The Lasso of Truth

de-Arabised: Like delousing, but far more expensive

In my books, if you're ticking off both the missile-lobbing, Semtex crowd and the sympathetic Marxist squish taking their side, it's a fine day's work...

A defiant Mr Netanyahu appeared to be digging in despite clear indications that the Obama administration is now demanding the scrapping of plans for 1,600 new Jewish homes, whose announcement overshadowed last week's visit to Israel by the US Vice-President Joe Biden. Mr Netanyahu's stance appeared to guarantee, after a highly charged week, the protraction of a stand-off in which a full-scale diplomatic row blew up at the start of Mr Biden's visit and appeared to abate at the end of it. But it was then reignited by demands from Hillary Clinton and an angry White House that Israel make amends for the "insulting" announcement just as indirect negotiations with the Palestinians had finally been arranged.

Still awaiting word on when Obama will "run out of patience" with the kidnappings, suicide bombings and constant threats being waged from the other side of that border.

Not just violence

...but violence, with a pop-culture context...

 
They at least deserve credit for making this one slightly more subliminally clever.

Punchline...media punching bag...

Or political punch to the face..?

Until now, I have doubted whether Palin was the one to carry these big ideas forward. Her performance has staggered between brilliant and disastrous. She gave a terrific acceptance speech at the Republican Convention and cringe-inducing interviews after. She did an awful job explaining her sudden departure from the governor’s position in Alaska.

Having now seen her in action, what I now see is that her conservatism is in her bones, people relate to her and most of the mainstream media will never get her.

She has radar for the aspirations of regular people, causing her to speak past many journalists and what she probably thinks are their dorky questions. Many in the media could spend hours listening to Barack Obama pontificate about Copenhagen or his outreach to the Muslim world. Palin couldn’t care less. She’s all about controlling spending, lower taxes, safe streets and borders and practical solutions for the environment, healthcare and education. That’s it.

Terrific timing.

How about suggestions then?

Sayeth the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism...

Terrorists are not 100-feet tall.

'Tis true.  But they are invariably Muslim.  how about we just start with that for now, hmmm?

Stars fade - wouldn't you rather have a rock?

Barack Obama's presidency, distilled down to a few words...

"the biggest celebrity on the planet"

Like Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton.

And a picture of Mao in every living room...

But what I want to know is, are there any of these on the walls?

Because that would be alarming.

"To the Moon, Alice!"

Or not, as it would seem.

Glenn Reynolds muses...

But will Obama back other means of promoting space exploration? My own guess is that he’s actually hostile too space, regardless of budget priorities, but who knows?

It's not that hard to know, actually.

The left has always been hostile to the space program, mostly for one overlying reason -- because it represents the height of human endeavor and is the starkest repudiation of the denialists who prefer to conceive of humans as nothing more than the brutes at the top of the food chain.

Obama may be making all the noises of wanting to shift the focus of space exploration, onto the private sector, but how long before that shift gets paired with a raft of new and stifling regulations, making commercial space flight too onerous and too expensive to bother with?  Because stifling it is the point, you see...

Speaking softly, without the big stick

Every Wednesday morning, John Oakley has John Bolton on his morning show to discuss world events.  My son and I try to never miss it, and it is a highlight of our morning drive to school.

When a 15-year-old emo kid can understand and appreciate your knowledge and eloquence on foreign policy, you’ve achieved a minor miracle.  I can tell you.

Due to this regular contact, I was marginally oblivious to the fact that he was no longer the US ambassador to the UN, or who his replacement was.  I don’t feel so bad though, realizing now that the latest ambassador leaves an impression slightly more memorable than a stump of wood.

Do you get the impression that her colleagues regularly refer to her as wazzername?

While Rice, like all Democrat-appointed US Ambassadors to the UN, also serves in the President’s cabinet, she has nevertheless been absent at many crucial Security Council meetings in New York during some of the world body’s most turbulent times.  Rice was even missing from this week’s Security Council debate and vote to add new Peacekeepers to a beleaguered UN operation in Haiti.  According to several UN veteran reporters and some US Mission staff, Rice has been missing from crucial negotiations on Iran too.  They say that when Rice does attend UN negotiations, she is all too willing to avoid confrontation.  The Permanent Members of the Security Council – the U.S., the U.K., France, Russia and China – rely on American leadership to drive issues to a close and force votes.  While the Permanent Members historically complain publicly about being forced to vote or meet on certain issues, without one country driving issues to completion the UN Members will keep talking or find ways to continue fruitless discussions.  After spending 8 years inside the UN and watching the Security Council debate a plethora of issues, I can personally attest to the fact that an effective American Ambassador cannot worry about being the most popular person in the room.  Forcing an end to a UN debate and calling for the Security Council to vote on an issue is never popular.

Over the last year, Rice has avoided tough negotiations and public feuds at the UN and has subsequently produced very few UN resolutions on America’s priority issues.  While other foreign Ambassadors speak fondly of Rice and her ability to make nice at the UN, she has been a weak negotiator for the American people.  Many UN veterans have indicated that Rice’s lack of leadership on the Iranian issue in particular has forced the French Ambassador to pick up the slack in trying to forge a new Security Council resolution to increase sanctions.  The irony that the French are tougher than the Americans on the Iran issue has not been lost on career State Department officials.

Congratulations!

 
So sexy.

I'll leave the complex analysis to others.  For now, I'm just sorry Teddy wasn't still alive to see it happen. 

Obama's "push, not pull" moment

Remember when they said Obama would restore dignity to the office of the President, after the fiasco of the swaggering moron previously in residence..?

Monday night, Obama mistakenly left a White House ceremony honouring two activists' work in Zimbabwe. After finishing his remarks in the East Room, he walked with first lady Michelle Obama into the grand hallway across the main floor of the Executive Mansion. He returned a moment later, a bit sheepishly.

He said with a laugh, "I'm allowed to stay." Then he added, "I never know what I'm allowed to do."

Ya, me too.

Well, no...

It's not a "death panel" per se, but at the end of all that rationing the end result is really the same...

The ideas for savings to the health care system are endless! We know already, of course, about the great new idea of not looking so closely at those breasts. What we don't know won't cause us anxiety, and if cancer should come, the later we discover it the better, because there is nothing like death to stop us from running to the doctor for every little thing.

...Isn't it?

H/T

Palin vs. Winfrey 2012

...Is the first thing I thought of, when I heard the news.

She's the "most influential woman in America".  Does anyone doubt she has the stones to make a bit for the White House?  And after the affirmative-action win of the Big O, does anyone doubt the distinct possibility that she could actually win?

Prepare for the next Big Black O campaign...

Obama hates soldiers

The big, gaping O's "my pet goat moment" inspires my own Kanye West moment.

Can you imagine the outrage if George W. had been yucking it up at a partisan luncheon while the levies were bursting?

In defense of the Twitter tart

Because you just knew I would.

If Megan McCain wants to plump her girls up to her chin and put a little "Is baby hungry?" look on her face, why do we care about this?

I mean, I know why her dad might care or maybe a boyfriend or little brother.  They would all have reasons to care, though not even really good ones.

But why do we?  And by "we", I really mean the stodgy, snipey stiff-wads who tsked and tutted and tossed around the word slut, because a pretty, single girl had the temerity to act a little saucy!

No wonder conservatives have a reputation for being stiff.  Jesus.  Grow up people.  There are plenty of other reasons to complain about having Megan McCain under the conservative banner.  But having -- and not being ashamed of -- an ample bosom is not one of them.

By that yardstick, I suppose I wouldn't make a very good conservative either, when what this movement could really use is a few more like me.

Mommy Marxist Barbie

No doubt it comes with pump-action finger wagging tsk action.

And all I got was this stinking t-shirt

A comparative look at all things Obama...times two.

It's a bad sign for the Big O...

When even TIME magazine begins to mock him...

TIME imagines in photo-illustrations what would happen if award academies around the world adopted the Nobel set of standards for winning

The joke is on us

I woke up this morning to the distinct feeling it was suddenly April.

It's not funny.  Not even in the way that home movies of hapless baseball dads getting beaned in the nads is funny.  But it hurts to watch, just as much.

Too bad Arafat's dead.  They could throw a party.

Too good not to share

Via Rossputin

Wearing your crazy on your sleeve

Maureen Dowd hears voices...

But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!

Perhaps it was just the echo of her own inner condescending racist she heard.  Are we to indict people on the telepathic interpretation of stupid twits now?

Just giving Americans more choice

Isn't that what he said..?

The plan from Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana would make health insurance mandatory, just like auto coverage. It would provide tax credits to help cover the cost for people making up to three times the federal poverty level. That's about $66,000 for a family of four, and $32,000 for an individual.

But those who still don't sign up would face hefty fines, starting at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for families. The maximum penalty on individuals would be $950.

Change you'd better believe in!

h/t

Kennedycare?

Is it just me, or does anyone else think it's kind of weird to name a sweeping universal health care reform bill after a man who died of an inoperable brain tumor?

Manufactured Crisis

Obama and the Cloward-Piven strategy...

The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis.The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Just more of that "in their faces" diplomacy so cherished by the party of The Great Uniter^(TM).

I don't know whether to laugh or cry

But it would seem as though I may have to rethink my fiery hatred for all things Whole Food...

Like many of his fellow health food fanatics, Joshua said he will no longer patronize the store after learning about Whole Foods Market Inc.'s CEO John Mackey's views on health care reform, which were made public this week in an op-ed piece he wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

[..]

The op-ed piece, which begins with a Margaret Thatcher quote, "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money," has left some Whole Foods loyalists enraged. Many say Mackey was out of line to opine against the liberal base that has made his fortune possible.

Christine Taylor, a 34-year-old New Jersey shopper, vowed never to step foot in another Whole Foods again.

"I will no longer be shopping at Whole Foods," Taylor told ABCNews.com. "I think a CEO should take care that if he speaks about politics, that his beliefs reflect at least the majority of his clients."

The entire op-ed can be read here and offers red meat for the individualist in a level of variety unheard-of on Whole Foods grocery shelves.  Including this unpleasant little truth...

At Whole Foods we allow our team members to vote on what benefits they most want the company to fund. Our Canadian and British employees express their benefit preferences very clearly—they want supplemental health-care dollars that they can control and spend themselves without permission from their governments. Why would they want such additional health-care benefit dollars if they already have an "intrinsic right to health care"? The answer is clear—no such right truly exists in either Canada or the U.K.—or in any other country.

Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.

No wonder the lettuce eaters are pissed.  This may actually turn them back into carnivores.

"Vicious, or just plain stupid?"...I say both

An unqualified candidate, with some questionable associations, got elected to high office on a campaign that traded on his skin color so the Democrats could "make history", but Michael Steele who, arguably, has a not dissimilar resume, is nothing more than a "token black". 

Is it because he's Republican or because he disagrees with King Obama about pulling the plug on Grandma? (via)

And can somebody tell me why this article appears in Psychology Today?  Is this a demonstration of abnormal psychology?  Projection, perhaps..?

"Thank God for Obama. He's looking out for us."

Thousands of people, who cannot manage to find the time to get a job and pay for their own livelihoods, spent hours in line to cash in on someone else's money...

Thousands of people lined up at banks and check-cashing shops to withdraw the cash that magically appeared on their electronic benefit cards.

em>The no-strings-attached money went to families receiving food stamps or welfare.

Every child between 3 and 17 was eligible for $200, which worked out to 813,845 kids across the state - including 498,866 in the city.

[..]

Billionaire philanthropist gave $35 million toward the program, with $140 million in federal stimulus funds routed through state government making up the rest.

Because George Soros never met a Democrat he wasn't willing to buy a vote for.  That would be fine, if it was just his money.  But 3/4 of the pot for this vote-buying scam is coming straight out of the pockets of the decent Americans who worked for it and are having an even harder time dealing with the economy than the recipients of this "free money".  After all, every day they live with the worry that their job could be eliminated and their family left in a lurch.  A welfare recipient does not face the same fear.  Struggle as they may, they never have to worry that the government will close up shop and the likelihood of the welfare system being downsized is slim enough to not be worth worrying about. 

Welfare is the world's best guaranteed paycheck.  I guess you could call this a "performance bonus".

Obama's America

Where contempt for the constituency is a feature, not a bug...(via)

Now reverse roles and put a white Republican on stage and a black woman asking the question, and just imagine the shitstorm that would stir up.

I'd laugh too

You're assuming these silly chumps can read.

They love to hate him

Really.  The Turd Blossom Garden simply must not be missed.

I am anxious to see the Obama version, and I even have some suggestions for suitable attractions:

Blindfolded Diplomatic Etiquette Obstacle Course

Bailout Roller Coaster (complete with seat restraints that never let you off)

Nuclear Armed Tyrant Whack-A-Mole (with Q-tip sized mallet)

There's not just criticism on offer here, at The Lasso.  We're just chock full of suggestions, too!

Paglia on Palin

Now that's a mud wrestling match that I'd pay plenty to watch, but alas...

Whether Palin has a national future or not will depend on her willingness to hit the books at some point and absorb more information about international history and politics than she has needed to know in her role as governor. She also needs a shrewder, cooler take on the mainstream media, with its preening bullies, cackling witches, twisted cynics and pompous windbags. The Northeastern media establishment is in decline, and everyone knows it. Palin should not have gotten into a slanging match with David Letterman or anyone else who has been obsessively defaming her or her family. Let surrogates do that stuff.

She also laments Palin's somewhat unpolished interactions with media and public.  That is a valid criticism if what you expect from a politician is business as usual.  For those of us looking for a breath of fresh air, unpolished is a welcome change.

h/t