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Nightly Ramble: Pizza, Anyone?

pizza-ramble

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere… BitsBlog’s Nightly Ramble

Quite a bit going on, today. Let’s get to it. And while we’re at it, let’s try something new with the formatics of these Rambles:

  • PIGS: You guys keep screaming that you want more evidence of this ‘stimulus’ package being pure pork. Here’s one more they don’t say much about. The Washington Times… the only real paper inside the loop, in my view… is reporting that [1]the bill as passed by the house provides 2.25 billion for the National Parks Service.  First of all, I’m a little skeptical that this has anything to do with our economy.  This is stuff that should ahve gone through the usual appropriations process. That it did not and instead gets stuck in a ‘we gotta do something in a hurry’ bill, is bad enough on it’s face. But go deeper. Turns out the head lobby type for the National Parks Conservation Association, the group that’s been the biggest backer of this kind of money,  is none other than the son of House Appropriations Committee Chairman and all around Democrat, David Obey. grateful  Trust me; this is political payback, not stimulus. Is this stuff anything new? I mean, we were told this was a new day in Washngton. How does Washngton  spending money like drunken sailors, constitute change, exactly? How does lobby types directly infleuncing where money gets spent constitute change? How, exactly, does kicking government money to a family member, constitute positive change, exactly? Heck, folks this has been going on for deacdes, and usually under Democrat rule.. The difference? The Democrats are doing it at record levels. This constitutes ‘change we can beleive in?’ I’ll tell you this; Obey is exactly the type of person who is going to be looking at William Jefferson and Charlie Rangel, to name two.  Are you getting the picture more clearly, now? Welcome to life with Democrats.
  • Stunning Hypocrisy:Ed Morrissey  posts a vid [2]of Rep. Jim Clyburn, who is one of Obama’s bestest buddies in Congress, scoffing at the 16 month withdrawal timetables.  This is simply more of what we saw with Obama himself, backing away from his leftist rhetoric, and being forced to face reality. Which is all to the good. But as Ed points out:

    .He voted in favor of withdrawal timetables during the Bush administration. Clyburn also made headlines by lamenting the possibility of progress in Iraq, as it would impede his party’s attempts to impose timetables for withdrawal. Now, suddenly, Clyburn (and Obama) care about the recommendations of the generals on the ground and have no use for artificial timetables.

    I wouldn’t even mind that, if they’d admit they were wrong in their positions during Bush’s administrations. Of course, they’ll never do that.

  • Boom times in Alaska:  Mt. Redoubt looks like it may be providing us some serious volcano footage [3], soon.
  • Directed Data Losses? rack2.jpg I’ve no doubt that this will be sold as a lone employee [4], reacting to getting fired.  But frankly, there’s an awful lot of people who would rather not have a lot of the Fannie Mae data available for forensics. Frank and Dodd, as well as the prominant Democrats who ran Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines among them. It seems logical to ask if there wasn’t more than one employee’s reaction going on. It would also be logical to mount a serious investigation. Because it’s logical, and because there’s a chance of whatever slimness that Democrats might get caught at something, I think I can fairly well say flatly,  such an investigation will never occur.
  • Not so bad after all? Turns out, the GDP wasn’t as bad as all that. [5] Of course it’s still an emergency requiring us to funnel billions of money we don’t have  to ACORN and the US Parks service, and contraception.
  • Oil is down; You’re going to hear alot about how much Exxon made last quarter today. [6] What you’re not going to hear much about is by how much their profits are down, and how little their profit margin actually moved, in recent days. Remember too, as I mentioned yesterday, Shell Oil’s actually losing money of late.
  • Funny Pic: A second place at OTB’s Caption Contest [7].
  • Baby Pic: Oh, speaking of OTB, James has more baby pics [8]up.