Change You Can – Er – Believe In?

Well, Obama’s supporters on the left are having to deal with the fact that Obama’s administration is looking an awful lot like the Clinton administration. Which is amusing. What is somewhat less amusing is the fact that there appear to be at least two former Clintonistas – now Obamanistas – who are slightly less than in touch with reality.

When he was the White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton, Mr Podesta led a project to declassify 800 million pages of intelligence documents. In a press conference, still available to watch on the YouTube website, Mr Podesta said: “It is time for the government to declassify records that are more than 25 years old and to provide scientists with data that will assist in determining the real nature of this phenomenon.”

Gov Richardson, a former presidential candidate and fellow UFO aficionado, has written a forward to a book on the so-called Roswell Incident in New Mexico, where campaigners believe an alien spacecraft crash landed near the town of Roswell in 1947 and that the corpses of humanoid aliens have been kept hidden under lock and key by the government.

He has called for full disclosure by the Pentagon of what really occurred and reiterated his belief that there had been a “cover-up” during a presidential debate last year.

The campaigners, who want the truth “out there”, believe that the British Government’s decision to declassify thousands of UFO sighting documents this year has made it untenable for the US to maintain its policy of non-disclosure.

Only last week a US Air Force pilot, Milton Torres, whose testimony was released from the British archives, appeared on US television explaining how he was ordered to shoot down a large UFO over the UK in 1957 and then silenced by military officials, who told him never to speak of the incident.

Stephen Bassett, Executive Director of the Extraterrestrial Phenomenon Political Action Committee, expects to have gathered 40,000 signatures via email and fax by Mr Obama’s inauguration day on Jan 20 in support of his calls for openness.

Well, that is a really substantial constituency in a country of 300 million or so. One can see the raw political power behind Bill Richardson.

For the rest of us 299,960,000 of us, we can have confidence that we are in the good hands of change we can believe in. We can now believe we have several whack-jobs in charge of the government. And be confident about that.

Rearranging The Deck Chairs

Via Ed Driscoll (via Memeorandum) comes this very, very telling graph of how bad the situation is right now for the newspaper industry. Alan Mutter provides a graphical description of how bad things have gotten. Two billion dollars in lost revenue in a single quarter.

Driscoll’s graph in video format is pretty much spot on. The buyout sex is just the icing on the cake.

The print media is almost dead now. As more and more people get their information from the internet, this is inevitable. But what I think – with no proof, mind you – is that the print media is also killing itself. They have become partisan to the extreme and people are getting fed up with it. That partisanship is skewed hard to the left and people are finding other sources of information.

They confused reporting the news with editorializing on the news. These are two, very different, things. People can tell the difference, despite the media’s blindness to this. I think it is coming home for them now.

Mumbai, The Aftermath

Not only did the terrorists who attacked Mumbai targeting foreigners – especially American, British and Israeli citizens – kill many people. No, they also appear to have done much more. As in binding their captives and torturing them before finally killing them.

Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: “It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim’s body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words,” he said.

Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: “It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood,” one doctor said.

The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.

Obviously, if this report is correct, Indian security forces may have engaged in more than a little payback when they saw what had been done to the victims.

The doctors who conducted the post mortem said the bodies of the terrorists were beyond recognition. “Their faces were beyond recognition.”

There was no way of identifying them,” he said. Asked how, if this is the case, they knew the bodies were indeed those of the terrorists, he said: “The security forces that brought the bodies told us that those were the bodies of the terrorists,” he said, adding there was no other way they could have identified the bodies.

One terrorist was reportedly shot in both eyes. This may not have been an intentional act, of course. If the terrorists simply died in a hail of gunfire, it could all just be random.

Or not.

Regardless, this adds a whole new level of barbarity to an already barbaric act on the part of the terrorists. The attackers were stopped well short of their goal of killing thousands. But a horrible price appears to have been paid by many of their victims. Peaceful Americans as well as citizens of other countries and not a few Indians died in this terror attack, people who did these attackers no harm and meant them none. Yet here we are.

It is going to be a long war.

Shagging Sheep

Mark Steyn destroys a couple of critics. I’m not even going to try to excerpt this one, the whole thing needs to be read to fully appreciate how good he is at this sort of thing. And how very bad his critics are.

Via Memeorandum

Deadly Hesitation

I wish I’d had a gun, not a camera.

The gunmen were terrifyingly professional, making sure at least one of them was able to fire their rifle while the other reloaded. By the time he managed to capture the killer on camera, Mr D’Souza had already seen two gunmen calmly stroll across the station concourse shooting both civilians and policemen, many of whom, he said, were armed but did not fire back. “I first saw the gunmen outside the station,” Mr D’Souza said. “With their rucksacks and Western clothes they looked like backpackers, not terrorists, but they were very heavily armed and clearly knew how to use their rifles.

“Towards the station entrance, there are a number of bookshops and one of the bookstore owners was trying to close his shop,” he recalled. “The gunmen opened fire and the shopkeeper fell down.”

But what angered Mr D’Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. “There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything,” he said. “At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, ‘Shoot them, they’re sitting ducks!’ but they just didn’t shoot back.”

One police officer, one armed citizen who was willing to step up and fight back would have made a difference in Mumbai. That nobody did step up until it was already too late meant that at least 195 people died in Mumbai in the past few days. The Mumbai police need some very, very extensive retraining. Because this is not going to get any better in the short run.

Want A Five Percent Raise?

Become left handed. That’s the ticket to earning 5% more than right-handers, according to British researchers.

Left-handed boys underperform at school but enjoy greater financial success in later life than right-handers, studies suggest.

They appear to adapt well to life in a right-handed world and end up earning around 5 per cent more per hour.

Researchers from Bristol University and Imperial College London tracked 12,000 children from birth to 14 and found that left-handers were behind when they started school and in tests at 11 and 14.

And academics at University College Dublin, who studied 18,000 men and women in their thirties, found that left-handers earn £1,112 more per year, 5 per cent extra.

Around 10 per cent of people are left-handed, a phenomenon more common among men than women.

Until quite recently, left-handedness was seen as sinister, the Latin word for left. Some children were even forced to switch to their right side by their teachers or parents.

So start using those left hands, you right-handed folks! Of course, this advice will not work for those of you who are already left-handed. You could go demand a raise, though. Although that probably isn’t a winning strategy.

What this story does not address is those of us who were born ambidextrous. Which I was when I was younger. Drove my teachers completely crazy, that did. I’d pick up a pencil with whichever hand was closest and just go to town drawing or writing. They more or less forced me to use my right hand by about the third grade, however. Eventually, I stopped using the left – except that I shoot left handed. (That’s more a function of being blind in my right eye, at least with long guns. But I can shoot a pistol with either hand equally well.)

By the way, I rather suspect there is something else in play here, not just which hand is dominant. The story hints that some researchers feel that way as well.

Sandbagging

Remember the doom and gloom the media was reporting about how bad the holiday shopping season might be? The dire warnings? The whole sky is falling routine? Well, not only were there shoppers on Black Friday, but those shoppers spent money. Rather a lot of it. $10.6 billion in sales yesterday alone – up about 3% from last year.

The nation’s retailers got a much-needed sales boost during Black Friday’s traditional shopathon as consumers spent more money than they did last year.

According to preliminary data released Saturday, sales on the day after Thanksgiving rose to $10.61 billion.

This is somewhat better than the retail industry’s own prediction of 2.2% growth for the entire period. Get the feeling you’re being sandbagged by the media and the retailers?

Retail is a brutally hard business these days. Local stores essentially have to compete in a global market – tough for the large operators, brutal for the smaller ones. Even so, the retailers appear to be on track to do substantially better than the media would have you believe.

So, ask yourself: What else is being misreported by the media? What else are they sandbagging you about? The economy? The election just completed? The environment? Global warming?

If you answered all of the above you’re on the right track.

Myths Unravel

Another day, another media-generated Obama myth destroyed. This time it turns out that those hordes of small donors everybody knows contributed Obamoney to Obama in such huge numbers were actually not really there at all – at least not in the numbers that were touted. That is not to say that Obama’s fundraising was not impressive – obviously, it was. But the money from large contributers dwarfed the amount from small, individual donors. In fact, 80% of Obama’s money came from large donors, many of them multiple repeater donors.

The reported numbers show that Obama actually received 80% more money from large donors (those giving $1,000 or more total) than from small donors.

Through the Democratic National Convention, the Institute estimates, Obama received $119 million from genuine small donors, an impressive sum, to be sure.

But not as impressive as the $210 million he’d raised by then from bundlers and large donors.

“After a more thorough analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC),” the CFI study says, “it has become clear that repeaters and large donors were even more important for Obama than we or other analysts had fully appreciated.”

Expect the media to widely ignore this study by the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute. It doesn’t fit the narrative they want told. But truth will out. Just another item showing how far into the tank the media was for Obama. And a hint of how much damage that will do to them when people realize they were sold a bill of goods by the MSM.

Via Memeorandum

When Candy Canes Are Outlawed….

…Only outlaws will have candy canes. A California man fended off – nay, subdued – a knife-wielding attacker with a giant, plastic candy cane Christmas decoration.

A man using a candy cane lawn ornament fended off a knife-wielding neighbor who had been attacking holiday guests at a Sacramento home.

Police spokesman Sgt. Norm Leong says the man used the two-foot-tall plastic ornament to subdue the attacker until officers arrived.

He says the 49-year-old suspect became intoxicated, went over to a neighbor’s home on Thanksgiving and began waving a kitchen knife at people gathered on the lawn.

Representative Henry Waxman, D(emagogue) – California, immediately announced that he would hold hearings into the complicity of oil companies which may have supplied the polymers used in creating the giant candy cane. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for “Immediate, strong, common-sense regulation of these potentially lethal decorations.” Andrew Sullivan blamed the incident on Sarah Palin.

A Dismal Retail Season. Only $10 Billion More Than Last Year.

Seriously. CNN is reporting that the National Retail Federation is expecting only a 2.2% increase in sales over last year. A mere $470 billion. CNN also reports that stores were mobbed today. (Unfortunately, those mobs include one that trampled a man to death as they rushed headlong into a Wal-Mart to buy gifts and two people shot in a Toys-R-Us store.)

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Black Friday appeared to start strong this year, but analysts warned that the robust start to the critical holiday shopping period could fade as the weekend progressed.

“[Shoppers] know exactly what they want, where to shop for it and who has the best deals,” said Britt Beemer, retail analyst and chairman of America’s Research Group.

Based on this trend, the big difference this year from years past is that Beemer doesn’t expect people will deviate from their shopping lists.

That’s a problem for merchants who depend just as much on the impulse buy as they do on consumers’ shopping lists to get them off to a flying start on Black Friday.

The “dismal” shopping season will only yield $10 billion more in sales than last year for retailers if the NRF is correct. I did not have a camera with me today when my wife and I ventured out to get a few food items and one Christmas gift for my youngest son. But there was a line of cars more than a quarter mile long waiting to turn into one large mall. Traffic near the malls was brutal, much worse than normal for this area.

At some point, people have got to realize they are not being told the truth. An increase, even a modest 2% one, is not a disaster or an economic meltdown. Could it be a better economy? Of course. Is it the next Great Depression? Not hardly.

Although I am getting greatly depressed reading some of the news today. Today, the media doom and gloom yielded tragic consequences for some people. That is depressing. Greatly. The two links to the Black Friday mayhem come via Memeorandum.

The Stock Political Market

Charles Krauthammer points out what should be rather obvious by now: the stock market no longer functions as a stock market. Rather, it functions as a political market. The markets rise and fall now exclusively on political news, not market forces.

As economist Irwin Stelzer argues, we have gone from a market economy to a political economy. Consider seven days in November. On Tuesday, Nov. 18, Paulson broadly implies he’s only using half the $700 billion bailout money. Having already spent most of his $350 billion, he’s going to leave the rest to his successor. The message received on Wall Street — I’m done, I’m gone.

Facing the prospect of two months of political limbo, the market craters. Led by the banks (whose balance sheets did not change between Tuesday and Wednesday), the market sees the largest two-day drop in the S&P since 1933, not a very good year.

The next day (Friday) at 3 p.m., word leaks of Timothy Geithner’s impending nomination as Treasury secretary. The mere suggestion of continuity — and continued authoritative intervention during the interregnum by the guy who’d been working hand in glove with Paulson all along — sends the Dow up 500 points in one hour.

Monday sees another 400-point increase, the biggest two-day (percentage) rise since 1987. Why? Three political events: Paulson’s weekend Citigroup bailout; the official rollout of Obama’s economic team, Geithner and Larry Summers; and Paulson quietly walking back from his earlier de facto resignation by indicating he would be ready to use the remaining $350 billion (with Team Obama input) over the next two months.

That undid the market swoon — and dramatically demonstrated how politically driven the economy has become.

Political matters did, of course, always have some impact on the markets. But now that political news appears the only thing that raises and lowers the market. This should worry all Americans – in fact, it should worry the entire world. The fate of our economy – and that of the entire world – in the hands of a handful of politicians? With a 13% approval rating?

Companies succeeding or failing depending on the whim of politicians? Be afraid, people. This is not a good development.

On Hysteria – A Project For Readers

Victor Davis Hanson calls it “The Hysterical Style”. The endless yammering for an instant solution to the economic problems of today and the mindless calls for the overturning of the Constitution.

Politicians now predict the implosion of the U.S. auto industry. Headlines warn that the entire banking system is on the verge of utter collapse. The all-day/all-night cable news shows and op-ed columnists talk of another Dark Age on the horizon, as each day another corporation lines up for its me-too bailout.

News magazines depict President-Elect Obama as the new Franklin Delano Roosevelt, facing a crisis akin to the Great Depression. Columnists for the New York Times even dream that George Bush might just resign now to allow the savior Obama a two-month head start on his presidency.

We are witnessing a new hysterical style, in which the Baby Boomer “me generation” that now runs America jettisons knowledge of the past and daily proclaims that each new development requires both a radical solution and another bogeyman to blame for being mean or unfair to them.

How much of the hysteria is media hype? Probably quite a lot. Jobless claims fell last month. If the Detroit automakers were to actually have to restructure, life would go on. We have not suffered the actual economic disaster that followed the 1929 crash.

It is simply not as bad as the media is painting it. Remember, these folks have admitted to being in the tank for Obama. How much of this hysteria is purely manufactured to make Obama look better when he takes office? My wife went to the mall a couple of days ago and was shocked to see it packed with shoppers. She had heard media reports that things were awful in the retail sector and expected no crowds. Instead, she left shortly after arriving, frustrated by the horde of shoppers. She has vowed not to go out of the house at all tomorrow, Black Friday.

So, here’s an idea. Go out tomorrow with a camera and take a picture of your local mall’s parking lot. Send them here (A special mailbox named project1 at (this domain) has been set up just for this purpose. I intend to kill the email address after a few days.) with info on when and where you took the picture and I’ll post them. Take some pictures of your local restaurant parking lots as well. The only cure for disinformation is more – good – information.

Are there economic problems right now? Of course there are. Have they mostly been caused by the irresponsible who are now demanding our money to save them from their lousy decisions? Yep. Stop buying the hype and push back. Are you really willing to mortgage your children’s futures to pay bad businessmen huge payouts?

Terror In Mumbai

The Times of India is reporting that a final cleanup operation is underway to clean out terrorists holed up in the Taj and Trident hotels in Mumbai. The process is complicated by the fact that the terrorists are apparently holding hostages. There are also hotel guests who have locked themselves in their rooms, hiding from the attackers.

MUMBAI: As the battle against militants, who attacked prime multiple locations in Mumbai, raged on, Army today said it was preparing for a final assault to flush out the ultras holed up in the Taj hotel.

“NSG is here. They are carrying out a very deliberative operation. They are trained for it and are the best in the country. I have faith in them,” Major General R K Hooda, GOC, Maharashtra area told reporters here.

While the army will carry out the flushing-out operations in Taj hotel, the specialised commandos of the National Security guards and the Naval MARCOS will undertake operations at the Trident hotel, where it is believed that the terrorists are holding hostages.

Hooda, the seniormost Army General in Maharashtra, said operation clean-up at the Taj will start from the top floor and the personnel will carry out a room-to-room combing operation.

Reports indicate that the massive, coordinated attacks were especially aimed at American and British citizens staying in the luxury hotels. The situation in Mumbai is still very confused, with conflicting reports everywhere you look this morning. What we do know so far is that simultaneous attacks were carried out all across Mumbai. Terrorists have never shown this kind of coordination and discipline before. This is truly a game changer for India and for counter-terrorism worldwide. A whole new level of sophistication from terrorists is not a good thing at all.

The Telegraph is reporting 101 dead so far and another 280 wounded.

AllahPundit has a huge roundup.

The Last Thursday Of November Next

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America

And from some years before that proclamation:

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and Us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

October 3, 1789
George Washington, President of the United States of America

May you all have much to give thanks for in this and every year.

I Don’t Suppose This Will Get Any Attention In The Media

But at least the firmly in the Obama tank Politico reported on it. It’s a start. There is a growing consensus that there is no consensus on Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Climate change skeptics on Capitol Hill are quietly watching a growing accumulation of global cooling science and other findings that could signal that the science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.

While the new Obama administration promises aggressive, forward-thinking environmental policies, Weather Channel co-founder Joseph D’Aleo and other scientists are organizing lobbying efforts to take aim at the cap-and-trade bill that Democrats plan to unveil in January.

So far, members of Congress have not been keen to publicly back the global cooling theory. But both senators from Oklahoma, Republicans Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe, have often expressed doubts about how much of a role man-made emissions play.

“We want the debate to be about science, not fear and hypocrisy. We hope next year’s wave of new politics means a return to science,” said Coburn aide John Hart. “It’s the old kind of politics that doesn’t consider any dissenting opinions.”

The global cooling lobby’s challenge is enormous. Next year could be the unfriendliest yet for climate skeptics. Already, House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) has lost his gavel, in part because his peers felt he was less than serious about tackling global warming.

Dingell lost his job because he kept pointing out how expensive it would be to meet the AGW fanatic agenda. Losing his gavel does not change that fact, cap and trade will be a brutal blow to an already faltering American economy. (Not to mention that the stripping of the chairmanship may well turn Dingell to vote against the extremist agenda.)

We have already seen temperatures as far south as Florida plummet into the 20’s this year. I know there are a lot of politicians heavily invested in AGW – but they might be hearing a thing or two from their constituencies if they vote for cap and trade when the economy is already on the rocks – and the winter is brutal.

Via Memeorandum