Say Anything Blog

Past 24 hours Iran test fires 9 missiles to demonstrate they can blow up Israel. 

Oil price doesn’t budge and drifts lower a bit.

And there’s oil bubbling up out of the ground in Northern Iraq

And there are ten reasons why Oil can’t get it on any more.

If Iran testing missiles doesn’t run the price of oil up then what will?

Hang on to your Amoco hat.

This troublemaker eleven-year-old is quickly becoming a legend. In 2007, Semaj Booker stole a car and drove it on the highway until the engine blew. Then, he snuck past security onto two flights to get his runaway self from SeaTac to Texas. Booker tried the plane trick again just last month, and now he’s back in court for attempted burglary.

[...]

He’s been ordered to remain in custody while the court figures out if he understands the charges and sounds out Booker’s moral compass. Someone give the boy a brownie and a hug, for God’s sake.

HAH! ... NO HUGS for you lil man. IMHO you could use a good ass whuppin’

Here.

Burlington Telecom, owned by the small city of Burlington, Vermont, (population 39,000), decided to carry Al Jazeera English, sparking debate among residents and leading some groups to ask for its removal from the list of channels.

Aha! Its the conservative, ‘government out of my backyard and into that faggot’s bedroom’, crowd who wish to have it banned. Of course, don’t speak of banning Fox…

Another issue which lays bare the fact that the whole conservative complaint that Dems want you regulated and not them is pure hogwash. That inconsistent position is proudly trumpeted by both parties now.

Forget conservatives versus liberals—the real debate over Al Jazeera in Burlington and elsewhere is increasingly turning into a debate between those who have watched the channel and those who have not. Those who have watched Al Jazeera on air will benefit from its strong global perspective on international news and affairs. On the flipside, most of the sections of society insisting Al Jazeera be dropped have never even watched it.

...one group should not be allowed to impose itself on the other…

Even if you are against the content that some news channel like Al Jazeera is broadcasting, don’t you nonetheless want it available to you if you choose to watch it? I don’t see why anyone would censor any of these news channels… be it Fox or Al Jazeera.

here’s a cross post from http://www.outdoornewsguy.com

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its preliminary report on mid-continent breeding ducks and habitats, based on surveys conducted in May and early June. Total duck populations were estimated at 37.3 million breeding ducks on the surveyed area. This estimate represents a 9 percent decline over last year’s estimate of 41.2 million birds, but remains 11 percent above the 1955-2007 long-term average.

full post at outdoornewsguy.com

Would you pay $5 for the chance to turn down the prize of being back stage with BH Obamarama?

C. Y. —

I wanted you to be the first to hear the news.

At the Democratic National Convention next month, we’re going to kick off the general election with an event that opens up the political process the same way we’ve opened it up throughout this campaign.

Barack has made it clear that this is your convention, not his.

On Thursday, August 28th, he’s scheduled to formally accept the Democratic nomination in a speech at the convention hall in front of the assembled delegates.

Instead, the convention will move to an outdoor stadium where Barack will join more than 75,000 people for a huge, free, open-air event and deliver his acceptance speech to the American people.

It’s going to be an amazing event, and Barack would like you to join him. Free tickets will become available as the date approaches, but we’ve reserved a special place for a few of the people who brought us this far and who continue to drive this campaign.

If you make a donation of $5 or more between now and midnight on July 31st, you could be one of 10 supporters chosen to fly to Denver and spend two days and nights at the convention, meet Barack backstage, and watch his acceptance speech in person. Each of the ten supporters who are selected will be able to bring one guest to join them.

Make a donation now and you could have a front row seat to history:

https://donate.barackobama.com/DNCconvention

We’ll follow up with more details on this and other convention activities as we get closer, but please take a moment and pass this note to someone you know who might like to be there.

It will be an event you’ll never forget.

Thank you,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Since someone signed me up for the Dem’s emails, and the ‘bounce’ feature hasn’t discouraged them from sending more, they put me on their junk mail list too.  I remove anything with my name on it and send the rest of it back in the supplied postage paid envelope.

Citizens stunned as school board walks out of meeting
Students, supporters of reassigned teachers protest to empty chairs

A crowd of students and citizens of Guilderland, N.Y., gathered last week at a public school board meeting to protest the questionable reassignment of two teachers, only to look on in disbelief as the school board stood up and left the room.

Matt Nelligan, Reassigned Teacher

As WND reported, two former teachers at Guilderland High School, Matt Nelligan and Anne Marie McManus, were informed on the last day of the 2008 school year that they would be involuntarily reassigned to the Farnsworth Middle School for reasons neither teacher fully understood.

School officials have said that the move was designed to address problems with the cultural climate of the social studies department, but Nelligan believes he was transferred because of his outspoken, conservative viewpoints and criticism of the teachers’ union leadership.

“It’s a witch hunt and a punishment,” he told the Altamont Enterprise. “Everybody knows it’s punishment.”

Yes, the school board had a reason for leaving:

After the board finished organizational matters, board President Richard Weisz explained the board’s policy about open discussions of personnel decisions: “If you refer to someone by name,” he said, “we take that in executive session. I’m supposed to gavel you if you talk about a personnel item.”

It is understandable in normal circumstances that the School Board would not discuss personal, personnel matters in public. I would want them to be that sensitive. However, everyone on the School Board knew that the issue was about whether or not these teachers were transferred as a form of punishment because they held conservative views and whether or not that was because the School Board wants to promote a liberal political agenda.

In this case, IMO, the School Board demonstrated an arrogance of power, a desire not to be responsive to the genuine concerns of the taxpayers, parents and students about the political nature of their decisions. The School Board could have spoken to that issue and refused comment or discussion if the debate wandered from the central issue into other more personal matters; but the plain truth is, they were found with their hands in the Liberal Educational Cookie Jar and they feared the truth might jeopardize their positions of absolute power over the children in their school district.

This school board deserves en masse to be recalled for their dictatorial style and their refusal to be open about their political agenda.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=68995

New Jersey is giving governors and mayors across the country — assuming they are paying attention — a chilling lesson on how hard it is for elected officials to pay down a recklessly incurred debt in timely fashion.

No matter how much Trenton slashes spending for hospitals and other essential services, this debt will cost the state’s taxpayers $2.6 billion annually in payments for interest and principal for years to come.

For New York, California and other states staggering under out-of-control debt, New Jersey’s warning may have come too late. But it is not too late for other states and thousands of cities, towns and counties to learn that politicians who have little trouble running up a big tab have a terrible time paying it off when the bill, as it must, finally comes due.

or should that be

politicians who have little trouble running up a big tab have a terrible time [fessing up to what they’ve done]

These are ‘flatlander’ Dems. Meanwhile, in the northern mountains...

VBM: And we’re seeing another budget surplus for this year?

Spaulding: Right. I think we could end up this year with, say, a $40 million surplus. That would be pushing the upper side of it but it could easily be in the upper-30s.

In any case, the bond rating firms appreciate the Capitol Debt Affordability Advisory Committee, because we seem to be able to keep a lid on our debt. Around 1990 we were in the top 10 in the country in debt per capita and debt as percentage of personal income, and now we’re down below medium, and we have a really strong story to tell there.

The agencies also like the fact that we have a joint revenue forecasting process twice a year that really works.

VBM: What is that?

Spaulding: Twice a year the Emergency Board, which is made up of the Governor and the legislative financial leaders, get together with the Governor’s economist and the legislature’s economist and they develop a consensus revenue forecast and bring it to the Emergency Board, where it is adopted. You don’t have a governor saying, ‘Well, I think that this much money is going to come in,” and a legislature saying, “Yeah, but we think only this much money is going to come in.” There is a revenue forecast, and everyone lives by it. It tends to allow you to build your budgets around a realistic revenue forecast.

We have been fairly conservative in that regard, too.

A realistic revenue forecast? Wow.

I don’t think the flatlanders, or even the banks, know what that is anymore. Its just another dirty word - we would all rather have hollow words that lie, coddle, and inspire false confidence.

“The voters won’t like paying back all this money we’ve blown.”

“Don’t tell them.”

Find it here

Congressional Performance

The percentage of voters who give Congress good or excellent ratings has fallen to single digits for the first time in Rasmussen Reports tracking history. This month, just 9% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Most voters (52%) say Congress is doing a poor job, which ties the record high in that dubious category.

Last month, 11% of voters gave the legislature good or excellent ratings. Congress has not received higher than a 15% approval rating since the beginning of 2008.

The percentage of Democrats who give Congress positive ratings fell from 17% last month to 13% this month. The number of Democrats who give Congress a poor rating remained unchanged. Among Republicans, 8% give Congress good or excellent ratings, up just a point from last month. Sixty-five percent (65%) of GOP voters say Congress is doing a poor job, down a single point from last month.

Voters not affiliated with either party are the most critical of Congressional performance. Just 3% of those voters give Congress positive ratings, down from 6% last month. Sixty-three percent (63%) believe Congress is doing a poor job, up from 57% last month.

Just 12% of voters think Congress has passed any legislation to improve life in this country over the past six months. That number has ranged from 11% to 13% throughout 2008. The majority of voters (62%) say Congress has not passed any legislation to improve life in America.

Voters hold little positive sentiment about the future. Just 41% find it at least somewhat likely that Congress will address important problems facing our nation in the near future, while 55% find this unlikely.

[...]

A separate Rasmussen survey found that half of all voters believe America’s best days are in the past. However, another survey found that 64% of voters also believe that the world would be a better place if more countries were similar to the United States.

Interesting stuff.  One way to interpret the seemingly contradictory attitudes reported in the last paragraph of this article could reflect the effects of MSM propagandizing about bad economic news.  While there is an overall impression that we are doing badly, individuals think we are basically good, and that our system works, because that is what they experience in their daily lives.  Could be.

Find it here

This recommended diary from the Daily Kos isn’t the usual “I am happy this Republican died and is burning in hell” or “I can’t wait for the revolution so I can murder Republicans” post from Kos, but yet and still, it was such a brilliant window into the liberal mindset that I had to excerpt from it.

(begin KOS entry)

"You Americans Aren’t Selfish Enough by LithiumCola

You pay all these taxes but you don’t want anything in return for it. You don’t want free health care. You don’t want time off of work. You don’t want anything. You’re not selfish enough.

You get mad when someone is taking welfare and sitting on their *ss. What have you got against sitting on your *ss? The whole point behind having a government and paying taxes is to have more time to sit on your *ss. That’s what technology is for. You Americans work longer than anyone, pay all these taxes, make all these robots, and then not only don’t you sit on your *ss, but you get mad when anyone else does. You’re f*cking crazy.

...Growing up means understanding self-regard. And you got none. You think anything for you must be bad. You’re like a kid whose hand has been slapped above the cookie jar. Thing is, you made the cookies, idiot. This is your country, your government, and your taxes . . . you get to say what is done with it. And here’s a clue: you want to sit on your *ss more. You want free health care."

(end KOS entry)

Here’s the whole post shortened to a sentence; “It’s ok for everyone to be lazy and leech off of your fellow citizens.”

Of course, the big problem with this is that it relies on the same misunderstanding of human nature that the Communists have—which isn’t surprising since most liberals are Commies at heart (why do you think so many of them wear those Che Guevara shirts?). The problem is...drumroll please, because this will be shocking to liberals—people are not going to strive to achieve, create new jobs, and generally move the country forward if they’re getting nothing out of it.

[...]

The reality is that today, the average American citizen is not paying more in taxes than they are receiving in services. We make that up by looting the rich and running a deficit. But, guess what? We can’t run a deficit forever and the rich are not going to keep working like little hamsters on wheel, accumulating more tax dollars for the rest of us to use, as the government takes an ever larger slice of their income.

Eventually, at some point, the corporations will go, “Given the profits we pay after taxes, it’s not worth it for us to continue doing this,” and they’ll drop part of their business or close up shop. Eventually, at some point, the rich people will go, “Given the amount of taxes I’m paying on what I’m earning, it’s not worth it for me to keep working. I might as well just lay back, be lazy like everyone else, and enjoy what I’ve already earned.”

The reality is that this country can’t afford to pay for the government services it’s handing out now. So, the whole idea that we can receive even more while most of the country kicks back in a hammock and lets someone else do all the work is a fraud—and it’s a fraud at the heart of liberalism.

I especially liked the claim of “free healthcare”.  Too funny.

In case you want proof of the bias of the media to propagate fear why haven’t you heard about the huge fall in oil in the last two days?

To those of us who are market watchers this is no surprise. This had all the indications of a market top.

But ten bucks in less than a week and no bottom in sight is a reason not to believe the Mainstream Media.  They don’t say a word.

$100?

$80?

$60

I’m guessing between the 60-80 mark.  And right on cue, how this will affect banks was all the headlines on the financial news.

This headline is crazy.

As a Christian I have only one question, “What the hell are they thinking about”.

Cutting greenhouse gasses in half by 2050 means you have to kill off the human race pretty much. This is insanity.

Then this morning the light bulb went on.  This is about conserving fuel.

They (world leaders) have come to the conclusion that taxing and encouraging people to use less fuel won’t work. So, they have to inject fear into the world’s population to believe a lie.

This is discouraging and transparent.

And sad for the world.

cross post from http://www.outdoornewsguy.com

East of a line formed by the Missouri River to the eastern end of Lake Sakakawea, and then east of U.S. Highway 83 to the Canadian border, wolves in North Dakota are now classified as a furbearer protected with a closed season. Their designation is similar to that of black bear and river otter, which are also occasionally seen in the state, but do not have a population high enough to allow for a regulated hunting and/or trapping season. Furbearer status, however, does not protect wolves if they threaten livestock or on rare occasions present a threat to humans.

West of the Missouri River-U.S. Highway 83 line, wolves remain a federal endangered species that can only be killed after repeated instances of depredation, and then usually only by designated federal authorities.

To better understand the disparity, consider a wolf that is causing problems for a livestock producer. In Richland County in southeastern North Dakota, a landowner could justifiably shoot a wolf harassing cows and calves, even though it hadn’t attacked any livestock. In Divide County in the northwestern part of the state, a landowner could face federal charges for shooting a wolf without specific approval or authorization, even if it had just killed and was still in the process of eating a calf.

By Andrew Walden

American voters must make up their minds about what Barack Obama really believes in, if anything. His recent rhetorical concessions to the center further muddy the waters. So we must look to his past teachers and associates for help in understanding the inner Obama.

In his first series of national campaign commercials since securing the delegates needed to win the Democratic presidential campaign, Barack Obama struggles to re-introduce himself.  Images focus on the story of lessons learned from his grandparents and his mother, described in his book Dreams from my Father as “a girl from Kansas.... dab-smack, landlocked center of the country,” in towns “too small to warrant boldface on a roadmap.” Speaking in Independence, Missouri, Obama tells his audience: “patriotism can never be defined as loyalty to any particular leader or government or policy.”

First Mentor

But there is another story to be told about loyalties and about Obama’s education.  A story told by Gerald Horne, contributing editor of Political Affairs, a magazine published by the Communist Party, USA.  Speaking March 28, 2007 at the dedication of the Communist Party, USA archive at New York University Tamiment Library, Horne traces the downward spiral of fortune for Communists in the latter half of the twentieth century.  But in the closing paragraphs of his speech, Horne suddenly becomes hopeful, pointing to the arrival of what Obama might describe as “the ones we have been waiting for.”

“...in Hawaii was an African-American poet and journalist by the name of Frank Marshall Davis, who was certainly in the orbit of the CP (Communist Party)—if not a member—and who was born in Kansas and spent a good deal of his adult life in Chicago, before decamping to Honolulu in 1948 at the suggestion of his good friend (and Communist Party member) Paul Robeson. Eventually, he befriended another family—a Euro-American family—that had migrated to Honolulu from Kansas and a young woman from this family eventually had a child with a young student from Kenya East Africa who goes by the name of Barack Obama, who retracing the steps of Davis eventually decamped to Chicago. In his best selling memoir ‘Dreams of my Father’, the author speaks warmly of an older black poet, he identifies simply as “Frank” as being a decisive influence in helping him to find his present identity as an African-American....”

[...]

Certainly, socialists and leftists have flocked to embrace Obama’s candidacy. His campaign even hosts a page for Marxists/socialists/communists for Obama, albeit with a disclaimer at the bottom. And the Communist Party USA backs Obama’s candidacy.

What remains from Marxism in America is a desire to appropriate the wealth of some and distribute it to those who did not earn it in the name of “fairness,” and the arrogant belief that politically correct ideology denotes superiority and the right to wield political power.

Marx theorized a broad uprising of the proletarian masses to create a socialist society. Later American theorists like Frank Marshall Davis saw blacks as a revolutionary vanguard. In advanced countries, followers of Marx have devolved into Gramscian propagandists.  Arrogant nihilists, they seek not to lead, but to confirm their false sense of superiority to themselves by spreading confusion and doubt.

They may await a new leader who fancies himself Nietzsche’s Übermensch—and tells them “we are the ones we have been waiting for.”

Read the whole thing; it is quite lengthy, and gives lots of details about the influence of Communist ideas on Obama’s parents and grandparents, as well as his own words on the subject.  Scary stuff, if you care about America.

Sometime back Whistler opined on the problem of a politicized NASA using its good name to weigh in on so-called Global Warming, in his thread The Problem with NASA, saying among other things, that:

… not to mention the embarrassing number of times they’ve been caught relocating their thermometers on black top parking lots and above air conditioners.

with the implication being that through negligence or design, they are skewing their results.

Yet this gem that came out recently piqued my curiosity:

NASA Chief’s Global Warming Remarks Called ‘Naive’

NASA sought today to deflect criticism its chief received following skeptical comments he made on the topic of the agency’s role in global warming research.

During an interview Wednesday with NPR, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin expressed doubts that global warming was an issue that humans could or should address.

In a telephone interview today, NASA spokesman David Mould told LiveScience that climate is an important issue about which the agency provides a significant quantity of data, and that it will continue to provide that data, but that NASA’s job is not to make policies or advise on policies.

Along the same lines, NASA clarified Griffin’s remarks (corrected him, politically) in a press release issued late Wednesday:

NASA is the world’s preeminent organization in the study of Earth and the conditions that contribute to climate change and global warming. The agency is responsible for collecting data that is used by the science community and policy makers as part of an ongoing discussion regarding our planet’s evolving systems. It is NASA’s responsibility to collect, analyze and release information. It is not NASA’s mission to make policy regarding possible climate change mitigation strategies. As I stated in the NPR interview, we are proud of our role and I believe we do it well.

Griffin’s comments to NPR’s Morning Edition included: I have no doubt that global—that a trend of global warming exists. I’m not sure it’s fair to say that is a problem we must wrestle with.

He further stated that it is wrong for mankind to say what climate conditions are best for the planet.

To assume that [global warming] is a problem is to assume that the state of the Earth’s climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure it doesn’t change, he said. First of all, I don’t think it’s within the power of human beings to assure that the climate does not change, as millions of years of history have shown.

Second of all, I guess I would ask which human beings—where and when—are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we might have right here today, right now, is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that’s a rather arrogant position for people to take.

Evidently, Griffin inadvertently let the truth slip out and committed heresy in departing from the adopted party line. The rest of the statements from NASA were attempts to get the toothpaste back into the tube.

But is this simply a matter of differences? If the French were investigating the matter, they would gravely intone cherchez les femmes However, my old FBI mentor, had a different view: follow the money. (more...)

Mercy…

First of all, according to a new report from the International Food Policy Research Institute, the number of hungry children in Africa will increase by 3.3 million by 2025 if current policy and investment trends continue. And this doesn’t even take into account the millions of adults who are starving. Yet ... doctors want to introduce a procedure to enhance the population growth. Go figure.

BARCELONA, Spain—Doctors are getting ready to introduce a cheap in vitro fertilization procedure across Africa, where women are sometimes ostracized as witches or social outcasts if they cannot have children.

Millions of dollars go into family planning projects and condom distribution to prevent pregnancies in Africa, but experts said that more than 30 percent of women on the continent are unable to have children. An estimated 80 million people in developing countries are infertile worldwide.

“Infertility is taboo in Africa,” said Willem Ombelet, head of a task force at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology looking into infertility in developing countries. “Nobody has paid attention to this issue, but it is a huge problem and we need to do something.”

[...]