Where Next for Obama? Magic can turn failure into a resume enhancement.

http://terrellaftermath.com/

David Solway  " My suspicions deepened as his candidacy soared and by the time he gave his Denver coronation speech I knew beyond the slightest hesitation that he was as fake as the classical columns he spoke before and as artificial as the teleprompters that accompanied him everywhere. From whatever angle one examined him, the man was unmitigated bad news for a country swept up in a protracted seizure of idolatrous frenzy. The ensuing years only confirmed the fact that, in electing him to the presidency, America had done itself megaharm."

David Solway is a Canadian poet and essayist. He is the author of The Big Lie: On Terror, Antisemitism, and Identity, and is currently working on a sequel, Living in the Valley of Shmoon. His new book on Jewish and Israeli themes, Hear, O Israel!, has just been released by Mantua Books.

Norman Podhoretz:  What Happened to Obama? Absolutely Nothing. "...nothing happened to him. He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president, and it is this rather than inexperience or incompetence or weakness or stupidity that accounts for the richly deserved failure both at home and abroad of the policies stemming from that reprehensible cast of mind."

Manmade Global Warming: Researchers identify 26 past scares analogous to the global warming alarm.

Pajamas Media  "Polls show that roughly one person in two is concerned about manmade global warming. Why? Because vivid, alarming forecasts, even those based on weak foundations, are persuasive."....

...."Rachel Carson raised alarm over the insecticide DDT ... There was no good evidence for this assertion, and there still isn’t. The EPA nevertheless banned DDT in 1972, ... The main consequence of the ban is that millions of people have died needlessly from mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria.....

....."We hope that this phenomenon of false environmental alarms will become widely recognized so that in the future we can avoid the very real costs that they impose on the most vulnerable people, and then on all of us."

Forecasting expert Dr. Kesten Green is a researcher at the University of South Australia in Adelaide . Tom Harris is the Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition.

http://scottthong.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/global-warming-editorial-cartoons-pt-2/

Victor Davis Hanson: The False WWII Analogy

Victor Davis Hanson  "In the immediate postwar years, only a capitalist, self-confident America was poised to supply foreigners with much-needed manufactured goods, expertise, and capital to raise the world from ruin. And from the profits, we were able to pay down our own staggering and unsupportable wartime-incurred debt. Note as well that in 1946 a self-sufficient oil-producing America was not guzzling down a half-trillion dollars’ worth of imported oil each year."

Prominent Syrian cartoonist beaten; Gunmen break both his hands, ‘send message’

Ali Farzat

From 2002:  Favoured by Syria's new president, Ali Farzat, leading cartoonist and popular newspaper publisher, seemed to have a licence to mock. Can it last?

"Until better communication exists between the rulers and the ruled, Syrians must rely on intuitive skills honed through long years of exposure to Farzat cartoons. For the decipherers and code-breakers on either side of the political fence, his humour has been like a divining rod."

Political Cartoons of an Arab master

Syrian sense of humor failure  ..."Another shows Mr Assad flexing in uniform in front of a mirror that reflects back a dominant, muscular image, overshadowing his puny figure."  Bad career move.

"His beating-up by security forces shows that he has hit home and that the authorities' tolerance for dissent is touching zero.""

UK Guardian

"Assad is a Reformer"  Hillary Clinton.

NY Times  "Masked gunmen severely beat Syria’s best-known political cartoonist on Thursday, breaking his hand and leaving him to bleed on the side of a road in Damascus, activists said."

The cartoon that really did it:  Right side.

Can We Get Rid of the Butcher of Damascus?

Gaia's Church of the Holy Windfarm



http://www.diversitylane.com/



Who's Gaia?  "Gaia or Gaea, known as Earth or Mother Earth (the Greek common noun for "land" is ge or ga). She was an early earth goddess and it is written that Gaia was born from Chaos, the great void of emptiness within the universe, and with her came Eros."....More here if you really have to know.

A Lesson from Egypt for American Politics: A wise president puts into effect policies that work. A smart president sees his policies aren’t working and changes them

Barry Rubin

An Egyptian president says the Israelis ate my homework

This American president says that the Japanese earthquake ate my economy

...."If external saboteurs are responsible for a problem, nothing has to be done to fix it. In other words, all you have to do is wipe the offenders’ country off the map and the problem would go away. You don’t need to improve agricultural inspections or to teach Egyptian Muslims to respect Christians; you just have to make a speech denouncing the “real enemy.”"

....

"This American president says that the Japanese earthquake ate my economy. And he blames the local equivalent of Zionist imperialist running dogs such as Bush, the Republican minority in Congress, ATMs, Arab revolts, the Japanese earthquake, the Internet, workers manufacturing too many corporate jets, taxes being too low, bad luck, and “headwinds” because his policies aren’t working and then doubles down on the aforementioned policies. Then his supporters call critics greedy racists for not supporting the failed policies.

"As I said earlier, when a country is unable to discuss its problems honestly and intelligently, it is unable to fix its problems." Emphasis added.
....

"And this most anti-liberal form of scapegoating and bigotry against the “other” is now supposed to be what liberalism is? No, it has more in common with how Arab dictatorships are governed."

Charles Krauthammer: King, in word and stone

Charles Krauthammer

"Equally miraculous is Martin Luther King Jr. Black America’s righteous revolt against a century of post-emancipation oppression could have gone in many bitter and destructive directions. It did not. This was largely the work of one man’s leadership, moral imagination and strategic genius. He turned his own deeply Christian belief that “unearned suffering is redemptive” into a creed of nonviolence that he carved into America’s political consciousness. The result was not just racial liberation but national redemption."

....

"And yet, however much one wishes for a more balanced representation of King’s own creed, there is no denying the power of this memorial. You must experience it. In the heart of the nation’s capital, King now literally takes his place in the American pantheon, the only non-president to be so honored. As of Aug. 22, 2011, there is no room for anyone more on the shores of the Tidal Basin. This is as it should be."

Sculptor Lei Yixin

Jesse Jackson Rains on MLK Celebration With Attack on Tea Party  "The memorial is intended to be “an inspiration for all people, for all time,”said Harry E. Johnson,  president and CEO of the MLK Memorial Foundation. But in the wake of divisive remarks by Jackson and others, many Tea Party members feel their participation in the memorial’s dedication is unwelcomed."  (Emphasis added)

It is well to remember the Vietnam Wall was once described as nothing but "an ugly black gash".

Production of legendary Gibson guitars halted as company is investigated for using illegally imported wood

UK Daily Mail  ; Guitar maker accused of making instruments from endangered plants. 

"Federal agents have now raided Gibson facilities in Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee, on Wednesday, seizing wood imported from India, and workers were sent home.

"Mr Juszkiewicz said in a statement yesterday that the company has worked with environmental groups such as the Rainforest Alliance to ensure its wood imports are from sustainable sources."

....

(The government) has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India.'

"...all, it seems, in reference to some byzantine INTERNATIONAL law."

This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India. "Press Release from Gibson:

The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.)" 

Terrorism of this sort will not be condoned.

 Not about illegal logging, not about conservation, not about the environment  "Yet, the Federal Government raided Gibson's facilities on August 24, 2011, without warning or communication of any kind. Had the Government simply communicated with Gibson, Gibson would have cooperated without having to stop its production and send workers home."

Update on Obama's Raid on Gibson Guitar  "So this breaks down to three issues:"

• The Obama DOJ is enforcing Gibson to comply with what they believe to be Madagascarian law
• The Obama DOJ is actually wrong about the law in Madagascar and Gibson has affidavits to prove it.
• The Obama DOJ would seemingly prefer to have Gibson finish its products overseas by non-American workers

Arrogance. Stupidity. Overreaching regulation. Anti-business. ....

 Somewhere in the bowels of the DOJ, something about Gibson set this vendetta off, even though we feel this company is fully in sync with the Obama Administration. We are very interested to see what were the origins of all this. TD

Father Schall on the Fragility of Islam

Fr. Schall

David P. Goldman   "Fr. James V. Schall S.J. remains at the age of 83 an indispensable voice in foreign policy, combining theological depth and strategic acuity. “The Fragility of Islam” is the subject of his latest pronouncement at the Catholic Thing blog. Western analysts tend to accept the narrative of Muslim triumphalism, the assertion that the strong faith of the Islamic world will overwhelm the temporizing and vacillating West. Not so, Fr. Schall argues: Islam itself is “as fragile as communism.” He writes:"...

 Ahmadinejad Reminds Everyone He Hates Israel

"Islam Will Dominate the World" broadcast   "You'll note that the first speaker is convicted terrorist Omar Bakri Mohammad. They're even so kind as to give you his phone number! I might just give the ol' boy a ring: 011-961-7095-7759"

Lawsuit Accuses Iran Of Complicity in 9/11 Attacks

zappatrust

Joshuapundit  "The attorneys in the case claim to have taken sworn testimony former Iranian intelligence operatives describing the direct participation of top government officials of Iran in the planning of, and preparation for, the 9/11 attacks. These witnesses also describe the roles of top Iranian officials in assisting al Qaeda leadership and operatives to escape from Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion in the wake of 9/11.Iran then provided safe haven and support for these al Qaeda members inside Iran.

" "There is an I-Spy aspect to all this," Dennis Pantazis, a partner at Wiggins Childs said. "But the information the defectors provided is direct and their documentation is direct." "

Court Filings Assert Iran Had Link to 9/11 Attacks

Political Mirage has this.

So it appears it's up to the 9/11 families to hold Iran accountable.

From Imprimus; The Right to Work: A Fundamental Freedom; plus Thomas Sowell on the "Free Choice Act"

politicalcartoons.com

Hillsdale College  "The general counsel of the NLRB, on behalf of the International Association of Machinists union, has issued a complaint against Boeing, which, if successful, would require it to move its South Carolina operation back to Washington State. This would represent an unprecedented act of intervention by the federal government that appears, on its face, un-American. But it is an act long in the making, and boils down to a fundamental misunderstanding of freedom.

"Where does this story begin?"...

Thomas Sowell: Union Myths; "Nothing shows the utter cynicism of the unions and the politicians who do their bidding like the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act" that the Obama administration tried to push through Congress. Employees' free choice as to whether or not to join a union is precisely what that legislation would destroy."

Senator Marco Rubio at The Reagan Library

Rubio gives us hope in an age of weak leadership. Our leaders have been weakened by political correctness and easy living. They have relied on the goodwill and treasure generated by previous generations and have stopped growing. Rubio somehow broke through that wall of confusion and understands Freedom and Responsibility. The Constitution provided the framework for success by setting the people free and putting them in charge of their government. 

From the comments to this video.

Hat tip to Harley Standlee, Placerville, Ca