Another Addition to the Montana Blogosphere

We the People of Montana, just showed up. Seems to lean more to the Dextra side than that of the Montana Sinestra. But you can find her here.

Theater of the Absurd

Press Secretary Gibbs is attempting to reassure the great unwashed hoi polloi that the accused planner of 9-11 will be convicted and executed. The reason that he needs to reassure us is that people are starting to wonder why on earth we are having these trials in civilian courts and not where they belong; military tribunals. The mantra has always been from the Left that we need to treat them as criminals to demonstrate the superiority of our legal system to their murderous methods. That Gitmo and the military tribunals were simply going to be used as recruiting posters for future jihadis.
I am sure that those same future jihadis will be less likely to carry out on their desire to get the 42 virgins now that they know the plotters will receive a fair trial and then be executed. Unless they are found to be not guilty, in which case we will hold them forever anyway. Yeah, that's fair.
Can't we just admit that this is nothing but show, a tool with which to bludgeon Bush and Republicans rather than any serious moral point?

Anybody Seen Mark T. Lately?

I would hate to think that he actually did follow his silly philosophy and do what this guy did.

Channeling Their Inner Democrat

Make a bone headed accusation, and then try to pretend that you didn't make it. I am sure that the Pullitzer Committee would be so proud.

Uniting the Republicans

Only Obama could have done it.

Best Line Evah

From Charles Krauthammer talking about Obama's assertion that the election of Brown was due to voter anger at GWB.

Let's get this straight: The antipathy to George W. Bush is so enduring and powerful that ... it just elected a Republican senator in Massachusetts? Why, the man is omnipotent.

Fear the Power!

Why Integrity Really Matters

So you never have to answer a question like this.

Irony

I don't usually watch MSNBC, but wanted to see how they reported the results of the Brown Coakley race. Watching Rachel Madow, she was interviewing former Gov. Dean "The Scream" who of course did the obligatory "It's Bush's Fault." But then, the conversation turned to the Democrats blaming each other for the loss, and Dean says "Blaming others is for losers."
For once, I agree with him.

Onward, Ever Onward

Into the Valley of Death Rode the 316 (Soon to be one less), looking neither Left, um, okay, looking only Left, they charged ahead, heedless of the cannonades from both sides:

In one way, I admire their persistence, but I think that their courage is owed more to a total lack of understanding of the situation, more than a willful choice. Heroes recognize the danger and act as needs be done. Fools are heedless of the danger and act as they want.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Apparently, they have managed to capture the heinous criminal, who disregarded the warnings from the TSA cop and went into an area that was reserved for departures. As a direct consequence of those actions, thousands of people had to be rescreened, and many missed their flights. People were forced to stand outside in the cold, denied simple accommodations such as water or bathroom breaks, in order to recover the security that was breached.
Sen. Lautenberg (Dementia, NJ) is very disappointed that the scofflaw should only be punished as a misdemeanant, instead of as a felon. What a strange world we live in, if you consider it all together, that because a Romeo wannabe wanted one last kiss from his girlfriend, we have to inconvenience and disrupt so many people, and the emphasis is put on Romeo, and not the governmental security system that is supposed to be there to protect us.
In reality, the TSA is nothing more than theater. They do nothing to reduce the probability of an incident in the air (Christmas BVD Boomer is but one example) but are supposed to reassure us, the traveling public that our government is looking out for us. As if. The truth is that the government is looking out for itself, and the citizens be damned.
And people wonder why resistance is growing to government interference with our medical care. But I am sure that in the latter case, they will do much better. Now, what is that definition of insanity again?

Never Having to Say You're Sorry For Being a Racist

From the Washington Post:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) apologized today for referring to President Barack Obama as "light skinned" and "with no Negro dialect" in private conversations during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Amazing isn't it, not just that he said something that stupid, but that it took almost two years for it to surface. Why so long?
My theory, is that the emphasis that the Democratic Party puts on race, is due to its own internal racism. No one I know would ever say anything like Reid's comments, and even if it was said, it would quickly be shut down as unacceptable in today's culture. But for two long years, it remained out there, festering, pulsing, and hidden by the very people who said it and heard it. At the highest levels of the Democratic Party.
Then, compare it to the treatment of Trent Lott when he was in the same position. The fact that Republicans drove him from his position while Democrats are now circling round their wounded leader says so much about who the real racists are.
The KKK would be so proud.

The WHO numbers in Context

Mark T. is famous for relying on the crappy numbers from the WHO study to point out that we are 37th in ranking for health care. Here is a short rebuttal of the nonsense:

What apparently does not matter is that our population has universal access because most physicians treat indigent patients without charge and accept Medicare and Medicaid payments, which do not even cover overhead expenses. The WHO does rank the U.S. No. 1 of 191 countries for "responsiveness to the needs and choices of the individual patient." Isn't responsiveness what health care is all about?

Data assembled by Dr. Ronald Wenger and published recently in the Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons indicates that cardiac deaths in the U.S. have fallen by two-thirds over the past 50 years. Polio has been virtually eradicated. Childhood leukemia has a high cure rate. Eight of the top 10 medical advances in the past 20 years were developed or had roots in the U.S.
OpinionJournal Related Stories:

The Nobel Prizes in medicine and physiology have been awarded to more Americans than to researchers in all other countries combined. Eight of the 10 top-selling drugs in the world were developed by U.S. companies. The U.S. has some of the highest breast, colon and prostate cancer survival rates in the world. And our country ranks first or second in the world in kidney transplants, liver transplants, heart transplants, total knee replacements, coronary artery bypass, and percutaneous coronary interventions.

We have the shortest waiting time for nonemergency surgery in the world; England has one of the longest. In Canada, a country of 35 million citizens, 1 million patients now wait for surgery and another million wait to see specialists.

When my friend, cardiac surgeon Peter Alivizatos, returned to Greece after 10 years heading the heart transplantation program at Baylor University in Dallas, the one-year heart transplant survival rate there was 50%—five-year survival was only 35%. He soon increased those numbers to 94% one-year and 90% five-year survival, which is what we achieve in the U.S. So the next time you hear that the U.S. is No. 37, remember that Greece is No. 14. Cuba, by the way, is No. 39.

Read the whole thing.

I Admire the Democrats

This might be hard to believe, but I do admire the Democrats in one way: They have bet their future on what they believe in. Having demonized everything Republican for so long, they were rewarded with absolute power after the 2008 elections.
Now, there is no excuse for what they have done. No one to blame, not even Bush, and they are running the country into the ground. And still, the Democrats forge ahead, undeterred by polls or common sense, intent on remaking America, and hoping that we rubes will recognize them and their good deeds.
Maybe the Democrats are wrong.

"And I Won't Raise Your Taxes a Single Dime!"

Yeah, right.
From the article:

Let’s look at the new numbers for 2010 Biweekly, Single, Payroll Period, after subtracting withholding allowances

Not over $233: $0 in taxes
Over $233 – $401: 10% payroll tax
Over $401 – $1,387: $16.80 plus 15% of excess over $401
Over $1,387 – $2,604: $164.70 plus 25% of excess over $1,387
Over $2,604 – $3,248: $468.95 plus 27% of excess over $2,604 (Notice the large salary range is gone)
Over $3,248 – $3,373: $642.83 plus 30% of excess over $3,248 (Notice the substantial increase and 30% tax rate on these wages)
Over $3,373 – $6,688: $680.33 plus 28% of excess over $3,373
$14,450: pays $4,169.99 plus 35% of excess over $14,450

These patterns of additional withholding can be seen throughout the new charts for the 2010 tax year for single and married persons. It appears that everyone earning a paycheck is affected, not just retired military; social security payments will remain the same.

Why would the Democrats tinker with the withholding taxes and, ultimately, cause more stress on Americans and businesses? Why would the Democrats create more wage categories and deliberately target the middle class with a huge withholding increase and 30% tax rate? Are the Democrats trying to backfill the deficits they created in 2009? Because taxpayers will have overpaid the federal government payroll taxes, will they be eligible to get back this additional withholding money in a tax refund when filing in 2011? Do taxpayers in the hardest-hit wage categories even realize that their paychecks are going to be significantly lower, unless they make the necessary changes?

Read the whole thing.