The Roman Catholic Church, claiming to have 1.2 billion adherents worldwide, is at the forefront of the news these days since it’s in the process of selecting its 266th pope. Like all other Judeo-Christian denominations, it’s in a struggle, especially in the “developed” nations, with regard to Christian faithfulness and behavior, not to mention a decrease in finances.
In Europe and North America, the church is in a desperate battle with secularism, i.e., indifference to or rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations, according to the dictionary. Nowhere could this be more obvious than in the U.S., where parishioners pay little or no attention to church doctrine in areas such as homosexuality, contraception, abortion and marriage.
This doesn’t mean the church is wrong, only that it’s fighting a losing battle with secularism, automatically heavily vested in political correctness, which has hedonism as a driving force, defined as the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the sole or chief good in life. As seen graphically in Europe and well on its way in the U.S., the state is assuming cradle-to-grave responsibility for citizens, essentially taxing the producers and making non-producers the beneficiaries of their earnings and assets. Taking care of the “poor” used to be a church responsibility.
The history of the RCC is replete with brutality every bit as lethal and mindless as any seen today, things like the burning-at-the-stake of Bible-translator William Tyndale in 1536. The pope did not want the people to read the Bible, for obvious reasons. In it, they would have found direct contradictions to what they had been taught by the priests. They would not have found “indulgences,” for instance, a sort of passport-to-heaven scheme dreamed up by the hierarchy…for money.
This distinction can be seen in the settling of North, Central and South America. Settlers in the U.S. were relatively educated and mostly Protestant, so they could read the Bible and construct their own theologies, as well as establish government and business.
Catholic missionaries went into South and Central America to an illiterate people who could not read Latin, the language of the church, and simply accepted the clerical indoctrination. Actually, the idea of education was discouraged by the European empire-builders as well as the church, thus the difference in the living standards, for instance, between the Americas, even though South America is richer in natural resources.
The wonder is that Catholics continue to subscribe to the dogma of the Church. The current pope-election is done in complete secrecy by 115 Cardinals, men appearing as mostly old and chubby, wearing ridiculous outfits that probably cost small fortunes. They do in Masses (worship services) what one might expect in pagan rituals, such as waving incense and patrolling around an altar. They insist that the liquid used in the Eucharist is the actual blood of Jesus, too far-fetched for belief. This is not meant to be pejorative, just strange.
The Church has always been steeped in questionable actions, the most recent being the financial shenanigans of the Vatican bank-personnel, embezzlement (or maybe money-laundering) by an official who has nevertheless been pardoned by Pope Benedict XVI. The court actions and lawsuits of the last two or so decades practically bankrupting (or at least claimed, who knows?) some dioceses vis-à-vis the widespread and well-documented molestation of young people by priests is another example.
The penitentiaries in this and other countries should be full of these sleazebags but their bishops, who ought to be in jail, too, just kept moving them around. Even though the Church inveighs heavily against homosexuality, the evidence is that homosexual behavior is rampant in at least some parts of the priesthood and especially in some seminaries, among both students and faculty. Watching priests and others kneeling and kissing Pope Benedict’s ring the other day was sickening—one man bowing before another is just plain wacko.
In addition to the moral turpitude in the Catholic priesthood/hierarchy is the almost brazen display of the material riches of the Church, seen especially currently as attention is turned toward the glitter of churches and palaces in Rome. The Church is probably the single wealthiest entity in the world, when all its cash (has its own bank) and assets are counted—this while people in many Catholic-dominated countries go hungry.
Though not a member of the United Nations, the Vatican is considered a nation with a population of 836 souls located on 109 acres entirely within Italy, and has its own flag. To its eternal shame the U.S. has maintained an ambassador to the Vatican in total contravention of the U.S. Constitution regarding church and state. That post has been empty since November 2012, when U.S. Ambassador Miguel Humberto Diaz resigned to take a teaching position after 3.5 years in Rome representing President Obama, who had no trouble bowing to the Muslim head honcho of Saudi Arabia in 2009. Whether or not he would bow to a Christian Pope is problematic.
It’s fair to say that the RCC has probably done more than any organization to hurt Christianity because of both its sordid history and the current pathetic leadership and immorality in its priesthood and hierarchy.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Friday, March 08, 2013
Obama & the Constitution
The filibuster (actual, not according to “Senate Rules”) by Senator Rand Paul on 06 March regarding the president’s or the attorney general’s apparent refusal for weeks to indicate whether or not the president could have a non-combatant American citizen assassinated on American soil has been the latest big news-item. When Obama had an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, wasted by drone in Yemen in September 2011, the question became of interest.
Shed no tears for al-Awlaki, a homegrown American in league with al Qaeda. Major Hasan of Ft. Hood-massacre fame was one of Awlaki’s pupils vis-à-vis the offing of Americans while in homicide/suicide mode. Strangely, even though the Ft. Hood atrocity took place 3.5 years ago in plain sight of a plethora of witnesses, the major has never been brought to trial, the current reason (at least as of last notice) being that he refused to shave his beard and thus be “religiously” defiled.
Army regulations (he’s still in the army) require that he shave but the army (meaning Obama, the commander-in-chief raised in childhood as a Muslim) seems to have caved. According to Hasan’s religion, murdering citizens in cold blood is spiritually correct but (gasp) shaving is not. Never mind that Hasan has been well-shaved all the years he’s been in the army, apparently without a thought of going to hell account of not being bewhiskered.
Obama could order the man tried immediately, shaved or not, and would not let any Baptist male take this line, particularly if the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright said to get on with it. This explains, however, the apparent disregard the president has of the U.S. Constitution. And, it explains Senator Paul’s mission, to wit, that the president cannot violate that document in any way. Currently, the president operates on the theory that he governs the United States of Monarchy, rather than the U.S. of A. Operative in this regard is the use of executive orders to bypass the Congress and the Courts.
Under the duress of his filibuster, Paul received a letter (after many weeks of requests for clarification) from the attorney general stating that the president may not commit such a murder, something that could have been done in five minutes back then. The episode, however, points up Obama’s disregard for the Constitution, starting in his first year in office, as well as the fact that he harbored the rationale that he could actually work his will on an American citizen in this country.
Flash back to 2008-09, when Obama and Illinois Senator Durbin (and a bunch of other democrats) decided that Roland Burris, the man appointed by Illinois then-governor Blagojevich to take Obama’s vacated Senate seat, would not be allowed to take the seat. Obama had favored Valerie Jarrett for that seat and Durbin is just a loose cannon, who once compared American GIs to keepers of the Russian Gulags, Hitler’s storm troopers and Pol Pot’s butchers of the “killing fields” in Cambodia. He proves that subversives can be senators.
According to the U.S. Constitution, a state legislature can determine how a vacant Senate seat can be filled. In Illinois, the legislature determined that the governor makes an appointment and the appointee will serve the remainder of the term at issue, in this case two years. It was Obama’s job to uphold that determination. In fact, Burris was “locked out” until days after the official swearing-in of senators took place. So much for Obama and the Constitution! Windbag Durbin didn’t matter, nor did Majority Leader Reid, who should have had the guts to do his job.
Obama’s role in the Burris matter comprised grounds for impeachment. Obama, reversing his position in 2008 regarding marriage, declared later that his Judicial Department (Holder) would not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. The president is sworn to uphold the laws, so he committed an impeachable offense, made more egregious by the fact that most states, such as Kentucky, have laws and/or Constitutional amendments upholding the DOMA.
Obama’s Judicial department sued Arizona for essentially enforcing FEDERAL laws regarding immigrants – another impeachable offense account trampling states’ rights. Recently, the department has joined a matter before the courts in California that would nullify a referendum- approved Constitutional amendment banning “gay” marriage – another impeachable offense.
The most egregious impeachable offense was Obama’s unprovoked and Constitutionally un-approved attack on Libya in 2011, completely bypassing Congress and announcing the attack not in the U.S. but in Brazil as he began a vacation not including his presence as commander-in-chief in Washington. That malicious attack resulted in seven months of relentless bombing by the U.S. and NATO, with no telling how many Libyan civilians killed. No one in the administration has ever offered a number…and never will.
In addition, Obama approved the furnishing of weapons to the Libyan insurgents (it was a civil war like Vietnam in the 60s). Those weapons and their terrorist users are now in the Syrian conflict, while Libya was left in a massive quagmire divided into the West and East, with four Americans including a U.S. ambassador murdered in Benghazi on 11 September 2012.
Ostensibly, Rand Paul was all about the “droning” of Americans, but his real effort was applied to calling out the president and his lackeys vis-à-vis the requirements of the Constitution. In this, he was successful but it remains to be seen if Congress has the guts to make it stick. The guess here: NO.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Shed no tears for al-Awlaki, a homegrown American in league with al Qaeda. Major Hasan of Ft. Hood-massacre fame was one of Awlaki’s pupils vis-à-vis the offing of Americans while in homicide/suicide mode. Strangely, even though the Ft. Hood atrocity took place 3.5 years ago in plain sight of a plethora of witnesses, the major has never been brought to trial, the current reason (at least as of last notice) being that he refused to shave his beard and thus be “religiously” defiled.
Army regulations (he’s still in the army) require that he shave but the army (meaning Obama, the commander-in-chief raised in childhood as a Muslim) seems to have caved. According to Hasan’s religion, murdering citizens in cold blood is spiritually correct but (gasp) shaving is not. Never mind that Hasan has been well-shaved all the years he’s been in the army, apparently without a thought of going to hell account of not being bewhiskered.
Obama could order the man tried immediately, shaved or not, and would not let any Baptist male take this line, particularly if the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright said to get on with it. This explains, however, the apparent disregard the president has of the U.S. Constitution. And, it explains Senator Paul’s mission, to wit, that the president cannot violate that document in any way. Currently, the president operates on the theory that he governs the United States of Monarchy, rather than the U.S. of A. Operative in this regard is the use of executive orders to bypass the Congress and the Courts.
Under the duress of his filibuster, Paul received a letter (after many weeks of requests for clarification) from the attorney general stating that the president may not commit such a murder, something that could have been done in five minutes back then. The episode, however, points up Obama’s disregard for the Constitution, starting in his first year in office, as well as the fact that he harbored the rationale that he could actually work his will on an American citizen in this country.
Flash back to 2008-09, when Obama and Illinois Senator Durbin (and a bunch of other democrats) decided that Roland Burris, the man appointed by Illinois then-governor Blagojevich to take Obama’s vacated Senate seat, would not be allowed to take the seat. Obama had favored Valerie Jarrett for that seat and Durbin is just a loose cannon, who once compared American GIs to keepers of the Russian Gulags, Hitler’s storm troopers and Pol Pot’s butchers of the “killing fields” in Cambodia. He proves that subversives can be senators.
According to the U.S. Constitution, a state legislature can determine how a vacant Senate seat can be filled. In Illinois, the legislature determined that the governor makes an appointment and the appointee will serve the remainder of the term at issue, in this case two years. It was Obama’s job to uphold that determination. In fact, Burris was “locked out” until days after the official swearing-in of senators took place. So much for Obama and the Constitution! Windbag Durbin didn’t matter, nor did Majority Leader Reid, who should have had the guts to do his job.
Obama’s role in the Burris matter comprised grounds for impeachment. Obama, reversing his position in 2008 regarding marriage, declared later that his Judicial Department (Holder) would not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. The president is sworn to uphold the laws, so he committed an impeachable offense, made more egregious by the fact that most states, such as Kentucky, have laws and/or Constitutional amendments upholding the DOMA.
Obama’s Judicial department sued Arizona for essentially enforcing FEDERAL laws regarding immigrants – another impeachable offense account trampling states’ rights. Recently, the department has joined a matter before the courts in California that would nullify a referendum- approved Constitutional amendment banning “gay” marriage – another impeachable offense.
The most egregious impeachable offense was Obama’s unprovoked and Constitutionally un-approved attack on Libya in 2011, completely bypassing Congress and announcing the attack not in the U.S. but in Brazil as he began a vacation not including his presence as commander-in-chief in Washington. That malicious attack resulted in seven months of relentless bombing by the U.S. and NATO, with no telling how many Libyan civilians killed. No one in the administration has ever offered a number…and never will.
In addition, Obama approved the furnishing of weapons to the Libyan insurgents (it was a civil war like Vietnam in the 60s). Those weapons and their terrorist users are now in the Syrian conflict, while Libya was left in a massive quagmire divided into the West and East, with four Americans including a U.S. ambassador murdered in Benghazi on 11 September 2012.
Ostensibly, Rand Paul was all about the “droning” of Americans, but his real effort was applied to calling out the president and his lackeys vis-à-vis the requirements of the Constitution. In this, he was successful but it remains to be seen if Congress has the guts to make it stick. The guess here: NO.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Friday, March 01, 2013
Presidential Tomfoolery
Although President Obama has made a concerted effort for the last four years to bury both Congress and the Courts, basing his action on the “WE WON” theory, the chickens have come home to roost, as his mentor the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright might say. Although everyone should have known the “Sequester Act” passed by Congress a while back was the president’s baby, that fact is only now being recognized, mainly through the performance of the legendary Washington Post columnist Bob Woodward, noted for his part in the takedown of Richard Nixon’s presidency.
Woodward, as far left as the president (well, almost), has both written and taken to the talk-shows to decry the fact that Obama made the deal and signed the law with no intention of acting in good faith to do something constructive budget-wise at a time when the nation is existing on borrowed money. Instead, Obama has mounted Air Force One about every other day to fly off to some rendezvous with most likely a captive crowd, to which he spews in rank pomposity teleprompted rhetoric designed to intimidate Congress, especially the republicans, and make both look bad beside the “dear leader,” who’s got everyone’s back.
Sequester was designed as something so foolhardy that Congress would have to bend to the president’s will…or else. The objective was to forestall any likelihood that it would actually be enforced, i.e., across-the-board cuts in equal percentages. The current basis for his actions: “WE WON AGAIN.” He received only 52% of the vote so his win was more Pyrrhic than he understands. The big-city/state votes (welfare establishments) put him back in the White House. Taxpaying citizens who bother to know anything about anything have about had it.
As commander-in-chief, Obama took an action the other day that was plainly stupid and blamed the need for it on Sequestration, even though the act was not in force. Scheduled to deploy to the Persian Gulf, the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman’s crew had made arrangements – things like canceling apartments, selling cars or even houses, relocating families, etc. Then, on virtually the day before departure, Obama canceled the deployment, thus leaving thousands of crew members and/or their families just holding the bag.
Arrogant thoughtlessness! Even worse, the deployment was a measure used in defense of the nation, for which, according to the Constitution, the president is absolutely responsible. Granted that he was probably totally ignorant of the inconveniences he had caused, having no military acumen whatever (remember “corpse-man”), he actually let down the nation’s guard, and that’s intolerable.
For days now, illegal immigrant prisoners have been released from federal facilities, long before sequestration triggers, with Homeland Security honcho Napolitano (actually Obama) explaining that they can’t be afforded. The reason: Obama will not sit down with lawmakers and decide where the cuts will be made, not in spending but in just slowing the rate of spending. These are criminals being released into American neighborhoods. If something untoward happens, like robbery and rape, the responsibility will be the president’s but he’s too mentally challenged to understand that. Remember Willie Horton? But then, there’s the Latino vote!
A steady stream of scare-mongering has emanated from the White House for days—loss of child care, loss of teachers, loss of policemen, loss of Head-Start, loss of air-traffic controllers, long waiting lines at airports, for instance. None of this will happen. Obama and legislators will meet and come up with some kind of plan – probably cockamamie kick-it-down-the-road-stuff – and sweat out the next crisis at the end of the month, namely, the debt-ceiling catastrophe.
Obama and his czars have participated in the best example of bullying that can be found…literally trying to scare the bejesus out of the entire citizenry. People with even half-sense see these scare-tactics for what they are – tomfoolery and disingenuousness on a grand scale. The small amount of money (cuts in increases) in question is almost immaterial.
Probably at no time in modern history has this country been governed by both an administration and Congress with a greater degree of incompetence or self-serving. The Senate might as well have been in Philadelphia since 2010. It hasn’t even passed a budget in more than three years. It is in the back pocket of the president, though republicans have tried to get something – anything – done. Obamacare (about all the Senate has done), finally passed in a shady midnight Christmas Eve deal, is already responsible for soaring medical costs, and citizens haven’t seen anything yet.
House Speaker Boehner should long since have pointed out the sham that defines the president but he has allowed the House to be buried by the man. He should at least speak out now for those who pay the freight in this country, lest it actually go over the cliff.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Woodward, as far left as the president (well, almost), has both written and taken to the talk-shows to decry the fact that Obama made the deal and signed the law with no intention of acting in good faith to do something constructive budget-wise at a time when the nation is existing on borrowed money. Instead, Obama has mounted Air Force One about every other day to fly off to some rendezvous with most likely a captive crowd, to which he spews in rank pomposity teleprompted rhetoric designed to intimidate Congress, especially the republicans, and make both look bad beside the “dear leader,” who’s got everyone’s back.
Sequester was designed as something so foolhardy that Congress would have to bend to the president’s will…or else. The objective was to forestall any likelihood that it would actually be enforced, i.e., across-the-board cuts in equal percentages. The current basis for his actions: “WE WON AGAIN.” He received only 52% of the vote so his win was more Pyrrhic than he understands. The big-city/state votes (welfare establishments) put him back in the White House. Taxpaying citizens who bother to know anything about anything have about had it.
As commander-in-chief, Obama took an action the other day that was plainly stupid and blamed the need for it on Sequestration, even though the act was not in force. Scheduled to deploy to the Persian Gulf, the aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman’s crew had made arrangements – things like canceling apartments, selling cars or even houses, relocating families, etc. Then, on virtually the day before departure, Obama canceled the deployment, thus leaving thousands of crew members and/or their families just holding the bag.
Arrogant thoughtlessness! Even worse, the deployment was a measure used in defense of the nation, for which, according to the Constitution, the president is absolutely responsible. Granted that he was probably totally ignorant of the inconveniences he had caused, having no military acumen whatever (remember “corpse-man”), he actually let down the nation’s guard, and that’s intolerable.
For days now, illegal immigrant prisoners have been released from federal facilities, long before sequestration triggers, with Homeland Security honcho Napolitano (actually Obama) explaining that they can’t be afforded. The reason: Obama will not sit down with lawmakers and decide where the cuts will be made, not in spending but in just slowing the rate of spending. These are criminals being released into American neighborhoods. If something untoward happens, like robbery and rape, the responsibility will be the president’s but he’s too mentally challenged to understand that. Remember Willie Horton? But then, there’s the Latino vote!
A steady stream of scare-mongering has emanated from the White House for days—loss of child care, loss of teachers, loss of policemen, loss of Head-Start, loss of air-traffic controllers, long waiting lines at airports, for instance. None of this will happen. Obama and legislators will meet and come up with some kind of plan – probably cockamamie kick-it-down-the-road-stuff – and sweat out the next crisis at the end of the month, namely, the debt-ceiling catastrophe.
Obama and his czars have participated in the best example of bullying that can be found…literally trying to scare the bejesus out of the entire citizenry. People with even half-sense see these scare-tactics for what they are – tomfoolery and disingenuousness on a grand scale. The small amount of money (cuts in increases) in question is almost immaterial.
Probably at no time in modern history has this country been governed by both an administration and Congress with a greater degree of incompetence or self-serving. The Senate might as well have been in Philadelphia since 2010. It hasn’t even passed a budget in more than three years. It is in the back pocket of the president, though republicans have tried to get something – anything – done. Obamacare (about all the Senate has done), finally passed in a shady midnight Christmas Eve deal, is already responsible for soaring medical costs, and citizens haven’t seen anything yet.
House Speaker Boehner should long since have pointed out the sham that defines the president but he has allowed the House to be buried by the man. He should at least speak out now for those who pay the freight in this country, lest it actually go over the cliff.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Monday, February 25, 2013
Oscars Orgy
Okay…some decades ago I guess it was, I watched the Oscar Ceremony. I can’t remember watching it in a very long time. It was an awarding of trophies for various “best thing,” and it still is, at least ostensibly, as far as I know or notice in the papers and in the trivia segments of TV “news” shows. Being in the same context as Syrians being shown blown apart or American GIs returning minus arms and legs seems almost sacrilegious, but such is the media these days.
The ceremony—if it can be called that—was opened this year by a rousing number presented by the Gay Men’s Choir of Los Angeles, representing that particular genre of sexual preference, currently an object of glorification in the nation, at least by the elite as represented by the likes of Colin Powell coming out in favor of homosexual marriage, as well as the president—no surprise there since he’s made it clear that his attorney general will not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act signed into law by Bill Clinton. This represents Obama’s definition of this country – the United States of Monarchy, governed essentially by executive order.
Actually, the Oscars is more of an orgy, not least as so designated by the performance of what would have been called in another day the “Queer Choir” – nice ring there, huh? That term was the homosexual choice then but homosexual sophistication “evolved,” as Obama would say in referencing his change of mind regarding the DOMA, to the point that another good English word had to be co-opted. Why couldn’t the worthies make up a term for their perversion? That would be real advancement and an actual contribution to the lexicon.
The orgy theme was introduced by the choir’s offering, entitled “We Saw Your Boobs.” This proclaimed that the evening would be structured to roughly fit the artistic-appreciation level of a high school sophomore boy, often found in the magazine section at Walmart gazing transfixed at the porno mags or on Facebook at whatever teenyboppers are purveying these days. I don’t do Facebook but I understand that much mischief is available.
The orgy theme is advanced by the quaint habit of referring to the ladies by the names of their gown designers, who have designed in a way to show the most skin but not make it into a bikini affair, a Hollywood hallmark otherwise, thus mostly gowns with little in the way of tops, the opposite of gown-less evening-straps. So…the affair is sort of a meat market, too, with the distaff stars in on the fun…exhibitionism being a trademark of Hollywood.
Big surprise of the evening as well as the most recent trivialization of the presidency – FLOTUS Michelle Obama presented the top trophy by satellite from Washington, or at least I guess it was the tops. She was in a Naeem Khan that allowed for just enough sighting of the boobs to titillate that sophomore boy and maybe Tiger Woods, the prexy’s most recent golf-buddy, who said about the prez that he “could be a pretty good stick,” not exactly the most appropriate appellation.
The first lady’s gracious speech was indicative of the crowds to which Obama is attracted, namely celebrities and people, whether celebs or not, with boatloads of money, especially Hollywood-types and Wall-Streeters. Those in his preferred-identity ethnic group—African American—should take note. He is half-white and the Hollywood crowd is nearly all-white, to whom he said back in 2008 about the Pennsylvanians (also nearly all-white – 84%) that they clutched their Bibles, grasped their rifles and went searching for illegal immigrants.
A movie about the Pennsylvanians would doubtlessly earn the top Oscar. The Amish, Mennonites and Baptists would be the cruel villains. Michael Moore could do the movie. There was a time when a steel mill or coal mine would have been the setting for the showdown or shootout or wild car-chase but, alas, hard times have set in. Moore would probably have the victors marching to the strains of a Mariachy band down the streets of Scranton.
So…I didn’t see any of the Oscars but I discovered that Barbra Streisand sang and so found that clip on the internet. She sang “The Way We Were” in honor of Marvin Hamlisch…great. That had to be the redeeming feature of the entire orgy.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
The ceremony—if it can be called that—was opened this year by a rousing number presented by the Gay Men’s Choir of Los Angeles, representing that particular genre of sexual preference, currently an object of glorification in the nation, at least by the elite as represented by the likes of Colin Powell coming out in favor of homosexual marriage, as well as the president—no surprise there since he’s made it clear that his attorney general will not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act signed into law by Bill Clinton. This represents Obama’s definition of this country – the United States of Monarchy, governed essentially by executive order.
Actually, the Oscars is more of an orgy, not least as so designated by the performance of what would have been called in another day the “Queer Choir” – nice ring there, huh? That term was the homosexual choice then but homosexual sophistication “evolved,” as Obama would say in referencing his change of mind regarding the DOMA, to the point that another good English word had to be co-opted. Why couldn’t the worthies make up a term for their perversion? That would be real advancement and an actual contribution to the lexicon.
The orgy theme was introduced by the choir’s offering, entitled “We Saw Your Boobs.” This proclaimed that the evening would be structured to roughly fit the artistic-appreciation level of a high school sophomore boy, often found in the magazine section at Walmart gazing transfixed at the porno mags or on Facebook at whatever teenyboppers are purveying these days. I don’t do Facebook but I understand that much mischief is available.
The orgy theme is advanced by the quaint habit of referring to the ladies by the names of their gown designers, who have designed in a way to show the most skin but not make it into a bikini affair, a Hollywood hallmark otherwise, thus mostly gowns with little in the way of tops, the opposite of gown-less evening-straps. So…the affair is sort of a meat market, too, with the distaff stars in on the fun…exhibitionism being a trademark of Hollywood.
Big surprise of the evening as well as the most recent trivialization of the presidency – FLOTUS Michelle Obama presented the top trophy by satellite from Washington, or at least I guess it was the tops. She was in a Naeem Khan that allowed for just enough sighting of the boobs to titillate that sophomore boy and maybe Tiger Woods, the prexy’s most recent golf-buddy, who said about the prez that he “could be a pretty good stick,” not exactly the most appropriate appellation.
The first lady’s gracious speech was indicative of the crowds to which Obama is attracted, namely celebrities and people, whether celebs or not, with boatloads of money, especially Hollywood-types and Wall-Streeters. Those in his preferred-identity ethnic group—African American—should take note. He is half-white and the Hollywood crowd is nearly all-white, to whom he said back in 2008 about the Pennsylvanians (also nearly all-white – 84%) that they clutched their Bibles, grasped their rifles and went searching for illegal immigrants.
A movie about the Pennsylvanians would doubtlessly earn the top Oscar. The Amish, Mennonites and Baptists would be the cruel villains. Michael Moore could do the movie. There was a time when a steel mill or coal mine would have been the setting for the showdown or shootout or wild car-chase but, alas, hard times have set in. Moore would probably have the victors marching to the strains of a Mariachy band down the streets of Scranton.
So…I didn’t see any of the Oscars but I discovered that Barbra Streisand sang and so found that clip on the internet. She sang “The Way We Were” in honor of Marvin Hamlisch…great. That had to be the redeeming feature of the entire orgy.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Panicky Professor at Berea College
In a 19 February column in the Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky.), Mike Rivage-Seul, emeritus professor of peace and social justice (whatever that is) at Berea College said this: “The 20th century, once so full of promise, turned out to be the bloodiest in the history of the world. And the West was responsible for it all… .” He didn’t explain but the professor probably considers the West to be Olde Europe and North America and hasn’t caught on to the fact that Japan, China and Russia existed in the twentieth century, as well as a whole passel of other bloodletting nations.
It’s this kind of stuff purveyed on “progressive” college campuses that makes one nearly vomit. The professor especially mentions World Wars I and II, Nazi “Social Darwinism,” the Jewish Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki as being the “icebergs” into which “constant human improvement” (the rhetorical Titanic) has collided, to its detriment, of course.
Even to mention this country in the same breath with Olde Europe and the Nazis is to savage the one nation that did the most to salvage any modicum of relief from the torment occasioned by the actual evil powers that would have taken over the world, if possible. Slamming this country even further, the professor of peace and justice made it clear that Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the actual war-ending exercises in 1945 saving millions of Japanese and Americans—are to be in the same category as Buchenwald, Auschwitz and the Storm Troopers. A former Catholic priest, the professor might join another emeritus clergy-colleague, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, in his famous sermonic solemnity, to wit, “God damn America.”
Somehow, the professor tied the Titanic to the evil West to the cruise-ship Triumph that lately lost power in the Gulf of Mexico for four days while the passengers waded in sewage—remarkable. Never have metaphors been so violently mixed. The professor said that the Triumph comedy/tragedy was prophetic—get this—of the complete breakdown of systems providing food, shelter, law and order.
Then he said: “I’m referring, of course, to the effects of climate change and the massive disruptions that promise to shut down entire eco-systems.” A leap of this magnitude is amazing. A ship breaks down, something that happens routinely even in the U.S. Navy, and the lesson has to do with the Apocalypse, no less—the end, zilch, Armageddon. The elements of proof according to Rivage-Seul – unprecedented drought, flooding, super-storms, earthquakes and tsunamis. These things, of course, have never ever happened before.
The professor said that whereas those acts were once blamed on God, now they are to be blamed on man, his way of saying man is killing the climate and, as one result, leading to loss of “fellow-feeling.” One may not even want to think about what fellow-feeling is (kinda creepy, huh?) but it probably has to do with peace and social justice, which are defined mostly as what anyone says they are.
The professor has either been sucked in by the “Algore hoax” and believes that stuff or has an agenda. He may not be aware that the anthropologists/archeologists have determined that at one time the climate of Brazil obtained at the Arctic Circle and that the Ohio River was carved out by a glacier that finally retreated to the North Pole (third Ice-Age, if memory serves).
He may not know that, while Arctic ice has been decreasing in volume, Southern Hemisphere sea ice is at its second highest volume since 1979, 2007 being the highest, and that it has been steadily increasing since 1979 by an amazing amount considering the huge masses involved. Check out the University of Illinois Cryosphere Today data for proof. The readings for 2007 and 2012 are virtually equal.
The climate has not changed in at least 15 years, as measured by top U.S. scientists/climatologists, not the UN IPCC crowd that so thoroughly discredited itself as fraudulent just after Gore was awarded his Nobel Peace Prize and about the same time that Obama received the same award and, looking silly, took the dive at the Copenhagen Climate-Change Conference in 2009. Neither man knows any more about climate than the average Joe Blow on the street corner or the average professor of anything but the instant subject.
The professor claimed that climate catastrophe is now conducted by man, not God. One wonders where he thinks man originated, if not from God, which brings everything back to Square One regarding God, man and climate. Wow!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
It’s this kind of stuff purveyed on “progressive” college campuses that makes one nearly vomit. The professor especially mentions World Wars I and II, Nazi “Social Darwinism,” the Jewish Holocaust, Hiroshima and Nagasaki as being the “icebergs” into which “constant human improvement” (the rhetorical Titanic) has collided, to its detriment, of course.
Even to mention this country in the same breath with Olde Europe and the Nazis is to savage the one nation that did the most to salvage any modicum of relief from the torment occasioned by the actual evil powers that would have taken over the world, if possible. Slamming this country even further, the professor of peace and justice made it clear that Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the actual war-ending exercises in 1945 saving millions of Japanese and Americans—are to be in the same category as Buchenwald, Auschwitz and the Storm Troopers. A former Catholic priest, the professor might join another emeritus clergy-colleague, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, in his famous sermonic solemnity, to wit, “God damn America.”
Somehow, the professor tied the Titanic to the evil West to the cruise-ship Triumph that lately lost power in the Gulf of Mexico for four days while the passengers waded in sewage—remarkable. Never have metaphors been so violently mixed. The professor said that the Triumph comedy/tragedy was prophetic—get this—of the complete breakdown of systems providing food, shelter, law and order.
Then he said: “I’m referring, of course, to the effects of climate change and the massive disruptions that promise to shut down entire eco-systems.” A leap of this magnitude is amazing. A ship breaks down, something that happens routinely even in the U.S. Navy, and the lesson has to do with the Apocalypse, no less—the end, zilch, Armageddon. The elements of proof according to Rivage-Seul – unprecedented drought, flooding, super-storms, earthquakes and tsunamis. These things, of course, have never ever happened before.
The professor said that whereas those acts were once blamed on God, now they are to be blamed on man, his way of saying man is killing the climate and, as one result, leading to loss of “fellow-feeling.” One may not even want to think about what fellow-feeling is (kinda creepy, huh?) but it probably has to do with peace and social justice, which are defined mostly as what anyone says they are.
The professor has either been sucked in by the “Algore hoax” and believes that stuff or has an agenda. He may not be aware that the anthropologists/archeologists have determined that at one time the climate of Brazil obtained at the Arctic Circle and that the Ohio River was carved out by a glacier that finally retreated to the North Pole (third Ice-Age, if memory serves).
He may not know that, while Arctic ice has been decreasing in volume, Southern Hemisphere sea ice is at its second highest volume since 1979, 2007 being the highest, and that it has been steadily increasing since 1979 by an amazing amount considering the huge masses involved. Check out the University of Illinois Cryosphere Today data for proof. The readings for 2007 and 2012 are virtually equal.
The climate has not changed in at least 15 years, as measured by top U.S. scientists/climatologists, not the UN IPCC crowd that so thoroughly discredited itself as fraudulent just after Gore was awarded his Nobel Peace Prize and about the same time that Obama received the same award and, looking silly, took the dive at the Copenhagen Climate-Change Conference in 2009. Neither man knows any more about climate than the average Joe Blow on the street corner or the average professor of anything but the instant subject.
The professor claimed that climate catastrophe is now conducted by man, not God. One wonders where he thinks man originated, if not from God, which brings everything back to Square One regarding God, man and climate. Wow!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Everyone's Salvation--Government
In a 15 February column in the Lexington Herald-Leader, Western Kentucky University professor Aaron Hughey made the point that only government is able to provide needed assistance in handling natural disasters, at least the ones that can’t be handled locally. There’s no argument with this but there are barriers beyond which even the government can’t go in trying to handle Nature.
Hughey mentioned that a surge-barrier system around Manhattan could cost up to $22 billion but said it could be done. Of course it could be done, but would it be more cost-effective to simply clean up the mess every hundred years or so, as is the ongoing effort triggered by Hurricane Sandy, a century-dated storm, though FEMA seems to have been almost totally AWOL. And if Manhattan is to have a surge-barrier system, shouldn’t there be one on Long Island, Staten Island, the New Jersey coast and, indeed, the entire coast, Maine to Florida and around the Gulf since hurricanes hit them regularly, washing away the beaches, waterfront houses, etc.?
Regarding the attempt to repair constantly, why shouldn’t the president appoint a czar to draw up an executive order mandating no help for anyone insisting on living in a flood plain? That would do away with any entity ever having to pay for setting things right, just using plain common sense. The fact that the guy in Peoria must pick up the tab to help the guy who unnecessarily insists on staying in harm’s way is unseemly.
The estimate is that Katrina cost the U.S. government $110 billion…and New Orleans is still there, much if not most of it remaining in ruined condition. Common sense would have insisted on moving the residents and letting much if not most of the city, already then under many feet of water, go. Example: The whole town of Valmeyer, Illinois, was moved after a 1993 flood, with the U.S. paying 75% of the cost of moving or buying and state and local governments picking up the rest. No more floods…ever.
Standing within levees and canals about eight feet below sea level and gradually sinking, with Lake Pontchartrain posed above it behind a questionable dam, most of New Orleans presents an untenable problem, one that could probably have been more cost-efficiently erased by just relocating the population. But that’s too sensible for government, which has no problem with doing away with an aircraft carrier costing $22 billion to construct.
The thrust of Hughey’s column, however, was less about disasters per se and more about the undue emphasis placed in this country on self-reliance and an implied insensitivity by citizens for others. The disaster angle was meant to show that folks need government to take care of them—the Obama syndrome. Hughey said that not everything should be about generating a profit. Of course not! The generous government does not create a profit, except for the profits contrived by crooked politicians.
Hughey asked: “Did the free market abolish slavery…desegregate our schools…secure the vote for women…pay for my mother's cancer treatment (over a half-million dollars) during the last two years of her life?” The implied answer is NO. The actual answer is YES. The tax money used for these great things was derived from someone making a tax-paying profit and establishing tax-paying jobs.
As a practical matter, the only economic system ever to exist in this country is the free-market system. As the country built the greatest economic engine in history, there has never been a communist system or a socialist system, though the country is headed toward socialism now.
Soon, government will control healthcare completely, an individual’s most sensitive area, the difference between life and death. Once a society slips under governmental control, incentive disappears (that evil profit motive) as everyone approaches the level of the lowest common denominator. Account the differences in people, there never has been and will never be a so-called “level playing field” without it being superficially mandated, everyone operating on the same level of mediocrity.
As earthquakes and other catastrophes occur throughout the world, a knowledgeable person will see that in no nation is there even a fraction of relief of that which obtains in this country, both public and PRIVATE. But staring down nature and trying to effect some sort of risk-free environment is like spitting in the wind…silly, regardless of sensitivities.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Hughey mentioned that a surge-barrier system around Manhattan could cost up to $22 billion but said it could be done. Of course it could be done, but would it be more cost-effective to simply clean up the mess every hundred years or so, as is the ongoing effort triggered by Hurricane Sandy, a century-dated storm, though FEMA seems to have been almost totally AWOL. And if Manhattan is to have a surge-barrier system, shouldn’t there be one on Long Island, Staten Island, the New Jersey coast and, indeed, the entire coast, Maine to Florida and around the Gulf since hurricanes hit them regularly, washing away the beaches, waterfront houses, etc.?
Regarding the attempt to repair constantly, why shouldn’t the president appoint a czar to draw up an executive order mandating no help for anyone insisting on living in a flood plain? That would do away with any entity ever having to pay for setting things right, just using plain common sense. The fact that the guy in Peoria must pick up the tab to help the guy who unnecessarily insists on staying in harm’s way is unseemly.
The estimate is that Katrina cost the U.S. government $110 billion…and New Orleans is still there, much if not most of it remaining in ruined condition. Common sense would have insisted on moving the residents and letting much if not most of the city, already then under many feet of water, go. Example: The whole town of Valmeyer, Illinois, was moved after a 1993 flood, with the U.S. paying 75% of the cost of moving or buying and state and local governments picking up the rest. No more floods…ever.
Standing within levees and canals about eight feet below sea level and gradually sinking, with Lake Pontchartrain posed above it behind a questionable dam, most of New Orleans presents an untenable problem, one that could probably have been more cost-efficiently erased by just relocating the population. But that’s too sensible for government, which has no problem with doing away with an aircraft carrier costing $22 billion to construct.
The thrust of Hughey’s column, however, was less about disasters per se and more about the undue emphasis placed in this country on self-reliance and an implied insensitivity by citizens for others. The disaster angle was meant to show that folks need government to take care of them—the Obama syndrome. Hughey said that not everything should be about generating a profit. Of course not! The generous government does not create a profit, except for the profits contrived by crooked politicians.
Hughey asked: “Did the free market abolish slavery…desegregate our schools…secure the vote for women…pay for my mother's cancer treatment (over a half-million dollars) during the last two years of her life?” The implied answer is NO. The actual answer is YES. The tax money used for these great things was derived from someone making a tax-paying profit and establishing tax-paying jobs.
As a practical matter, the only economic system ever to exist in this country is the free-market system. As the country built the greatest economic engine in history, there has never been a communist system or a socialist system, though the country is headed toward socialism now.
Soon, government will control healthcare completely, an individual’s most sensitive area, the difference between life and death. Once a society slips under governmental control, incentive disappears (that evil profit motive) as everyone approaches the level of the lowest common denominator. Account the differences in people, there never has been and will never be a so-called “level playing field” without it being superficially mandated, everyone operating on the same level of mediocrity.
As earthquakes and other catastrophes occur throughout the world, a knowledgeable person will see that in no nation is there even a fraction of relief of that which obtains in this country, both public and PRIVATE. But staring down nature and trying to effect some sort of risk-free environment is like spitting in the wind…silly, regardless of sensitivities.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Editorialist Disses Judd
Lexington Herald-Leader editorial-writer Jamie Lucke was in near-panic mode with her offering of 14 February, to wit, that Ashley Judd might actually move to Kentucky from Tennessee and make a run for the Senate, figuring the incumbent republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, to be the presumptive opposition. She thinks McConnell is fair game on the basis of a Louisville Courier-Journal Bluegrass Poll indicating a McConnell defeat.
A “bluegrass poll” would apply mostly to Louisville and Lexington, where voters routinely vote democratic even in national elections. Lexington-resident republican Andy Barr was elected to the House from the Sixth District last November but lost his home county by some 7,500 votes. He nearly beat Ben Chandler (far less than a thousand votes behind) in 2010, so the Legislature tried to gerrymander him out of 2012 contention, shuffling counties and raising the district democratic registration from 68% to 78%, but he received over half of the votes anyway.
Predictably in—as Limbaugh would have it—feminazi-mode (getting in Governor Wilkinson’s face), Lucke explained all the reasons Judd would be an excellent choice for the spot, making her into the best thing since WD-40 and remarking that Judd (Harvard Masters Degree) was driving a champagne-colored BMW as far back as 25 years…so there! Lucke, however, insisted that Judd would be McConnell’s “dream opponent” if she should do what Hillary Clinton did back in the day—moved to New York and bought a Senate seat.
Lucke correctly claims that a Judd-McConnell race would be about her and not about him, “vulnerable, unpopular nationally and in Kentucky.” McConnell has been in the Senate since 1985 (also republican leader for last six years), leading one to suspect that, contrarily, he might possess a certain popularity in Kentucky, not to mention considerable clout vis-à-vis what he can do for the state. Who cares whether or not he’s popular nationally? Anyhow, it’s often the unpopular statesman who makes a difference—a good difference.
Included in the editorial was the Judd poster, wherein she acclaims Obama as brilliant and that she’s committed to him. Obama is anything but popular in Kentucky and his brilliance might be judged by his remark during a speech about a navy “corpse-man” (corpsman). Teleprompters should be phonetically-structured for the pronunciation-challenged (or maybe that’s the way it’s said in Hawaii). His nutty remark about policemen acting stupidly while doing their duty also remarked his brilliance.
The latter remark might make one wonder about Obama’s actions on the night of 11 September 2012 when, after being briefed by the Defense Secretary about a potential bloodbath in Benghazi at about 5:00 p.m., he made no further contact with either Defense or his own White House NSA and staff during the interim but managed to say the next morning that the carnage (four dead Americans and a seven-hour attack on the Consulate and its annex) was caused by a film made by—of course—an American, an egregious lie, which he knew and repeated two weeks later at the UN. In that episode, he gave the term “stupidly” a new meaning, not to mention honesty.
Lucke wonders if the Democrat Party “has a future in Kentucky.” Of course it does – just not in national politics. It controls the governor’s seat and the Kentucky House and most courthouses, and it’s probable that this will be the case for a number of years, though the republican Senate margin is not huge. A republican governor is virtually unthinkable (3 since 1931).
Lucke says about McConnell: “…whoever challenges him will be dragged through the mud… .” Well, of course! That’s politics on all levels. Judd would do the same if she should get the democrat nomination. Imagine the film clips or the photo-ops (perhaps some in near-nude mode). What a poster that would be! McConnell could be pictured as too old at age 70, complete with false-crutches, false teeth and the like. Mud is where all politicians expect to live periodically if not most of the time.
Lucke seems to think no other democrat would be willing to step up (as Calipari would say) and take on McConnell if the photogenic Judd (“Hollywood liberal,” according to her grandmother) should run. She’s dreaming. There most likely are a number of potential candidates, jealousy vis-à-vis Judd as incentive, though they may be more scared by McConnell’s war-chest than by an actress, whose greatest fame currently is derived from the inevitable and plenteous camera- angle TV-shots of her at Kentucky basketball games.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
A “bluegrass poll” would apply mostly to Louisville and Lexington, where voters routinely vote democratic even in national elections. Lexington-resident republican Andy Barr was elected to the House from the Sixth District last November but lost his home county by some 7,500 votes. He nearly beat Ben Chandler (far less than a thousand votes behind) in 2010, so the Legislature tried to gerrymander him out of 2012 contention, shuffling counties and raising the district democratic registration from 68% to 78%, but he received over half of the votes anyway.
Predictably in—as Limbaugh would have it—feminazi-mode (getting in Governor Wilkinson’s face), Lucke explained all the reasons Judd would be an excellent choice for the spot, making her into the best thing since WD-40 and remarking that Judd (Harvard Masters Degree) was driving a champagne-colored BMW as far back as 25 years…so there! Lucke, however, insisted that Judd would be McConnell’s “dream opponent” if she should do what Hillary Clinton did back in the day—moved to New York and bought a Senate seat.
Lucke correctly claims that a Judd-McConnell race would be about her and not about him, “vulnerable, unpopular nationally and in Kentucky.” McConnell has been in the Senate since 1985 (also republican leader for last six years), leading one to suspect that, contrarily, he might possess a certain popularity in Kentucky, not to mention considerable clout vis-à-vis what he can do for the state. Who cares whether or not he’s popular nationally? Anyhow, it’s often the unpopular statesman who makes a difference—a good difference.
Included in the editorial was the Judd poster, wherein she acclaims Obama as brilliant and that she’s committed to him. Obama is anything but popular in Kentucky and his brilliance might be judged by his remark during a speech about a navy “corpse-man” (corpsman). Teleprompters should be phonetically-structured for the pronunciation-challenged (or maybe that’s the way it’s said in Hawaii). His nutty remark about policemen acting stupidly while doing their duty also remarked his brilliance.
The latter remark might make one wonder about Obama’s actions on the night of 11 September 2012 when, after being briefed by the Defense Secretary about a potential bloodbath in Benghazi at about 5:00 p.m., he made no further contact with either Defense or his own White House NSA and staff during the interim but managed to say the next morning that the carnage (four dead Americans and a seven-hour attack on the Consulate and its annex) was caused by a film made by—of course—an American, an egregious lie, which he knew and repeated two weeks later at the UN. In that episode, he gave the term “stupidly” a new meaning, not to mention honesty.
Lucke wonders if the Democrat Party “has a future in Kentucky.” Of course it does – just not in national politics. It controls the governor’s seat and the Kentucky House and most courthouses, and it’s probable that this will be the case for a number of years, though the republican Senate margin is not huge. A republican governor is virtually unthinkable (3 since 1931).
Lucke says about McConnell: “…whoever challenges him will be dragged through the mud… .” Well, of course! That’s politics on all levels. Judd would do the same if she should get the democrat nomination. Imagine the film clips or the photo-ops (perhaps some in near-nude mode). What a poster that would be! McConnell could be pictured as too old at age 70, complete with false-crutches, false teeth and the like. Mud is where all politicians expect to live periodically if not most of the time.
Lucke seems to think no other democrat would be willing to step up (as Calipari would say) and take on McConnell if the photogenic Judd (“Hollywood liberal,” according to her grandmother) should run. She’s dreaming. There most likely are a number of potential candidates, jealousy vis-à-vis Judd as incentive, though they may be more scared by McConnell’s war-chest than by an actress, whose greatest fame currently is derived from the inevitable and plenteous camera- angle TV-shots of her at Kentucky basketball games.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Grammy-Cabinet Phobia
Memo to Cabinet-rank Secretaries:
Let me be clear from the outset of this document (which I know you’ll save as a memento from one of the five greatest presidents, with an heir one day turning it into cash on Pawn Stars) that I apologize for its generic nature. I would write each of you a note if I had the time but, as you know, I am selling my economic plans directly to the public, which means that I practically live on Air Force One these days, just as I have sacrificially in the interests of preserving OUR legacy for the last four years. Obviously, I am bypassing the Congress, just as I did in order to attack that devil Qaddafi, because it is mired in gridlock and wouldn’t get to the subject at hand for maybe two years.
An awareness of the subject of this note was triggered by the CBS memo recently to the participants in the Grammy Awards orgy (little joke there) having to do with attending the ceremony fully clothed. Actually, the memo was not to the men but to the women, who, justifiably, have been liberated and feel it their right to appear nude if they like…or at least nearly nude. CBS had to pay a fine of $550,000 a few years ago because Janet Jackson showed her considerable wares (do not mention this to Michelle) during the Super Bowl halftime, aired on CBS, so its motivation is not ethically pure but praiseworthy, nevertheless.
Obviously, I am not writing about the matter of nudity and daresay that no one in the Cabinet would even think of nipple-mongering…way too far over the hill (another little joke there). It is the decorum that concerns me. Since the paparazzi and TV crews are on the scene before the Cabinet meetings begin and sometimes even during them, it is especially important to stay awake. VPOTUS was castigated profoundly a while back for sleeping during a State-of-the-Union address, a masterpiece out of which he cheated himself but also reflecting adversely on the entire administration. He said it was no #%$@&*^ big deal but promised to take No-Doze next time. I commended him for having that attitude and expect you all to follow his lead.
Please do not forget your assigned places at the conference table. Milling around makes you look indecisive and that also reflects badly on my leadership. State and Defense are to my left and right, with VPOTUS and the AG directly across. I have thought of making the other seats first-come, first-served but that might induce running in the halls, something not even allowed in the schools. I have noticed some right-and-left head-shaking when I am speaking, even among your staffers, and that must be stopped. People still remember SCOTUS Alioto doing that during a S-o-t-U address a while back and they might have actually concluded that he was right. I will brook no disagreements displayed in meetings since that makes me look bad and, anyhow, I would hate to pop you off with my trusty .38 (another little joke there, Chicago style). Do not—repeat—DO NOT repeat that.
There has been some carelessness lately in the matter of interruptions. It’s bad enough that I haven’t a teleprompter for use in these meetings but that problem is exacerbated when I’m interrupted while dispensing wisdom. So, let me reiterate a rule, to wit, speak only when you are addressed, and PUH…..LEEZE, do not put up your hand—that’s so “may I be excused-ish.” Also, some of your staffers pop their gum and I find that so distracting as to derail my train of thought, sometimes completely wrecking it. This doesn’t indicate that I have only a one-track mind (I can dribble/putt and chew gum at the same time)—only that I’m focused to the point of laser-like concentration.
Some members have been careless in the matter of verbiage. In the last meeting, one of you (you know who you are) used the term “terrorism,” and I take that personally since I made it clear years ago that the term “man-caused disaster” is operative. Also, one of you mentioned George Bush and even though you did so derogatorily I took that as a personal insult and though I haven’t mentioned it to you I expect an apology. Also for obvious reasons, immigration is never to be described as illegal, no matter if applied to an immigrant Cuban serial-killer. After all, the U.S. is a “melting-pot” and certainly doesn’t need any ICE cubes in it (pardon the play-on-words or something like that, but I’m on a roll today—WE WON).
On an unrelated matter, if you decide to say something publicly, run your remarks by Jay Carney, who will give, or not, approval. When I made my glorious attack on Libya and announced it in Brazil, Secretary Gates was in Russia and characterized it as “on the fly,” meaning unplanned or badly planned. Secretary Gates, who had the mistaken notion that the Defense Secretary should have known about it, accepted my upbraiding like a man and promised not do that again. He left Defense soon after, so you are on notice.
Barack Hussein Obama
President
Commander-in-Chief
Evolver-in-Chief
Griever-in-Chief
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Let me be clear from the outset of this document (which I know you’ll save as a memento from one of the five greatest presidents, with an heir one day turning it into cash on Pawn Stars) that I apologize for its generic nature. I would write each of you a note if I had the time but, as you know, I am selling my economic plans directly to the public, which means that I practically live on Air Force One these days, just as I have sacrificially in the interests of preserving OUR legacy for the last four years. Obviously, I am bypassing the Congress, just as I did in order to attack that devil Qaddafi, because it is mired in gridlock and wouldn’t get to the subject at hand for maybe two years.
An awareness of the subject of this note was triggered by the CBS memo recently to the participants in the Grammy Awards orgy (little joke there) having to do with attending the ceremony fully clothed. Actually, the memo was not to the men but to the women, who, justifiably, have been liberated and feel it their right to appear nude if they like…or at least nearly nude. CBS had to pay a fine of $550,000 a few years ago because Janet Jackson showed her considerable wares (do not mention this to Michelle) during the Super Bowl halftime, aired on CBS, so its motivation is not ethically pure but praiseworthy, nevertheless.
Obviously, I am not writing about the matter of nudity and daresay that no one in the Cabinet would even think of nipple-mongering…way too far over the hill (another little joke there). It is the decorum that concerns me. Since the paparazzi and TV crews are on the scene before the Cabinet meetings begin and sometimes even during them, it is especially important to stay awake. VPOTUS was castigated profoundly a while back for sleeping during a State-of-the-Union address, a masterpiece out of which he cheated himself but also reflecting adversely on the entire administration. He said it was no #%$@&*^ big deal but promised to take No-Doze next time. I commended him for having that attitude and expect you all to follow his lead.
Please do not forget your assigned places at the conference table. Milling around makes you look indecisive and that also reflects badly on my leadership. State and Defense are to my left and right, with VPOTUS and the AG directly across. I have thought of making the other seats first-come, first-served but that might induce running in the halls, something not even allowed in the schools. I have noticed some right-and-left head-shaking when I am speaking, even among your staffers, and that must be stopped. People still remember SCOTUS Alioto doing that during a S-o-t-U address a while back and they might have actually concluded that he was right. I will brook no disagreements displayed in meetings since that makes me look bad and, anyhow, I would hate to pop you off with my trusty .38 (another little joke there, Chicago style). Do not—repeat—DO NOT repeat that.
There has been some carelessness lately in the matter of interruptions. It’s bad enough that I haven’t a teleprompter for use in these meetings but that problem is exacerbated when I’m interrupted while dispensing wisdom. So, let me reiterate a rule, to wit, speak only when you are addressed, and PUH…..LEEZE, do not put up your hand—that’s so “may I be excused-ish.” Also, some of your staffers pop their gum and I find that so distracting as to derail my train of thought, sometimes completely wrecking it. This doesn’t indicate that I have only a one-track mind (I can dribble/putt and chew gum at the same time)—only that I’m focused to the point of laser-like concentration.
Some members have been careless in the matter of verbiage. In the last meeting, one of you (you know who you are) used the term “terrorism,” and I take that personally since I made it clear years ago that the term “man-caused disaster” is operative. Also, one of you mentioned George Bush and even though you did so derogatorily I took that as a personal insult and though I haven’t mentioned it to you I expect an apology. Also for obvious reasons, immigration is never to be described as illegal, no matter if applied to an immigrant Cuban serial-killer. After all, the U.S. is a “melting-pot” and certainly doesn’t need any ICE cubes in it (pardon the play-on-words or something like that, but I’m on a roll today—WE WON).
On an unrelated matter, if you decide to say something publicly, run your remarks by Jay Carney, who will give, or not, approval. When I made my glorious attack on Libya and announced it in Brazil, Secretary Gates was in Russia and characterized it as “on the fly,” meaning unplanned or badly planned. Secretary Gates, who had the mistaken notion that the Defense Secretary should have known about it, accepted my upbraiding like a man and promised not do that again. He left Defense soon after, so you are on notice.
Barack Hussein Obama
President
Commander-in-Chief
Evolver-in-Chief
Griever-in-Chief
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Sunday, February 10, 2013
The Evolving President
The elitists are fond of castigating as a hopeless, mindless zealot anyone claiming to “have that old time religion” or religion of any kind, except maybe Islam these days, at least in the U.S., where a Baptist can be called a dangerous screwball-nutcase but a Moslem referenced only as holy, else the hate-police get on the case. It’s fashionable to accuse believers of opposing the president on religious grounds, so why not take religion out of the mix and just examine his approaches on other grounds such as biological or—better—just plain common sense?
Flip-floppers are usually condemned, sometimes in even the mainstream media, the democrat propaganda arm, but Obama gets a pass on his 180-degree turn on marriage on the basis that he has—get this!—evolved, translated, even more superior in intellect than before and certainly more superior to that of anyone else. Well…doesn’t the human’s difference from the ape prove that evolution takes place and so why shouldn’t the president evolve, assuming, of course, that one believes in that strain of evolving? I don’t.
Anyway, the prez needed only the time between campaigns to evolve, just four years, perhaps some kind of record-setting affirmative brain-adjustment. After all, it took Darwin over 20 years to get Origin of Species right and published. Obama is/was a much faster study than even the definer of evolving. Of course, the prez might not have started evolving in 2008, when he declared that marriage can be between ONLY a man and woman, but might not have started until the campaign year of 2012, meaning an even faster and more overpowering tsunami of brain-waves activity.
The prez has to be admired for his intellectual bravery since his public announcement that Atty. Gen. Holder will not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act means that he has acted un-Constitutionally in not enforcing the nation’s laws, as he has sworn to do. This, along with his unprovoked and un-Constitutional attack on Libya, should have triggered impeachment proceedings in the House but the House apparently has not evolved as fast as the president, not exactly stuck in ape-mode but just not as far advanced.
The president has declared that men may marry men now, though he has not designated if the pairs are to be man and wife (and which is which) or partner and partner or significant other and other, things that should be settled since kids often have to designate these people on documents of one kind or another. Or it may be that—probably through executive order—such designations will be removed from all documents, the better to enhance diversity, which is the Nirvana of all endeavor, presently the acme of evolving. In the mix, it is now possible for homosexual “lovers” to be assigned to the same navy ship, since no marriage contract is required to disqualify them as sailor and sailor.
The president has also placed his domestic imprimatur on scouting. In that famous interview the other day with Scott Pelley of CBS News, the president said that the Boy Scouts should be open to homosexuals, never mind the longtime BSA aversion to unnaturalness. God is very important in scouting and the scriptures vehemently condemn homosexual behavior but a homosexual scoutmaster might take a different view, especially if he has evolved in a superior manner, meaning that he has advanced beyond silly superstition. So far, the BSA has not caved, so an executive order may soon be in process.
As Evolver-in-Chief, the president has shown great mental dexterity. He was against the Iraq “surge” but ordered an Afghanistan “surge,” having evolved into that position. He promised to close Gitmo but evolved out of that troublesome problem, as well as trying the terrorist butchers in New York City. He castigated the Bush administration for its tactics but has evolved to such exponential mental acuity that he signed the Patriot Act renewal and has made Bush’s use of drones merely inconsequential compared to his use, in which thousands of civilians have been killed in such places as Pakistan, with which the U.S. is not at war.
Currently, the best example of the president’s evolving is his superior understanding of the economy, marked by his insistence that it can be operated, public and private, on money borrowed from China. Since no other credible economist understands this—indeed, just the opposite—the prez is operating in a mnemonic area totally beyond that of any other humanoid, though it’s rumored that certain chimps at the Washington Zoo have figured this out but are in danger of evolving out of the ability to understand this method and so have been placed on “arrested development” medicine and will be invited to teach at Harvard, Obama’s old school.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Flip-floppers are usually condemned, sometimes in even the mainstream media, the democrat propaganda arm, but Obama gets a pass on his 180-degree turn on marriage on the basis that he has—get this!—evolved, translated, even more superior in intellect than before and certainly more superior to that of anyone else. Well…doesn’t the human’s difference from the ape prove that evolution takes place and so why shouldn’t the president evolve, assuming, of course, that one believes in that strain of evolving? I don’t.
Anyway, the prez needed only the time between campaigns to evolve, just four years, perhaps some kind of record-setting affirmative brain-adjustment. After all, it took Darwin over 20 years to get Origin of Species right and published. Obama is/was a much faster study than even the definer of evolving. Of course, the prez might not have started evolving in 2008, when he declared that marriage can be between ONLY a man and woman, but might not have started until the campaign year of 2012, meaning an even faster and more overpowering tsunami of brain-waves activity.
The prez has to be admired for his intellectual bravery since his public announcement that Atty. Gen. Holder will not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act means that he has acted un-Constitutionally in not enforcing the nation’s laws, as he has sworn to do. This, along with his unprovoked and un-Constitutional attack on Libya, should have triggered impeachment proceedings in the House but the House apparently has not evolved as fast as the president, not exactly stuck in ape-mode but just not as far advanced.
The president has declared that men may marry men now, though he has not designated if the pairs are to be man and wife (and which is which) or partner and partner or significant other and other, things that should be settled since kids often have to designate these people on documents of one kind or another. Or it may be that—probably through executive order—such designations will be removed from all documents, the better to enhance diversity, which is the Nirvana of all endeavor, presently the acme of evolving. In the mix, it is now possible for homosexual “lovers” to be assigned to the same navy ship, since no marriage contract is required to disqualify them as sailor and sailor.
The president has also placed his domestic imprimatur on scouting. In that famous interview the other day with Scott Pelley of CBS News, the president said that the Boy Scouts should be open to homosexuals, never mind the longtime BSA aversion to unnaturalness. God is very important in scouting and the scriptures vehemently condemn homosexual behavior but a homosexual scoutmaster might take a different view, especially if he has evolved in a superior manner, meaning that he has advanced beyond silly superstition. So far, the BSA has not caved, so an executive order may soon be in process.
As Evolver-in-Chief, the president has shown great mental dexterity. He was against the Iraq “surge” but ordered an Afghanistan “surge,” having evolved into that position. He promised to close Gitmo but evolved out of that troublesome problem, as well as trying the terrorist butchers in New York City. He castigated the Bush administration for its tactics but has evolved to such exponential mental acuity that he signed the Patriot Act renewal and has made Bush’s use of drones merely inconsequential compared to his use, in which thousands of civilians have been killed in such places as Pakistan, with which the U.S. is not at war.
Currently, the best example of the president’s evolving is his superior understanding of the economy, marked by his insistence that it can be operated, public and private, on money borrowed from China. Since no other credible economist understands this—indeed, just the opposite—the prez is operating in a mnemonic area totally beyond that of any other humanoid, though it’s rumored that certain chimps at the Washington Zoo have figured this out but are in danger of evolving out of the ability to understand this method and so have been placed on “arrested development” medicine and will be invited to teach at Harvard, Obama’s old school.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Friday, February 08, 2013
Lexington Boondoggle
The Town Branch project now has an official plan, though it’s doubtful that many think it will ever come to initiation, much less fruition. Apparent cheerleader for the effort is H-L columnist Tom Eblen, but even he, on 03 February, spoke of it as possibly symbolic, whatever that means. He also mentioned that three of the plan’s six presenters to a jury of deciders were women – perhaps making it more feasible?
Eblen said naysayers (translated as realists) would claim the endeavor to be “impractical, unaffordable, and frivolous, [but] it is none of that.” It’s all of that, of course, especially when the city can’t even straighten out its pension-problems and is always on the edge of bankruptcy. Eblen claimed the compelling argument was not esthetic but economic, thus attracting people and investment dollars. Easy access, parking and movement, aesthetic or otherwise, are what attract visitors and dollars.
As quoted in the paper of 05 February, Jeff Fugate, head of the Downtown Development Authority, said the plan was “aspirational” but doable. Aspirational? Essentially, it does away with parking lots in favor of parking garages, hated by everyone. For some strange reason, the vehicle bridge on MLK is recommended to be replaced by a pedestrian bridge. Why is foot traffic between Main and High that important and why excise a well-used street, leaving motorists to greater frustration? Why put a tree-boulevard in the middle of Vine Street, thus ruining it as a traffic facility?
Eblen mentioned in the 03 February article that Louisville and gridlock-cursed Atlanta are sinking funds into some sort of recreational areas AROUND those cities (trails and appropriate amenities), not in and through them to help their downtowns draw crowds and investments. This makes a certain sense, assuming anything needs doing in the first place, at least as far as recreation is concerned and noting that Lexington already has many parks, some of them, like Woodland, fairly large.
Urban renewal was a big thing in Lexington in the 1960s and has remained so. This is when the train tracks were removed downtown, the old depot was razed and New Circle came online. The understanding then was that downtown was set up for institutions, restaurants, specialty stores, entertainment, offices and badly needed parking-areas, while people in outlying areas (most of the population) needed easy access to all destinations, including downtown and involving some of the same entities as well as housing and office/retail outlets, for which private investors financed their own parking facilities.
With further planning such as one-way streets, the downtown was made much more accessible and attractive, though parking has always been and remains a problem. The architecture is anything but ugly. The area is supposed to be service-friendly, not a playground, though there’s plenty of green-space downtown. Trees usually become a nuisance, not least because they litter and are not well-kept.
If recreation and parks are serious considerations, Lexington, imitating Louisville and Atlanta, might consider establishing an around-the-city-trail or a large outlying park such as in using the joined areas of Jacobson Park and Lakeside Golf Course, especially since Lexington has a surfeit of golf courses and would not suffer in losing one. Jacobson Park includes 216 acres, while the golf course covers another 185 acres, a total of 401 acres, roughly the size of 400 football fields or an area roughly 180 times the size of the CentrePoint “pasture” downtown.
That area includes a sizeable body of water that’s good for both paddle-boating and fishing, whereas floating vessels would be impossible on any part of Town Branch brought to the surface. Instead, there would be a constant need for removing trash and keeping the area from becoming like Phoenix Park, an often unattractive haven for whatever or whomever.
Being a naysayer is not being against progress. There have been grandiose plans deserving of naysayers, especially those offered by the university architecture gang, for a couple decades or so to revert downtown to pre-urban renewal status (like closing Vine Street), thus heading backwards, not forward. Especially regarding the ongoing recession (still serious despite official contrariwise protestations) and constant tax increases, the city should do practical things.
The Jacobson-Lakeside thing might not be the best approach but it’s better than Town Branch and at relatively little cost. Actually, nothing needs doing.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Eblen said naysayers (translated as realists) would claim the endeavor to be “impractical, unaffordable, and frivolous, [but] it is none of that.” It’s all of that, of course, especially when the city can’t even straighten out its pension-problems and is always on the edge of bankruptcy. Eblen claimed the compelling argument was not esthetic but economic, thus attracting people and investment dollars. Easy access, parking and movement, aesthetic or otherwise, are what attract visitors and dollars.
As quoted in the paper of 05 February, Jeff Fugate, head of the Downtown Development Authority, said the plan was “aspirational” but doable. Aspirational? Essentially, it does away with parking lots in favor of parking garages, hated by everyone. For some strange reason, the vehicle bridge on MLK is recommended to be replaced by a pedestrian bridge. Why is foot traffic between Main and High that important and why excise a well-used street, leaving motorists to greater frustration? Why put a tree-boulevard in the middle of Vine Street, thus ruining it as a traffic facility?
Eblen mentioned in the 03 February article that Louisville and gridlock-cursed Atlanta are sinking funds into some sort of recreational areas AROUND those cities (trails and appropriate amenities), not in and through them to help their downtowns draw crowds and investments. This makes a certain sense, assuming anything needs doing in the first place, at least as far as recreation is concerned and noting that Lexington already has many parks, some of them, like Woodland, fairly large.
Urban renewal was a big thing in Lexington in the 1960s and has remained so. This is when the train tracks were removed downtown, the old depot was razed and New Circle came online. The understanding then was that downtown was set up for institutions, restaurants, specialty stores, entertainment, offices and badly needed parking-areas, while people in outlying areas (most of the population) needed easy access to all destinations, including downtown and involving some of the same entities as well as housing and office/retail outlets, for which private investors financed their own parking facilities.
With further planning such as one-way streets, the downtown was made much more accessible and attractive, though parking has always been and remains a problem. The architecture is anything but ugly. The area is supposed to be service-friendly, not a playground, though there’s plenty of green-space downtown. Trees usually become a nuisance, not least because they litter and are not well-kept.
If recreation and parks are serious considerations, Lexington, imitating Louisville and Atlanta, might consider establishing an around-the-city-trail or a large outlying park such as in using the joined areas of Jacobson Park and Lakeside Golf Course, especially since Lexington has a surfeit of golf courses and would not suffer in losing one. Jacobson Park includes 216 acres, while the golf course covers another 185 acres, a total of 401 acres, roughly the size of 400 football fields or an area roughly 180 times the size of the CentrePoint “pasture” downtown.
That area includes a sizeable body of water that’s good for both paddle-boating and fishing, whereas floating vessels would be impossible on any part of Town Branch brought to the surface. Instead, there would be a constant need for removing trash and keeping the area from becoming like Phoenix Park, an often unattractive haven for whatever or whomever.
Being a naysayer is not being against progress. There have been grandiose plans deserving of naysayers, especially those offered by the university architecture gang, for a couple decades or so to revert downtown to pre-urban renewal status (like closing Vine Street), thus heading backwards, not forward. Especially regarding the ongoing recession (still serious despite official contrariwise protestations) and constant tax increases, the city should do practical things.
The Jacobson-Lakeside thing might not be the best approach but it’s better than Town Branch and at relatively little cost. Actually, nothing needs doing.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Sunday, February 03, 2013
McCain/Kerry Treachery
Senator McCain seems to have staffers on the lookout 24/7 for any TV camera in the Capitol and to make appointments on the plethora of talk-shows, particularly on Sunday mornings, in order to keep himself in the public eye on a daily basis. He even showed up at the Kerry State-Secretary hearing to “introduce” perhaps the nation’s most perverse and treasonous political operative of the last 40 years or so. It was sickening, especially in light of his mean-spirited and utterly crude treatment of former senator Hagel in his Defense-Secretary hearing.
As reported by the Boston Herald-Reporter, in a speech in Boston Sept. 9, 2006, then-Senator John Kerry said, regarding the Bush administration, “It is immoral to treat 9/11 as a political pawn (to) excuse the invasion of Iraq. They [9/11 victims] were attacked and killed not by Saddam Hussein but by Osama bin Laden.” Cynicism – especially regarding morality – of that magnitude did not speak well for a State Secretary. Al Qaeda was not mentioned as a reason for invading Iraq in 2003, but to wipe out what the intelligence agencies of a number of nations insisted was Saddam’s WMD threat. No one has proven yet that he did not move those weapons to another country before March 2003.
Quoting the Boston Globe of March 25, 2004, “In a question-and-answer session before a Senate committee in 1971, John F. Kerry, who was a leading antiwar activist at the time, asserted that 200,000 Vietnamese per year were being ‘murdered by the United States of America’ and said he had gone to Paris and ‘talked with both delegations at the peace talks’ and met with communist representatives.” At the time, an unbelievably egotistical Kerry was a low-rank reserve naval officer committing an act of treason (defined as “the betrayal of a trust: TREACHERY”) with the enemy while Senator McCain and others were caged like dogs and tortured in the Hanoi Hilton.
This means that by the time he made that statement (his exact words, “So what I am saying is that yes, there will be some recrimination but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the United States of America …”). Kerry’s comrades/nation had murdered [his word] 1.6 million Vietnamese 1964-71 (or almost 4 percent of the population for 1970), mostly civilians – women, children, and old men. He’s never offered a scintilla of proof for that wacky accusation. Regarding morality, he betrayed his country in 1970 in France, lied to Congress in 1971, and spewed hatred on Sept. 9, 2006, using a monumental tragedy in a blatantly political act of disingenuousness.
In another Op-Ed piece for the New Hampshire Union Leader, Kerry said, “Iraq has made America less safe. The terrorists are not on the run. Terrorist acts tripled between 2004 and 2005. Al-Qaida has spawned a decentralized network operating in 65 countries, most of them joining since 9/11.” But Obama has recently declared that al Qaeda is all but dead. This is the guy McCain was announcing as the best thing since sliced bread.
McCain took Hagel apart because then-Senator Hagel voted against the “surge” that took place in Iraq in 2007, involving some 30,000 extra American troops sent over for that purpose. The president wannabe John Edwards called the surge the “McCain Doctrine.” McCain tried to make Hagel say he was wrong but Hagel said history would make the call. As it turns out, Hagel was right. Iraq is a killing field today, just as it was when Saddam the butcher ran the show. If anything, it is more antagonistic to this country than it was then.
Both McCain and Hagel served well in Vietnam but, while McCain dropped bombs, Hagel was a grunt, a platoon sergeant who volunteered for Vietnam when he was actually ordered to peaceful Germany in 1968. He based his Fallujah vote on whether or not that fight was worth the casualties. He had seen men blown to bits but McCain never saw any of that, just puffs of smoke on the ground. The casualties in the Fallujah fight to the coalition troops was well over 20 per day, most of them Americans simply because they fought in the largest numbers.
Huffington Post, 01 February 2013: “Incoming Secretary of State John Kerry said that President Barack Obama offered him the job one week before U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice withdrew from contention. ‘He called me, actually a week before Susan got out of the thing,’ he told The Boston Globe in an interview…’ .” Kerry’s ego (had home movies made of him running on the shore in Vienam) is so big that he wanted to make it plain he was not Obama’s second choice, even though everyone knows he was. He is delusional, as is the president. They deserve each other and McCain deserves both of them.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
As reported by the Boston Herald-Reporter, in a speech in Boston Sept. 9, 2006, then-Senator John Kerry said, regarding the Bush administration, “It is immoral to treat 9/11 as a political pawn (to) excuse the invasion of Iraq. They [9/11 victims] were attacked and killed not by Saddam Hussein but by Osama bin Laden.” Cynicism – especially regarding morality – of that magnitude did not speak well for a State Secretary. Al Qaeda was not mentioned as a reason for invading Iraq in 2003, but to wipe out what the intelligence agencies of a number of nations insisted was Saddam’s WMD threat. No one has proven yet that he did not move those weapons to another country before March 2003.
Quoting the Boston Globe of March 25, 2004, “In a question-and-answer session before a Senate committee in 1971, John F. Kerry, who was a leading antiwar activist at the time, asserted that 200,000 Vietnamese per year were being ‘murdered by the United States of America’ and said he had gone to Paris and ‘talked with both delegations at the peace talks’ and met with communist representatives.” At the time, an unbelievably egotistical Kerry was a low-rank reserve naval officer committing an act of treason (defined as “the betrayal of a trust: TREACHERY”) with the enemy while Senator McCain and others were caged like dogs and tortured in the Hanoi Hilton.
This means that by the time he made that statement (his exact words, “So what I am saying is that yes, there will be some recrimination but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the United States of America …”). Kerry’s comrades/nation had murdered [his word] 1.6 million Vietnamese 1964-71 (or almost 4 percent of the population for 1970), mostly civilians – women, children, and old men. He’s never offered a scintilla of proof for that wacky accusation. Regarding morality, he betrayed his country in 1970 in France, lied to Congress in 1971, and spewed hatred on Sept. 9, 2006, using a monumental tragedy in a blatantly political act of disingenuousness.
In another Op-Ed piece for the New Hampshire Union Leader, Kerry said, “Iraq has made America less safe. The terrorists are not on the run. Terrorist acts tripled between 2004 and 2005. Al-Qaida has spawned a decentralized network operating in 65 countries, most of them joining since 9/11.” But Obama has recently declared that al Qaeda is all but dead. This is the guy McCain was announcing as the best thing since sliced bread.
McCain took Hagel apart because then-Senator Hagel voted against the “surge” that took place in Iraq in 2007, involving some 30,000 extra American troops sent over for that purpose. The president wannabe John Edwards called the surge the “McCain Doctrine.” McCain tried to make Hagel say he was wrong but Hagel said history would make the call. As it turns out, Hagel was right. Iraq is a killing field today, just as it was when Saddam the butcher ran the show. If anything, it is more antagonistic to this country than it was then.
Both McCain and Hagel served well in Vietnam but, while McCain dropped bombs, Hagel was a grunt, a platoon sergeant who volunteered for Vietnam when he was actually ordered to peaceful Germany in 1968. He based his Fallujah vote on whether or not that fight was worth the casualties. He had seen men blown to bits but McCain never saw any of that, just puffs of smoke on the ground. The casualties in the Fallujah fight to the coalition troops was well over 20 per day, most of them Americans simply because they fought in the largest numbers.
Huffington Post, 01 February 2013: “Incoming Secretary of State John Kerry said that President Barack Obama offered him the job one week before U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice withdrew from contention. ‘He called me, actually a week before Susan got out of the thing,’ he told The Boston Globe in an interview…’ .” Kerry’s ego (had home movies made of him running on the shore in Vienam) is so big that he wanted to make it plain he was not Obama’s second choice, even though everyone knows he was. He is delusional, as is the president. They deserve each other and McCain deserves both of them.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Friday, February 01, 2013
Meaningless Gun-Hearing
The gun hearing—perhaps better described as “gun-control” hearing—held by the Senate Judiciary Committee on 29 January was interesting if only because it was held in light of the fact that most gun laws, hundreds if not thousands of them, are not currently enforced and/or violators prosecuted, a fact thoroughly brought out in the hearing. Also brought out thoroughly was the fact that gun-control laws passed in the 1990s made no difference in the gun-violence numbers. A current example of the futility of these laws is Chicago—500 murders in 2012 and already 40 during January, practically all by guns.
The usual partisan split was obvious. Democrats, of course, believe in regulating everything, even to the point of light-bulbs and salt-intake by humans. Republicans tend to oppose any further regulation of most things and would gladly dispose of thousands now in existence. The usual silliness was also in evidence, as Chairman Leahy established his bona fides by claiming both father- and grandfather-status only to be outdone by ranking member Grassley, who claimed father- and grandfather- and great-grandfather-status. Apparently, all others need not apply.
The panel of witnesses included a police-chief, law-professor, NRA president and two civilians, one of them being the only woman, not that this means anything, just a fact. It might not have hurt to have had an ex-con or two, who had used guns in crimes, to declaim on the subject, maybe furnishing the best possible information concerning the acquisition and use of weapons. That would have likely been too practical for consideration.
The thinking of the regulators goes something like this: “guns kill people so guns should be banned, just like booze back in the 1920s for a decade or so.” The bubbly flowed freely despite the Constitutional Amendment against it, though if given at least a generation or two it might have actually done some good. Enforcement, of course, was a problem—not enough “revenoors” to go around.
According to the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, there were 10.8 million motor-vehicle accidents in the U.S. in 2009 involving 33,800 deaths (791 in Kentucky) within 30 days of a given wreck. Should, therefore, there be a ban on the manufacture, sale and use of automobiles?
In those wrecks, 10,086 drivers had a blood-alcohol-content of .08% or above (about 176 in Kentucky), making them legally drunk in most if not all states. Should there be, therefore and in addition to the banning of cars, also a ban on the manufacture, sale and use of beverage alcohol?
This is from Autoweek 13 December 2011: “‘According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), more than 3,000 people lost their lives last year in distraction-related accidents,’ said chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman.” Does this mean that Ipads, Iphones, cell-phones, Blackberries, or even car-radios should be banned, in addition to booze and cars?
When the president pontificated in Newtown after the deaths at Sandy Hook school in December, he seemed to leave the impression that the deaths were somehow the responsibility of all citizens, the entire U.S. society. That also seemed to be the notion of many of the senators, a horrible and ludicrous position to take, that somehow people in Peoria were at least part of the cause of mayhem in Connecticut.
The mayor of New York indicated that his city would or might or should take action against people perpetrating too much salt-intake in food-products. Should salt be banned? Diabetes is caused or aggravated by too much sugar-intake. Should it be banned? Smokers and obese people are claimed by the experts to place too much strain and expense on healthcare entities? Should these people be neutralized (euphemism for “offed”).
Guns do not and never have killed people. Neither have cars, though drunk drivers use them in the same way that a thug uses a Saturday-night-special to pop off his prey. Drunk drivers, like the thug, are murderers or potential murderers since they understand exactly what they might do—and drive drunk anyway.
There was much said in the hearing about mental-health problems that dispose or predispose toward violence and that some entity has been remiss in not spotting this, as if that could easily be done. Having someone committed or designated as unfit to own a gun is virtually impossible, even if someone knew how to spot potential killers.
Despite the president’s executive orders—all 23 of them—and the breast-beating in the hearing, nothing much will be done. People, not guns, kill people.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
The usual partisan split was obvious. Democrats, of course, believe in regulating everything, even to the point of light-bulbs and salt-intake by humans. Republicans tend to oppose any further regulation of most things and would gladly dispose of thousands now in existence. The usual silliness was also in evidence, as Chairman Leahy established his bona fides by claiming both father- and grandfather-status only to be outdone by ranking member Grassley, who claimed father- and grandfather- and great-grandfather-status. Apparently, all others need not apply.
The panel of witnesses included a police-chief, law-professor, NRA president and two civilians, one of them being the only woman, not that this means anything, just a fact. It might not have hurt to have had an ex-con or two, who had used guns in crimes, to declaim on the subject, maybe furnishing the best possible information concerning the acquisition and use of weapons. That would have likely been too practical for consideration.
The thinking of the regulators goes something like this: “guns kill people so guns should be banned, just like booze back in the 1920s for a decade or so.” The bubbly flowed freely despite the Constitutional Amendment against it, though if given at least a generation or two it might have actually done some good. Enforcement, of course, was a problem—not enough “revenoors” to go around.
According to the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, there were 10.8 million motor-vehicle accidents in the U.S. in 2009 involving 33,800 deaths (791 in Kentucky) within 30 days of a given wreck. Should, therefore, there be a ban on the manufacture, sale and use of automobiles?
In those wrecks, 10,086 drivers had a blood-alcohol-content of .08% or above (about 176 in Kentucky), making them legally drunk in most if not all states. Should there be, therefore and in addition to the banning of cars, also a ban on the manufacture, sale and use of beverage alcohol?
This is from Autoweek 13 December 2011: “‘According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), more than 3,000 people lost their lives last year in distraction-related accidents,’ said chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman.” Does this mean that Ipads, Iphones, cell-phones, Blackberries, or even car-radios should be banned, in addition to booze and cars?
When the president pontificated in Newtown after the deaths at Sandy Hook school in December, he seemed to leave the impression that the deaths were somehow the responsibility of all citizens, the entire U.S. society. That also seemed to be the notion of many of the senators, a horrible and ludicrous position to take, that somehow people in Peoria were at least part of the cause of mayhem in Connecticut.
The mayor of New York indicated that his city would or might or should take action against people perpetrating too much salt-intake in food-products. Should salt be banned? Diabetes is caused or aggravated by too much sugar-intake. Should it be banned? Smokers and obese people are claimed by the experts to place too much strain and expense on healthcare entities? Should these people be neutralized (euphemism for “offed”).
Guns do not and never have killed people. Neither have cars, though drunk drivers use them in the same way that a thug uses a Saturday-night-special to pop off his prey. Drunk drivers, like the thug, are murderers or potential murderers since they understand exactly what they might do—and drive drunk anyway.
There was much said in the hearing about mental-health problems that dispose or predispose toward violence and that some entity has been remiss in not spotting this, as if that could easily be done. Having someone committed or designated as unfit to own a gun is virtually impossible, even if someone knew how to spot potential killers.
Despite the president’s executive orders—all 23 of them—and the breast-beating in the hearing, nothing much will be done. People, not guns, kill people.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Women in Combat?
Defense Secretary Panetta announced the other day that women, being quite suited to the activity, may now take their place in the infantry and fight the nation’s wars. He, of course, a political appointee and therefore free of thought-processes, did not make that decision. It was made by President Obama, who has discovered a mother-lode of votes in the female age-group most affected by this invitation to carnage, not that many of the ladies will be all that interested. Rather, they see this decision by the “hunk” not as the bare-faced pandering it is, but as further proof that unisex rules now, the devil take the hindmost male who objects.
Ironically, as Obama announced the ladies capable of severe training, hand-to-hand fighting and dying, he also made it clear that he would have to think long and hard before allowing a son (Trayvon Martin-type, as he noted a while back) to play football, so dangerous are its probabilities for trauma to the dear child. When this kind of oxymoron-think occurs in the top office of the land, one has to wonder where the nation is headed. Obama once quite publicly said that policemen in Massachusetts acted stupidly, so maybe he knows the modus operandi for that.
One would think that Obama would approve of the ladies playing in the National Football League as a reasonable part of basic training, honing their skills to both hurt and take punishment, which is what the NFL is all about. After all, a number of New Orleans Saints operatives were suspended last year (one for a whole year) for fomenting a program involving payments to players based on the number and kind of injuries they inflicted on members of the opposition. The figures were not disclosed but one can envision a lineman-concussion at $5,000 and a quarterback-concussion at twice that amount, with mere broken bones somewhat less.
The president’s mind seems to still be in Hawaii. Women play something as unimportant as sports only in their own leagues, in which they realize equality, but may not play in the NFL, the NBA, or the hockey leagues, in which they could get killed. And yet, in something as critically important as mortal conflict, in which endurance and strength mean the difference between life and death, they are quite welcome, thank you, sir. And, during the times the shells are not falling, they can nurse their babies and do their hair.
Despite objections by field commanders, Obama inflicted the military with openly practicing homosexuals…welcome to the fun and games originating in Sodom and Gomorrah…just great for morale. Now, the ladies get their chance, never mind a plethora of laws on the books such as rape-laws and restraining orders designed to protect them as a special class because they can’t physically/emotionally hold their own in even a domestic setting. This is not meant pejoratively…just a fact.
Think what would happen if a lady is taken prisoner by a bunch of al Qaeda thugs…at least before they stoned her or cut off her head. It’s perfectly obvious that Obama either hasn’t thought of this or just doesn’t care, even though he has two daughters who could be eligible for a possible draft. But the votes are there and the democrat men will follow his lead since the office and not the country—or even the women—takes precedence. Disgusting!
When the men in a country are willing to see their wives and daughters subjected to and humiliated by battlefield carnage, they’ve lost any claim to self-respect or the respect of others. The Congress, if it allows this idiocy and insensitivity to go forward, can be labeled as either unprincipled or as collectively dumb as a gourd…or both. Laws upstage executive orders, the vehicle Obama favors as the way to govern.
It is an unmistakable fact that a nation is on a downward track morally when it reduces its womanhood to cannon fodder, never mind some ladies’ protestations to the contrary. The next step is the dustbin of history, along with all the other people-states that rotted from the inside out.
Political correctness rules these days, no matter how whacko it has become. Licentious hedonism is another term for it, whether applied to the violation of women or the perversions of homosexual behavior. Glorification of the unnatural, whether the wedding of two men or feeding women to Islamic butchers, redounds to national disaster and disgrace.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Ironically, as Obama announced the ladies capable of severe training, hand-to-hand fighting and dying, he also made it clear that he would have to think long and hard before allowing a son (Trayvon Martin-type, as he noted a while back) to play football, so dangerous are its probabilities for trauma to the dear child. When this kind of oxymoron-think occurs in the top office of the land, one has to wonder where the nation is headed. Obama once quite publicly said that policemen in Massachusetts acted stupidly, so maybe he knows the modus operandi for that.
One would think that Obama would approve of the ladies playing in the National Football League as a reasonable part of basic training, honing their skills to both hurt and take punishment, which is what the NFL is all about. After all, a number of New Orleans Saints operatives were suspended last year (one for a whole year) for fomenting a program involving payments to players based on the number and kind of injuries they inflicted on members of the opposition. The figures were not disclosed but one can envision a lineman-concussion at $5,000 and a quarterback-concussion at twice that amount, with mere broken bones somewhat less.
The president’s mind seems to still be in Hawaii. Women play something as unimportant as sports only in their own leagues, in which they realize equality, but may not play in the NFL, the NBA, or the hockey leagues, in which they could get killed. And yet, in something as critically important as mortal conflict, in which endurance and strength mean the difference between life and death, they are quite welcome, thank you, sir. And, during the times the shells are not falling, they can nurse their babies and do their hair.
Despite objections by field commanders, Obama inflicted the military with openly practicing homosexuals…welcome to the fun and games originating in Sodom and Gomorrah…just great for morale. Now, the ladies get their chance, never mind a plethora of laws on the books such as rape-laws and restraining orders designed to protect them as a special class because they can’t physically/emotionally hold their own in even a domestic setting. This is not meant pejoratively…just a fact.
Think what would happen if a lady is taken prisoner by a bunch of al Qaeda thugs…at least before they stoned her or cut off her head. It’s perfectly obvious that Obama either hasn’t thought of this or just doesn’t care, even though he has two daughters who could be eligible for a possible draft. But the votes are there and the democrat men will follow his lead since the office and not the country—or even the women—takes precedence. Disgusting!
When the men in a country are willing to see their wives and daughters subjected to and humiliated by battlefield carnage, they’ve lost any claim to self-respect or the respect of others. The Congress, if it allows this idiocy and insensitivity to go forward, can be labeled as either unprincipled or as collectively dumb as a gourd…or both. Laws upstage executive orders, the vehicle Obama favors as the way to govern.
It is an unmistakable fact that a nation is on a downward track morally when it reduces its womanhood to cannon fodder, never mind some ladies’ protestations to the contrary. The next step is the dustbin of history, along with all the other people-states that rotted from the inside out.
Political correctness rules these days, no matter how whacko it has become. Licentious hedonism is another term for it, whether applied to the violation of women or the perversions of homosexual behavior. Glorification of the unnatural, whether the wedding of two men or feeding women to Islamic butchers, redounds to national disaster and disgrace.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Monday, January 28, 2013
Clinton/Kerry Farce
Some of the best entertainment of last week was furnished by Fox and C-Span, namely, the Senate-committee hearings for State secretary Clinton vis-à-vis the Benghazi massacre and Senator Kerry vis-à-vis his nomination to succeed Clinton. The Senators and witnesses made their speeches, all of them reading their remarks, even the answers to questions.
I didn’t partake of either completely but heard/saw enough to know that the hearings were virtually useless with regard to anything substantive being learned. The democrat senators were in congratulatory mode and the republicans attempted to be in attack mode but their hearts didn’t seem to be in it. The Benghazi thing was a cover-up by Clinton and Obama of such magnitude that she could do little more than just say that efforts were being made to see that such a thing (the attack, not the cover-up) would not happen again.
The senators went easy on Kerry, whose appointment is assured, and whose job actually means very little, as has been the case with Clinton, whose countless miles of travel (112 nations?) elicited oohs and aahs exponentially. One remembers that soon after Clinton was confirmed in 2009 Obama appointed Richard Holbrooke and George Mitchell as special envoys to Afghanistan/Pakistan and the Middle East, respectively, completely bypassing her as a significant player in the most important problem-areas.
The fact: Obama is a micromanager and will make all decisions. Kerry, as did Clinton, will live on plush Air Force planes and have a great time doing photo-ops here and there and everywhere.
Clinton and Kerry share the distinction for getting it wrong on Syria. According to Newsmax of 11 May 2011 (via The Cable), Kerry indicated to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on 16 March 2011 that in his judgment Syria was no lost cause and would embrace a legitimate relationship with the U.S. and the West and the economic opportunity that comes with that. Not long after that, he said, “I've always said the top goal of Assad is to perpetuate his own regime.” Another case of “I did this before I did that,” with reference to his approach to the Iraq War? Go figure! Kerry – lost ball in tall weeds!
According to CNSNews.com of 28 March 2011, Clinton said that visiting lawmakers regarded Assad as a reformer and that, therefore, the U.S. will not intervene on behalf of Syrian civilians. Both could not have been more wrong about Assad; however, the U.S. has not meddled, at least as far as is known. Regardless of any bluster Kerry might make, despite goading by Senators McCain and Graham, this country is not likely to get in that mess, though Obama has dispatched troops to Syria-neighbor Turkey. It seems that neither he, Clinton nor Kerry remember the American Revolution, in which the citizens/colonists did to King George what Syrian citizens have been doing to Assad and paying a frightful cost. Let ’em settle it.
As a result of the grandiose Arab Spring of 2011 (Obama’s shameful contribution, the unprovoked blindsiding attack on Libya), the Middle East, especially Libya, is a cauldron of violence and unrest, the most recent example in Egypt, where Tahrir Square has again become the focal point of potential revolution. For his part, Obama has just sent over some fighter jets to Head Honcho Morsi, who is delivering the government into the hands of the dreaded Muslim Brotherhood. U.S. policy is and will remain under Kerry/Obama in a shambles vis-à-vis the Middle East.
This is from The Daily Caller via Wickileaked of 29 November 2010: “On a February trip to the Middle East, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry (D-MA) told Qatari leaders that the Golan Heights should be returned to Syria, that a Palestinian capital should be established in East Jerusalem as part of the Arab-Israeli peace process, and that he was ‘shocked’ by what he saw on a visit to Gaza.” The Golan Heights forms a critical defense area/facility for Israel. Kerry is obviously pro-Hamas and probably is not disturbed by Iran’s threat to Israel, not realizing that the threat applies to every country in the region and ultimately to the U.S.
Could this approach refer to what Obama meant when he said to the then-Russian president last year when he thought he was off-mike that he would have more “flexibility” once he was reelected? He’s made it plain that he expects to govern through executive orders, which is what he did concerning his unilateral attack on Libya – no Congressional consultation. Kerry explained why when asked about it by Senator Paul. His answer was that the Constitutional process would have been too slow and Libyans (like the Syrians now) were killing each other. Kerry, too, possesses so much “flexibility” that as the Foreign Relations Committee chairman then and thus the one to call out the president, he made no fuss, perhaps with an eye to the future.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
I didn’t partake of either completely but heard/saw enough to know that the hearings were virtually useless with regard to anything substantive being learned. The democrat senators were in congratulatory mode and the republicans attempted to be in attack mode but their hearts didn’t seem to be in it. The Benghazi thing was a cover-up by Clinton and Obama of such magnitude that she could do little more than just say that efforts were being made to see that such a thing (the attack, not the cover-up) would not happen again.
The senators went easy on Kerry, whose appointment is assured, and whose job actually means very little, as has been the case with Clinton, whose countless miles of travel (112 nations?) elicited oohs and aahs exponentially. One remembers that soon after Clinton was confirmed in 2009 Obama appointed Richard Holbrooke and George Mitchell as special envoys to Afghanistan/Pakistan and the Middle East, respectively, completely bypassing her as a significant player in the most important problem-areas.
The fact: Obama is a micromanager and will make all decisions. Kerry, as did Clinton, will live on plush Air Force planes and have a great time doing photo-ops here and there and everywhere.
Clinton and Kerry share the distinction for getting it wrong on Syria. According to Newsmax of 11 May 2011 (via The Cable), Kerry indicated to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on 16 March 2011 that in his judgment Syria was no lost cause and would embrace a legitimate relationship with the U.S. and the West and the economic opportunity that comes with that. Not long after that, he said, “I've always said the top goal of Assad is to perpetuate his own regime.” Another case of “I did this before I did that,” with reference to his approach to the Iraq War? Go figure! Kerry – lost ball in tall weeds!
According to CNSNews.com of 28 March 2011, Clinton said that visiting lawmakers regarded Assad as a reformer and that, therefore, the U.S. will not intervene on behalf of Syrian civilians. Both could not have been more wrong about Assad; however, the U.S. has not meddled, at least as far as is known. Regardless of any bluster Kerry might make, despite goading by Senators McCain and Graham, this country is not likely to get in that mess, though Obama has dispatched troops to Syria-neighbor Turkey. It seems that neither he, Clinton nor Kerry remember the American Revolution, in which the citizens/colonists did to King George what Syrian citizens have been doing to Assad and paying a frightful cost. Let ’em settle it.
As a result of the grandiose Arab Spring of 2011 (Obama’s shameful contribution, the unprovoked blindsiding attack on Libya), the Middle East, especially Libya, is a cauldron of violence and unrest, the most recent example in Egypt, where Tahrir Square has again become the focal point of potential revolution. For his part, Obama has just sent over some fighter jets to Head Honcho Morsi, who is delivering the government into the hands of the dreaded Muslim Brotherhood. U.S. policy is and will remain under Kerry/Obama in a shambles vis-à-vis the Middle East.
This is from The Daily Caller via Wickileaked of 29 November 2010: “On a February trip to the Middle East, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry (D-MA) told Qatari leaders that the Golan Heights should be returned to Syria, that a Palestinian capital should be established in East Jerusalem as part of the Arab-Israeli peace process, and that he was ‘shocked’ by what he saw on a visit to Gaza.” The Golan Heights forms a critical defense area/facility for Israel. Kerry is obviously pro-Hamas and probably is not disturbed by Iran’s threat to Israel, not realizing that the threat applies to every country in the region and ultimately to the U.S.
Could this approach refer to what Obama meant when he said to the then-Russian president last year when he thought he was off-mike that he would have more “flexibility” once he was reelected? He’s made it plain that he expects to govern through executive orders, which is what he did concerning his unilateral attack on Libya – no Congressional consultation. Kerry explained why when asked about it by Senator Paul. His answer was that the Constitutional process would have been too slow and Libyans (like the Syrians now) were killing each other. Kerry, too, possesses so much “flexibility” that as the Foreign Relations Committee chairman then and thus the one to call out the president, he made no fuss, perhaps with an eye to the future.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Inaugural Poetic Justice?
John F. Kennedy was the first president to inculcate a poem as part of the inaugural observance. His choice as poet in 1961 was Robert Frost, then age 87, a man of letters with few peers. The theme of that inaugural could have been “A New Beginning,” since Kennedy, a WWII veteran, was young and was replacing a much older man, Dwight Eisenhower, a top WWII general and former head of NATO.
The inaugural theme on 21 January this year seemed to be “The Year of the Homosexual.” To celebrate this approach, the poet chosen by Obama was Richard Blanco, a homosexual, who read his poem just prior to the benediction, given by a clergyman, Luis Leon, who was a second choice for that task, the first choice, Louie Giglio, having been disinvited account his remarks in a presentation many years ago indicating the connection between homosexuality and sin.
Giglio had been invited in large part due to his fight against human trafficking. Leon is known for performing marriages between homosexuals, never mind the Defense of Marriage Act, which the president has vowed publicly not to enforce, or the laws and Constitutions of the vast majority of states that mandate marriage as between a man and woman. The president had the opposite view in 2009, upholding the DOM, but has “evolved.”
An aside: The military bands saved the day musically. The vocalists were far out of their milieu, singing music for which they seemed to have had no training. The lady who sang the national anthem rewrote both tune and rhythm, thus challenging the band and creating a sort of national sacrilege that seems more and more to mark the nation itself.
Frost’s early published poems seem to have been marked by consistent rhyme and rhythm, while much of his later work, though not exclusively, was more like Blanco’s – rhyme-less and relatively unstructured. This reminds, actually, of short essays broken into lines, with or without punctuation. Structured poetry is far more demanding than this type.
For the inaugural, Frost reverted to strict rhyme and rhythm and ended his poem with these words:
"There is a call to life a little sterner,
And braver for the earner, learner, yearner.
Less criticism of the field and court
And more preoccupation with the sport.
It makes the prophet in us all presage
The glory of a next Augustan age
Of a power leading from its strength and pride,
Of young ambition eager to be tried,
Firm in our free beliefs without dismay,
In any game the nations want to play.
A golden age of poetry and power
Of which this noonday's the beginning hour."
Frost was concerned that people be about their business, being anything but victims, real or imagined, and daring any nation to “take us on.” The direction was ever onward and the devil take the hindmost. This runs counter to the nation’s direction currently, in which victim-hood is practically glorified and the course of least resistance, such as just printing money, is followed, i.e., an almost total lack of spine. Frost, who sired a large family and endured tragedies such as the deaths of children, died in 1963. He would likely have been horrified at the current state of affairs, with little hope evidenced by this administration.
Blanco, at 44, is about half Frost’s age and, of course, has a totally dissimilar background. This is how he finished his poem:
"We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
Waiting for us to name it—together."
It’s highly doubtful that Blanco spoke for “all of us,” especially in the sort of melancholy of the words. We hope while things wait to be done? This seems to be what’s happening now. Neither president nor Congress is doing much more than waiting…or waiting each other out…as the nation continues to slide morally, as seen in this inauguration’s theme, and in more tangible ways, domestically and internationally, in the process losing its “exclusiveness” and sinking to the lowest common denominator of the nations. More’s the pity.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
The inaugural theme on 21 January this year seemed to be “The Year of the Homosexual.” To celebrate this approach, the poet chosen by Obama was Richard Blanco, a homosexual, who read his poem just prior to the benediction, given by a clergyman, Luis Leon, who was a second choice for that task, the first choice, Louie Giglio, having been disinvited account his remarks in a presentation many years ago indicating the connection between homosexuality and sin.
Giglio had been invited in large part due to his fight against human trafficking. Leon is known for performing marriages between homosexuals, never mind the Defense of Marriage Act, which the president has vowed publicly not to enforce, or the laws and Constitutions of the vast majority of states that mandate marriage as between a man and woman. The president had the opposite view in 2009, upholding the DOM, but has “evolved.”
An aside: The military bands saved the day musically. The vocalists were far out of their milieu, singing music for which they seemed to have had no training. The lady who sang the national anthem rewrote both tune and rhythm, thus challenging the band and creating a sort of national sacrilege that seems more and more to mark the nation itself.
Frost’s early published poems seem to have been marked by consistent rhyme and rhythm, while much of his later work, though not exclusively, was more like Blanco’s – rhyme-less and relatively unstructured. This reminds, actually, of short essays broken into lines, with or without punctuation. Structured poetry is far more demanding than this type.
For the inaugural, Frost reverted to strict rhyme and rhythm and ended his poem with these words:
"There is a call to life a little sterner,
And braver for the earner, learner, yearner.
Less criticism of the field and court
And more preoccupation with the sport.
It makes the prophet in us all presage
The glory of a next Augustan age
Of a power leading from its strength and pride,
Of young ambition eager to be tried,
Firm in our free beliefs without dismay,
In any game the nations want to play.
A golden age of poetry and power
Of which this noonday's the beginning hour."
Frost was concerned that people be about their business, being anything but victims, real or imagined, and daring any nation to “take us on.” The direction was ever onward and the devil take the hindmost. This runs counter to the nation’s direction currently, in which victim-hood is practically glorified and the course of least resistance, such as just printing money, is followed, i.e., an almost total lack of spine. Frost, who sired a large family and endured tragedies such as the deaths of children, died in 1963. He would likely have been horrified at the current state of affairs, with little hope evidenced by this administration.
Blanco, at 44, is about half Frost’s age and, of course, has a totally dissimilar background. This is how he finished his poem:
"We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
Waiting for us to name it—together."
It’s highly doubtful that Blanco spoke for “all of us,” especially in the sort of melancholy of the words. We hope while things wait to be done? This seems to be what’s happening now. Neither president nor Congress is doing much more than waiting…or waiting each other out…as the nation continues to slide morally, as seen in this inauguration’s theme, and in more tangible ways, domestically and internationally, in the process losing its “exclusiveness” and sinking to the lowest common denominator of the nations. More’s the pity.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Disastrous Presidential Incompetence
This is from Euronews of 09 March 2011: Gaddafi told Turkey’s TRT channel that the West only wanted to take action so it could seize control of Libyan oil production. He also claimed that if he stepped down, it would leave a power vaccum [sic] to be filled by al Qaeda. “We are the ones preventing al Qaeda from taking control. They would drag the whole region into chaos,” he said.
Concerning what has happened in Algeria (deaths of more Americans at the hands of al Qaeda terrorists), President Obama can take another lesson from his mentor and spiritual adviser, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright – “The chickens have come home to roost.” Apparently for reasons of ego or maybe at the behest of three sob-sisters in the administration, Obama declared a personal war on Libya that more than just conceivably has led to this circumstance.
Only a few days after Qaddafi made that statement, Obama unleashed the U.S. Air Force in bombing and missile attacks on Libya, which posed no threat to any nation, especially the U.S., and started what amounted to a seven-month war costing no one knows how many Libyan civilian deaths and $1.1 billion. He did it without any consultation with Congress and despite the fact that both the Defense Secretary and Joint Chiefs Chairman inveighed mightily against it, even before a congressional committee. The DOD chairman described the operation as being done “on the fly,” obviously without any input by him or the JCC, meaning no sufficient military planning.
In the operation that Obama said would take “days, not weeks,” the governmental structure in Libya, whether or not the president approved of it, was destroyed and that benighted nation is in total chaos today, with the U.S. State Department in such a shambles its honchos watched by drone-satellite a few months ago as four Americans were massacred in the American consulate in Benghazi and could do nothing about it…or at least thought they couldn’t.
In short, Obama’s ego-trip on Libya (population two million LESS than that of New York City) in conjunction with the grand Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, most if not all of which have made their areas worse than ever with the militant jihad-minded Muslims gaining control and thus replacing the then-current despots with worse despots, has proved to be a catastrophic disaster. The actual winner(s): al Qaeda and/or al Qaeda-linked little al Qaedas, the most ruthless of all the Muslim thugs.
The reason for that statement seems obvious enough. The oil refinery that was the scene of the latest kidnapping/torturing/murder of at least 23 hostages is virtually on the border between Libya and Algeria, which shares a border with Mali to its south. The murderers are part of something called AQIM, which actually is the term for al Qaeda in North Africa. The leader of these refinery-butchers is a guy called Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who coincidentally shares a physical condition with Mullah Omar, the head honcho of the Taliban butchers in Afghanistan – each is blind in one eye.
Qaddafi knew his country. Neither Obama nor any of the goodtime girls who pushed for the bloodshed – State Secretary Clinton, UN Ambassador Rice and White House apparatchik Power – knows enough about the Muslim mind to even wonder what a prayer rug is. Obama was so unutterably ignorant that he didn’t know he declared a personal war of seven months, not just days. He thought he could drop a few bombs, leading from behind, and that would do the job. It’s scary to think of a loose cannon like him running the country.
Ostensibly, Belmokhtar was “getting even” with the French government by the hostage-taking for sending troops to Mali to stamp out a then-successful push by al Qaeda to take over that country as part of the Muslim enterprise to take over all of Africa. That may have been true but he offered American hostages in a prisoner-exchange with this country, and that may have been the main reason for the carnage he inflicted on a lot of people, not to mention the destruction, planned or unplanned at the time, of the oil facility, which the Algerian forces prevented by their quick move on Saturday.
So…the president has the blood of countless Libyans, the four killed at Benghazi and the Americans killed in Algeria on his hands, something that could have and would have been averted by anyone with half-sense. He allowed Libya to become an al Qaeda stronghold and training-ground for terrorists…and old Jeremiah was right…the chickens have come home to roost. The reputation of this country as a world power is in tatters. Imagine a nation with 1.5 million troops attacking a nation with 76,000 and beating it to death for seven months! Incredible!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Concerning what has happened in Algeria (deaths of more Americans at the hands of al Qaeda terrorists), President Obama can take another lesson from his mentor and spiritual adviser, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright – “The chickens have come home to roost.” Apparently for reasons of ego or maybe at the behest of three sob-sisters in the administration, Obama declared a personal war on Libya that more than just conceivably has led to this circumstance.
Only a few days after Qaddafi made that statement, Obama unleashed the U.S. Air Force in bombing and missile attacks on Libya, which posed no threat to any nation, especially the U.S., and started what amounted to a seven-month war costing no one knows how many Libyan civilian deaths and $1.1 billion. He did it without any consultation with Congress and despite the fact that both the Defense Secretary and Joint Chiefs Chairman inveighed mightily against it, even before a congressional committee. The DOD chairman described the operation as being done “on the fly,” obviously without any input by him or the JCC, meaning no sufficient military planning.
In the operation that Obama said would take “days, not weeks,” the governmental structure in Libya, whether or not the president approved of it, was destroyed and that benighted nation is in total chaos today, with the U.S. State Department in such a shambles its honchos watched by drone-satellite a few months ago as four Americans were massacred in the American consulate in Benghazi and could do nothing about it…or at least thought they couldn’t.
In short, Obama’s ego-trip on Libya (population two million LESS than that of New York City) in conjunction with the grand Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, most if not all of which have made their areas worse than ever with the militant jihad-minded Muslims gaining control and thus replacing the then-current despots with worse despots, has proved to be a catastrophic disaster. The actual winner(s): al Qaeda and/or al Qaeda-linked little al Qaedas, the most ruthless of all the Muslim thugs.
The reason for that statement seems obvious enough. The oil refinery that was the scene of the latest kidnapping/torturing/murder of at least 23 hostages is virtually on the border between Libya and Algeria, which shares a border with Mali to its south. The murderers are part of something called AQIM, which actually is the term for al Qaeda in North Africa. The leader of these refinery-butchers is a guy called Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who coincidentally shares a physical condition with Mullah Omar, the head honcho of the Taliban butchers in Afghanistan – each is blind in one eye.
Qaddafi knew his country. Neither Obama nor any of the goodtime girls who pushed for the bloodshed – State Secretary Clinton, UN Ambassador Rice and White House apparatchik Power – knows enough about the Muslim mind to even wonder what a prayer rug is. Obama was so unutterably ignorant that he didn’t know he declared a personal war of seven months, not just days. He thought he could drop a few bombs, leading from behind, and that would do the job. It’s scary to think of a loose cannon like him running the country.
Ostensibly, Belmokhtar was “getting even” with the French government by the hostage-taking for sending troops to Mali to stamp out a then-successful push by al Qaeda to take over that country as part of the Muslim enterprise to take over all of Africa. That may have been true but he offered American hostages in a prisoner-exchange with this country, and that may have been the main reason for the carnage he inflicted on a lot of people, not to mention the destruction, planned or unplanned at the time, of the oil facility, which the Algerian forces prevented by their quick move on Saturday.
So…the president has the blood of countless Libyans, the four killed at Benghazi and the Americans killed in Algeria on his hands, something that could have and would have been averted by anyone with half-sense. He allowed Libya to become an al Qaeda stronghold and training-ground for terrorists…and old Jeremiah was right…the chickens have come home to roost. The reputation of this country as a world power is in tatters. Imagine a nation with 1.5 million troops attacking a nation with 76,000 and beating it to death for seven months! Incredible!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Presidential Grandstanding
President Obama bestirred himself twice this week to hold forth in public, on 14 January in a “press conference” for which he already had decided who would ask questions, and on 16 January to make a teleprompted speech to a large crowd ginned-up from somewhere (who knows where?) in the middle of the day. At least he was in town, meaning some relief from the huge expense of making Air Force One his personal taxi for yet another “campaign” speech thousands of miles away from the snake-pit.
The theme of the press conference was “We won again.” Obama used it to castigate a do-nothing-or-something-worse House of Representatives republican caucus for daring to challenge him on anything, especially the national debt and the debt-ceiling-limit, making it plain that things would be done his way, i.e., by the printing of money for the conceivable future. His key words over-and-over were “conversation” and “debate,” implying that he would talk but not budge. He also made it, as he would say, “absolutely clear,” that he would use executive orders to straighten out gun-control. This method obviously would also apply to the financial crisis.
The last question was from a lady reporter and had to do with how much the president did or didn’t properly “socialize,” and to remark that he was (gasp) shutting out women from his “inner circle,” the latter giving him a chance to extol the virtues of womanhood and explain how he had, contrarily, placed lots of women in responsible positions but would do even more. The whole exercise – in propaganda mode, of course – was just as trivial as that question, beneath contempt.
Item: Ft. Hood, November 2009, 13 murdered, 30 wounded. No presidential commission. Item: Tucson, January 2011, 6 murdered, 13 wounded. No presidential commission. Item: Aurora, July 2012, 12 murdered, 58 wounded. No presidential commission. Item: Chicago, 2012, 500 murdered by gunfire. No presidential commission. Total: 531 murdered, 101 wounded.
Item: Newtown, December 2012, 26 murdered, 2 wounded. Finally, a presidential commission headed by none other than Obama’s source of gravitas, VP Biden. The speech on 16 January was devoted to this last mass-shooting, making one wonder if the president is class-conscious to the extent of deciding whose lives are important enough to trigger action of some kind…any kind.
In both appearances, Obama made it “absolutely clear” that he was in high dudgeon concerning the Congress, and that he would work his will, apparently through executive orders, some 23 of which he has already signed referencing gun control. The orders are relatively harmless with regard to anything of substance and most of them probably have to do with laws already on the books, though perhaps not well enforced in some places, just as federal immigration laws are not enforced in Arizona, though this administration has shipped unaccounted-for guns to Mexico by the hundreds if not thousands.
To indicate how trivial the orders are is the one having to do with establishing the fact that Obamacare does not preclude a doctor from asking his patients about “guns in their home.” This is another: “Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.” Does anyone know what a “school resource officer” is? Here’s another: “Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.” What is “mental health parity?” A “school resource officer” and “mental health parity” are what anyone says they are, making these orders too silly for words.
In other words, the whole exercise was window-dressing but another opportunity to castigate the Congress, which has the only Constitutional power to do anything of substance. The shallowness of this administration was seen in a letter to Congress from the Defense Department in December 2011 describing Major Hasan’s slaughter at Ft. Hood as “workplace violence.” WORKPLACE VIOLENCE! Egad! Since this administration has done nothing about the Benghazi massacre – not charged anyone anywhere anytime – it perhaps believes that it was just WORKPLACE VIOLENCE!
The most contemptible thing the president did concerning his speech was drag children and others from Newtown (with enough grief already) into the audience to be used as pawns in what was obviously a publicity stunt of immense proportions. He could have presented his diatribe and his list of executive orders at the press conference on the fourteenth, but he was without a teleprompter there and therefore a lost ball in the tall weeds. Perhaps, press guru Carney will explain what…uh…uh…er mental…uh…health…er…parity is. Does it mean that the appropriate czar will regulate that everyone have the same IQ? Egad!
The administration types got their noses out of joint over an NRA TV-ad that might have referenced Obama’s daughters (admittedly in poor taste), but Obama “used” those children from Newtown for what had to be a personal ego-trip. Which was worse? The president – Constitutional expert that he is, by his own admission – knows that Congress will do virtually nothing, especially any time soon, so the whole thing will just be another huge photo-op.
The nation deserves better.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
The theme of the press conference was “We won again.” Obama used it to castigate a do-nothing-or-something-worse House of Representatives republican caucus for daring to challenge him on anything, especially the national debt and the debt-ceiling-limit, making it plain that things would be done his way, i.e., by the printing of money for the conceivable future. His key words over-and-over were “conversation” and “debate,” implying that he would talk but not budge. He also made it, as he would say, “absolutely clear,” that he would use executive orders to straighten out gun-control. This method obviously would also apply to the financial crisis.
The last question was from a lady reporter and had to do with how much the president did or didn’t properly “socialize,” and to remark that he was (gasp) shutting out women from his “inner circle,” the latter giving him a chance to extol the virtues of womanhood and explain how he had, contrarily, placed lots of women in responsible positions but would do even more. The whole exercise – in propaganda mode, of course – was just as trivial as that question, beneath contempt.
Item: Ft. Hood, November 2009, 13 murdered, 30 wounded. No presidential commission. Item: Tucson, January 2011, 6 murdered, 13 wounded. No presidential commission. Item: Aurora, July 2012, 12 murdered, 58 wounded. No presidential commission. Item: Chicago, 2012, 500 murdered by gunfire. No presidential commission. Total: 531 murdered, 101 wounded.
Item: Newtown, December 2012, 26 murdered, 2 wounded. Finally, a presidential commission headed by none other than Obama’s source of gravitas, VP Biden. The speech on 16 January was devoted to this last mass-shooting, making one wonder if the president is class-conscious to the extent of deciding whose lives are important enough to trigger action of some kind…any kind.
In both appearances, Obama made it “absolutely clear” that he was in high dudgeon concerning the Congress, and that he would work his will, apparently through executive orders, some 23 of which he has already signed referencing gun control. The orders are relatively harmless with regard to anything of substance and most of them probably have to do with laws already on the books, though perhaps not well enforced in some places, just as federal immigration laws are not enforced in Arizona, though this administration has shipped unaccounted-for guns to Mexico by the hundreds if not thousands.
To indicate how trivial the orders are is the one having to do with establishing the fact that Obamacare does not preclude a doctor from asking his patients about “guns in their home.” This is another: “Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.” Does anyone know what a “school resource officer” is? Here’s another: “Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations.” What is “mental health parity?” A “school resource officer” and “mental health parity” are what anyone says they are, making these orders too silly for words.
In other words, the whole exercise was window-dressing but another opportunity to castigate the Congress, which has the only Constitutional power to do anything of substance. The shallowness of this administration was seen in a letter to Congress from the Defense Department in December 2011 describing Major Hasan’s slaughter at Ft. Hood as “workplace violence.” WORKPLACE VIOLENCE! Egad! Since this administration has done nothing about the Benghazi massacre – not charged anyone anywhere anytime – it perhaps believes that it was just WORKPLACE VIOLENCE!
The most contemptible thing the president did concerning his speech was drag children and others from Newtown (with enough grief already) into the audience to be used as pawns in what was obviously a publicity stunt of immense proportions. He could have presented his diatribe and his list of executive orders at the press conference on the fourteenth, but he was without a teleprompter there and therefore a lost ball in the tall weeds. Perhaps, press guru Carney will explain what…uh…uh…er mental…uh…health…er…parity is. Does it mean that the appropriate czar will regulate that everyone have the same IQ? Egad!
The administration types got their noses out of joint over an NRA TV-ad that might have referenced Obama’s daughters (admittedly in poor taste), but Obama “used” those children from Newtown for what had to be a personal ego-trip. Which was worse? The president – Constitutional expert that he is, by his own admission – knows that Congress will do virtually nothing, especially any time soon, so the whole thing will just be another huge photo-op.
The nation deserves better.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Saturday, January 12, 2013
DNC Memorandum #12
From the office of the chairWOMAN, 12 January 2013
***Listen up! There’s been no memo since October because the chairWOMAN has been involved first with the election (no hanging chads in her district this time) and then in consultations with POTUS, VPOTUS, FLOTUS and an occasional dog-sitting duty with FDOTUS. The nasty rumor that she has been politicking for a cabinet position is wrong and she will not do that or dog-sit again. Her second job in the House has also taken some time although her vote is worth nil, so staffers are directed not to ask for special favors since she’s lucky to still have a nameplate, much less any political clout, the republican leadership being Neanderthal in its treatment of women and even most men.
***The rumor that POTUS is planning to create a Department of Gender may or may not be true, such is the secrecy surrounding top-priority matters. The LBGT gang has raised the issue of how many genders there are and of which one the Secretary should be, assuming, of course, that no straight white male, with or without tattoos or nose rings, would be given any consideration. Said to be first in line is Sandra Fluke, who brilliantly made the case before Congress for free condoms. Along this line, a new program is in the works called Obamacondomcare and will soon become a part of Obamacare. Under the provision, a doctor refusing to do an abortion at any fetus-stage will face 30 years in prison, and a daily government-allocation will be made to all women older than five years of two super-slimy-fail-safe-exotic condoms, featuring the two-second automatic-unrolling feature for overwhelming passion-attack panic. Also, a billion dollars will be budgeted for research into converting the pregnancy problem from women to men, who, even in POTUS’s new homosexual marriage-mode, cannot conceive and therefore actually be married.
***Since Senator Kerry has been nominated for State, no mention is to be made of the medals he threw over some fence in 1970 or thereabouts. Staffers are urged to write memos to the media outlets extolling the senator’s virtues, which, if not found or contrived personally, are listed in my office. The senator has said firmly that he did not say smart kids went to school and blockheads went to Iraq back when he considered another run for the presidency, and that he will never say that again.
***Be advised that the theme of the inauguration this month is Homosexual/Diversity Change, the natural sequence vis-à-vis the slogan in 2008, which was the rather simple, mundane Change. This being the case, the Rev. Louie Giglio has been disinvited from giving the benediction at the inauguration because he once preached that unrepentant homosexuality connotes sin. Magnanimously, Attorney General Holder has decided not to have him prosecuted for committing a hate-crime. Giglio is white, so make it clear in all correspondence and news releases that this action by POTUS was not race-based and remind that POTUS also disinvited the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright, an African American, from praying in the 2009 inauguration, though not for the same reason. It just seemed unseemly that the reverend, having already prayed for the destruction of the country, would pray for POTUS (and probably himself) to be spared from the wrath of God.
***In keeping with the theme, Richard Blanco, a homosexual Latino, will read an original poem at the inauguration. The rumor that he has been cautioned about being too explicit is not true but he will not appear in drag in the parade. The fact that Defense Secretary nominee Hagel once said that one who is aggressively gay should not be an ambassador has not been a reason for withdrawing his nomination because not all homosexuals are aggressive, like the ones depicted in Sodom and Gomorrah. Hagel, a combat veteran, probably believes the same thing about homosexuals in the military, but he has already apologized about the ambassador thing and is no doubt backing down on the latter. If asked about this, simply mention that Hagel has evolved just as POTUS evolved regarding homosexuals marrying each other. Do NOT – repeat – DO NOT discuss how far either has evolved from ape-hood vis-à-vis the rest of us. The rumor that Hagel apologized because Holder threatened him with a hate-crime charge is not true and Holder has said he will not do that again.
***The rumor that, in keeping with the theme, POTUS will go to Iowa immediately after the inauguration to perform mass weddings of homosexuals to each other (but only in pairs, no matter the argument for threesomes or more-somes) is not true. Also, The DNC has been asked to suggest someone else to deliver the benediction at the inauguration, with the only firm stipulation that he/she/it (gender of transgenders unknown) be homosexual, in a committed relationship of at least six weeks and not Muslim since Islam sentences homosexuals to death, something of which POTUS, VPOTUS, FLOTUS and maybe even FDOTUS disapprove, though republicans might be another matter since they represent a danger to the nation. POTUS seems to be favoring an Afro-Asian left-handed Lesbian with a twelve-handicap at this point, so be advised. Political correctness is key and diversity must be observed. At least one inaugural ball will be devoted to homosexuals (no guns allowed for protection against jealous partners). Transvestites will be allowed, but anyone wearing stiletto heels will be turned away for obvious reasons.
***POTUS is devising executive orders to cover everything the Congress is or is not considering at present and is, in conjunction with fellow-anarchist and terrorist Bill Ayers, preparing a book on the un-Constitutionality of Congress. When former Illinois governor Blagojevich is released from jail, he and POTUS will prepare a similar book concerning the Supreme Court. Stay tuned…many CHANGES are taking place.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
***Listen up! There’s been no memo since October because the chairWOMAN has been involved first with the election (no hanging chads in her district this time) and then in consultations with POTUS, VPOTUS, FLOTUS and an occasional dog-sitting duty with FDOTUS. The nasty rumor that she has been politicking for a cabinet position is wrong and she will not do that or dog-sit again. Her second job in the House has also taken some time although her vote is worth nil, so staffers are directed not to ask for special favors since she’s lucky to still have a nameplate, much less any political clout, the republican leadership being Neanderthal in its treatment of women and even most men.
***The rumor that POTUS is planning to create a Department of Gender may or may not be true, such is the secrecy surrounding top-priority matters. The LBGT gang has raised the issue of how many genders there are and of which one the Secretary should be, assuming, of course, that no straight white male, with or without tattoos or nose rings, would be given any consideration. Said to be first in line is Sandra Fluke, who brilliantly made the case before Congress for free condoms. Along this line, a new program is in the works called Obamacondomcare and will soon become a part of Obamacare. Under the provision, a doctor refusing to do an abortion at any fetus-stage will face 30 years in prison, and a daily government-allocation will be made to all women older than five years of two super-slimy-fail-safe-exotic condoms, featuring the two-second automatic-unrolling feature for overwhelming passion-attack panic. Also, a billion dollars will be budgeted for research into converting the pregnancy problem from women to men, who, even in POTUS’s new homosexual marriage-mode, cannot conceive and therefore actually be married.
***Since Senator Kerry has been nominated for State, no mention is to be made of the medals he threw over some fence in 1970 or thereabouts. Staffers are urged to write memos to the media outlets extolling the senator’s virtues, which, if not found or contrived personally, are listed in my office. The senator has said firmly that he did not say smart kids went to school and blockheads went to Iraq back when he considered another run for the presidency, and that he will never say that again.
***Be advised that the theme of the inauguration this month is Homosexual/Diversity Change, the natural sequence vis-à-vis the slogan in 2008, which was the rather simple, mundane Change. This being the case, the Rev. Louie Giglio has been disinvited from giving the benediction at the inauguration because he once preached that unrepentant homosexuality connotes sin. Magnanimously, Attorney General Holder has decided not to have him prosecuted for committing a hate-crime. Giglio is white, so make it clear in all correspondence and news releases that this action by POTUS was not race-based and remind that POTUS also disinvited the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God damn America) Wright, an African American, from praying in the 2009 inauguration, though not for the same reason. It just seemed unseemly that the reverend, having already prayed for the destruction of the country, would pray for POTUS (and probably himself) to be spared from the wrath of God.
***In keeping with the theme, Richard Blanco, a homosexual Latino, will read an original poem at the inauguration. The rumor that he has been cautioned about being too explicit is not true but he will not appear in drag in the parade. The fact that Defense Secretary nominee Hagel once said that one who is aggressively gay should not be an ambassador has not been a reason for withdrawing his nomination because not all homosexuals are aggressive, like the ones depicted in Sodom and Gomorrah. Hagel, a combat veteran, probably believes the same thing about homosexuals in the military, but he has already apologized about the ambassador thing and is no doubt backing down on the latter. If asked about this, simply mention that Hagel has evolved just as POTUS evolved regarding homosexuals marrying each other. Do NOT – repeat – DO NOT discuss how far either has evolved from ape-hood vis-à-vis the rest of us. The rumor that Hagel apologized because Holder threatened him with a hate-crime charge is not true and Holder has said he will not do that again.
***The rumor that, in keeping with the theme, POTUS will go to Iowa immediately after the inauguration to perform mass weddings of homosexuals to each other (but only in pairs, no matter the argument for threesomes or more-somes) is not true. Also, The DNC has been asked to suggest someone else to deliver the benediction at the inauguration, with the only firm stipulation that he/she/it (gender of transgenders unknown) be homosexual, in a committed relationship of at least six weeks and not Muslim since Islam sentences homosexuals to death, something of which POTUS, VPOTUS, FLOTUS and maybe even FDOTUS disapprove, though republicans might be another matter since they represent a danger to the nation. POTUS seems to be favoring an Afro-Asian left-handed Lesbian with a twelve-handicap at this point, so be advised. Political correctness is key and diversity must be observed. At least one inaugural ball will be devoted to homosexuals (no guns allowed for protection against jealous partners). Transvestites will be allowed, but anyone wearing stiletto heels will be turned away for obvious reasons.
***POTUS is devising executive orders to cover everything the Congress is or is not considering at present and is, in conjunction with fellow-anarchist and terrorist Bill Ayers, preparing a book on the un-Constitutionality of Congress. When former Illinois governor Blagojevich is released from jail, he and POTUS will prepare a similar book concerning the Supreme Court. Stay tuned…many CHANGES are taking place.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Wednesday, January 02, 2013
The WE-WON-KID Rides Again!
It would be hard to imagine a greater display of unmitigated jackassery than was displayed by the president on the afternoon of 31 December, when he assembled a large group (no one seems to know from where but perhaps bused in from one of the projects) in the Executive Office Building in order to stroke his own magnificent ego by lecturing the Congress and demeaning all republicans, especially, to the accompaniment of wild applause. To say that it was a disgusting performance is far too kind. It was an act beneath the dignity and intelligence of a pimply-faced high-school sophomore…contemptible to a degree beyond the nth.
This president has done nothing but campaign for the last four years for a second term, especially during the last 18 months. His post-Christmas flight back to Washington for the current example of overall government ineptitude was totally unnecessary since he has done nothing but say one way or another WE WON, i.e., that he’ll call all the shots and it’s “my way or the highway” for anyone getting in his way.
This latest escapade reminds of 2008, when he and John McCain, both in desperate campaign-mode, dropped everything to get back to Washington and save the country, both of them president-wannabe senators playing to the cameras and microphones. Their presence meant absolutely nothing but the grandstanding was too good to miss.
So…at least for public consumption, the vice president and Senator McConnell took center stage in an effort to save the country. This is another way of saying that Obama is so totally disengaged and uninformed, not to mention intolerably arrogant, that, as usual, somebody has to fill-in for him to get anything done. In the meantime, the citizenry gets an idea of what an empty suit looks like. Add Harry Reed to that equation (no Senate budget passed in three years) and the incompetence in the top of the hierarchy is thick enough to cut with a knife.
The only thing more despicable than a sore loser is an arrogant, taunting winner, especially in an election actually won by the vote of the big-city welfare meccas. His performance on New Year’s Eve was akin to the stupid shenanigans of athletes these days, doing the crotch-hop or chest-banger or jumping in the stands to be pummeled by the silliest fans after doing just what they’re paid well to do, in the first place. All the prez needs to do is get properly tattooed and affix some rings in his ears, nose and anywhere else there’s enough tissue available to be in the same bush-league as the pros, who are even more overpaid than he is.
The rank incompetence of this administration is seen, for instance, in its foreign policy or absence thereof. The prez, exhibiting the predictable arrogance and egoism, made it a point to tell the top leaders of countries in the Middle East to take a hike – Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen – with the result being that he has not only alienated those nations but helped deliver them into the hands of the radical jihad groups that threaten the world. Al Qaeda has never been stronger and the Muslim Brotherhood is busily making Sharia law the law of the land in Egypt and Libya and probably soon in Syria. Obama might as well be a fellow-Muslim.
He backed up none of his “get outta Dodge” commands, thus became a paper-tiger, even in the case of Libya, with the weakest military establishment in that part of the world – sorta equal maybe to the Boy Scouts. Result of that inane, insane attack: the Benghazi massacre and a nation virtually run by the radicals and even sending radicals to help Syrians kill each other. What a mess! In the process, he’s made this country into the laughingstock of the world, totally without respect.
Domestically, he’s done just what he did on 31 December – sniped at and insulted the people he despises and hammed it up for the cameras, making speeches constantly, apparently figuring that this is how a president leads…make a lot of noise and then tell the troops to “go get ’em.” Disgusting! This is called “leading from behind” – his term.
After his totally useless trip from Hawaii, he has now returned, thus keeping Air Force One, his personal air-taxi, operational for 36,000 miles and will soon add another 6,000. At $180,000 per hour, this works out to more than $8.6 million for his holiday at taxpayer expense. Add the first ladies $4.3 million for her own personal plane (his/her planes in this administration) and the recession-ridden taxpayer has coughed up nearly $13 million in air-travel costs alone for Hawaiian fun and games. This doesn’t even count the cost of the secret service and all the other add-ons to the holidays. The ultimate irony: Obamessiah will sign the bill by electronic autopen…didn’t even stay with the troops…loyalty be damned.
Obama constantly uses the term “sacrifice” and makes himself look dumb every time he smirks it, reminding everyone that WE WON!!!! Four more years of this excuse for leadership – disgusting!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
This president has done nothing but campaign for the last four years for a second term, especially during the last 18 months. His post-Christmas flight back to Washington for the current example of overall government ineptitude was totally unnecessary since he has done nothing but say one way or another WE WON, i.e., that he’ll call all the shots and it’s “my way or the highway” for anyone getting in his way.
This latest escapade reminds of 2008, when he and John McCain, both in desperate campaign-mode, dropped everything to get back to Washington and save the country, both of them president-wannabe senators playing to the cameras and microphones. Their presence meant absolutely nothing but the grandstanding was too good to miss.
So…at least for public consumption, the vice president and Senator McConnell took center stage in an effort to save the country. This is another way of saying that Obama is so totally disengaged and uninformed, not to mention intolerably arrogant, that, as usual, somebody has to fill-in for him to get anything done. In the meantime, the citizenry gets an idea of what an empty suit looks like. Add Harry Reed to that equation (no Senate budget passed in three years) and the incompetence in the top of the hierarchy is thick enough to cut with a knife.
The only thing more despicable than a sore loser is an arrogant, taunting winner, especially in an election actually won by the vote of the big-city welfare meccas. His performance on New Year’s Eve was akin to the stupid shenanigans of athletes these days, doing the crotch-hop or chest-banger or jumping in the stands to be pummeled by the silliest fans after doing just what they’re paid well to do, in the first place. All the prez needs to do is get properly tattooed and affix some rings in his ears, nose and anywhere else there’s enough tissue available to be in the same bush-league as the pros, who are even more overpaid than he is.
The rank incompetence of this administration is seen, for instance, in its foreign policy or absence thereof. The prez, exhibiting the predictable arrogance and egoism, made it a point to tell the top leaders of countries in the Middle East to take a hike – Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen – with the result being that he has not only alienated those nations but helped deliver them into the hands of the radical jihad groups that threaten the world. Al Qaeda has never been stronger and the Muslim Brotherhood is busily making Sharia law the law of the land in Egypt and Libya and probably soon in Syria. Obama might as well be a fellow-Muslim.
He backed up none of his “get outta Dodge” commands, thus became a paper-tiger, even in the case of Libya, with the weakest military establishment in that part of the world – sorta equal maybe to the Boy Scouts. Result of that inane, insane attack: the Benghazi massacre and a nation virtually run by the radicals and even sending radicals to help Syrians kill each other. What a mess! In the process, he’s made this country into the laughingstock of the world, totally without respect.
Domestically, he’s done just what he did on 31 December – sniped at and insulted the people he despises and hammed it up for the cameras, making speeches constantly, apparently figuring that this is how a president leads…make a lot of noise and then tell the troops to “go get ’em.” Disgusting! This is called “leading from behind” – his term.
After his totally useless trip from Hawaii, he has now returned, thus keeping Air Force One, his personal air-taxi, operational for 36,000 miles and will soon add another 6,000. At $180,000 per hour, this works out to more than $8.6 million for his holiday at taxpayer expense. Add the first ladies $4.3 million for her own personal plane (his/her planes in this administration) and the recession-ridden taxpayer has coughed up nearly $13 million in air-travel costs alone for Hawaiian fun and games. This doesn’t even count the cost of the secret service and all the other add-ons to the holidays. The ultimate irony: Obamessiah will sign the bill by electronic autopen…didn’t even stay with the troops…loyalty be damned.
Obama constantly uses the term “sacrifice” and makes himself look dumb every time he smirks it, reminding everyone that WE WON!!!! Four more years of this excuse for leadership – disgusting!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Tuesday, January 01, 2013
Year-end Lament
(from 2009, but not much has changed.)
Listen, my children, and you shall now hear
Just how it is at the end of this year,
The holiday firs are seen in their glow –
Once Christmas trees, but that weird name must go;
Diversity wields its pure jihad toward God,
It is a religion, worldly and mod,
Look not for Jesus, except at Walmart...
While looking, of course, just fill up the cart.
Never look back at the promises made
A few months ago as the Truth was waylaid
When O and his pols predicted...perforce!...
That those out of work would number, of course,
A mere eight percent and that not for long
As government spent the economy strong;
So...take heart, my dears, just go out and spend...
The prexy said thus...would the bad times all end.
Be glad at this time for a Congress hell-bent
On capping the gases that simply are meant
To make icebergs melt...catch folks unawares
And drown half the country, kill all polar bears;
Be glad that the reps never read cap-and-trade
Since if they had done that they might have been made
To either defeat it or...yes...made to wear
A jacket of strait where dementeds get care.
And think of the climate – especially just now,
This time of the year when to see a snow-plow
Is everyday stuff in much of the land
Where snow heretofore rarely managed to land;
And listen to Al, the guru of gore,
That soon will envelop this land more and more
As humans and beasts all succumb to the cold –
Frozen by warming as temps downward fold.
In case you’ve not noticed, remark now O’s change,
Admittedly, it may just seem a bit strange,
But banking and autos are federalized
And everything everywhere must be downsized;
Put more air in tires and save on your fuel,
And use the right light-bulbs...yeah...don’t be a fool,
The planet is dying, the U.N. has said,
Stop breathing out carbon or Earth will be dead.
At year’s end think not of recession and such –
Obama’s guru of finance said as much...
Recession is over, thus said he to George,
On A-B-C’s Sunday...so go out and gorge,
And simply pretend that the U.S. ain’t broke,
Just use credit cards and be part of the joke...
The veep said bankruptcy is nothing to fear,
Just borrow and spend and be of good cheer.
At year’s end don’t worry...the dollars are sound,
Just go to Beijing, where some billions are found,
And if you want jobs, go to Shanghai and jive,
Those folks make our undies, our shoes...and they thrive;
Don’t look for those things where they used to be made,
The land of the free...ah...but soon cap-and-trade,
Just wire the White House that you’re too big to fail,
Then wait for a check in the very next mail.
At year’s end fret not for old Gitmo soon gone,
Those terrorist dudes will now all face the dawn
In Brooklyn or out on the midwestern plain
Where they can chow down in the land of no pain
And laugh as they strut before TV’s bright light
And spew out their garbage in everyone’s sight,
Praise Allah and jihad...claim judges are dumb –
Like all infidels, with their brains simply numb.
At year’s end don’t worry if you might feel faint,
The Big O and demos are now your new saint,
Their health-care is promised for hangnails or plague
Or bones that are broken or feverish ague;
If you are not young...well...don’t worry at all,
For the lines will not form until they need to call
And simply are told that in six months...about...
They get a knee-joint or a gall bladder out.
At year’s end the parties are just everywhere,
State dinners are normal...quite often the fare,
But take care when crashing, through some staffer’s grace,
You get your brief fame, but with egg on O’s face,
Yet, fret not when questions arise in your fame,
Your name, as like hers, will not suffer some blame,
Executive-priv is the name of the game,
Except when, of course, George the Two is to frame.
At year’s end chill out...don’t be stupid...oh no!
Not like policemen, as described by Big O,
Since he’s got your back from the crib to the grave,
And you from yourself he has promised to save;
And take it from prez, if you’re ever in doubt,
Teleprompters can help, with the stuff they give out,
And don’t hesitate if you’re asked to surmise
About the U.S. – be quick...APOLOGIZE!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Listen, my children, and you shall now hear
Just how it is at the end of this year,
The holiday firs are seen in their glow –
Once Christmas trees, but that weird name must go;
Diversity wields its pure jihad toward God,
It is a religion, worldly and mod,
Look not for Jesus, except at Walmart...
While looking, of course, just fill up the cart.
Never look back at the promises made
A few months ago as the Truth was waylaid
When O and his pols predicted...perforce!...
That those out of work would number, of course,
A mere eight percent and that not for long
As government spent the economy strong;
So...take heart, my dears, just go out and spend...
The prexy said thus...would the bad times all end.
Be glad at this time for a Congress hell-bent
On capping the gases that simply are meant
To make icebergs melt...catch folks unawares
And drown half the country, kill all polar bears;
Be glad that the reps never read cap-and-trade
Since if they had done that they might have been made
To either defeat it or...yes...made to wear
A jacket of strait where dementeds get care.
And think of the climate – especially just now,
This time of the year when to see a snow-plow
Is everyday stuff in much of the land
Where snow heretofore rarely managed to land;
And listen to Al, the guru of gore,
That soon will envelop this land more and more
As humans and beasts all succumb to the cold –
Frozen by warming as temps downward fold.
In case you’ve not noticed, remark now O’s change,
Admittedly, it may just seem a bit strange,
But banking and autos are federalized
And everything everywhere must be downsized;
Put more air in tires and save on your fuel,
And use the right light-bulbs...yeah...don’t be a fool,
The planet is dying, the U.N. has said,
Stop breathing out carbon or Earth will be dead.
At year’s end think not of recession and such –
Obama’s guru of finance said as much...
Recession is over, thus said he to George,
On A-B-C’s Sunday...so go out and gorge,
And simply pretend that the U.S. ain’t broke,
Just use credit cards and be part of the joke...
The veep said bankruptcy is nothing to fear,
Just borrow and spend and be of good cheer.
At year’s end don’t worry...the dollars are sound,
Just go to Beijing, where some billions are found,
And if you want jobs, go to Shanghai and jive,
Those folks make our undies, our shoes...and they thrive;
Don’t look for those things where they used to be made,
The land of the free...ah...but soon cap-and-trade,
Just wire the White House that you’re too big to fail,
Then wait for a check in the very next mail.
At year’s end fret not for old Gitmo soon gone,
Those terrorist dudes will now all face the dawn
In Brooklyn or out on the midwestern plain
Where they can chow down in the land of no pain
And laugh as they strut before TV’s bright light
And spew out their garbage in everyone’s sight,
Praise Allah and jihad...claim judges are dumb –
Like all infidels, with their brains simply numb.
At year’s end don’t worry if you might feel faint,
The Big O and demos are now your new saint,
Their health-care is promised for hangnails or plague
Or bones that are broken or feverish ague;
If you are not young...well...don’t worry at all,
For the lines will not form until they need to call
And simply are told that in six months...about...
They get a knee-joint or a gall bladder out.
At year’s end the parties are just everywhere,
State dinners are normal...quite often the fare,
But take care when crashing, through some staffer’s grace,
You get your brief fame, but with egg on O’s face,
Yet, fret not when questions arise in your fame,
Your name, as like hers, will not suffer some blame,
Executive-priv is the name of the game,
Except when, of course, George the Two is to frame.
At year’s end chill out...don’t be stupid...oh no!
Not like policemen, as described by Big O,
Since he’s got your back from the crib to the grave,
And you from yourself he has promised to save;
And take it from prez, if you’re ever in doubt,
Teleprompters can help, with the stuff they give out,
And don’t hesitate if you’re asked to surmise
About the U.S. – be quick...APOLOGIZE!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)