Shadow's World

2012-02-01T21:57:00.000-05:00

BUT, ... BUT there are plenty of (temporary) jobs for my syncophants.

Solyndra, anyone?

2012-02-01T21:30:00.000-05:00

IT’S NOT MY FAULT; it’s never my fault.

2012-02-01T21:00:00.000-05:00

THINKING BIG: Moon base dreams not lunacy.

2012-02-01T20:15:00.000-05:00

AN EXERCISE in counterproductivity: “[T]he more successful they are in adding names to the ever-growing meteorologist denier list, the faster the notion of 'scientific consensus' goes out the window.”

2012-02-01T19:53:00.000-05:00

MILLIONAIRES: Most Downwardly Mobile of Society. And our President is doing his level best to make them even more downwardly mobile.

2012-02-01T16:30:00.000-05:00

DESPERATION TIME: “Democrats investigating the failed gun-running probe known as ‘Operation Fast and Furious’ are laying the blame at the feet of officials in Arizona....”

In the Obama administration, it’s always someone else’s fault.

2012-02-01T16:10:00.000-05:00

DAMN! German Satellite Almost Crashed into Beijing. Only 7 minutes to spare.

2012-02-01T15:55:00.002-05:00

OOPS! "Fifteen of the 23 F-35 jets delivered to the Pentagon by Lockheed Martin have been grounded because ejection seat parachutes were improperly installed."

2012-02-01T15:55:00.001-05:00

BORED WITH UNION ORGANIZING, SEIU gears up for thuggery.

2012-02-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

TURN OUT THE LIGHTS, the party’s over.

2012-02-01T10:35:00.000-05:00

EXACTLY:

Link is here.

2012-02-01T10:04:00.001-05:00

SEEN ON THE STREET in Manassas Park, a late model bright red Mustang GT. Painted on the side:

Manassas Park Police Department
Confiscated from a convicted drug dealer

Heh.

2012-02-01T10:03:00.001-05:00

PAUL GREENBERG: The Next War.

2012-02-01T08:00:00.000-05:00

THOMAS SOWELL: “The Republican establishment is pulling out all the stops to try to keep Newt Gingrich from becoming the party's nominee for President of the United States -- and some are not letting the facts get in their way.”

2012-02-01T07:41:00.001-05:00

PAUL GREENBERG: Just Read the Words.

Nuance not required.

2012-02-01T07:40:00.000-05:00

SHOULD EVERYONE be required to have health insurance? The short answer is no; simply quit requiring that the taxpayers pick up the tab.

2012-01-31T22:31:00.000-05:00

DEBRA J. SAUNDERS: Occupy Jail.

2012-01-31T22:02:00.000-05:00

NOTHING TO SEE: no violence here. Just move along now.

2012-01-31T21:30:00.001-05:00

THE FLORIDA REPUBLICAN PRIMARY:

Courtesy of Mallard Fillmore.

2012-01-31T21:22:00.001-05:00

FROM MY EMAIL: There is finally conclusive evidence that Osama bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi are well and truly dead.

Yesterday, they both registered to vote in Chicago .

2012-01-31T17:37:00.000-05:00

OBAMA’S TAX POLICY

All it takes is a “Congressional bypass” operation.

Linked from The Wizard of ID.

2012-01-31T17:06:00.000-05:00

AMERICAN NARCISSUS: The vanity of Barack Obama.

Linked from PowerLine.

2012-01-31T17:05:00.000-05:00

THE NEA’S [AND OBAMA’S] PLAN: Keep your ‘kids’ captive longer.

The usual liberal solution; do more of what hasn’t worked in the past.

2012-01-31T11:55:00.000-05:00

NOT MINE: What demographics won’t Romney win?

2012-01-31T11:53:00.000-05:00

ROMNEY, GINGRICH on space policy.

Gingrich's message to the space industry was that, under a President Gingrich, Americans would return to the moon, build a permanent base there, and reach out toward manned flight to Mars. Romney's message was that, as president, he would consult experts to come up with an affordable mission for the space program.

I prefer Gingrich.

2012-01-31T10:30:00.000-05:00

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Skunks flood California city looking for love.

2012-01-31T09:27:00.001-05:00

EIGHT YEARS IF WE’RE LUCKY: How much longer for Newt?

2012-01-31T09:24:00.000-05:00

D-DALUS: "a flying machine that floated like a hummingbird, traveled as fast as a jet, was as quiet as a hot-air balloon, and was simple enough that a car mechanic could repair it."

I’m looking forward to seeing a prototype.

2012-01-31T08:28:00.000-05:00

MILTON FRIEDMAN explains the 2012 election – in 1979.

2012-01-31T07:55:00.000-05:00

BECAUSE THEY’RE OVERPAID TALENT-FREE EGOMANIACS: Why are singers always screwing up the national anthem?

2012-01-30T21:10:00.001-05:00

SHOULD BICYCLISTS BE LICENSED?

If not, then why should drivers? For the money, of course.

2012-01-28T13:22:00.000-05:00

THE DEMOCRATS love to boast about how much they care, however, when push comes to shove, they only care with other people's money.

2012-01-27T14:49:00.000-05:00

TWO MORE environmental setbacks.

2012-01-27T13:02:00.000-05:00

JONAH GOLDBERG: Obama's Vision for a Spartan America.

2012-01-27T12:39:00.000-05:00

FUEL ECONOMY is for the little people.

2012-01-27T10:25:00.000-05:00

TWO DIVAS for the price of one.

2012-01-27T10:24:00.000-05:00

OBAMA'S STATE OF THE UNION translated into English.

2012-01-27T10:03:00.000-05:00

A PERFECT STORM of planetary proportions.

2012-01-27T09:32:00.003-05:00

IT'S THE VISION THING: Gingrich vows to establish permanent base on the moon by 2020. Good for him; America needs a vision of things to come. Think of Kennedy's 'land a man on the moon by the end of the decade' and Reagan's 'shining city on a hill' visions - both came true.

More here and here.

2012-01-26T10:00:00.001-05:00

OBAMA: no more bailouts; no more handouts -- except for my lackeys.

2012-01-26T09:48:00.000-05:00

COMMENT OF THE DAY:

It is not usually a good thing when I find something green on my bread or cheese. I am thinking the same is also true of those “green jobs” that are touted so much by this administration.

From this Michelle Malkin post.

2012-01-26T07:28:00.001-05:00

THE OBAMA DOCTRINE: Do as I say, even as what I say is self-contradictory.

2012-01-25T14:00:00.000-05:00

JEFF JACOBY: Shut up, they explained. I’m somewhat sympathetic to the concept, but until someone can clearly define what constitutes a ‘negative ad’ I’ll continue to support free speech.

2012-01-25T13:17:00.000-05:00

PRESUMPTIOUS IGNORANCE:

This may be the golden age of presumptuous ignorance. The most recent demonstrations of that are the Occupy Wall Street mobs. It is doubtful how many of these semi-literate sloganizers could tell the difference between a stock and a bond.

Yet there they are, mouthing off about Wall Street on television, cheered on by politicians and the media. If this is not a golden age of presumptuous ignorance, perhaps it should be called a brass age.

[snip...]

One of the reasons for so much presumptuous ignorance flourishing in our time may be the emphasis on "self-esteem" in our schools and colleges. Children not yet a decade old have been encouraged, or even required, to write letters to public figures, sounding off on issues ranging from taxes to nuclear missiles.

Our schools begin promoting presumptuous ignorance early on. It is apparently one of the few things they teach well. The end result is people without much knowledge, but with a lot of brass.

Read it all.

2012-01-25T11:46:00.000-05:00

PENTAGON TO CUT Air Force Global Hawk drone program; Navy version will continue. A Global Hawk is a Global Hawk is a Global Hawk; this simply punts the acquisition cost down the road a bit.

2012-01-25T11:15:00.000-05:00

THE STATE OF THE ELECTION speech by the Redistributor-in-Chief was not well received. In my view Obama’s SOTU speech can easily be summarized in eight words: “obey me or I’ll tax you to death.”

2012-01-24T22:27:00.001-05:00

PRESIDENT OBAMA: 'The state of our Union is getting stronger'.

2012-01-24T22:18:00.000-05:00

THE IDEA that our universe is embedded in a broader multidimensional space has captured the imagination of scientists and the general population alike. Of course. Who wouldn’t want to ‘jump ship’ to a parallel universe that didn’t contain President Obama?

2012-01-24T21:47:00.000-05:00

CLEARLY THEY’RE NOT BEING PAID ENOUGH: Federal employees owe $1.03 billion in unpaid taxes.

2012-01-24T21:16:00.001-05:00

THOMAS SOWELL on Newt Gincrich’s candidacy: “Sometimes caution can be carried to the point where it is dangerous. When the Super Bowl is on the line, you don't go with the quarterback who is least likely to throw an interception. You go with the one most likely to throw a touchdown pass.”

2012-01-24T20:36:00.000-05:00

MYSTERY SURROUNDS Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane.

2012-01-24T20:15:00.002-05:00

“MORE AMERICAN ADULTS lacked health insurance coverage last year than in any year since Gallup and Healthways started tracking it in 2008. The uninsured rate has been increasing since 2008, climbing to 17.1% in 2011.” Isn’t that what happens when people become unemployed?

2012-01-24T19:17:00.001-05:00

GOVERNMENT: protecting the consumer from competition.

2012-01-24T17:30:00.001-05:00

PREPARE YOURSELF for the State of the Union address tonight.

The GOP SOTU web site is here.

2012-01-24T17:10:00.000-05:00

WHY WOULDN’T business owners ‘go Galt’? They are ... just last night my wife and I talked to a (now part-time employee) of a small excavation business that used to be located on property a quarter-mile or so from our house. The owner closed his business, sold all his equipment, leased his home, and moved back to southern Virginia to reopen as a much smaller operation with a few part-time employees. Keeping a bigger operation simply wasn’t worth the effort.

2012-01-24T16:07:00.000-05:00

WHY SHOULD WE? Obama officials say we don’t trust government enough.

2012-01-24T14:15:00.000-05:00

ON A CLEAR DAY you can use your smartphone.

2012-01-24T14:13:00.000-05:00

HEH: “Chuck Norris is a columnist and impossible to kill.” More seriously, he endorses Newt Gingrich for President.

2012-01-24T11:50:00.001-05:00

THOMAS SOWELL: “Intellectuals have all too often promoted these envy and resentment ideologies. There are both psychic and material rewards for the intelligentsia in doing so, even when the supposed beneficiaries of these ideologies end up worse off. When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”

2012-01-24T11:49:00.001-05:00

WHITE DRESS SHIRTS are racist -- if worn by a Republican.

2012-01-24T09:16:00.001-05:00

DEMOCRATS’ ENERGY POLICY: “reasonable profits” boards for energy companies. OK, let’s ask two questions: (1) Are “reasonable profits” the same for green energy companies as for conventional energy companies? And (2) if green energy companies fail to make “reasonable profits”, will they be subsidized so they do?

2012-01-24T09:15:00.001-05:00

CRONY CAPITALISM: gouging citizens one regulation at a time.

2012-01-24T06:39:00.000-05:00

TEN REASONS why we must vote for President Obama.

2012-01-24T06:19:00.001-05:00

DAY BY DAY on the value of the mainstream media.

2012-01-23T22:00:00.000-05:00

PRESIDENTIAL NONSENSE: Obama’s economic vision.

President Obama's vision was shared by our Pilgrim Fathers of the Plymouth Colony in modern-day Massachusetts. They established a communist system. They all farmed together, and whatever they produced was put in a common storehouse. A certain amount of food was rationed to each person regardless of his contribution to the work. Many Pilgrims complained that they were too weak from hunger to do their share of the work. As deeply religious as the Pilgrims were, they took to stealing from one another. Gov. William Bradford, writing his history of the colony in "Of Plymouth Plantation," said, "So as it well appeared that famine must still ensue, the next year also if not some way prevented."

And history tells us they damn near died that first year.

2012-01-23T21:41:00.000-05:00

CAN’T HAVE RELIGION IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE: Missing from the Martin Luther King Memorial -- God.

2012-01-23T20:39:00.000-05:00

AN IGNORED DISPARITY: credentials versus marketable skills.

[C]olleges and universities can ... turn out vast numbers of people with credentials, but with no marketable skills with which to fulfill their expectations. There is nothing magic about simply being in ivy-covered buildings for four years.

In countries around the world, people with credentials but no marketable skills have been a major source of political turmoil, social polarization and ideologically driven violence, sometimes escalating into civil war.

Read it all.

2012-01-23T20:23:00.001-05:00

THE FOOD STAMP PRESIDENT:

Read more here.

2012-01-23T19:38:00.002-05:00

THE U.S. HAS BEEN WITHOUT A BUDGET during the entire Obama administration -- and now this. Budget? We don’t need no steenkin’ budget ... we’ll just print more money.

2012-01-23T19:38:00.001-05:00

PRESIDENT OBAMA reveals who he really is -- and the picture isn't pretty.

2012-01-23T19:23:00.001-05:00

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The 2012 Election Circus.

2012-01-23T13:21:00.001-05:00

RANDOM THOUGHTS from the retirement lane.

"The buck stops here" -- Harry Truman
"The buck punts here" -- Barack Obama

2012-01-23T09:29:00.001-05:00

AND CHURCHES SUPPORT THESE BOOBS? Sometimes charity goes too far.

2012-01-22T22:53:00.000-05:00

THE ~~SOUTH~~ PEOPLE will rise again. I’ve been arguing this since before the 2010 election. It’s good to see other people notice as well.

2012-01-22T18:30:00.000-05:00

BACK TO THE ~~FUTURE~~ PAST: Brown Asks California to Cheer Rail Project.

2012-01-22T15:30:00.000-05:00

THOMAS SOWELL: Ignoring disparity.

2012-01-22T14:42:00.000-05:00

WHY LIVING IN FLORIDA might not be so bad.

2012-01-22T13:34:00.001-05:00

DON’T PET THE OWS PROTESTERS: they bite.

2012-01-22T12:46:00.008-05:00

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: three years down, one to go. Here are some charts, taken from the Rasmussen Obama Approval Index. The first is Obama's approval rating, dating back to his inauguration. For the last 2-1/2 years his approval rating has been consistently negative.

This chart is the same data, subdivided into 'Strongly Approve', 'Strongly Disapprove', and 'Mixed Reaction' -- those who either mildly approve or mildly disapprove. Note that at the end of 2010, the 'Mixed Reaction' population dramatically increased to around 35% of the population and did so by moving from the 'Strong Approval' population.

The last chart shows the data from calendar year 2011. Note that the trend lines show the 'Strong Disapprovals' and 'Mixed Reactions' still continuing to increase, again at the cost of losses in the 'Strong Approval' population.

President Obama is due for a tough election year.

2012-01-22T10:40:00.000-05:00

CIVILIZATION IS FRAGILE. "Its continuance requires respect for the law, tough-minded education, collective thrift, private investment, individual self-reliance, and common codes of behavior and civility -- and exempts no one from those rules. Such knowledge and patterns of civilized behavior, slowly accrued over centuries, can be lost in a single generation."

2012-01-22T08:44:00.002-05:00

SHADOW'S WORLD is on temporary hiatus, as the office computer is down with a severe viral infection. Blogging will be intermittent until the machine is nursed back to health.

2012-01-22T08:00:00.004-05:00

COMING SOON TO A TV NEAR YOU: This year the State of the Union address will be on January 24th. Nine days later, on February 2nd, it will be Ground Hog Day. One involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to an insignificant creature of little intelligence for prognostication. The other involves a groundhog.

ANOTHER:

I was eating breakfast with my 13-year-old granddaughter and I asked her, "What day is the 20th of February?"

She said "It's President's Day!"

She is a smart kid.

I asked "What does President's Day mean?" I was waiting for something about Washington or Lincoln ....

She replied, "President's Day is when President Obama steps out of the White House, and if he sees his shadow we have one more year of unemployment."

You know, it hurts when hot coffee spurts out your nose....

2012-01-19T07:55:00.000-05:00

"THE SMOKE coming out of those stacks is the most beautiful sight in the world. It means there is progress being made somewhere. Somewhere, some place, someone is making progress. If there is no smoke coming out, we look at it as trouble.”

2012-01-19T07:54:00.000-05:00

REINCE PRIEBUS: The Ethics of Audacity.

2012-01-18T22:28:00.000-05:00

ONE MILLION SIGNATURES; how many forgeries?

2012-01-18T21:59:00.000-05:00

MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTERS toss mostly smokeless bomb over White House fence.

2012-01-18T21:37:00.000-05:00

WILL SOMEONE please teach the Left the rudiments of good tax policy?

2012-01-18T21:26:00.001-05:00

LIBERALISM: No laughing allowed.

2012-01-18T21:25:00.000-05:00

BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT TOILET TRAINED: Taxpayers on Hook for D.C. Protester's Potties.

2012-01-18T13:17:00.000-05:00

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: So Why Read Anymore? History. Repeat.

2012-01-18T12:56:00.001-05:00

OBAMACARE: reduce access and grow government.

2012-01-18T11:00:00.001-05:00

IF ELECTED PRESIDENT, will you appoint your GOP rivals as a part of your administration, to utilize their skill sets ... in order to unite and restore our republic?

2012-01-18T10:47:00.000-05:00

YOU CAN TALK, OR YOU CAN NAVIGATE, but you can't do both. It's beginning to look like LightSquared didn't donate enough to Obama's campaign. They should demand their contributions back....

2012-01-18T10:13:00.001-05:00

AN IGNORANT CONGRESSMAN. Is there another kind?

2012-01-18T10:12:00.001-05:00

DEATH BY WEALTH (TAX).

2012-01-18T06:08:00.001-05:00

LEAN BACKWARDS -- at least you won't fall flat on your face.

2012-01-17T21:00:00.000-05:00

FROM HOPE & CHANGE TO HATE & FEAR: "Barack Obama came to Washington promising hope and change, but he’s worked to spread hate and fear. I can think of no greater bipartisan effort that all Americans should undertake this fall, than voting Obama and his administration out of office. For the sake of our country, and our freedom, we must do better."

2012-01-17T19:57:00.000-05:00

BREAKING THE GOP cycle of capitulation. Voters must make it absolutely clear that the 'capitulators' will be gone from Congress in 2013.

2012-01-17T19:11:00.000-05:00

WHO IS ANTI-SCIENCE? The skeptics or the believers?

2012-01-17T17:10:00.001-05:00

"WHATEVER YOU MIGHT THINK is the purpose of higher education, there is a case to be made that public funding of college-level studies should bear some relation to the requirements of the national economy. In mainland China, where most higher education is paid for by the state, the government has found this case persuasive. They have recently announced that funding of college majors will in the future be determined by the graduate employment rates. Fields in which the employment rate for graduates falls below 60 percent for two consecutive years will have their state subsidies cut back or eliminated. It pains us to find ourselves in agreement with the Chinese Communist party on anything at all, but this new policy is surely a sound one. If applied in the U.S. , it would have two highly desirable side effects: one, there would be fewer unemployable graduates available to populate the "Occupy" movement, and two, the liberal professoriate would be furious."

From the dead tree edition of National Review (Dec. 31, 2011).