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.

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

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.

THE FOOD STAMP PRESIDENT:


Read more here.

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.

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

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The 2012 Election Circus.

RANDOM THOUGHTS from the retirement lane.

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

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

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.

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

THOMAS SOWELL: Ignoring disparity.

WHY LIVING IN FLORIDA might not be so bad.

DON’T PET THE OWS PROTESTERS: they bite.

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.

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."

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.

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....

"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.”

REINCE PRIEBUS: The Ethics of Audacity.