanistan. Bruneval is the Parachute Regiment’s first Battle Honour, and Jason Rawstron, like all of his friends in today’s Bruneval Company and across the Battalion, was every bit the Paratrooper of that first Bruneval Company 66 years ago; tough, resourceful, fearless under the fire that he had experienced so often and never knowing defeat. He joins eleven other members of 2 PARA Battlegroup who have given their lives for their friends and what they have been asked to do in this part of Helmand. Bruneval Company and all of us in 2 PARA Battlegroup will mourn Jason Rawstron and our hearts go out to his family and friends at home. We hope that what he was, and what he and friends and his battalion stand for and have achieved in this most demanding of summers will in some small way bring them comfort at this most painful time.
Utrinque Paratus
The first private company has successfully launched a rocket and achieved orbital velocity. The company is called SpaceX, which was started by the founder of PayPal. This along with the suborbital flights of SpaceShipOne and the creation of Virgin Galactic could signal the beginning of a new era in space flight.
I am usually on top of events like this, but I did not know about the launch until after it occurred. I fault the regular news media for failing to let lay people know what is actually going on in the world, besides how many bombs went off in Iraq.
From: IBD
Barack Obama summed up well the perversity of Democratic Party thinking when he told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that it is “neighborliness” for Washington to hike taxes on those who are “sitting pretty.”
…It’s galling that Obama thinks his definitions of “neighborliness” and “fairness” should be codified into tax law while ignoring the possibility that others might not agree with his personal interpretation of those words. Why should Obama’s definitions carry more weight than someone who believes that being a good neighbor and being fair means supporting one low rate for everyone?
Some in the intelligence community believed that Al Qaeda was going to release a video on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, but the site on which it was supposed to be released was hacked by some code monkeys who have decided to fight the good fight.
Via the Hindustan Times:
Western intelligence suspects two hackers who have targeted Islamicist sites before were responsible: Aaron Weisburd from Internet Haganah and Rusty Shackleford from the web group My Pet Jawa.
The fact that one of the hackers used the pseudonym Rusty Shackleford makes me smile.
Gee I wonder if the Israelis can help them “find” it. They just bought 1000 bunker-busting GBU-39 smart bombs from us. I’ll bet those GBUs are the perfect thing for digging around in the sand to help the Iranians find things. The Israelis are notoriously helpful that way. In the 80’s, without even being asked, they helped the Iraqis tear down a large building that was about to be contaminated with dangerous radiation. I think they would be willing to help the Iranians too.
From:Telegraph.co.uk
Nuclear experts responsible for monitoring Iran’s nuclear programme have discovered that enough enriched uranium, which if processed to weapons grade level could be used to make up to six atom bombs, has disappeared from the main production facility at Isfahan.
American spy satellites have identified a number of suspicious sites, which the Iranians have not declared to nuclear inspectors, that intelligence officials believe are being used for covert research.
