The MOST Wonderful Time of the Year

…lends itself to sharing appropriate videos for mood enhancement.

You Thought Batfink’s “Wings Like a Shield of Steel” Made Him Bulletproof?

You ain’t seen nuthin’, baby.

House Kills Resolution to Oust Rangel From Chair of Tax-Writing Committee
House Republicans on Wednesday attempted to pass a resolution to oust Rep. Charles Rangel from his chairmanship of the powerful tax-writing Ways and Means Committee following the reading of a long and stinging list of alleged wrongdoing.

…A representative from Rangel’s office on Wednesday blasted the resolution as a “highly partisan effort.”

“Let’s look at this resolution for what it really is — a highly partisan effort designed to undermine the important work in Congress on health care reform,” the representative, who declined to be named, told FOX News.

Today’s “Gotcha!” Moment

…courtesy of the Mirror.

…Two boozed-up yobs who picked on a pair of drag queens got a shock when the men turned out to be cagefighters out on a fancy dress stag night.

…One of the cagefighters then bent over the pair and picked up his handbag before calmly walking away.

Bingley will shortly be investigating this notion of “fancy dress stag night” as a fundraising event for his gubernatorial campaign.

So Jonah Goldberg Posts This

…this morning…

I am not sure what to make of the story that Ayers has now admitted to writing Obama’s autobiography. If it pans out, that is to my mind a very big story. Stay tuned. But I do think I should revise my earlier poo-pooing of Jack Cashill’s effort to prove the Ayers-Obama connection….

I’m thinking he did WHAT, WHEN? Found THIS curious story…

…Anne Leary of Back Yard Conservative was passing through Washington, DC’s Reagan National Airport yesterday, and was surprised to come across Bill Ayers at Starbucks: “scruffy, thinning beard, dippy earring, and the wire rims, heading to order.”

…But he didn’t scowl, and didn’t run off as he has been known to do. Instead, unprompted, he blurted out: “I wrote ‘Dreams From My Father… Michelle asked me to.” Then he added “And if you can prove it we can split the royalties.”

Anne responded, “Stop pulling my leg!”

But he repeated insistently, “I wrote it, the wording was similar [to Ayers’ other writing.]”

Anne responded, “I believe you probably heavily edited it.”

Ayers stated firmly, “I wrote it.”

Anne ended the conversation by saying “why would I believe you? You’re a liar.”

(And a murdering scumbag, mind you, but that’s beside the point.)

Watercooler fodder, I would venture. And probably among folks who never bought the wretched tome to begin with. (Of course, the story link has a sidebar with other stories, one of which is “Stand up, stand up for Jesus”. My spidey hackles come up immediately.)

A Little Tune to Start the Day Off Right

(Grazi to the guys over at Improbable Research.)

Today’s Dilbert

Click through, grasshoppers.

Brothers Can You Spare A Trillion?

It seems the World Bank is skint

The World Bank appealed Monday for more funds as it sees a second straight year of record lending amid the global economic crisis, warning it may have to ration aid to only the poorest countries.

World Bank president Robert Zoellick said that rising aid demand was set to strain the lender’s resources by mid-2010, forcing it to slash lending.

“As we start to get towards the middle of next year, we are going to start to face some serious constraints, and we would have to ration and obviously focus on the lowest-income countries,” Zoellick said at a news conference in Istanbul.

Zoellick said the bank had entered the global financial and economic crisis solidly capitalised but that strong demand exceeded the 100 billion dollars it was prepared to provide over three years.

Has there ever been a governmental or quasi-governmental agency that said “actually, we’ve got enough money”?

Rut Roh

From Drudge. No link yet.

ARAB STATES LAUNCH SECRET MOVES WITH CHINA, RUSSIA, FRANCE TO STOP USING DOLLAR FOR OIL TRADING… DEVELOPING…

Ebola just sent it along.

The MOST Wonderful Time of the Year

…requires some due diligence.

Right down to the tiniest things…

The NYSE Prefers Rio

Just lookee at what flag was flying there this morning

I’m smelling some more governmental oversight of the equities markets…

And the Winners Are!

(Now you know why I LIVE for this time of year!)

VETERINARY MEDICINE PRIZE: Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK, for showing that cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless.

PEACE PRIZE: Stephan Bolliger, Steffen Ross, Lars Oesterhelweg, Michael Thali and Beat Kneubuehl of the University of Bern, Switzerland, for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle.

ECONOMICS PRIZE: The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks — Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland — for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa — and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy.

CHEMISTRY PRIZE: Javier Morales, Miguel Apátiga, and Victor M. Castaño of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, for creating diamonds from liquid — specifically from tequila.

MEDICINE PRIZE: Donald L. Unger, of Thousand Oaks, California, USA, for investigating a possible cause of arthritis of the fingers, by diligently cracking the knuckles of his left hand — but never cracking the knuckles of his right hand — every day for more than sixty (60) years.

PHYSICS PRIZE: Katherine K. Whitcome of the University of Cincinnati, USA, Daniel E. Lieberman of Harvard University, USA, and Liza J. Shapiro of the University of Texas, USA, for analytically determining why pregnant women don’t tip over.

LITERATURE PRIZE: Ireland’s police service (An Garda Siochana), for writing and presenting more than fifty traffic tickets to the most frequent driving offender in the country — Prawo Jazdy — whose name in Polish means “Driving License”.

PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE: Elena N. Bodnar, Raphael C. Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, USA, for inventing a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander.

MATHEMATICS PRIZE: Gideon Gono, governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, for giving people a simple, everyday way to cope with a wide range of numbers — from very small to very big — by having his bank print bank notes with denominations ranging from one cent ($.01) to one hundred trillion dollars ($100,000,000,000,000).

BIOLOGY PRIZE: Fumiaki Taguchi, Song Guofu, and Zhang Guanglei of Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences in Sagamihara, Japan, for demonstrating that kitchen refuse can be reduced more than 90% in mass by using bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas.

I hope SOMEBODY got some stimulus money out of this.

How…Awkward

Bailout cop: Treasury set ‘unrealistic expectations’

…A government watchdog says federal officials weren’t entirely honest with the public about the health of the first 9 financial firms that got federal bailouts, according to a report released Monday.

Oh, that Barofsky. What a trickster, trickster! Imagine the government BSing just to shove something down Joe-the-Plumber’s throat! (Bus. Get the BUS.) You know, there’s always one Bushy bitter clinger kinda person who causes all the trouble (Whaddaya mean, “the key”? YOU had it!) when Ivy League, graceful people have to clean up the mess and there’s just no point (Warmed up? Oh, goody!) riling up the sweaty masses, since they wouldn’t get it anyway. Just more tea type noise from the right, who only want America to fail and old people to die quicker.

(You spell it B.A.R.O.F…what? No, I don’t know if he’s listed! I thought YOU had the address…)

I Think the Phrase That Covers It Goes Something Like This:

Fat chance.

…It’s not clear yet that the “senior advisers” who were mocking McChrystal’s assumptions will prevail. In his 25 minutes on Air Force One, McChrystal may have used his knowledge and experience to convince Obama that his judgment was better than that of the armchair generals that the president had listened to for three hours the day before. Maybe Obama will choose to wage his “war of necessity” in the way the general he selected believes is necessary for us to succeed.

Barone finds the possibility implausible as well…

…But I wouldn’t bet heavily on it — not any more, in fact, than I would have bet on Chicago’s chances of hosting the 2016 Olympic games.

How many kids did we lose this weekend?

Obama Hires Some New Advisors?

Maybe there is Hope…

When a Friend Argues We Might Have an Easier Time With Iran

…if they get nukes, ebola begs to differ. I will tag this:
A Friday Offering of ebolic Ruminations
…and leave it for your digestion.
*********************************************************************
There’s a problem with the entire argument. More time means they get further. There’s a time limit before the achieve a bomb. Continued sanctions (we’ve already gone through the horrific realization that sanctions, even were Russia and China to join, are both theoretically and as of the current date, useless).

As for the “flaunt” it, I have a problem with your logic. You’re saying that their achievement of a nuclear weapon will somehow strengthen our position. Obviously if they flaunt it, they’re empowered now, the rest of the Middle East is now scared shitless in incapable of doing anything about it. How does this empower us? Also, we’ve hit them about as hard as we can with sanctions as of the moment, which, it should be noted was how we “deal” with said nuclear armed states. Their achieving a weapon in no way furthers our agenda on the defense front. It should also be noted that the other nations that built nuclear weapons that we’ve “dealt” with, again, do not have the testicular fortitude to use said weapon.

Now, my rebuttle changes to a little matter of strategic theory after this.

We know they’re working on detonators currently. We know they’re funding multiple terrorist organization with contacts and easy (relative to the situation) methodology of shipping in the weapon to the continental US.*1 We also know they have no problem religiously, morally or politically in using deadly force on innocent civilians to achieve a goal.

What would Iran’s best socio-religious coup be? The mutual destruction of Israel and the defacement and massive weakening of the US or destruction of said nation. Iran would effectively win worldwide Muslim support at a major strike against us. Even without claiming credit.

This can be achieved with relative ease provided they gain access to weapons grade nuclear science. Hell, they don’t even really need that as they already have access to radiological material. Think “dirty bomb”, it’s even more effective as far as psychological effects are concerned. One nuclear device, be it dirty or a low-yield thermonuclear explosion. They don’t even have to test it, as long as the nuclear material is dispersed. If said “warhead” fails to go off, it can then be remotely detonated with primary and secondary explosives to spread the fissile material inside, ergo the bomb is a two stage only the first of which is untested. The second is just as effective. Target one of three cities to maximize effect: Washington, DC, New York or Los Angeles.

If I were the one planning it, I’d pick LA (actually San Diego, due to the harbor and easy boat access and complete lockout of a land movement necessity for the weapon, but we’re going glitzy on this one). Here’s why: If they’re aiming for our destruction, more likely by this scenario, economic collapse*2 the point is to let it have a psychological effect thereby the ensuing result a la 9/11. New York and Washington have already been hit. You could argue the financial centers would be a better target, but I’m pretty sure their records are backed up elsewhere and hitting them somewhat destroys the point to the psychological effect. The reason for this is, the entire populace gets to watch both the fallout from the strike in LA and the subsequent failure of the markets.

I’ve no doubt mass hording and more than likely sectionizing of the US would occur in said situation, further tying up both local domestic response units and quite nearly all resident federal units. With the economy, as it probably will be in a few years, at its current state it can’t really afford to drop anymore. The entire populace is now well reasoned to be entirely scared shitless because another strike might be coming, though I wonder if one would be necessary given the current scenario.

I’ve no doubt someone’s thinking “well if that happened we’d turn Iran into glass, they know it and thereby wouldn’t do it.” Big problems with this. Unless an ironclad, and I can’t stress that enough, ironclad link was formed to Iran? Not gonna happen. First off, I’ve no doubt Iran would act through a Muslim intermediary group, be it Al Qaeda, Hezbollah or any of your normal Jew hating, tongue trilling sociopathic virgin seekers.

Then you get into the fact that you’d have to prove where the weapon came from to start with, which would take studying the blast site, probably after dealing with the social and quite literal fallout, then actually recognizing said nuclear device. As you’ve noted, people are, rightly so, concerned with PRK selling shit to the same people. That means time is running for a good while before a target can even be selected. To put the timeline into perspective, the response to September 11 came Oct 7 2001. That’s 26 days later and not even at a terribly relevant target (but that’s theory for another day). It was the need to strike back, which is now engrained in the American psyche. That further limits our response due to the politics around it. The timeline would no doubt be far longer than 26 days due to radiological hazard, removal of personnel, etc. For as horrific as 9/11 was, it was relatively isolated to very small areas or real estate. But look at the effect it had on society and more important, the driving force in society, financial accountability. On the tangent of real-estate, we’re now discussing fallout which would no doubt be exceptionally harsh, even were the strike thermonuclear in nature, due to the fact they likely have little efficiency in the device itself. Now you’re talking about evacuating or insulating entire cities and possibly states, all dependant on wind variation and thermoclines. You’re talking about the removal of vast scapes of land that affect both finances and more importantly food production. I’m gonna stop on this tangent.

Going on, in said down-time there’s going to be alot of politiking, even if they were nailed to the floor, I find it difficult to believe Obama has the balls to nuke their military establishment. And as anything beyond surgical strike lies out of our grasp against them at the moment, that’s about the only other option in this scenario.

Going back to the Middle East. Where the final portion of the coup is created is Israel. While I have my own arguments with its creation, it’s our only hardcore ally besides maybe Turkey in the region. Without US support Israel will fall. Even they probably wouldn’t question that militarily. Israel falls, the US thoroughly shamed and in shambles Iran can now claim responsibility by proxy or state.

Sounds like a dumb idea, but not really, with the restoration of Israel to Islamic rule? The coups done. Think about the percentage of Muslims in western countries. Think about what they could do. Essential it might well be the start of a new world order, but I don’t want to start sounding like Glenn Beck here.

This is why I’m-a-dinner-jacket only gets the bomb if we’re complete and absolute fools. The only good thing in that situation is we probably won’t last long enough as a country to appreciate the fact. If you want something scarier? I just thought this up as I typed…these people have been planning these scenarios for years.

I just wrote a plausible doomsday scenario for the US in under thirty minutes.

*1) We know they have contacts in South America, think drug trade and how hundreds of pounds of content are smuggled in each boat. Now replace said product with a nuclear device.

*2)military doesn’t run without money and the military will be tapped to deal with domestic issues were this executed anyhow, limiting military response afar

Bim Bom Congratulations to Brazil!

How ’bout a little Astrud Gilberto and Bingley softshoe interlude to celebrate?

God, he’s smooth…

ChiTown OUT in the First Round!

How awkward for Michelle’s children.

UPDATE: A CNN (Ed Henry in Copenhagen) reporter just said, “Oh, to be a fly on the wall in AirForce One right now…”
UPDATE: Axelrod spinning now on CNN: “I don’t view this as a repudiation of the President or the first lady…” Plus some blather about “internal currents”, like the “IOC President pushing for Spain”.

“I think there were other things at play there that we simply couldn’t overcome”

“But I’m not suggesting anything nefarious!!”

UPDATE: The Bingster pretty much nailed it:

…this is the first thing obama’s done that has actually saved the us money

UPDATE: For commenters in the “Those knocking Obama here are truly pathetic. As if Chicago not getting the games is some indication of him.” camp, I would like to point out that the second he got ON that airplane, HE made it all about “him”. Especially since no other president had EVER attempted to personally influence an Olympic selection. Perception is everything on the world stage and one’s cache (or lack there of) isn’t to be squandered on something truly as trivial as who gets to be bankrupted by an Olympic nod.

Or so you would have thought. The spanking just administered by the committee is resonating all over the world:

…Mr Obama was greeted — as usual — like a rock star by the IOC delegates in Copenhagen — then humiliated by them. Perception is reality. A narrow defeat for Chicago would have been acceptable — but the sheer scale of the defeat was a bombshell, and is a major blow for Mr Obama at a time when questions are being asked about his style of governance.

Oh, that’s just great for us.

Thanks Barack.

Michelle “Steals The Show”

What a shock: a treacly fawning piece on our First Vacationer by CNN

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (CNN) — After flying through the night for seven hours aboard Air Force One, nobody would blame President Obama for being at least slightly groggy when he arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark, for a quick four hours to make the final pitch for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics.
Michelle Obama’s speech in Copenhagen focused on her roots in Chicago and her father’s battle with MS.

Maybe that explains why the president seemed to snag the silver medal while first lady Michelle Obama, who’s been in Copenhagen a couple of days, clearly took the gold with an emotional speech focused on her family’s roots in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, and her late father’s battle with multiple sclerosis.

“Sports were a gift I shared with my dad, especially the Olympic Games,” Obama said in her portion of the U.S. delegation’s final presentation to the International Olympic Committee. “Some of my best memories are sitting on my dad’s lap, cheering on Olga and Nadia, Carl Lewis and others for their brilliance and perfection.

Um, sweet pea: You were sitting on your daddy’s lap when you were 20 years old to cheer on Carl Lewis?

It’s comforting to know that even though she has by far the largest staff of any First Lady Evah her speech writers seem to use the same fact checkers as her husband’s for her speeches about her own life.

So, There’s This Pretty Good Video

…that Instapundit linked to. I think you’ll agree it’s well done. But the thing that caught my interest?

Who done it. The National Black Republican Association, “GOAL: The goal of the NBRA is to return black Americans to their Republican Party roots by enlightening them about how Republicans fought for their freedom and civil rights, and are now fighting for their educational and economic advancement.“, among other things. Tres interesting website.

Searching for Answers Friday

How insufferable is our already narcissistic Dear Leader going to be if he, Michelle and Oprah get to believe they brought the Olympics to ChiTown?

All I got to say is, “Come on RIO!”

Save us, you samba sumbitches.

: Woo dog! Chicago is OUT. OUT.

Speaking Of Evolutionary Advances

It seems like we have some new nominees for this year’s Darwin Awards

Police say two burglary suspects were killed after the excessive explosives they were using to break into a bank’s safe blew up the whole building.

The explosion in Dinant in southern Belgium destroyed half a banking office and left the rest in ruins.

Police said yesterday that one of the men was buried underneath the rubble and the other died in hospital Saturday, hours after the attempted heist.

Oh, and

The automated teller machines and bank safe were not opened.

Spin That Wheel and the Magic Number Is….

9.8 %

How’s that hope and change working out for ya?

Our Family Tree Just Got Another Branch

And she needs a shave

Move over, Lucy. And kiss the missing link goodbye.

Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago.

The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton—assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus—belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed “Ardi.”

The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin’s time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today’s apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.

What’s really cool about this, aside from how awesomely cool a 4.4 million year old fossil is (which is pretty damned awesome), is that the scientists acted like…scientists. In spite of the “consensus” being that there was a missing link, when they were confronted with data that challenged that theory they changed the theory to fit the new data. Good for them, and us.

We have a new ancestor.

How’s That “Created Or Saved” Stuff Going?

We’ll find out later today

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures slipped on Friday as cautious investors awaited a key monthly employment report after other data this week suggested the nascent economic recovery may be losing momentum.

You know, that unemployment rate that the Greatest Smartest Mind Evah warned us *might* hit !gasp! 8% or some such if we didn’t pass the Stimulus Plan That Jesus Would Have Supported With Out Reading?

You know, the one that now is pushing 10%?

* The U.S. Labor Department is to release its September employment report at 8:30 a.m. EDT . Economists forecast that 180,000 jobs were lost in September compared with a loss of 216,000 jobs in August, according to a Reuters survey. The unemployment rate is seen at 9.8 percent versus 9.7 percent in the prior month.

Get ready for the spin about how wonderful it is and great the Plan is in spite of all the New Bad Things they’ve found that they Weren’t Aware the Previous Administration had done…

*Update: looks like there were something like 263,000 jobs lost last month vs expectations of around 180,000. Not good.

Political Scientists: We Love Obama

Although we kinda sorta have to admit he’s an empty suit

WASHINGTON — The United States’ standing in the world declined in the past decade to below Cold War levels, according to a leading group of political scientists.

Favorable attitudes have risen sharply under President Barack Obama with his commitment to “restore American standing,” but confidence in him appears to be in conflict with unfavorable attitudes about U.S. foreign policy, the American Political Science Association said in a report released Thursday.

…While Obama has raised American esteem, he has not produced more European troops for Afghanistan, secured concessions from North Korea nor made any headway with Iran, the academics said.

But he has “created or saved” what, some 3 billion jobs in only 8 months, right? Well, ignoring the minor detail that unemployment has skyrocketed during his administration, naturally.

Helping raise U.S. esteem now are Obama’s rhetorical skills when he kowtows to dictators and apologizes for America’s existence in such bastions of human freedom and dignity like Egypt and “what his election signifies about the openness of America in spite of being such a gun-crazed inbred racist shithole” the report said.

“In policy terms, however, most (foreigners) believe that there has been little change in the U.S. disregard for the interests of their country, and that U.S. influence in the world is still mostly bad (not counting “Baywatch” re-runs, obviously),” the report said.

You’ve got to love academics. They spent over a year going to conferences to produce this.

(ok, I made a few mild editing “corrections”)