Campaign to Re-Reform Welfare

From the San Francisco Examiner:

If the recently enacted $787 billion economic “stimulus” package is intended to save or create jobs, why does it encourage states to move people from work back to welfare? Yes, you read that correctly. With virtually no debate on the issue, Congress approved the new law with provisions that effectively reverse the historic welfare reform law of 1996. That reform, crafted by a Republican Congress and signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, moved millions of people from welfare to work, while dramatically cutting poverty among single mothers and children

Bi-Partisan welfare reform was arguably the highlight of the Clinton administration.    Welfare reform was popular and even better it worked.   The fact that Nancy Pelosi and Dirty Harry Reid had to sneak through the repeal without debate is in of itself revealing.   Unreforming welfare is a losing proposition.  

The good news is that we don’t have to wait until 2010 to take back Congress and re-reform welfare.   We can do it now.   Barack Obama wants a second stimulus package Porkulus II   Let your representatives know that you want the Clinton era welfare reforms restored.   Demand to know what action your representative  will take to restore welfare reform and if  they oppose common sense welfare reform to tell you why.

If your representative is blue dog democrat, make him choose between supporting his district or supporting Mrs. Pelosi.  I have seen much, if any bite, out oft the blue dogs.  Can they be made to bite?

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read on the sphere: The Bitsblog Nightly Ramble

This is the “Like a freight train” edition. Always wanted to do a train, just never got around to it. The 3/4 shots, like this one, make ir hard to manipulate the text. All the odd angles take a lot of time to manuver around.

• Republican Revolution: Well, now, here’s a positive sign, and one I’ll sign onto in ANY such situation, no matter who the leader is. Seems that Republicans in California are a little annoyed that their leadership went along with the tax hikes out there.  That the Republicans were annoyed about that is newsworthy of itself. That they complain about it publicly is startling. But the real story here? Republican state senators were upset that their minority leader agreed to tax hikes . So what did they do?  They removed this minority leader from power, and replaced him with someone who was actually willing to stick to Republican principles.  Let’s hope this starts happening both in Congress and every state house in the country. I’m telling you folks, this is good news. As I’ve told you previously, the only way a Republican revolution is going to happen at the voting booth is if there’s a Republican revolution in the state house cloak rooms and meeting rooms, and that of Congress. Replacing the leaderhsip who refuses to fight… and i mean FIGHT for Republican principles, instead of the go-along to get along, ala John McCain.  McCain’s loss, despite bending over backwards (forwards?) to accomidate the Democrats,all to be seen as ‘non-partisan’,  can only be seen as a wakeup call… a call that California Republicans appear to be heeding.  Here’s hoping we see this trend move to the remainder of the party, all over this country.  the people that are the engine of this country are tired of being taken for a ride by a cluseless, corrupt Democrat party. 
• This stuff is starting to show up in waves, people. There was a near riot  at the Chicago Board of Trade today. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. (BBCT Billy) . The lynch mobs are already forming; Atlas is shrugging. Even High School kids know we’re being lied to.  There’s two ways Republicans can be in front of this crowd… leading it as a parade, or running from the angry mob they’re becoming.  And this thing is only going to get louder. Like a freight train. It’s time to choose, Republicans.
• Change we can believe in: Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence I see Chris Dodd is in even more trouble. This time, it’s campaign finances.
• Me, Too!!!   So is John Murtha.  
• Earmark Scandal: Speaking of Murtha, I see by way of James Joyner, today, that there’s an earmark scandal brewing with his name on it:
  

  A major earmark scandal, with Jack Murtha at its center, is brewing. Jonathan Allen and Alex Knott for CQ:

  More than 100 House members secured earmarks in a major spending bill for clients of a single lobbying firm — The PMA Group — known for its close ties to John P. Murtha , the congressman in charge of Pentagon appropriations.

  “It shows you how good they were,” said Keith Ashdown, chief investigator at the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. “The sheer coordination of that would take an army to finish.”

  PMA’s offices have been raided, and the firm closed its political action committee last week amid reports that the FBI is investigating possibly illegal campaign contributions to Murtha and other lawmakers.

  No matter what the outcome of the federal investigation, PMA’s earmark success illustrates how a well-connected lobbying firm operates on Capitol Hill. And earmark accountability rules imposed by the Democrats in 2007 make it possible to see how extensively PMA worked the Hill for its clients.

  In the spending bill managed by Murtha, the fiscal 2008 Defense appropriation, 104 House members got earmarks for projects sought by PMA clients, according to Congressional Quarterly’s analysis of a database constructed by Ashdown’s group.  Those House members, plus a handful of senators, combined to route nearly $300 million in public money to clients of PMA through that one law (PL 110-116). And when the lawmakers were in need — as they all are to finance their campaigns — PMA came through for them.

  That’s the very definition of quid pro quo.   It’s also, obviously, institutionalized…

  Clearly, this is at least how things are run under Democrat control. I won’t be overly shocked if we see the practice going back to the time when Republicans  ruled Congress, but I have my doubts we will. More likely, the Republicans who fall to this will have simply been playing the game as laid out by the Democrats… who after all, won. Or so we were told, repeatedly by the Chosen One. We were also told, as I recall it,  that the Dmeocrats would be the agents of positive change. Given the number of Democrats now under investigation for misdeeds in execution of power and the illegal efforts to obtain it (campaign funding scandals), it appears we’ve elected the foxes to bring serious change to the chicken coup. (And of course, they’ve been appointed, too)  I wonder if we recognize yet, the damage done already and what will soon be. I mean, look, we’re only a month into this thing, and look at how many deocrats are already caught up in scandal… all without the Republicans lifting a finger.

• MORE: Speaking of such matters, I see a judge has ordered the Spitzer documentation released.
• Which special interest group will give him more votes? So, Schumer’s trying to change provisions in the ‘stimulus’ bill as regards H1B workers? This isn’t going to go well with the Unions, Chuckles. 
• Facebook: You’ll recall I mentioned Facebook earlier this week. Charlie Martin dives into that subject.
• Here it is: Stephen Green makes the point I’ve been making for years… Like it or not, libertarian interests are still best served by the Republican Party.  Thing is, as I demonstrated in the first point, they’ve gotta be ridden like a rented mule.

How to counter a President who only knows how to campaign?    The perpetual protest.  Porkulus protest in Denver, Frosty Wooldridge, Examiner:

While President Obama landed in Denver to sign the largest spending package in the history of the United States, 500 Coloradans gathered at the Colorado State Capitol to protest selling future citizens into ‘generational debt’

Mortgage give away protest in Mesa, Arizona, Megan Boehnke and Gary Nelson, Arizona Central:

As President Barack Obama’s motorcade rolled onto the campus of Dobson High School in Mesa at 10 a.m. today, police quickly ushered protestors on both sides of Guadalupe Road at least 200 feet away from the long line of official automobiles and police motorcycles.

Nore than 90 minutes earlier, Guadalupe Road became a dividing line between protestors as they awaited Obama’s arrival for a town hall meeting on his plan to ease the nation’s foreclosure crisis.

 The more campaign stops BO makes and the more issues for which BO campaigns, the greater the supply of protesters.  The further BO gets away from Beltway press corps, the less spin he be able to exert.   Bring on the campaign.

Background, on Monday, February 16, police in Stamford, Connecticut shot and killed a two hundred pound pet chimpanzee.    The victim of the chimpanzee attack, Charla Nash, suffered major wounds and is still hopitalized.    We hope  that Nash can recover the best she can and we extend our sympathy to Sandra Herold who watched her friend get mauled and her pet killed.

On Tuesday, Barack Obama signed the god awfull Porkulus, so-called Stimuss, Bill into law.   Porkulus was largely written by congressional democrats behind closed doors.

Against this background, the New York Post published this cartoon.   The quip has a kind of Lenny Briscoe ring to it.   Good Jerry.

That written, several libtards jump off the deep end. Jammie Wearing Fool:

These liberal wackos are always looking for hidden messages. Clearly unable to understand what satire is, except of course when they rush to use the satire defense themselves

Like Michelle commented , and  Bit echoed, about the Bush-Hitler analogies, who knew comparing a president to a chimpanzee was offensive?    Further given that Porkulus was written by Congress and not the President, it is a stretch to even suggest that BO was the intended target.     Now Mrs. Pelosi or David Obey might be a different story.   Then not enough Botox to the the Speaker.

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere; The Bigsblog Nightly Ramble

This is the Towtruck edition. Seems to be the Naional car has quit, and is sitting at the sid eof the road. Our supposed leadership has decided that spending several million dollars on a set of gold-plated spinner rims is the answer,a dthey’re calling it ‘stimulation’… as opposed to buying some gas. Besides, it works with the viddie on the end of today’s post.

As usual, we do this in no particular order, today, just as I see it as I make the daily rounds.

• State vs Individual: Billy: I’m not sure you’re going to understand this, but…
  

  “The argument, as I see it, is predominantly…
  1. You will be better off with a government than you would be without one.
  2. Therefore it is necessary that you, and everyone else, accept the existence of a government.”I will happily stipulate to that being the statist argument. That’s it, essentially.

  The anarchist argument is essentially a defensive rejection. In this, the common objection to the anarchist “argument from a negative” (to paraphrase the oft-seen) is fairly correct: it is against the positive assertion of the statist. This is a matter of ethics, however: if one’s principal political value is the state, then “the negative” is no good not for reasons of logic or anything, but because it is against the positive assertion of the state. If one’s principal political value is the individual, then it is good and proper to assume the negative position against the positivist.

  The nature of the discussion seems to me to assume, incorrectly, that if one’s principal political value is other than the state, that one cannot by nature asume the government to have any proper role at all.   I submit, Billy, that keeping government in that proper role, however, requires an electorate which  has the ability to think for themselves at all times, and gets to act on it.  I see the current fight… and the fight of the last 100 or so years, as being centered on the government trying to break out of that proper role, and in it’s attempt to reinforce that position outside it’s proper role by preventing the latter two conditions. Then again such is logically always the case when government … of whatever sort… exists. Of itself that doesn’t mean government shouldn’t exist, anymore than chain saws shouldn’t exist. You’ve just got to be careful with the things, knowing the damage they can cause when you’re not being careful. That requires an alert people. The problem with government is some people are not. Which explains why I’m out here beating the drum, by the way.

• Burris admits it: Burris now admits to trying to raise cash for Blago as a part of securing that senate seat.  Who didn’t see this coming?  The Chicago Tribune wants him gone.      Rick Moran wonders if the Democrat covered his pay for play up so as to get the spending bill passed? A valid point, I think. Michelle thinks so, too. Even Glenn notes:
  

  NATIONAL JOURNAL: For Ethics Hawks, Congress Could Be Next. “House Democrats have done their best to tamp down smoldering controversies involving Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and John Murtha, D-Pa, chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. But the questions dogging the two are not likely to go away soon. . . . The ethics-sensitive tone set by President Obama may make it harder for lawmakers on Capitol Hill to sweep ethics controversies under the rug. However, observers differ over whether Obama’s new ethics rules have brought, or can bring, real change to Washington. There’s little disagreement that recent steps to strengthen the ethics process on Capitol Hill have been largely symbolic.” Symbolic mostly of a focus on symbolism rather than substance. Geez guys, get the book!

  Meanwhile, they’re even noticing at NPR: The ‘Culture Of Corruption,’ Redux. “Democrats are watching this closely, with apprehension.”

  The corrption wave is approaching, guys. When it breaks, things are going to be interesting indeed. My guess is it’ll start hapening around the midterm elections.  And won’t that be interesting?

• BUSHITLER crowd now gets offended.  After 8 years of putting up with the kind of nonsense at the right, here, the Kossacks are now suddenly all sensitive about such attacks being directed at Obama. OK, the whole thing is juvi at least, but here it is; Sorry, you get no sympathy from me, Kossacks.  None. Particularly when there’s far more in the way of similarity to the tactics and policies of Obama.
• Cat Racing? Do I really want to know, Chuck? One supposes it’s like herding cats… only faster.
• It’s the unions, Stupid: Bruce: Well done.  We still seem to be stuck in this mold, though, of not recognizing the elephant in the room. the UAW.  I keep saying this… and I’ve seen nothing whatever to counter the idea…  this whole thing has never been about saving the Big Three… this is about saving the UAW.  The fact was and remains that the very reason why the Big Three have to keep coming back for more bailouts is because the Unions won’t budge from their unsustainable wage and benefit demands, and unrealistic work rules. . And since there’s a Union-backing Democrat in the White House seemingly with a bent to sign taxpayer checks for whoever wants to finncially and physically support Democrats, there’s no reason for the UAW to make any consessions to reality. And this model will continue until the federal government stops issuing checks to make good the difference, for whatever reason… most likely the well being dry… or we get rid of the unions. Don’t expect the Big three to complain at any listenable volume anytime soon for relief from the Unions, either. With efforts such as unionization-by-intimidation otherwise known (Laughingly) as card-check, the message that the unions will be getting support from the government has not been lost on the Big three, you see. Thus, bringing these facts about the UAW and it’s excesses will not be brought up by the Big Three anytime soon… and for the same reason… the only way out of this box the Unions and the government have created, is to grovel in front of the government and the unions and accept the taxpayer funding.
• It’s not as bad as we’re being told: Victor Davis Hanson has a great article up at Pajamas Media today, about the Depression, Recession, Downturn — Whatever.
• Hamas Lied? Who would have even considered that?
• More Democrat corruption: It’s a measurement of the way things are in the world of Democrat party politics that this story hasn’t raised much of a ripple, even.  Up to their eyeballs in reports of fraud among Democrats are becoming an every day occurrence.
• Driver’s Ed: With a BBCT to Neal Boortz, here’s why I don’t trust other drivers.

Shakespeare, in Henry IV, Part One, 1596:

‘The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.’

Martin Luther King,  Selma, Alabama, A.D. 1964:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Eric Holder, Attonery General, United States of America, Devlin Barrett, Associated Press:

WASHINGTON-Attorney General Eric Holder described the United States Wednesday as a nation of cowards on matters of race, saying most Americans avoid discussing awkward racial issues.  In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives.

[…]

Race issues continue to be a topic of political discussion, Holder said, but “we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race.”

He urged people of all races to use Black History Month as a chance for honest discussion of racial matters, including issues of health care, education, and economic disparities.

Good idea Mr. AG.  I”ll get back to you during White History Month.

As to the actual black socioecomic dispartiy, we can postulate three causes, or combinations thereof.  

One, nature, that different outcomes can be attributed to different biology   Advance this theory and be denounced as a racisst.   Just ask Charles Murray.

Two, nurture, different cultures produce different personal capital which leads to different outcomes.    Advance this theory and be denounced as a racist.  Ask Bill Cosby.

Three, white anti-black racism, bad black outcome is all the fault of  white men.   Advance this theory and become part of the world of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

Only the last theory is safe to posulate in public, but it is becoming every increasingly harder to find actual white anti-black racism.   Oh sure you can find white racists, but in large part, aside from the United States  Senate, they don’t hold positions of power.   It is pointless, and often dangerous, to discuss subjects where actual discusssion of the subject is taboo.    Openly disucssing racial issues is a losinog proposition, nothing to gain, but much to lose.

Addendum:

Michelle fires it right back at Holder:

Holder doesn’t want an honest dialogue about race. In the Age of Obama, “talking enough with each other about race” means the rest of us shutting up while being subjected to lectures about our insensitivity and insufficient integration on the weekends.

I think Holder ought to stick to what he knows, kidnapping children.

Cassy Fiano:

How much longer will the country look the other way? I won’t hesitate to say that Planned Parenthood is an evil organization. Even if you’re pro-choice, who sees abortion as something so positive and wonderful that you’d go to these lengths to manipulate women into getting them? If abortion is to be legal, shouldn’t it at least be a last stop, the final option?

How judgemental!   We, as a society, can not put a stop to evil if we are blind to it.

Ronald Reagan

It’s true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?

So it appears that one, of the multitudes, of analogies Barack Obama makes to past presidents one is at last true, Rick Moran, American Thinker:

President Obama, we are told, usually arrives in the Oval Office a little before 9 a.m., some two hours later than his predecessor, George W. Bush. This enables him to read the newspapers before coming to work (as F.D.R. and Reagan also did) and to spend time with daughters Malia and Sasha before they go to school. “I have never seen him happier,” Mr. Obama’s longtime adviser, David Axelrod, told The Times.

But then, Lauri B. Regan, American Thinker:

Who would have thought that a CEO position would be tiring? And not just any CEO but the President of the United States, the leader of the free world, the Commander in Chief and the Messiah. Apparently Barack Obama had no idea that all of that hard work would actually be just that — hard work.

I quess for one who thinks of himself as a messiah, just showing up for work, at all, constitutes hard work.   I mean it is not as if BO has any practical experience actually doing the job to which was elected.

With all the attention being placed on the story out of Buffalo about the beheading of Aasiya Z. Hassan the other day,  I’ve been watching the Buffalo outlets a bit more closely.  This morning, I note this story from yesterday, in the Buffalo News,  of which, I’ll echo a bit:

Nazim Mangera felt tears welling in his eyes as he said the final prayers over the body of Aasiya Z. Hassan around sunrise Tuesday morning.

Mangera wasn’t upset just by the loss of this vivacious, intelligent 37-year-old woman or by the vicious way that she was killed when she was beheaded Thursday.

He also was upset about suggestions that the Islamic religion may have had something to do with her death, that this may have been an “honor killing” tied to Muslim tradition or culture. Orchard Park police have charged her estranged husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, with her killing.

“We’re all shocked. We’re all grieving,” said Mangera, imam of the Islamic Society of the Niagara Frontier. “To compound that, we have to face the difficulty of the religion of Islam being blamed for [the killer’s] personal actions. It was an individual person who did this act, for whatever reason. We don’t find any justification in the Islamic religion for any such violence.”

Mangera was upset about suggestions that Muslim attitudes, especially toward women, have been blamed for the Hassan killing.

And he disputed the notion made by others that any connection between Islam and “honor killing” comes from an extreme right-wing Islamic faction that uses the Quran for its own purposes.

“The main concern of the Muslim community is that whenever a Muslim does something wrong, Islam goes on trial,” Mangera added.

But what about the fact that Aasiya Hassan was beheaded, an act considered part of some Eastern cultures and traditions?

“Beheading has more to do with culture and country of origin [than religion],” Mangerastated. “It has nothing to do with Islam. We abhor domestic violence, and we categorically denounce it in all forms.”

(Sigh)

Within these spaces here at BitsBlog, I’ve made connections between western advanacement and the Judeo-Christian ethic many times, over the years.  The case for that connection on a historical basis I consdier to be unarguable, as is the case of the reasons behind our decay as we slip away from those foundations, as a people.  I have suggested that our culture and it’s value structures, even for unbelievers, is driven by the values taught in that Judeo-Christian ethic.  I’ve argued further that our status in the world diminishes as we move away from those values.

So it is, with the Muslim world… their relative success in the modern world, or rather, more honestly, the lack of it, in terms of their ability to interface with other cultures, particularly, stems directly from their own culture, which in turn is driven by it’s own moral code as laid out in Islamic tradition.

I find the attempt to separate Islam from it’s cultural ramifications pathetic at best, and at least dishonest.

KJL notes the story at The Corner, this morning, and says, correctly I think:

How refreshing and important could it have been if the imam of the Islamic Society of the Niagara Frontier used this as an opportunity to take an offensive role instead of a defensive role? Instead, he takes offense that we notice the killer is a Muslim. There will be honor killings until the imams of Islamic Societies the world over are outraged not by outsiders making connections but by Muslims who kill.

Exactly so. The larger picture Lopez points out though, takes an ironic twist when we note, as we have before, that Muzzammil Hassanwasrunning a TV network, with the specific purpose of trying to better the image of Islam and it’s people. As I said last Friday, I think we can register that effort as a failure of epic proportions.

But isn’t the lesson here, that one is not going to be successful in raising the image of Islam and it’s people, without contronting directly and overcoming it’s negative side?

Phyllis Chesler, who has been tracking this story more closely than I, at Pajamas Media says in an entry dated the 17th:

Yesterday, I published my study: “Are Honor Killings Simply Domestic Violence?” in Middle East Quarterly. To the best of my knowledge, it is the first such study of its kind. You may read it in full HERE. It will be out in hardcopy at the beginning of March.

If we refuse to understand what an honor killing is and how it differs from western-style domestic violence, we will not be able to prosecute honor killers, grant asylum to those in flight from being honor murdered, nor will we be able to educate people against honor killing. Many Muslim-American organizations insist that honor killing is “Un-Islamic.” Yet, many scholars of Islam equally assert that the Qu’ran as well as custom permits grave punishment for “disobedient” women.

An honor killing does not only involve the misogynist control, isolation, soul-degradation and physical battering of a woman- although such abuse may precede an honor killing. An honor killing ends in the girl or woman’s murder. Most domestic violence in the West does not. An honor killing is a family-enabled and culturally and religiously approved form of “femicide.”

The bolding on the last line of the quote is my own. Note the word ‘AND’, here. That is true because as with the afore- mentioned Judeo-Christian ethic, the religion of Islam is totally inseperable from it’s cultural consequences.  Witness; They’re burying one of those consequences this morning at Buffalo.

Chesler again:

I know this is hard for us to believe but in Muslim lands and in many Muslim immigrant communities, an ownership/protector mentality, which is completely justified in the Qu’ran, normativelycharacterizesthe relationship of fathers and daughters, husband and wives, brothers and sisters. Verbal abuse and physical violence is not criminalized. Ninety percent of the women in Pakistan are routinely beaten in both their childhood and when they are married wives and mothers. A recent study confirmed that “annually, one million Pakistani women are beaten while pregnant.”

So what do we in western culture do?  We treat the culture that accepts this behavior as cultural equals. The result is totally and sadly predictable.

I’ll point out that I have also argued repeatedly and strongly over the years that not all cultures are equally valid in today’s world, and that instead of aiming at equal respect for all cultures, under the  high-minded-sounding banner of ‘multiculturalism’  we should be in fact aim at being, in effect, cultural Darwinists. We open ourselves up to the kind of violence we saw in Buffalo the other day, when we treat such a culture as ‘equal’… cultural treatment which the murdering husband, Muzzammil Hassan endlessly promoted on his TV network.  Even someone supposedly so committed cannot separate himself from behavior which the west finds objectionable..

If we are honest, at some point, we need to reject the kind of culture that includes honor killing as a valid response to a perceived slight.  But in the doing, we also need to consider what is at the roots of that culture, it’s driver… in this case, Islam.. and reject it as we, as being causal. If we are being true to our own culture, and to advancement of the world, for that matter, we can do nothing less.

While sitting with my morning coffee, I note an interesting question over at Transterrestrial Musings in their comments section, there:

How come the Left always preaches ‘sustainability’ or ‘it’s for the children’ … until it comes to their economic plans?

The answer is of course is rather simple; Liberals do not understand economics. To understand that what they’re selling isn’t sustainable, would require that, for example, they understand, and are able to work within the law of supply and demand. Demonstrably, this is something that the left… and alas many co-called centrists, have shown themselves repreatedly to be unable to do.  

 Liberals figure the pockets of the taxpayer are bottomless, and that there is no end of the money they can apporpriate to themselves for their own suppsoedly higher purposes.

If you think I’m kidding about that, watch what happens, now; a new, and massivly higher baseline in spending has now been set.  Any attempt over the next several years to roll back these massive spending increases, will be decried as a ‘cut in spending’ and the Democrats will fight it tooth and nail. forget that the increase cannot be sustained… That’s why they’ve not been particular concerned over what this spending bill… (They call it stimulus) … actually spends money on. All they’re concerned about is that it it is spent on something.

It’s a setup.

Steve Gilbert, Sweetness & Light:

Folks irked by Obama coins that are simply stickers placed on 50-cent pieces

Somehow it seems all too symbolic, doesn’t it?

 Video:

Hat tip and more,  Moe Lane, Red State, who write:

‘Commemorative Obama coins’ not as advertised.

It does seem fitting.   Barack Obama commemorative coins are not what they were adverised to be and the Obama adninistration is not what was promised in the campaign.

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the ‘sphere the ever more popular BitsBlog Nightly Ramble, the “Keep on Ramblin'” edition.

• The hound the Wold and the Sheep deciding what to ahve for lunch: By way of Glenn, I note Reason TV asking:
  

  “Why does the United Auto Workers union and President Obama want taxpayers to reward Detroit—and punish her competitors—for making unprofitable cars?”

  

  Come on, you knew I was going to do this graphic someday, right?

  That, of course, miscasts the situation. The cars and trucks Detroit wants to build are in fact profitable… witness… people are bying them… the trouble is government and the unions are making them unprofitable with wildly unrealistic regulations and taxes, along with wildly unrealistic wage and benefit demands. The trouble is, neither is about to admit they’re the problem. Since the government interventionists and the unions now ahve the power of government on their side… when the power of government is exactly the problem, you can pretty much figure the big three are toast.

• Meanwhile back in the real world: If you want an example pointing out that sans Unions, companies can be profitable, watch Walmart.
• If it worked for THEM…. The State of Kansas has suspended income tax refunds. Does that mean the Citizens of Kansas should start charging the state penalties and interest? After all, when the citizens of Kansas don’t meet their ‘obligations’, taht’s what the state does to them.  I’d like to see the tables turned around on this one.
• Hoping we don’t see it:  Here in New York, the Vampire State,  Gov. David Paterson took the pay increases of 130,000 state workers away because, he said, of the budget crisis He then turned around and gave raises of as much as 46% to his staffers. He must figure everyone’s as blind as he is. Needless to say, Patterson’s a Democrat.
• Bottom looks like up: The approval rating of Congress is up… all the way to 31%. What a joke.
• Betrayal?  No, Camille. (Audio) It’s only betrayal if you believed them in the first place. If you did, you’re not as smart as I thought you might be. Frankly, what they’re leaning toward.. IE; Overt control over speech is part and parcel of what the Democrats have become the last few decades. We’ve been saying that here, all along.
• Losing one’s head: That beheading south of Buffalo that I wrote about on Friday, is still getting attention.  Odd, though, how we don’t hear much about the beheadings on the Mexican border. I keep hearing 30 people… well, heads, anyway.. last month alone. Can you imagine why nobody’s paying any attention to this one? I know I can.
• Let’s (Not) face it:I’ve never gotten into Facebook, for reasons of trust, mostly. As it turns out that mistrust is justified.
• The verdict is in, apparently:  Michelle points out:
  

  On Nov. 4, after Barack Obama clinched the White House, the market closed at 9,625.28. — In mid-morning trading today, the day President Obama signs his massive Generational Theft Act into law and a day before he unveils a massive new mortgage entitlement, the Dow dropped to to 7,606.53.

  Can we take this as a verdict on Obama, yet?  I think so. Gateway Pundit notes this link and grumbles:

  The Democrats are driving the economy off a Cliff to Nowhere.
  …But, at least they got their pet pork projects funded.

  Liberal Values complains:

  Anyone have any doubt that they will try to blame the current economic crisis on Obama if they run out of ways to blame it on Clinton? One example comes from Michelle Malkin who points to the stock market declines since Obama was elected (not even when he took office) as if the problem occurred under his watch as opposed to under Bush.

  Of course, this reveals not only overt denial of the facts as established, but also a total lack of understanding how the market works. Investors by the nature of the action are about assessing risks in the near and distant future. They looked at the election and the anti-business rethoric Obama’s been spewing for years, and labeled him a disaster, they’re backing off and they’re taking their money with them.  They don’t like what they see.  As it turns out that “disaster’ label has been more than justified. That’s a point Liberal Values will never admit.

•  John Hawkins has a great bit up at Pajamas Media  on how to turn the GOP around. A must read.
• Oops: I forgot:  The Roland Burris revelations, admissions and retrenchments continue apace.  As I say in an upcoming column, it strikes me as one of the many optical issues Obama is dealing with. (Meaning, it doesn’t look good for anyone attached to it, including Obama)
• Well? Cheney pushed Bush to Pardon Libby? I’d think less of him if he didn’t frankly.  And yes, that means Libby should have been pardoned.
• Flight 3407: By the way, the Flight 3407 Memorial services being listed now… Buffalo’s Channel 2 has the best list of them I’ve seen so far..  Other than my initial post I’ve not commented much on the subject, essentially because with all the traffic on it, there was little to add. I was interested, though to note that it was the first casualty accident in a couple years, in the entire country. Odd thing; Until a buddy mentioned that today, I’d forgotten hearing it’d been that long since the last accident, just a couple days before the crash. Perhaps that’s why such incidents generate the shock they do; Loss of life aside, They’re unusual.
• Parting comment on 3407: I complain loud long and bitterly about most government. At the same time, I’ve long said that there  is a proper role for government to play, and good people attached to government, who are too seldom recognized because of all the poor excuses for human beings attached to government, and who misuse it. I do have to give the ME’s offices around western NY, the FAA, NTSB and so on a verbal (Written?) pat on the back, here. Deconstructing that kind of scene, dealing with trying to figure out what happened, dealing with body ID’s and such… dealing with remaining family members, and the emotional impact that comes with all of that…. It must be said that’s a thankless job that nobody, I think, can walk away unscarred from.  In a sense, those folks are  injuring themselves in the service of their fellow man, and here’s one blogger who doesn’t mind acknoledging that service. A special nod of respect, too, goes to the first responders on that scene. I can think of very little that’s more heart-wrenching than hauling butt to get to a scene like that and recognizing, as quickly as they apparenty did, that there was nothing for the people on that plane. Buddy of mine works at one of the local hopsitals, and he tells me they held his shift for a while thinking they’d need the extra manpower. As it turned out of course, they didn’t, and sent the extras home before midnight that night. His reaction, inside was a dejected sadness that he wasn’t able to do more for the problem.  And he wasn’t even at the scene, with all the wreckage in his face, all the fire, the noise, and the cold.  The frantic attemtps to save life, for naught.  Imagine the midset of those who were there,and who are even now, there, sifting through the wreck.  Despite having known this kind of person, and working with them, nearly all my life,  I’m still amazed and thankful that such people exist.  As should we all be.

Often attributed to  Isoroku Yamamoto:

“I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

Someday to attribued to the leftstream media:

We fear all we havce done to aawken a school of sleeping baracudas and filled them with terrible resolve”

Bristol Pallin show that baracudas run in the family, video:

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit.  “Baby Cuda”, I love it.

Addendum:

“Mama Cuba” has teeth as well, video:

Hat tip:  Ed Morrissey, Hot Air.

Darn good advice Sarah gave to BO.   True shame hei did not heed it

Welcome one and all to the most intense nightly read on the ‘shpere… Bitsblog’s Nightly Ramble

This is the President’s day edition. Historians say that Lincoln had his car serviced here. Then again, these are the same people who think FDR and his socialism made the depression shorter.

• Mandates: So, Crazy Uncle Hugo thinks the rigged election is a mandate for socialism? Interesting that Obama sounds so much like him, isn’t it? Daniel Duquenal has a nice piece on Chavez at Pajamas Media, this morning.
• (Mumble) Birthday: Kim Jong Il is 67, today. Here’s hoping someone manages to find a way to prevent him making 68.
• Where was he born? So there’s another lawsuit against Obama, demanding he prove his citizenship by coughing up his birth certificate.  And look, call it a hoax if you like, but  as you do, explain to me why Obama is so bent on not complying with the demand. Wouldn’t it make sense to produce the thing to shut them up and expose the meme that Obama’s not qualified as a natural born American, as a hoax?  Assuming he actually has one, what could it hurt to make it public? Or, is saying that has has a legt cert of birth assuming too much?
• Up in the air: Canada wants a passenger bill of rights. According to the proposal, Airlines would pay fliers  $500 per person for each hour they are stuck on a plane on the tarmac, for whatever reason. I wonder if that includes the government owned airlines, eh?
• What’s fair?Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air points out that Obama’s people are no longer issuing denials on the ‘fairness’ doctrine.  And Bill Clinton wants it.   So does New York Congressman Maurice Hinchey. Do you believe me yet when I say they’re going to push for it?
• Feeling the heat: More confirmation that Chris Dodd is vulnerable at the next election. That’s OK, I expect the majority of Democrats in both houses are. And as I’ve indicated before, their own internals are telling them exactly that. Even assuming the Republicans don’t get their act together, the Democrats are saying internally that they’ll lose 50-60 seats in the house and a siilar percentage in the Senate. Two points about that; 1: Democrat internal polling always favors Democrats. 2: My guess is that between now and two years from now, the Republicans will get at least a bunch of their act together.
• Here’s what he calls “Change  you can beleive in”: Jonah points out that those Obama commemorative coins they’re selling are 50 cent peices and quarters with stickers on them.  So, the people that were duped into voting for Obama, were also duped into buying fake coins to commemorate their mistake? Yeah, that fits. There’s something that just rings true… something that just fits, something that is representitive, in this. Hang onto those coins, kiddies. You’ll need ’em before this disaster called ‘Obama’ is over. Of course by then,  with the direction he’s got the economy moving, the 50 cent pieces won’t be worth a  dime… particualrly if they’ve got those damn stickers on ’em.
• Don’t lose your head: Phyllis Chesler over at Pajamas Media speaks to the behading in Buffalo I wrote about on Friday.  I wish now I’d given it the full treatment, on Friday, perhaps even sending it on to PJM.  Oh, well.  Phyllis gets this one right, though, so it’s all good.
• Too late to give him back: Politico takes the subject of Roland Burris who I wrote about over the weekend and expands on it.  So does the Chicago Sun-Times.
• You’re fired: They’ve  released the name of the guy who set those fires in Australia.  Big hairy deal. In my view, it’s the local councils there that should be on trial. Their intervention, prohibiting common sense fire abatement in their ‘green initiatve; is the real culprit. That huge fire would ahve occurred eventually, anyway… this moron just hastened the day.
• Instant crowd:   Oh, boy. Here we go again with eight kids.  Yeah, another one, looks like. I wonder if Ed Rasimus, who has been following the Nadya Suleman thing, and has a great writeup on it,  has heard of this one, yet.
• Do we have clearence, Clarence? Yeah, I know…Maybe a little outta place, but these sad days you gotta get a laugh when you can.  Anyway, that plane that went down at Clarence NY the other day, was reportedly on Autopilot prior to the problem.  As I gather it, there’s nothing illegal about that, or even unusual. The way the investigation’s going, though, it’s looking like my original call was the right one: Icing. 
• Gerry Niewood: By the way, among the dead is one Gerry Neiwood, who I’ve written about before, in another Ramble.  One of the most memorable sax solos I know of, was on Chuck’s “Freinds and Love” from 1972…and it was Gerry.  Yeah, he’s been with Chuck a long, long time.  And I can still hear that solo playing in my head, just now.   Coleman Mellett, also with Chuck’s band for years, was also on that flight., They were coming back into Buffalo to play a concert with Chuck. That concert has been postponed, at least. I hear they had a concert planned at Beaver Creek Colorado, on the 27th, too… and the status of that I don’t know.  If you’re in the Northeast, there are still a number of concerts listed in the area, a lot of them in southern Ontario Canada, over the next few months.  I’d guess they’ll be back on the road as therapy, if nothing else, before long.  I hope so; I can’t imagine Gerry wanting it any other way.
• Names of 3407 victims:  As I go to press, I notice that Fox has a partial names of the victims of 3407 up. I won’t urge you to pray for them, since as Steinbeck once put it, their paths are already laid out. But saying one for the folks left behind is worthwhile.
• Where are they now? Speaking of music, a nod to Scott Fybush, who says:
  

  What the heck is the “Automatic Radio” being heard on 1430 at the moment? It’s a continuous loop of the new album “Low Expectations” by the local band Ernie and the Automatics – and it’s appearing non-stop on 1430 because “Ernie” is none other than car dealer Ernie Boch, Jr., who may well be the single most prolific buyer of radio ad time in New England. (He’s got legitimate musical chops, too – he graduated from Berklee College of Music, and his band includes two original members of the band Boston.)  This isn’t the first time Clear Channel has yielded up an entire station to a car dealer – we’re thinking of the stunt a couple of years ago that turned a Rochester FM signal into “Huge Radio” – but it may well be the first time an entire radio station has been turned over to the promotion of a single album. We’re told “Automatic Radio” will continue on 1430 until March 2, at which point “Rumba” is expected to return to simulcast mode.

  OK, total station buys aren’t all that weird anymore, though a local band doing the buy is a little odd… but…Wha…??? Two Boston members?  Hmm. I’ve always been a Boston fan.  So, I do a little research and I found the band’s site.  Click that link, and prepare to rock, Jack… nice audio.  Barry and Sibby are in the band, and anyone who can keep up with those two has got some serious chops. 

Heather MacDonald got an awful lot of traffic around blogdom for her anti-religious rant:

Will Bill O’Reilly or anyone else who saw the hand of God in the safe landing of US Airways Flight 1549 this January please explain why God chose not to save Continental Connection Flight 3407, which plunged into a house outside of Buffalo last night, killing all 49 people on board and a resident on the ground?

Among the explanations which will not be accepted: “humans cannot possibly fathom God’s mysterious ways.” Oh yes they can, apparently – when something good happens. Having found proof of God’s love in the safe conclusion of US Airways Flight 1549, believers cannot now turn around and claim that God’s ways are veiled just because something disastrous happens. If it’s legitimate to infer beneficence from a happy outcome, it is equally plausible to infer malice or at least indifference from a negative outcome. You can’t pick and choose the actions in which you find God’s will transparent.

As a believer, I have a great problem with this aspect of Ms MacDonald, but frankly given some projects I’m working on at the moment didn’t really ahve time to delve into her tirade too deeply. I found it interesting, however to note Dan Calabrese firing back:

OK. First of all, Ms. MacDonald is welcome to try to make the rules by declaring the kinds of answers she will or will not accept, but just because she won’t accept an answer doesn’t mean it can’t be the correct one.
—
For starters, God’s involvement in the safe landing of Flight 1549 need not amount to a supernatural event that was the only thing preventing its demise. Obviously, Flight 1549 had an exceptional pilot who did his job extremely well. But we don’t have to make an all-God or no-God choice, as Ms. MacDonald seems to insist we do.

—
What we can say, however, is that Ms. MacDonald doesn’t get to make the consistency rules for God, however much she may want to. Christians understand this to be a fallen world in which, because of the power of sin, bad things happen to all kinds of people – good and bad people alike. When God spares us from harm, we are exceedingly grateful, particularly because we know he isn’t obligated to always do so, and we don’t know the reasons he chooses to intervene in some situations but not in others.

I’ll urge you to go and read the rest. It struck me, though in reading Dan’s response that MacDonald has never read, or at least never understood, Cardinal Newman’s writing… as he spoke on what constitutes a gentleman… or in this context, one presumes, gentlewoman:

If he be an unbeliever, he will be too profound and large-minded to ridicule religion or to act against it; he is too wise to be a dogmatist or fanatic in his infidelity. He respects piety and devotion; he even supports institutions as venerable, beautiful, or useful, to which he does not assent; he honors the ministers of religion, and it contents him to decline its mysteries without assailing or denouncing them. He is a friend of religious toleration, and that, not only because his philosophy has taught him to look on all forms of faith with an impartial eye, but also from the gentleness and effeminacy of feeling, which is the attendant on civilization.

Sad thing, that MacDonald, who is so spot on in many other aspects of her writing, can’t seem to get this one down.

Addendum:   (David L)

Disclosure,  I am agnostic.  

Two points.

One as to Heather McDonald, her point is not whether their was a divine act of providence in flight 1549 which was missing in flight 3407.   McDonald’s beef s the believers lack of consistency.    As to that point, I support McDonald.

Lack of consistency is my beef with  advocates of  Anthropogenic Global Warming, gender feminism, and Creation/Intelligent  Design.

Two as to Dan Calabrese’s point:

OK. First of all, Ms. MacDonald is welcome to try to make the rules by declaring the kinds of answers she will or will not accept, but just because she won’t accept an answer doesn’t mean it can’t be the correct one.

Closed minds are not limited to one particular group.    For example, Dan has summed the Creationist/Intelligent Design argument against Darwinian  Evolution.  As they can’t understand Darwin’s concept, they argue it can not be true.

Remember this, reality is not limited or tied to mere moral man’s limited ability to understand it.    For example, a television works without regard to my ability to explain how it works.