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POPS Economic Stimulation I’m a little late to today’s economic-stimulus exasperation party. Sorry. I was busy working at my unstimulated private-sector job, which uses pulp, ink, trucks, pens, notebooks and a lot of eletronics plus electricity and employs hundreds of taxpayers directly and indirectly to tell people how the hacks are trying to shaft them in Boston. It was great. I enjoyed it. Even though, far from looking for or getting any support, we’ve had to fight the government over simple things like the freedom to enter business relationships with other news organizations that might have made us more financially viable. Thank you, Ted Kennedy, liberal lion.
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POPS The Obama Work-Out War-weary Obama manages a decision … more golf! Boston Herald: WASHINGTON - President Obama has outperformed former President George Bush in a key area - he’s hit the links as many times in nine months as Bush did in nearly three years, political Web sites reported. Politico, a political news and gossip site, and the Chicago Tribune’s The Swamp, reported that CBS’ Mark Knoller - who documents presidential statistics - Tweeted Sunday, “Today - Obama ties Pres. Bush in the number of rounds of golf played in office: 24. Took Bush 2 yrs & 10 months.” The Swamp noted that after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Bush quit golf, saying, “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf . . . I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal . . . ” Come on, guys. Iraq was different. That was Bush’s war. Afghanistan? That’s Bush’s other war! http://www.julescrittenden.com/2009/10/27/golf-for-we-not-for-thee/
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POPSWe need less efficientcy, IMHO I like this rant from a comment to a Cary Tennis column. Why must everything be efficient? I dunno. I don't want to be, I just want to be effective.
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POPS The Truth May Be … Out There Anyway, I don’t know if there was a publicity-grabbing hoax plotted, or if an opportunity was seized on the fly, or if it all innocently happened the way Balloon Dad says it did. But whatever happened yesterday, I have a sneaking suspicion the flying Jiffy Pop balloon was not originally conceived, built and being tested as an innovative commuting vehicle. It’s not for nothing Shepard Smith and everyone else was comparing that thing to a UFO yesterday. Maybe, like the Richard Dreyfuss character in ”Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Richard Heene was just strangely compelled to make his experimental 3DLAV commuting device look like a traditional Roswell-inspired flying saucer hoax.
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POPSThe United States’ Place in The World … and he needs to grow a set via Weekly Standard, Lieberman, Kyl and Bayh, “Whatever it takes … crippling sanctions.” I dunno, I can think of other measures that might be more effectively crippling. Whatever … Also at WS, Steven Hayes, hurtfully, “Speak timidly and don’t carry a stick.” Ralph Peters, NYPost, cruelly: “Appease-y does it for weak Prez on the road to a Mideast apocalypse.” Greenwald, Should any Iraq lessons be applied to Iran? I can think of a few quick applicable Iraq lessons off the top of my head. Whack one tyrant, the rest notice. Also, whacking tyrants effectively neutralizes their ability to cause trouble. Also, follow-on is important, don’t let the Euros weasel out of it, and ignore the Dems and the anti-war American left. They are loud, but harmless.
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POPS The Biden Plan
Among the alternatives being presented to Mr. Obama is Mr. Biden’s suggestion to revamp the strategy altogether. Instead of increasing troops, officials said, Mr. Biden proposed scaling back the overall American military presence. Rather than trying to protect the Afghan population from the Taliban, American forces would concentrate on strikes against Qaeda cells, primarily in Pakistan, using special forces, Predator missile attacks and other surgical tactics. The Americans would accelerate training of Afghan forces and provide support as they took the lead against the Taliban. But the emphasis would shift to Pakistan. Mr. Biden has often said that the United States spends something like $30 in Afghanistan for every $1 in Pakistan, even though in his view the main threat to American national security interests is in Pakistan. Mr. Obama rejected Mr. Biden’s approach in March, and it is not clear that it has more traction this time. But the fact that it is on the table again . . .
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POPSCarter's Color Coding “He did not help the cause of diversity and tolerance with his remarks " if I were a betting man I would say it instigated more racist sentiment,” Johnson said Tuesday. “And so I guess we’ll probably have folks putting on white hoods and white uniforms again and riding through the countryside intimidating people. … That’s the logical conclusion if this kind of attitude is not rebuked, and Congressman Wilson represents it. He’s the face of it.” It’s sad, but it turns out the race-baiting lefty pundits were right. A black man can’t be president in this country without all kinds of ugly racism rearing its head … among race-baiting lefties. RCP has your Carter vid. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/09/15/carter_claims_there_is_racist_tone_against_obama.html
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POPS It’s A Complex, Complex, Complex World Along with the Predator strikes on compounds full of women and children, it should be good for a while. Knock on wood. Maguire, snarking cruelly, suggests Obama “will have to try harder to make the case that his current approach will keep America safe.” I dunno, he seems to have been handed a free throw. At least for now, absent, you know … The WaPo Takes Cheney's Side On Enhanced Interrogation by Tom McGuire WaPo sidles up to Dick Cheney. . . Let's just go back in time to the summer of 2008 when Scott Shane of the NY Times covered a lot of this ground. It appears that Obama will have to try harder to make the case that his current approach will keep America safe. right now all interrogations must comply with the Army Field Manual; Obama has a group still studying the belly slap, annoying rock and roll, walling, sleep deprivation, and the waterboard. I stand by my guess that when he thinks no one is looking Obama will re-instate everything except
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POPSTiger Woods farting saga (part 3) "I dunno what Tiger eats for breakfast, but it sure doesn't agree with his bowels! And, instead of nipping his cheeks together at crucial moments to stifle the fart, he bends his knees and pushes down on his diaphragm to expel some of the longest trumps I've ever had the misfortune to have witnessed, so help me God!" The USPGA has said that it will investigate any claims that players are trying to gain an advantage by breaking wind loudly, and will deal severely with any found doing so.
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POPSReligions - know your major religions Some will regard it as humour. Some may save it. None can clip it. Have to visit the site. http://www.madatoms.com/site/blog/know-your-major-religions or click on the site name
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POPSChina puts people before banks With some of the stories we read of China and it's attitude to moving people, for instance, it would seem the banks must be held in pretty low esteem.
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POPSBill Made Her Do It * No cruel remarks about how the Chicago native who spent most of her adult life in Arkansas got elected to the Senate from New York, please.
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POPSFiending for tacos in O-town! Now I'm hungry. Tacos Sinaloa – best taco truck around, IMO. (That last photo isn't from Tacos Sinaloa, though. I dunno what all that foo-foo fancy stuff on top is. It looks like pureed salsa. Weird. :-D)
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POPSRepublican moms for marijuana: 'Time to legalize is now' My official stance is "weed is a bad idea." My unofficial stance is when the government is telling me what I can do in my personal time, then the government can suck it. From my experience with weed, it does absolutely nothing for me. I've had friends that sit around giggling and I'm like WTF? is going on....this stuff is crap. Maybe it wasn't good quality.....I dunno. Anyway, keep the drugs away from the kids. Alcohol is much worse IMO. But as an American, I want to have the choice. I don't want the damn government telling what I can smoke, eat, or drink.
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POPS“Can’t we all just get along?”
But apparently Gates still doesn’t get it. If he wants a New Yorker article and a PBS documentary out of this, he’s going to have to dig deep and challenge his own thinking on race relations. A simple misunderstanding and flared tempers lacks a little umph and isn’t going to cut it. Hard to get indignant about that. But I dunno, Professor Gates, there could be something in this idea that we are entering a new phase in race relations, some new ground you can chart out. Maybe we’re approaching a place in this country where no one can make immediate assumptions, throw around accusations, and make demands anymore. Where there has to be some room for nuance, understanding. And the recognition that racism is a two-way street. Think about it. Obama, too, who also called this a “teachable moment.” Absolutely. If he’s willing to listen, and learn. Turns out this is not so much about race as it is about being civil. In the transcendant words of Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?"
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POPSBig Hush-Hush Secret: U.S. Plotted To Kill AQ Leaders
In fact, when the U.S. military blew up Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the CIA started lobbing Hellfires into Yemen and Waziristan, I thought that was the basic idea. Kill al-Qaeda leaders. It’s not like they’re the legitimate vile dictators of a legitimate vile enemy state like, I dunno, Nazi Germany, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Islamic Republic Iran or Baathist Iraq … where you’ll recall the United States specifically did try to drop missiles on Saddam’s head. Something’s not right here. Better read on … The official noted that Congress had long been briefed on the finding, and that the CIA effort wasn’t so much a program as “many ideas suggested over the course of years.” It hadn’t come close to fruition, he added. Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said little had been spent on the efforts " closer to $1 million than $50 million. “The idea for this kind of program was tossed around in fits and starts,” he said.
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POPSPolitburo Mulls Airbrushing Reagan The White House blog exults about the triumphs of social engineering through energy policy. It’s got a quaint Soviet Realist, five-year planny kind of feel to it. Meanwhile, Jammie Wearing Fool suggests the Dems quit pussyfooting around and just name it after Obama. Red State: “But citizen, it has always been known as Obama National Airport.” G’day Instapundit, etal, always good to see you. You know about Obama’s Whiskey Tango Foxtrot strategy, right? That’s the one where commanders in the field say, “We need more troops,” and POTUS says “WTF?” … We’re also mulling whether the time is right to Whack Now, plus Rule Of Law By Military Coup. And please feel free to browse around Crittenden’s Right-Wing Warmonger Bookshop and General Store.