WHY OBAMA WON'T BE REELECTED:


The world awaits ....

HE MADE IT WORSE. "Obama inherited financial collapse, deficits and debt. He inherited a broken political culture. These things weren't his fault. But through his decisions, he made them all worse."

Read it all.

I AM A DEMOCRAT; I am clueless.


College Republicans respond.

THAT'S THE FIRST TIME I've ever given a Republican speech from a Democratic platform.

YOU NEED "adult politicians to have an adult conversation about Social Security."

"Adult politician" is an oxymoron. Leave off the "adult" part and it would just be a moron.

JOURNALISTS should be able to do fourth-grade mathematics.

In a Washington Times article (Bachmann firm on foster role, June 27th, dead tree edition only, fortunately for her) article about Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, Cheryl Wetzstein wrote:

Mrs. Clements should know: In addition to her years of experience with Lutheran Social Serivice of the South, she and her husband, Bill, have fostered 127 children over 27 years - or more than 10 times Mrs. Bachmann's tally (emphasis mine).

Mrs. Bachmann has used several phrases to describe her foster parenting of 23 teenagers ....

Now I've only got a PhD in engineering, but the last time I checked 10 times 23 (230 for the math-impaired) is just a wee bit more than 127.

IF YOU WORK IN THE COMMERCIAL SECTOR, your health insurance (or more correctly, health care) is at risk. Surprised? I'm not.

DO AS I SAY, not as I do.

PRESIDENT OBAMA ‘Becoming an Absolute Monarch’. From a deep-blue Democrat, no less.

"THE PRESIDENT and his trusted advisers are the products of the atrocious, politically correct educational system that’s wrecking the country in so many ways. And it’s very worrisome. It’s part of the Orwellian universe that envelops many of our leaders, a universe in which they feel free to simply invent 'facts' so long as they fit the emotional and ideological pattern that really matters to the elite."

MR. KELLY GOES TO WASHINGTON.



Rep. Kelly represents the 3rd District in Pennsylvania. Call and thank him.

HOSPITALS courting primary-care doctors. So you can expect your insurance copays to jump to the emergency-room levels and enjoy the tender ministrations of the registration martinets.

Lucky you.

FLIGHT RISK FOR BOEING: "The NLRB’s move ... substitutes the government’s judgment for that of the company. This is neither good law nor good business."

You don't say....

SPYING ON SATELLITES: "[C]onsidering how hard the intelligence community works to keep details of its space arsenal under wraps, it’s not hard to imagine the two Frenchmen have pissed off a lot of spooks unaccustomed to having regular people spy back."

I doubt the intelligence community is terribly worried about their satellites being tracked even though the image quality is quite good (the "processed" video of the ISS is spectacular).

MICHAEL BARONE: Government Looks to Past, Free Enterprise to Future.

"WHEN THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION last week released the results of the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress -- 'the Nation's Report Card' -- the bottom line was depressingly predictable: Not even a quarter of American students is proficient in US history, and the percentage declines as students grow older. Only 20 percent of 6th graders, 17 percent of 8th graders, and 12 percent of high school seniors demonstrate a solid grasp on their nation's history. In fact, American kids are weaker in history than in any of the other subjects tested by the NAEP -- math, reading, science, writing, civics, geography, and economics."

Depressing, though I am a little surprised that civics did better than history in the assessment.

KNOW HOW TO MAKE GOD LAUGH? Make plans.

The best plan for a president to improve the economy is to get the hell out of the way.

INCENTIVES MATTER. Some are positive; others, not so much.

SO HE'S really, really smart.

Linked from Instapundit.

OBAMACARE WAIVERS ON ICE - for now. Well, why not? The Obama Administration synchophants have already gotten their waivers.

THE EPA ASSAULT ON TEXAS. How dare Texas create more private (wealth producing) jobs than DC can create government (wealth destroying) jobs?

ANN ALTHOUSE attacks the New York Times over a sleazy hit piece on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Follow the Instapundit link and be sure to read the comments.

CONSERVATIVES DO NOT WIN ELECTIONS by pretending to be liberals.

It is a curious fact, well worth pondering, that the converse is not true: conservatives do not win elections by pretending to be liberals, but liberals often win elections by pretending to be conservatives.

Read it all.

COMING SOON: A bigger, costlier ObamaCare. Unless it is defeated in court or repealed in the next Congress.

ONLY THE SHADOW KNOWS....


Well, he may know, but he hasn't told me yet. The post is here.

I'M NOT A 'BIRTHER', but "operates in a vacuum" seems right to me.

MARK STEYN: LibzGetReal. “'Amina Arraf' was a fiction who fit the liberal worldview. That’s because the liberal worldview is a fiction."

SEA SHADOW to be cut up for scrap.


Pity.

YES, THERE ARE SENIORS WHO SUPPORT MEDICARE REFORM.


I would change the Ryan plan in only one way: let me opt in rather than be forced to stay on current Medicare.

Linked from here.

SHOCKING! EPA cost benefit predictions based on “feelings”.

Well, it's the "reality-based community." Feelings are real.

"MORE THAN TWO YEARS after Obama took office vowing to banish 'special interests' from his administration, nearly 200 of his biggest donors have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests or attended numerous elite White House meetings and social events ...."

Unexpectedly.

WASHINGTON POST: Some Republican freshmen in Congress hold major debt. And congressional Democrats are all debt free, because no where does the Post identify a single liberal with any financial liabilities.

ARREST WARRANT issued for California professor who allegedly urinated on colleague's door. Apparently it's no longer better to be pissed off than pissed on.

POP GOES THE WEINER: Congressman resigns.

U.S. SENATOR calls robot projects wasteful. Robots call Senator wasteful.

HEH. "You always share documents with your own people first."

BILL MAHER: What's wrong with socialism? Nothing, if you're a member of the governing (political) class; everything, if you're a member of the governed (citizen) class.

HAH! UNLIKE HOMOSEXUALITY, heterosexuality is curable.

FOX VIDEO: Obama Blames ATMs for High Unemployment. Obama has been roundly criticized on the Right for this statement, but I think there is a kernel of truth in the statement. Automation (driven to some extent by minimum wage laws) has taken over many of the easy jobs - gas station attendant, cashier, receptionist, telephone operator, to name a few - that used to be the entry-level jobs for the unskilled.

SECDEF ROBERT GATES' BLUNT REALITY: "If current trends in the decline of European defense capabilities are not halted and reversed, future U.S. political leaders -- those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me -- may not consider the return on America's investment in NATO worth the cost."

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IN ONE SENTENCE: "[T]here is no limit to the certainty of experts even as their knowledge proves uncertain."

GOP FRESHMEN: Stop recess appointments by stopping recess. Good idea. My wife also keeps her 4th grade class in from recess when they misbehave; it works.

There's no downside. Congress is so dysfunctional that even keeping them in from recess won't increase 'productivity'.

SOUND ADVICE: Tips for Not Appearing Crazy on the Internet.

TOM BLUMER: Pick Up the Darned Phone. Blumer has a point. Nothing annoys me more than having to wade through a 6-deep voice-activated phone tree in order to get a question answered that I know is not within the realm of the phone tree's list of frequently asked questions. There are more than a few businesses that I simply refuse to patronize further because of their answering service.

On the other hand, I now refuse to answer my own telephone unless I recognize the caller on the caller ID function. The reason is simple - about 90% of the calls to our home are auto-dialed from a godawful number of organizations begging for money.

THE GREEN JOBS FANTASY: "Do Americans want to be 'harnessed' or set free?"

THOMAS SOWELL writes on Tim Pawlenty. Follow the comments, but start with the oldest first; after the first hundred or so, the 'conversation' degenerates into name-calling.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES.

PAUL GREENBERG on the last domino. The sad thing is that I've seen no one from America's leadership, Left or Right, present or future, with the possible exception of Sarah Palin, put forward a coherent strategy for dealing with the Arab states. As the campaign season progresses, I hope someone will do so.

ONLY THE ONES HE CAN PUT IN HIS WALLET: Will the Buck Ever Stop on Obama's Desk?

IT'S FLAG DAY. My flag is up.


Is yours?

REFORMING MEDICARE THE RIGHT WAY. Hmm. The first idea I favor; that's what I want for my Medicare -- catastrophic insurance. The rest I'll cover on my own. The second two I agree with in principle, but they are subsumed by a more fundamental principle: get the government out of health care regulation entirely and let the market work.

ISS LAMP illuminates when the International Space Station is overhead.

IN A POST OSTENSIBLY ON REP. WEINER, columnist Michael Goodwin made this damning observation on Democrats generally: "But [they] left the hard work to others."

MICHAEL BARONE: The End of a Surprisingly Good Political Career.

RINO GO HOME: In addition to making sure that Obama is a one-term President, it's time for the Tea Party to take on the RINO stalwarts in the Republican establishment.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

I don’t know why the Left is so frightened of Palin. I really can’t figure it out. If she’s as dumb as they pretend she is, shouldn’t they just be ignoring her?

The best I can figure is that Sarah represents the rest of us. As she said a long time ago, she’s just a hockey mom, someone you’d see in carpool line. And the Liberal Elites hold the rest of us in such contempt that they can’t even believe that they have to account to someone like Palin and by extension the rest of us.

From here.

KIDS WIN: Colorado School Board Sets Students and Families Free with Voucher Program.

We all realize that we’ve made two big mistakes in public education. There’s no choice – or limited choice – there’s not enough competition, and we’ve ceded so much of our children’s education to special interest groups. And that needs to end.

Putting parents in charge of their childrens' education. What a novel idea.

I WOULD'VE LIKED to see the employer exemption for health care gotten rid of, but not this way: Employers Drop Insurance Over ObamaCare.

PRESIDENT OBAMA "campaigned this week for 'new and innovative approaches' to America's economic crisis. So naturally, the futurist-in-chief filched his fresh, bold ideas straight from ... the 1930s. The grand new solution to the jobs deficit ... is more FDR-style federal job-training spending."

Guilds - and unions, and 'professional licensing' laws - have all used 'job training' as excuses for their existence. How have they worked out?

JEFF JACOBY on the government feeding trough: "Wherever there is a trough, there you will find pigs."

WILL THE NEXT SPACE STATION be a Budget Suites extended stay hotel?

MAYBE MORE STIMULUS isn't the answer.

[T]he great post-World War II economic boom was ushered in by the swift rollback of what had been the largest economic "stimulus" in US history....

"Government canceled war contracts, and its spending fell from $84 billion in 1945 to under $30 billion in 1946. By 1947, the government was ... running a budget surplus of close to 6 percent of GDP. The military released around 10 million Americans back into civilian life. Most economic controls were lifted, and all were gone less than a year after V-J Day. In short, the economy underwent ... the 'shock of de-stimulus.'"

Fearful predictions of massive unemployment - 14 percent, Business Week said - never materialized. Far from collapsing, "labor markets adjusted quickly and efficiently once they were finally unfettered." Even with millions of demobilized soldiers re-entering the workforce, "unemployment rates ... remained under 4.5 percent in the first three postwar years." Workers who lost government-funded jobs quickly replaced them in the surging private sector. "In fact," Taylor and Vedder add, "civilian employment grew, on net, by over 4 million between 1945 and 1947 when so many pundits were predicting economic Armageddon. Household consumption, business investment, and net exports all boomed as government spending receded."

America's postwar experience indicates that vibrant growth is generated not by massive government interference in the economy, but by the reverse. The way to revive a gasping private sector is for government to get out of its way, not to choke it with trillions of dollars in new spending.

You think?

THE FIRST TWO production F-35 Joint Strike Fighters (JSF) will begin flying the initial training syllabus this month at the U.S. Air Force’s test center at Eglin AFB. Training operational pilots is expected to begin by November.

BEYOND HERE THERE BE MONSTERS:

Economic growth is an enemy of all central planners for the simple reason that growth jumps the guardrails of The Plan; it changes the aesthetically appealing flatline of the steady state and makes it jagged. Growth creates new products, destroys old ones and allows people to behave in ways that render PowerPoint projections dismayingly obsolete. Worse, it takes power from the planners.

In order to herd people back onto the official path, planners must tell them that what exists outside the guardrails is too terrifying to contemplate. "Beyond here there be monsters" is the posted sign at every guardrail.

The dirty little secret is that it's the monsters who created The Plan.

OUR UNION PRESIDENT:

For decades, unions have perpetuated the myth that the interests of Big Labor's bosses and of American workers are identical. A tenuous case for that proposition could be made decades ago when unions represented a third of all private sector workers. But doing so today requires a studied refusal to acknowledge reality when fewer than 7 percent are union members. Nevertheless, President Obama often seems concerned only with serving the interests of the union bosses who are among his most frequent White House guests. It is hardly coincidental that recent economic news has gone from bad to worse.

Read the rest.

ACCORDING TO PLAN: Consumers' electric bills likely to spike as coal plants close. Follow the links.

More here.

THE PERFECT DESCRIPTION of Rep. Anthony Weiner: "he's the ultimate dildo - all prick, no balls."

From the comments to this post.

QUOTES OF THE DAY: more proof (if any is needed) that the lamestream media is, well, really lame.

THE AMERICAN DREAM, 2011: "You pay four bucks a gallon to commute between your McJob and your underwater housing to prop up a spendaholic, grabafeelic, paramilitarized bureaucracy-without-end bankrupting your future at the rate of a fifth of a billion dollars every hour. In a sane world, Americans would be outraged at the government waste that confronts them everywhere ...."

From the comments (p. 3) to this post.

THERE WENT MY ESCAPE: Not even rural America is safe from the Obamanauts.

MOMMA GRIZZLY has journalists for lunch. (There's not enough meat on a journalist for a full meal - if you get my drift.)

NO BOUNDARIES: why ObamaCare must be struck down.

MIKE HUCKABEE on Deborah Wasserman-Schultz: “In these days when there are far too many partisan attack dogs stirring up divisiveness and vitriol, it kind of speaks well for her that she’s that bad at it.”

The ultimate back-handed compliment. Linked from the PJ Tatler.

GUYS: What Your Bag Says About You. Several obscene thoughts come to mind ....

BECAUSE IT'S ALL THEY HAVE? Why men send pictures of their penises.

OBAMACARE wrecks Medicare by design, but why? I would suggest that 'why' is rather obvious.

Here from the wayback machine is a post describing health care practice pre-Nanny-State. It's long - and a bit rambling - but well worth the read. I remember those years well (I had polio in the early 1950's) and medical care was not nearly as bad as the pompous poseur practitioners of nanny-state medicine would have you believe.

Linked from this post.

DEAD BODIES demand organic food moratorium. Satire? Or serious? A bit of both, I would judge.

HYPOCRISY, thy name is Debbie Wasserman-Schultz:

Bailout enthusiast Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) protested that those mean Republicans, left to their own devices, would have let GM and Chrisler fail. The Horror. "We would be driving foreign cars!" she warned. One wonders how much time elapsed between the uttering of those words and the firing of the synapses that reminded the gentlelady from Florida that she does, in fact, drive a foreign car, and a rather swanky one, at that: an Infiniti FX35 ($42,850-$59,000).

I doubt that there were any synapses to fire - she's a Democrat.

Excerpted from the June 20, 2011 issue of National Review magazine.

PLEASE DON'T: Protecting Consumers from Themselves.

No, no 'please'. Stop it! Stop it now. I don't want your 'help'.

PAUL GREENBERG: Custom-Tailored History. "Why let an historical detail or two stand in the way of a rousing campaign speech?"

BELABORING THE OBVIOUS: Study Finds SUV Drivers 50% Less Likely to Die in a Crash Than Those in Cars.

HOW TO LOSE what little respect you may once have had. "There’s protesting an event and exercising your First Amendment right, and then there’s dressing up as zombies and interrupting a Special Olympics event to trumpet your cause."

Just another progressive temper tantrum.

THANKS FOR THE HELP: Ohio restaurant closes one week after Obama mentions it in speech.

THE NEW YORK TIMES can't even do their own journalism research.

ANN COULTER: [L]iberals have all the earmarks of mob psychology.

Their myths, slogans, demands for immediate action, messianic goals, demonization of opponents, creation of political idols and occasional resorts to violence -- all this is classic herd behavior.

Read it all.

WHEN YOU'VE LOST THE CARTOONISTS ...


Prickly City by Scott Stantis.


Frank & Ernest by Bob Thaves.

... you've lost the election.

THE FUTURE OF CRIME-FIGHTING


Hat tip: Todd Clark.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: "If dispirited Europeans are conceding that something is terribly wrong with their half-century-long experiment with socialism, unassimilated immigrants, cultural apologies, defense cuts and post-nationalism, why in the world is the Obama administration intent on adopting what Europeans are rejecting?"

WOULDN’T IT BE EASIER ...


... just to buy an (unabridged) dictionary?

Hat tip: Bruce Tinsley.

TIM PAWLENTY: “Markets work. Barack Obama’s central planning doesn’t.”

MICHAEL MEDVED: The New York Times As Holy Writ. Ascending to Valhalla, though, might not be a good thing: “The Nordic myths describe the Home of the Gods as simultaneously glorious—and doomed. The destruction of this divine refuge counts as inevitable, for all the heroism and supernatural abilities of its inhabitants.”

GOOLSBEE’S GONE: Obama’s top economic advisor out. While it’s good to see the entire Obama economics team finally gone, it’s a bit disheartening to see so many return to academia, where they’ll be able to miseducate a whole new generation of aspiring economists.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin agrees. "Official motto of the White House economic team: Those who can, do. Those who can't, fantasize in the classroom, fail in Washington and then return to the Ivy Tower to train the next generation of egghead economic saboteurs."

HEH: TITANIC II sinks on maiden voyage.

IS OBAMACARE on the ropes? We should be so lucky.

IT'S ONLY BEEN KNOWN for about 20 years: Green buildings could be hazardous to your health.

THE FLOUNDER DEFENSE: “It’s the voters’ fault, they trusted me.”

CHINA & RUSSIA could make U.S. stealth technology obsolete.

YOU HAVE TO shake your head in disbelief at Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson’ ignorance (Sarah Palin’s revisionist ride).

Uh, Eugene, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a poet, not a historian.

According to Robinson, Palin is “ridiculous and dangerous.” Robinson is just ridiculous.

ENDEAVOUR docked at the International Space Station.


NASA’s image gallery is here and there is more on the growth of the ISS here.

POLL SHOWS a majority of the public supports manned spaceflight. I doubt that majority extends to our political class.

BOEING PREPARES for pilot training surge: “The number of active pilots needed by the airlines will almost double by 2029 ... taking the total from today's 232,100 to 445,000.”

Maybe I was overly pessimistic.

SOME SATELLITE IMAGES of the Arizona wildfire and the Sturbridge tornado.

THINK AGAIN before you misunderestimate Sarah Palin.

WEINER WINNER: Erections have consequences.

THOMAS SOWELL on politics, politicians, micromanagement, and (in)competence: “They [politicians] are not going to stop unless they get stopped. And that is not going to happen until the voters recognize the fact that political rhetoric is no substitute for competence.”

Read it all.

THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: that magnificent flying orbiting machine. Let’s hope it continues to grow.

GOODBYE, ANTHONY: Rep. Weiner Admits to Sending Lewd Twitter Photo, Acknowledges Other Explicit Conversations.

What a jerk.

RUN, SARAH, RUN. Sarah Palin was on Fox News Sunday for a 20-minute interview with Chris Wallace, who later in the show said:

I thought she was a boffo performance today. It was the first time that I ever saw her and thought ‘this woman is a serious – if she decides to run – candidate for President. And a serious possibility to be president.

That she most certainly was. The video and transcript are here.

PAUL REVERE’S RIDE: Sarah Palin schools the media on American history.

Even I’ve noticed it. Journalism’s factual knowledge of history, technology - anything remotely useful - is appalling.

UPDATE: even the Los Angeles Times is crawling aboard Palin's bus ....

OH, MY ... twittering in space.

WHY PRIVATE PROPERTY: “Have you ever washed a rental car?”

CHANGE: economic bad news no longer ‘unexpected’.

CHICKENS ... HOME ... ROOST: “Young Americans graduating from colleges across the United States are facing limited job prospects, high debt and the likely necessity of returning home to live with parents in order to survive, a bitter harvest from the Obama Economy.”

Well, they voted for him - in record numbers.

FORMER SENATOR EVERETT DIRKSEN: “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.” Conservative lawmakers must learn how to play small ball.

“I’VE BEEN ACTIVE in national politics since Ronald Reagan’s great victory in 1980, and I can honestly say that I’ve never seen the TV pundits display the level of insanity and stupidity that we see today.”

I would say that the only difference between now and 1980 is that the advances in communications technology have made the sheer idiocy of our political class much more visible.

SOMETIMES ACTIONS speak louder than words. And unfortunately the blind cannot see.

I’M REALLY PISSED because you ‘little people’ aren’t doing what I tell you.

Arrogant jerks.

WHO PUT THE CHILL on American businesses? Hmpf. I would've thought that Obama in campaign mode would jumpstart the economy, given that he would be 'out of office' - so to speak - and unable to screw it up even more.

GET RID OF IT: Americans will never 'grow up' as long as we have Medicare.

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. But as long as we have 'Medicare,' we’re going to continue ... to behave as if we think there is one.

It is not possible to do otherwise. When people don’t see their arrangements for medical care as a fee-for-service proposition, but rather as a collective “social insurance” scheme, in which the emotion of the moment will always be the tiebreaker for lawmakers’ decisions about other people’s money, no one has to 'grow up.'

Our political class has been steadily infantilizing the American public for at least the last 50 years; this - near-bankruptcy and defacto slavery - is the inevitable result.

Read the whole thing.

OBAMA'S JOB RECESSION:

[T]he failure to ignite small-business job creation has to be laid at the doorstep of the Obama administration, and the economic policies that threaten higher taxes and regulations virtually across the board. On Thursday this week, the president again promised House Democrats to raise taxes on successful top small-business owners. What a great new idea.

So mom and pop don’t feel like taking a risk in this environment. Higher tax-and-regulatory costs have put these entrepreneurs in survival mode. They’re playing their economic cards so close to the vest, business activity has buttoned up tight.

'Nuff said.

HARDLY ANYONE SEEMS TO HAVE NOTICED that Medicare's financial problems have already been solved.

So why isn't this front page news? Why aren't people dancing in the street? Why isn't the Obama administration boasting about this accomplishment far and wide? Probably because Medicare's financial problems are slated to be solved by the unconscionable rationing of health care for the elderly and the disabled.

Read it all.

A BREATH-TAKING FLIPFLOP. Economist turned liberal shill Paul Krugman contradicts himself in a mere two short paragraphs:

Second paragraph: “[T]here’s nothing about the form that makes Medicare unsustainable...”

Fourth paragraph: “So Medicare will have to start saying no...”

If Medicare in its current form is sustainable, then why will Medicare have to start saying no?

Krugman will turn 65 in 2018 and thus be eligible for Medicare. Any bets on whether he will choose to enroll? My bet is that he will choose to “sacrifice” himself by staying on his private insurance so that the little people will have more Medicare for themselves.

THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE: Is the Weiner War Worth It? Weiner’s a pathetic jerk, and deserves to be mocked. I’ll agree with Instapundit’s response.

NOT TOO LONG AGO, I wrote a post about a hummingbird-sized drone. Here’s a longer video clip showing some of its development cycle.

COURAGEOUS DECISIONS: Oliver North writes on the naval engagement at Midway in World War II. What is striking about the story is not the courage of those who fought, but the contrast of leadership then versus leadership today. Here’s North’s final paragraph:

Notably, neither President Franklin Roosevelt nor Chester Nimitz, the tall admiral from Fredericksburg, Texas, took credit for the victory. They gave it instead to those who fought the battle. And unlike what would happen today, a "leak" about how our code breakers provided the decisive "edge" in the Battle of Midway -- first carried in an article in the Chicago Tribune and later carried in Time magazine -- did not get picked up in Tokyo. Now we have WikiLeaks -- and small-minded officials who want all the credit.

Indeed.

GO GALT: avoid the ObamaCare mandate.

METRO ENGINEERS LACKED LICENSES. Partly in response to [Washington DC] Metro’s Red Line crash in 2009, the Washington Times reported that 3 of Metro’s engineering managers “lack[ed] a professional engineering registration from one of the WMATA compact jurisdictions.”

As with employee unions, there once was a time when the Professional Engineer (P.E.) license was probably worthwhile. That time is no more. Today’s Professional Engineer is the modern-day equivalent of medieval guild member, where the guild is dedicated to preserving the economic interests of its membership and using the authority of the State to restrict entry to the guild.

[Full disclosure] I am not a P.E., although I have taught Engineer-in-training (E.I.T) classes - a necessary prerequisite for licensure - and was at one time eligible for P.E. certification under the State of Texas’ licensing regulations.

AL QAEDA COMMANDER Ilyas Kashmiri killed in drone strike in Pakistan. I find it curious that an Obama administration which won’t countenance ‘torture’ of known terrorists will so casually accept the collateral damage associated with drone strikes on suspected terrorists.

CHRIS MATTHEWS thinks ‘European’ is racist. Uh, Chris, Dilbert is a cartoon, not a source.

JIHADI U: kitchens are for cupcakes, not bombs.

NOW IT’S ILLEGAL to feed the homeless. And rescue the drowning. And help trim downed trees.

SIGN OF A HEALTHY ECONOMY: McJobs.

AND NOW FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT, the rabbit police.

Linked from Mark Steyn, who suggests that “they might like to try dressing up the budget in a basque and spangled tights and sawing it in half.” I’d say half is too generous.

IT’S AN ADVERTISEMENT - but for what?

COMMENT OF THE DAY: “Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be a convenience store - NOT a government agency.”

FAILURE: the Age of Aquarius Obama.


He's been in office almost 30 months, and the second "recovery summer" doesn't appear to be going anywhere.

WEINERGATE: Given all the publicity Rep. Weiner has garnered, I won’t bother with a rehash, but I will laugh at the nacissistic, important-in-his-own-mind twit.

MORE: the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus suggests that his staff install “parental control” software on their child’s Congressman’s devices. I note she did not recommend a ‘weiner filter’ but perhaps her ‘track a member’ functionality will suffice.

EVEN MORE RICHLY DESERVED MOCKERY: Is Weiner being frank?

“SILLY BOY: trucks are for girls.” Window sticker seen on the back of a Dodge Ram 4x4 today.

TRUTH and the New York Times. Read the comments.

WELL, OF COURSE: the hopeless Obama recovery. Despite the bad economic news, “analysts still predict a tick down in unemployment as more and more Americans” ... like me ... “lose hope and stop looking for work all together.”

SAY IT WITH ME, OBAMACARE FANS: Having insurance coverage does not mean that a doctor will treat you.

THE DOCTOR MIGHT SEE YOU NOW: “[T]he expansion of public health insurance programs will likely lead to a decrease in the quantity of medical services provided by physicians even [as] it increases physicians’ participation.”

Read the comments.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT: liberals vs. conservatives.

Conservatives tend to think McDonald’s fries are #1, while liberals favor “bistro fries,” mostly because they like saying the word “bistro.” For the same reason, while conservatives prefer pastas like spaghetti, liberals prefer pastas that hardly anyone can pronounce, mostly because they think they sound smart pronouncing them.... [L]iberals live up to the “fruity” label, since they’re more likely than conservatives to eat fresh fruit every day.

What can I say? Bacon cheesburgers rock.

THE AIRSHIP RENAISSANCE has always been just around the corner - and always will be.

I once worked on a heavy-lift airship project for a former employer. It was for a niche market; trans-ocean, where the cargo needed to be moved faster than a container ship could go, but whose value wasn’t enough to transport by conventional air. The investment money to develop and build the airship was easily available, but the economics, alas, couldn’t be made to work.

LEADERSHIP: NASA’S top three priorities.

One is safely fly out the shuttle. After the Columbia accident, the nation decided to phase out the space shuttle program and move on to something else, so we're trying to get back to the spirit of exploration. We also want to maintain safety and support for astronauts operating on the international space station. Finally, we have to make hard choices and deliver on our commitments.

A top priority is “to make hard choices.” Lord help us....

HEH: Shuttle Endeavour thwarts burglary.

WHAT A SURPRISE: ObamaCare is still really unpopular.

I DIDN’T KNOW THAT: the Earth doesn’t need a moon. Might cut down on summer romances, though.

BE A VICTIM, get special privileges.

WHY ARE WE ALLOWING OUR KIDS to be taught by people who took two decades to grasp the obvious?

THE LAMESTREAM MAINSTREAM MEDIA are going to go beserk: The Washington Examiner and Fox News are sponsoring the GOP presidential debate in Iowa on August 11.

DARPA WANTS your ideas for a 100-year starship.


Will humanity one day boldly go ... somewhere?

IT’S TIME FOR A BORDER FENCE ... around California.

PENTAGON looks to double its unmanned air fleet in the next 9 years while keeping its manned fleet constant.

And it was only 15 years or so ago when UAVs were not permitted in controlled airspace. My sense is that any youngster who aspires to a career as a stick-and-throttle pilot had better be prepared to have his/her hopes dashed.

FIRST THEY CAME for the Chicken McNuggets, then they came for my son's ....

ANN COULTER: Weiner photo dispute to be settled in “small” claims court.

IF THE MINIMUM WAGE IS A GOOD IDEA, shouldn't unpaid internships be illegal as well? And if they were illegal, my daughter might not have gotten her first post-college job.

EXACTLY RIGHT: Don't cut red tape, shut down the factory.

CHASING SARAH: the boys behind the bus.

VERY LARGE TELESCOPE (VLT) time-lapse video of the southern hemisphere sky. The four telescopes in the foreground is equally fascinating.

TROLLING FOR NEW SLAVES FOR THE DEMOCRAT PLANTATION: "Democratic Congressman Gene Green, along with Democratic Reps. Charlie Gonzalez of San Antonio, Silvestre Reyes of El Paso and Lloyd Doggett of Austin, have filed suit against the Texas legislature’s proposed Congressional redistricting. They seek 'court-ordered creation of two Hispanic congressional districts in Harris County'."

PUT YOUR COFFEE DOWN before you click the link: Rolling Blunder vs. Rolling Thunder.