Labor Day past and present

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Upsy-daisy

Photo taken at the Cheyenne Frontier Days outdoor rodeo and western celebration last July in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

From a report by Andrew Breitbart in the Washington Times:

Now that White House "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones (pictured) has resigned, what's next?

Inevitably, the American mainstream media - ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, et al - must be held to account for sitting on the sidelines as this major story kept building without them, went viral on YouTube, and then became so large that a key appointee of President Obama was forced to step down.

Breitbart is right - the Van Jones story barely made the third page beyond the obits in most papers - if it appeared at all.

When it comes to political stories, the main stream media seems to think, “if we don’t cover a story, the story's absence proves it didn't happen.”

The media decision to ignore the Jones story may have actually done Mr. Obama more harm than good:

Who vetted this guy? How did he get past the FBI? What did he say, and how did he answer the infamous seven-page questionnaire that all Obama appointees were required to fill out? Inquiring Freedom of Information Act minds want to know.

For most people in this country, the resignation was the first they had heard of Van Jones.

For this sin of journalistic omission, there's institutional media blame. Bias is too tame a word for the utter shamelessness on display: Only Republican scandals - real and imagined - matter.

It’s more than just those called "mobs" or "tea baggers" by the media that are taking notice.

Diminishing audience and evaporating subscriptions reflect widespread consumer dissatisfaction. Eventually, the money will run out.

But until then, the growing alternative media of Internet and talk radio and a burgeoning mass of justifiably angry Americans will make every effort to expose the sham that is mainstream journalism.

As if Van Jones racial rants, radical background and calling Republicans X-rated names weren’t enough - he was a signed member of a 9/11 "truther" group that believed the Bush administration brought down the twin towers. And, by the way, he has also stated that he is a communist.

Compounding the problem, the Jones narrative hurts Mr. Obama because it underlines how the mainstream media helped elect the president by glorifying him instead of vetting him.

Just as Mr. Obama was not even cursorily investigated, Van Jones, a fellow "community organizer," was not given the slightest media attention when named as an unaccountable "czar" selected to oversee billions in taxpayer money for the ambiguous purpose of "green energy." And that despite having a body of damning evidence that could be found with a single Google search by an ADHD-addled high-school journalism student.

More of the story here.

Bill to ban stinky bus riders fails in Hawaii

The proposal to bar smelly people from Honolulu buses failed.

The Honolulu City Council had considered making it illegal to have "odors that unreasonably disturb others or interfere with their use of the transit system." Anyone convicted of being too smelly could have been fined up to $500 and/or given a six-month jail term.

Smelly people can continue to ride busses in Hawaii with impunity.

Link

Obama speech to schoolchildren seen as indoctrination

Many see Obama’s speech and study lesson in schools as indoctrination.

Story here.

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A day at the beach in South Korea

Many of these beach photos have made the rounds via e-mail labeled as “China Beach Photos.” The photos, however, do not show beaches in China.


The photos were taken at Haeundae Beach in Busan more commonly known as Pusan, a port city in southern Korea.


Hordes of swimmers but not a single toilet in sight - only tents and umbrellas. I suggest you avoid swimming there.

All the Kings Men...er...Czars

At the link below, Politico lists all of the Kings Men ... that is, all of the presidents Czars:

Afghanistan Czar: Richard Holbrooke

AIDS Czar: Jeffrey Crowley

Auto recovery Czar: Ed Montgomery

Border Czar: Alan Bersin

California Water Czar: David J. Hayes

Car Czar: Ron Bloom

Central Region Czar: Dennis Ross

Domestic Violence Czar: Lynn Rosenthal

Drug Czar: Gil Kerlikowske

Economic Czar: Paul Volcker

Energy and Environment Czar: Carol Brower

Faith-Based Czar: Joshua DuBois

Great Lakes Czar: Cameron Davis

Green Jobs Czar: Van Jones (oops, he’s been booted)

Guantanamo Closure Czar: Daniel Fried

Health Czar: Nancy-Ann DeParle

Information Czar: Vivek Kundra

International Climate Czar: Todd Stern

Intelligence Czar: Dennis Blair

Mideast Peace Czar: George Mitchell

Pay Czar: Kenneth Feinberg

Regulatory Czar: Cass Sunstein

Science Czar: John Holdren

Stimulus Accountability Czar: Earl Devaney

Sudan Czar: J. Scott Gration

TARP Czar: Herb Allison

Terrorism Czar: John Brennan

Technology Czar: Aneesh Chopra

Urban Affairs Czar: Adolfo Carrion Jr.

Weapons Czar: Ashton Carter

WMD Policy Czar: Gary Samore

One Lucianne commenter wondered if Obama also has a Shoe Tying Czar, and a Chew Gum While Walking Czar.

It’s easy to appoint Czars. Unlike cabinet members and other high officials, Obama’s so-called Czars do not need Senate confirmation or security background checks. He simply appoints them and they form his “executive committee” much like the Politburo of the Communist Party which had real control of the country.

During past administrations the president would have a daily meeting with Cabinet Secretaries, who have been duly confirmed by the Senate. After listening to their recommendations the president would make policy decisions. No need for 31 Czars.

Link

Obama czar advocated organ harvest without consent

Cass Sunstein (pictured) is Barack Obama’s choice to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

What few people know is that Sunstein has advocated a policy under which the government would “presume” someone has consented to having his or her organs removed for transplantation into someone else when they die unless that person has explicitly indicated that his or her organs should not be taken.

Under such a policy, hospitals would harvest organs from people who never gave permission for this to be done.

The major obstacle to increasing organ donations is the need to get the consent of surviving family members.

This “problem” would be remedied if governments changed the laws for organ donation.

If the government turned the law around and assumed that, unless people explicitly choose not to, then they want to donate their organs – a doctrine they call “presumed consent.”

One critic said, “apply this logic to criminal law and citizens would be presumed guilty until proven otherwise.”

Link

9-11 denier quits as Obama green jobs advisor

The White House announced this morning that Van Jones (pictured) has resigned amid controversy over past inflammatory statements.

Jones, an administration official specializing in environmentally friendly "green jobs" with the White House Council on Environmental Quality was linked to efforts suggesting a government role in the 2001 terror attacks and to derogatory comments about Republicans.

The resignation comes as Obama is working to regain his footing in the contentious health care debate.

This reinforces claims by critics that the administration is spending little time vetting the multitude of czar’s appointed to surround an increasingly controversial president who is sinking in popularity.

The matter surfaced after news reports of a derogatory comment Jones made in the past about Republicans, and separately, of Jones' name appearing on a petition connected to the events surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

That 2004 petition had asked for congressional hearings and other investigations into whether high-level government officials had allowed the attacks to occur.

Link

Anticipation

Olympic Stadium workers in London outlined a giant number three to signify that three years remain until the 2012 Games.

Woman arrested 3 times in one day

A 29-year-old Connecticut woman has a court date next week to face charges stemming from her three arrests last week.

Police charged Leytza Martinez with assault after an altercation with a manager at the hair salon where she worked.

She was arrested again later Saturday and charged with coming back to the salon and stealing more than $900 in supplies.

Police also stopped her car later the same day and charged her with driving without insurance, and failure to have a front license plate.

Link

As White House press briefings get hotter...

A report at the link below says:

If the president's mouthpiece is a human piñata, as one former press secretary put it, then Robert Gibbs (pictured) is a papier mâché tiger.

And the White House press secretary is feeling the hits more and more, as the daily briefings get more contentious and he faces an increasingly prying press corps.

Piñata may not be a role Gibbs is comfortable playing.

But in response to rising pressure, analysts say Gibbs is showing a thin skin, quick to punch back and take a dig at a reporter rather than absorb it and move on.

More of the “piñata in the WH press room” story here.

White House may draft its own healthcare bill

Frustrated with the inability of the Democrat controlled House and Senate to pass a bill, Barack Obama may draft his own healthcare bill.

CNN reports:

Multiple sources close to the process told CNN on Friday that while the plan is uncertain, the administration is preparing for the possibility of delivering its own legislation to Capitol Hill sometime after President Obama's speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.

A source close to the White House said the administration is leaning toward dropping the public option.

Some are surprised the public option hasn’t already been dropped. It would be very easy to add it later after the main ObamaCare bill is being implemented.

Critic have said, “if members of congress can’t cram healthcare down voter’s throats, Obama will do it for them.

More of the story here.

Moscow air show performers

Italian aerobatic team "Frecce Tricolori" performs during the MAKS 2009 international aerospace show outside Moscow in Zhukovsky.

Jobless rate highest in 26 years

A Yahoo Finance report says:

The unemployment rate jumped almost half a point to 9.7 percent in August, the highest since 1983, reflecting a poor job market that will make it hard for the economy to begin a sustained recovery.

What most employment reports omit can be found in the article at the link below - even though it is buried in the 11th paragraph:

If laid-off workers who have settled for part-time work or have given up looking for new jobs are included, the so-called underemployment rate reached 16.8 percent.

Nearly seventeen percent! How’s that for Hope & Change?

Link

Adding fuel to the recession fire

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Critic gave MoveOn the finger - didn’t get it back

Maybe the slogan, “Yes we Can” should be changed to “Yes we Cannibal.”

An American Standard article reports:

William Rice didn't actually give MoveOn the finger -- his pinky was forcibly removed by an ObamaCare supporter's teeth.

Rice, a 65-year-old real-estate appraiser from Newbury Park, California, expected some heated arguments when he went to a health care protest in Thousand Oaks. He did not expect to leave without his finger.

Rice was part of a small group of counter-protesters who showed up to a MoveOn-sponsored "We Can't Afford to Wait" vigil.

Mr. Rice drove himself to a hospital in nearby Los Robles for treatment.

The finger could not be reattached because a human bite has too much bacteria.

Mr. Rice said the MoveOne group, “had a Code Pink element that I’d never seen before and it had a MoveOn element I'd never seen before."

He said some of the MoveOn ObamaCare supporters were, "borderline emotionally out of control."

A Ventura County Sheriff's Department said. “It's considered a mayhem which is the removal of an appendage from a human. The crime is punishable by imprisonment for 2, 4, or 8 years.”

Scott Bush, an Obama critic who was standing next to Rice when the incident happened, said critics and supporters of Obama had had face-to-face, calm debates throughout the night without incident until the suspect in the biting crossed the street to confront critics.

Of Rice's behavior, he said: "He didn't even have a sign. He was just there to be a part of things. He's a nice man."

The Los Angeles Times rushed the story to print incorrectly saying it was an anti ObamaCare protestor who did the finger biting.

More of the story here.

Armless man couldn’t cash check without thumbprint

A Florida man born without arms says a Tampa bank would not let him cash a check because he couldn't provide a thumbprint.

Steve Valdez didn't have an account at a Bank of America location in downtown Tampa, where he tried to cash a check from his wife last week.

Mr. Valdez presented two forms of identification but was denied because he couldn’t give a thumbprint. He has no thumbs. He uses prosthetic arms.

He says a bank manager told him he could either come back to the bank with his wife or open an account himself.

Later the bank later apologized to Valdez and said alternative requirements should have been offered when an individual is not able to give a thumbprint.

Link

Obama’s school address turns into firestorm

School Districts in six states refuse to show the planned Obama school address next week.

The Associated Press reports that the planned address to students “draws Republican ire.” It’s the ire of parents and school officials regardless of their political leanings.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see through the clumsy attempt by the administrations to indoctrinate young school children with Hitler Youth style propaganda.

The accusation sounds outrageous until you take a good long look at the scheme.


How long before they will be taking measurements for student uniforms complete with "Hope & Change" patches?

From the report at the link below:

White House officials seemed to be caught flat-footed by the response to what they say was a simple back to school address by President Obama to students across the nation -- and has turned into a firestorm.

The White House now admits that one of the lesson plans surrounding the speech was written clumsily, subjecting it to misinterpretation, and had to be re-written.

But that has not stopped concern and even outrage in some school districts across the country.

The opposition to Obama’s attempt to indoctrinate school children, complete with "lesson plans," can be summed up by the final quote in the report at the link below:

"When the president goes out to talk to students about education, this shouldn't be a tool for the right wing."

A high percentage of public school administrators are leftists, but Obama has really stuck it to them with this one. They have better things to do with their time than field angry calls about a carefully constructed propaganda piece foisted on them by the White House.

This is NOT your father’s Democratic Party!
Link

Early mobile phones

1922: Pioneer - The police in Chicago experiment with a radio telephone which broadcast at a frequency just above the AM radio band.



1940s: Horseback - The US Army Signal Corps communicate via radio in the field during wartime.

IRS would become ObamaCare enforcer

There will be new and powerful federal agencies that would be created by the passage of ObamaCare.

The Health Choices Administration, the Health Benefits Advisory Committee, the Health Insurance Exchange — there are dozens in all.

If the plan envisioned by Obama and Congressional Democrats is enacted, the primary federal bureau responsible for implementing and enforcing national health care will be an old and familiar one: the Internal Revenue Service.

Under the Democrats' health care proposals, the already powerful — and already feared — IRS would wield even more power and extend its reach even farther into the lives of ordinary Americans, and the presidentially-appointed head of the new health care bureaucracy would have access to confidential IRS information about millions of individual taxpayers.


In short, health care reform, as currently envisioned by Democratic leaders, would be built on the foundation of an expanded and more intrusive IRS.

The IRS would assume several new rolls under ObamaCare:

1. The IRS would become the main agency for determining who has an acceptable health insurance plan.

2. The IRS would be charged with finding and punishing those who don't have an acceptable plan.

3. The IRS would subsidize individual health insurance costs through the issuance of tax credits.

4. The IRS would enforce the rules on those who attempt to opt out, or “abuse” the rules.

The article at the link below says a substantial portion of H.R. 3200, the House health care bill, is devoted to amending the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in order to give the IRS the authority to perform these new duties.

More of the story here.

Final look at the Jackson Five

Prisoners in UK have a better diet than National Health Service patients

The nationalized healthcare that Barack Obama wants to force on us will be very similar to the British NHS (National Health Service) with one healthcare provider - the government.

The Daily Mail online reports:

Patients in Health Service hospitals are far more likely to go hungry than criminals in jail, scientists warned yesterday.

They say frail and elderly patients do not get the help they need with meals, and nobody checks whether they get enough to eat.

Despite years of Government promises to tackle poor hospital nutrition, food still arrives cold, and patients often miss out because meal times clash with tests and operations.

The report says prisoners receive carbohydrate-rich, low-fat foods which in many cases are better than they would have been eating before they entered prison.

Hospital meals are often taken away untouched, because they are either unappetizing or are placed out of patients' reach.

The latest figures show 242 patients died of malnutrition in NHS hospitals in 2007 - the highest toll in a decade. More than 8,000 left hospital under-nourished - double the figure when Labor came to power.

The NHS throws away 11million meals every year, and many nurses say they are too busy to help the frail eat.

Many say ObamaCare will be no better than the British National Health Service where waiting for medical tests and procedures is commonplace. The very young, the elderly and the obese have limited medical procedures available to them.

Will prisoners in the United States eat better under ObamaCare than hospital patients - especially seniors?

Link

What happens if you find ObamaCare hard to swallow?

Cameron set to topple Brown in UK election

A Sun poll in the UK predicts that Tory (Conservative Party) candidate David Cameron (upper photo) will sweep to power with a 96-seat majority in the House of Commons.

Seven in ten voters think Gordon Brown (lower photo) is doing a "very bad" or "fairly bad" job of supporting British troops in the Afghan conflict.

In a further blow to the Prime Minister, twice as many voters believe Britain's armed forces would be better off in Mr. Cameron's hands.

The poll also reveals 51 percent of people think Mr. Brown should have actively opposed the Scottish decision to release the Lockerbie bomber which is often referred to as the “oil for terrorist” deal with Libya.

More than one third believe the bomber release will do nothing to boost trade relations with Libya.

Link

One Obama voter in eight is now turning on him

Scott Rasmussen, whose poll measures likely voters and is an especially good indicator of public attitudes, now has Obama’s job approval dropping to 46%. Zogby, the other good poll, has him at 45%. These surveys suggest that healthcare reform and the continuing bad economy are driving Obama down at a record clip.

On Election Day, 2008 — less than a year ago — Obama got 52% of the vote. Now, he is six to seven points below that level in his job approval — one Obama voter in eight is now disillusioned and turning on him.

How long will Obama cling to the wreckage of his healthcare proposals? Does he plan on going down with the ship all the way to the mid-30s in job approval as Bush did with Iraq? Will he take his party down with him? Will the party let itself be taken down?

These are the relevant questions as Obama returns from his vacation. The massive paid media effort for healthcare changes have not worked.

The constant pro-ObamaCare in media news reports also have not worked.

Also disappointing to the administration is the complete lack of a “dead Kennedy” bounce in the polls. That shouldn’t be surprising, however, because the only Kennedy’s that mattered to most American’s have not been with us since the 1960’s.

Link here and here.

Deputy gets poor tread wear - dog makes meal of tires

Some dogs chase cars. One dog in North Carolina tried to eat one.

A pit bull deflated all four tires of a Cumberland County Sheriff's cruiser.

The deputy parked his cruiser in a woman's driveway while responding to her complaint about another dog.

The pit bull didn’t attack the deputy but chomped into the tires.

The pit bull owner will be billed $500 for the damage.

Link

Feds to crack down on sale of many used products

Washington seems to be obsessed with the need to control.

Now the Obama administration wants to control sales at thrift stores and even your garage sale!

If you're planning a garage sale or organizing a church bazaar, you'd best beware: You could be breaking a new federal law.

As part of a campaign called Resale Roundup, the federal government is cracking down on the secondhand sales of dangerous and defective products.


The initiative, which targets toys and other products for children, enforces a new provision that makes it a crime to resell anything that's been recalled by its manufacturer.

The crackdown affects thrift-store operators such as Goodwill and the Salvation Army.

It affects everyday Americans cleaning out their attics for yard sales and church bazaars.

It affects selling on eBay, Craigslist and other Web sites.

Secondhand sellers now must keep abreast of recalls for thousands of products, some of them stretching back more than a decade, to stay within the bounds of the law.

How long before a “Used products Czar” inspects your next yard sale?

Link

Sentenced to death on British National Health Service

An article from The Daily Telegraph says leading doctors warn that patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS (National Health Service) scheme to help end their lives!

Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away.

But this approach can also mask the signs that their condition is improving, the experts warn.

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death.

Much of ObamaCare is eerily similar to British National Health Service. For instance, they both restrict medical procedures available to the elderly and the obese with the government making the decision rather than the doctor.

Link

Dim future for energy saving light bulbs

The European Union has admitted that the new energy saving light bulbs are not as bright as traditional bulbs (incandescent) and claims about the amount of light they produce are "exaggerated".

Soon they will be the only kind of light bulb allowed, but now officials in Brussels have admitted that energy-saving bulbs are not as bright as the old-fashioned kind they are replacing.

From tomorrow a Europe-wide ban on traditional incandescent bulbs will begin to be rolled out, with a ban on 100W bulbs and old-style frosted or pearled bulbs.

Buyers of the compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs), are told on the packaging that they shine as brightly as an old-fashioned bulb.

The European Commission, which was responsible for the ban, has now conceded that this is "not true" and that such claims by manufacturers are "exaggerated".

Will liberal “greenies” in this country back off on their threat to ban incandescent bulbs by the year 2012?

Probably not, with left-wing liberals it’s all about control.

Never mind that curly bulbs are not as bright - we can use more.

Never mind that they don’t last as long as promised - we can buy them more often.

Never mind that they take longer to reach full brightness - we can leave them on longer.

Never mind that they are hazardous - we can buy Hazmat gear to wear when we dispose of them.

A Congress that gave us the Cash for Clunkers disaster and now wants to control our health-care has promised to impose on us a hazardous light bulb that cost more and does less.

The phrase, “they are not as bright as the old-fashioned kind they are replacing" also applies to the politicians who are making these laws.

Link

Man survives after heart stopped for 45 minutes

A Brooklyn man is recovering after doctors said his heart had stopped beating for 45 minutes.

Joseph Tiralosi was released from the hospital Tuesday.

He had gone to the emergency room at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center on Aug. 17 because he wasn't feeling well. Within minutes of his arrival, he collapsed and his heart stopped beating.

Doctors kept his body cold while they removed a clot and Tiralosi's heart started working normally.

Doctors say he lived through the episode without incurring any brain damage.

Link

Police State using swine flu as an excuse?

This Police State bill would allow authorities
to enter homes and detain without warrant!
This is called a "pandemic response bill" that is currently making its way through the Massachusetts state legislature that would allow authorities to forcefully quarantine citizens in the event of a health emergency.

This is called a "pandemic response bill" that is currently making its way through the Massachusetts state legislature that would allow authorities to forcefully quarantine citizens in the event of a health emergency.

It would compel health providers to vaccinate citizens, authorize forceful entry into private dwellings and destruction of citizen property and impose fines on citizens for noncompliance.

If citizens refuse to comply with isolation or quarantine orders in the event of a health emergency, they may be imprisoned for up to 30 days and fined $1,000 per day that the violation continues.

Overkill or using swine flu as a foot in the door for more control?

Link here for more.

Ohio judge used duct tape to silence suspect

An Ohio judge ordered the mouth of Harry Brown (pictured), 51, of Canton, to be duct taped during a hearing last week because of repeated interruptions during the proceeding.

Brown complained that his court-appointed attorney wasn't prepared and angered the judge with interruptions. After a warning, the judge ordered Brown's mouth taped shut.

When the tape was removed, the defendant said the judge wasn't being respectful. The judge ended the hearing and sent the case to a grand jury.

Link

The ObamaCare snake oil has a new label

Experts forecast double digit Democrat losses in 2010

The rationale for big Democrat losses in 2010 can be found at the link below:

After an August recess marked by raucous town halls, troubling polling data and widespread anecdotal evidence of a volatile electorate, the small universe of political analysts who closely follow House races is predicting moderate to heavy Democratic losses in 2010.

Some of the most prominent and respected handicappers can now envision an election in which Democrats suffer double-digit losses in the House — not enough to provide the 40 seats necessary to return the GOP to power but enough to put them within striking distance.

The report says that top political analyst Charlie Cook wrote that “the situation this summer has slipped completely out of control for President Obama and congressional Democrats.”

Many veteran congressional election watchers, including Democratic ones, report an eerie sense of déjà vu, with a consensus forming that the chances of Democratic losses going higher than 20 seats is just as good as the chances of Democratic losses going lower than 20 seats.

First-term Democrats will have their feet to the fire. They will be pressured to vote for ObamaCare and then Cap & Trade, which will almost surely guarantee they will not be re-elected.

More here.

Proposed bill would give Obama emergency control of Internet

A CNET article at the link below reports about a Senate bill proposed last spring to hand the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

Civil liberties groups are just as alarmed about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors.

CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (exerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

Who gets to define a "cyber emergency"?

Could too many bloggers talking out against his health care fiasco be declared an emergency? This is truly troubling. It smacks of communism type censorship!

Internet control has worked well in China and North Korea. This is how totalitarian governments take control of the people.

Jimmy Carter wanted to gain control of all Television sets in the U.S. electronically so he could turn on everyone's TV for what he called “emergency messages.”

CNET is home-based in liberal San Francisco and their age demographic following is mostly computer geeks under age 40.

It is interesting to read the comments at the end of the CNET article. It’s a good bet that many of these were written by the same young techie’s that helped elect Obama.

Now they are panicking that Obama may take control of the Internet.

Maybe they are finally starting to realize that the government is trying to take over the country.

The thirty-something’s that helped elect Obama have ignored his take-over of Detroit automakers, the banking industry, healthcare, the census, etc.

The possibility of government control of the Internet has finally started to wake them up.

They will especially be incensed when they realize that Obama doesn’t even need a bill to pass in order to take over the Internet. He could just do it anyway by issuing an executive order!

No wonder they suddenly aren’t so happy with “hope and change.”

Link

Dealers still waiting on government for clunker cash

What the government forgot to tell car dealers is the entire cash for clunker program was a clunker!

A Chicago TV station online news website reports:

Here's the figure: $2.878 billion.

That's how much money the government owes car dealers for the "Cash for Clunkers" program.

Now that it’s all over, dealers are saying, “show me the money!”

"Out of 142 deals they owe us for, we've gotten paid on seven," Lou Tornabeni of Ettleson Hyundai said.

"We had 102 cash for clunkers," Carm Scarpace of Westfield Ford said. "We've been paid for one."

The dealers were originally supposed to get paid within 10 days after submitting the paperwork.

Later the government blamed the dealers for payment delays.

Link

Luxury condo has 32 stories but only one occupant

A downtown Fort Myers, Florida condo has 32 stories but only one occupant.

Victor Vangelakos lives in a luxury condominium tower on the Caloosahatchee River.

He never has to worry about the neighbors making too much noise.

There are no neighbors.

Mr. Vangelakos, his wife Cathy and their three children are the only residents in the 32-story Oasis I condo on the east edge of downtown Fort Myers.

The 45-year-old Weehawken, N.J., firefighter bought the condo from Miami-based The Related Group for $430,000 and closed on it in November. He planned to make it a vacation getaway and eventually his full-time residence when he retires in four years.

But prices have fallen hard since the real estate bubble burst in early 2006. Only a handful of those who put down deposits on the tower’s units actually closed on the deal. Those who did have swapped their Oasis I units for condos in Oasis II next door.

Vangelakos didn’t, because he was unable to convince his lender to agree to the swap.

That leaves the Vangelakos family splitting their time between New Jersey and a creepy, surreal life in the empty Oasis I.

They’re the only ones using a well-appointed clubhouse, but they can’t watch the big plasma TV because they can’t the remote controls.

Link

Obama approval rating continues to fall

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Tuesday, September 1, shows that 41% of the nation’s voters strongly Disapprove of the way Barack Obama is performing his role as President while only 30% of the nation's voters strongly Approve leaving an approval Index rating of -11.

The “Strongly Disapprove” line is in red and rising.

Link

Slipping away

Monday Night Football without Kornheiser

Will Tony Kornheiser be missed in the Monday Night Football broadcast booth?
Above left to right: Jaworski, Tirico, Kornheiser
He seemed to be miscast and never really appeared comfortable on Monday Night Football. He lacked the rapport with Mike Tirico and Ron Jaworski because was too argumentative.

Jon Gruden (shown at left), the former Tampa Bay and Oakland coach appears to be a good replacement for Kornheiser.

The 45-year-old Gruden, came in as an 11 season NFL head coach.

Although Gruden has a reputation for being brash, opinionated, and irreverent, he should popular with the fans and more accepted than the argumentative Kornheiser.

Teddy seeking help from daddy one more time

Will Afghanistan be Obama’s Vietnam?

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the situation in Afghanistan is serious and deteriorating.

"I've said that over the past couple of years, that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated in their tactics."

Afghanistan a tribal society that will never accept democracy. It took Russia a long time to realize that they could not defeat the tribes in Afghanistan.

There is serious doubt that a military conflict in Afghanistan can be won.

The White House is asking for or more troops while basically admitting we are losing.

Mr. Obama, along with other Democrats in Washington, wanted Bush to pull out of Iraq. Now may be a good time to take their own advice and pull out of Afghanistan.

The longer Obama keeps up the war in Afghanistan the more likely it will end his presidency just as Vietnam ended the presidency of Lyndon Johnson who desperately wanted another term in the White House.

Link here and here.