Obama's Labor Secretary Buys Car Made in Canada

Take that United Auto Workers!

To show her support for American workers, President Obama's labor secretary, Hilda Solis, has junked the standard black limo and purchased a new Chevrolet Equinox to ride around Washington in. The problem: the crossover SUV is built and assembled in Canada from parts also made in Canada.

Solis proudly arrived at a media breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor today in the shiny silver vehicle, which she has dubbed the "bullet." She was asked about why she traded the standard-issue limo for the SUV. "What better example could I set if I encouraged my staff to go and purchase and seek how we could acquire a vehicle that would for me would send a signal that we're for supporting our American workers, American-made products, fuel efficient as well," she told the Monitor's Dave Cook, who provided this video of her answer...

The car is made at two Canadian plants and has been so popular that General Motors has been hiring more workers in Canada to keep up with demand.

Perhaps the unions at the Detroit Labor Day rally can bring that up during Obama's speech.

Every Man and Woman a Journalist

Say Anything has an interesting post about a court ruling which essentially makes press credentials obsolete.  The court ruled against a police department in a case in which a man was arrested for recording police officers on his cellphone who were making an arrest.

Bottom line, it's not against the law to record the police, and given that news is broken every day by ordinary people who just happen to be on scene with a phone or camera, there shouldn't be any special protections for someone just because they hold a press badge.  That's good news for those who aren't affiliated with any particular media outlet but have occasion to do some reporting.

Read the whole thing here.

The Seven-Handicapper Just Swatted Away the Duffer

In the previous post I wrote about the move today by John Boehner to refuse Obama's request for a joint session speech on September 7, directly opposite the GOP California debate.  Boehner very politely suggested that Obama could do his silly little jobs speech a day later.  In golf terms, he hit the two foot putt for the birdie while Obama was still flailing away in the sandtrap.

There's an interesting little pissing contest going on right now between the White House and the Speaker.  The WH insists they got approval for the date before making the public announcements.  Boehner insists that yes, the WH informed them 15 minutes before the announcement that they wanted that date, but his office did not give any kind of formal approval.  Apparently, because Boehner did not immediate object, the WH took that as tacit approval.  I'm sure they never expected the Speaker to object since to anyone's knowledge that's never happened before.

And just to clarify for any lefties reading this, the president does not control Congress' schedule.  He appears at joint sessions only if invited by the Speaker (and that includes the State of the Union speech), and Boehner has every right to refuse a schedule that he doesn't like.

I think there's more to this story, and here's what I think happened.  The WH made their wishes known to Boehner's office and Boehner's people probably didn't immediately realize the conflict with the GOP debate.  Once the request had been made public, lots of Republicans like me started flooding Boehner's office with tweets, emails and calls requesting him to refuse the request because of the obvious petty political timing.  Since no formal invitation had been offered to Obama, Boehner was free to refuse the date and offer an alternative.

The left is going nuts about all this, as you might expect, but Obama was trying to take the heat off himself by stepping on the GOP debate and Boehner called him on it.  Duffers should never expect to beat 7-handicappers at their own game.

Obama has the perfect opportunity to give a jobs speech next week.  He's going to a Labor Day rally in Detroit where the audience will be packed with adoring union members.  That's where he should make the speech.  Heck, it's the union people that will get all the money in Obama's proposed plan so it makes perfect sense to do it there.  There's no pressing need for a prime-time joint session speech.

In eight years President Bush gave only one non-State of the Union joint session speech, and that was the speech following 9/11.  This will be Obama's second non-State of the Union speech in 2 1/2 years.  The first was to push Obamacare.

Boehner played this one very well.  The president deserved to get slapped down.

Boehner Says "No Thanks. Mr. President. Let's Do Your Silly Speech On Thursday Instead"

My respect for John Boehner just went up immeasurably.  Obama announced plans for a silly jobs speech to a joint session of Congress at the same time as the GOP CA debate.  What a lot of people on the leftt apparently don't know is the president only appears before Congress if the Speaker invites him. He has no power to order Congress to listen to him.

Speaker Boehner, seeing the obvious petty political move by Obama, politely declined and suggested the following night instead.  This has the left (and probably the White House) in a rage.  Good times.

Who says a summer congressional recess has to be boring?

What's funny is the left is now demanding all sorts of deference to Obama's wishes that they never would have accorded  Pres. Bush.

This isn't over.

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Michele Bachmann, Jewish Princess?

This is kind of funny:

Funny, she doesn't look Jewish.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is facing a new challenge: He's having trouble raising money from some Jewish donors who mistakenly believe one of his opponents, Michele Bachmann, is Jewish.

Some Jewish donors are telling fund-raisers for Romney, a Mormon, that while they like him, they'd rather open their wallets for the "Jewish candidate," who they don't realize is actually a Lutheran, The Post has learned.

"It's a real problem," one Romney fund-raiser said. "We're working very hard in the Jewish community because of Obama's Israel problem. This was surprising."

I understand the president is considering changing his last name to "Obamawitz".

Has George Lucas Ruined Another Iconic Star Wars Moment?

According to my favorite Star Wars aficionado, my son, yes he has.  You can find the ugly details here.

I tend to believe the Star Wars fans that nothing Lucas has done since the original series has in any way improved it.

Obama Requests Joint Session Speech at Same Moment as GOP CA Debate

Petty politics at its best.  Obama has requested to give a speech to a joint session of Congress at exactly the same moment the GOP is scheduled to debate at the Reagan Library.  This will be Rick Perry's first debate appearance.

Speaker John Boehner should just say no.  The president does not have the power to demand an appearance, he must be invited.  Boehner should offer him another time if necessary, but not the time he's requesting.

Obama's plan is simple. Take the attention away from the CA debate, and force NBC to push the debate back so it appears on TV later in the evening when fewer people may be watching.

Very unpresidential, but typical of Obama.

This debate is being hosted by NBC and Politico, neither of which are fans of Republicans.  They may just decide to go ahead at the previously scheduled time and run the debate at the same time as the president's speech, thus killing the debate coverage.  Wouldn't surprise me a bit.

UPDATE:  Here's a good idea:

@Chris_Moody: If Sarah Palin really wanted to shake things up right now, she'd declare a "big announcement" to be made on Sept. 7 at 8:00

This is What the California Democrat Legislators Do Instead of Fixing the State's Problems

They create new problems:

Under AB 889, household “employers” (aka “parents”) who hire a babysitter on a Friday night will be legally obligated to pay at least minimum wage to any sitter over the age of 18 (unless it is a family member), provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers' compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck.

Failure to abide by any of these provisions may result in a legal cause of action against the employer including cumulative penalties, attorneys' fees, legal costs and expenses associated with hiring expert witnesses, an unprecedented measure of legal recourse provided no other class of workers – from agricultural laborers to garment manufacturers. (On the bright side, language requiring an hour of paid vacation time for every 30 hours worked was amended out of the bill in the Senate.)

Unfortunately, the unreasonable costs and risks contained in this bill will discourage folks from hiring housekeepers, nannies and babysitters and increase the use of institutionalized care rather than allowing children, the sick or elderly to be cared for in their homes. I can't help but wonder if that is the goal of AB 889 – a terrible bill that needs to be stopped.

The bill is sailing through the legislature with " blanket support from the Democrat members that control both houses of the Legislature – and without the support of a single Republican member". Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown is sure to sign it.

This bill doesn't just make hiring a babysitter a risky move, it will make it almost impossible for someone to hire in-home health care workers for elderly or disabled people.  It's a disaster in the making.

Rick Perry, Culture Warrior

Dana Milbank tries to paint Rick Perry as some sort of theocrat, which of course scares the left half to death, but in the process he may be making a better case for him than he thinks:

Yes, Perry is passionately anti-government, or at least anti-this-government. But the man who suddenly tops the Republican presidential polls is no libertarian. Rick Perry is a theocrat.

By his own account, he is a cultural warrior, seeking to save marriage, Christmas and the Boy Scouts from liberals, gay people and moral relativism. His latest treatise, the Tea-Party-inspired “Fed Up!,” touches only briefly on matters such as abortion and gay marriage. For an eyeful of the full Perry, crack his 2008 book, “On My Honor.” While the rest of the political world was reading Cheney’s attacks on Colin Powell, I read about Perry’s attacks on gay scoutmasters.

In the book’s most talked-about passage, he likens homosexuality to alcoholism. “Even if an alcoholic is powerless over alcohol once it enters his body, he still makes a choice to drink,” Perry writes. “And, even if someone is attracted to a person of the same sex, he or she will makes a choice to engage in sexual activity with someone of the same gender.”

Imagine those words crossing Bush’s lips. Or these: “The radical homosexual movement seeks societal normalization of their sexual activity. . . . They must respect the right of millions in society to refuse to normalize their behavior.”

Perry’s politics are religious in a way not seen before in modern-day mainstream presidential candidates. “Either faith in Christ can cleanse all people of their sin, or none, but not some,” he writes. “The truth of Christ’s death, resurrection, and power over sin is absolute. . . . What we believe about it does not determine its truthfulness.”

Perry has no use for those who “want to recognize Jesus as a good teacher, but nothing more.” Of those non-Christians, Perry asks, “why call him good if he has lied about his claims of deity and misled two millennia of followers?”

The governor forecasts divine punishment for those who hold different political views. “Shall they stand before God and brag that they fought to scrub His glorious name from the nation’s pledge?” he asks. “Shall they seek His approval for attacking private organizations merely because these organizations proclaim His existence?”

As you can imagine, that kind of talk has the lefties wettin' their britches (as they say in Texas).  The idea that someone can be so sure of his positions really bothers them.  They prefer "nuance" and "compromise", but Perry's a straight shooter.

His campaign is going to be fun to watch, and the reactions of the left will be even more enjoyable.

Yes, It's the Sun, Stupid

I've been posting on this subject for years now (the first "It's the Sun, Stupid" post was in March, 2007) and the science keeps proving me right.  The sun controls the Earth's climate, not my son's SUV:

The science is now all-but-settled on global warming, convincing new evidence demonstrates, but Al Gore, the IPCC and other global warming doomsayers won’t be celebrating. The new findings point to cosmic rays and the sun — not human activities — as the dominant controller of climate on Earth.

The research, published with little fanfare this week in the prestigious journal Nature, comes from über-prestigious CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest centres for scientific research involving 60 countries and 8,000 scientists at more than 600 universities and national laboratories. CERN is the organization that invented the World Wide Web, that built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and that has now built a pristinely clean stainless steel chamber that precisely recreated the Earth’s atmosphere.

In this chamber, 63 CERN scientists from 17 European and American institutes have done what global warming doomsayers said could never be done — demonstrate that cosmic rays promote the formation of molecules that in Earth’s atmosphere can grow and seed clouds, the cloudier and thus cooler it will be. Because the sun’s magnetic field controls how many cosmic rays reach Earth’s atmosphere (the stronger the sun’s magnetic field, the more it shields Earth from incoming cosmic rays from space), the sun determines the temperature on Earth.

Can we stop all the "green energy" crap now? And the "green jobs" baloney? None of that stuff will change the Earth's temperature one degree if the sun doesn't go along with it.

Energy Headline of the Day

From CBS Denver:

Panda Poop Could Be Key To Producing Biofuels

Panda poop is basically shredded bamboo. Couldn't we just shred up some bamboo and cut out the middle bear, so to speak?

Jose' Can You See?

Not yet because he doesn't have an eye (bad hurricane joke).

It looks like our next contestant in the 2011 tropical storm season is headed in roughly the same direction as Irene. Meet Jose' (larger version here):

If you look close you'll see a tropical storm turning to a hurricane and then turning into a major hurricane (Cat 3 or better). Still too early to predict exactly where this one will go.

UPDATE:  Correction - this is Katia, not Jose'.  Apparently Jose' made a run for the border and disappeared leaving Katia to do the heavy lifting.

Ban Republicans? Fine, YOU Pay for the Parade

I like this mayor's style:

The mayor of a Wisconsin town said on Tuesday a local labor council would have to reimburse the city up to $2,000 for a Labor Day parade if organizers exclude Republican lawmakers from attending.

The move in Wausau, Wisconsin, came after a county labor official said last week that Republican politicians were not welcome at the event due to their party's stance against collective bargaining when state lawmakers voted to curtail it earlier this year.

Wausau Mayor Jim Tipple told Reuters on Tuesday that the decision to exclude elected Republicans "flies in the face of public policy."

"This is not a political rally, it's a parade, for God's sake," Tipple said, noting that taxpayer money is used by the city to pay for staging the event. Tipple's office is nonpartisan, and he claims no affiliation with either political party.

He said the annual cost of the parade, including insurance, setting up and taking down a stage, and police personnel, runs anywhere from $1,500 to $2,000 each year.

The Wisconsin public employees organizations are losing...period. These little petty temper tantrums aren't going to turn them into winners.

UPDATE: The unions back down.

Political Quote of the Day

Best description of taxes yet:

Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday accused some state lawmakers of adhering to “the notion that taxes are like some kind of sexually transmitted disease.”

If only.  I say practice safe budgeting - no new taxes.

Never Take a Wooden iPad

Some people deserve to get swindled:

A woman at an area McDonald's thought she was getting an iPad at a bargain price, but instead she got a very expensive piece of wood.

Ashley McDowell, 22, said she was getting food at about 10 p.m. Monday when two men approached her in the parking lot. The men showed McDowell a new iPad, and told her that they had bought several of them in bulk at a good price and had them in FedEx boxes in the trunk of their car.

The men offered to sell McDowell one of the iPads for $300. She told them that she only had $180, and they agreed to sell her one for that amount.

The men gave McDowell a FedEx box. Once at home, she opened it and found a piece of wood painted black with an Apple logo on it.

McDowell said the men were in a white Chevy Impala with no rims and untinted windows. She said one of the men had a gold tooth.

He'll get as many gold teeth as he wants if he keeps running to people like this lady.

Generic Republicans Still Winning Big (But Can Real Republicans?)

That's the real question:

Republicans now lead by nine points on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, August 28.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate, while 36% would choose the Democrat instead. That gap is up three points from last week, when Republicans led 44% to 38%, and is the largest gap since mid-March.

Democrats enjoyed a seven-point lead on the Generic Congressional Ballot – 42% to 35% – when Barack Obama took office as president in late January 2009. But Republicans have led on the ballot every week since June 2009, leading by as much as 12 points and as little as two. The week before Election Day last November, support for Republicans peaked at 51%, the highest level of support either party has enjoyed in the last two years.

There also a presidential preference poll out that shows a Generic Republican beating Obama 48-40, however things change when you put an actual name to that Republican.

Never Bring a Rock to a Crossbow Fight

I'm not a believer in karma but this could almost make me change my mind:

San Diego police say a 16-year-old boy throwing rocks at a sport utility vehicle was struck by a crossbow bolt fired by a passenger.

Police say the shirtless boy and a friend were throwing rocks at a black Toyota RAV4 in the Linda Vista neighborhood Monday afternoon when a passenger fired a crossbow out the window.

The boy was shot in the right side and was taken to a hospital. The San Diego Union-Tribune says his injuries are not life-threatening.

His name wasn't released.

Nobody has been arrested.

Bet he doesn't do that again.

Is It Child Neglect to Allow Your Kid to Bike One Mile to School?

It is if you're in Elizabethton, TN. The police and mayor are threatening a mom with child neglect charges because she allows her 5th grader to ride one mile to school over a fairly safe route instead of taking the bus. The story is here.

This mom, along with some good lawyers, ought to go after this city.  This is government overreach at its worst and should be publicly shamed.

Today's Chris Christie Lesson in Government

No coddling for New Jersey State employees:

Public unions are furious at New Jersey governor Chris Christie for calling public employees into work on Monday, advising private workers to stay home.

"For people in many cases, it took hours, hours and hours to get into Trenton," complained Hetty Rosenstein, regional director for the Communications Workers of America. "It was not safe and it didn’t make any sense that you would say to every worker except for state workers: ‘If you can stay home, stay home,’ then say but to state workers: ‘It’s important for you to be at your desk.’"

Christie's response?

"Folks sat in traffic this morning, my apologies," he said sarcastically. "Toughen up and get to work."

Yes sir.

10 Facts About Dick Cheney You Probably Didn't Know

Daily Caller has some information from Dick Cheney's new book that you might find interesting.  Read it here.

GOP Has Significant Opportunity With Hispanic Vote

West Wing Report tweeted this info this morning:

After reaching 64% in February, the Hispanic approval of Obama has fallen to 44%, says Gallup. Hispanics voted 2:1 for him in 2008.

ATTH: Rick Perry, here's another good reason to look hard at Marco Rubio as a VP pick. Besides being a solid conservative and very smart guy, he'd be the first Hispanic on a major party ticket and many of those disaffected Hispanic voters could be moved into the GOP column.

And it's not just Hispanic support that's crumbling.  White support for Obama has dropped to a new low of 32%.  I think the whole "white guilt" thing is over and Obama will have a hard time building that number back up.

The Return of the Anti-Reagan Playbook

Democrats have nothing new to offer, either in terms of policies or political strategy.  They just keep recycling all the old stuff.  The latest is the "conservatives must be dumb" meme as offered by Politico yesterday in their "Is Rick Perry Dumb" column.  First some thoughts from Bryan Preston:

On the individual cases, Perry vs. Obama, there is a better case to be made that Obama has benefited from luck, from others' guilt, from social promotion, and from his instinct to conceal what he really thinks, than Rick Perry has. Perry learned to fly military aircraft, has built an impressive undefeated election record in bona fide contests, and led Texas as that state leads the nation in just about every economic category. In a political blind taste test -- cover their names and political affiliations -- Perry is by far the more impressive of the two.

The fact is, east coast elitists are prone to treating anyone not from the east coast or Chicago, or who speaks with a flyover country twang, as their inferiors. And a corollary fact is, East Coast elites tend to treat anyone with Harvard on their resume as automatically brilliant no matter how they actually got into Harvard (unless they're a Republican, in which case the insults fly). Bush was dumb though he attended both Harvard and Yale and was a successful pro baseball team owner and governor; Obama is smart despite his record of failure in the presidency and his lack of real achievement prior to. Reagan was dumb because he went to Eureka College. Perry is dumb because he majored in animal science at Texas A&M.

We're to believe that Barack Obama is the smartest man alive (and Hillary Clinton was the smartest woman) even though Obama has a record of failure. Because his policies meet the liberal test for "caring and compassion", he therefore must be smart.

Meanwhile, Republicans with solid records of achievement and success in office are dumb because they don't believe in rainbows and unicorns. They tried this approach with Ronald Reagan, a successful two term governor of California before he ran for president, against VP Dan Quayle who despite some verbal miscues was no slouch in the intelligence department, against George W. Bush who was a successful businessman and two term governor of Texas (not to mention a fighter-interceptor pilot in the Air National Guard), against Sarah Palin despite success at several levels of government including governor of Alaska, and now against Rick Perry, the three term governor of Texas who has also been very successful in real estate and flew C-130's in the Air Force.

Interestingly, this tactic of calling Republicans "dumb" wasn't used to any significant extent against George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole or John McCain...or for that matter, Mitt Romney.  When you're not a solid conservative the left is willing to give you more credit for intelligence, whether valid or not.

The "conservatives are dumb" meme is so predictable that I doubt it will have much effect.  Perry has a record of achievement that Obama could only dream of.  It won't stick and will only serve to remind voters that the Democrats have no record of achievement to which they can point.

Political Photo of the Day

From Beltway Confidential, President Obama looks toward one of the two heavy duty teleprompters which he required for a 3-minute statement about a presidential appointee:

Three minutes. Can't the man read from his own notes even for three minutes?

Don't start talking to me about Rick Perry's intelligence.  He did his entire 30 minute announcement speech without a prompter.  Obama can't even talk to a bunch of schoolkids without his electronic friends.

Hypercane Irene

Although I spent Fri-Mon traveling, it was pretty apparent the big story was Hurricane Irene.  I'd been tracking it on this blog since it first became clear that it would be the ninth named storm, but the first to become an actual hurricane.

What made this storm particularly interesting was the potential to hit the I-95 corridor, an area populated by something like 60 million people.  And of course, that included Washington D.C. and New York City.

Many are now accusing the media of over-hyping this storm, and they may be right.  Certainly, if you're in Vermont or inland North Carolina or other places where the flooding has been extreme, there's no hype at all.  But if you were in New York City, the dreaded storm yielded little more than just a lot of rain.

When I had a chance I watched the coverage from my hotel room and there was without a question a New York-centrism in the coverage.  That's not that hard to understand given that the two centers of the media universe are New York and Washington, and most of the people reporting or producing the coverage lived in those areas.  It almost seemed that the anchors were impatient for the storm to finish with North Carolina so the main event could begin.

Hype also helps ratings, and it was clear to me on Friday that the media felt they had a vested interest in selling the worst case scenario for New York City.  The forecast models had already shifted to show a weaker Cat 1 storm hitting New York, and yet I watched CNN run and rerun an inundation model of lower Manhattan based on a Cat 2 storm.  That wasn't going to happen and the experts all knew that by that point in time.  Why didn't the producers order the change in reporting?  Probably because a scary Cat 2 scenario with 8-12 feet of water in lower Manhattan, flooding in the Ground Zero site, and flooding in the New York subway system was a lot sexier than a Cat 1 situation which might not even flood Battery Park.

And the hype wasn't confined to the media:

Despite Barack Obama’s initial protests to end his vacation early, the Obama re-election team convinced the president to pose for a much needed leadership photo-op in the wake of Hurricane Irene.

This even had to be very disappointing for the Obama campaign people.  He can't go splash through lower Manhattan while consoling displaced New Yorkers.  He can't do much to show that he's more engaged than President Bush was in 2005.  The hype pretty much damages everyone involved.

There's another tropical storm, Jose', currently winding its way across the Atlantic and the track could bring it to the East Coast again.  If this turns into a big storm, how many people will ignore the warnings thanks to the media hype from Irene?

And how many people will start looking at all media reporting with new skepticism?  That's not a bad thing.

Look! Up in the Air! It's a Bird! It's a Plane! No, It's a Bus!

It's Obama's incredible flying $1.1 million bus (h/t Ben Howe):

Apparently President Obama only rode the buses for a couple of miles at a time, spending the rest of the time flying from community to community in Air Force One. What’s more, the buses were flown from stop to stop as well. It’s normal practice for the President’s entire motorcade to be loaded up on cargo planes and flown from destination to destination. The buses were just a new part of that motorcade.

But why wouldn’t the presidential limousine have sufficed? Or one of the other armored vehicles that routinely travel with the President? Apparently because the President wanted the imagery of a bus. And buses are what he got.

Talk about your carbon footprints. They probably had to add another C-17 to the usual presidential retinue to handle the bus.

Political Headline of the Day

From Iowahawk:

New Scandal at DoJ as Illegal Guitars End Up In Hands of Mexican Drug Lords

Read the whole thing.

Bridges

After spending Saturday shopping for stuff for the new dorm room and finishing up the move-in the three of us decided to go down to Old Sacramento to have dinner. The Sacramento River runs along the edge of Old Sacramento and includes a couple of interesting drawbridges.

As we arrived out on the riverfront the sun was setting and the rail/car bridge was closed. Cars use the upper deck and trains the lower:

The sirens sounded and the bridge began to open for an approaching ship:

It was the Empress Hornblower, one of the dinner cruise boats that take people on a 3-hour (or so) cruise on the Sacramento River. The dock was right below where I was standing, and the boat usually run 45 minutes one direction, an hour-and-a-half back down the river past the landing, and then 45 minutes back to the dock.

As the boat continued down the river it approached the Tower Bridge where more sirens and alarms were sounding:

The Empress Hornblower continued her cruise under the raised deck.

Wouldn't it be nice if every time an obstacle got in our way it would just raise up and let us pass?

Back in 2001-2003 the Great Western Quartet Convention was held in Sacramento, and during those three years I chartered the Spirit of Sacramento (pictured here), another riverboat that's just a bit bigger than the Empress Hornblower, for a special 3-hour gospel music breakfast cruise. There are some photos from the 2002 cruise here.

On the way back to the school we passed the biggest crime scene in California history - the State Capitol.  More theft goes on in that building than anywhere in the state.

Political Billboard of the Day

h/t Don Surber:

Today's Quick Hit Headlines

Some quick hits on today's headlines:

1 in 4 Dems Want to Dump Obama...
Hillary?  Oh Hillary?

Is Rick Perry dumb?
Jonathan Martin at Politico's latest effort as official stenographer for the DNC.

Romney plan to stop the Texas man...
See Jonathan Martin at Politico

PERRY COMIN' ON STRONG
Perry 27%, Romney 14% (CNN). Take your best shot but you're not stopping this Texas man.

CA eyes ban on foam containers...
If passed this measure will immediately kill 9,000 California jobs - people who work in styrofoam manufacturing and RECYCLING.  Yes, styrofoam can be recycled, but California jobs can't.

Two little girls busted after stealing goat from petting zoo...
Just in time for the 9/11 anniversary, the girls were trying to get their own pet goat.

TSA Agents Find 7 Snakes, 3 Tortoises In Passenger's Pants...
That's gotta be uncomfortable.

Pa. Man Charged Again for Putting Ribs in Pants
This must be "Stick Stuff Down Your Pants Day"

Bachmann suggests Irene was God's warning...
If it had been God's warning, New York City and Washington D.C. wouldn't be there anymore.

Police arrest two men rafting in storm for 'lack of common sense'...
Can we send these cops to the Democrat Caucus in Washington?

DAD THROWS SON OVERBOARD CRUISE BOAT AFTER ARGUMENT...
Apparently, they were not on The Love Boat.

VFW Accuses White House of Snubbing Convention
If the VFW wants Obama to attend they better unionize.

And...We're Back

Just finished an 8-hour trip home after moving our son into Sacramento State and visiting our daughter in Rohnert Park, and for the first time since October 29, 1988, we come home to a house that doesn't have either one of our kids living in it.

*Sigh*

Life moves on.

I've got a lot of catching up to do. Regular blogging will start up again tonight or tomorrow morning.

I've Had a Little Experience With Hurricanes Myself

I'm traveling in Northern California today so I can't pay as much attention to Hurricane Irene as I'd like to.  Back in 1970 I had a front row seat for Category 3 Hurricane Celia in Corpus Christi, TX.  I wrote about the experience, and included some photos I took, here.  I have a pretty good idea of what the I-95 corridor will be facing today, though Irene will not be as strong as Celia was when it hit my motel on the bay in Corpus.

No, It's Not Global Warming

We have not had a landfalling hurricane in the U.S. since Hurricane Ike in 2008, so if anyone is trying to tell you that Hurricane Irene is being caused by global warming, feel free to call them an idiot.  These are the same people who told us that global warming would cause more hurricanes.

This storm will do a lot of damage because it's so darn big and moving very slowly.  It's not terribly strong right now - only Cat 1 - but with rain bands extending out 450 miles and tropical force winds out 90 miles from the center, the slow speed means these conditions will persist for a long time over the affected areas.

When I went through Hurricane Celia in 1970 we had terrible conditions for 4 hours, a 30 minute break during the eye, and another 4 hours of bad stuff before it calmed down to just heavy rain.  Lots of bad things can happen during such a long period of intense weather.

This is going to be a big mess.

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Today's I-95 Corridor Music Video

For all those facing Hurricane Irene this weekend, here's what you probably should be doing - Build An Ark:

American River Courtyard

This is the dorm where my son will be living this year.  It's called the American River Courtyard because just a short walk away is the levy and bike trail that runs along the American River.

The dorm is only two years old and has way more amenities than I had in my college dorm.

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My View

This has been my view for the last 6 1/2 hours.  My wife and son are in the Explorer and I'm driving the chase car.  But we're here and checking in!

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1...2...3...4...3...2...

That title kind of represents the household equation since I first moved out on my own in the late 70's.

• Started out as just me, but one became two in 1987 when we got married.
• Two became three a year-and-a-half later when our daughter was born.
• Three became four in 1991 when our son joined the family.
• For 16 years four was the norm.  All through the preschool, elementary, Jr. high and high school years.
• But as these things do, what goes up must come down and in August of 2007 four became three again when our daughter headed off to college 500 miles away.  I remember how odd it felt to come home from that trip and only have three people in the house.  Occasionally we'd grow to four again when Christmas and summer breaks came around, but three became the norm.
• Our son chose to do his first two college years at a local community college, so for four years we've been three. 
• That changes today as three will once again become two as our son heads to Sacramento for his junior year in college and we'll come home to an empty nest.  

Gonna be really strange.  I kind of got used to seeing at least one of those kids in the house all the time.  They grow on you after awhile.

Does New York Realize What's Coming Their Way?

I'm not so sure they do. The latest models show Irene hitting smack into New York City as a Category 1 hurricane. Can you imagine what the storm surge and winds whistling through skyscraper canyons is going to do?

Apparently Mayor Michael Bloomberg will not make a decision on mandatory evacuations until 8am Saturday morning. Conditions will be deteriorating throughout the day before the main storm hits on Sunday, but that seems to be cutting things way too short. Hope they have room in Madison Square Garden for thousands of potential refugees (See Superdome, New Orleans).

And the Giants and Jets were scheduled to play a pre-season game Saturday evening at 7. Did they cancel it? Nope, they just moved it up to 2pm. All those people will be trying to leave the stadium in what will surely be pretty tough conditions.

And a little further south in Washington D.C., the dedication ceremony on Sunday for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial has been cancelled, but Rev. Al Sharpton has assured his minions that his march and rally on Saturday will still go on. Something seems really wrong with that. The hero gets postponed but the ego goes on.

Good luck with all that.

UPDATE: I just looked at the 11pm 72 hour track forecast. As you can see from the image below the forecast track has the storm passing just east of Manhattan and basically right over JFK Airport (the black line is the projected path.

Political Tweet of the Day

From Charles Krauthammer:

Earthquake, hurricane, Obamacare. When does it stop? Seven more and I vote we let the Israelites go.

Sometimes You Just Can't Win

Just ask Kenny Chesney:

Kenny Chesney avoided one storm… and steered into another.

Due to the looming threat of Hurricane Irene, which is set to wreak havoc on the Eastern seaboard this weekend, Chesney moved a Sunday concert at the Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass. two days earlier to Friday.

While most fans seem to understand, many aren’t happy about the last-minute decision.

“Most everyone I speak to is thoroughly disappointed at the unprofessional way this unfortunate weather situation has been handled,” said one fan on Kenny’s Facebook page. “How in the world do you expect fans like myself who rely on our day to day jobs to ask for a Friday off and find a babysitter?!?!” asked another.

Hello, dummies, you're going to have anywhere from a strong tropical storm to a Cat 1 hurricane sitting over Boston at the scheduled time of the Sunday concert. A babysitter is the least of your problems.

Latest Forecast for Irene is Bad News for Northeast

People from the Outer Banks of North Carolina to New England had better get their floaties on because Irene is going to be really big:

...MAJOR HURRICANE IRENE TO STRONGLY AFFECT THE EAST COAST FROM NC
INTO THE NEW ENGLAND THIS WEEKEND...

THE LATEST NUMERICAL GUIDANCE CONTINUES TO ADJUST WESTWARD AS HAS THE LAST SEVERAL NHC TRACK FORECASTS WHICH NOW HAVE EYE OF IRENE COMING THRU THE NORTH CAROLINA OUTER BANKS LATE SATURDAY BEFORE GRAZING THE DELMARVA AND NEW JERSEY THEN MOVING INTO THE NORTHEAST ON SUNDAY. THIS POTENTIALLY COULD BE EXTREMELY DESTRUCTIVE WITH MASSIVE DISRUPTIONS TO SOCIETY AND COMMERCE ALONG ITS ENTIRE TRACK WITH VERY HIGH WINDS/STORM SURGE/OCEAN OVERWASH/BEACH EROSION/SOUND AND BAY SIDE COASTAL FLOODING AND EXTREME TIDE POTENTIAL. WIDESPREAD HEAVY RAINS IN THE 6-10 INCH RANGE WILL BE COMMON WITH GREATLY INCREASED INLAND FLOOD POTENTIAL. REFER TO THE NHC FOR THE LATEST FORECAST OF IRENE ALONG WITH LOCAL NWS WARNINGS/STATEMENTS AND ADVISORIES FROM NC INTO NEW ENGLAND.

There's more technical stuff at the link. One model has 10.5" of rain falling on New York City. With much of the area already saturated from previous rains, that much water will have no place to go. Combined with high winds and you'll have trees and power lines down everywhere and a disruption that could last weeks in some areas.

Big Labor Planning to Scale Back Support for Democrats

Can you blame them?  They've sunk billions of dollars in union dues to fund Democrat candidates and don't really have much to show for it (except for ownership of GM and Chrysler, and that could be a net negative):

The growing rift between labor and their Democratic allies was on full display Thursday, as AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka told reporters that labor groups were planning to scale back their involvement with the Democratic Party in advance of the 2012 elections.

Going forward, Trumka said, the labor movement would build up their own political structures and organizations of its own rather than contribute to and depend on the Democratic party’s political operation.

“We’re going to use a lot of our money to build structures that work for working people” Trumka said. “You’re going to see us give less money to give money to build structures for others and more of our money will be used to build our own structure.”...

“Let’s assume we spent $100 in the last election,” he said, explaining the union’s position.

“The day after election day, we were no stronger than we were the day before,” said Trumka. “If we had spent that [$100] on creating a structure for working people that would be there year round, then we are stronger.”

Of course, though they may create their own "structures", they're still going to send millions of dollars to Democrats because they really don't have anywhere else to spend their political dollars. They won't support GOP candidates unless they can find some liberal RINO who promises to give them what they want.

Has MLK Jr.'s Dream Been Realized?

John McWhorter says we're pretty darn close:

John McWhorter, Manhattan Institute: "The Rev. Martin Luther King, resurrected, would be prouder of black America than many of its leaders and thinkers. Economic disparities remain, but in 1960 nine in 10 blacks were poor, whereas today three of four blacks are not. Tracing the remaining disparities to racism becomes trickier by the year. The 'institutional racism' many trace these statistics to is something black people of King's time would have considered a much more workable adversary than open bigotry and segregation. Some holdouts remain bigots, but not enough to keep Barack Obama out of the White House, and overall, racism is considered as socially embarrassing as pedophilia. King could never have predicted that this would happen so quickly. Is America 'post-racial'? Afraid not. But is the treatment of black people in America still so transparently and grievously unjust as to make a mockery of our democratic ideals and require redress with all deliberate speed? Afraid not, again, and Dr. King would rejoice, as we should with him."

Another opinion from the same link from the head of the NAACP:

Benjamin Todd Jealous, NAACP president: "These are the best of times and these are the worst of times. We have our first black president. We have our first black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Oprah Winfrey owns her own TV network. Tyler Perry owns his own movie studio. And every major city has its resident black millionaires. And we are proud of all of them. And yet at the same time, poverty is at Depression-era levels. Homeownership is down. Foreclosures are up. HIV rates among black and brown youth are way too high … and high school graduation rates are way too low."

And you can blame many of the problems in the last couple of sentences on federal government programs, which Jealous wants more of, that have effectively destroyed the black family unit by replacing fathers with government checks.  70% of black children are born to unwed mothers, and only 35% of black kids grow up in two-parent homes.  Those numbers weren't near that bad 40 years ago before the "War on Poverty" became a war on black families.

Political Quote of the Day

From Kinky Friedman, sometime Texas politician and full-time Jewish Cowboy:

These days, of course, I would support Charlie Sheen over Obama. Obama has done for the economy what pantyhose did for foreplay.

Friendman ran against Rick Perry for governor in 2006, but today he's endorsing him for president. Read the whole thing.

Irene Takes Aim at the I-95 Corridor

Bad news for the Northeast, the forecast models for Hurricane Irene have shifted a bit west meaning the hugely populated I-95 corridor will be under the gun for a direct hit:

The Weather Channel has more info, including wind damage and flood potential maps, at this link.   The Obamas will probably have to cut their trip a bit short, and you can pretty much write off the dedication ceremony for the new Martin Luther King Jr. memorial which was supposed to take place on Sunday.  At the time the ceremony is scheduled D.C. will probably be getting hammered by high winds and torrential rain.

This has the potential to be a big newsmaker over the weekend, with wide-spread damage and power outages that could affect millions of people. As one person put it, we're going to find out how good the emergency management skills are of a number of governors.

Michelle Antoinette Obama Spends $10 Million in Taxpayer's Money On Her Vacations

This story had to come from a British paper because the American press doesn't seem to care:

The Obamas' summer break on Martha's Vineyard has already been branded a PR disaster after the couple arrived four hours apart on separate government jets.

But according to new reports, this is the least of their extravagances.

White House sources today claimed that the First Lady has spent $10million of U.S. taxpayers' money on vacations alone in the past year.

Branding her 'disgusting' and 'a vacation junkie', they say the 47-year-old mother-of-two has been indulging in five-star hotels, where she splashes out on expensive massages and alcohol.

The 'top source' told the National Enquirer: 'It's disgusting. Michelle is taking advantage of her privileged position while the most hardworking Americans can barely afford a week or two off work.

'When it's all added up, she's spent more than $10 million in taxpayers' money on her vacations.'

Enjoy it while you can, Michelle. Another year-and-a-half and you'll have to travel on your own dime.

California Falls to 50th in New Business Start-ups

Imagine my surprise (from Flash Report):

As reported by the Los Angeles Times, a new study provides even more bad news for California’s job creation prospects and overall budget picture. According to Economic Modeling Specialists, Inc., California has fallen from first in the nation for new business formations to a dismal rank of 50th.
According to the report’s authors:

California’s economic woes and instability have been well-documented, and this data makes another case for how bad things have gotten there. California had the most net new business establishments in 2009 (more than 12,500) and 2008 (32,000-plus); in fact, it ranked either first or second from 2001 to 2009. But the Golden State sank all the way to 50th in 2010 with more than 4,600 fewer new establishments than the previous year.

Could it be that California’s business climate has become so hostile that entrepreneurs now feel they must leave the state in order to successfully launch a new business endeavor? This news should be a wake-up call to Governor Brown and the Legislature. Clearly, we have a lot of work to do.

This won't even phase the governor or legislature. This is exactly what they've created with their tax schemes and over-regulation, and even though the numbers prove their failure they'll never believe they caused it.

Heck, things are so bad in California even our earthquakes are relocating to Colorado and Virginia.

Science Quote of the Day

From Ann Coulter, in a column on Darwinian evolution:

The (extremely generous) test Darwin set for his theory was this: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."

Thanks to advances in microscopes, thousands of such complex mechanisms have been found since Darwin's day. He had to explain only simple devices, such as beaks and gills. If Darwin were able to come back today and peer through a modern microscope to see the inner workings of a cell, he would instantly abandon his own theory.

Read the whole thing. It's funny, but also contains a serious debunking of Darwinian evolution.

Baby Dropped From Children's Hospital Parking Garage Dies

This is a really troubling story that I first posted as it was happening the other night:

Prosecutors confirmed Wednesday that the infant who was allegedly dropped off a parking garage at the Children’s Hospital of Orange County was a patient there.

According to prosecutors, Sonia Hermosillo removed the baby’s helmet before allegedly pushing him from the parking structure. Then she reportedly walked into the hospital and validated her parking ticket.

Hermosillo was reportedly being treated for postpartum depression. Her husband, Noe Medina, told the Orange County Register that she was not allowed to be alone with the baby.

Hermosillo, 31, of La Habra, is charged with attempted murder and child abuse in connection with her 7-month-old son being dropped from the fourth story of the parking structure Monday evening.

The AP is now reporting that the child has died.  I'm sure the charge will be upgraded to murder.

Hermosillo's husband, Noe Medina, told The Orange County Register in an interview Tuesday that his wife had been hospitalized for postpartum depression in June after she said she didn't want their son, Noe Medina Jr., who was diagnosed with congenital muscular torticollis - a twisting of the neck to one side.

The infant also wore a helmet to help correct his plagiocephaly, also known as flat-head syndrome, the Register reported.

"She didn't look at our son as normal," Medina said. "She didn't accept him. She didn't accept that he was like this."

Medina said the boy was receiving physical therapy twice a week and was showing signs of improvement.

Simmons, the prosecutor, said Hermosillo's behavior showed she intended to kill her son, regardless of her mental state.

Both of the conditions from which the child suffered were treatable and could be cured over time. The father clearly did not share her feelings about the boy. He was heartbroken in a TV appearance I saw yesterday. Just like that he's lost his wife and son. My heart goes out to him.

Political Photo of the Day

This one is making the rounds on Twitter:

What if Huntsman Runs as a Third Party Candidate?

John Podhoretz thinks that will only hurt Obama.  Read it here.  Given his 1% polling number in the latest Gallup poll of GOP candidates (see previous post), he may not matter at all.

Rick Perry Takes Double Digit Lead in GOP Race

Here are the numbers from Gallup based on the responses of Republicans and Republican-leading independents:

1. Rick Perry - 29%
2. Mitt Romney - 17%
3. Ron Paul - 13%
4. Michele Bachmann - 10%
5. Herman Cain - 4%
6. Newt Gingrich - 4%
7. Rick Santorum - 3%
8. Jon Huntsman - 1%

Looks like that media blitz by Huntsman is really paying off.  From Nathan Wurtzel:

"1% in the polls with a 3% margin of error, so Jon Huntsman may not even exist."

I Thought Raising the National Debt by $4 Trillion Was Unpatriotic?

During the 2008 campaign Obama called the increase of $4 trillion in the National Debt "unpatriotic".  That's how much the debt increased during the eight years of the Bush Administration.  The video is here at Hot Air.

Obama has raised the National Debt $4 trillion in only 2 1/2 years.  I guess that would make him seriously more unpatriotic than Bush.

This video will likely show up again during the campaign next year.

Wacky Left Tries to Blame the DC Earthquake on Mining

I'm not going to bother quoting any of the silliness at DailyKos, but you can read for yourself the extent of the madness.  Environwackos have long been at war with any kind of mining, and especially if the fracking technique is in use.

The George W. Bush 9/11 Interview

You might want to set your TiVo's for this one - the George W. Bush 9/11 Interview which airs on National Geographic Channel on Sunday night, August 28, 10pm.  It's part of a "Remembering 9/11" series that NatGeo will be running all next week.  My TiVo will be busy.

On the 29th they'll be running a show about Rudy Giuliani's 9/11 experience.  I think I've seen that one before but it's very interesting.

London Children Won't Get To See Olympic Shooting Events

In the twisted world of Mayor Boris Johnson, even the mere sight of a gun can drive a youth to a life of crime:

Children will be banned from watching shooting events under Boris Johnson’s Olympic ticket giveaway.

London schoolchildren are eligible for 125,000 Olympic tickets but these will not include any featuring guns, as Games organisers and City Hall fear a backlash from the anti-gun lobby.

Giving children tickets to the events, at the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, could have appeared at odds with Mayor Boris Johnson’s bid to quell teenage gun and knife crime.

A source said: “We decided it would not be appropriate. It’s the only sport children will not be able to go to as part of the Ticketshare scheme.”

The youth ban will anger some elements of the British Olympic shooting establishment which already feels marginalised by Games organiser Locog.

Georgina Geikie, 26, a Commonwealth Games bronze medallist and Olympic pistol hopeful, said she was “horrified”, adding: “This is a chance for children to look at guns in a different way. They are taking away the opportunity for the sport to blossom. How do we educate people that it is a sport if they cannot watch it?”

David Penn, secretary of the British Shooting Sports Council, said: “There is no link between Olympic-level shooting and crime. It’s like saying that a thief would use a Formula One car as a getaway car.”

A few guns in the hands of London shopkeepers might have kept the youths from burning and looting so many businesses a couple of weeks ago.

Prayers for Israel Cause Scorn for Pop Star

Pop star Katy Perry tweeted support for Israel when a fan asked her to pray for the country as it was in the midst of rocket attacks and other terror assaults.  Needless to say, that brought the loons out.  Hot Air has a sample of the replies that were sent to Perry.

Irene Still Has New England in Her Sights

The projected path of Hurricane Irene keeps edging a bit east and my not hit the U.S. directly until it gets to New England:

Could be some pretty heavy wind and rain in Washington D.C. and New York this weekend but they'll probably escape the worst of the damage. Boston, however, could end up with a Category 1 hurricane.

Weekly KHND Interview Podcast

Here's the podcast from the KHND radio interview from yesterday morning.

Marco Rubio Saves the Day!

And saves Nancy Reagan from a nasty fall.  Top of the Ticket has the info and photos.

Washington Monument May Have Cracks, Could Be Closed for Indefinite Time

They just don't build stuff in DC with earthquakes in mind:

The National Park Service says the Washington Monument may have suffered cracks near its top during Tuesday’s earthquake, and the monument could be closed indefinitely.

Park service spokesman Bill Line said there appear to be cracks “at the very, very top” of the 555-foot tall structure, and structural engineers were being brought in Wednesday to conduct a close inspection.

Meanwhile, the historic stone obelisk at the center of the Mall, south of the White House, will remain closed, and “could be closed for an indefinite period of time,” he said.

I'd hate to even think of the symbolism if that thing fell down.

Obama, Earthquake and Hurricane - Strike Three for DC!

As I was out running around I heard a 5.8 magnitude earthquake had hit the Washington DC area and everything  was shutting down.  Capitol Hill, the Pentagon...even JFK Airport in NYC, 200 miles away!

Boy, those East Coasters are a bunch of wimps.  In California a 5.8 wouldn't even make me look up from my computer.

No, the earth did not open up and swallow the town, but there's a 5% chance that quake was a foreshock so there's still hope.

However, it was a big deal for them and I'm sure a celebrity telethon is now in the planning to pay for all their psych treatment bills.

Obama has been enough of a disaster in that town, then you have an earthquake, and this weekend a possible hurricane.  Strike three.

In honor of today's quake, I'll rerun my earthquake story posting for your amusement:

At 4:57 am on June 28, 1992 I was fast asleep when the house decided to start doing the fandango. The pitch black pre-dawn morning suddenly began flashing bright white and black again as transformers starting going off around the area. The 7.3 Landers earthquake was on.
Landers is about 80 miles or so as the crow flies from my house, but with a 7.3 shaker, that's not very far. We were really getting a ride.
We had two small children at the time, 3 and barely 1, and my wife, being the wonderful mother she is, immediately leaped out of bed and ran down the hallway as the transformers flashed to get to my 1 year old son's room.
Me, being the wonderful father that I am, immediately leaped out of the bed and ran over and held onto the entertainment center.
Hey, we can have more kids but that TV was expensive!

Sad to say, yes, it's true. And by the way, that wasn't the last large earthquake that day. At 8:05 we had a 6.4 quake in Big Bear that though not as strong, was closer to us and shook us just about as hard and as long.

People Getting Prescriptions for Aspirin and Advil Thanks to Obamacare

Of course, you don't need a prescription buy aspirin or Advil, but thanks to new Obamacare rules, many are getting prescriptions for them in order to avoid new taxes:

Doctors at East Louisville Pediatrics PSC in Kentucky say they’re writing as many as 50 prescriptions a day for drugs such as Bayer AG’s aspirin and Pfizer Inc.’s Advil that don’t need a physician’s nod to be purchased off pharmacy shelves.

The trend, triggered by the 2010 health-care law, affects more than 20 million Americans with flexible spending or health savings accounts that let them use pretax dollars for medical needs. A U.S. rule that took effect Jan. 1 taxes purchases of over-the-counter drugs except for insulin unless the patient has a prescription,generating $5 billion through 2019, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

Doctors, pharmacists, insurers and drug companies say while it may generate money to help expand coverage for the uninsured, the measure is driving up medical costs and creating unnecessary work. They want it repealed, expecting demand to surge at year’s end, when people have to use up balances in the accounts.

“It’s a complete waste of time,” said Conrad Flick, one of five physicians at Family Medical Associates of Raleigh in North Carolina, in a telephone interview. In many cases, he said, he’ll talk with patients by phone to determine why they want the drug before he feels comfortable writing the prescription. “So I’m spending an extra half-hour or hour of my day doing things that I don’t get paid for,” he said.

Administrative costs from the new provision are growing, said Diane Myers, administrator for the East Louisville practice that has eight doctors and two nurse practitioners who write prescriptions. “I bet we’re spending a minimum of 10 hours a week on these things,” she said.

And in some cases the patient is having to pay for doctor visits they don't need in order to get these prescriptions, all of which dramatically increase the cost of health care.

There's nothing about Obamacare that will reduce health care costs...well, expect maybe for the death panels.

Washington's New Monument to Martin Luther King Jr....and His Greedy Family

I've seen pictures of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington D.C. and it's quite impressive.  It's also quite the moneymaker for his family:

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s family has charged the foundation building a monument to the civil-rights leader on the National Mall about $800,000 to use his words and image -- and at least one scholar thinks that Dr. King would find such an arrangement offensive.

The memorial is being paid for almost entirely through a fund-raising campaign led by the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation.

"I don't think the Jefferson family, the Lincoln family [or] any other group of family ancestors has been paid a licensing fee for a memorial in Washington," said Cambridge University historian David Garrow, author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Dr. King. ". . . [He would've been] absolutely scandalized."

Financial documents revealed that the foundation paid $761,160 in 2007 to Intellectual Properties Management Inc., an entity run by the King family. They also showed that a $71,700 "management" fee was paid to the family estate in 2003.

The Lincoln family clearly missed the boat when they allowed a nation to memorialize the 16th president and post his words on the wall without first getting a big check.

The Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday was the product of political correctness, and now his memorial will be tainted by greed.

Environwackos Arrested at White House

Today it seems like you can find a handful of dummies to protest just about anything:

No mud for oil -- What do we want? A protest! When do we want it? Whenever! TheDC's C.J. Ciaramella reports: "United States Park Police arrested another gaggle of protesters outside of the White House Monday. The protesters were participating in an ongoing demonstration against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Police arrested 52 protesters for blocking the sidewalk in front of the White House, the third round of mass arrests since the protests began on Saturday. The protesters are calling on President Barack Obama not to approve the Keystone XL pipeline — a proposed expansion of an existing line that would transport crude oil from the Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada, to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma, and down to the U.S. Gulf Coast. The protesters at Monday's demonstration wore pro-Obama buttons and called on the president to honor his campaign promises. 'Obama said he was going to take care of the environment,' said Brad Teal, one of the demonstrators. 'And now we'd like to get him to honor that commitment.'" So far there's been no response from Obama, Santa Claus, Spider-Man, Harry Potter, or anyone else the protesters have ever believed in. They're going to feel silly when they realize Obama isn't even home this week. Just kidding. If they were capable of shame, they wouldn't be environmentalists. 

So, how'd these people get to the White House? Did they walk from their dimly lit caves or did they take some sort of modern conveyance that either burns oil, uses electricity from oil generated plants, or uses oil as a lubricant? Getting oil from Canada is far superior than getting it from Saudi Arabia, and yet these nimrods won't let us get any from anywhere!

Note to environwhackos: Oil is part of the environment. Taking it from the ground and using it is not a crime against Mother Nature, it's using what Mother Nature provides in the best possible way.

Joe Biden: Yeah, That Chinese One Child Policy in China Makes Perfect Sense

This is the only guy who can make me pray for Obama's health because he would be a disaster as president:

Sheriff Joe puts yet another hole in his boot -- Joe Biden called Tea Partiers "terrorists" and got sent on a slow boat to China. How could his big mouth get him in trouble all the way out there? Welllll... TheDC's Caroline May reports: "Pro-life advocates are not pleased with comments Vice President Joe Biden made during his appearance at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, Sunday. Following his prepared remarks about the U.S. debt, Biden answered a question about how America can reduce deficits and strengthen America's financial system. His response included a tacit acceptance of China's one-child policy — a mandate which has resulted in mass abortions, sterilizations and heavy penalties for violators. In explaining the demographic concerns of funding for future generations, Biden cited the Chinese policy. 'But as I was talking to some of your leaders, you share a similar concern here in China. You have no safety net,' Biden said. 'Your policy has been one which I fully understand — I'm not second-guessing — of one child per family. The result being that you're in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable.'" Don't get Sheriff Joe wrong, China. He fully understands why you're killing all your girl babies! Oh, Joe. You're going to make a fine president. 

For all the criticism that was leveled at Day Quayle about his intelligence, he was a brain surgeon compared to Biden.

JFK's Most Famous Line Gets Turned On Its Head

I posted the other day about Rep. Mad Maxine Waters statement that the "Tea Party can go to hell", but Jim Geraghty says there was something else said at that meeting which should have shocked Democrats:

Yeek. While Maxine Water's snide, "the Tea Party can go straight to hell" declaration is garnering the most attention and well-earned derision, what I didn't know until American Glob pointed it out is that at the same community meeting was a constituent's angry demand that, "I'm asking the script be flipped and asking what the country can do for me and the people in this room!" The comment was applauded; as American Glob observes, not one Democrat "even flinch[ed] as someone in the audience blaspheme[d] the most famous quote of the most loved Democrat president of the 20th century?" 

JFK wouldn't even recognize today's Democrat party.

Another Good Reason to Be Suspicious of Jon Huntsman

He's being managed by the same guy who gave us John McCain:

Mr. Huntsman, the former Utah governor and ambassador to Beijing, began his candidacy stressing his resume and his attractive family. With that getting him nowhere in a year when issues trump biography, he's now attacking fellow Republicans for, among other things, not embracing the science of global warming. "To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy," Mr. Huntsman said on Twitter, a criticism of recent remarks by Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Mr. Huntsman followed that up on Sunday on ABC, telling Jake Tapper that the GOP has a "serious problem" when it becomes "anti-science."

The broadside was part of a larger strategy of attacking all of his GOP opponents for something or other. He ripped Mitt Romney for flip-flopping on taxes, assailed Michele Bachmann for saying she'd get gas prices below $2 a gallon and called Mr. Perry "unelectable."

All of this is the hallmark of John Weaver, who is Mr. Huntsman's chief strategist. Mr. Weaver has long been at war with the GOP mainstream, and his candidates typically end up running against some element of the Republican base. That was his strategy in 2000 with John McCain, who won New Hampshire but lost in South Carolina after attacking fellow Republicans. Mr. Weaver was no longer advising Mr. McCain in 2008 when the Arizonan won the nomination. Mr. Weaver is angling Mr. Huntsman for a McCain-2000-style victory in New Hampshire.

The trouble with the strategy is that while it draws huzzahs from the media, attacking Republicans rarely appeals to enough . . . Republicans. This year in particular it's hard to see much room for Mr. Huntsman running to the left of Mr. Romney. The GOP as "anti-science" was a main Democratic theme in the past decade but also isn't likely to move many Republicans now. Perhaps Mr. Huntsman thinks this will carve out ideological space to be the "moderate" choice as vice president, which on present course is his only chance of getting on the ticket.

I fully expect that once the GOP primary voters get done rejecting Huntsman he'll either bolt the party and try to run as an independent to spoil the GOP's chances, or he'll just become a Democrat and possibly take Joe Biden's place on the 2012 ticket. Stranger things have happened.

When a guy spends more time running against the GOP than he does running against Obama, the warning lights are flashing.

Majority of Business Economists Think Debt Problem Should Be Solved Through Spending Cuts, Not Taxes

Me too:

The majority of economists surveyed by the National Association for Business Economics believe the federal deficit should be reduced only or primarily through spending cuts.

The survey out Monday found that 56% of NABE members feel that way, while 37% said they favor equal parts spending cuts and tax increases. The remaining 7% believe it should be done only or mostly through tax increases.

You can read the whole survey here. It kind of puts a lie to the idea that there must be an approach that includes large tax increases.

Latest Hurricane Irene Forecast

From SevereStudios.com:

Pretty much a sure bet we'll have our first landfalling hurricane in a couple of years.

So What's The Real Story With Rick Perry and Al Gore?

R.G. Ratcliffe looked it up:

OK, whack on Republican Gov. Rick Perry in his presidential campaign for having once been a Democrat.

Whack on Rick Perry for endorsing Al Gore in his 1988 presidential run.

But would everyone quit saying he was Gore’s state chairman, because it is simply not true.

Gore in 1988 was viewed as the Southern conservative alternative to Jesse Jackson and Michael Dukakis. The leaders of the Gore campaign in Texas were House Speaker Gib Lewis, Democratic Chairman Bob Slagle and Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby.

On Jan. 5, 1988, Gib brought Gore to Austin to receive the endorsement of 27 state legislators. One of them was Rick Perry. If Perry even spoke that day, his words were so lame that they did not get quoted in news stories. In the Houston Chronicle and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Perry was just listed in alphabetical order as one of the lawmakers backing Gore.

I have tried to find a news release from the event to see if there was any possibility that it said something like: Legislative co-chairs for Gore. But I have not found anything like that. So I recently asked an Austin political consultant who was deep into the Gore campaign that year if Perry was chairman. He told me no. He said Perry did the news conference and then a one-day endorsement fly-around of some of the legislators. And that was it.

There's more at the link. Looks like much ado about nothing.

Child Reported Thrown From the Top of Children's Hospital in Orange

This could end up being a very ugly story:

A child believed to have been thrown from the roof of Children's Hospital of Orange County has been taken to another hospital for treatment, fire officials said.

At 6:19 p.m., Orange police and fire departments officials responded to a call saying a child was thrown from the rear of the main hospital building.

A fire supervisor said there was a transport to UC Irvine Medical Center in Orange but did not say if the patient was a child or if it was the only patient.

Both of my kids were treated at that hospital when they were little (4 & 3).  CHOC and it's partner hospital in Mission Viejo are the place to go for kid's treatment in Orange County.

UPDATE:  Another report:

A baby is in critical condition Monday evening after it fell from a parking structure at Children's Hospital in Orange, police said.

The baby, aged between 1 to 3 months old, is believed to be in critical condition after it fell from the second level of the structure around 6:20 p.m. Monday, according to Orange Police.

Police do not know if the baby was dropped or fell and are reviewing surveillance video from inside the structure for more information.

UPDATE 2 - Suspect in custody:

A 31-year-old La Habra woman was in custody Tuesday on suspicion of throwing her 7-month-old son from a parking structure at Children's Hospital Orange County, leaving him critically injured.

The baby was listed in very critical condition after being thrown from the second, third or possibly the fourth floor of the structure at 455 S. Main St. around 6:20 p.m. Monday, Orange police Sgt. Dan Adams said.

“We don't think this was an accident,” Adams said.

The break in the case came after the husband of Sonia Hermosillo contacted La Habra police about his missing wife and son. La Habra police then called the Orange police about the report, Adams said.

The Fairness Doctrine is Finally Dead

Gotta give credit to the administration for this one:

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the elimination of 83 outdated and obsolete agency rules on Monday, including the controversial Fairness Doctrine.

“The elimination of the obsolete Fairness Doctrine regulations will remove an unnecessary distraction. As I have said, striking this from our books ensures there can be no mistake that what has long been a dead letter remains dead,” Genachowski said in a statement.

“The Fairness Doctrine holds the potential to chill free speech and the free flow of ideas and was properly abandoned over two decades ago. I am pleased we are removing these and other obsolete rules from our books.”

The rule required broadcasters to cover controversial issues in a manner deemed fair and balanced by the FCC. The commission deemed it unconstitutional in 1987 and ceased enforcement.

I'm sure liberal Democrats are mourning this decision, and Rush Limbaugh is probably enjoying his vacation just a little more. There was nothing fair about the Fairness Doctrine - all it would have done had it returned is kill conservative talk radio and the AM band in general, forcing broadcasters to carry programming that nobody wanted to listen to in order to "balance" the conservatives. Liberal talk radio has been an abject failure, and many broadcasters would have simply dumped their conservative shows rather than counter-program several hours of mind numbing liberal whining.

This is a positive step toward free expression.

Don Surber has a little more on the history of the Fairness Doctrine here.

Planned Parenthood Hard Hit in Texas

Looks like times are getting tougher for the abortion business:

Still reeling from funding cuts in Texas, Planned Parenthood is closing clinics and merging affiliates throughout the state, Texas Right to Life reports.

The national abortion giant received a major blow this summer when Texas Governor and presidential contender Rick Perry signed into law a bill that stripped the organization of its funding, and prohibited the state government from contracting with any organization that provides abortions.

A July report in the Gainesville Daily Register confirmed the closure of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Gainesville as a direct result of these legislative developments.

“Like many healthcare providers facing funding cuts after this Texas Legislative session, Planned Parenthood is adjusting its business model to ensure that our mission of providing healthcare education and advocacy across Texas remains strong,” Ken Lambrecht, CEO of Planned Parenthood of North Texas, told the news service. “We are in the process of reconstructing to ensure that we can continue to best serve communities throughout North Texas.”

Texas Right to Life Legislative Director John Seago told LifeSiteNews.com that his organization called over 70 Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas and confirmed six additional closures in Arlington, Mesquite, Plano, Sherman, Terrell, and Waxahachie. All seven locations are scheduled to be closed by the end of September.

Additionally, Planned Parenthood’s website indicates that a center in Groesbeck is “temporarily closed.”

“Even though these clinics are family planning clinics, so there’s not actually any abortions being provided at the clinics that are closing their doors, there’s no mistake that these are abortion-minded clinics that are sending women to abortion clinics,” Seago commented.

I'm surprised they haven't found some liberal judge to overturn that law.