Go Away and Don't Confuse Me with Facts!

Two posts ago I referred to a new reader who had taken me to task for not continuing to blame George W. Bush for every ill that has befallen mankind since the Black Death peaked in Europe in 1348 CE.

Ever eager to play along with a theme that is dear to any visitor to this site and, knowing that the requestor was not willing or prepared to answer my questions about Obama’s record, I decided to ask some questions about President Bush.

The result was an email from the person in question telling me that she did not wish to be notified of any new posts without regard to author or content. Moreover, I know she is not the first nor the last to feel that way. For it seems an old defence mechanism is reborn in the world.

In order to write this Blog it is necessary for me to venture into the belly of the beast so I can see and hear what insanities the liberal Left is up to including Obama himself. Now, when I do, I realize that I must gird my loins against any possible contamination but at least I do listen.

Not so the liberals, many of whom have spun a cocoon of silence around themselves in order to shut out the voices of reason.

And let’s face it, they have good cause to if they are going to continue along their chosen path in the wake of the “Prince of Peace”.

How can you take any movement seriously when this little gem was aired on one of the Sunday talking head shows last weekend and I quote, “Thank G-d, the United States has natural gas reserves because otherwise we’d have to rely on fossil fuels”? That came from Ms. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and third in line to the Presidency.

Or, how about ACORN? You know that “benevolent” organization where the Great Leader cut his baby teeth as a Community Organizer. In the last few weeks, they’ve been banished from any involvement with the upcoming 2010 national census because of their proven voter registration fraud in Florida and elsewhere. And we mustn’t forget their immortal performances caught on tape in Baltimore and Washington DC advising on the best way to import young teenage girls from Central America for the purposes of prostitution and how to avoid taxation on their ill-gotten gains.

I’ve talked about Afghanistan before but still this Commander in Chief “dithers”.

Yes, that was Vice-President Cheney’s verb and he’s right. Young men and women are dying because of this ditherer’s inaction on greater deployment and because of the new ROE (Rules of Engagement). And it’s not just American lives but those of other Allied forces and Afghani citizens as well.

Let’s not forget Fox News and all they did was report the news with their own spin but Obama unleashed his Pit Bulls. I’m sure that Fox’s’ competitors were tempted to go along with the White House boycott but, for once, sanity prevailed and they stood resolute. Not just because it was the right thing to do even though it was but also because they knew they could be next.

Then there is the ongoing debacle over healthcare including the subject of coverage for illegal immigrants. Obama has stated on several occasions that no such coverage is planned. Why then did Democrats on Capitol Hill vote down Republican proposals to write that into any proposed legislation? And they did so, not once but twice!

Last night on the floor of the House, there was Sheila Jackson-Lee from Houston, Texas bemoaning that, because Obamacare was not available, the H1 NI virus would seek out her constituents who were currently uninsured. Rabble-rousers like her do not concern themselves with facts such as that the vaccine is available free to anyone at risk today nor did she add that any “Public Option” would not be available until 2013 at the earliest. And how would the virus know where to go?

Perhaps Ms. Lee proposes some sign on the door akin to that detailed in Exodus?

Mind you, this is the same woman who, when on a visit to NASA to watch the "Mars Rover" doing its thing, wanted to know if it was going to visit the spot where the Apollo 11 crew planted the flag in 1969.

Go figure!

Small wonder then that the latest Rasmussen Poll of likely voters shows Obama at a minus 13. The actual numbers were Strongly Approve – 27% and Strongly Disapprove – 40%.

With all this going on, it’s surely time for all believers to spin another layer of soundproofing and drown out the growing cacophony of dissent by repeating the mantras of “Yes We Can” and “Hope And Change”.

Nevertheless, even to the most fervent these must seem more and more hollow and unconvincing these days.

The Wild Blue Yonder!

Regular readers know that I really do try to check stuff before I comment because I am very protective of my reputation. This one took a while but now I believe it to be legit.

In a way, I wish I did not, both as a taxpayer and as a patriotic American. It’s also odd that the verification I sought came on the same day that I cited this in my last post.

The source is a retired US Air Force Colonel and the subject is a Date.

"First let me say that I've moved three presidents up to now and sometimes I've seen incredible waste. But, the "new" guy really takes the cake. I don't have an issue with the President promising his wife dinner and a show or that he even takes his wife out.

But, when I saw the news say that the date cost $24,000, here's what you DON'T know. Three days before "dinner" a C-17 flew Marines and the helicopter maintenance equipment to JFK Airport .

The day before "dinner" I flew the US Secret Service (USSS) and the motorcade to JFK. That crew of 5 spent two days and nights at the Hilton in Times Square . My hotel bill: $621.66 plus $64 a day in per diem. The USSS guys were at a different Hilton in NYC, so figure that cost another $14,000 (or so) plus per diem. The Marines had to have cost as much and were there four days, so figure another $55,000 plus per diem (for 44 Marines).

We were supposed to fly the motorcade back and go home, but the Air Force was so short of C-17's that we were re-tasked to take the motorcade back, return to JFK and take the helicopter back to Quantico .

After shutting down I walked over to the hangar and to my surprise I find FIVE helicopters, not ONE. We're obviously not transporting five big helicopters. I went and talked to the Marines guarding the "fleet" and found that they were flying all five helicopters home and we were only transporting the Marines and the maintenance equipment.

After talking to the Marine(s) in charge, I was told that the White House requested FIVE helicopters. The Marines told me that they spent all morning trying to figure out how much it cost them to come and said they figured it cost them $140,000 to stay there (I don't know where they came up with that)and the trip's total had to be about $1,000,000.

We heard that the President didn't use Air Force One (the 747) so I asked if he came in on one of the 757's. I was told that he came in on three Air Force Lear jets.

So, date night consisted of:
2 C-17's flying three missions,
3 Lear jets,
5 Helicopters,
Presidential Motorcade,
44 Marines,
more than 20 USSS personnel on our plane.

Who knows what it cost the NYPD and NY Port Authority (at the airport) in overtime."


Make up your own punch line.

Mine is, I wonder which base he got to?

And how much did it cost me.

Swords or Pistols?

Last evening was interesting. I had a long conversation with a new reader of this Blog. The newcomer is an unabashed Obama supporter. What other diagnosis could there be for a Chicagoan transplanted to West Hollywood, California? I invited direct participation in our discourse and itemized the ground rules. If you haven't heard 'em, they're not too onerous but these are:-

No obscenities – That is a hosting site rule
No ad hominem attacks – That’s my rule because it gets us nowhere.
No threats of physical violence to anyone – And that’s my rule as well.

I also commit that, after the post is submitted, I will not edit it for content or syntax, so US readers will have to put up with Brit spelling every once in a while.

With the ground rules established, let’s get back to last evening. It was a delightful Arizona evening; my little garden lights were on, my pool filter was gurgling nicely, my citronella candle was lit and my post-prandial scotch and water was poured and memories of Saturday evening’s operatic performance were being replayed on my sound system.

Then the new reader insisted in contrasting the current occupant of the Oval Office with the one before. And so, with tongue only slightly in cheek, I offer the following and I am indebted to another reader from the great state of Colorado for them.

If George W. Was an Idiot...

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a Teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how he inept he is on his own and is really being controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVD's, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current with their income taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had been so Spanish-illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?

If George W. Bush had misspelled the word advice would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potato as proof of what a dunce he is?

If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?

If George W. Bush's administration had OK’d Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?

If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

If George W Bush had proposed to triple the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?

Obama has done all these things in less than 9 months -- so you'll have three years plus to come up with an answer.

So, new reader, the gauntlet is down.

Who will pick it up?

How’s that Hope and Change working for ya’?

The Little Red Book.

It is not my job to defend Rupert Murdock or who ever owns Fox News these days. He or they can well afford the lawyers and/or the spin-doctors needed. But, a couple of things struck me recently.

First was an attack by one Anita Dunn, a senior White House aide, who boasted of how Barack Obama's presidential campaign managed to "absolutely control" the press during the 2008 election.

This top campaign strategist has shot to attention recently as Obama's main attack dog against Fox News, the conservative-leaning cable network,and was speaking at a conference in the Dominican Republic in January.

And now I quote verbatim:-

"Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," she said.

"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe [Mr Obama's campaign manager] videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters.
"We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it."

And this was from a “lady” who has also described Mao Tse Tung as one of her "favourite political philosophers". And that, now long-gone, philosopher once favored a gun in order to bring about social change.

Karl Rove, former President George W. Bush's former chief political strategist said on "Fox News Sunday" that the White House was dominated by "Chicago-style politics" and that Mr Obama was afraid of tough questions.

He compared Mr Obama to President Richard Nixon, who famously kept an "enemies list" that included reporters. "This is a White House engaging in its own version of the media enemies list. And it's unhelpful for the country and undignified for the president of the United States to so do."

The White House has intensified its attacks on Fox after Miss Dunn's opening broadside last weekend. David Axelrod, a senior Obama adviser, even urged other news outlets to shun Fox, telling ABC News that Fox was about opinion and was therefore not a news organisation.

"And the bigger thing is that other news organisations, like yours, ought not to treat them that way, and we're not going to treat them that way."

Has anybody in this White House ever heard of the First Amendment? Well, I’m sure that some have but I’m also sure that they wish it didn’t exist.

Hands up all those who believe a news outlet exists that does not have a bias?

It seems I have a smart readership because not one hand went up and that makes me try even harder.

Name ‘em. New York Times, Washington Post, and on, and on, in that genre. Or watch CNN or MSNBC; Can anyone forget Chris Matthews’ tingly leg or Keith Olberman’s prostration and deny that outlet’s bias?

I would be remiss if I ignored Katie Couric and I have tried, trust me.

So maybe, the Obama aides have it right. All you have to do is grasp your little “Red Book”, gaze with adoration at a teleprompter and mouth the words, “Yes We Can”.

Well I can’t and won’t and neither will this country much longer.

Because we are greater than this.

A Table for Four

The first time I ever got paid for writing anything was the best part of 30 years ago in San Francisco. There, a now defunct magazine for wine and food afficionados, ran a competition, which was called, “A Table for Four”. The idea was that people should write a couple of hundred words describing their perfect dinner party or rather the people they would like to have as their dining companions.

There were few restrictions placed and the people could be past or present, living or dead, real or imaginary but you had to say why you had made the choices you had. Anyway, my three choices were Winston Churchill, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein. The first two were easy to explain as I’m a history freak and those gentlemen were profoundly influential in their own time as well as in ours today. So too was Einstein but for different reasons and I chose him because I add astronomy to my preferred freakiness.

Although it was not the reason that he won his Nobel Prize, his most powerful contribution most surely, was his “Theory of Special Relativity” and I’ll spare you the theoretical physics and the associated equation, but it did highlight one oft over-simplified fact which is that everything is relative except the speed of light which is absolute. In other words, we judge things, events and people relative to some standard or another.

Sometimes we just compare people to their peers but there are other measurements especially for American presidents. These might include an evaluation of how they measure up to the responsibilities of the Constitution which they are sworn to “preserve, protect and defend. Or it might be as simple as veracity; In other words have they kept their promises?

In order that we don’t complicate it all too much, let’s restrict ourselves to just these two examples of relativity. For a start we know that the Constitution requires that the person tapped to take on Cabinet rank must be vetted and approved by the Senate. But we also know that Obama has circumvented this requirement by appointing so-called “czars” and the reason is that he knows that Senate approval would not be forthcoming for many if not all of these far-left academic types.

The fact is that Obama abhors our treasured Constitution with a passion bordering on hatred. Unlike most such safeguards in other countries, ours restricts that which the Government can do and reserves unto the people everything else. To a control-freak like Obama, this is anathema and until he can find a way to change it, he’ll circumvent it; Enter the Czars. And after only a few short months, that’s not a good sign so, therefore in things Constitutional, up to now he gets a failing grade.

But, not everyone has read the Constitution. I have and I’m sure you have, and so let’s rate Obama by our second criterion. Does he tell the truth? I’m biased and I admit it but let me ask some questions and I’ll let you answer.

On the campaign trail for his office, Obama maintained that this nation could not sustain a $459 Billion deficit. He has made it into $1.4 Trillion this year. Can you spot the disconnect?

At the beginning of February this year Obama warned that, with his proposed stimulus package, the jobless rate would be capped at less than 8%. Well, it passed and now that rate is closing in on 10. Can you spot another disconnect?

Try this too. According to Obama on the campaign trail; “I have a plan to get us out of Iraq by March 2009 and out of Afghanistan by August of that year. Then, once inaugurated, all that changed and we are still in Iraq and we are putting even more boots on the ground in other theaters. A disconnect?

And, while we’re on that subject, did you miss the new “Rules of Engagement” as ordained by the Pentagon via the Oval Office? These state, and I paraphrase, that the use of lethal fire is not authorized if there is any chance of “collateral damage”. That policy caused the deaths of 8 young Americans last week who were in a firefight with Taliban forces and called for artillery backup. The request was denied and American soldiers died needlessly. This is the action of a real Commander-in-Chief?

On the campaign trail Obama promised, in ringing tones, an end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. We all saw the Gay protests in Washington DC last week so clearly that promise has been thrown under the bus. And whether one agrees with the policy are not is irrelevant; The promise was made and broken.

Gitmo was going to close forthwith. Well it hasn’t has it?

The Patriot Act was going to be repealed. Well it hasn’t and Obama and his team are gleefully using its provisions every day.

Well this post has been long, relative to most of the other entries and so I’ll simply say this.

Obama won't be invited to my dining table any time soon!

...Health, Wealth and the pursuit of Mediocrity.

Well there he was in the White House Rose Garden all “wee-weed” up and, you have to hand it to the guy, he didn’t even blush when he declared bi-partisan support for the health thing. Just one wayward RINO! And she will pay big-time ………

Right now, it has to be a “thing” because it’s not a bill. It’s not even a draft. It’s a bunch of scribbled thoughts over cocktails and the bar napkins show just that. It’s sticky notes adhered to a laptop screen. In short, it isn’t going to fly as it stands if we are vigilant.

There are many websites you can visit and see the Baucus proposal and, at the same time, read the Price Waterhouse analysis and dream up your own spreadsheet. I love mathematics and I believe it tells the truth unless it comes from a politician!! But for those who can’t be bothered, here’s one snippet from that analysis. Today a family of four would pay $12,000 per year on average. Without Obamacare, this number is projected to be $15,000 by 2013. But with Obamacare it’ll be more than $17,000.

How’s that Hope and Change working for ya?

And here’s some more stuff to play with in your mind.

For a start, the deductibility from your 1040 will go from 7.5 to 10%. So much for the oft reported promise to not raise taxes on all but the rich. Hey, Obama, the rich are not the only ones who get sick and pay taxes.

And, Mr. Obama, what are you going to do about the union’s “Cadillac Plans”? As it stands right now, they will be penalized to pay for this madness. Will, you have the guts to stand up to them or will you run away to Scandinavia to accept your “prize”?

Sixty years is how long Democrats say they've been pushing for legislation that provides health care access for all Americans. And let’s start right there. It won’t be until 2013 that any “benefit” will flow to any American but the increased taxes start now and so do the cuts to Medicare coverage. And, before we forget, it won't provide coverage to any more than about 94% when it does kick in.

"The real danger is that health reform could be vulnerable to what we see with the stimulus package," said Democratic health policy consultant Peter Harbage, referring to criticism that Obama's $787 billion economic plan hasn't stemmed rising unemployment. "There needs to be more focus on what can you do quickly so that real people will start seeing change sooner, rather than later."

Said Judy Feder, a senior health official in President Bill Clinton's administration: "Just as we are fending off ideological attacks to get the bill passed, we will be fending them off as we implement the law."

Obama administration officials and Democratic lawmakers say the reason for the three-year wait is the time it's going to take to set up insurance marketplaces, write consumer protection rules and reconfigure the bureaucracy to carry out the legislation.
.
"It's very important to get the execution right," White House budget director Peter Orszag told The Associated Press in a recent interview. There's another reason, less talked about: to make the costs of the plan seem more manageable under congressional budgeting rules.

Lawmakers use a 10-year accounting window to assess new programs. Starting the Medicare cuts and some of the taxes in the early years — and pushing the bulk of new spending into the latter years — helps keep the cost of the health care overhaul within Obama's $900 billion limit. Or, putting it another way; It’s a shell game of astronomical proportions

"It means that the full cost of the program is underestimated in the 10-year window that you are looking at," said Gail Wilensky, who ran Medicare for former President George H.W. Bush. "It's not like we've never seen this before, but people need to understand what's going on."

Congressional Democrats are defensive about their slow-motion rollout. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., addressed the concerns in a recent news release captioned: "What You Get Right Away."

Among the major short-term improvements in his bill would be a benefit for people on Medicare, who already have insurance coverage. Starting in 2010, those who fall into the Medicare prescription plan's coverage gap would get a 50 percent discount off the price of brand-name drugs. In 2011 and 2012, certain small employers with fewer than 25 workers could get a tax credit for up to 35 percent of what they contribute toward the cost of employee coverage. That could encourage some companies that don't offer coverage to do so, but it's more likely to shore up those who already do.

The House Democratic bill tries to provide some immediate relief. For example, insurance companies could not cancel coverage just because a policyholder develops an intractable disease such as cancer.

Yet all of that has failed to make much of an impression on the Congressional Budget Office, the umpire of the costs and benefits of legislation. The CBO estimates that under the Senate Finance Committee bill, the number of uninsured will stay stuck around 50 million from 2010 through 2012, until federal tax credits start flowing the following year.

If there's a silver lining in the three-year wait, it's that it will give individuals and families time to prepare for a new federal requirement to carry health insurance, starting in 2013. That won't be a problem for the majority with employer or government coverage. But even with the tax credits that Democrats are proposing, many middle-class families that buy their own coverage still may be unable to afford it, and risk being assessed a penalty.

But lawmakers may have figured out how to use time to their advantage in this arena too. The Senate Finance Committee voted to pare down the penalties and postpone them until 2014. Because the fines would be collected through income taxes, no one will get a bill until April 2015.

That would be a full two years after the government starts handing out carrots in the form of health insurance tax credits.

And “coincidentally”, it's also safely after the 2014 congressional midterm elections.

Surprise, Surprise!!

You Break it, You Own it ..................

For a few weeks now, a very good friend has been asking me about Afghanistan and when was I going to write something?

Frankly, I resisted because my background on the country was limited to say the least Well, I didn’t actually resist but there was stuff that was easier to write. And, again I contradict myself because it’s not the writing that’s hard, it’s the research. And this subject was no exception because my knowledge consisted of schoolboy history surrounding the British and their battles in and around the Khyber Pass on the one hand and a movie called “Charlie Wilson’s War” from a couple of years ago on the other.

Well now it’s Obama’s War with a vengeance and, for once he can’t claim that all the ills were inherited because he campaigned on prosecuting this conflict vigorously. So, no longer could he choose to pretend it was all someone else's problem no more than I could pick the low-hanging fruit while ignoring the precarious ladder. It was time to hit every search engine I could find and then hit my keyboard with the results.

At the end of August, General Stanley McChrystal sent a request to the White House for more troops. For over a month, Obama didn’t even look at it nor did he talk to the worthy soldier except to berate him on a foreign airport tarmac while on his abortive quest to gain the 2016 Olympics for Chicago.

We know now, of course, that part of Obama’s reluctance to actually do something substantive may have been influenced by his impending award of the “Peace” Prize. Instead White House officials have been minimizing warnings from the intelligence community, the military and the State Department about the risks of adopting a limited strategy focused on al Qaida.

Recent U.S. intelligence assessments have found that the Taliban and other Pakistan -based groups that are fighting U.S.-led forces have much closer ties to al Qaida now than they did before 9/11. Success for these groups would allow the terrorist network to re-establish bases in Afghanistan and would help Osama bin Laden export his radical brand of Islam to Afghanistan's neighbors and beyond.

Some White House officials, have concluded that McChrystal's approach could be doomed by election fraud, corruption and other problems in Afghanistan; by continued Pakistani covert support for the insurgency; by the strains on the Army, Marine Corps and the federal budget; and by a lack of political and public support at home, which they fear could also undermine the president's domestic priorities.

One phrase that always comes up in this administration's strategy sessions is "public opinion," which should be no surprise to anyone. But, now the White House is downplaying the dangers of doing the only thing that they think Congress and the public will support -- a limited war against the guys who hit us on 9/11.

The White House, as well as Congress and U.S. military, "have got to level with the American people, and they are not doing it," said Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department intelligence analyst now with the Middle East Institute . "They are taking the easy way out by focusing on the narrow interest of protecting the homeland from al Qaida."

Some U.S. intelligence and military officials expressed deep frustration with that which they see as the administration's single-minded focus on al Qaida's threat to the U.S., saying it's not discussing publicly other, more serious consequences of a U.S. failure in Afghanistan as identified in some assessments.

A U.S. withdrawal or failure could permit al Qaida and other groups to export their violence from Afghanistan into Pakistan's heartland, the Indian-controlled side of the disputed Kashmir region and former Soviet republics in Central Asia whose autocrats have been repressing Islam for decades. Allowing the Taliban to prevail could clearly reignite Afghanistan's civil war, which was fought largely on ethnic lines, and draw nuclear-armed India and Pakistan into backing opposing sides of the conflict.

Pakistan has long patronized Afghanistan's dominant Pashtun ethnic group, which constitutes the Taliban. India, whose Kabul embassy was hit on Oct. 8 by a car bomb for the second time in 16 months, supports the U.S.-backed Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai and New Delhi backed the ethnic minorities who fought the Taliban before the 2001 U.S. invasion.

Finally, failure in Afghanistan would deal a massive blow to U.S. international standing to the benefit of Iran , Russia and China , and undermine the NATO alliance.

The intelligence assessments and the U.S. officials' views are in stark contrast to briefings and statements made last week by administration officials who downplayed the threat that al Qaida could pose if the Taliban were to regain control of Afghanistan. Administration officials have said that the Taliban are focused on Afghanistan and don't share al Qaida's goals of striking the U.S. and forcing its brand of extreme Islam on the Muslim world. We seem to have been told something like that before haven’t we?

An unspecified official has said that the White House has been "spoon-feeding distorted information" to a few news organizations in an effort to build public and congressional support for a policy that "rests on the nonsensical notion that you can separate some of the Taliban from other Taliban, al Qaida and other groups, when in reality those groups are more closely allied today than they've ever been."

Back in 1963, James Michener wrote one of his earlier historical novels called “Caravans” and it was based in Afghanistan. One troubling passage that stuck in my mind was this.

“In Afghanistan almost every building bears jagged testimony to some outrage. Some, like the walled fortress now owned by Shah Khan, were built to withstand sieges, and did so many times. Others were the scenes of horrible murders and retaliation. In distant areas, scars still remained of Alexander the Great or Genghis Khan or Tamerlane or Nadir Shah, of Persia. Was there ever a land so overrun by terror and devastation as Afghanistan?”

We owe the Afghani people better than to add to that terror and devastation. So Mr. Obama, it’s time to return your dubious "Prize" to its even more dubious donors just as you returned the bust of Winston Churchill to the British, then back your soldiers and lead for once instead of reading the left-over tea leaves.

Sometimes less is More!

My 'phone started ringing right after the announcement from Oslo. I know I'm an early riser but that was a little extreme. Every caller including a radio station in Idaho asked me what I was going to say?

And I said this to them just as I say it to you now!

I could look up the year, but I won't because it doesn't matter. As soon as Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Prize for "Peace", I gave up on awards like this.

He was responsible for more deaths, both innocent and guilty, than almost anyone in modern times.

Or as Groucho Marx put it, "I wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member".

Farewell and Hello ..........

The jet-lag has dissipated, the suitcase is back in the garage and the pile of backlogged mail has receded to manageable proportions. I wish I could say the same about my email inbox but that’s another story.

Anyway, before I turn my attention back onto the scene here in America and the abomination that is Obamacare, there are a couple of snippets from England that are worthy of note for several reasons.

Some women have to work and some women want to work and I’m the last person to dare to dip a toe into that maelstrom of discussion. Some women want to have kids and some don’t. Inevitably, therefore, there is an overlap and some women who want to work or some women who have to work also want to be or are mothers.

Unless there’s a “Mr. Mom” around or an “au pair” or a nanny a solution has to be found. Typically that is “child minding”, “day-care”; pick your poison?

Two women in the south of England devised their own solution. Both worked for the same employer and their chosen profession involved shift work. And they knew each other and so it made sense to arrange their schedules in order that they could provide mutual assistance to one another. And for several months all was well.

You know, some people have far too much time on their hands because some neighbor thought this scandal must end and so the two mothers received visits from the British equivalent of Child Protective Services. They were told to cease and desist or become registered as, effectively, a child-care business.

Now that step in England, as in the U.S., is a non-trivial process. Then add to those time-consuming and expensive measures the fact that both were receiving a “reward” by virtue of the fact that they were not paying for the care given to their child, so they were now liable to pay income tax on that reward.

The justification offered by “the powers that be” about the clamp-down centered on the threat to the children from pedophiles in an unsupervised environment. Really?

Did I mention that both women are Police Officers? Both are detectives with more than 10 years experience. They know what pedophilia is. They know what it looks like. They know what it smells like.

Bottom line; these women are not pedophiles. They are caring mothers but the “nanny state’ of the UK wants to regulate and tax them. Because that is what socialists do best, first, last and always.

Ronald Reagan said, “Trust but Verify”. Socialism says Tax and Control.

Some American readers are already grumbling that this stuff couldn’t happen here. Well it already has because some lady in Michigan has a house near a school bus stop. She’s a grandmother and felt bad when she saw little kids waiting in the wind, rain, snow and ice. So she offered them refuge in her house. But no longer because the nanny state of Michigan determined that she was not licensed for child care.

And now, my second “Brit Snip”. Some demented politician in England wants to levy a tax on out-of-town grocery stores because they offer free parking and that represents unfair competition for the Main Street stores of downtown UK.

Tough!

Here in Scottsdale, I go to Costco to save money and the folks in England want to save money too. Does this British clown not understand that all he is proposing is to add to the cost of living while providing nothing in return?

By now my more impatient readers are waiting for me to tie all this together and I will. Trust me! And, here it is.

Today in Phoenix, we learned that the state of Arizona is going to up the fees for a child-care center from $150 a year to as much as $13,000. Will those centers eat the extra? Or will we? All of us.

The law of unintended consequences has long arms.

Surely there's a Vaccine by now?

While, I don’t buy into his political views very often, I do think Thomas Friedman of the New York Times is a fabulous writer and, if he is allowed to plagiarize his own work, then I see no reason why I can’t too.

Much of that which follows I wrote several years ago for a newspaper when the term “BO” simply referred to a personal hygiene issue. Oh, happy days indeed. I repeat the theme now because the malady it discusses is still around today and I was reacquainted with this long-lived condition by three events.

First, there was a report from a friend who had encouraged some contacts to take a look at this Blog. They refused because they “didn’t want to hear anything negative”. Surely, there is no greater darkness than a closed mind.

Then there was the acquaintance yesterday saying, effectively, that if I couldn’t say anything bad about President George W. Bush, then she didn’t want to hear word one about Obama. But she failed to realize that I’m not in the fair reporting business and I’ll let the drive-by media sing that gentleman’s praises.

Finally, in an attempt to get Obama off the hook for blowing it with the International Olympic Committee, it seems that Chicago was eliminated as a venue because it was all George Bush’s fault. Thus it seems that “Bush Derangement Syndrome”, (BDS), has a longer life than Swine Flu and here’s some of what I wrote about that all those years ago.

“The infection predates the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war, all the conspiracy theories about the events of September 11 and is obviously well before the alleged Rove/Libby/Cheney malfeasance.

I lean towards the opinion that there are a couple of possible causes or maybe even only one because it's not hard to combine the two.”

“One is symbolized by the inaccurate but oft repeated ‘selected not elected’ mantra of the 2000 election, followed closely by, ‘Bush did not win the popular vote’.”

“Never mind the fact that four independent analyses of the complete Florida vote, ‘hanging chads’ and all, were carried out by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune and the Miami Herald and all concluded that the President could not have lost that state. This conclusion, arrived at by the loudest and most influential voices of the political left in this country, goes unheeded by the BDS sufferers including even some of the more even-handed of its constituents.

Why? Presumably, because, it contradicts that which they want so desperately to believe. These same even-handed folks also ignore the facts that we do not have a ‘first past the post’ system in this country because we are a federal republic and/or if Kerry had won just 60,000 more votes in the state of Ohio, he would have been President in 2004 with 4 million votes less than Bush.”

“The second possibility goes like this. The political left in this country is concentrated in the urban areas of both coasts and a favorite assumption, in say, New York or San Francisco, is that ‘we are the intelligentsia, we are better educated, we are socially aware, we know what is best for everybody’, and therefore, by a thought process not dissimilar to the ‘Divine Right of Kings’, they convince themselves that leadership is theirs by ordination.”

“One corollary of this assumption is that ‘fly-over country’, say west of the Hudson River or east of the San Bernardino Mountains, does not deserve the same electoral rights as the ‘informed’ coastal enclaves who would be delighted to make all the decisions on behalf of everyone. The fact that this view was propounded as far back as Ancient Rome, became the lynch pin of feudal systems of medieval Europe and was even carried much closer to our own time in this country where first slaves and then women were just too dumb to vote, does not dissuade our would-be lords and masters from pursuing their self-appointed role.”

“As a result, much of my email used to consist of people bemoaning the fact that a stupid man occupies the Oval Office and is being manipulated by the unholy trinity of Cheney, Rove and Rumsfeld. And it seems the legacy of this fatuous belief continues. It would be foolish of me not to accept that this was a possibility but the case was weakened, in my view, by the methods used to try to prove it.”

What follows now is partly old comment and partly new and, if you have nothing better to do, you can parse which is which.

To this day, there are those who firmly believe that just beyond every horizon there is a squadron of black helicopters awaiting the word from a capitalistic Darth Vader to usher in the New World Order which appears to be an unholy alliance between “Big Oil”, the “Military-Industrial Complex”, Pro-Life “fanatics” and assorted Jews and/or Freemasons.

Even some of those well outside this lunatic fringe use a myriad of misquotes or incomplete quotes or unsubstantiated quotes or those without attribution from books and articles or films such as “Fahrenheit 911” in order to “prove” the criminal duplicity of the Bush Administration and its usually unspecified or secret associates. By the volume of “proofs” I get from some people there are those who are so consumed by BDS that almost their entire existence is devoted to scouring the Blogs for any scrap of “evidence” which they then weave into the most outrageous conspiracies imaginable. And the promise is usually the same with the enjoinder to “wait just until next week and you’ll see” that all their dire predictions will be fulfilled.

Well, I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting. And I’m still waiting for a nostrum to treat BDS.

Maybe another 911 will have to do?

Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll .............

About 72 hours ago I was somewhere over the North Atlantic on my way home and, already bored by the process of getting from there to here, I retrieved a crumpled newspaper from under my seat. Presumably, my windfall was the detritus of the previous occupant and the inefficiency of the cleaning crew.

But, I never look a gift horse in the mouth and who knows where Blog posts start?

The headline in the newspaper read, “French Foreign Office says U.S actions are sinister”.

The subject, if you haven’t guessed, was the arrest and possible extradition of Roman Polanski in order to face a long-awaited sentencing in a California court room.

Not surprisingly, the French sprang to his aid perhaps because such abusive acts are normal in France. In addition, the European wing of the Hollywood Left added their voice too. And, not too long after that, as the Earth rotated upon its axis, the real Hollywood Left in Malibu and elsewhere on the Pacific Coast Highway strapped on their moral armor and headed for the talk-shows to defend their adopted victim. One of these was Woody Allen who is surely the poster child for how an adult should not interact with a minor.

But the accolade for the most preposterous manifestation of support must clearly be awarded to Whoopi Goldberg. Now that woman is dumb and she’s also ugly and so rape just might be a welcome event for her. Not really, not ever, in my book but read on.

According to Whoopi there’s rape and then there’s rape rape. Rape rape, according to her, is a guy hiding in the bushes late one summer night outside an apartment block. He waits for a single female, threatens her and drags her into even darker shadows and, the rest you can guess ………..

On the other hand, plain rape, a la Polanski, is not nearly as bad. This animal fed a 13 year old girl with drugs and alcohol and forced her to submit to anal intercourse.

And, according to the artistic intelligentsia on both sides of the pond, I’m supposed to feel compassion because of the elapsed time and his “art”.

For a start, the concept of statutory limitations does not apply because Polanski had already pleaded guilty in a duly-constituted court in the State of California and had merely fled that jurisdiction in order to avoid sentencing.

So now, unless Switzerland and the United States lose their “collective bottle” Polanski will get his.

Picture a cringing new inmate in a California prison as the door of his 2 person cell opens and in walks Bubba. His tattoos ripple over his muscles as he smiles a mostly toothless grin and growls,

“You’re gonna be my new bitch”!

So will that night see rape, rape rape, or rape rape rape?

Enquiring minds, the French Foreign Office, and Whoopi want to know!

The A-Team gets an F

Yesterday, somewhere over the North Atlantic there was a pristine Boeing 747, or rather the military variant thereof, in presidential livery and aboard was an anxious man stuffing confidential folders down his pants. No it wasn’t Samuel (Sandy) Berger reliving one of his lesser moments but rather Obama himself getting ready for his woodshed meeting with the “Capo di tutti Capi”.

The Chicago political machine made Obama and without it we would never even have heard the name. So when the “Capo” called, Obama in turn called Andrews Air Force Base and ordered them to fire up the presidential fleet.

The Capo is, of course, Richard M. Daley, the current Mayor of Chicago and he was calling in the favors. For a start, rumor has it that Daley’s connections were already penciled in to build the Olympic Village. And Valerie Jarrett’s slum apartments were due to be razed as well. But, none of that is now going to happen since Obama and his team blew it.

And Daley is pissed big time

It is unlikely that the International Olympic Committee has ever seen a presentation via a Teleprompter even from a “World Citizen” of Obama’s stature but even with a backing group consisting of such personages as Michelle and Oprah, it was all to no avail. And the nature of the actual presentation was pathetic in the extreme. At one point Obama said, and I paraphrase, that, “He was looking forward to the day when he could walk out of his Chicago home with his two daughters and welcome the world to his neighborhood”. Comment is superfluous except to say, Mr. Obama, that again you made it all about you.

And ,how could he have expected to be successful when, for the last nine months he’s been telling the world what a “G-d Awful” country the US is, and so who would want to come here for any reason whatsoever? Perhaps he meant that it’s a “G-d Awful” country except for a few square miles in Illinois.

This entire embarrassment shows several disturbing things and the first one is ignorance.

In decades past, much was made of so-called “Summit Meetings” when leaders such as Nixon and Mao would toast each other with some Chinese hooch or when Reagan and Gorbachev went through similar rituals except with decent vodka. All of these “confrontations” weren’t confrontational at all as months of behind-the-scenes diplomacy had preceded the main event which was little more than a photo-op.

Obama seems to have missed that unit in his presidential preparation classes and failed to understand that the President of these United States does not offer himself as sitting-duck target. The golden rule of top-level diplomacy is “No Surprises”.

Or, perhaps his sin was not ignorance but naivety. Perhaps he really thought that his charisma would carry the day. After all, the cable news networks were assuring themselves right up to the moment of Chicago’s rejection that it was in the bag and Obama either believed them or his own hubris. It’s one thing to fool other people about your brilliance and invincibility but it’s quite another when you start to believe in the myth yourself.

And, let us not forget, this is the same man who proposes to sit across the table from Ahmadinejad without pre-conditions and talk Iran out of its nukes. Heaven help us and Heaven help Israel.

Finally, let’s look at the fiscal implications not for Mayor Daley and his crooked allies but for the American taxpayer. Michelle flew over to Copenhagen in her personal Boeing 757. Air Force One doesn’t go anywhere without Air Force Two following in its con-trail and a further entourage of assorted hardware to provide logistical support. And all for an abortive attempt to procure an event that the vast majority of Chicagoans don’t want.

How’s that Hope and Change working for ya?