Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Michelle Antoinette


I really, really wanted to stop posting about Lady Michelle. But she said something in Copenhagen today of such startling stupidity that I can't leave it alone. This was reported today at washingtonexaminer.com.

Here's the quote, and I'm typing carefully so that I get it right. The emphasis is mine.

In her speech in Copenhagen today, First Lady Michelle Obama said her trip to Denmark, along with the travel of her "dear friend" and "chit-chat buddy" Oprah Winfrey, as well as tomorrow's visit by President Obama, is a "sacrifice" on behalf of the children of Chicago and the United States. "As much of a sacrifice as people say this is for me or Oprah or the president to come for these few days," the first lady told a crowd of people involved in the Chicago project, "so many of you in this room have been working for years to bring this bid home.

Now we know, because she whined constantly on the campaign trail about all the school loans she had to pay back, that Lady Michelle went to some pretty fine schools. Surely at some point in one of those classrooms, she learned the meaning of the word "sacrifice."

Sacrifice, woman, is sitting in a tent in Iraq or Afghanistan and wondering if you're going to get yourself blown up that day. Sacrifice is sitting at home, trying to be both mother and father to your kids and also work two jobs, while your spouse is sitting in a tent in Iraq or Afghanistan.

I am simply ashamed of the endless sick arrogance and self-absorption of these people. I so hope Rio gets the nod on Friday. What a takedown that would be. I know, the ObamaTeam has it in the bag, but until Friday I can at least give myself this one little flash of hope.


Image Credit: rushlimbaugh.com
Obama's Work Ethic--from American Thinker


Another great article by Ed Lasky. Here's the lead paragraph:

Barack Obama has displayed a disturbing pattern of work ethics: shirking work; claiming success when he was not entitled to do so; hiding his failures; and claiming the work of others as his own -- when it was successful. These are not character traits that we should associate with Presidents.

They are also not character traits that we should want our children to venerate or emulate.

See the whole article here.
Leader of the Free World

"Sarkozy thinks that President Obama is incredibly naïve and grossly egotistical, so egotistical that no one can dent his naiveté."

Excellent point from HotAir this morning


General Stanley McChrystal, 9/27/09: “I’ve talked to the President once since I’ve been on a VTC.”

LA Times, 6/28/09, on SEIU president Andy Stern’s relationship with the White House: “Stern estimates he visits the White House once a week.”

It's all about priorities. One of the HotAir commentators says it seems that Obama has more concern about the Olympics coming to Chicago than the war in Afghanistan. Another one says, rightly I think, that the issue (which is how Big Media is trying to frame the argument) isn't how Obama gets briefed on ongoing military operations; the issue is that Obama has shown little or no interest in these operations. American troops are getting killed, and the President spends more time strategizing with the labor unions that he does with his generals. The domestic agenda seems to be Obama's true calling, while Afghanistan just doesn't seem to interest him very much. "The good war," as Obama called it, was a campaign issue that he used to help get himself elected--and not much more than that, evidently.

Someone made the point that Obama not talking to McChrystal is a "fake controversy," to which comment someone else posted: To those whose a$$ is on the line in the field, it is not a fake controversy.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Bibi's "Other" New York Speech


I found this link to the speech at the American Thinker blog site. Writer Ethel C. Fenig points out that, unlike Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was invited two years in a row to speak at Columbia University (you know--"free speech" and all that), Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was not invited to speak at Columbia University. But not to worry, New York's 92nd Street Y (Young Mens Hebrew Association) did.

The entire speech is here, with an introduction by Elie Weisel. Fenig points out that other introductions are long, but be patient because Netanyahu's speech is well worth the wait.

Netanyahu is the real deal. As Weisel says in his introduction, he is a statesman, a diplomat, a military man, and a visionary. As I listened to him introduced and then listened to him begin his remarks, what went through my mind was that Benjamin Netanyahu is the antithesis of Barack Obama--in every way.

The video runs for 52:25. I couldn't find a way to stop and start it, so you have to just let it run through.
Elie Weisel's remarks start at 10:00.
Netanyahu begins his remarks at 17:30 and he speaks until 40:00.

I jotted down some notes as I listened to the video. These are not necessarily exact quotes, but I tried my best to get the sense of what was said.

One of the presentors, I didn't catch his name: The Jewish people look back in order to look forward. The past reminds us of our responsibilities to the future. We all have a collective as well as a personal responsibility: to tell the story of truth and defeat the lies, misrepresentations, and distortions.

Elie Weisel: Trust more the threats of the enemy than the promises of the friends. Bibi is a master communicator, he has a stunning gift in defending Israel's name and honor. Whatever motivates him is not a political game, nor is it for political gain.

When Netanyahu was introduced and began speaking, you could literally have heard a pin drop in that large crowd.

Netanyahu's comments about Weisel: You are the greatest witness of the Holocaust. You speak truth of the mind and truth of the heart. You don't let them lie. You have dedicated your life to maintaining memory. We know that all it takes for memory to be erased and lies propogated is for the lies to go unopposed.

In the Jewish people, we see the strength of generations, the power of our traditions, faith, and people.

Then Netanyahu told a story about a time when he was Ambassador to the United Nations, in 1984. The story concluded with something that a New York Rebbe told him. The Rebbe said to Netanyahu: You will go into a house of lies. Remember, in a hall of perfect darkness, if you light one small candle, its precious light will be seen from afar. Your mission is to light a candle for truth and for the Jewish people.

Next, Netanyahu spoke of three great lies that must be dispelled.
  • The first great lie is that the Holocaust did not occur, a poisonous lie. This is an example of what Mark Twain said, the greater the lie, the more unopposed, the quicker it spreads.
  • The second lie is that Israel has been the aggressor in the conflict. No. We have made unbelievable concessions. Israel has made painful compromises. We are willing to make peace; they attack us. We want peace. And we expect the other side to make peace with the Jewish State of Israel.
  • The third lie is the most preposterous, that the Jewish people are foreign colonialists in the land of Israel. We have been around here for some time--for 3500 years. This is the land of our forefathers. This is our past. This is our future.
Netanyahu ended his remarks with a request: I ask you, when you light the candles for Yom Kippur, I ask you to light one other candle, the candle of Truth and Justice for the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
Fire Russ Carnahan


Russ Carnahan (D., Missouri) is an idiot. He's the Representative for the Third District of Missouri. My problem with him isn't only that he looks exactly like a Beavis and Butthead character (although he does, and frankly, that alone is enough in my opinion to vote him out). Russ also acts like a lilly-livered little girl when he's forced to face his constituents (which fortunately for him doesn't happen often--his handlers see to that). I took this photo from his website, so you have to guess that this is the best he can do. I've seen him in public--actually this is a pretty good picture of him, since it sort of disguises his under-shot chin.

This past summer Russ earned the nickname "Back Door Carnahan" because he would give a self-serving speech somewhere, and then instead of making himself available to his constituents after the speech who were waiting outside (we were never actually let in to hear him speak, although interestingly he found plenty of room for SEIU thugs from Chicago who filled up half the seats at a town hall meeting that belonged to constituents), old Russ-boy would run out the back door. In 2010, voters in the Third District will be giving our pal Russ a pink slip and a free one-way bus ticket from Washington, D.C. to wherever he came from in Missouri.

I'll be there at McArthur's Bakery tomorrow night in support of Ed Martin, Republican candidate for the Third District in Missouri. What do you want to bet that this sort of thing is going on ALL OVER THE COUNTRY? Soon we will be able to tell Nancy Pelosi to sit down and shut up, and if her constituents had any brains (but what can you expect from San Francisco?), they would issue her a free bus ticket in 2010 too.



This video comes from Adam Sharp over at Sharp Elbows. We can always count on Sharp to show up at these events and get us some video. Thanks, Sharp!

A Song This Generation of Children Will Never Learn (at least the ones who go to public school)

Sadly, our kids in public schools are being increasingly indoctrinated by the Left. They can't sing "Silent Night"; they can't even sing "secular" traditional Christmas songs like "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." Yet they are made to sing songs of praise to Dear Leader: "Barack Hussein Obama, mmm...mmm...mmm"--and none of the teachers in the school where this went on seemed to have a problem with it.

When I was a kid, no one would have thought of singing a song to a living cult figure, even if he was the President of the United States. Instead, we learned songs about our country. Well, those songs are "out" of the curriculum now, not only because we evidently are no longer a Christian nation, but also because we are no longer an exceptional nation--we're second-rate, at best, if you listen to our POTUS' speech at the U.N., and God knows it seems he would be glad to drag us down to third-rate status if given a chance.

I remember learning and singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" in grade school. It's a song that still sends chills down my spine. Not only will this generation of kids never learn it, they'll probably never even hear it. Yet the little ditty those New Jersey kids were singing about "mmm...mmm...mmm...Barack Hussein Obama"--if you listen to the second half of the video, you can hear them singing to the tune of "Battle Hymn." I'm sure the children didn't know that, and I wonder if the teachers even knew.

I chose this version because Judy Garland sings the words clearly and passionately. She sang this on live TV in tribute to John F. Kennedy when he was shot. Evidently she looked into the camera and said, "Jack, this is for you," but that part was edited out of the video. Note that she was NOT singing "John Fitzgerald Kennedy, mmm...mmm...mmm."

It Must Be Hell Having to Stand Next to a "Size 2"


Lady Michelle and I have a deal: if she stays out of the news, except for her fab "guns" (those arms!) and how like Jackie O she is (that was one of her non-negotiable points--whatever), and what a fashion diva!, then I will leave her alone. When she strays into the news because of substantive policy, then she's fair game. Since Lady Michelle is going to Copenhagen this week, described as "leading" the U.S. Olympic Committee, then she's crossed the line, and I get to call her out for any dumb thing she's doing for the week--that's our deal.

So here goes; Those in the know say that Michelle-O has gained 30 pounds since the inauguration--that's 30 pounds in 9 months, which any woman knows is non-sustainable. For those who don't have a clue what that kind of weight gain means to a woman, it means that Michelle-O has gone UP about a size and a half. That means NOTHING she had in her closet last January fits her anymore, which in her case is the least of her worries. More importantly for Michelle, it means that when she stands next to Nicolas Sarkozy's wife, beautiful model and size 2 Cara Bruni-Sarcozy, then Michelle-O is going to look like a cow.

The in-the-tank Obama media has treated us ad-nauseam to reports about THOSE GUNS, Michelle-O's bee-u-tiful arms and how her personal trainer has taught her to tone them to a fair-thee-well. What hasn't been explained by big media quite so clearly is why same personal trainer ignores her gy-normous caboose. But big as it is, even that issue isn't the most important one that needs discussing here.

Let's just say it outright: Michelle Obama walks like Aunt Esther. For cripes' sake, won't someone (probably any one of her 47 personal czarinas would be fine) take her aside and teach this woman to walk? And to stand gracefully? What is her problem, except that she walks like any of the dear old ladies you'll see coming out of Ebenezer Baptist Church on a Sunday morning, who, by the way, have good reason to walk that way. They've probably been on their feet all week, working, and now their Sunday shoes are killing them. I have nothing but respect for these women, don't get me wrong, just as I have nothing but disrespect for Lady Michelle, who also walks like her feet hurt, despite her personal massuese, who walks like she's been "working" all week, despite her personal trainer and chef and redundant retinue of personal caretakers, and who walks like she can't, despite all of her fashion consultants, find dress-up shoes she can wear for more than an hour. She walks like she's carrying a 50-pound pack on her back; she walks with her head down; she trudges, for goodness' sake.She's like an awkward adolescent, frequently standing all-akimbo, like she's doing in this photo. Does she not know how to walk in heels? Does she not know how to gracefully stand? If not, then woman, you need to learn, because these kinds of photos are going to follow you around for as long as you are First Lady of the Land.

Hey, woman, you wanted the job, so do the job.


"This is not an American battle, this is a NATO mission," Obama said.

What a weak statement, coming from an American President about Afghanistan. Obama said this today during a photo-op with the NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

During the campaign, Afghanistan was the "good war," "the war we need to win." This is what Barack Hussein Obama (mmm. . . mmm. . . mmm) said about Afghanistan in August of 2007: It is time to turn the page. When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world's most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland. What a leader. Except, evidently talk is cheap, especially campaign talk; and, oh, I guess it's a little bit more difficult to LEAD than it is to TALK. But that's something Obama would already have known if he'd had the experience he needed for the job he was campaigning for--POTUS.I don't think that's something you would learn as a community organizer or by sitting in the Senate for 145 days. But who could have known?

Now Obama talks about the war in Afghanistan as a "NATO mission." I don't think I've ever heard a less-impassioned discussion about a critical issue EVER from any American politician. This is the very definition of "phoning it in." Or voting "present."



Real passion there, Barry.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Wow, Here's a Shocker


Gateway Pundit is reporting this tonight: ACORN may have had a hand in stealing the Senate seat for Al Franken. Gee, my innocence is crushed, since I sure thought Al Franken won that seat fair and square. /sarc

This is from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: Here in Minnesota, ACORN has boasted of playing a major role in the 2008 elections. It claims to have registered 43,000 new voters, which it describes as 75 percent of the state's new registrations. Franken's margin of victory in the Senate race was razor-thin: 312 votes out of about 3 million cast. And Minnesota's laws on proof of voter eligibility are notoriously loose. Did ACORN folks pull some fast ones to help get their favorite son Franken elected -- a win that handed Democrats the 60-vote, veto-proof majority that they needed to enact their liberal agenda?

My fear is that people will simply shrug their shoulders and say, "Wow, am I surprised. Yawn." This Franken fraud needs to be taken seriously, like maybe with a recall--something. If we just shrug this off, Franken will be the Left's poster child for "how to win" in 2010.
Update to my previous post: Dreams vs. Reality


Here's the lastest of Jack Cashill's articles on the Obama memoir: "Literary Lion Obama Will Roar No More." As Cashill says, perhaps the in-the-tank media won't ask questions about Barry Soetoro Obama's memoir, but the days of Obama boasting about and getting political cred for his writing skills are over, baby.

Here's Cashill's latest article at the American Thinker.
Obama Flies to Cophehagen to Hawk the Olympics for Chicago: Where's the tipping point on the outrage about how Obama is doing his job as POTUS?



What is this guy's job, again? Evidently it's gettin' stuff for his buddies--going to bat for his homies in the hood. That's the Chicago way.

As the Washington Examiner put it this morning: "Iran smolders, Afghanistan burns and Obama heads for . . . Denmark?" Obama will travel to Copehagen, Denmark to put in a good word for the Chicago hood's bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. Lady Michelle is also going as "lead" of the U.S. Olympic delegation. Who else is going? Valerie Jarrett, of course, who along with being Senior Advisor to the President, a job which evidently doesn't keep her busy enough, is also head of the White House Office on Olympic, Paralympic and Youth Sport. The Examiner continues: "And it's not just the president and the first lady. Indeed, a significant part of the Obama administration -- the group includes top White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood -- is also heading to Copenhagen to make the pitch for Chicago." Who else is going? Why, Oprah, of course. Game show politics continues in the White House. These people are an embarrassment to our nation.

This is the same guy who hasn't had time to review General McChrystal's Afghanistan report. I am so steamed about this, I'm cross-eyed. So when did Obama change his mind on going to Copenhagen? Because this is what he said on September 16 (13 days ago): "I would make the case in Copenhagen personally, if I weren't so firmly committed to making real the promise of quality affordable health care for every American." So is he no longer "firmly committed" to health care? Or maybe he thinks it's in the bag, so now he can fly off to Copehagen?

Here's a quote from John Bolton, former Ambassador to the U.N. under George Bush: “I think it’s very clear, and has been during last year’s campaign and in the eight months the president has been in office that he just doesn’t regard foreign policy and national security as important as domestic issues….” And the thing that trumps your ordinary, every domestic issues, like JOBS, would be. . . getting great stuff for Obama's Chicago buds.

General McChrystal told CBS News in a 60 Minutes interview televised Sunday night that he has spoken to the President once since taking over in Afghanistan:

"You've talked to him once in 70 days?" asked interviewer David Morton.

"That's correct," Gen. McChrystal said.

Huh. Isn't it a little bit odd (/sarc) that Obama has met with Jay Leno and Letterman more than he's met with his General? For the Love of God--Obama has met with CHAVEZ more than he's met with his General. Is anyone else OUTRAGED? One of the bloggers at HotAir suggested that maybe Obama could find some time to phone General McChrystal on his flight to Copenhagen? Naw, you really don't want to spoil a good time. It's becomeing crystal clear (oops, I guess pun intended) that Afghanistan was just one of Obama's political footballs--just an issue he used to get elected. He doesn't give a flying rip about Afghanistan or our soldiers. It makes me weep to think of ONE MORE AMERICAN SOLDIER getting wounded or killed. My soul is sick with the thought that this buffoon is in charge. This man is well on his way to being the worst mistake ever committed by the American people. He is starting to make Carter look Regan-esque.

Despite an urgent request from General McChrystal, Obama has not set a deadline for determining a new strategy or for committing more troops to the war in Afghanistan, his national security advisor said Saturday. How special. "In his Aug. 30 classified assessment, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. and International Security Assistance Force commander, said he urgently needs more troops within the next year or his mission will 'likely result in failure,'" the Washington Post reported. National Security Advisor General James L. Jones said the challenges Obama faces in the Afghan war are more "complex" and "bigger than the surge" decision President George W. Bush faced in Iraq three years ago.  Right. Everything Obama faces is harder, more complex, more of a disaster than he was told, blah, blah, blah. I guess he thought being POTUS was going to be like playing badminton every day.

So if everything was more of a mess and more difficult that he thought or was told, then why are these items at the top of Obama's list of priorities?:
  • Taking vacations during his vacation.
  • Weekly date nights with Lady Michelle.
  • Hosting Wednesday night parties at the White House.
  • Appearing on Letterman and Leno.
  • Jetting to Copenahgen.
  • Working on that golf game!
  • Daily workouts with his personal trainer to keep those man-boobs in good form.
  • Regular pick-up games with his homies.

    What have I missed?
You gotta love this website: Chicagoans for Rio in 2016. "It would be exciting to host the Olympics here in Chicago," the website says. "But you know what would be even better? Just let Rio host the 2016 Olympics. We don't mind. Honest." Chicago's problems, like a lot of U.S. cities, include finding money for basic transportation, poverty, and education. When Chicago can't pay for this Olympic party, how long will it take for the corrupt Chicago political infrastructure to get the money from "somewhere"--like from a Washington bailout?

A little true/false quiz on the Chicago for Rio website: "True/False: Montreal is still paying off their debt from the 1976 Olympics." Good Lord.

They have another little game: "Match the Olympic Host with its estimated Olympic budget overrun."

Here is Lady Michelle, our very own International Hostess, explaining how international athletes will have a home field advantage in "her" city, international Chicago:



The IOC will vote Oct. 2 to choose the 2016 host among Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro.

Go RIO! Go MADRID! Go TOKYO!

Maybe the new Olympic theme should be: ABC: Anybody But Chicago.

A website called GOP Counterculture has this question: Where's Barry? Good question.

Then there's this article. I like the first paragraph. Without reading any more of the article, without knowing who wrote or what are his politics, I CAN RELATE:

"I woke up this morning to read that President Obama is joining his wife and Oprah Winfrey in Copenhagen, Denmark on Wednesday to promote Chicago’s Olympics bid. Reading my iPhone in bed, I just about took my pillow and put it back over my head and decided to give up for the day." It's written by Michael Roston, and you can read the rest of the article here. Roston is clearly an Obamabot, but he's also clearly upset. And so he should be. My biggest laugh came when he referred to Copenhagen as Obama's "extracurricular" activity: But what can we do? I guess the foolish decision has already been made for the President to devote one or more of his precious days in office with his party in the majority in both Houses of Congress to something that amounts to an extra-curricular activity. I think he’s going to pay for it; but then again, so will we all. Duh. Do ya think? Hey bud, in case you haven't noticed, we're already paying for this guy being in office, big time.

Update: Jim Geraghty at the NRO (National Review Online) says that it's a done deal: no way would Obama go to Copenhagen unless the Olympics was in the bag for Chicago: "Would the IOC have the nerve to reject the hometown of the president, after every international elite spent the last two years telling Americans to elect this man?"

Here's Robot Gibbs, White House Press Secretary, telling the press why it's so important for Obama to go to Copenhagen. What's the difference between last week (when he said he was too busy to go) and this week (when he's going)? No coherent answer on that one. So they tried again: 

Reporter Question: "How does he see going to Copehagen as part of his core mission as President?"
Robot Gibbs flip, sarcastic answer: "Surely uh, surely it's within the pervue of the President to uh, to root for America, but maybe, uh, I'm wrong.



Is it just me, or does Robot Gibbs play the PC guy in the Mac ads?

Update: They're talking about this on HotAir this morning:

So what are the potential outcomes?

1.The IOC awards the games to Chicago, which makes it look as though Obama got tipped off and set up his trip as a political stunt.
2.The IOC awards the games to another city, and Obama looks like a fool.
3.In either case, everyone wonders why Obama got personally involved at all.
 

Update #2: Michelle Malkin has the definitive article about this issue posted on her website: "An Illustrated Guide: All the President's Olympic Cronies."
Monday Factoids and Links From Around the WWW (or "that open sewer" as the NYT has taken to calling the internet)


"Open Sewer"--what a great name for a blog.

Sometimes what's in the daily news is just too target-rich an environment to pick out just a couple of stories--sort of like something called "nutrient mud" used for fertilizer--oh cripes, you really don't want to know what THAT'S  a euphemism for!

I like this story from a blog called Just One Minute: "Too Biased Even to Describe the Bias," a discussion of the "explanation" given by the New York Times about their non-coverage of the ACORN debacle. The NYT can take as gospel every ridiculous lefty blog-rumor from HuffPo or "research" from the Daily Kos or the serious investigative journalism practiced by Rachel Madow or Keith Olbermann for the eight years when Bush was in office, but when a story might be "inconvenent" for Obama, all of a sudden the NYT doesn't trust what's coming from that "polemical world of talk radio, cable television, or partisan blogs." When that rag finally disappears from the planet, I will celebrate in the streets.

Iran has again been poking the U.S. in the eye over the weekend with three missile tests in two days. This comes on the heels of President Barack Hussein Obama's speech to the U.N. I guess it really does matter that we put into office a man who is woefully inexperienced for the job. Obama's inflated view of his own ability to negotiate with Iran is dangerously naive. Iran is boasting that the missiles are capable of reaching Israel--or U.S. bases in the Middle East.

Report from guardian.co.uk: "The incident came two days after Barack Obama warned Iran had until the end of the year to respond to his diplomatic overtures and enter into serious 'good faith' negotiations over its nuclear programme." Well, Barry, how's that diplomacy, those warnings of "grave consequences" with Iran working out so far? Have you had any "meaningful dialogue" with them yet, Barry? I love this guy. He's willing to sit down and talk with every nut-job world leader around, but he doesn't have the stones to face Chris Wallace on Fox News.

Seriously, Barack Obama's handlers really need to do something about this ridiculous nose-in-the-air pose. Who does this?



Question of the day: Is Obama just constantly blowing smoke in our faces in this video, or does he believe what he's saying? If he believes his own stuff, then we are in serious, serious trouble.

Oh my, this is from Newsweek, the most in-the-tank Obama media rag evah. Howard Fineman writes, "Mr. President, please stay off TV" in his article "The Limits of Charisma." Hilarious. Even Newsweek has figured out that the "president's problem isn't that he is too visible [well, I would argue with them there]; it's the lack of content in what he says when he keeps showing up on the tube." Bingo!

I'm happy to hear the newest Rasmussen report on ObamaCare: now just 41% of voters nationwide favor the plan proposed by Obama and congressional Democrats. "That's the lowest level of support yet measured." The telephone survey finds that 56% are opposed to the plan, with senior citizens (who vote!) the least supportive. The report goes on to discuss the "difficult political environment" the issue has produced for incumbent Democrats. My own personal favorite: longtime idiot incumbent Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer polls 50% against two 2010 challengers in California. As Rasmussen points out, any incumbent who polls less that 50% is considered vulnerable. Boxer is expected to seek a fourth term in the Senate next year. Let's hope some of those Californians find some brain cells before the 2010 elections, although I don't know, Rasmussen is still able to find 6% of Californians answering his poll who think the economy is "good or excellent."

In related polling news from Rasmussen, in the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, Obama's Approval Index is down to minus 10. For those who want to compare, his Approval Index the day after his inauguration was plus 30. 51% of the country disapproves of Obama's performance. Heh. Something tells me after his stellar performance at the U.N. last week, coupled with Iran's hijinks over the weekend, those numbers might be headed even lower.

One of my favorite writers at HotAir is a guy who calls himself "Dr. Zero." Most everything he writes is good. He has a new post about Obama titled The omnipresent leader. His take on the creepy school video of the kids singing to Obama: "I like to call this clip 'The Best Home School Endorsement Video Ever'." Dr. Zero suggests that we really need to begin scaling back the super-State. No kidding.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Tale of Two CINC's: More Than Just a Difference in Style

I was a proud mother of a soldier in Iraq when George W. Bush was President and Commander-in-Chief; I appreciated so much the easy way Bush had with the troops and, the obvious love and respect he had for the men and women serving this country, clearly demonstrated in this video. Every day I am (selfishly) thankful that my son is no longer in the service, under the current Administration, and every day I pray for our soldiers, sailors, and marines who are still serving, in harm's way, and far from home. God Bless them all.



And I'm working up to getting flipped into crazy about Obama's Afghanistan policy and what appears to be his dithering around, unable to make a decision despite the report given to him by his own hand-picked general, General Stanley McChrystal. Obama has a history of voting "present" in his previous jobs whenever a tough decision was put in front of him. You wanted this job, Barry, so do your job and quit sniveling about your critics. And another thing: Get off the damned television, we're sick of seeing your mug. You're POTUS, for cripes sake, not a candidate for Dancing With the Stars.

A report from Fox News: "Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to receive the troop request Friday. But Gates will hold onto the request until the White House and Pentagon get to a "proper stage" in their assessment of the war in Afghanistan, a Pentagon spokesman said earlier this week, explaining that it is premature for the request to be considered until the assessment is fully reviewed." Are they kidding? Get to a proper stage in their assessment of the war? What the hell are they waiting for, while our soldiers are getting wounded and dying over there?

"It's premature for the request to be considered," said a spokesperson from the Pentagon, "until the assessment is fully reviewed." Good Lord, what kind of gob-speak is that? Have a little fun: try that line yourself at work, and please post your results here.

For what it's worth, and probably not much, General McChrystal will be on 60 Minutes on Sunday night.

Here's Obama talking tough about Afghanistan on the campaign trail. Talk is cheap, Barry.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Saturday Is For Genealogy

These people are the Baxters from La Junta, Colorado, c.1915. The man in the middle in the vest and hat is my great-great-grandfather, Alonzo Hayden Hayes Baxter. His wife, "Granny B," is on his left, the little wizened lady in the skirt. They moved to southern Colorado from Indiana in about 1875. The woman on the far right is Alonzo's daughter, my great-great aunt, Leona Baxter Lepkovitz. She's got her apron on, so it must be Sunday, and she's in the middle of fixing Sunday dinner, dragged out of the kitchen long enough to take a picture, but not long enough to take off her apron. Leona could cook the best fried chicken in the county and she could kick your ass, both at the same time. You didn't cross Leona. I'm thinking that the older I get, the more I look like her. Life is full of surprises.



The guys over at MISSOURAH.com are doing great work. If you haven't seen their website, it's definitely worth a look. This is Saturday, so I'm working on genealogy and not on my blog. Therefore, I'll post the links to the good stuff at MISSSOURAH.

This post is about the gag order the government is trying to impose on the insurance companies. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Do we live in Nazi Germany?

http://www.missourah.com/2009/09/26/shutting-down-free-speech/

Here's a good one about South Park episodes these guys at MISSOURAH would like to see. Cute.

http://www.missourah.com/2009/09/26/three-south-park-episodes-id-like-to-see/

The third one makes me crazy, since everything about  AlGore makes me crazy. A luxury green car? For $90,000? Is anyone in our government listening to these guys? Some idiot California luxury car maker is receiving $500 million in government loans [our money] to build a plug-in hybrid sports car with a sticker price of $90,000. For the love of  God.

"This investment will create thousands of new American jobs and is another critical step in making sure we are positioned to compete for the clean energy jobs of the future," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. He estimated it would save or create about 5,000 jobs.

"Save or create"--code language for "Hahahahaha, we've managed to co-opt more taxpayer money from every idiot U.S. taxpayer yet again."

http://www.missourah.com/2009/09/26/the-new-business-model-government-connections/

Friday, September 25, 2009

Robot? Wax Sculpture? Maybe a Cardboard Cutout? You Make theCall

I found this video on a blog called Bus Your Own Tray (which content warning, is a bizarre little site--not sure I'd recommend it, although this video is hilarious in its own way). It's a video showing Obama's "amazingly consistent" smile, a 20-second compression of 130 photographs taken on Wednesday night at the Obama-hosted reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

While the fact that Obama's face doesn't change one iota in 130 photographs may to most people seem remarkable, to me this is a familiar phenomenon. I've expressed my opinion previously on this blog that Obama is a toxic narcissist, based on my 57-year experience with my own toxic narcissist mother. If I were to make a video of 130 photos of my mother--over 30 years, not just on one night--I feel certain I would see the same set, consistent smile. Narcissists know how to play to the camera.

Wow, simply wow.


Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.

Update: I don't know who to give credit to for this, but I couldn't resist posting it.



I wonder how much time he spends practicing in front of the mirror?
Obama's Cult of Personality: If It Looks Like Indoctrination and Sounds Like Indoctrination, Then It's Probably Indoctrination

I remember when the 1972 Bob Fosse movie came out, Cabaret with Liza Minnelli, Michael York, and Joel Grey. Great movie. I remember that this was a powerful scene, even then. The recent attention to the video of the kids on YouTube singing to Obama reminded me of this scene. Having our little children sing to "the leader" is a creepy, new phenomenon, something I don't ever remember happening before in my lifetime. When I was little, we sang songs in school about our country. What ever happened to that?



Obama is The One who has made his administration so much about the cult of his own personality. There are a lot of people who pretend not to get it--or maybe they really don't see how making children sing a song venerating a particular individual--even if he is the President--is different than singing a song about the country. Something tells me that people like this Norah O'Donnell at MSNBC (what do you expect, MSNBC) would have a lot more clarity on the issue if these children were singing a song to George W. Bush and the glories of invading Baghdad. Norah, are you really this stupid in real life, or do you just play stupid on TV?

Here she is "interviewing" Tim Carney, conservative columnist, about the children singing. This is what passes for interviewing on MSNBC. She's mystified--mystified how this could possibly be indoctrination. Oh, and Norah? Your grammar is absurdly bad. Is English really this woman's first language?

O’DONNELL: No, Tim, I just wanted to get your take on that. I mean, this is children. They're singing a song. And I'm not clear myself. If you can make your point again about why this is indoctrination, political indoctrination to praise your president. I remember certainly in elementary school when Ronald Reagan was President and we sent him jelly beans. We designed all of these things about Ronald Reagan. We sent them to him. And I don't think everybody in the class ended up a Republican because of that.

O’DONNELL: Because, it's about praising the President and making our country great again. I don't see anything as- anything about, you know, let’s give health care to everybody. Or, you know, no more tax cuts. I mean, there’s really nothing in there that’s that actually that controversial.

And doesn't that question just say it all?

Go to PajamasTV for a film by Bill Whittle about branding and the Power of Iconography.

Update: Michelle Malkin has a great post on this issue, Friday morning.

Update #2: Fox News has a fascinating follow-up to this vodeo. The Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Education says the issue will be reviewed "to ensure that students can celebrate Black History Month without 'inappropriate partisan politics in the classroom.'" Laura Ingraham made the point this morning on her radio show: How is singing a praise song to Barack Obama "celebrating Black History Month? Shouldn't they be learning history?" she said. Perhaps, just as the history of the United States seems to have started with Obama's administration, if you listen to his recent speech at the U.N., similarly, Black History started with Obama's inauguration. Mmmm.. . . mmmm. .. mmmm.




Thursday, September 24, 2009

Have You No Shame

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responds to the U.N. for giving Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a spot on the agenda

"But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: 'Have you no shame? Have you no decency?'. . . . What a disgrace. What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations."



The text of the entire speech is here.
"Dreams" vs Reality: Who Wrote Obama's Memoir?


Joe Wilson's shout-out heard around the world of "You lie" during Obama's recent speech to the joint session of Congress was criticized far and wide. However, the criticism seemed to be leveled more at the setting of the comment rather than the substance. Democrats were outraged that a sitting President had been called out in the halls of Congress (obviously demonstrating total amnesia for their own behavior during eight years of George W. Bush's presidency). Joe Wilson may have picked the wrong venue, but he had it right: Barack Obama is a liar.

The word has been out on the street for some time now that Obama didn't write Dreams from My Father, his critically acclaimed memoir. So what's up that, and why should we care? As I wrote in another post somewhere, I am intrigued by metadata, particularly as it relates to literature. My favorite literary genre these days is the memoir. My most un-favorite person these days is Obama. So a synthesis of metadata, memoir, and Obama--that's quite a triple play.

According to Jack Cashill, a guy who has written for Fortune, The WSJ, The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard, etc., Obama needed "substantial help" to write his memoir, Dreams from My Father. As the author of Hoodwinked, a book about intellectual falsehood and fraud, Cashill seems well-qualified to investigate Obama’s memoir. Cashill tells us this: not only did Obama have a ghostwriter to help him with his memoir, his ghostwriter was none other than Obama’s good friend Bill Ayers. In his article of 9 Oct 2008, posted on American Thinker, Cashill calls this a working hypothesis, and he backs it up with biographical evidence from both Obama and Ayers, and also with internal evidence taken from Obama's memoir and also one written by Bill Ayers about his own life. Cashill spends considerable time detailing a comparison of the language of the books, to fascinating and convincing effect.

Obama not only has the thinnest of resumes "evah" for his position as POTUS, he also has, not coincidentally, the thinnest of paper trails leading up to his election. Cashill reminds us that searches for any sort of Obama writing turn up almost nothing. [I'm thinking I could Google my own name and find more in 5 minutes than ANYONE has been able to find on Obama yet, but I digress.] Someone has found a poem he published in a literary magazine when he was at Occidental College in 1981. The second Obama literary output sighting appears 10 years later, one unsigned student case comment in the Harvard Law Review [despite the fact that Obama was president of the Law Review--how the heck, with nothing much published in the  Harvard Law Review--did he manage to get elected president? That might be an interesting line of inquiry, making a comparison of Obama's work with what others on the Law Review have done--if this country actually had any working investigative journalists--although maybe a totally anonymous 20-year-old can do the research, why not?] And then there’s one more Obama writing sample, a 1990 essay titled “Why Organize?” that he contributed to a book called After Alinksy. Says Cashill: “This workmanlike and wonkish piece showed no hint of the promise of Dreams. . . .a B- paper in a freshman comp class.”

The same year that essay was published, somehow Obama, the somehow newly elected president of the Harvard Law Review, received a six-figure advance from a major publisher, Simon & Schuster, to write the memoir that would become Dreams of My Father. Cashill says that Obama dithered around, and being unable to produce a manuscript of any sort, S&S cancelled the contract. Not willing to give up, Obama’s enterprising agent found a second publisher, Random House, and Obama went off with a new advance of $40,000 to try again.

This is the money line, for me, from Cashill: "Writing is as much a craft as, say, golf. To put this in perspective, imagine if a friend played a few rounds in the high 90s and then a few years later, without further practice, made the PGA Tour. It doesn't happen." What "has" obviously happened to Obama, time and time again, happened this time as well--he was 'way over his head, this time in trying to produce a publishable memoir. Enter the ghostwriter.

Don’t misunderstand, it's perfectly regular for politicians or other public figures to hire ghostwriters to help them produce memoirs. John McCain gave credit to his ghostwriter for his memoir, Faith of My Fathers. Sarah Palin is getting help with her book, something that is certainly no secret. Big deal. But what is highly irregular, as Cashill points out is for unknown young Chicago lawyers to hire ghostwriters.

Not only is the mere fact of the ghostwriter irregular in Obama's case back in 1991 when he was a total unknown, if Cashill's double hypothesis is correct, then Obama is concealing both the fact that he did indeed have considerable help writing his memoir and also the identity of the person who helped him write it. Why? Well Obama had good reason, according to Cashill: "To admit that he needed a collaborator would have undercut his campaign for president, and to reveal the name of that collaborator would have ended it." Who, according to Cashill, helped Obama write that memoir? None other than Obama’s buddy, Bill Ayers.

So if politicians routinely hire ghost writers to help them write, why does it matter that Obama has done the same thing? Because Obama, if we remember [and how could we forget!], made considerable political hay during the campaign out of his superior intellect, and this memoir, hailed by Time magazine as “the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician,” was considered to be "Exhibit A." If he didn't write it, how then could he continue to be the smoothest, smartest, hippest cat ever? Obama the superstar! And Dreams the best ever memoir ever produced!

Well, his memoir was “produced,” all right. Cashill says he noticed when reading Obama's Dreams that the book "was much too well written. I had seen enough of Obama's interviews [this by July 2008] to know that he did not speak with anywhere near the verbal sophistication on display in Dreams." Cashill goes on to catalog the reasons why he believes Bill Ayers either wrote the memoir or strongly influenced the writing of Dreams, put together from his literary forensics research. Since Ayers had also written a memoir, the books could be compared, using literary forensic techniques, and I hope someday someone will make that study.

A 2008 online review from the Sunday Times calls the author a “born storyteller. . . . the authorial voice is always real. Obama is a born narrator, with a mastery of colour, scene and personality. . . . Rarely has that [American] identity found so vivid a portraitist.” Dreams from My Father is a well-written book. It was written by someone with considerable literary and wordsmithing talent and writing experience, none of which Obama has demonstrated anywhere else but this memoir. Nothing that Obama ever wrote—not that he ever wrote much of anything that anyone has found—can lead to the conclusion that it was Obama who was the “born narrator” of this memoir.

Born narrator or born liar? Here's a small example from the book, small but disturbing because it's entirely fabricated, Obama's story of his first job out of college:

Eventually a consulting house to multinational corporations agreed to hire me as a research assistant. Like a spy behind enemy lines, I arrived every day at my mid-Manhattan office and sat at my computer terminal, checking the Reuters machine that blinked bright emerald messages from across the globe. . . . I was the only black man in the company, ... Read Morea source of shame for me but a source of considerable pride for the company’s secretarial pool. They treated me like a son, those black ladies; they told me how they expected me to run the company one day. . . . The company promoted me to the position of financial writer. I had my own office, my own secretary. . . . Sometimes, coming out of an interview with Japanese financiers or German bond traders, I would catch my reflection in the elevator doors — see myself in a suit and tie, a briefcase in my hand — and for a split second I would imagine myself as a captain of industry, barking out orders, closing the deal. . .

According to the website Sweetness and Light this entire account is bunk. Obama did not work at “a consulting house to multinational corporations”; it was, a then-colleague of his has related, “a small company that published newsletters on international business.” He wasn’t the only black man in the company, and he didn’t have an office, have a secretary, wear a suit and tie on the job, or conduct “interviews” with “Japanese financiers or German bond traders” — he was a junior copyeditor.

Perhaps this example is a small thing, perhaps not so small, but what it shows is that Obama can't seem to help himself: lying comes naturally to him. The outcome of lying is to make other people stupid; the playing field for a committed serial liar and someone who tells the truth can never be level, the liar always has the upper hand. Additionally, I'm bothered that we've elected a man who seems to see himself as some kind of hero in a morality play, one who spins a fantasy of giving up promising corporate career to become a selfless avenger of the capitalist enemy, to work as a humble community organizer.

This is a man who speech is about saying the expedient thing, not the truthful thing. He is quite plainly a fraud, and most alarmingly, he has so much of the media, which is supposed to be the watchdog of government, firmly jammed in his hip pocket. However, there are signs that we are beginning to wake up to the truth.

Update: Cashill has posted a new article at the American Thinker, 24 Sep 2009: "Andersen Book Blows Ayers Cover on 'Dreams.'"

Update #2: HotAir is discussing the Anderson book over on their site tonight.

Update #3: Some wag writes that Dreams From My Father ought to rightly be titled Thoughts From My Neighbor. Heh.
More Than Just Words

Here is Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaking with absolute clarity about Canada's protest at the U.N. of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Holocaust-denying rants and virulent anti-Semitism. This is what leadership looks like.



Hey, Obama can get tough, too. White House Secretary Robot Gibbs confirmed that Colonel Gaddafi was not invited to Obama’s reception for world leaders Wednesday evening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Words, Just Words

Barack Obama, speaking to the U.N. yesterday. Yep, he gives a good speech, but only if you aren't paying close attention to what he actually says. That worked out really well for him as Campaign Obama; why shouldn't we expect him to continue the same schtick as President Obama?

"And I pledge that America will always stand with those who stand up for their dignity and their rights — for the student who seeks to learn; the voter who demands to be heard; the innocent who longs to be free; the oppressed who yearns to be equal." Except, of course, if they happen to be Iranian dissidents.



 
Funny thing, I'm also a "voter who demands to be heard," but Obama has told me and my fellow Tea Party patriots to get out of the way, to quit my chattering and bickering, to sit down and shut up. A million people show up in Washington, D.C., demanding to be heard, and he runs out of town like a frightened little girl.

But damn, that man can sure talk off a teleprompter!

Update: Go here for Rich Lowrey's analysis of Obama's high schoolish Model UN speech.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Meeting at the UN: A Star Wars Bar Scene Without the Music





Scheduled to speak for 15 minutes, Libyan leader Mr. Maummar Gaddafi made his first speech at the U.N. today, a 94-minute rambling, often incoherent rant calling for the Security Council to be renamed the "Terror Council." Why the hell not?

Meat-puppet Gaddafi (it doesn't matter how you spell his name, there are at least 20 different versions) is calling for the U.N. to be moved out of New York. Excellent idea! Mr Gaddafi says Africans are proud that a "son of Africa" is President of the United States, and even suggested that he would support Mr Obama in following the common African practice of clinging to power indefinitely. "We are content and happy if Obama stays forever as President," he says.





Plus who could be surprised that the Obama Apology Tour continues, as Obama spoke to the UN today. The thrust of his speech: The U.S. has acted alone, and in doing so we have caused most of the world's problems.




And great, Obama reminds the UN that we have joined the Human Rights Council. Now why were we not a part of that? Because it had turned into a farcical, Orwellian, macabre, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-Western circus, and it still is. But no criticism of that, we now have made amends by rejoining--and the fact that Obama boasts about being on the council is a scandal. John Bolton , the former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. under George W. Bush, said that joining the council "is like getting on board the Titanic after its hit the iceburg."

On Glenn Beck's show (Wednesday), John Bolton called Obama's speech "the most anti-Israel speech ever given by an American President." He said he was "shaken and disturbed" by the speech: "We've put Israel on the chopping block."

As usual, this was a speech filled with embarrassing personalized self-referencing by Obama: "Think about me!" is a theme throughout the speech; think about me and what I've done in my nine months of office.
For those who question the character and cause of my nation, I ask you to look at the concrete actions we have taken in just nine months.

So I guess the history of the United States, the "character and cause" of the United States, began nine months ago when Obama was inaugurated. What a narcissistic tool this guy is. We are in a whole lot of trouble.

Read the whole speech. Again, does Obama ever have anything good to say about the United States?

I did find one remark he made rather humorous: I have been in office for just nine months, though some days it seems a lot longer. It seems long to him? Oh buddy, you have no idea how long it seems to some of us out here in flyover country. But I guess it would seem "a lot longer" to him, considering he's working in his first full-time job.
 
The spectacle of this insanity clown show will continue this evening when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of the Islamic Republic, speaks to the assembly. Canada has indicated that they will walk out of his speech. Will the U.S.? I would say, not likely. [See Update #3.]




Update: The most self-referential President evah. Extracts from Obama's speech today.

It is my honor. . . I come before you humbled. . . I have been in office for just nine months. . . I am well aware of the expectations. . . I took office at a time when. . . my responsibility is to act. . . I will never apologize. . . it is my deeply held belief. . . I have carried this message. . . what I will speak about today. . . I ask you to look. . . On my first day in office. . . I prohibited. . . I ordered. . . I have outlined. . . my Secretary of State will become. . . Upon taking office, I appointed. . . the Security Council meeting that I will chair tomorrow. . . the issues that I will discuss. . . I say this. . . I say this. . . I say this. . . Today, I put forward. . . I will also host. . . I am committed. . . I will also continue. . . I am not naïve. . . I know. . . I will not waiver. . . The changes that I have spoken about. . . I believe that the people of the world. . . As an African-American, I will never forget. . . I would not be here today without. . . my belief. . . And I pledge that. . . And I believe that

Update #2: Positive comments made by Obama about the United States before he became President:

  •  As an African-American, I will never forget that I would not be here today without the steady pursuit of a more perfect union in my country.

THAT'S IT. That one sentence is the sum totoal of all the positive statements he made in his speech today about the United States before he became President. That pretty much says all I have to say about what I think of this man. He's a narcissist, straight up. He has no value for our traditions, for what we have done in the world, what we have meant to struggling nations. In his mind, there was nothing of value before he showed up on the scene. I think he not only sees himself as a citizen of the world, but he also sees himself as the leader of that world nation.

Update #3: Canada, the United States, and France walked out on Ahmadinejad. A British spokesperson said the walkout was prompted by anti-Semitic rhetoric.


Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The Story Behind the Story of Stuff

Do you have children or grandchildren going to public school? If so, I hope you know that this 20-minute video, "Story of Stuff," is being shown in schools all over the country; their website is here. And children are also being encouraged to watch this on the website--so kids have the video available to obsess over on their own as much as they're inclined to do. This video is indoctrination, straight up.  The one posted here is the "critiqued" version, Part 1 of 4. You can see all four of the critiqued videos on YouTube (right-click on the image and click "Watch on YouTube"). Lee Doren is the guy who created the critique videos; he's with a group I don't know much about yet--Bureaucrash.

The version the kids see, of course, is the non-critiqued version without subtitles. Hat tip to bloggers at Missourah.com. This was also discussed by Glenn Beck on his radio program on Tuesday.



The video's creator is liberal Greenpeace activist Annie Leonard, whom Time magazine calls a "hero of the environment." The video is pointedly fear-mongering, anti-capitalism, and otherwise absolute far-Left drivel. At one point, she tells the children this: "It's the government's job to watch out for us, to take care of us. That's their job" [emotional emphasis hers]. This sort of stuff is despicable, since it plays on the emotions of kids who are too young to take a discerning view of the propaganda and the fact that they're being shown only the extreme Left side of these issues. After watching the video, one little boy expressed his worries that it might be bad for the planet if he bought a new set of Legos. What in the name of sanity are we doing to our kids?

The language of the film is used for shock value and fear. The woman says it's a system in crisis. We live on a finite planet, with limits. Here are some of her definitions:
  • Natural resource exploitation: a fancy word for trashing the planet. We chop down trees, we blow up mountains, we use up all the water, and we wipe out the animals. We are cutting and mining and hauling and trashing the place.
  • Production: using energy to mix toxic chemicals in with the natural resources to make toxic-contaminated products. We take our pillows, we douse them in a neuro-toxin, and then we bring them home and put our heads on them for eight hours a night to sleep.
  • Breast milk: the food at the top of the food chain with the highest level of many toxic contaminants
    Our babies are getting the highest level of lifetime dose of toxic chemicals from breastfeeding from their mothers.
    [her emotional emphasis] If you can't tell, those are little skulls and crossbones used as badges on the mother's breasts, I guess to "demonstrate" toxic breast milk, in case you didn't get the subtlety of the language. They go on to say, after destroying the very idea of breastfeeding (who would knowingly feed toxic chemicals to their babies?) --they go on to say that "breastfeeding is best." What??? These people are utter lunatics.

  • Distribution: Distribution means selling all the toxic contaminated junk as quickly as possible.
  • The Golden Arrow of Consumption. We have become a nation of consumers. Our primary identity has become that of being consumers: not mothers, teachers, farmers--but consumers. The primary way that our value is measured and demonstrated is by how much we contribute to this arrow. And 99% of the stuff we run through this system is trashed within six months. Question: Do you throw in the trash "99%" of the stuff you buy within six months?
  • Advertising: What's the point of an ad, except to make us unhappy with what we have. Ads tell us that we are wrong, but it can all be made right if we go shopping.
  • National happiness. The film doesn't define this mushy, fuzzy-headed term, but it does say that polls show our national happiness is actually declining.


  • Disposal: Burning the garbage makes new super-toxics, like Dioxin. Dioxin is the most toxic man-made substannce know to science. Does recycling help? Yes, but recycling can never be enough.

So you see, it is a system in crisis. From changing climate to declining happiness, it’s just not working.

Good Lord, no wonder our kids have "declining happiness," if they are made to watch crap like this video.

Here's a quotation from an article at the Heritage Foundation, posted about the video last May:

We leave you with Portola Valley, California teacher Mark Lukach who says: “Compared to ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ it is much shorter and easier to compact into a class segment.” There is still time to save your children from joining a fringe movement that attacks makeup, shaving cream, batteries, legos, radios, technology, toys, our armed forces and anything else that doesn’t fit into their Greenpeace world view.
P.S. And, I hate this woman's chirpy condescending smugness as she tells our children their planet is being destroyed. "I couldn't stop wondering about that," she says, where "stuff" goes after she throws it away. She also tells the kids she gets "obsessed" with her Ipod: "In fact, I get a little obsessed about all of my stuff." That's called "obsessive ideation," lady, and there's medication you can take for it.

Update. The Story of Stuff was funded by the Tides Foundation. The American Spectator says this about the group: The Tides Foundation is a pass-through entity. Wealthy liberals give the charity money, take the tax deduction, and then tell Tides which causes to give their money to. The money is then given in the name of Tides and the real donor's name is withheld.