Elements of the IKV Rakehell descended on the Holiday Inn, Bloomington, a day early for MarsCon 2010 in order to set up the ship’s party room. Much decorating was done by the crew, with dinner afterwards.
On Friday, the first day of the convention, many of the crew members were there early as they stayed the night in the hotel, with the rest of us arriving about the time the convention opened, and we were all ready for a weekend of fun, frolic, and harassing Redshirts.
Gwynyth Walsh, famed for playing the Duras sister Be’tor on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was the media guest of honor. The Rakehell’s own Jennifer served as Be’tor’s liason for the weekend. Also from the Rakehell, Patrick, who is a journalist by trade (New Prague News), interviewed Be’tor for a piece he would like to publish. We’re all looking forward to the results.
The mighty Qob ran two costuming panels on Saturday, the first doing the Wraith Queen from Stargate, and then followed it up with a one-two punch of Costuming the Klingon (reloaded). Both costuming panels were well attended and the results were great.
Meanwhile, as the costuming panels were in progress, one of the panels I was on, “Femme Fatales in Film Noir” took place, where discussed some of the great films of the ’40s and ’50s that set the tone for movies looking at the dark side of the human condition.
A local Steampunk club ran a murder mystery game in one part of the hotel, which doubled as a display of Steampunk costumes and props.
The Masquarade was a bit light this year with only 10 entries, but those entries had some darned high quality, such as the brothers, Damon and Yancy as the Riddler and Doctor Freeze (respectively). They won Best in Show and deserved the kudos. Our own, Bin’di, the Warrior Girl, won in the Young Fan Category for being the Original Femme Fatale, Cinderella.
The party scene was excellent for a mid-sized convention, with numerous room parties on the 13th floor and a couple on the 12th floor. The Rakehell’s party theme was Casino Royale, with a Spy vs. Spy type of décor, and numerous drinks, such as “Snake Eyes” and “All In”. Best party room this year went to the MN Super Heroes United, with Second place going to The World Defense Force for their tribute to classic monster movies. Blair, of the WDF, made most of the Mad Scientist gear used in the WDF party room, including a working Jacob’s Ladder.
Sunday, tending to be low key as the con wound down, Sue’La and I attended a panel on “Teaching Astronomy To Your Kids”, which put the wonderful Bin’di to sleep (naptime!). This was an informative panel that needs multiple sessions as there is a lot of material to cover that we didn’t get to in the one hour time slot.
Patrick and Ivan ran a panel on how to make working wings for a costume, use Patrick’s “gargoyle” wings as a demo/model.
After closing ceremonies, the crew of the Rakehell descended on one of our favorite Chinese restaurants for entirely too much food and post convention decompression.
All in all, much fun was had. Most of the active crew members of the Rakehell were in attendance at MarsCon. Convention attendance was pegged at 706 this year. According to the ConCom, next year MarsCon will play host to John and Bjo Trimble.
America continues to be the most amazing country on the face of the Earth. Where else can idiots and Moonbats rise up to superstardom and have millions of dollars and still be about as bright as Spicoli in Ridgemont High. How did Sean Penn manage to graduate a real high school and yet not have a basic understanding of our constitution and our First Amendment.
Yep, Spicoli is at it again, ranting about how his favorite dictator is getting beat up in the media and called, well, a dictator. “Yeah, dude, he’s really, like, not a dictator, dude.”
Sean Penn, on Friday on “Real Time with Bill Maher” said (from FoxNews):
“Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it” said Penn, winner of two Best Actor Academy Awards. “And this is mainstream media, who should — truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.”
What else he is saying here. An elected leader is not a dictator. Given that, then Sean Penn must mean that Hitler, who was the elected leader of Germany, was not a dictator. Yep, all you have to do to avoid being called dictator is get elected. Kind of like Ahmadinejad, Stalin, Kruschev, Saddam Hussein, and a host of other dictators. Hey, they were also elected at some point. Just like Hitler and Hugo Chavez.
The Oscar-winning jailbird is also quoted as saying:
“Do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah.”
That means he wants people like me to drop dead, if we don’t get jailed for calling a dictator a dictator. So much for love, tolerance, and peace from the hard-card loony Left.
Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News’ senior judicial analyst, had a lot to say about Penn’s ravings. I like the last paragraph from the piece best:
“In light of his ignorance of freedom of speech, his wishing rectal cancer on his detractors, and his embracing tyrants, Mr. Penn obviously prefers thuggery to democracy,” he continued. “Were he free to do so, he’d be a tyrant. Now we’ll see if he can get me jailed for saying that!”
For his latest rantings about calling Chavez, and other dictators dictators, and wishing people who disagree with him to die of rectal cancer, Sean Penn has earned himself the coveted Moonbat Award. Please, Sean, do something intelligent, like moving to Cuba, and then tell me that their “elected” leaders are not dictators while trying to keep a straight face.
It’s been just over a week now since the firestorm over Captain America #602 and the racist/tea party connection hit the internet and the news. I picked up a copy of Cap and gave it a read. It was my first comic book in over 10 years. Things have changed. Not just for Captain America, now Bucky, but the way comics are printed. Nice slick paper and rich inks.
But it is the content that is making news waves. In one panel, we have The Falcon, the first mainstream black super hero, while observing a group of tax protestors, complain that he would “not fit in with a bunch of angry white people.” Among the protestors, there is a sign that reads “Tea bag the Libs before they tea bag us.” Boom! firestorm. The Tea Party movement is nothing but a bunch of “angry white people” in the eyes of the writer, Brubaker. The EoC of Marvel, Joe Quesada, asserts that it was a bad choice, a mistake, should not have gotten through the editorial review, yadadadah. Okay, I can buy that. Quesada even admitted in CBR’s “Cup O’ Joe” that he could see how people would be upset by it and interpret it the way it is being taken: a slam against the tax protestors, and the Tea Party movement, as being a bunch of racists.
I doubt that Quesada has any secret agenda, other than making money for Marvel, and there isn’t anything secret about that. I don’t think the sign used was such a bad choice, except in the context it was used, with angry mobs (something I have never witnessed at the Tax Cut rallies I have attended…more of a good-natured party atmosphere from what I have seen) and the Falcon saying “how is a black guy from Brooklyn supposed to fit in with a bunch of angry white people.” Brubaker, with those words, made the tax protesters out to be racists. Not the choice of signs.
There are people within the Tea Party movement that were offended by The Falcon’s racially motivated slur and the perceived association that the protestors were part of the Tea Party movement. An easy association to make as, A) they were protesting taxes, B) signs were derived from Tea Party rallies, including the infamous “Tea bag the Libs” sign, C) the Left keeps claiming that the movement is nothing but a bunch of “angry white people that hate Obama because he is black, and therefore they are racists”. I can see why there are people ticked off about this.
But there are other troubling problems with Captain America #602. Bucky, using the Falcon’s analysis that he wouldn’t fit in with a “bunch of angry white people” uses that as the basis of his plan to infiltrate the Watchdogs. The Falcon shows up in a bar as a black IRS agent wanting to audit the bar owner. Bucky hits him and throws him out of the bar as a means to win his way into the Watchdogs. Bucky obviously agrees with the Falcon that the tax protestors, and the Watchdogs, are racist in their nature.
An additional troubling point is that when the Watchdogs meet with the 1950s Captain America, they make reference to how a couple of their potential recruits are military guys just returned from the Middle East. Wasn’t there a document from one of the states, and another form Homeland Security stating that military veterans returning from Iraq were considered likely recruits by militia groups? Yeppers.
However, it is a comic book. It’s entertainment, written primarily by Leftists for Leftists. I wouldn’t let my daughter read anything that Marvel or DC is churning out these days. Fortunately she is only four and not ready for comic books yet.
On the entertaining side is what people, to be accurate, commenters, on various sites have had to say about it. I responded to some of the really idiotic comments, trying to straighten them out, on one site, but the site’s editors chose not to publish my comments, preferring instead profanity laced diatribes and Leftist claims about the Tea Party movement.
One of my favorite screeds in regards to Captain America #602 comes from someone identifying himself (herself?) as HurtsSoGood on IO9:
So how come nearly all the ones who get their pictures taken for the media are white, middle-aged to elderly, and appear to be from the lower echelons of our society?
Tell me, where are the African-American teabaggers?
The Hispanic-American teabaggers?
The Asian-American teabaggers?
The middle-class suburban teabaggers?
The liberal teabaggers?
The college-educated teabaggers?
Diverse my ass.
Since IO9 chose not to post my response to this person, I’m rewriting it, posting it here, and adding a choice video to back up my statements.
@HurtsSoGood: Being one of the people who has been attending tax-cut rallies for most of the last 10 years, I can answer your questions: the Media prints only that which validates their agenda of depicting people in the Tea Party movement in a fashion to marginalize them An example is when MSNBC took a video clip of a guy with an AR-15 to a rally in Arizona. MSNBC cropped the video footage so that you could not see the guy’s skin, let alone his face. They railed about how racist these rallies are because Obama is black and the protestors, especially the ones with the guns, are white. Yet in the original video of the guy with the AR-15 at the rally clearly shows that he is black. As for who the “teabaggers” are, be aware that that is an offensive term, and has no bearing on the Tea Party movement, so, unless you mean it in the usual sense in referring to the sex-act, in which case, look to the MoveOn crowd for teabaggers.
The people who gather, whether for a small event or large, are a diverse mix of people, both racially, economic, and education. Many have college degrees, some are left-of-center politically, most are classical liberals (that’s where I generally fit in, or you could use the term Constitutional Conservative), and that covers your question of “are there liberals in the Tea Party movement”. Many have served in the Armed Forces of this country (a category I fall into). Most are middle-class working stiffs. Some, like myself, also have the honor of serving our community in an elected office. At the events I have attended, some of the speakers have been black, others have been Asian, and still others have been Hispanic. Yes, there have also been speakers who were white. So what? What has the color of a person’s skin got to do with political issues, especially taxes and government spending?
Occasionally you may see a sign at these events that one can find offensive. Some, such as those depict Obama as Hitler (I have only seen this in news articles, not at rallies I have attended), were plants by wacko groups like the Lyndon LaRouche Society. But contrast that with the signs and screaming anger of the anti-War protesters hurled at a few people who gathered at a support the troops rally when the GOP national convention was taking place. Some of those nuts (and not all those protesting the war are nuts, but some are) walked up and down our line giving us the middle finger and shouting “F*** You!” Nice bunch. Most of the support the troops attendees were Gold Star Families.
Since there are those who may still doubt this, here’s a video by Randy Haddock on youtube.
Any rate, that’s the gist of my response, and is a rewrite of it, rather than verbatim. I doubt that HurtsSoGood is going to see this post, let alone read it, but ya never know. If he does, I doubt it will change is viewpoint. People like HurtsSoGood are like the hardcore Birthers in that no matter how much hardcopy evidence is pushed in front of them, they won’t accept facts as being facts and stick to their preconceived (ill-conceived?) beliefs.
One thing the writers and editors need to remember, though, is that our great nation was founded due to a tax revolt.
Captain America #603 is supposed to be on the stands. I plan on giving it a read, to see what is happening next, and if the firestorm over #602 is more of an isolated incident than trendsetting. Until then, as Stan Lee would say, ’nuff said.
I hear that the Progressives (they don’t like being called “liberals” any more, which works for me as they don’t believe in Liberty) have started a group to counter the Tea Party movement. They have picked the delightfully witty and appropriate term “brownbagger”. I had to look it up in the urban dictionary, which had seven definitions, including #5, which I believe is suitably appropriate. Yech! Appropriate, but yech!
When I read this morning that Congressman John Murtha had died, my reaction was an audible “Holy sh!t!”. Seriously, not in a good way, but with surprise and sorrow. Although I have been a critic of Murtha in regards to the Iraq War and issues regarding his castigating our troops in a negative light (accusing them of crimes that they did not commit or even take place), Murtha also had many good accomplishments and should be remembered for those. This is yet another time for mourning, too soon after the loss of Ted Kennedy.
Murtha was 77 when he died as a result of complications to gallbladder surgery. He was the first Vietnam veteran elected to Congress.
My thoughts and prayers go out to Congressman Murtha’s family at this time of sorrow.
According to a recent Gallup Poll, 53% of Democrats have a positive view of socialism. Why is anyone surprised at this? Seriously, look at who the Democratic voters have sent to Washington in recent years: Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Al Franken, Amy Klobuchar, Dennis Kucinich, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, just to name a few of the star players. The only thing I find surprising about this statistic is that it was only 53% of Democrats that think socialism is great. Surprisingly, there are some 17% of people identifying themselves as Republican (or leaning) that think socialism is cool. 36% of Americans overall have a positive view of socialism.
A couple of questions I would have are: What do they think socialism is? Do they understand that for socialism to work, the people must give up their rights to government and let government tell them how to live? How much value do they put on their Liberty? How did we, as a People, drift so far away from the American Ideals set forth by the Founding Fathers?
I think I know the answer to that last question: Zip!
There are three different main forms of Socialism, all of they have elements that are directly opposed to Liberty and the individual rights of the People. Communism is the one furthest to the Left. Fascism is to the political right of Communism, which is why Liberals/Progressives frequently (and WRONGLY) associate it with Conservatism. Conservatism and Libertarianism are in direct opposition of any and all forms of Socialism. Somewhere in between Communism and Fascism lies State Socialism.
I know for a fact that many Liberals/Progressives don’t understand these basic concepts when they describe Fascism as being a system where corporations control how government operates. I’ve actually had one of these lovers of socialism tell me that, and used that view in order to assert her claim that Conservatives/Republicans are Fascists. (This particular person also called me a Fascist to my face.) She refused to accept the fact that what she described was exactly the opposite of Fascism, and was closer to being that of a Plutocracy.
There are a lot of people I know who don’t understand what socialism is, or other political systems. They go to the polls and blindly pull the lever for the candidate promising to do the most to take care of them, to be their mommy and daddy, to provide them with their basic needs rather than take responsibility for their lives and endeavor to excel and exceed. And that is a truly sad commentary on American society.
Generally I don’t pay attention to Meghan McCain. Currently she is about as relevant as Cindy Sheehan. Well, maybe she is not as relevant as Cindy Sheehan. Today, however, Meghan kinda stuck her foot into it with her responses to a Republican “purity” test. I don’t put much stock into these things, but her responses, and what she thinks enables her to claim to be a “pure” Republican are, well, entertaining.
Meghan claims that she is pure Republican on 8 out of 10 points by claiming that one “hell no” and two “half nos” equals a total of two nos. First off, there is no such thing as half-a-no. It is either “yes, I agree” or “no, I don’t agree”. Further, on one question, regarding Universal Healthcare, she claims to answer yes, she opposes such, but then goes on to add an exception of “until we figure out how are we going to pay for it”, making it a no, because what she just stated means that if there is a way to pay for it, then “hell yeah, I support it!” Actual tally, six yeses and four nos. If there is any validity to this “purity” test, then Meghan, fails to be a “pure” Republican.
For the record, about the only one I disagree with is the one concerning how to deal with Iran and North Korea. I don’t think containment is going to do the job, especially since North Korea now has nukes (thank you very much, Clinton Administration) and Iran will soon be able to provide weapons grade radioactives to terrorists (thank you very much, Carter Administration). Containment, under these circumstances, isn’t going to cut it. It may be all we have to work with right now, but once we see mushroom clouds over New York City or Tokyo, maybe people in power will figure out that containment of a hostile nations isn’t feasible.
Okay, there are Moonbat Moments and there are moonbat moments. But this one has got to qualify as a MOONBAT MOMENT. Danny Glover said this in response to the 7.0 quake that rocked Haiti, killing tens of thousands of people.
“When we see what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I’m sayin’?”
Watch the video; his comment is near the end of the clip.
Think about it. Glover is blaming this on the fact that there are people who don’t buy the crock of Man-caused global warming. He is blaming America and those who support REAL science (A foreign concept to Lefties like Glover and the Boracle) as opposed to those who worship at the altar of Global Warming. What a sick and twisted is a comment to make while the people of Haiti suffer in the aftermath of an earthquake that ruined their country and their lives? How sick and twisted is it to lay the blame such a disaster on it at the feet of those who do the most to help those in need?
Good God, Glover, pull you head out of your pompous rear-end and get a brain. This sick and twisted comment has earned Danny Glover the coveted Moonbat Award. Congratulations. Now go get a brain.
My thoughts and prayers goes out to all those who are suffering and lost loved ones in the disaster in Haiti.
There is some good news coming out of the Capitol. The Health Care Takeover (ObamaCare) is hanging on by a thread. I like what the Hill reported:
“We’ve got to get a bill that’s more compatible to the House,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday. “Forget all the other questions. Two-hundred-eighteen [votes] is the most important issue we are dealing with… We have serious problems on both sides of the Capitol. Serious problems.”
Rangel succeeds in showing what this takeover is all about: power. When someone claims that the most important issue is getting the votes to pass a lousy (and I do mean lousy) piece of legislation, that person should not be allowed to hold office. Sounds like Rangel, the man who wants to draft kids again, is displaying his Congressional Moonbat credentials again.
Pelosi goes on to assert that a millionaire surtax is the best way to pay for it all. There has never been a tax designed for “just the rich will pay” that didn’t eventually trickle down to all working Americans. Remember, the income tax was supposed to only apply to the wealthy. Reality check: As soon as the Dems figure out that the so-called Millionaire Surtax is insufficient for paying the bills, they will lower the bar of who pays this additional tax.
Fear is also mounting amongst the power-hungry Democrats that next week’s special election in Massachusetts may send a Republican to the Senate, breaking the super-majority that the Left now wields in the Senate and effectively killing the best shot at taking over our health care. I hope that these fears bear fruit and we finally break the hold the Dems have on Congress so that the minority party will have a voice. Then we may see some bi-partisanship going on. Until that happens, the Dems idea of bi-partisanship will continue to be “our way or the highway”.
Okay, I admit it. I don’t have a lot of patience for nutters who live in their parents basements blaming mankind for all that is bad in the world and wanting a utopia, then go into suicidal depression when they realize that fantasy utopias like we see in the movie Avatar do not, in fact exist.
I have not seen the movie, Avatar, so I don’t know a lot about it. I hope to find time to see it in the near future. But the fact that people come out of it thinking that Man is the greatest evil, and that capitalism is the next greatest evil, in the universe, tells me something is wrong in the universe.
James Cameron’s completely immersive spectacle “Avatar” may have been a little too real for some fans who say they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora.
On the fan forum site “Avatar Forums,” a topic thread entitled “Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible,” has received more than 1,000 posts from people experiencing depression and fans trying to help them cope.
Need help coping with post-Avatar depression? I can help you with three words: Get a life! (This can be further shortened to two words: Grow up!) That means, go out and get a job, a better education, learn new skills, take up interesting hobbies (but if you are depressed from watching Avatar, please stay away from anything that involves any kind of weapon, and stay out of politics), make a few real-time friends (you know, not the people you post updates to on Facebook all day long, but people you go out for pizza and beer and have a face-to-face conversation).
Avatar is a work of fiction. Based on my limited knowledge, he certainly sounds anti-Western culture, much like Dances With Wolves and The Last Samurai were anti-Western (and I don’t mean Western genre). It communicates that Corporations, Captialism, and Marines are greedy, evil and bad.
Reality Check - Corporations and Capitalism are not greedy, evil, or bad. There are individuals who are greedy (former Congressman William Jefferson with his freezer full of bribe money, and most dictators, and many U.N officials, evil (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Osama bin Ladin, and a host of others), and/or bad (most members of Congress, convicts, and the people involved in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal are some good examples). Corporations are inanimate objects used by people to make profits. Some of these people could be described as bad and/or greedy. Capitalism is an ideology and is incapable of being greedy/evil/bad. Marines, as a whole, as well as other members of our Armed Forces, and those of our allies, are forces of good and examples of self-sacrifice (exact opposite of greed) and courage.
So, if you are suffering post-Avatar depression, you really need to spend some serious time re-evaluating your priorities in life.
Meanwhile, I may make a daring attempt to see Avatar before it comes out on video. It is not James Cameron’s or the movie’s fault that there are people out there who can’t get a grip on reality. Next thing you know they’ll be seeking help in response to not being admited to Hogwarts.
Update:
Ran across this piece on Big Hollywood. With anti-American rhetoric in the script, maybe it is Cameron’s fault that there are nutters out there who are being suicidally depressed by the movie. Maybe I’ll wait until I can rent it on DVD.
Too anyone who knows me, it will come as no surprise that I am a big (and I do mean BIG!) John Wayne fan. My in-laws are no exception to this. Indeed, they delighted me the last couple of holidays with some delightful John Wayne related gifts, and this year was a big surprise in that they gave me a copy of The Young Duke: The Early Life of John Wayne by Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian for Christmas (among other fun things!). I breezed through the book, preempting the novel I had just started.
This is a new biography on the Duke, and contains reprints of several articles and interviews written during John Wayne’s life, as well as numerous photographs. That alone makes this book worth picking up.
Any John Wayne fan knows a lot of his life during his film career, and even a bit about his growing up and how he got into film in the first place. Enss and Kazanjian give more depth to the fractured family life that Duke Wayne grew up with and dealt with during his adult life.
What I found most interesting in this new biography is how the list of “supporting” people in Duke’s life impacted his personal life and his career, from his early mentorship with John Ford and his many years of work with the great Yakima Canutt, and how Wayne and Canutt developed new stunt techniques for choreographing fight scenes during their stint in ’30s B-westerns. There are anecdotes about many other film legends, such as Harry Carey, Tom Fix, and many others. Plus a look at Wayn’e marriages, including his tragic and stormy union to Chata Baur.
There is one major error in the book, and that is when it covers the House Un-American Activities Committee. Enss and Kanajian incorrectly assert that Harry Carey, when he testified before the HUAC, he did so before Joseph McCarthy, and stated he headed the committee. Harry Carey died in 1947, several months after McCarthy was elected to the U.S. Senate. Prior to 1947, McCarthy served as a circuit court judge in Wisconsin. As a U.S. Senator, he would have no direct involvement with the HUAC as that was a committee of the House of Representatives. Add to that the fact the McCarthy was relatively unknown until 1950 when he made the Wheeling Speech concerning the communist infiltration of our government.
Aside from that serious factual error, and some poor proofing (which is a nitpick), Enss and Kazanjian have produced a very fine biography of Duke Wayne and The Young Duke well worth reading.
You better watch out
You better not pout
You better not cry
I’m telling you why
ObamaCare is coming to town.
The disastrous takeover of our health insurance system by government is impending, complete with closed-door backroom deals and no bi-partisanship or GOP input. The slow creep to serfdom is going into hyperdrive as Obama and House/Senate leaders bypass the normal joint committees to resolve differences in House and Senate versions of the Health Care “Reform” bill as a means to short-circuit Republican input and rush the process so as to ram it down the throats of the American people before we know which way is up. Ya can’t blame Bush for this disaster.
But I do have someone to blame.
Norm Coleman, former Republican Senator from Minnesota.
Why do I blame Coleman? Simple. He surrendered his seat in the recount proceedings is a maneuver that would make Jean-Luc Piccard proud.
Reason: Going into the recount, Coleman had a narrow (razor thin) lead. When determining how his team would handle the recount, he played a gentlemanly game of softball, ignoring the lesson learned in Washington two years before. Al Franken, on the other hand, took the Washington lesson and applied it in Minnesota, playing hardball and going straight for the jugular. End result, official recount showed Franken with a narrow (razor thin) lead by using loosy-goosy standards on ballots from Ramsey and Hennepin counties while applying tight standards to ballots from pretty much everywhere else. When the process went to the courts, Coleman continued to play softball while Franken beat Coleman’s team like bongo drums.
You can’t when a gun fight when you show up with a pocket knife.
Had Coleman played by the same rules that Franken used in the recount, there is a high probability that Coleman would still be a U.S. Senator and ObamaCare would have been stopped dead in the Senate.
News of Rush Limbaugh’s being hospitalized with chest pains reached my monitor this morning. It’s a crummy way for 2009 to end for him. I wish him well and a speedy recovery. Unlike some bozos around the blogosphere.
Recently, Limbaugh has been an ardent critic of ObamaCare and the government takeover of our healthcare system. One thing that Ann Althouse pointed is:
Rush Limbaugh has said on his show many times that once the government runs health care, there is a threat that life-or-death decisions will be made based on politics, and people will worry that if they criticize the government or espouse the wrong opinions decisions will go against them.
A darn good point that had not previously occurred to me. I don’t listen to Limbaugh’s show or follow his website, I am not a ditto-head or fan of his, even though I agree with most of his positions.
This is a chilling notion, the thought that government could decide who should receive what treatments or medications based on their political ideology; that government should be able to determine who lives and who dies based on whether or not they agree with the people in power. Scary stuff. Amd potentially real, especially if the Left realizes their end-game of full-on socialized health care system (single-payer).
Get well, Mr. Limbaugh. America needs you voice, now more than ever.
Yeah, that’s right, even though the bomb failed to detonate, our side failed to stop him from getting into position where he could set it off to begin with.
Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the blown attack. Janet Napolitano at first claimed our anti-terrorist system worked, then backtracked and admitted it failed. This is a critical point.
There are reports out that the terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was aided in boarding the Detroit bound flight in Amsterdam without a passport by an unidentified man who asserted Mutallab was escaping from Sudan and needed to get to the U.S., and that it is routine to slip Sudanese refugees on flights despite not having a passport.
Mutallab, now known internationally as the underwear bomber, successful boarded the flight while carrying his explosive charge in his underwear. When Mutallab failed to set it off, due to some malfunction, he then tried to set it off by setting it on fire. He was foiled when passengers and crew subdued him.
This is a reminder of what we are up against. When it comes to terrorist attacks, we have to be lucky every single time to stop attacks before they occur. We cannot afford a failure. The terrorists only have to get lucky once. And this time they did. Only the Big Guy upstairs prevented this from going off the way al Qaeda wanted it to.
Our system of protecting people from terrorist attacks failed. The underwear bomber scored a tactical victory for the terrorists. Why was it a tactical victory for the enemy? They penetrated defenses and succeeded in getting the bomb in position. This despite our receiving warnings from Mutallab’s father that his son was up to something with al Qaeda. Despite Mutallab being on terrorist watch lists and known to be cavorting with various extremist terrorist groups. That’s reason one this was a tactical victory for the terrorists.
Reason 2 that it was a victory for evil is that air travel will now have even more restrictions placed on it. Here comes the full body scans and Lord knows what else. Requirements to stay in your seat for the last hour of the flight, with your hands in plain sight. Talk about treating people like a pack of Kindergartners. Air travel is restrictive and inconvenient enough. Now it will become even more so. No thanks, I’ll drive from now on.
Al Qaeda has also stated that more attacks are on the way, and that they practice tactics for penetrating security so as to carry out attacks. They found a big hole in Amsterdam by getting the Underwear Bomber on board without a passport. That means there is one rule that definitely needs to be implemented and that’s where international flights are concerned, no passport, no boarding, absolutely no exceptions.
We got lucky this time in that the bomb was a dud. Our being lucky this time had nothing to do with our security measures that are in place BECAUSE THOSE SECURITY MEASURES FAILED! Had they worked as planned, Mutallab should never have made it aboard that flight to Detroit, but been detained in Amsterdam.
Message to Obama and Napolitano: don’t fail us again!
The Peter Watts arrest saga continues with the following report from the Times Herald in Port Huron:
A Canadian science fiction writer was bound over to circuit court today on charges of assault and resisting arrest from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron.
A preliminary examination for Peter Watts of Toronto was held today in front of District Judge John Monaghan.
Basically what this means is that the District Court determined that the prosecution had all their proverbial duck s in a row for moving this case ahead to trial. It is not an indication of guilt/innocence, just a finding that “yep, looks like you can proceed to trial”.
Doesn’t look like the video has been released yet.
Something I have failed to point out in regards to this incident is that Watts was stopped as part of a random, and routine, border inspection. Quite frankly, I don’t like random stops like this. However, that isn’t justification for being a jerk towards people just trying to do thier jobs and protect their country.
And now a message from the Obama Administration Peanut Gallery:
“In the long run we can’t continue to spend as if deficits don’t have consequences, as if waste doesn’t matter, as if the hard earned tax dollars of the American people can be treated like monopoly money, that’s what we’ve seen time and time again, Washington has become more concerned about the next election than the next generation.”
Yet that is exactly what Obama and the Democrats are doing; treating OUR hard earned money as though it is monopoly money and as if there are no consequences in doing so. Republicans were never this unrestrained in spending during the Bush years, although many are also guilty of treating our money as if it is THIERS to do with as they please.
Obama also states in the video that the deficit in January (2009) stood at $1.3 trillion, which is a LIE. It was at roughly $450 billion (not trillion), a third of what Obama claims in this video.
It seems to me that there is a lot of Moonbattiness this week, and it’s only Monday. We’re going to do a double-hitter on the Moonbat award.
The first is going to, of all people, a member of the clergy, specifically Father Tim Jones of St. Lawrence Church in York, U.K. for his advising his congregation to shoplift during these trying times. His reasoning: hey, God loves the poor more than he loves the rich.
Father Tim Jones, 41, broke off from his traditional annual sermon yesterday to tell his flock that stealing from large chains is sometimes the best option for vulnerable people.
It is far better for people desperate during the recession to shoplift than turn to ‘prostitution, mugging or burglary’, he said.
Okay, yeah, shoplifting may be better than prostitution, and it isn’t violent like mugging, but it is STILL STEALING and a violation of the commandment “thou shall not steal.”
Jones goes on to say that people should not steal from small, family businesses, as it hurts them more than the big chains. That’s big of him.
Stealing is stealing. Period. end of Statement. Congratualtions, Pastor Jones, you are a recipient of a Moonbat Award.
Next up is one of America’s own, Senator Whitehouse (D as in Dumb@ass- RI) has this to say about those who oppose ObamaCare:
“They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militias and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.”
In other words, those who oppose it are a bunch of racists. Wow.
A few facts - yeah, there are some nuts on both sides of the political divide. On the right there are a (dwindling) number of birthers who still believe that Obama was born in Kenya, despite the overwhelming evidence that he was in fact born in Hawaii. Yeah, I get riled at birtherism as well, and defend Obama on that score. But to accuse those who oppose Obama as being members of militias (the new Leftist code-word for terrorist) or Aryan groups (which is to say, they’re Nazis) and that we find it unbearable that Obama exists is pure loony Moonbattiiness. This guy is NUTS!
A few facts: most of us who oppose Obama’s agenda are not “birthers”, do not belong to militias, or associate with Aryan groups. I don’t think anyone on the right find it unbearable that Obama exists. We don’t like Obama’s policies. But, hey, the Left hated Bush’s policies and they did find it unbearable that George W. Bush existed (not to mention Ronald Reagan), but that’s another story.
So congratulations to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse; you are a real, major league Moonbat. Enjoy your Moonbat award.
Why to people keep voting for idiots like this, anyway?
I was reading a column in the Telegraph today on global government and how, when such comes about, “there will be nowhere to run to.” The piece, by Janet Daley, takes a long, hard look at the use of “global” in relation to crisis and solutions, and the results of the Copenhagen climate talks. She’s got some darn good points that should cause concern to every freedom loving person in the world, ’cause when global governance comes into being, there won’t be anyplace to run.
One thing that helps keep tyranny in check is that people can (attempt to) escape it by going to another country. Every year, thousands escape Cuba, China, Vietnam, and other totalitarian regimes, most of them come to the United States. Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, defections were common, and people would escape from behind the Iron Curtain seeking political asylum.
The talks in Copenhagen were pushing for global governance over climate control; global policing of carbon emissions, all on the backs of free people, and placed their by unelected (and unaccountable) bureaucrats interested only in personal power.
One aspect that concerns me is that there are many people who accept it, even welcome it, and not just those who will gain power over the people of the world. It also fits in with the base theme of my blog. I am referring to Science Fiction Fans and Fandom.
For decades, science fiction has glorified world government, and it is a good theme for an SF story. And not just world government, but star spanning Federations and Galactic Empires, seem to be the norm.
Star Trek - the old other national identities are still there, but not sovereign governments.
Babylon 5, also one world government on Earth, whose influence controls the entire home system and colonial possessions. The Narn have global government, as do the Minbari and the other races. One world, one species, one government.
Dune is a galactic empire with each planet ruled by an aristocratic family. Each world has its ruling government with the Imperial government ruling over all.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, when you disagree with your government. Unlike the way things are today.
Less than forty years ago pseudo-males fled the U.S. military draft and service in Vietnam by fleeing to Canada. But at least they had the ability to do so. As pointed out above, since the rise of Castro, every year people have been fleeing Cuba for the U.S. in droves.
If the power mongers at the climate conference and the U.N. eventually get their way and get a global climate control “agreement” in place, we will be one step closer to global governance, and if you don’t agree with what they are doing, you will have nowhere to go. We can’t even get off of this rock let alone out of this solar system to new worlds as someone in an SF story would be able to do.
The Brits, by and large, don’t seem particularly thrilled with the EU model they have to deal with. Think about what the world will be like if the EU model is thrust upon us on a global basis. I don’t know about anybody else, but it gives me the hebegebes.
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