Barack Obama is firmly on course to become a one-term president – Telegraph Blogs

Barack Obama is firmly on course to become a one-term president – Telegraph Blogs

America’s just not that into you, Mr President. The future still looks grim for Barack Obama – Telegraph Blogs

America’s just not that into you, Mr President. The future still looks grim for Barack Obama – Telegraph Blogs

A Survival Guide to Catastrophe

A Survival Guide to Catastrophe

Latest Gallup poll: Barack Obama gets another shellacking from the Tea Party – Telegraph Blogs

More awesomeness from Niles Gardiner of the UK Telegraph. (Why is it that it takes a Brit to see Obama for who he is so well?)

Latest Gallup poll: Barack Obama gets another shellacking from the Tea Party – Telegraph Blogs

The decline and fall of Barack Obama: five key factors that drove the midterm revolution – Telegraph Blogs

The decline and fall of Barack Obama: five key factors that drove the midterm revolution – Telegraph Blogs

How Do You Define "Delusional"?

One of the great things about liberals, and one of the keys that distinguishes them from normal people, is their ability to ignore reality.

Most rational people would think that the beat down that the voters handed the Dummycrats would serve as a wake up call, and that they'd be licking their wounds and trying to figure out what went wrong.

Well, fear not!  Liberals certainly are licking their wounds today, but their fierce resolve not to learn from their mistakes is unshakeable.  A few examples:

E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post says that Tuesday was merely a setback and not a defeat for "progressives".  Really?  I mean, really??!!  Please, Please, PLEASE keep thinking that way -- all the way 'till Nov. 2012. (In case you didn't know "progressive" is what libtards like to call themselves now.  They can't understand that "liberal" has such a bad connotation because of what it stands for and figure all they have to do is change the name and their ideology will somehow become palatable to normal people.)

In the New York Times, Democrat Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana says that the Dummycrats simply got out in front of the electorate -- they just moved too fast for the rubes.  It's no wonder what Sen. Bayh didn't run for re-election yesterday.  He probably got a great deal on an ice sales dealership up in Alaska and is off to make his fortune selling ice to Eskimos.

This meme is and will be repeated and reinforced by the rest of the lame stream media.  As insufferable as it is to have to listen to any of it, the good news is these idiots actually believe it.  So, don't try and educate them.  Don't help them see the light.  Let the libtards and their enablers in the media go right into the 2012 election telling themselves that, if Odumbo can just do a better job explaining his socialist agenda, the voters will come out in droves to re-elect him.  Afterwards, after they pick themselves up off the floor (again), they will stratch their heads and wonder at our obtusness and they recommence their delusional thinking that they just need to better communicate their message on the wonders of socialism.

The midterms may have saved a superpower: Americans say no to US decline

The midterms may have saved a superpower: Americans say no to US decline

"It's the Spending, Stupid."

There's a great song by the band My Morning Jacket called "The Way That He Sings".  I thought of it today after reading Dan Heninger's latest column in the WSJ.

It's not so much what Mr. Heninger says, but it's 'the way that he says it' that I like so much -- Heninger Rocks!

It's the Spending, Stupid
A chronic voter 'concern' has now exploded into a broad public movement.

By DANIEL HENNINGER

At a backyard town-hall meeting in Fairfax, Va., Monday, President Obama explained why Christine O'Donnell was going to beat Mike Castle in the GOP's Delaware Senate primary:

"They saw the Recovery Act," he said. "They saw TARP. They saw the auto bailout. And they look at these and think, 'God, all these huge numbers adding up.' So they're right to be concerned about that."

Of course Mr. Obama was speaking generally about the public mood. Let's call it his "generic" explanation for the current voter impulse to wipe out GOP incumbents now and Democrats in November.

Here's your bumper sticker for the 2010 elections: It's the Spending, Stupid.

And the president didn't mention the two $3 trillion-plus budgets passed on his watch or the trillion-dollar health-care entitlement. They, the voters, are not "concerned" about Uncle Sam's spending floating toward the moon. They are enraged, furious, crazed and desperate.

Pennsylvania's shrewd Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, scripting the new conventional wisdom, says the tea party movement supporting Christine O'Donnell, Sharron Angle in Nevada and Joe Miller in Alaska proves the GOP is in the grip of crazies. With luck, none of his audience will wake up from this delusion before November.

Back in April, the New York Times/CBS did a poll of tea party supporters. When asked, "What should be the goal of the Tea Party movement," 45% said, "Reduce federal government." That is, cut spending. Everything else was in single digits.

I'm convinced that beneath all the economic turbulence in the land is anxiety that's been building for years as public spending has continued to grow. What was a chronic "concern" has exploded this year into a broad public movement—in Washington, California, New York, New Jersey and indeed across Europe. This isn't "concern," Mr. President. It's a crisis.

Look at the astonishing numbers in the Rasmussen poll released last week. Nearly seven in 10 respondents (68%) want a smaller government, lower taxes and fewer services. The party breakdown: GOP, 88%; Democrats, 44%; and Other, 74%. In short, the independent voters who decide national elections have moved into the anti-spending column. I don't think they'll leave any time soon.

In a note on last week's poll, Rasmussen points out that the only time it recorded a higher shrink-the-government number, at 70%, was in August 2006. That was just ahead of the famous off-year election in which Republican voters withheld support for their party's free-spending members in Congress.

The Obama White House holds that the spending concerns Mr. Obama cited Monday—the stimulus, TARP, the auto bailout—were necessary. Whatever any individual merit in this stuff, it hit most voters at a moment when nearly any big government outlays were going to be written off as "more spending." When Mr. Obama said the health bill was "paid for," naturally polls showed that no one believed him. Why should they?

This loss of faith predates the Obama presidency.

I called Scott Rasmussen this week to discuss the roots of the anti-spending mood, and he suggested that the American electorate's desire for pushback against the growth in federal spending dates at least to 1992 and Ross Perot's third-party presidential bid, which drew 18.9% of the popular vote. Indeed, Mr. Rasmussen argues, you can find evidence of the turn in Jimmy Carter's "efficiency in government" efforts.

Until Barack Obama, the only Democrats who had a chance of winning the presidency were Southern governors with a reputation for fiscal moderation. But after Bill Clinton won the White House in 1992, he immediately tried to pass the mammoth health-care entitlement known as HillaryCare. After 17 acrimonious months, it died in August 1994. That November, voters gave control of the House to the GOP for the first time in 40 years. It was about more than Newt Gingrich's charm.

So this year the Democrats, who control Congress because of voter disgust with the Republicans in 2006, passed a health-care entitlement. And this year voters will transfer power back to the Republicans.

The most important and startling number in American politics today is Congress's approval rating: 23%. This is a no-confidence vote. The second branch of government is losing the country. Surely it's about the spending. What else? That Congress hasn't spent enough?

If voters give control of the House to the GOP, the party desperately needs to establish credibility on spending. Absent that, little else is possible. Independent voters now know that the national Democratic Party, hopelessly joined to the public-sector unions, will never stabilize public outlays.

In a sense, the GOP's impending victory is meaningless, a win by default. If the Republican rookies entering Congress next year don't do something identifiably real to stop the federal-spending balloon, voters two years from now will start throwing the GOP under the bus. Absent action, the political rage and cynicism on offer in 2012 could make this year's tea parties look like, well, a tea party.

Write to henninger@wsj.com

Denmark Mugged by Reality

Did you ever hear the saying: A Conservative is a Liberal who's been mugged by reality?  Well, what's true for people is also true for governments.

Salute the Danish Flag – it’s a Symbol of Western Freedom
by Susan MacAllen

In 1978-9 I was living and studying in Denmark.

But in 1978 – even in Copenhagen , one didn’t see Muslim immigrants. The Danish population embraced visitors, celebrated the exotic, went out of its way to protect each of its citizens. It was proud of its new brand of socialist liberalism – one in development since the conservatives had lost power in 1929 – a system where no worker had to struggle to survive, where one ultimately could count upon the state as in, perhaps, no other western nation at the time.

The rest of Europe saw the Scandinavians as free-thinking, progressive and infinitely generous in their welfare policies. Denmark boas ted low crime rates, devotion to the environment, a superior educational system and a history of humanitarianism.

Denmark was also most generous in its immigration policies – it offered the best welcome in Europe to the new immigrant: generous welfare payments from first arrival plus additional perks in transportation, housing and education. It was determined to set a world example for inclusiveness and multiculturalism. How could it have predicted that one day in 2005 a series of political cartoons in a newspaper would spark violence that would leave dozens dead in the streets – all because its commitment to multiculturalism would come back to bite?

By the 1990′s the growing urban Muslim population was obvious – and its unwillingness to integrate into Danish society was obvious. Years of immigrants had settled into Muslim-exclusive enclaves. As the Muslim leadership became more vocal about what they considered the decadence of Denmark ‘s liberal way of life, the Danes – once so welcoming – began to feel slighted. Many Danes had begun to see Islam as incompatible with their long-standing values: belief in personal liberty and free speech, in equality for women, in tolerance for other ethnic groups, and a deep pride in Danish heritage and history.

The New York Post in 2002 ran an article by Daniel Pipes and Lars Hedegaard, in which they forecasted accurately that the growing immigrant problem in Denmark would explode. In the article they reported:

“Muslim immigrants constitute 5 percent of the population but consume upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending.”

“Muslims are only 4 percent of Denmark’s 5.4 million people but make up a majority of the country’s convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims are non-Muslim. Similar, if lesser, disproportions are found in other crimes.”

“Over time, as Muslim immigrants increase in numbers, they wish less to mix with the indigenous population. A recent survey finds that only 5 percent of young Muslim immigrants would readily marry a Dane.”

“Forced marriages – promising a newborn daughter in Denmark to a male cousin in the home country, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death – are one problem”

“Muslim leaders openly declare their goal of introducing Islamic law once Denmark’s Muslim population grows large enough – a not-that-remote prospect. If present trends persist, one sociologist estimates, every third inhabitant of Denmark in 40 years will be Muslim.”

It is easy to understand why a growing number of Danes would feel that Muslim immigrants show little respect for Danish values and laws. An example is the phenomenon common to other European countries and the U.S.: some Muslims in Denmark who opted to leave the Muslim faith have been murdered in the name of Islam, while others hide in fear for their lives. Jews are also threatened and harassed openly by Muslim leaders in Denmark, a country where once Christian citizens worked to smuggle out nearly all of their 7,000 Jews by night to Sweden – before the Nazis could invade. I think of my Danish friend Elsa – who as a teenager had dreaded crossing the street to the bakery every morning under the eyes of occupying Nazi soldiers – and I wonder what she would say today.

In 2001, Denmark elected the most conservative government in some 70 years – one that had some decidedly non-generous ideas about liberal unfettered immigration. Today Denmark has the strictest immigration policies in Europe . ( Its effort to protect itself has been met with accusations of “racism” by liberal media across Europe – even as other governments struggle to right the social problems wrought by years of too-lax immigration.)

If you wish to become Danish, you must attend three years of language classes. You must pass a test on Denmark’s history, culture, and a Danish language test. You must live in Denmark for 7 years before applying for citizenship. You must demonstrate an intent to work, and have a job waiting. If you wish to bring a spouse into Denmark , you must both be over 24 years of age, and you won’t find it so easy anymore to move your friends and family to Denmark with you.

You will not be allowed to build a mosque in Copenhagen . Although your children have a choice of some 30 Arabic culture and language schools in Denmark , they will be strongly encouraged to assimilate to Danish society in ways that past immigrants weren’t.

In 2006, the Danish minister for employment, Claus Hjort Frederiksen, spoke publicly of the burden of Muslim immigrants on the Danish welfare system, and it was horrifying: the government’s welfare committee had calculated that if immigration from Third World countries were blocked, 75 percent of the cuts needed to sustain the huge welfare system in coming decades would be unnecessary. In other words, the welfare system as it existed was being exploited by immigrants to the point of eventually bankrupting the government. “We are simply forced to adopt a new policy on immigration. The calculations of the welfare committee are terrifying and show how unsuccessful the integration of immigrants has been up to now,” he said.

A large thorn in the side of Denmark ‘s imams is the Minister of Immigration and Integration, Rikke Hvilshoj. She makes no bones about the new policy toward immigration, “The number of foreigners coming to the country makes a difference,” Hvilshøj says, “There is an inverse correlation between how many come here and how well we can receive the foreigners that come.” And on Muslim immigrants needing to demonstrate a willingness to blend in, “In my view, Denmark should be a country with room for different cultures and religions. Some values, however, are more important than others. We refuse to question democracy, equal rights, and freedom of speech.”

Hvilshoj has paid a price for her show of backbone. Perhaps to test her resolve, the leading radical imam in Denmark, Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, demanded that the government pay blood money to the family of a Muslim who was murdered in a suburb of Copenhagen, stating that the family’s thirst for revenge could be thwarted for money. When Hvilshoj dismissed his demand, he argued that in Muslim culture the payment of retribution money was common, to which Hvilshoj replied that what is done in a Muslim country is not necessarily what is done in Denmark. The Muslim reply came soon after: her house was torched while she, her husband and children slept. All managed to escape unharmed, but she and her family were moved to a secret location and she and other ministers were assigned bodyguards for the first time – in a country where such murderous violence was once so scarce.

Her government has slid to the right, and her borders have tightened. Many believe that what happens in the next decade will determine whether Denmark survives as a bastion of good living, humane thinking and social responsibility, or whether it becomes a nation at civil war with supporters of Sharia law.

And meanwhile, Americans clamor for stricter immigration policies, and demand an end to state welfare programs that allow many immigrants to live on the public dole. As we in America look at the enclaves of Muslims amongst us, and see those who enter our shores too easily, dare live on our taxes, yet refuse to embrace our culture, respect our traditions, participate in our legal system, obey our laws, speak our language, appreciate our history . . we would do well to look to Denmark, and say a prayer for her future and for our own.

Susan MacAllen is a contributing editor for FamilySecurityMatters.org

"Cleaning My Gun"

Great song from my current favorite album.

"The eternal flame of Muslim outrage"
I'm really not too concerned about the latest flare up in Muslim violence about someone buring a Koran.  It's not that I think burning a Koran is a good idea, but if it wasn't this, Muslims would just find some other excuse to riot.  Michelle Malkin provides an excellent take down of the latest Muslim faux outrage.

The eternal flame of Muslim outrage

By Michelle Malkin  •  September 10, 2010 08:24 AM

The eternal flame of Muslim outrage
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

Shhhhhhh, we’re told. Don’t protest the Ground Zero mosque. Don’t burn a Koran. It’ll imperil the troops. It’ll inflame tensions. The “Muslim world” will “explode” if it does not get its way, warns sharia-peddling imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Pardon my national security-threatening impudence, but when is the “Muslim world” not ready to “explode”?

At the risk of provoking the ever-volatile Religion of Perpetual Outrage, let us count the little-noticed and forgotten ways.

Just a few months ago in Kashmir, faithful Muslims rioted over what they thought was a mosque depicted on underwear sold by street vendors. The mob shut down businesses and clashed with police over the blasphemous skivvies. But it turned out there was no need for Allah’s avengers to get their holy knickers in a bunch. The alleged mosque was actually a building resembling London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. A Kashmiri law enforcement official later concluded the protests were “premeditated and organized to vitiate the atmosphere.”



Indeed, art and graphics have an uncanny way of vitiating the Muslim world’s atmosphere. In 1994, Muslims threatened German supermodel Claudia Schiffer with death after she wore a Karl Lagerfeld-designed dress printed with a saying from the Koran. In 1997, outraged Muslims forced Nike to recall 800,000 shoes because they claimed the company’s “Air” logo looked like the Arabic script for “Allah.” In 1998, another conflagration spread over Unilever’s ice cream logo — which Muslims claimed looked like “Allah” if read upside-down and backward (can’t recall what they said it resembled if you viewed it with 3D glasses).

Even more explosively, in 2002, an al-Qaida-linked jihadist cell plotted to blow up Bologna, Italy’s Church of San Petronio because it displayed a 15th century fresco depicting Mohammed being tormented in the ninth circle of Hell. For years, Muslims had demanded that the art come down. Counterterrorism officials in Europe caught the would-be bombers on tape scouting out the church and exclaiming, “May Allah bring it all down. It will all come down.”



That same year, Nigerian Muslims stabbed, bludgeoned or burned to death 200 people in protest of the Miss World beauty pageant — which they considered an affront to Allah. They shouted, “Allahu Akbar!” And “Down with beauty!” And “Miss World is sin!” Contest organizers fled out of fear of inflaming further destruction. When Nigerian journalist Isioma Daniel joked that Mohammed would have approved of the pageant and that “in all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them,” her newspaper rushed to print three retractions and apologies in a row. It didn’t stop Muslim vigilantes from torching the newspaper’s offices. A fatwa was issued on Daniel’s life by a Nigerian official in the sharia-ruled state of Zamfara, who declared that “the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed. It is abiding on all Muslims wherever they are to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty.” Daniel fled to Norway.



In 2005, British Muslims got all hot and bothered over a Burger King ice cream cone container whose swirly-texted label resembled, you guessed it, the Arabic script for “Allah.” The restaurant chain yanked the product in a panic and prostrated itself before the Muslim world. But the fast-food dessert had already become a handy radical Islamic recruiting tool. Rashad Akhtar, a young British Muslim, told Harper’s Magazine how the ice cream caper had inspired him: “Even though it means nothing to some people and may mean nothing to some Muslims in this country, this is my jihad. I’m not going to rest until I find the person who is responsible. I’m going to bring this country down.”

In 2007, Muslims combusted again in Sudan after an infidel elementary school teacher innocently named a classroom teddy bear “Mohammed.” Protesters chanted, “Kill her, kill her by firing squad!” and “No tolerance — execution!” She was arrested, jailed and faced 40 lashes for blasphemy before being freed after eight days. Not wanting to cause further inflammation, the teacher rushed to apologize: “I have great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone, and I am sorry if I caused any distress.”

And who could forget the global Danish cartoon riots of 2006 (instigated by imams who toured Egypt stoking hysteria with faked anti-Islam comic strips)? From Afghanistan to Egypt to Lebanon to Libya, Pakistan, Turkey and in between, hundreds died under the pretext of protecting Mohammed from Western slight, and brave journalists who stood up to the madness were threatened with beheading. It wasn’t really about the cartoons at all, of course. Little-remembered is the fact that Muslim bullies were attempting to pressure Denmark over the International Atomic Energy Agency’s decision to report Iran to the UN Security Council for continuing with its nuclear research program. The chairmanship of the council was passing to Denmark at the time. Yes, it was just another in a long line of manufactured Muslim explosions that were, to borrow a useful phrase, “premeditated and organized to vitiate the atmosphere.”

When everything from sneakers to stuffed animals to comics to frescos to beauty queens to fast-food packaging to undies serves as dry tinder for Allah’s avengers, it’s a grand farce to feign concern about the recruitment effect of a few burnt Korans in the hands of a two-bit attention-seeker in Florida. The eternal flame of Muslim outrage was lit a long, long time ago.

"The Diva of Déjà Vu"

I am a big fan of Camile Paglia.  That may seem strange considering that I am a white, male, fiscal conservative, and uber-social conservative.  If you know Camile Paglia, she is none of those things -- she is far, far from me on just about every issue.

Nevertheless, I have tremendous respect for her and love to read her stuff.  Rather than try to explain why, I'll just mention what Jennifer Rubin said in a recent post in Commentary Contentions:

Liberals continually expect that conservatives will match the cartoonish image that the left has concocted. ...  I think the problem is this: liberals have more friends who are gay than friends who are conservative…  or evangelical… or gun owners.  They often accuse conservatives of living cloistered lives, but it is urban liberals who congregate in homogeneous communities ( e.g., San Francisco, West L.A.) and may live their entire lives without forming a serious relationship with anyone who doesn’t ascribe to their laundry list of inviolate truths (e.g., global warming is real, abortion-on-demand is sacred, government creates jobs).  They don’t much bother to understand conservatives’ rationales for their positions — so much easier to assume they are rooted in ignorance or bigotry.

 So, even though I mostly disagree with Camile, I think she is intelligent, articulate and, therefore, I am interested in her views and what she has to say. 

So, then, to get to the point, here is an excerpt of a tremendous article Camile has in tomorrow's London Sunday Times Magazine on how Lady GaGa represents, not the cutting edge of eroticisized music, but the tired, ersatz imitation of it -- and likely the end of the road for it (and no great loss either).

Lady Gaga and the death of sex
An erotic breaker of taboos or an asexual copycat? Camille Paglia, America's foremost cultural critic, demolishes an icon
Camille Paglia
Published: 12 September 2010

Lady Gaga is the first major star of the digital age.  Since her rise, she has remained almost continually on tour.  Hence, she is a moving target who has escaped serious scrutiny.  She is often pictured tottering down the street in some outlandish get-up and fright wig.  Most of what she has said about herself has not been independently corroborated… “Music is a lie”, “Art is a lie”, “Gaga is a lie”, and “I profusely lie” have been among Gaga’s pronouncements, but her fans swallow her line whole…

She constantly touts her symbiotic bond with her fans, the “little monsters”, who she inspires to “love themselves” as if they are damaged goods in need of her therapeutic repair.  “You’re a superstar, no matter who you are!” She earnestly tells them from the stage, while their cash ends up in her pockets.  She told a magazine with messianic fervour: “I love my fans more than any artist who has ever lived.”  She claims to have changed the lives of the disabled, thrilled by her jewelled parody crutches in the Paparazzi video.

Although she presents herself as the clarion voice of all the freaks and misfits of life, there is little evidence that she ever was one.  Her upbringing was comfortable and eventually affluent, and she attended the same upscale Manhattan private school as Paris and Nicky Hilton.  There is a monumental disconnect between Gaga’s melodramatic self-portrayal as a lonely, rebellious, marginalised artist and the powerful corporate apparatus that bankrolled her makeover and has steamrollered her songs into heavy rotation on radio stations everywhere.

For two years, I have spent an irritating amount of time trying to avoid Gaga’s catchy but depthless hits Lady Gaga is a manufactured personality, and a recent one at that.  Photos of Stefani Germanotta just a few years ago show a bubbly brunette with a glowing complexion.  The Gaga of world fame, however, with her heavy wigs and giant sunglasses (rudely worn during interviews) looks either simperingly doll-like or ghoulish, without a trace of spontaneity.  Every public appearance, even absurdly at airports where most celebrities want to pass incognito, has been lavishly scripted in advance with a flamboyant outfit and bizarre hairdo assembled by an invisible company of elves.

Furthermore, despite showing acres of pallid flesh in the fetish-bondage garb of urban prostitution, Gaga isn’t sexy at all – she’s like a gangly marionette or plasticised android.  How could a figure so calculated and artificial, so clinical and strangely antiseptic, so stripped of genuine eroticism have become the icon of her generation?  Can it be that Gaga represents the exhausted end of the sexual revolution?  In Gaga’s manic miming of persona after persona, over-conceptualised and claustrophobic, we may have reached the limit of an era…

Gaga has borrowed so heavily from Madonna (as in her latest video-Alejandro) that it must be asked, at what point does homage become theft?  However, the main point is that the young Madonna was on fire.  She was indeed the imperious Marlene Dietrich’s true heir.  For Gaga, sex is mainly decor and surface; she’s like a laminated piece of ersatz rococo furniture.  Alarmingly, Generation Gaga can’t tell the difference.  Is it the death of sex?  Perhaps the symbolic status that sex had for a century has gone kaput; that blazing trajectory is over…

Gaga seems comet-like, a stimulating burst of novelty, even though she is a ruthless recycler of other people’s work.  She is the diva of déjà vu.  Gaga has glibly appropriated from performers like Cher, Jane Fonda as Barbarella, Gwen Stefani and Pink, as well as from fashion muses like Isabella Blow and Daphne Guinness.  Drag queens, whom Gaga professes to admire, are usually far sexier in many of her over-the-top outfits than she is.

Peeping dourly through all that tat is Gaga’s limited range of facial expressions.  Her videos repeatedly thrust that blank, lugubrious face at the camera and us; it’s creepy and coercive.  Marlene and Madonna gave the impression, true or false, of being pansexual.  Gaga, for all her writhing and posturing, is asexual.  Going off to the gym in broad daylight, as Gaga recently did, dressed in a black bustier, fishnet stockings and stiletto heels isn’t sexy – it’s sexually dysfunctional.

Compare Gaga’s insipid songs, with their nursery-rhyme nonsense syllables, to the title and hypnotic refrain of the first Madonna song and video to bring her attention on MTV, Burning Up, with its elemental fire imagery and its then-shocking offer of fellatio.  In place of Madonna’s valiant life force, what we find in Gaga is a disturbing trend towards mutilation and death…

Gaga is in way over her head with her avant-garde pretensions…  She wants to have it both ways – to be hip and avant-garde and yet popular and universal, a practitioner of gung-ho “show biz”.  Most of her worshippers seem to have had little or no contact with such powerful performers as Tina Turner or Janis Joplin, with their huge personalities and deep wells of passion.

Generation Gaga doesn’t identify with powerful vocal styles because their own voices have atrophied: they communicate mutely via a constant stream of atomised, telegraphic text messages.  Gaga’s flat affect doesn’t bother them because they’re not attuned to facial expressions.

Gaga's fans are marooned in a global technocracy of fancy gadgets but emotional poverty.  Borderlines have been blurred between public and private: reality TV shows multiply, cell phone conversations blare everywhere; secrets are heedlessly blabbed on Facebook and Twitter. 

Which Side of the Fence are You On?

If you ever wondered which side of the fence you sit on, this is a great test!

If a Conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn’t buy one.
If a Liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns to be outlawed.    

If a Conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat.
If a Liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.    

If a Conservative is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.
If a Liberal is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.    

If a Conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.
A Liberal wants government to take care of him.    

If a Conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels.
Liberals demand that those with viewpoints they don’t like be suppressed or shut down.    

If a Conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.
A Liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.

If a Conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it..
A Liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.    

Newt on the "Religion of Peace"

Gingrich: No Cordoba at Ground Zero

July 21, 2010 6pm

There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.

The proposed "Cordoba House" overlooking the World Trade Center site – where a group of jihadists killed over 3000 Americans and destroyed one of our most famous landmarks - is a test of the timidity, passivity and historic ignorance of American elites. For example, most of them don’t understand that “Cordoba House” is a deliberately insulting term. It refers to Cordoba, Spain – the capital of Muslim conquerors who symbolized their victory over the Christian Spaniards by transforming a church there into the world’s third-largest mosque complex.

Today, some of the Mosque’s backers insist this term is being used to "symbolize interfaith cooperation" when, in fact, every Islamist in the world recognizes Cordoba as a symbol of Islamic conquest. It is a sign of their contempt for Americans and their confidence in our historic ignorance that they would deliberately insult us this way.

Those Islamists and their apologists who argue for "religious toleration" are arrogantly dishonest. They ignore the fact that more than 100 mosques already exist in New York City. Meanwhile, there are no churches or synagogues in all of Saudi Arabia. In fact no Christian or Jew can even enter Mecca.

And they lecture us about tolerance.

If the people behind the Cordoba House were serious about religious toleration, they would be imploring the Saudis, as fellow Muslims, to immediately open up Mecca to all and immediately announce their intention to allow non-Muslim houses of worship in the Kingdom. They should be asked by the news media if they would be willing to lead such a campaign.

We have not been able to rebuild the World Trade Center in nine years. Now we are being told a 13 story, $100 million megamosque will be built within a year overlooking the site of the most devastating surprise attack in American history.

Finally where is the money coming from? The people behind the Cordoba House refuse to reveal all their funding sources.

America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization. Sadly, too many of our elites are the willing apologists for those who would destroy them if they could.

No mosque.

No self deception.

No surrender.

The time to take a stand is now - at this site on this issue.

No, It's Not Santa Claus

From Glenn Beck's new news site, 'The Blaze':

Love-Sick California Doctor Dies in Slide Down Boyfriend’s Chimney

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (AP) — A doctor involved in an “on-again, off-again” relationship apparently tried to force her way into her boyfriend’s home by sliding down the chimney, police said Tuesday. Her decomposing body was found there three days later.

Dr. Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, first tried to get into the house with a shovel, then climbed a ladder to the roof last Wednesday night, removed the chimney cap and slid feet first down the flue, Bakersfield police Sgt. Mary DeGeare said.

While she was trying to break in, the man she was pursuing escaped unnoticed from another exit “to avoid a confrontation,” authorities said.

DeGeare said the two were in an “on-again, off-again” relationship.

The man’s identity was not revealed by police, but the man who resides in the home is William Moodie, 58.

“She made an unbelievable error in judgment and nobody understands why, and unfortunately she’s passed away,” Moodie told The Associated Press. “She had her issues — she had her demons — but I never lost my respect for her.”

Reached by telephone, Moodie did not dispute the police’s characterization of his relationship with Kotarac. He would not comment on the circumstances that led to her death, saying it was more important to focus on the good she did in life.

Moodie, who runs an engineering consulting firm, said Kotarac was a superb internist who often provided service and medication free of charge to her patients.

Kotarac apparently died in the chimney, but her body was not discovered until a house-sitter noticed a stench and fluids coming from the fireplace Saturday, according to a police statement. The house-sitter and her son investigated with a flashlight and found Kotarac dead, wedged about two feet above the top of the interior fireplace opening.

Firefighters spent five hours late Saturday dismantling the chimney and flue from outside the home to extract Kotarac’s body, DeGeare said.

Officials said Kotarac’s office staff reported her missing two days prior when she failed to show for work. Her car and belongings remained near the man’s house.

A cause of death has not been determined, and an autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday. Foul play is not suspected, though investigators have been looking into the incident as suspicious.

Contrasting the "Looters" versus the "Producers"

This Wasn't Ever Going to End Well

I read this in today's Daily Herald -- however, I'm still kind of skeptical that this is one of those urban legend jokes.  :-)


Waukegan Robbery Suspect Left Debit Card, Presciption Form At Scene
By Lee Filas | Daily Herald Staff

A woman suspected of holding up a Waukegan credit union this week wasn't exactly hard to find, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

After all, FBI officials said in court documents, Kimberly Ramirez, 42, of Waukegan, left several clues to her identity.  She dropped her debit card at the credit union during the robbery, used the back of a prescription form that had her name on it to write out a demand note [<-- this is my favorite part -- maybe next time she could use the back of one of her checks!], then paid someone more than $1,200 to drive her back to her apartment after stealing the money.

Ramirez was arrested by Waukegan police and FBI agents after allegedly stealing $11,362 from the Consumer Credit Union at 2750 Washington St., court documents said.

According to the documents, Ramirez entered the credit union at 12:57 p.m. Monday wearing a black hat, sunglasses, a black purse, a light-colored shirt and blue jeans.

She walked up to the teller and handed over a note demanding the money.

Ramirez continuously asked the teller if she was "pushing any buttons" behind the counter that could potentially sound an alarm.  During this questioning, Ramirez's debit card fell out of her purse, the documents said.

After collecting the money from the teller, Ramirez fled the credit union and approached a man driving a red vehicle in the parking lot.  After a quick discussion, the woman got into the vehicle and took off.

Police called to the scene picked up the debit card, as well as the note, which had Ramirez's prescription written on it, the documents said.

Lt. Ed Fitzgerald of the Waukegan Police Department said police arrived at Ramirez's apartment complex at about 1:35 p.m., just as she arrived at the building. [Wow, the cops almost beat her back to her home!]

Ramirez allowed police to search her apartment, and officers discovered $9,932, the black purse, sunglasses and the hat.

Simultaneously, Waukegan officers spotted the red vehicle near the apartment and the male driver was taken into custody, Fitzgerald said.  The driver told officers Ramirez paid him $1,235 for a ride from the bank.

Fitzgerald said after questioning the driver, it was determined he was not part of the robbery and charges were not filed.  He returned the money taken in the robbery.

Ramirez is currently out of jail because of medical issues and awaiting an as-yet undetermined court appearance, authorities said.

Unmasking the "Religion of Peace"

What Happened to Charlotte Church?

Boy, talk about a waste.  Charlotte Church's awesome song, 'Pie Jesu', just came up and played on my iPod.  


I had not heard that song in quite a while.  It is truly a beautiful interpretation of a great song.  She had such promise.  Unfortunately, she chose to throw it all away and embraced a debauched and dissipating lifestyle.

Wow, This Guy Gets It
probably because he's British :-)


The stunning decline of Barack Obama: 
10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in meltdown 
By Nile Gardiner | UK Telegraph | Last updated: August 12th, 2010

The last few weeks have been a nightmare for President Obama, in a summer of discontent in the United States which has deeply unsettled the ruling liberal elites, so much so that even the Left has begun to turn against the White House.  While the anti-establishment Tea Party movement has gained significant ground and is now a rising and powerful political force to be reckoned with, many of the president’s own supporters as well as independents are rapidly losing faith in Barack Obama, with open warfare breaking out between the White House and the left-wing of the Democratic Party.  While conservatism in America grows stronger by the day, the forces of liberalism are growing increasingly weaker and divided.

Against this backdrop, the president’s approval ratings have been sliding dramatically all summer, with the latest Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll of US voters dropping to minus 22 points, the lowest point so far for Barack Obama since taking office.  While just 24 per cent of American voters strongly approve of the president’s job performance, almost twice that number, 46 per cent, strongly disapprove.  According to Rasmussen, 65 per cent of voters believe the United States is going down the wrong track, including 70 per cent of independents.

The RealClearPolitics average of polls now has President Obama at over 50 per cent disapproval, a remarkably high figure for a president just 18 months into his first term.  Strikingly, the latest USA Today/Gallup survey has the President on just 41 per cent approval, with 53 per cent disapproving.

There are an array of reasons behind the stunning decline and political fall of President Obama, chief among them fears over the current state of the US economy, with widespread concern over high levels of unemployment, the unstable housing market, and above all the towering budget deficit.  Americans are increasingly rejecting President Obama’s big government solutions to America’s economic woes, which many fear will lead to the United States sharing the same fate as Greece.

Growing disillusionment with the Obama administration’s handling of the economy as well as health care and immigration has gone hand in hand with mounting unhappiness with the President’s aloof and imperial style of leadership, and a growing perception that he is out of touch with ordinary Americans, especially at a time of significant economic pain. Barack Obama’s striking absence of natural leadership ability (and blatant lack of experience) has played a big part in undermining his credibility with the US public, with his lacklustre handling of the Gulf oil spill coming under particularly intense fire.

On the national security and foreign policy front, President Obama has not fared any better. His leadership on the war in Afghanistan has been confused and at times lacking in conviction, and seemingly dictated by domestic political priorities rather than military and strategic goals. His overall foreign policy has been an appalling mess, with his flawed strategy of engagement of hostile regimes spectacularly backfiring. And as for the War on Terror, his administration has not even acknowledged it is fighting one.

Can it get any worse for President Obama? Undoubtedly yes. Here are 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in serious trouble, and why its prospects are unlikely to improve between now and the November mid-terms.

1. The Obama presidency is out of touch with the American people

In a previous post I noted how the Obama presidency increasingly resembles a modern-day Ancien Régime, extravagant, decaying and out of touch with ordinary Americans. The First Lady’s ill-conceived trip to Spain at a time of widespread economic hardship was symbolic of a White House that barely gives a second thought to public opinion on many issues, and frequently projects a distinctly elitist image. The “let them eat cake” approach didn’t play well over two centuries ago, and it won’t succeed today.

2. Most Americans don’t have confidence in the president’s leadership

This deficit of trust in Obama’s leadership is central to his decline. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, “nearly six in ten voters say they lack faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country”, and two thirds “say they are disillusioned with or angry about the way the federal government is working.” The poll showed that a staggering 58 per cent of Americans say they do not have confidence in the president’s decision-making, with just 42 per cent saying they do.

3. Obama fails to inspire

In contrast to the soaring rhetoric of his 2004 Convention speech in Boston which succeeded in impressing millions of television viewers at the time, America is no longer inspired by Barack Obama’s flat, monotonous and often dull presidential speeches and statements delivered via teleprompter. From his extraordinarily uninspiring Afghanistan speech at West Point to his flat State of the Union address, President Obama has failed to touch the heart of America. Even Jimmy Carter was more moving.

4. The United States is drowning in debt

The Congressional Budget Office Long-Term Budget Outlook offers a frightening picture of the scale of America’s national debt. Under its alternative fiscal scenario, the CBO projects that US debt could rise to 87 percent of GDP by 2020, 109 percent by 2025, and 185 percent in 2035. While much of Europe, led by Britain and Germany, are aggressively cutting their deficits, the Obama administration is actively growing America’s debt, and has no plan in place to avert a looming Greek-style financial crisis.

5. Obama’s Big Government message is falling flat

The relentless emphasis on bailouts and stimulus spending has done little to spur economic growth or create jobs, but has greatly advanced the power of the federal government in America. This is not an approach that is proving popular with the American public, and even most European governments have long ditched this tax and spend approach to saving their own economies.

6. Obama’s support for socialised health care is a huge political mistake

In an extraordinary act of political Harakiri, President Obama leant his full support to the hugely controversial, unpopular and divisive health care reform bill, with a monstrous price tag of $940 billion, whose repeal is now supported by 55 per cent of likely US voters. As I wrote at the time of its passing, the legislation is “a great leap forward by the United States towards a European-style vision of universal health care, which will only lead to soaring costs, higher taxes, and a surge in red tape for small businesses. This reckless legislation dramatically expands the power of the state over the lives of individuals, and could not be further from the vision of America’s founding fathers.”

7. Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill has been weak-kneed and indecisive

While much of the spilled oil in the Gulf has now been thankfully cleared up, the political damage for the White House will be long-lasting. Instead of showing real leadership on the matter by acing decisively and drawing upon offers of international support, the Obama administration settled on a more convenient strategy of relentlessly bashing an Anglo-American company while largely sitting on its hands. Significantly, a poll of Louisiana voters gave George W. Bush higher marks for his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with 62 percent disapproving of Obama’s performance on the Gulf oil spill.

8. US foreign policy is an embarrassing mess under the Obama administration

It is hard to think of a single foreign policy success for the Obama administration, but there have been plenty of missteps which have weakened American global power as well as the standing of the United States. The surrender to Moscow on Third Site missile defence, the failure to aggressively stand up to Iran’s nuclear programme, the decision to side with ousted Marxists in Honduras, the slap in the face for Great Britain over the Falklands, have all contributed to the image of a US administration completely out of its depth in international affairs. The Obama administration’s high risk strategy of appeasing America’s enemies while kicking traditional US allies has only succeeded in weakening the United States while strengthening her adversaries.

9. President Obama is muddled and confused on national security

From the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the War on Terror, President Obama’s leadership has often been muddled and confused. On Afghanistan he rightly sent tens of thousands of additional troops to the battlefield. At the same time however he bizarrely announced a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces beginning in July 2011, handing the initiative to the Taliban. On Iraq he has announced an end to combat operations and the withdrawal of all but 50,000 troops despite a recent upsurge in terrorist violence and political instability, and without the Iraqi military and police ready to take over. In addition he has ditched the concept of a War on Terror, replacing it with an Overseas Contingency Operation, hardly the right message to send in the midst of a long-war against Al-Qaeda.

10. Obama doesn’t believe in American greatness

Barack Obama has made it clear that he doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism, and has made apologising for his country into an art form. In a speech to the United Nations last September he stated that “no one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold.” It is difficult to see how a US president who holds these views and does not even accept America’s greatness in history can actually lead the world’s only superpower with force and conviction.

There is a distinctly Titanic-like feel to the Obama presidency and it’s not hard to see why. The most left-wing president in modern American history has tried to force a highly interventionist, government-driven agenda that runs counter to the principles of free enterprise, individual freedom, and limited government that have made the United States the greatest power in the world, and the freest nation on earth.

This, combined with weak leadership both at home and abroad against the backdrop of tremendous economic uncertainty in an increasingly dangerous world, has contributed to a spectacular political collapse for a president once thought to be invincible. America at its core remains a deeply conservative nation, which cherishes its traditions and founding principles. President Obama is increasingly out of step with the American people, by advancing policies that undermine the United States as a global power, while undercutting America’s deep-seated love for freedom.