Sunday, November 29, 2009

Cuban Restaurant



This is a favorite of my wife's family. They are Cuban, and they love this restaurant. The food is delicious, service is fantastic, and the prices reasonable.

The video portions of the post do not come out correct. I try to convert MOV files to AVI and, as you will see, it doesn't quite work. Hope you enjoy anyway.

Merry Christmas



From Jno, Lady, and me

Climaquiddick



Hooray. Looks like these roaches are going to see the light of day.

The MSM is going to begrungingly have to report on this.

Of course the greatest scientific scam in the history of man is not as newsworthy as Tiger Woods beatdown from his wife, hopefully the MSM will find time to report the facts concerning AGW fraud.

Another article about global warming.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.

It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.

The UEA's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.

The data were gathered from weather stations around the world and then adjusted to take account of variables in the way they were collected. The revised figures were kept, but the originals -- stored on paper and magnetic tape -- were dumped to save space when the CRU moved to a new building.

The admission follows the leaking of a thousand private emails sent and received by Professor Phil Jones, the CRU's director. In them he discusses thwarting climate sceptics seeking access to such data.

In a statement on its website, the CRU said: "We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data."

Here's another article folks.

Smuggled into Auschwitz



What a story! A British POW smuggled himself into the Jewish Auschwitz death camp.

Friday, November 27, 2009

You Holocaust Denier You

This post from JammieWearingFool

Ellen Goodman Oddly Silent on ClimateGate
It's been a week now and we thought we'd revisit on of the most absurd columns in recent memory pertaining to the Great Global Warming Hoax. Less than three years ago this gem received much attention.
On the day that the latest report on global warming was released, I went out and bought a light bulb. OK, an environmentally friendly, compact fluorescent light bulb.

No, I do not think that if everyone lit just one little compact fluorescent light bulb, what a bright world this would be. Even the Prius in our driveway doesn't do a whole lot to reduce my carbon footprint, which is roughly the size of the Yeti lurking in the (melting) Himalayas.

But it was either buying a light bulb or pulling the covers over my head. And it was too early in the day to reach for that kind of comforter.

By every measure, the U N 's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raises the level of alarm. The fact of global warming is "unequivocal." The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get.

I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.
That's right. Those of us who questioned the bogus science were on a par with Holocaust deniers. We were to be shunned and ridiculed for the science was settled.

Except now we know the science was anything but settled. It was a fraud.
The folks at the Pew Research Center clocking public attitudes show that global warming remains 20th on the annual list of 23 policy priorities. Below terrorism, of course, but also below tax cuts, crime, morality, and illegal immigration.

One reason is that while poles are melting and polar bears are swimming between ice floes, American politics has remained polarized. There are astonishing gaps between Republican science and Democratic science. Try these numbers: Only 23 percent of college-educated Republicans believe the warming is due to humans, while 75 percent of college-educated Democrats believe it.
And who has been proven right now, Ms. Goodman?

Curiously since the great hoax was exposed last week, Goodman doesn't have anything to say about it. Funny how that is. She and her ilk are on the run, their credibility shattered.
The term that Fox News is now applying to the Climategate e-mails is “game-changer”. For the first time, Anthropogenic Global Warming cranks are on the defensive, losing their cool and uttering desperate mantras such as “You can be sceptical, not denial.” Gee, thanks, guys. In fact we shall be whatever we want to be, without asking your permission.

At this rate, Copenhagen is going to turn into a comedy convention with the real world laughing at these liars. Now is the time to mount massive resistance to the petty tyrants and hit them where it hurts – in the wallet. Further down the line there may be, in many countries, a question of criminal prosecution of anybody who has falsified data to secure funds and impose potentially disastrous fiscal restraints on the world in deference to a massive hoax. It’s a new world out there, Al, and, as you may have noticed, the climate is very cold indeed.
Indeed, those who have promoted and profited from this massive hoax need to be investigated and possibly prosecuted. They should be exposed, ridiculed and shunned. It is they who are the deniers.

Am I Asking Too Much



As a dutiful husband, I'm sitting with my wife watching a home decorating show.

I tell my wife, "Stop". (We have TIVO, so she's able to stop the program.) "Go back". She can go back 8 seconds by clicking on this one button. "OK, go, OK, pause it right there". I'm watching a girl hanging up curtains. My wife says to me, "Honey, it's not really appropriate to have your wife TIVO for you so you can look at another girl's ass".

My wife is pretty sharp. I think she may be right on this one. Next time I'll take the remote.

Navy Seals Court Marshalled

Navy Seals are being court marshalled for abusing a prisoner

I have personally heard the chief-of-staff of the armed forces speak, and I've come to one big conclusion. The military suffers from a huge case of political correctness and the above article will so clearly demonstrate.

I think that is what happens when you become part of a large organization. Upper command wants to CMA (cover my ass) and have lost sight of what the war is all about. In fact, I don't think these leaders really realize what the war is all about. I'd would love to ask them, without given a chance to consult their PC peons, to really say what the war is about.

When you read the article, you think to yourself: No, this can't really be true. But sadly, the answer is Yes, it is true. This is why we are losing the war.

Right now Western Civ has the overwhelming fire power. I think down the road, there will be an equal balance in armaments. Then we won't be so worried about PC, and have a real war on our hands. Do you think we would have won WWII in today's political climate?

Peer Review-Global Warming

Many of the leading publishers of global warming would not allow articles to be published in their publications. Especially authors and articles that did not follow the AGW line. And the articles that were published were both favorable to the global warming view and peer reviewed by others that were part of the same cadre. Here's an article that explains the specifics.

Here is George Monbiot, a leader in the environmentalist movement and a believer in global warming. Though it seems everyone who believes in AGW wants to pretend that these emails are nothing to pay attention to, this man has the integrity to admit the truth.

I think the argument is not that there is global warming or not. Though I believe science shows there has not been global warming for 10 years. The questions are: Is global warming caused by man? and: "If caused by man, will it cause untold destruction to mankind? and: Are we, collectively on this earth, able to prevent global warming?

Col. Douglas Mortimer writes:
You know, when you consider that “We’re Saving The Planet” is the biggest power/money grabbing scam since “We’re Saving Your Souls,” whoever leaked/released those e-mails and such is kind of like the modern scientific equivalent of Martin Luther. This person/persons may well have broken the backs of the Global Warming Priests who did everything in their power to make sure that the common man, and those who would oppose them, had no direct access to the Spoken Word of God.

Update: And this is from a commenter on another blog (which I think is most crucial):

It is a bit misleading to focus on the “emails” — the key new information is the code. Recall that the emails document years of effort by Jones et al. to keep the code that homegenizes data for use by other researchers and that models climate change secret.
The climate change researchers used a number of excuses not to share the code: for example that it was proprietary (although it was funded publicly) or that it would be mishandled by Steve McIntyre, a skeptic (although McIntyre had already discovered key mistakes in the hockey stick code).
Anyway, once the code is available, it was clear that all that it was doing was manipulating data to give predetermined results. (Non-software engineers may have to rely on summaries, e.g. here and here among others.)
Advocates for the climate change scientists argue that even if there were mistakes or improprieties, these were localized. But the fact is that much of the field relied on the results from these codes.
More important, the fact that these researchers, with this kind of code, agglomerated so much grant money and garnered so many “peer-reviewed” publications demonstrates that the process of peer-review as to climate change cannot be trusted.
Anyway, the point is that the emails are an amusing sideshow: the core here, the proof of the breakdown of the scientific process, is the code

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Don McLean American PIe



My favorite piece of all time.

Marshall Tucker Band

Funny Interview



When I watch this video, I laugh so hard that I cry. Every time. This is my sense of humor. My wife doesn't laugh at all.

It's interesting how one person finds something so funny he's rolling on the floor laughing, and the next person doesn't find it funny.

And watching the audience, they didn't find it funny either. If I was in the audience they would have had to remove me from the room. Or better yet, I would have removed myself.

One time I went to church with my Grandmother. It was a small church and the average age of the members was 80. When it came time to sing a hymn, all the members started to cackle (not sing) the song. It was so funny to me, I started laughing so hard. I tried to suppress it, but I couldn't. Then tears were pouring from my eyes. I had to leave the church and just sit outside, laughing for a few minutes. I don't know if God was edified by the singing, but I certainly was.

Now what makes the video so funny to me is this: Not that the person being interviewed had a squeaky voice. It's that the person who was doing the interview started laughing and could not stop. And he was in the unenviable position that he was leading the interview. That is what's so funny.

Bride falls in pool



Of course, I wasn't the one to go in the pool. And I'm looking in hindsight. But if this happened to me, I think I would have laughed my ass off.

In fact, if you listen to the sounds of the video, one guy goes "oh no, oh no" but it appears a few of the girls are holding back stifled laughs.

I keep watching the video and that poor girl keeps falling in the water. But I like her attitude: "If I'm going down, the minister's damn well coming with me".

Obama-Israel



Only 4% of Jews in Israel believe Obama is pro Israel. In exit polls in the United States, almost 80% of Jews voted for Obama.

We learn that even though Obama's grandmother is a Christian, she's going to Mecca in Saudi Arabia for the "Hajj" ceremony. The Hajj pilgrimage is a moral obligation to be carried out by Muslims once in their lifetime.

Do we really know Obama's upbringing? Are the Jews in Israel just stupid thinking Obama is not pro Israel? We really don't know where he stands, but we're sure finding out. And we will find out.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Climaquiddick/Journalism

Transterrestrial Musings

Nomenclature
Some have noted, and I agree that it’s a misnomer to call this “ClimateGate.” In addition to the fact that simply adding “Gate” to a scandal is so late twentieth century, calling it a “Gate” would imply that it’s something that the media will go into a frenzy over, because it’s a scandal about something politically incorrect (e.g., Nixon). No, a better name for it (again, not original with me — I think it showed up in comments at one of the PJM pieces) is “Climaquiddick.” In other words, expect the media to try to whitewash and minimize it.

[Update a few minutes later]

Ah, here. Iain Murray uses it in a post title.

And Jonah points out what should be obvious — that this isn’t just a science scandal, but a journalistic one:

One reason this seemed to me like less of a big deal at first was that the individual e-mails — “hide the decline” and so forth — while damning, also seemed open to interpretation. And I still think that’s the case in some instances. But what seems incontrovertible at this point is that the global-warming industry (and it is an industry) is suffused to its core with groupthink and bad faith. For many of us, this is not shocking news. But it is shocking evidence. Proving bad faith and groupthink is very hard to do. But now we have the internal dialog of those afflicted made public (I hope some intrepid reporters are asking other climate institutions whether they are no erasing their files for fear of being similarly exposed). It is clear that the scientists at the CRU were more interested in punishing dissenters and constructing a p.r. campaign than they were in actual science.

This should be considered not merely a scientific scandal but an enormous journalistic scandal. The elite press treats skepticism about global warming as a mental defect. It uses a form of the No True Scotsman fallacy to delegitimize people who dissent from the (manufactured) “consensus.” Dissent is scientifically unserious, therefore dissenting scientist A is unserious. There’s no way to break in. The moment someone disagrees with the “consensus” they disqualify themselves from criticizing the consensus. That’s not how science is supposed to work. Skeptics who’ve received a tote bag from some oil company are branded as shills, but scientists who live off of climate-change-obsessed foundations or congressional fiefdoms are objective, call-it-like-they-see-it truth seekers. Question these folks and you get a Bill Murrayesque, “Back off, man. We’re scientists.”

An even larger reason this is a journalistic scandal is that governments want to spend — literally — trillions of dollars on climate change. Industries want to make billions off it. The poor will be hurt. Economies wrenched apart. And journalistic skepticism is almost nowhere to be found. If you know people in the “skeptic community” (for want of a better term) or even just normal, honest scientists, the observation that federal and foundation funding and groupthink is driving, or at least distorting, the climate debate is commonplace. But it’s given almost no oxygen in the elite press, because they are in on it.

And as one of his emailers points out, what will really bring down this house of cards is when it’s revealed how awful and completely unreliable the computer code is. It’s no surprise that those who created the “models” didn’t want them released. The other issue, of course, gets back to a problem that the blogosphere has been complaining about for years — how incompetent (and how unprepared from the typical curricula of journalism schools) journalists are at covering, or even understanding, math and science, yet they’ve appointed themselves to explain it to the rest of us.

[Update mid afternoon]

Well, how about that? There’s at least one real journalist working at CBS:

As the leaked messages, and especially the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file, found their way around technical circles, two things happened: first, programmers unaffiliated with East Anglia started taking a close look at the quality of the CRU’s code, and second, they began to feel sympathetic for anyone who had to spend three years (including working weekends) trying to make sense of code that appeared to be undocumented and buggy, while representing the core of CRU’s climate model.

One programmer highlighted the error of relying on computer code that, if it generates an error message, continues as if nothing untoward ever occurred. Another debugged the code by pointing out why the output of a calculation that should always generate a positive number was incorrectly generating a negative one. A third concluded: “I feel for this guy. He’s obviously spent years trying to get data from undocumented and completely messy sources.”

Programmer-written comments inserted into CRU’s Fortran code have drawn fire as well. The file briffa_sep98_d.pro says: “Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!” and “APPLY ARTIFICIAL CORRECTION.” Another, quantify_tsdcal.pro, says: “Low pass filtering at century and longer time scales never gets rid of the trend - so eventually I start to scale down the 120-yr low pass time series to mimic the effect of removing/adding longer time scales!”

Unfortunately, he had to do it at a blog. I wonder if it will ever show up as a CBS story?

Another: The Climate E-Mails and the Politics of Science

Viscount Monckton-Scientist debunking global warming. Now we start to understand why Al Gore did not want to debate.

Hide the Decline



This is from Pajamas Media. When awards are given, Pajamas Media will get the most for uncovering this huge deception. Well, maybe not. The Pulizer will go to CBS for their coverage of Glenn Beck inspiring the murder of the Kentucky census worker.

Roger Simon -- Pajamas Media

We all know the “t”-word. Our President has used it many times, as did former UN Secretary General Annan. It’s – all together now – transparency. Now the “t”-word is promised us in almost every campaign by politicians (and mega-bureaucrats like Kofi) and never delivered, so we’re used to looking at it with a jaundiced eye from them. But scientists, scientists, they are the big brains, the honest ones, the ones who, unlike cheap pols, work for eternity, like Galileo, Copernicus, Einstein.

Anyway, they were, until Climategate came along. Here from the Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit blog is a breathtakingly short and simple illustration of the values of Dr. Phil Jones, Director of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, from whence all these emails and documents concerning global warming have been lifted.

Phil Jones, Dec 3, 2008:

About 2 months ago I deleted loads of emails, so have very little – if anything at all.

Phil Jones, Nov 24, 2009 Guardian

We’ve not deleted any emails or data here at CRU.

Oops. Forget the “T”-word. How about the “P”-word (prevarication)? Or the “BFL” word (big fat liar)?

Now look – I want to be clear. I don’t necessarily disagree that anthropogenic global warming is a danger. I’m beginning to doubt it, but I certainly don’t know. What’s clear, however, is these scientists at CRU don’t know (or aren’t so sure) either. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been so guarded, so deceptive, with their data (what remains of it) for so long. They would have been transparent and shared the data with the skeptics if they were so sure they were right. It’s the scientific thing to do, as we all learned in grammar school, if you’re serious about the truth.

But thus far our President and his crew, not to mention our friends at European Union and the UN, are going along as if this download never happened. It’s full steam ahead to Copenhagen:



The United States, under pressure from other nations as one of the world’s largest greenhouse-gas polluters, will present a target for reducing carbon dioxide emissions at next month’s climate conference in Copenhagen, Obama administration officials said Monday.
The development came as the European Union urged the United States and China to deliver greenhouse gas emissions targets at the long-anticipated summit, saying their delays were hindering global efforts to curb climate change.

What’s confusing here is that we all agree – or most of us- that pollution is bad. What we don’t agree on, now more than ever, is the role of AWG, which is increasingly mysterious the more you read these documents. As Charlie Martin shows us, it’s not just the emails, it’s the data itself that is corrupt. We don’t know what we know. But the world is poised to spend untold billions or trillions on that basis.

I happen to favor energy independence, was once a Sierra Club member (okay, I got sick of them) and currently drive a Prius – and still I think this stinks.

(btw, check out the Guardian interview with Jones: “Some of the emails probably had poorly chosen words and were sent in the heat of the moment, when I was frustrated. I do regret sending some of them. We’ve not deleted any emails or data here at CRU. I would never manipulate the data one bit – I would categorically deny that.” Hint to Jones: Never use the word “categorically.” It’s a dead giveaway.)

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Can't forget this one



Aaron Copeland--Fanfare for the common Man

The common man ain't so common.

Appalachian Spring



As I listen to this piece, I picture myself traveling the roads of New England. On a clear sunny autumn day. Roads in New Hampshire hug flowing picturesque rivers. The air filled with the scent of her trees.

The music takes me back to something pure, wholesome, what America is. In all her glory. This piece captures all. Aaron Copeland, a brilliant man.

Lion and Friend


A couple of men who raised a cub in England and then thought best to release it. Back in Africa.

They went to try and find the lion, though chances were small that they would find it.

Here is footage of their meeting.

More on being vegan



Something that I find incongruent about myself.

If you read my blog, you quickly come to realize that I am a conservative. But at the same time, I am a vegan, which might be interpreted as being of the Left.

I would hope that I look at issues, and I just come to my own conclusion on what makes most sense. And if those conclusions land me on the Right, so be it.

In regards to being vegan: Yes I'm vegan, but that doesn't mean I am Left when it comes to that issue. Do I wish everyone was vegan? Yes. It would be my dream that we could treat the animals we eat, as we treat the animals we call pets.

But do I want the government to legislate veganism? No. Do I want any government programs propagandizing veganism? Again, no. It would be my hope that through one's own enlightenment, one changes his mind about how animals are treated.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Ed Driscoll



Thank God for blogs. It was the blogs that exposed the lies of Dan Rather and CBS. And it will be the blogosphere exposing the fallacy of man made global warming.

Think about this. For investigative journalism that doesn't conform to the left's agenda, you will will not find it in any main stream media. It is only belatedly, after the drumbeat is so loud, they are forced to cover it. To give them a semblance of journalistic integrity.

Another thought: And this is so sad but I think telling and true. If it wasn't for blogs, talk radio and FOX, likely the person who hacked in the computer at Anglia would be prosecuted and we would have heard nothing more about it.

That is why I'd love to know what really animates President Obama. There seems no way to find his writings from the past. Look at his past associations, both his pastor and a known terrorist. His reaction to the soldiers killed in Ft Hood. Climategate is going to be huge, but hopefully in time, this is only the beginning of the truth.

NY Times--Too Delicious



This is just too good. The paper of record.



And more from that evil right winger, Glenn Beck

Victor David Hanson


The Harder They Fall?

Who appointed over 40 ambassadors on the sole basis of campaign contributions, or has as many lobbyists in government as did any President in memory? And who releases touchy news—whether increased unemployment or trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civil courts—on Friday nights, or wants his Democratically-controlled Congress to debate unpopular legislation on Saturday nights?

You see where this is going. Prophets fall harder than normal politicians. When you claim that seas recede and planets cool before your presence, and that Latin mottos, new presidential candidate seals, neo-classical victory trophies, and faux-Greek temple sets are the appropriate backdrops for Your speeches, then you raise the bar a bit high. Obama is not necessarily any more partisan than a Nixon or Reagan or Bush, only just as partisan—but when he claimed something quite different.

Add in the hope/change mantra, and a cadre of lackeys talking about tingling legs, his majesty Caesar, and apotheosis into a “god”, and our young Icarus was simply soaring too near the sun for his own fragile wax-feather wings. The problem is not just that Obama is proving Clinton-like in his Chicago hardball partisanship (cf. the trash-talk of Rahm Emanuel, Mao-admirer Anita Dunn, or the Truther Van Jones), but that his entire persona was fabricated on a touchy-feely “there is no red state, no blue state America.”

Despite Obama’s vows to restore science to its rightful place in government (I think that was his dig at George Bush’s opposition to human embryo, stem-cell research), we get superstition. Instead of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ non-partisan, depressing unemployment figures, we are instead to rely on a new unproven notion of jobs “saved” and “created”, and in nonexistent, made-up congressional districts, listed, no less, on a government recovery.gov official website. War against reason?

Remember the “reset” button promises abroad? Do we have a safer, saner relationship with Putin? Is Iran closer to disarmament? North Korea quieter? Did George Mitchell transform the Middle East? Is the “good” war still good, the “bad” one still bad? Do the Brits feel the special relationship is stronger? Maybe Sarkozy is more impressed now with America, or are the Poles and Czechs?

And do Chavez, Castro, Ortega, Morales, Zelaya, and others in Latin America feel more pressure to be democratic or less? Is one third of the planet in India and China more comfortable with the messiah Obama or with the hated Bush?

At Home

And the future? Will the country look eagerly forward to cap-and-trade taxes? The new income tax rates? Will small businesses like the caps off FICA taxable income, and health car surcharges? Perhaps the people can get behind impending “comprehensive immigration reform” (in the way we are now for “comprehensive health care”), which will de-emphasize enforcement and emphasize amnesty?

As Obama’s popularity falls, expect his own partisanship to increase, and the Chicago brass knuckles to be more evident. Obama knows that he can hope and change only until he hits 35-40% approval ratings, and is rendered shouting to half-empty audience halls and a triangulating congress.

A final prognosis—or why Obama is in deep, deep trouble, since he won’t quit in his dream to transmogrify American into something like Belgium at best and Brazil at worse.

Millions of independents and swing voters went for Obama for five reasons: (1) they believed the media hype that Bush was the “worst” (fill in the blanks); (2) the sudden financial panic of September 2008 and the anger at Wall Street banditry and bail-outs; (3) Obama’s youth, charm, and oratory; (4) the feel-good novelty of voting in our first African-American president; (5) Obama’s centrist campaign message of paying down debt, working with allies, drilling, being tough against Al Qaeda, and being bipartisan.

It’s taken almost 11 months, but voters now know that propositions 1-5 are now refuted or irrelevant:

1) Bush is history. Like Truman, in time he will begin to look better not worse. More importantly, Bush’s sins that bothered voters— too much big government and big deficits—were simply trumped by Obama’s gargantuan deficits and federalization of health care, banking, and the auto industry. “Bush did it” doesn’t work any more. “Obama did it even more” is the new worry.

2) The panic that we would lose all our 401(k’s) and home equity has passed. What we are left with in its wake is a sinking feeling that badgering small business and the Chamber of Commerce, as if they are Goldman Sachs grandees, isn’t working. Raising income, payroll, and surcharge taxes at a time state, local, and sales taxes are surging, is, well, a good way to turn a recession into a depression—or at least a stagflating, weak recovery. Sometime around next March, “Bush’s did it” will transmogrify into Obama’s recession. Obama can’t run against the economy, but must fix it—or take the blame. His best hope is that the Republicans don’t run a demagogic figure such as he himself acted in 2007-8.

3) Obama’s smoothness is getting old. All of us can almost write the next Obama speech: a) “some” say/do, but “I” say/do… The bad straw man is set up, followed by the contrast of the annointed “I” and “me” ad nauseum. b) then comes the apology for the sins of the rest of us—mitigated somewhat by the election of , yes, Barack Obama, the first black President; c) third is the impossible: spending more on health care saves more; cap and trade massive taxes will result in economies; no more lobbyists means gads of them, Bush shredded the Constitution equates into I’m copying his anti-terror protocols; d) an end with hope and change ruffles and flourishes. Bottom line: the oratory is old and trite, given the lack of commensurate accomplishments.

4) On the matter of racial landmarks, some of the voters think, righty or wrongly, that they did their thing, proving America is not racist by the fact of Obama’s election. Now? A lot of independents, however, won’t seem obligated to vote in 2010 or 2012, motivated by the same sense of liberal assuagement of guilt. This been there/done that feeling will be accentuated should Obama’s supporters continue to play the race card as his popularity dips as a result of a statist and neo-socialist agenda.

5) We know now that the campaign was a centrist deception. Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright make logical the presence of the Truther Van Jones and Anita Dunn (cf. her encomium to Mao). His most partisan Senate record presages his near suicidal effort to ram through statist health care, tax hikes, and partisan appointments, in addition to polarizing rhetoric. His campaign promises to meet with Ahmadinejad were not only met, but again trumped by serial apologies, selling out the Poles and Czechs and outreach to Chavez and Castro. In other words, the so-called right-wing nuts who tried to scare the hell out of voters are proving to be Nostradamuses of sorts.

All sorts of things can happen. Printing and borrowing can give us a brief, though unsustainable recovery around 2010. A war could break out. We could get hit big-time again as in 9/11.

That said, I think not merely the thrill is gone, but a righteous anger about an Obama trifecta— of serial apologies and bows abroad, massive borrowing and deficit spending, and government-take overs of private spheres of life—is swelling up in the electorate. I haven’t seen in my lifetime anything quite like it. And this furor of being had has the potential not just to take Obama down, but also his ideology and supporters along with him for a generation.

Friday, November 20, 2009

George and Laura Bush



This is a post at Atlas Shrugs:

Bush kept his visit a secret, but you can't keep real goodness under wraps. Check this out: (hat tip sjb)

Down in Dothan, Alabama a man had a TV on in his office when the news of the military base shootings came on. The husband of one of his employees was stationed there.
He called her into his office and the minute he told her what was going on, she got a text message from her husband saying, "I am okay." The cell phone started ringing right after that. It was an ER nurse. She said, "I'm the one who just sent you a text, not your husband." She thought the message would be comforting, but she immediately knew she had to let the wife know what was going on. She said, "I am sorry but your husband has been shot 4 times and he is in surgery."

The wife left Southern Clinic in Dothan and drove all night.

Here is the photo I just received from my brother that was taken today in the hospital room. He is awake and will recover. His wife, who lives in Dothan, made it to Ft. Hood about the time he was waking up. Thought I'd share this great outcome.

Global Warming



Looks like we'll be hearing a lot more about this in the days to come.

How about it folks? We've been lied to. And this was no small lie.

Go ahead and believe that Bush sent our youngsters to die to enrich himself. Yes sir, Al Gore and Obama Two Nobel peace prize winners. Great, great men.

I cant' wait to see how CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and NBC spin this one.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ClimateGate: The Fix is In
By Robert Tracinski
In early October, I covered a breaking story about evidence of corruption in the basic temperature records maintained by key scientific advocates of the theory of man-made global warming. Global warming "skeptics" had unearthed evidence that scientists at the Hadley Climatic Research Unit at Britain's University of East Anglia had cherry-picked data to manufacture a "hockey stick" graph showing a dramatic-but illusory-runaway warming trend in the late 20th century.

But now newer and much broader evidence has emerged that looks like it will break that scandal wide open. Pundits have already named it "Climategate."



Robert Tracinski RealClearPolitics

A hacker-or possibly a disillusioned insider-has gathered thousands of e-mails and data from the CRU and made them available on the Web. Officials at the CRU have verified the breach of their system and acknowledged that the e-mails appear to be genuine.

Yes, this is a theft of data-but the purpose of the theft was to blow the whistle on a much bigger, more brazen crime. The CRU has already called in the police to investigate the hacker. But now someone needs to call in the cops to investigate the CRU.

Australian journalist Andrew Bolt has a good overview of the story, with a selection of incriminating e-mails that have already been discovered in the hacked data. Note that these e-mails reveal more than just what it going on at the CRU, since they involve numerous leading British and American climate scientists outside of the CRU.

These e-mails show, among many other things, private admissions of doubt or scientific weakness in the global warming theory. In acknowledging that global temperatures have actually declined for the past decade, one scientist asks, "where the heck is global warming?... The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't." They still can't account for it; see a new article in Der Spiegel: "Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out." I don't know where these people got their scientific education, but where I come from, if your theory can't predict or explain the observed facts, it's wrong.

More seriously, in one e-mail, a prominent global warming alarmist admits to using a statistical "trick" to "hide the decline" in temperatures. Anthony Watts provides an explanation of this case in technical detail; the "trick" consists of selectively mixing two different kinds of data-temperature "proxies" from tree rings and actual thermometer measurements-in a way designed to produce a graph of global temperatures that ends the way the global warming establishment wants it to: with an upward "hockey stick" slope.

Confirming the earlier scandal about cherry-picked data, the e-mails show CRU scientists conspiring to evade legal requests, under the Freedom of Information Act, for their underlying data. It's a basic rule of science that you don't just get to report your results and ask other people to take you on faith. You also have to report your data and your specific method of analysis, so that others can check it and, yes, even criticize it. Yet that is precisely what the CRU scientists have refused.

But what stood out most for me was extensive evidence of the hijacking of the "peer review" process to enforce global warming dogma. Peer review is the practice of subjecting scientific papers to review by other scientists with relevant expertise before they can be published in professional journals. The idea is to weed out research with obvious flaws or weak arguments, but there is a clear danger that such a process will simply reinforce groupthink. If it is corrupted, peer review can be a mechanism for an entrenched establishment to exclude legitimate challenges by simply refusing to give critics a hearing.

And that is precisely what we find.

In response to an article challenging global warming that was published in the journal Climate Research, CRU head Phil Jones complains that the journal needs to "rid themselves of this troublesome editor"-hopefully not through the same means used by Henry II's knights. Michael Mann replies:

I think we have to stop considering "Climate Research" as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal.

Note the circular logic employed here. Skepticism about global warming is wrong because it is not supported by scientific articles in "legitimate peer-reviewed journals." But if a journal actually publishes such an article, then it is by definition not "legitimate."

You can also see from these e-mails the scientists' panic at any dissent appearing in the scientific literature. When another article by a skeptic was published in Geophysical Research Letters, Michael Mann complains, "It's one thing to lose Climate Research. We can't afford to lose GRL." Another CRU scientist, Tom Wigley, suggests that they target another troublesome editor: "If you think that Saiers is in the greenhouse skeptics camp, then, if we can find documentary evidence of this, we could go through official AGU channels to get him ousted." That's exactly what they did, and a later e-mail boasts that "The GRL leak may have been plugged up now w/new editorial leadership there."

Not content to block out all dissent from scientific journals, the CRU scientists also conspired to secure friendly reviewers who could be counted on to rubber-stamp their own work. Phil Jones suggests such a list to Kevin Trenberth, with the assurance that "All of them know the sorts of things to say...without any prompting."

So it's no surprise when another e-mail refers to an attempt to keep inconvenient scientific findings out of a UN report: "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. K and I will keep them out somehow-even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" Think of all of this the next time you hear someone invoke the authority of peer review-or of the UN's IPCC reports-as backing for claims about global warming.

This scandal goes beyond scientific journals and into other media used to promote the global warming dogma. For example, RealClimate.org has been billed as an objective website at which global warming activists and skeptics can engage in an impartial debate. But in the CRU e-mails, the global warming establishment boasts that RealClimate is in their pocket.

I wanted you guys to know that you're free to use RC in any way you think would be helpful. Gavin and I are going to be careful about what comments we screen through.... We can hold comments up in the queue and contact you about whether or not you think they should be screened through or not, and if so, any comments you'd like us to include.

[T]hink of RC as a resource that is at your disposal.... We'll use our best discretion to make sure the skeptics don't get to use the RC comments as a megaphone.

And anyone doubting that the mainstream media is in on it, too, should check out New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin's toadying apologia for the CRU e-mails, masquerading as a news report.

The picture that emerges is simple. In any discussion of global warming, either in the scientific literature or in the mainstream media, the outcome is always predetermined. Just as the temperature graphs produced by the CRU are always tricked out to show an upward-sloping "hockey stick," every discussion of global warming has to show that it is occurring and that humans are responsible. And any data or any scientific paper that tends to disprove that conclusion is smeared as "unscientific" precisely because it threatens the established dogma.

For more than a decade, we've been told that there is a scientific "consensus" that humans are causing global warming, that "the debate is over" and all "legitimate" scientists acknowledge the truth of global warming. Now we know what this "consensus" really means. What it means is: the fix is in.

This is an enormous case of organized scientific fraud, but it is not just scientific fraud. It is also a criminal act. Suborned by billions of taxpayer dollars devoted to climate research, dozens of prominent scientists have established a criminal racket in which they seek government money-Phil Jones has raked in a total of £13.7 million in grants from the British government-which they then use to falsify data and defraud the taxpayers. It's the most insidious kind of fraud: a fraud in which the culprits are lauded as public heroes. Judging from this cache of e-mails, they even manage to tell themselves that their manipulation of the data is intended to protect a bigger truth and prevent it from being "confused" by inconvenient facts and uncontrolled criticism.

The damage here goes far beyond the loss of a few billions of taxpayer dollars on bogus scientific research. The real cost of this fraud is the trillions of dollars of wealth that will be destroyed if a fraudulent theory is used to justify legislation that starves the global economy of its cheapest and most abundant sources of energy.

This is the scandal of the century. It needs to be thoroughly investigated-and the culprits need to be brought to justice.

Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com.

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Piltdown Man

The "Piltdown Man" is a famous paleontological hoax concerning the finding of the remains of a previously unknown early human. The hoax find consisted of fragments of a skull and jawbone collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, a village near Uckfield, East Sussex, England. The fragments were thought by many experts of the day to be the fossilised remains of a hitherto unknown form of early man. The Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni ("Dawson's dawn-man", after the collector Charles Dawson) was given to the specimen. The significance of the specimen remained the subject of controversy until it was exposed in 1953 as a forgery, consisting of the lower jawbone of an orangutan that had been deliberately combined with the skull of a fully developed modern human.

The Piltdown hoax is perhaps the most famous paleontological hoax in history. It has been prominent for two reasons: the attention paid to the issue of human evolution, and the length of time (more than 40 years) that elapsed from its discovery to its full exposure as a forgery.

Cheap Eats




Alright, I realize I'm frugal. OK, I admit it. I'm downright cheap. This plate costs me $1.66 at Baja Fresh. I order the Beans n Rice plate, then I load up at the salsa bar. Pico de Gallo, Fresh mango salsa and differently spiced salsas.

OK, I'm not that bad. I order the corn tortillas, a dollar. Then a side of guacamole for another dollar. Oh yeah, and a cup to get water.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

You have no Choice



In the United States, we elected the most radical government in history. Congress is legislating away our choice for health care. Single payer is the goal. Don't pay into this plan, go to prison.

In the Preamble to the Constitution, it says: "We the People of the United States...promote the general welfare". It is this clause that gives Congress their authority. The arbiters to remove the decision making power of its citizens. Even though the citizens are against government run health care, Congress knows better.

Government realizes that the majority of the poputation is overweight, that cancer and heart disease are epidemic. Only they can make us better. It is their responsiblity to keep her citizens healthy. To them we go. To get the pills, medications and operations necessary.

Technology has now been advanced to remove human decisions about what we think constitutes "good health". Just a 5 minute operation, that includes a tiny implant. We no longer have to make decisions about our health.

Government is the answer to our problems. We must look to government to keep us safe, happy and secure.

When men look to the state to supply them with safety nets for life's expensive problems, they rest on a weak reed. The state must come up with the money to provide and maintain an ever-more complex web of safety nets. There is strong demand for safety nets. The first law of scarcity is this: "At zero price, there is greater demand than supply." The state supplies the safety nets. It then must pay for them.
Gary North

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Texas Governor

Texas Governor Says Obama Taking America Towards Socialism (Video)

Governor of Texas fearing Obama is making America socialist.

Listen to how the Obama administration wanted to bus captured illegals from the west to Texas. To punish Texas.

Fasting, Dr Fuhrman

This is my very first podcast.

El Palacio de los Jugos




This is my favorite restaurant, Palacio de los Jugos. Juice Palace. I love this place. It's in Miami, FL. My criteria for being a good restaurant: #1. It must be a hole in the wall.

I like watching the everyday people come to enjoy the very reasonably priced cuban food. Ropas viajas, plantains, a guy outside with a machete cutting coconuts. It's just a fun place. If you try to bargain with the guy serving the coconuts, he'll weild the machete and threaten to cut off your head.

I went there during one of Miami's famous thunder storms. From the parking lot to one of their several restaurant stalls, I had to swim. Thank God we carry scuba gear in our rental car.

My favorite are the juices. Jugo de zanahoria. Carrot juice. Any kind of juice you want, these Cubans do the real thing. Not this pussy stuff at your local juice bar.

The tables are set in rows. Good for talking to your neighbors seated near you. They ramble on in their cubanese, and I speak my gringo. Somehow we understand each other and enjoy each other's company.

Mis suegros, father and mother in law, introduced me to this great place. If you want to experience the Cuban culture, and eat some great food at low prices, this is the place.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Obama's Own Words





Obama says he is a muslim

And his Grandma says she's a Christian (from Robert Spencer)

Obama's "Christian" grandmother in Mecca for Hajj
Why the deception? And who was behind it? AP? The Obama camp? Someone else? What was its purpose?

AP, March 5, 2008:

"In the world of today, children have different religions from their parents," she said. She, too, is a Christian.
Is she really?

"Saudi Arabia: Obama's grandmother in Mecca for 'Hajj' ceremony," from AKI, November 25 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

Mecca, 25 Nov. (AKI) - The grandmother of US president Barack Obama has arrived in Saudi Arabia for the 'Hajj' or Islamic pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, a Saudi daily said on Wednesday. Sarah Obama, 87, is being accompanied by a nephew and Obama's cousin, Omran.
On Wednesday Sarah Obama was in the valley of Mina with an African delegation, according to the Saudi daily Okaz.

Obama, the mother of the American president's father, lives in a village in Kenya and is one of the many guests of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud....

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Bugsters Revisited



This is Lady Bugs, Bugsters, Bugger Butt, Bugs. The names are endless. You want to see someone with a lot of names. You should here what I'm called when my wife gets mad. Dios Mio.

Well, da Bugs is my best friend. At night, when I lay my head on my pillow, she jumps up on the bed. She goes to the head of the bed. She puts her head against mine.

We went to dinner Sunday at the my wife's parents'. Lady went for the dog food in the doggie bowl. She's ravenous. She could eat the Nathan's hot dog eating champion after he's won the contest. But I told Lady "no". Immediately she stopped. She went for it again, and again I said, "Bugger Butt, you can't eat that food".

Lady listened so well again. She's such a good dog.

So I went about my business, later I glanced at the doggie bowl, the food had disappeared. Curses, foiled by the Bugsters again.

I was sitting with Goober Butt the next day at Mickey D's chomping on a burger. Telling Butts what a goooood girl she is. What a disconnect. In one hand is death, in the other I'm petting my dog. Culture. It's like preening over our little baby, then walking next door and beheading some kid and not giving it any thought. Extreme, I know. Give me a break. I'm just trying to make a point.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

The World's Gone Mad


The perpetrators are the victims

The ones who have not suffered anything must be given special treatment from those who suffer at their hands.

The world has gone mad.

Well, at least this idiot won't have a fatwa.

I think this is the General's brother.

The media defends.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Human Life




This is the most powerful picture I have seen in my life. And here is more of the story behind it.

The baby has a defect. The doctor is doing an incision on the fetus, and as he's wrapping up the operation, a finger comes out of the sack and holds the doctor's finger.

I had a child born anacephalic and died shortly after birth. That we have the knowledge to diagnose the problem and then to fix it.... Just kudos is all I can say.

Powerful Picture



This is probably one of the most powerful pictures I have ever seen in my life

The Droid Phone



The Droid phone went on the market yesterday. I got mine.

I never thought I was much of a techie guy, but oh man, am I excited about this phone.

I've never had the I Phone from Apple, but my brother in law has one, and he is very happy.

Now, one thing I like about the Droid is that it is played down. Oh, it's not as good as the I Phone, but it seems to have some pretty good features, so the reviews say. I think the Droid is going to prove to be better than the I Phone. Able to change the battery yourself, multi-functional, uses Google's operating system. And the greatest thing about it: the Verizon network. Verizon is hands down the best service in the United States.

Here's an article about problems with the I Phone. Now I recently read that Steve Jobs is CEO of the decade. No doubt his company created a tremendous hit with the I Phone. But to have his phone on a network that can't deliver the goods, is a huge mistake.

If this Droid phone is really as good as I think it may be, I do believe you're going to see I Phone users switching over to the Droid.

Update: It's only been 3 days since I've had my phone, but I'm really excited about it. I don't know if I've ever been happier with a purchase in a long time. I'd like to be specific, but there is so much to like.

If you are thinking about buying the phone, you'll find getting accessories at Amazon a lot cheaper. I just bought a car charger for $25 at Verizon, and it's $3 at Amazon.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Hey Pres



Palestine celebrating 911

And then this is our president. The man who embodies America in these times of crisis.



Do you think Obama gives a shit? It sure looks like he doesn't. Oh how I wish those White House walls had ears. FWIW, I don't really think he cares. I'll bet after he read that statement about the Muslim terrorist (which is very un pc to call him that, you can bet your life Obama won't call him that) and got off the stage, he probably said "OK, what's next on the agenda".

Ladies and gentlemen, this is our president of this great country. We voted in a Muslim over a decorated POW 7 years after 911.



This man needed no teleprompter. Don't need one when your love for America is in line with the heart of other Americans.

This makes it all quite clear.

This goes back to the MSM.
This is top of the line journalism in our country
.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

A Little Odd



Why is it when in the airports, local government office buildings, and banks, the TVs are always turned to CNN?

If tracking numbers are correct, more people prefer to watch FOX.

Is it because FOX is not a news channel according to the Obama administration?

Or how about because it doesn't tow the MSM (main stream media) liberal party line?

Imagine. Watching FOX in these places is almost a subversive act.

We will know times are really changing when FOX is on.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Victor David Hanson



Victor David Hanson on Al Gore

Nov 4 2009 Election



So, apparently Obama wasn't watching tonight's election results. Guess they're not really that important.

I will say this again: It's not a matter of Democrat or Republican. This country is in a huge financial mess, and we're not going to get out of it by adding more taxes. Such as the VAT Value Added Tax that Pelosi wants to legislate. Or the Cap and Trade energy tax, or the Health Care tax.

This country is in a major recession and things are only going to get worse. To even think of adding more taxes, taking money and jobs away from citizens is even remotely the answer is ludicrous.

We have some serious issues. And it gets to the survival of our democracy, our country. Bitter pills will need to be swallowed. We need to at least start moving in the right direction, and that is what tonight's election is about.

This is from Market Ticker:

Political Winds Shifting?
Perhaps.

Two Democrats - governors - were ousted.

Why?

Taxes, lack of jobs, in short: It's the economy stupid!

The fiscal side of the picture is done. Those who are looking for some sort of fiscal stimulative posture out of DC? Forget about it. We had three of those (at least) which have been announced, and they have done nothing.

Now here's the challenge: The American People have had it with the job loss and with the vast and fast deterioration of their personal balance sheets and, more importantly, their cash-flow statements.

But these problems were two decades in the making with both Democrat and Republican governments. They are to a large degree the consequence of bogus and even fraudulent credit creation - practices that were not intended to help the economy along at all, but rather were designed to siphon off the wealth of ordinary Americans and hand it to a fistful of oligarchs.

This behavior has not only been tacitly approved by the silence of Washington DC it has been explicitly promoted and advanced by both Washington DC and The Federal Reserve - on both sides of the aisle.

Indeed, when it comes to Washington DC the government even went to court to block state laws that would have stopped a big part of the mess from happening - and succeeded.

Worse, the policies of both the Bush and Obama administrations have not addressed the problem nor forced the bad debt created by these policies out of the system - the millstone remains around the economy's neck!

You can't get away from the issues - "more taxes" isn't going to sell in a world of 10%+ unemployment and, whether the government claims it or not, high inflation in the prices charged for food and fuel over the last decade. The impact of this was masked by the fraudulent credit creation and asset bubble in houses, but now that's gone, laying bare the decimation of the average American's cash flow statement. The asset bubble intentionally blown in the stock market by Bernanke and his pals Geithner and Obama cannot make up for this; indeed, irrespective of the "big rally" the average American is still missing 30% or more of his money from the 2007 peak!

Yet now the budget deficits and fiscal debt of the government - the "big carpet" under which we shoved all the defaults of the private sector that should have bankrupted every large financial institution in the nation, now demands to be paid. You can either raise taxes dramatically or cut services dramatically, but in the end you cannot indefinitely grow debt faster than GDP, even if you're the government of the United States.

The bottom line is that the American People want "blood", and in fact they deserve it.

We the people, in the main, were scammed.

We didn't just make bad decisions, we were lied to.

We didn't just buy bubble houses, they were sold to us with outrageous misrepresentations of alleged "growth" in price to come; witness David Lereah's two books, and he was NAR's head economist!

We the people failed to understand the 6th grade math, but the banksters and government told us that there was no such thing as immutable exponential functions at work in the economy, and that this growth in a finite world - the world in which we live - was in fact possible.

The pain that is due to be taken has not been worked through the system, and in fact government has made the situation worse. Economic contraction is not over, despite the claimed "GDP" number - as I've said repeatedly if you go to the bank and borrow $20,000 on your credit card you are poorer, not richer, even though you might then spend that $20,000. Cook the books all you want but it won't change the average American's income - only a good job that pays enough to stay ahead of ramping mandatory personal spending does that.

Most of America has the true cost of health care ("insurance") hidden from them. Those who actually write the checks have seen those costs rise 10, 15, even 25% in a single year - every year for the last decade. You who are "W2" employees don't see it directly, but it in fact comes straight out of your pay, as employers do not offer you the salary increases you would otherwise receive - that money is instead diverted to your "free" insurance.

The Republican Party has a tough road here. They need to break up the oligarchs, and deal with the fact that the math is never wrong - and the sooner we deal with it, the better.

It won't be an easy sell, but if they fail to make it, or worse, win on the back Obama's refusal to deal with the banksters and then continue the "anything goes in ripping off America" policies that both Bush and Obama have countenanced and in fact explicitly endorsed, we will suffer a political and economic collapse unlike anything previously seen in the world - a catastrophe worse than Germany in the 1930s.

"May you live in interesting times" has new meaning this morning.....

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Braveheart-The Movie



I don't know music, but I do know that I like it. How brilliant that music can give you the feeling of the country, it's beauty and color.

Braveheart, another great movie

My 2 Favorite Movies



Schindler's List



And Empire of the Sun

Fear Of Public Speaking

I learned a lot from this video on public speaking.

As I've mentioned earlier, I'm a member of Toastmasters (TM). This week I will be giving my 5th speech. I'm actually looking forward to it.

When I first joined, TM has what is called "Table topics". You are asked a question, and in front of the other TMs, you speak impromptu for 1 to 2 minutes. I could not speak for over a minute. And I even tried repeating myself 2 to 3 times;-)

And I said, "TM is like church, you don't want to go, but once you've done it, you're glad you went". Now I look forward to going.

In fact, I'll probably be a TM for life. I'm looking forward to some great friendships. The quality of people is superior and I enjoy their company.

Louis Armstrong



I watch this great man sing. He brings tears. If I could wave my magic wand, it would be: I wish he didn't have to experience racism. He has given so much. We, through the rest of our lives, get to witness his magic.

Samuel Barber

Monday, November 2, 2009

Song of America





This is a travel blog that I subscribe to.

Written by a man so clear and passionate. Enjoy

Accumulation of Advantages



C Wright Mills:

I. No man, to my knowledge has ever entered in the ranks of the great American fortunes merely by saving a surplus from his salary or wages. In one way or another, he has come into command of a strategic position which allows him the chance to appropriate big money, and usually he has to have available a considerable sum of money in order to parlay it into really big wealth. He may work and slowly accumulate up to this big jump, but at some point he must find himself in a position to take up the main chance for which he has been on the lookout. On a salary of two or three hundred thousand a year, even forgetting taxes, and living like a miser in a board shack, it has been mathematically impossible to save up a great American fortune.

II. Once he has made the big jump, once he has negotiated the main chance, the man who is rising gets involved in the accumulation of advantages, which is merely another way of saying that to him hath shall be given. To parlay considerable money into the truly big money he must be in a position to benefit from the accumulation of advantages. The more he has, and the more strategic his economic position, the greater and the surer are his chances to gain more. The more he has, the greater his credit - his opportunities to use other peoples money - and hence the less risk he need take in order to accumulate more. There comes a point in the accumulation of advantages, in fact, when the risk is no risk, but is as sure as the tax yield of the government itself.

Once you have a million, advantages will accumulate - even for a man in a coma.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Passion for Life



I never realized this before. I have heard it said, "Where's your passion?" What I have come to realize is that we all are tremendously passionate. Everybody.

Everyone you see is extremely passionate. It's inside us all. That's the way were made.

It is through Toastmasters and speaking that I've come on this realization. We all are diverse and we all have our own wonderful stories to tell.

White rice only happens in our culture. Because this is what we live everyday. No. Our culture is diverse, enjoyable and challenging.

Materialism



Materialism. The word conjures negative thoughts. Eww, materialism, that's so bad.





I read where people who don't have anything, struggle with materialism. I would too if I didn't own anything. It's because of our grand Capitalist System that has allowed me to live a life the wealthiest of Kings could ever dream. If I pause to take thought of what one day of my life is like, how can I not be overwhelmed. That's why if there is not a God, I don't care. I'm going to give someone thanks, and it might as well be God. So Goddammit, thank you God. Thank you for this incredible life I have. Made possible by our fantastic political system, a bedrock of freedom throughout the whole world.

So the link above describes the evils of materialism. Designer shoes, owning as many houses as possible, decadence in society. (Go there yourself, read it, typical leftest BS).

Well, I do have a couple of houses. My home I live in and my vacation home. Do I want to own more homes? No. Why not? Because the cost to maintain them compared to their use doesn't make economic sense. Why own a home in China when I may only visit 10 times in my life? Wouldn't it be better to stay at the Ritz?

As regards to designer shoes. My wife and my favorite designers are called Payless Shoes and Walmart. Could we afford $500 pair of shoes? Yes. Do we buy them? No.

But as far as this never quenching desire for more things. I must say, I don't have a desire for anything. I have lived in the same home longer than anytime in my life. And I've got to tell you, I have everything I want. Of course I say no to many things, like owning a motorcycle (had 3 of those in the past), but all in all, I'm completely happy with what I have.

And I don't apologize for it. America and it's political and economic system has made it the world's envy. Now you may hate me for having a great life and that I'm unapologetic, but you anti-materialists, pick your ass up, put your feet where your mouth is, and move to Bangladesh.