The Tarnished Mirror

He does love to campaign. I think that part of it comes from the deep and abiding comfort that hearing himself talk gives to him. Barack Hussein Obama is nothing if not pathological narcissist. (No I'm not a doctor but if anyone wants me to cite examples of psych opinions on the matter, they are legion and on the net.) I'm not saying that Obama isn't more or less like many politicians, but he takes narcissism to a rare place where we don't see it that often.

I have to think that when he's campaigning for politicians who don't want to be seen on stage with him (Russ Feingold D-WI) and others who simply won't invite him, that he must wonder WHERE they are. What excuses are they handing him?

IF you were a Democratic Politician, what excuses would YOU hand Obama to explain your absence from his rally for your re-election:

(examples: I had to feed the fish, My sister's dog had to be taken to the vet, my car broke down and nobody seems to want to give a Democratic Congressman a ride, etc.)

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Splitting the Baby (Social Security Revisited)

I'm continually perplexed by the division in the nation politically. Nobody disagrees that Social Security is bankrupt. (LINK to CNBC - Voice of the Liberal Media) The money that should have been restricted was dumped into the General Fund by President Lyndon Johnson to help pay for the Viet Nam War. The current Democratic majority in Congress and the president assert that it's not bankrupt and that Republicans (who warn of dire circumstances) want to take Social Security payments from the pockets of pensioners.

No matter WHO wins when, the Social Security monster looms and everybody wants to pass the ball to the next Congress in the hopes that it won't have to be faced by them, on their watch. This sort of irresponsibility is what we've come to expect from politicians. Nothing new here, folks. We can let Social Security splat on the wall at 100 MPH, or we can change the way we do business. 

People who are retired need to retain their current benefit structure.

People who haven't retired need to face harsh realities:

1. We need to raise the age at which people can collect Social Security benefits.
2. We need to restrict the fund so that the Federal Government can't steal the money to use it on this or that pork barrel project to include war, feeding welfare recipients or foreign aid to a corrupt dictatorship.
3. We need to change the way the payments are made and the basis upon which they're made. I'm not the expert who will make that decision in detail, but it's clearly the way we need to approach the situation.

Or you can do what we're doing now, and twenty years in the future there will be no Social Security benefits paid out to anyone (but the government will still take it from your paycheck the way they do now).

I WANT YOUR MONEY (the movie)

I went to the movies and a trailer came up for "I WANT YOUR MONEY" - the Barack Hussein Obama Story (or so it seemed to me).

• I Want Your Money
• Opens October 15, 2010 | Runtime:1 hr. 32 min.
• 
  
  PG

  Thematic elements, brief language and smoking
• 
  

Using the words and actions of Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, filmmaker Ray Griggs examines the federal deficit and the role the U.S. government should play in the wealth of its citizens. Steve Forbes, Newt Gingrich and others weigh in with their opinions.

Too Cool for School

This is a piece of concept art featuring one of the devices currently under development by Ashima Devices (LINK).  Different variants have different applications but essentially you have the same technology for viewing in a little i-round that you'd have in a surveillance satellite. Ashima Devices helps define the future of military force protection and law enforcement high-tech through innovation and unique approaches to solving everyday problems. The helical device coming out of the rear, around the aerospike, is an antenna.

Plunder

Plundering is the aim of "redistributional" politics and America has witnessed the most effective heist in history over the past two years.

I think that the GOP Pledge to America didn't go quite far enough, but it's an acceptable beginning. And "NO!" is an appropriate response to the statists who would loot the country. We are in the middle of a battle in that long war right now in the U.S. The forces of tyranny and collectivism have a rather bland--even benevolent-- face here (except for the botoxed and artificial features of Nancy Pelosi, who looks rather scary). But under the mask, the Obama's Pelosi's and Reid's of today are not very different from the Castro's or the Chavez's in fundamental principles--or rather the lack of them. They embrace the same discredited ideas and disguise them with the do-gooder's grotesque smile. The joke is on you.

The ideas they espouse all perfectly fit into that tired old Marxist framework that thinks only in terms of the dialectical of "oppressed vs. oppressors". This framework allows the left to continually fan the fires of class warfare and victimhood and thus become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Socialism and Communism cannot fail--they are merely victims of a vast capitalist/American/Jewish conspiracy! 

I'm amazed how the left keeps rationalizing socialism's failure to produce wealth. Admittedly, they are rather good at redistributing it (much of it into the leaders' pockets), so that everyone is poor; but the goons in charge just haven't grasped the concept that wealth production is just not something the government is able to do; and it gets harder and harder as time goes by to "redistribute" nothing--which is what you get when you demonize and/or kill off (literally and figuratively) those individuals who actually create wealth in your society. 

Reconsidering Afghanistan

In the aftermath of the attack of fundamentalist Muslims on the World Trade center in New York City, the US was faced with a problem. The attack had been carried out by Saudi nationals -- and Saudi Arabia is a friend of convenience, so we couldn't attack them. Some of the Wahhabists had been trained in Afghanistan and the Taliban government in power at the time was a fundamentalist Islamic government. They offered aid and comfort to the men from al Qaeda. An invasion wouldn't ruffle THAT many international feathers and once the US was in place, we would hold a very strategic piece of real estate.

barack hussein obama, in search of a war he could call his own, adopted the war in Afghanistan and decried "President Bush's War" in Iraq. Even though barack obama might have been a good civil agitator and community organizer in Chicago, he's been found inept at everything else he's done, include finding the ability to (a) understand the war in Afghanistan, and once understood, to (b) frame it in the appropriate context.

1. Afghanistan is a small war, not a major war. 
2. Small wars are best fought with small footprints
3. Failure in Afghanistan isn't when the US fails to achieve stability and peace, rather failure is achieved when stability and peace in Afghanistan allows regional acceptance for control of Afghanistan to be achieved by forces intent on terrorist activities outside of Afghanistan.

We have a role to play geopolitically in the Asian Subcontinent whether we like it or not and as with Iraq, "you broke it, you bought it". 

barack hussein obama made a major mistake to put Afghanistan as a cornerstone of US foreign policy, and setting any timetable for withdrawal is foolish. There will be violence in Afghanistan in my grandchildren's lifetime in much as there was violence there in my grandparent's lifetime. So what?

America needs to keep troops there with an eye toward a LONG process of nation building, not a quick shoot and scoot. That's the only way we'll be successful. Surges come and surges go, but everyone in the region who is NOT an American waits to see if we'll commit to working with the problem. And nobody has anymore faith in obama there than the American people do at home.

To your Health?

Long before barack hussein obama swept into office, conservatives (not necessarily Republicans) called for significant changes in healthcare in America that needed legislation to put their provisions into effect. They were as follows:

1. Tort Reform - Limiting the award a jury can award in damages to "reasonable numbers" and thus reducing the cost of insurance for ALL Americans.

2. Pre-existing Conditions - Allow patients with medical problems to be insured. They may have to pay a higher premium, but they would be allowed insurance.

3. Portability - Allow patients to keep the SAME insurance if they lost or changed jobs.

4. Market Freedom - Allow all insurance companies to compete in all states, to make insurance more affordable and to lower rates.

The people who pay politicians to vote the way they want them to vote didn't like this solution, which would have been universally accepted as a key change. Ok, the trial lawyers would NOT have liked it, and some insurance companies didn't want to see their advantage in near monopoly in a certain state vanish, but the voters would have seen a benefit to that sort of law.

The Democrats passed a massive multi-trillion dollar bill that nobody read or understood. They rammed it through Congress without a single Republican vote and Speaker Pelosi boasted that, "Don't read it, just vote for it, you'll love it."

Today the national mood doesn't quite match Speaker Pelosi's prediction because there are some truly odious provisions of the bill, most of which has not yet gone into effect. I predict that a significant portion of ObamaCare will be repealed as soon as obama himself is run from office in 2012. Some of it may go away before that.


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DOJ's Racist Agenda

The Peculiar Case of Christopher Coates

Christopher Coates (link) is one of those attorneys who worked for the civil rights/voting rights section of the US Department of Justice. He worked at DOJ forty years and moved into Voting Rights when President Clinton tapped him to do so. Of all the cases he's handled over four decades, all but two of them involved minorities and the most notable at the moment is the now infamous New Black Panther Case.

Unlike many of his co-workers, it seems that Mr. Coates is a man of high principles, dedicated to the Rule of Law and he is testifying against DOJ, risking his job in the process. The Civil Rights Commission subpoenaed Coates and DOJ moved him to South Carolina so he'd be outside the jurisdiction of the Commission's subpoena.

Yet ANOTHER career lawyer working currently for DOJ who also worked on the New Black Panther case, will be coming out on Friday and is "highly expected" to corroborate every single thing Chris has said about skullduggery between the White House and the leadership of the Justice Department in this matter.

Mr. Coates has informed the Commission that he will appear at the hearing on September 24th and read a statement, after which he will be available for Commissioners' questions. It is anticipated he will provide testimony about the New Black Panther Party litigation and the equal enforcement of the nation's civil rights laws by the Department.

The case involves members of the New Black Panther Party wearing paramilitary uniforms who positioned themselves at the entrance to a Philadelphia polling place during the 2008 election, one of them brandishing a night stick. Despite the entry of a default in its favor, the Department subsequently dismissed charges against all but one of the defendants and reduced the injunctive relief the Department had originally sought.

Congressman Frank R. Wolf (LINK) from the 10th District of Virginia has repeatedly requested that the US Department of Justice re-file the voter intimidation case, but Attorney General Eric Holder has steadfastly refused to do so. It raises the ugly issue of racial favoritism by Obama and Holder toward the Black Panthers. Van Jones, former Green Jobs Czar to Obama was and remains a close ally of the New Black Panther Party.

Why is SHE still HERE?

Illegal alien Zetuni Onyango barack hussein obama's aunt discusses how she is living in the hell of America in this news clip. Aunt Zeituni blames the system while taking full advantage of it, getting disability payments and living in public housing. Not bad for someone who hasn't paid into that system.

Why hasn't her millionaire nephew pitched in to pay her bills? There are a lot of Americans asking that question but there has been no response from the White House. 

Has the president intervened to help keep this human lice in the United States where she is a scab on the ass of society? Zetuni responds, "Don't drag my child into this...my help comes from heaven...I'm not the President's obligation. I carry my own cross."

That's the problem; she hasn't been carrying her own cross. The taxpayers have, and many are angry that she has been able to live on public assistance for so long, while others who paid into the system are denied those same benefits. 

She's clearly an obama, though. Despite what's she's been given, Zeituni Onyango told a reporter flatly that she owes this country nothing in return. "But, it's given you so much?" Elias asked. "So? It's a free country under God," was her terse response.

And so it goes in the ObamaNation.

Doesn't it simply thrill you to be part of the hope and change?

Calderon Tweets

Mexico is in severe distress as a nation in every measurable category. Presidente Calderon takes a page from the barack hussein obama playbook in that he blames the US for all of Mexico's myriad of woes. In this blog I will refer occasionally to an article written September 19 by Maria Salinas, (LINK) based on a recent interview given to her by Calderon.

Generally Calderon communicates with Mexico via Twitter. Which means (to non-twitter users) that it's a sentence or two at a time. I find that too bizarre for words, so we'll let that stand as it is and you can make of it what you will. I don't follow Presidente Calderon on Twitter so his jems don't flow into my phone.

According to Salinas and others, Calderon really loves obama, but really hates US Secretary of State and potential Democratic front runner for the 2012 presidential elections, Hillary Clinton. He told Salinas, “Yes, it is very painful for Mexico that such careless statements are made — so careless, not responsible — as those by Secretary of State Clinton, because they damage Mexico’s image terribly.”

Though he denied that vast portions of his country are under the absolute control of narcotics cartels, it was a lie. I don't know that a lie to a reporter coming from a politician constitutes a sin, but it's a lie all the same. The police, a very large number of the politicians in Mexican state governments and a vast number of those in the Mexican federal government take money from narcotics traffickers -- dare I call them bribes? 

Yes, the US is the world's largest consumer of narcotics products. A portion of those products pass through Calderon's country on the way to their destination. And Calderon knows that if the drugs (with the money they bring) stopped flowing through Mexico completely, that his frail country operating on a frail economy, would collapse. I don't know what portion of Mexico's actual income can be traced to the proceeds of organized crime, but the number has to be near 20%.

I asked a person in a position to know how many businesses in Jalisco State were financed by banks as opposed to those financed by loans from organized crime. He told me that he believed they were evenly divided, and in these times of financial hardship when banks are more reluctant to lend money, the narcos are not. Make of that what you will.

By allowing unrestrained illegal immigration across the US/Mexico Border, president obama may be fulfilling one of his key goals, but those goals do not coincide with the goals most American families have for themselves or their children. Calderon favors an open border because it means that illegal aliens will work in the US and send money south to help feed their families - which can not be otherwise fed. It also means that the narcotics shipped across Mexico will find a market in the US. For without it, Mexico would founder.

Yes, Felipe Calderon deserves credit for cracking down on narcotraffickers in Mexico. No, the Mexican government is not in control in many states in Mexico. Sadly, Hillary Clinton and the US State Department was right, no matter how much it stung Presidente Calderon's pride.

Tax Cuts and "social justice"

The obama agenda from the first day in office in the White House has been one of "economic cleansing" or "social justice". Social justice does not take the economy into account, and one can argue that the economy that rewards workers and punishes drones is to blame for social inequality. There has been a historic cost for balancing social justice (CLICK HERE TO VIEW) that nobody in the obama regime cares to mention. 

"If we look at the actual, real world results of all the 'social justice' crap that the left has been pushing for a hundred years,it seems only socially just to define it as: malignant social policies, which originate from the narcissistic core of the postmodern political left; in which humans are forced into a Procrustean bed of 'equality' using ruthless or arbitrary means." (Sowell) (emphasis added)

(LINK) Pajamas Media quotes Victor Davis Hanson: "Survey the world’s statist systems of every stripe, from soft to hard. One sees either failure and misery or stasis and lethargy. At the most extreme, a North Korea is turning into a Neanderthal society where subjects eat grass. Castro’s Cuba is imploding, and the Great Leader in his dotage is now renouncing his communist catastrophe. Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela proves that an even an oil-rich exporter can destroy itself with self-imposed socialism." 

Much to the puzzlement and rage of leftist intellectuals, in those places in the world where socialist and communist theory have triumphed, wealth is disappearing; initiative is in decline; and the human misery index is steadily climbing. This is the legacy of Marx's "social justice". Instead of creating a 'utopia for the proletariat', Marx and his theories only generated the necessary conditions for societal suicide and/or societal homicide. This is why any any advertised "great leap forward" by the progressive, postmodern political left is really a leap backwards into the primitive and uncivilized past of humanity, where human life is cheap and the State is dear.

Back to Tax Policy During a Recession

Private industry creates real jobs. And wealthy people and corporations do the hiring. Most of us can attest that we have never worked for poor people. The impetus for creating jobs and expanding business is profit. The concept of profit is kryptonite to barack hussein obama, which is why the combination of unemployment (12.6% in Los Angeles County) and underemployment (another 15% in Los Angeles County for a total of 27.6% - apx) exists today. Raising ANY taxes during a recession leads to private businesses and investors sitting on their capital. There is $2 trillion in capital waiting for a policy change and the President demonizes 'the rich' for not spending it - so he can loot it to pay for more worthless and wasteful government programs.

According to the President

According to Obama, vast ranges of undeserved inequalities found everywhere are the fault of "society" and so the redressing of those inequalities "social justice", requires that the government go beyond the traditional justice of presenting each individual with the same rules and standards. Thus they push for equality of outcome while casting aside any notion of equality of opportunity as the golden rule.

Obama & friends are not trying to destroy the rule of law. They are not trying to undermine the American republic. Because ordinary Americans have not yet abandoned traditional justice, those who seek universal social justice must try to justify it politically as meeting traditional concepts of justice. A failure to achieve the new vision of justice must be represented to the public and to the courts as "discrimination." Tests that register the results of innumerable inequalities must be represented as being the cause of those inequalities or as deliberate efforts to perpetuate those inequalities by erecting arbitrary barriers to the advancement of the less fortunate.

As Joseph Schumpeter once said: "The first thing a man will do for his ideals is lie. The next thing the idealist will do is character assassination. All those who disagree with the great vision must be shown to have malign intentions, if not deep-seated character flaws.... Obama's view of the Tea Party. Ironically, the quest for greater economic and social equality is promoted through a far greater inequality of political power. If rules cannot produce cosmic justice, only raw power is left as the way to produce the kinds of results being sought. (Sowell cited and paraphrased).

Is Colin Powell "unsound"?

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell says illegal immigrants do essential work in the U.S. and he has firsthand knowledge of that -- because they fix his house. (LINK) General Powell is one of those rare birds that calls himself an "Obama Republican". (huh?) Isn't that a bit like characterizing yourself as a carnivorous vegetarian? Powell, a left-of-center Republican, urged the Republican Party to support immigration generally because it is "what's keeping this country's lifeblood moving forward."

General Powell, Republicans and the Tea Party isn't anti-immigration. There are many immigrants swelling the numbers of the Tea Party. They are opposed to ILLEGAL immigration. They are in favor of CLOSING THE BORDERS to illegal immigrants, and that is what the fuss is all about. With all respect, you need to get outside the beltway and mingle with the common people for just a moment to appreciate what the point is and what it isn't.

In an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press," Powell said a path to legal status should be offered to illegal immigrants because they "are doing things we need done in this country." He added: "They're all over my house, doing things whenever I call for repairs, and I'm sure you've seen them at your house. We've got to find a way to bring these people out of the darkness and give them some kind of status."

The last time I looked at the statutes, that was a CRIME. And it's also a moral wrong to hire people you know are here illegally and thereby to deny work to US Citizens.

According to the Fox News article (link above), Powell also said "fringe" elements on the right are taking a low road when they label Obama a foreign-born Muslim. General, please have your friend release all of his records to set the record straight once and for all.

pp

Multisource political news, world news, and entertainment news analysis by Newsy.com

Rock-On

I went to a Foreigner concert in Newport Beach, California last night with some of the guys I work with,  last night.



Foreigner played in conjunction with A Taste of Newport, at the Fashion Island Mall. And the some of the cover bands including a Journey tribute band that played on the run up to the main event were extremely good. Tonight the main event is Pat Benatar. When you combine world class food and world class music, you have an end-of-summer event that is just fun.

Flag Friday XIV

Flag Friday is a periodic discussion of the world's national flags; the project is explained and indexed here.

These discussions are about graphic design, and perhaps about nationalism and national symbolism in general. They should not be taken as critical of the countries, ideals, cultures, or people that the flags represent.


Gabon


Parsons: He awards it "good colors," but calls it a "bad tricolour," which apparently rounds out to a B+, 75/100.

Michael5000: I hold the opposite opinion. The colors of the Gabonese flag are, to my eye, a bit too pastel and washed out to assert themselves with a properly flaggy boldness. On the other hand, they are complementary enough and make a perfectly serviceable tricolor.

You might well come up something like this if you were designing a flag for any coastal place with forests, be it Gabon or Chile or, say, Oregon. Ocean, beach, woods. Officially, though, the gold stripe here in Gabon indicates the Equator. I can't say I really get that, either as a piece of representation (thick gold line?) or point of national pride ("visit beautiful Burma, home of the Tropic of Cancer!"), but that's nobody's business but the Gabonese.

Grade: B-


Gambia


Parsons: "Great design and colour choice," says Parsons. "Also represents the geography of the country (without being a map)." Praising "good colours," he assigns an "A+", 90/100.

Michael5000: I like the flag of Gambia. The darker green is a good companion color to the classic red and blue, and the white trim adds a distinctive note to your basic horizontal tricolor.

The common belief that it is a diagrammatic map of the country, however, is badly overstated. It's true that the blue stripe is supposed to represent the Gambia River, along which the country's territory is stretched, but there's no particular concept of a northern red or a green south involved. Also, Gambia is more than ten times as long east-to-west as it is wide north-to-south, whereas its flag is your basic world-standard 3:2.

So the cartographic nature of the Gambian flag would amount only to "we're a country with a river running through it," which I suppose is more than Nauru can say. Fortunately, it doesn't need to be a map to look sharp.

Grade (for the current flag): A-

Georgia

Here's the flag of Georgia that Parsons reviewed:

Parsons: Complained of "bad colours" and assigned a "C+", 60/100.

Michael5000: I thought of that flag (which flew from 1990 to 2004) as among the world's most distinctive, but not in a good way. I would not have been as kind as Parsons in grading it. Fortunately, a new Georgian flag was adopted by Presidential decree in 2004. Here's a picture of me and some friends celebrating that exciting event:

Sweeping claims are made regarding the historicity of this flag design -- Fifth Century! -- which would put it in use many centuries before the origin of flags per se, at least as I understand the vexillological timeline. But that's OK. The important thing is, Georgia has come up with a design with some sort of national resonance, and it's not butt-ugly to boot.

The specs call for the red to be a perfect 255-0-0 fire-engine candy-apple red, baby, but I think the design works a little better if the red tends towards the maroon of the previous flag. Judging from photo evidence, everybody else does too.

Grade: B+


Germany



Parsons: Without comment, he gives it a "B", 70/100.

Michael5000: Best things about Germany's flag: it's a very distinctive combination of colors, if you ignore Belgium (which Germany has an unfortunate history of doing). And it certainly stands out against, well, anything, including a blue Central European sky:

The downside is that the colors are, frankly, a little hard on the eyes. They are a little too befitting of crude stereotypes of the German personality: the utilitarian colors of industrial diagrams and signage, or the excessively flamboyant tie of a man who is ho-ho-hoing much too hard at his own joke.

We love you, Germany! Thanks for saving Greece!

Grade: B


Ghana


Parsons: With an accusation of "plagiarism," he assigns a "B", 70/100.

Michael5000: OK, Ghana was the first of the "newly independent" countries to escape European rule in the late 1950s. The new flag did indeed deliberately quote the colors of the Ethiopian flag, as I described last time. A lot of other countries in Africa would subsequently join Ethiopia and Ghana in choosing green, yellow, and red for their flags, reflecting an aspiration for a united continent that, however naive it seems in retrospect, was rather noble and idealistic in its time and place. Parsons is only kidding when he reduces this whole process to "plagiarism," but it still makes me kind of sad.

The black star in Ghana's center stripe is thought to be an homage to the Black Star Line, a short-lived maritime company founded in the 1910s by the journalist, African-American community leader, and unintentional Rastafari prophet Marcus Garvey. Which is pretty far out.

Grade (for the current flag): B

Future Tech -- Today

The Force Field is the tiny drone helicopter you can 

see hanging from the SWAT Officer's belt (above).

I do a few things which constitute my day jobs. Most of them have to do with consulting with governments and various companies. At Ashima Devices, I work to create some very cool "devices", some of which you can view on the website and some of which, you can't. 

FOX NEWS carried one of the devices on its military force protection top ten list. The smaller variant is shown below in its prototype development phase. The advantage of this unit is two-fold. First, it's very small and is usually carried inside a nylon pouch on a police officer's or soldier's belt (ALICE or MOLLE) and secondly, it's very inexpensive.

It's not simply a camera on a quadcopter because the image taken by the camera is 3D. You can read more about it on the Fox News link or on the Ashima Devices website.

With a whimper?

I wondered how our Republic would end, if end it must. As a young man in elementary school we did the duck and cover drills in the classroom where we faced away from the windows because a the over-pressure from a nuclear weapon's blast - even a distant one - would blow the glass in on us. That's what the teacher explained. We built bombers that remained at FAIL/SAFE somewhere near the border of the Soviet Union. Air Force officers manned Minuteman Missile silos in North Dakota ready to receive the launch code. Stealthy submarines patrolled the far reaches of Neptune's domain carrying a hefty punch such that even if half of them were destroyed before they launched, they'd still send Soviet Russia back to the stone age.

So I presumed if we went out, we'd do it with a big bang. 

But it doesn't seem that's how it will all end, if end it must. Judge Stephen Breyer said, "I'm not prepared to conclude that in the Internet age -- the First Amendment condones Koran burning."  (LINK) It's good to know that our fundamental freedoms are dependent on the good behavior of Muslims worldwide. The Ummah went nearly insane after a few cartoons were sketched. An example of the Danish cartoons that caused Muslims worldwide to call for the murder of the artist is displayed below for your review:

The freedom of Americans, it seems, is at the mercy of an irrational, violent religion which has no tolerance what-so-ever for those who disagree with it. Our leaders are willing to roll over to threats of blackmail and they bow to the notion of intolerance that only goes one-way when Islam is involved.

Will the Cartels Strike Back on September 16?

I know that you're all planning on spending Mexican Independence Day (September 16, 2010), somewhere. Maybe it's not a great idea to plan on spending it in Mexico.

Based on the buzz on the streets in Mexico, the Cartels plan to show the Federal Government of Mexico the meaning of "revolution" on that most critical of all national holidays. There are signals that the government is killing more and more of the significant narcotraffickers in the country, but the narcos are sending signals that they plan to show the government that they may not be as all-powerful as they feel that they are - and it will happen on September 16.

The heads of the hydra keep popping up. Yesterday, the Mexican Government announced the arrest of one of key shot callers is what's left of the AFO Cartel in Tijuana. Julio Cesar Magana Heredia (cousin of El Gordo Villareal) is now in custody and a small arsenal of firearms are in government hands. Yes, it's a victory, but is it a pyrrhic victory? They arrest a lot of these guys and they always have an impressive load of narcotics and weapons.

One would think that with the Bark Hussein Obama Administration's soft policy on illegal immigration that drug lords under siege could move into Southern Arizona into the zone that the US Government already ceded to the cartels, to avoid Mexican Army scrutiny.

9/11 Flag Waving

Following that terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, DC, on September 11, 2001, there was a surge in patriotic displays of the flag of the United States.

Photo gallery in Salon this week:
Flags for 9/11: Photographs from the aftermath of 9/11.
By Bryce Hall

"These pictures were all taken in California during the year following Sept. 11, 2001. Some are ironic ("God Bless America" coffee mugs made in China); others are simple expressions of patriotism."

The Democratic Party's Message to America

Americans are worn out by politicians in general, but in particular the Democrats, who have been the party of "vote for the bill, don't bother reading it" for the past two years. Most Americans are tired of the worn out socialist message of obama, who can't seem to figure it out.

Whether or not the Republicans are up to the task of assertively and honorably defending America for the next to years (and beyond) remains to be seen.

Summer of Discontent

I've heard and read Democratic Party punidts railing on the American voters for being so stupid as to become independents, or not to support their champions obama/Reid/Pelosi. However the obvious truth is that Democrats who voted for hope and change were betrayed.

MSNBC Poll:

Only 18% have confidence in the federal government; 13% have confidence in the news media; 12% have confidence in large corporations; 10% have confidence in the financial industry; and only 9% have confidence in Congress. In fact, the numbers for the media and Congress are the lowest percentages for those institutions in the history of the poll. The only institution that saw its numbers go up? The automobile industry, which went from 13% confidence in Jan. 2009 to 19% in this poll.

Democratic Party Leadership struggles for "the answer". The President of the United States claimed in a speech last week that people treat him like a dog. I'm not sure what that means. He does shake hands, beg, speak, etc. What he should be doing is reading the teleprompter and not saying anything that his keepers don't tell him to say.

One of the big Democratic fight-back strategies is to use the terror that, "Republicans want to take away your Social Security benefits." The problem with that is that the Social Security program is bankrupt and putting it off for another four years without reforms only means that when it crashes, it will crash bigger because nobody's paying attention. They can't say anything about Medicare because they stripped and looted the Medicare program to fund the wildly unpopular ObamaCare that will be repealed and 'fixed' with a more common sense solution to the healthcare problem.

The Summer of Recovery, wasn't. It only serves to underscore the profound damage that liberal and so-called "progressive" theories of government can do. Americans want things to improve and the only way to make that happen is to run government RESPONSIBLY. I admit that the old Republican Party failed. Perhaps by booting RINO's and pseudo conservatives from office, we can see an improvement in the situation in the US.

Do Liberal Women Age Poorly?

I tried to think of the most liberal women in the news lately and wondered if they would look just as good without professional make-up artists and thousands of dollars in clothing and accessories. My only question is whether or not you'd recognize them pushing a shopping cart through WalMart?

Barbara Streisand would make a train 

take a dirt road to get away from her.

Katie Couric (ABC NEWS) looks like 

an old crone with or without make-up.

Maria Shriver reminds me of Jack Nicholson's character in "The Shining".

She might be a zombie. I'm not saying that she is, just that she might.

Obama's Legacy

Barack Hussein Obama has been the President of the United States for a year and a half now. What do we have to show for it?

ObamaCare - a declining standard of healthcare, an increase in insurance premiums and a disincentive for medical professionals to practice - for the sake of ten million people who were receiving or eligible to receive Medicaid anyway.  The US Government takes over the Healthcare Industry, 20% of the US Economy. Congress signs the bill without having it available to read it first.

General Motors - back room deals with union power brokers led to the US Government taking over General Motors. Today with the IPO of a restructured GM, the taxpayers are holding the bag for a loss if they sell their interest in the company. No company is too big to fail, but Obama fired the CEO of General Motors and put his own man in place -- the first time in US History that an American President fired a corporate CEO.

Unemployment/Underemployment - 9.6% Unemployment, 19.8% Underemployment (Source Gallup Poll)

The Stimulus - nearly a trillion dollars were siphoned off to Democratic Party pet projects, pork barrel money to wealthy Democratic contributors and no visible impact on the US Economy. Congress signs the bill without having it available to read it first.

Illegal Aliens - thousands of square miles of Arizona have been virtually ceded to narcotics mafia groups, human traffickers and illegal aliens. The US Government posts signs warning US Citizens NOT to travel in those portions of the US for their own safety. Arizona reacts with SB1070 and the US Government attacks Arizona, not the drug mafia.

Iran - Obama dithers while Iran constructs and prepares to deploy nuclear weapons designed to strike Israel, an American ally. As the Iranians perfect delivery systems for the weapons, the US Administration responds weakly and ineffectively.

Ground Zero Victory Mosque - the US Government supports construction of a "victory mosque" at the site of the World Trade Center attack on 9/11. The WTC site is still a hole in the ground and the 15 story mosque will tower over it - scheduled to open next year on September 11.

Gulf Oil Spill - the US Government dithers while hundreds of thousands of crude oil spills into the Gulf of Mexico. Their response: "If we do anything, it will be said that we could have done something, so we will do nothing." Months later something is done -- but only because of mounting political pressure.

US Justice Department - enacts a policy in the Civil Rights Division that no black suspects will be investigated or prosecuted. DOJ Attorneys resign in protest and go public. Race becomes a large issue again.

The War on Terror - is re-designated an "overseas contingency operation" by the US Government. Terrorist who set bombs on aircraft and in American cities are designated only as "criminals". Terrorist activities are now only "criminal events".

ACORN - an organization favored by Obama is found to be conspiring to commit prostitution, to traffic in underage prostitutes from Mexico and Central America, to be furthering narcotics transactions, to be vote-fixing and to have managed loan applications such that vast fraud existed.

NASA - during troubled budgetary times, Obama directs the Director of NASA to conduct special outreach to Muslims so they'll feel as if they had some contribution to America's space program.

That's quite some legacy. It's no wonder that Barack Hussein Obama is being called the worst US President in history.

**The Mainstream Media Unflaggingly supports Barack Hussein Obama and would disagree with me on each point on the basis of principle. Unfortunately for them, the bulk of the American people believe they are lying to us.

Doublespeak - The Obama Spin

I don't blame barack hussein obama for trying to spin the present DEPRESSION into something positive. He did say that we were in an "economic downturn" surpassed only by the Great Depression in the 1930's. But he added that under his vision of the nation, happy times would be here again.

If that was all there was to it, people might have some compassion for the president.

But that's not it. He is still pushing his utopian socialist model, which is ruinous to the nation. The last trillion dollars they threw down a rat hole didn't do much to help the nation and he's pushing the notion that we need to borrow another trillion (or two) so that we can see hope and change. I don't think his mother ever warned little Barry not to throw good money after bad.

He's still crusading against the State of Arizona for trying to protect themselves under the law when the federal government failed in its duty to protect national borders against drug cartels, kidnappers and human traffickers. The US State Department issued a warning to Americans not to travel to Mexico because the situation there is not safe -- and at the same time barack hussein obama is trying to keep the border with Mexico open...perhaps to import those problems onto our soil.

The obama regime and the Democratic Congress RAMMED through a healthcare bill without reading it, promising us that "you'll like you see once you read it". And all it means is that we're going to get less healthcare while it will cost us a lot more money.

The Democratic Party is on the eve of a mid-term election and the only real strategy they formulated was "Blame George W. Bush". But that didn't work. And now the mantra goes something like, "forget what we did in the last two years, vote for us and we'll fix what we broke in the next two." And the obama spin isn't working because he's more and more being seen for who he really is: an empty suit.

The mainstream media wants so much to make their sow's ear into a silk purse, but it simply doesn't wash.

Flag Friday XIII

Flag Friday is a periodic discussion of the world's national flags; the project is explained and indexed here.

These discussions are about graphic design, and perhaps about nationalism and national symbolism in general. They should not be taken as critical of the countries, ideals, cultures, or people that the flags represent.

Ethiopia


Parsons: Calling it "too busy", he gives it a "C", 55/100.

Michael5000: OK, here's another African flag in green, yellow, and red. But wait! This is the original green, yellow, and red African flag. Ethiopia was the African country that endured European colonialism the least and for the shortest period, and was the first African country to join the big happy family of modern states. It was a bit of a beacon to other independence-minded Africans, and the colors of Ethiopia's flag thus became the symbolic colors of pan-Africanism, idealistically incorporated into the flags of many other countries as they became independent.

Back in the day of Emporer Haile Sallasie, the center figure was a lion of Judah clutching a flag of Ethiopia. This was kind of badass, but a bit fussy. After that, the flag was officially just a tricolor until 1996, and apparently the blank tricolor is still in pretty common use. The official version has the blue circle with the shining star, though. I'm sure this is an idiosyncratic response, but the star always reminds me of one of those "move four of these matchsticks to make a correct mathematical formula" puzzles. I don't love it.

Grade: B


Fiji

Parsons: Also "too busy," but also burdened by "graven images" and "colonial nonsense." "Features a picture of a lion rolling a cigarette (cf. Sri Lanka)" He gives it a "D", 40/100.

Michael5000: You know, I too find it too busy and burdened by graven images and colonial nonsense. It also strikes me that sky-blue is a problematic color for a flag, which is often seen against, well, the sky. Photographic evidence supports my point.


The Fijian oceangoing contingent seems to have noticed this problem too, coming up with a naval jack that can actually be seen against sea and sky.


But I digress. There has been a little bit of debate about the Fijian flag, but interestingly it has not been about getting rid of the colonial business. Instead, there is a faction that wishes to make the national seal yet more fussy. As an outsider, I'd have to say that seems like a step in the wrong direction.

Grade: D


Finland


Parsons:Praising its "good colours" and praising (I assume) it as "simple," he assigns a "B+", 76/100.

Michael5000: That is one classic freaking flag. It looks about five centuries old to me. Actually, it's a 1910s design with roots going back only a few decades earlier. But it's awesome -- it totally says "Finland."

Grade: A


Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

Parsons wrote his flag reviews towards the end of a narrow window of time where, due to rather finicky geopolitical concerns (the Greek government, from an outsider's perspective, being just plum silly), it made sense to call the new country of Macedonia by this absurdly abstruse moniker. That seems to have more or less settled down, so we'll deal with Macedonia under "M."

France


Parsons: Without comment, Parsons gives the flag of France a B, 70/100.

Michael5000: The flag of France is both one of the most recognized flags in the world and the most simple. If you were going to make a cartoon of a flag, you would probably make a red, white, and blue tricolor. The flag of France is not just the flag of France, it's the flag of flags. It's not as old as you might expect, though, going back only to the Revolution.

I can see why Parsons didn't have much to say about it, though. It is so simple and so ubiquitous as to kind of defy comment.

Grade: A-