George Benson - Nature Boy

Are You Going With Me? - Pat Metheny Group

Great daydreaming song...

Creeping Sharia in the U.S.

Obama Utilizes A Couple Of Lib-Myths

Obama Trafficked In Debunked Liberal Myths Wednesday

Obama's partisan budget speech had a couple whoppers in it

 Craig Steiner,U.S. - President Obama's budget speech on Wednesday was remarkable in its absence of anything remotely newsworthy other than Vice-President Biden falling asleep... and remarkable in its audacity of perpetuating two debunked liberal myths: the myth of the Clinton surplus and the myth of declining income.

Myth of the Clinton Surplus

The first whopper was the unfortunate (but predictable) invocation of the liberal myth that Clinton ran a budget surplus. The president said:

"As a result of these bipartisan efforts, America's finances were in great shape by the year 2000. We went from deficit to surplus. America was actually on track to becoming completely debt-free, and we were prepared for the retirement of the Baby Boomers."

This is incorrect. As I wrote in 2007, Clinton never had a surplus. The national debt increased every year Clinton was in office without exception.

Clinton's claim to a surplus is based on smoke and mirrors and ridiculous government accounting. Clinton wasn't the only president to use this deceptive government accounting, but he was the only one that was able to claim a surplus even while debt continued to increase.

But the bottom line is that since we were further in debt at the end of every fiscal year of the Clinton administration, did we really have a surplus? Nope.

Yet Obama promoted this debunked myth.

Since I I wrote about this extensively in a separate article years ago, I won't go into it further again right now. But I would encourage everyone to be familiar with the myth of the Clinton surplus since, a decade later, it's still one of the most commonly used liberal myths when arguing matters of fiscal responsibility.

Myth of Declining Income

Obama made the claim that the vast majority of Americans--the "bottom 90%"--saw their incomes decline over the last decade. In Wednesday's speech Obama said:

"In the last decade, the average income of the bottom 90% of all working Americans actually declined. The top 1% saw their income rise by an average of more than a quarter of a million dollars each."

This claim would have to be considered a derivative of the "rich got richer while the poor got poorer" liberal meme that is usually an indicator that a liberal is entering campaign season. Indeed, Obama launched his reelection campaign just last week.

This specifically caught my interest because I wrote an article back in 2006 that was based on census data that demonstrated that conventional liberal "wisdom" to be false.

So when I heard Obama make this claim during his speech, I wondered if something had changed in the years since I wrote my article. Indeed, within a few hours of Obama's speech I received an email from an individual who had read my article and wondered the same thing.

I did some research. [. . .] (read entire post here)

Correct Response From Both Sides...

...to Obama's budget speech.

A Glimpse of Norway

The Aurora from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

Big Gov Cancer Invades Nutrition

"[...] At his public school, Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side, students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.[...]" - Chicagotribune.com, April 10, '11

"Business as Usual"

Ending America as We Know It -Mark Steyn, National Review Online, April 9, 2011 4:00 A.M.
The Democrats’ solution to the problem is to deny there is one.

Hey, it’s the weekend, and everyone’s singing the same maddeningly catchy refrain! Rebecca Black’s “Friday”? Nah, that was last week’s moronic singalong. This week’s is even perkier! “Paul Ryan proposes to end Medicare as we know it,” sings former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta. “It would end Medicare as we know it,” sings Sen. Max Baucus of Montana. “It’s going to end Medicare as we know it,” sings Nadeam Elshami, communications director for Nancy Pelosi. “It does end Medicare as we know it,” sings Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa. I drove all night to watch Paul Ryan e-e-end Me-edi-ica-a-are as we-e kno-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-w it, sing all 24 semi-finalists on the Céline Dion round of “American Idol.”

Sadly, Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, incoming chair of the Democratic National Committee, lost the sheet music and was forced to improvise. “This plan would literally be a death trap for seniors,” she ululated. Close enough!

Ending Medicare as we know it? Say it ain’t so! Medicare, we hardly knew ye! It’s an open question whether Americans will fall for one more chorus of the same old song from Baucus, Harkin, Podesta, and the other members of America’s wrinkliest boy band. But, if this is the level on which the feckless patronizing spendaholics of the permanent governing class want to conduct the debate, bring it on:

Paul Ryan’s plan would “end Medicare as we know it.”

The Democrats’ “plan” — business as usual — will end America as we know it.

Literally, as Representative Wasserman-Schultz would say. One way or another, Medicare as we know it is going to end. So, if you think an unsustainable 1960s welfare program is as permanent a feature as the earth and sky, you’re in for a shock. It’s just a question of whether, after the shock, what’s left looks like Japan or looks like Haiti.

My comrade Jonah Goldberg compares America’s present situation to that of a plane with one engine out belching smoke. But, if anything, he understates the crisis. Air America doesn’t need a busted engine, because it’s pre-programmed to crash. Our biggest problem is Medicare and other “entitlements”: They’re the automatic pilot of Big Government. Whoever’s in the captain’s seat makes no difference: The flight is pre-programmed to hit the iceberg, if you’ll forgive me switching mass-transit metaphors in mid-stream.

For some reason, Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Harkin, & Co. don’t seem to mind this. If you recall the smile on the face of Airplane!’s “automatic pilot” as he’s being inflated, that’s pretty much the Democrats’ attitude to binge spending as a permanent fact of life.

For a sense of Democrat insouciance to American decline, let us turn to the president himself. The other day, Barack Obama was in the oddly apt town of Fairless Hills, Pa., at what the White House billed as one of those ersatz “town hall” discussions into which republican government has degenerated. He was asked a question by a citizen of the United States. The cost of a gallon of gas has doubled on Obama’s watch, and this gentleman asked, “Is there a chance of the price being lowered again?”

As the Associated Press reported it, the president responded “laughingly”: “I know some of these big guys, they’re all still driving their big SUVs. You know, they got their big monster trucks and everything. . . . If you’re complaining about the price of gas and you’re only getting eight miles a gallon — (laughter) . . . ”

That’s how the official White House transcript reported it: Laughter. Big yuks. “So, like I said, if you’re getting eight miles a gallon you may want to think about a trade-in. You can get a great deal.”

Hey, thanks! You’ve been a great audience. I’ll be here all year. Don’t forget to tip your Democrat hat-check girl on the way out: At four bucks a gallon, it’s getting harder for volunteers to drive elderly voters from the cemetery to the polling station. Relax, I’m just jerking your crank, buddy! And it’s not four bucks per, it’s only three-ninety-eight. That’s change you can believe in!

Message: It’s your fault. The same day as the president was doing his moribund-economy shtick, my hairdresser told me that she’d bought her mid-size sedan second-hand in 2004. She’d also like to ask the president if there’s a chance of gas prices being lowered again. But he’d have the same answer: Buy a hybrid. Wait till the high-speed rail-link is built between Dead Skunk Junction and Hickburg Falls. Climb into the fishnets and the come-hither smile and hitch.  [...]  (Read page two here)

Fast Relationship Fix

The White House has officially announced that President Barack Obama will veto House Republicans’ one-week “troop funding” bill that would prevent a government shutdown, calling it a “distraction from real work.” -Politico, By MJ Lee 04/07/11

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden will visit Denver on Wednesday and the Colorado Springs area on Thursday in a show of support for the families of military personnel. -The Associated Press via denverpost.com 04/09/2011  [All emphases mine]