Blame the Washington Bureaucracy for High Gas Prices

Heritage  "Americans are paying more for gasoline today than they were six weeks ago when President Obama released 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. In the Gulf of Mexico, meanwhile, 10 drilling rigs — more than one-third of the fleet — have left on Obama’s watch.

"This incomprehensible energy policy is not only costing Americans more money at the pump. Bureaucratic delays in Washington are also stunting job growth and adding to the budget deficit."

http://trinidad-times.com/oil-drilling-cartoon-p444.htm

Fighting Grassroots Terrorism: How Local Vigilance Can Help

STRATFOR   ...."On July 27, 2011, an alert clerk at a gun store in Killeen, Texas, called the local police after a man who came into the store to buy smokeless powder exhibited an unusual demeanor. They located the individual and after questioning him learned he was planning to detonate an improvised explosive device and conduct an armed assault against a local Killeen restaurant popular with soldiers from nearby Fort Hood. The clerk’s situational awareness and his decision to call the police likely saved many lives."

How to Spot a Terrorist

"Each of these attacks and attempted attacks was preceded by “precursor conduct,” legally protected actions like chatting on the Internet or purchasing legal chemicals or applying for a visa, that combined with other information might have tipped off law enforcement agents to the intended act of terrorism."

How To Spot an American Terrorist *DHS Video* "A new promotional video released by the Department of Homeland Security characterizes white middle class Americans as the most likely terrorists, as Big Sis continues its relentless drive to cement the myth that mad bombers are hiding around every corner, when in reality Americans are just as likely to be killed by lightning strikes or peanut allergies "

Seven Signs of Terrorist Activity:

Surveillance

Elicitation

Test of Security

Acquiring Supplies

Suspicious People Who Don't Belong

Dry Runs

Deploying Assets/Getting Into Position

Media: Halliburton Paid Dick Cheney to Commit Rape in Iran

Ann Coulter  ...."And then a few weeks ago, the Times ran a microscopic, one-paragraph Associated Press story on page 13 of a Saturday paper, reporting that a jury looked at the facts and found that ... Jones made the whole story up.

"Maybe the Republican senators should have sponsored a no-false-rape-allegation bill for defense contractor employees.

"When the time came to put up or shut up, Jones' "gang-rape" claim simply disappeared. DNA evidence showed she'd had sex with one only man, and he claimed it was consensual."

Seen in Clovis, NM



Hat tip to Paul Van Alstine, somewhere out west.



Can't you just feel the flowering of freedom in our country?

Air Force Suspends Christian-Themed Ethics Training Program Over Bible Passages

Fox News  "The Air Force has suspended a course that was taught by chaplains for more than 20 years because the material included Bible passages.

"The course, called “Christian Just War Theory” was taught by chaplains at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., and used Scripture from both the Old and New Testaments to show missile launch officers that it can be moral to go to war.

"But the watchdog group, Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said the course violated the constitutional separation of church and state and filed a complaint last Wednesday on behalf of 31 missile launch officers – both instructors and students."

More here.  And here. 

Related: Augustine's just war theory continues to guide the West

The Theory of Just War—A Summary from BreakPointOnLine

Hat tip to Harley Standlee, California.

Poor are not poor because rich are rich

Star Parker "The idea of allowing investment in a personal retirement account rather than paying the Social Security payroll tax would be a boon to building black wealth.

"But when President Bush suggested the personal retirement account idea, NAACP chairman Julian Bond said this was asking blacks "to play the lottery with their future."

"A life of government guarantees and controls is not a formula for building wealth. Freedom and capital markets are. Blacks need to decide which they want.

"And entrepreneurship must become part of black culture. Blacks need to get that poor people are not poor because rich people are rich.

"The formula for more black wealth: less government, more ownership and initiative."

Via iowntheworld

The Republicans did it!

http://www.worldmag.com/editorialcartoons/

Who Is The Real Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens?

 Crusader Rabbit   "Before converting, he was searching for a crutch in his life. He flirted with Buddhism but realized it was not suitable for him. He "tried Zen and Ching, numerology, tarot cards and astrology." His brother, impressed by a visit to a mosque in Jerusalem, gave him a Qur'an. Eureka! Mr Islam had found his calling. An ideology that promotes polygamy, honour killing of wives, daughters and sisters, hacking heads off non-Muslims, stoning women to death, hanging homosexuals, female genital mutilation (circumcision), suicide bombings, execution of apostates, child marriages of little girls, and more. And anti-Semitism, a virulent hatred of Jews and Israel.



Then and now



"On his conversion to Islam, he wrote: "I found a religion that blended scientific reason with spiritual reality."

"Scientific reason? The scientific way to behead an infidel? The scientific process to stone a person to death? Maybe the scientific method of circumcising young girls - Female Genital Mutilation? Perhaps the scientific wisdom of Iran's late barbaric Ayatollah Khomeini, a 20th century man with a primitive 7th century desert mentality?"

....

"In 2004 in an article 'A Cat in a Wild World', he wrote: "I am a man of peace and denounce all forms of terrorism and injustice...I have dedicated my life to promoting peace throughout the world...and campaigning for peace and stability in this volatile and violent world." The hypocrite. Calling for the death of Salman Rushdie for writing a book is not the act of a peaceful man."

Via the Australian Islamist Monitor

As a typical "peace activist", Stevens/Islam condemns in song the use of force by those under attack from the murderous forces of Islam.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards train new Hamas commando brigade in Gaza

israelifrontline.com

DEBKAfile  "A team of Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) officers has just finished setting up Hamas' first commando unit especially trained to combat any Israel military force entering the Gaza Strip, debkafile's military sources report. The new "Al Qods Brigades" unit of 400 men is to be the first of three. A week ago, July 23, the first unit held a passing-out parade and leave-taking ceremony from its two Iranian instructors."

Units Armed by Libyan Rebels  "Many of the weapons handed out to trainees came from Libyan rebels who received them from British and French intelligence for their war on Muammar Qaddafi. The rebels sold the arms to the purchasing agencies Iran, Hizballah and Hamas maintain secretly in Benghazi. The weapons were then smuggled to the Gaza Strip via Egypt."

Meanwhile, on our ally Israel's other front: Iraqi F-16 Order May Double

While noting how long it will take to implement the deal, the al-Maliki government is intent on pushing forward on an F-16 contract."    Related: It's Hard to Say Goodbye to Iraq

The Civil Way to Call Someone a Terrorist

American Thinker  "Now, you might think that Matthews, a man who once trashed conservatives for "ugly sounding talk" that demeans their opponents as "not just disagreeable, but evil," would chastise his guest for committing the same offense. Not quite. Instead he responded by affirming, "I agree. It's terrorism." And let's not forget, this would be the same Chris Matthews who soured the universally triumphant and unifying return of Congresswoman Giffords to the floor of the House just days ago with a partisan condemnation of the "violent level of the right-wing." Physician, heal thyself!"

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/ericallie

Tea Party terror?  "I’m puzzled. The Times editorial board only recently condemned “many on the right” for “exploit[ing] the arguments of division,” and “demonizing immigrants, or welfare recipients, or bureaucrats.” Right-wingers, The Times notes, “seem to have persuaded many Americans that the government is not just misguided, but the enemy of the people.”

"So how can it be okay for Times columnists to demonize the Tea Party and try to persuade Americans that they are not just misguided, but the enemies of the people?"   By Charles Lane

Liberals and the economy

Victor Davis Hanson: How to Turn a Recovery into Another Recession

"If one wished to ensure that the recession that officially began in December 2007 and officially ended in June/July 2009 would not be followed by a robust recovery but an anemic one characterized by a 1938-like stasis of high unemployment, weak growth, and massive deficits, I would do the following — both to confuse and antagonize the job-hiring classes: "....

From the comments to this post:

....Money given to business = profit? Apparently, you are ignorant of the fact that a business does not produce profit until people demand what they produce.

The "Green energy" businesses that received Obama's largess -- many are now going bankrupt. They got the $$ from Obama, but no one bought what they were selling.

Thomas Sowell: Misleading Words

"The same mindset that led to these disasters is still prevalent in Washington. Indeed, the very people who spearheaded those political crusades -- Congressman Barney Frank and Senator Christopher Dodd -- crafted new legislation offering the same kind of "solution" to our current problems, namely more massive government intervention in the economy. Words triumphed again."

Misleading Words Part II  ...."The whole future of the welfare state depends on how poverty is defined. "The poor" are the human shields behind whom advocates of ever bigger spending for ever bigger government advance toward their goal."

Charles Krauthammer:  Obama Is "Out Of Bullets...Out Of Arrows" On Economy

"He's out of bullets, he's out of arrows, he's looking for stones on the seashore. And it shows that he may want to have a jobs agenda, he may want to do a pivot -- there's nothing left in the cuboard. He did a huge Keynesian gamble, and it failed."



http://conservativeblogscentral.blogspot.com/



http://terrellaftermath.com/

For your contemplation...

When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you...you may know that your society is doomed.

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.    Via Nealz Nuze