Marxism Tries to Make a Comeback by Misrepresenting the Data

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h/t: Breitbart TV

The Rahn Curve: How Much Government Spending Is Too Much for Economic Health

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h/t: Hot Air.com

Rep. Pete Stark Heaps Scorn on Citizens Asking for the Federal Government to Secure the Border

Stark is an elitist wiseass.


h/t: Breitbart TV

Fox Business: Breitbart on Russian Spies, Palin and the $100K Reward for ‘Journolist’

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h/t: Breitbart TV

Corelli - ‘Christmas Concerto’ in G Minor - Mov. 6-7/7

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Cavuto Interview of Christie, Part Two

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Cavuto Interviews Chris Christie, Part One

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Dvorak Cello Concerto -- Yo-Yo Ma

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SSatchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend

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‘Troopathon’ Featuring Co-Host Andrew Breitbart, Planned for Thursday, July 1st

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Haydn String Quartet op 76/3 'emperor' in C-major (mov 1/4) Allegro

This morning I listened to the Sanctus from Haydn's Little Organ Mass over at Pundit and Pundette. That got me thinking about how much beautiful music Haydn wrote and the fact that his music does not get as much attention as it deserves. So I decided to do something to redress that injustice.

Heather MacDonald - The Costs of Illegal Immigration

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VIDEO: ABC Embed Reports on Taliban Attack on a Squad of Marines

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h/t: Breitbart TV

Glenn Beck's Interview of Al and Tipper

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h/t: NewsBusters

Barbara Boxer Playing the Race Card

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Edelweiss - Julie Andrews

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Trapp Family sings ‘Old Black Joe’

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How Counterproductive Is the Obama Faux Stimulus?

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h/t: NewsBuster

Glenn Beck: America is on the wrong track

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Journalist Alleges that Obama Did Not Fully Understand the Implications of Implementing a ‘CounterInsurgency Strategy’

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h/t: NewsBusted

VIDEO: Malkin Says Interior Sec’y Salazar Manufactured Evidence to Pander to Enviro-Radicals

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h/t: Hot Air.com

An Administration in Free Fall: They Are Not Trusted

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Ann Coulter vs Juan Williams Financial Reform Bill looks like it was written by Hugo Chávez.

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Newly Discovered Vintage Film of VJ Day in Honolulu

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h/t: Breitbart TV

Andrew Breitbart: The Press That Hated Bush When He Did Manual Labor Loves Obama’s Leisure Time.

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h/t: Breitbart TV

Still No Proof of Racial Slurs from Tea Party Crowd on the Capitol Steps

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h/t: Breitbart TV

Sen Kyl: President Admitted He Purposely Doesn’t Secure Mexican Border;Wants it Open for Leverage

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h/t: Breitbart TV
I don't think any more is required for impeachment except for the election of a new congress.

Black Gold and Red Tape in the Gulf

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Say you have a rapidly advancing cancer? You can see a specialist in three or four years if we can get it approved by the Coast Guard and DHS.

Liz Stephans and Her Monkey

Liz was recently named the 11th sexiest girl on the right blogosphere. I think she might belong in the first five. Here she is with a little political commentary at the B Cast followed by the monkey she always closes the show with.

******************

Nurses and Meg Or Watch Out Meg, Alinsky Is Sneaking Up to Stab You in the Back

I became a licensed vocational nurse in 1978 and worked in hospitals in California from then until 2004. From my own experience I know that very few of the nurses who do direct patient care are members of the California Nurses Association. It is a political organization mainly of nurses in management. Membership is very often just a resume padder. If one wants to do direct patient care and has a history of having done direct care it is not necessary to pad the resume with such things. And in my experience with many nurses at many hospitals over the years I know that most of them are apolitical. But my main point is that such associations are often quoted as if they speak for nurses. They only speak for a few nurses (few in relation to the total number working in the field). I suspect that this bunch speaks mostly for the nurses employed by the state of California but not for California nurses over all.

Alan Simpson Schools a Lefty

Had not seen Al for some time. It's good to see he is still a master of clear talk.

h/t: Breitbart TV

Video: New Jersey Teachers Are ‘Sopranos’ to Chris Christie’s ‘G-Man’

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h/t: Stop the ACLU

VIDEO: The Truth about Gaza and the Flotilla

**********LANGUAGE ALERT**********

Maritime Martyrs from CJHS on Vimeo.

h/t: Lizified

Political Rorschach: If You Think Tax Cuts Are a Major Cause of Present Economic Crisis Then You're a Democrat (or of that Ilk)

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Newsweek Senior Editor Describes Obama as "Disconnected"

She might be right. If Obama feels that his executive fiat will merely cause difficulty for working men he is putting out of their jobs for six months then disconnected is a charitable assessment. We don't even have to look at the ripple effect to see the presidential disconnect. But I have to wonder if the man has ever heard of the ripple effect.

h/t: NewsBusted

Victor Davis Hanson's Reflections on Being Governed by a University Lecturer

Here are a number of quotes from the Pajamas Media piece by VDH titled 'Government by Faculty Lounge.'

We are being run by the mindset of the faculty lounge, as if the philosophy or English department has taken over running the country. Let me adduce some random examples.

Taxes

Tax proposals in haywire fashion are thrown out almost every day from various Obamians, as if at a faculty bull session over coffee. Can we count them all — much less can small businesses plan to hire a worker when they don’t know how much more they will shortly owe the government?

Here is what we hear from Barack Obama: a restoration of the death tax. Trial balloons for a national sales tax or a VAT. How high will capital gains hikes go? Rates are to go back to or beyond (?) the Clinton income tax schedules? Was the cap to come off income exposed to the full FICA bite, and was it to be set at $150,000, $200,000, or $250,000? What exactly is the new healthcare surcharge? And when and if these federal income hikes are added to the states’ raises in state income, property, and sales taxes, what will the aggregate tax bite be? Does anyone know? Do any of these guys care how “they” are going to make enough money to pay “us”?
………………….
RACE
……….
We had a green czar who claimed that whites pollute the ghetto and are more likely to be mass murderers. Our attorney general called the nation one of “cowards” for not holding racial conversations on his terms. He has no interest in trying Black Panthers who disrupted voting, but a great deal in trying the architect of 9/11 in a civilian courtroom, replete with Miranda rights, in Manhattan a few hundred yards from Ground Zero.

The Black Caucus, stung by serial charges against its members of corruption, wishes to prune back the House Ethics Committee as we now know it, presumably because it is “racist” as a bad messenger of inconvenient tidings.
………….
To suggest that the president should not have said “kick ass” or “bring a gun to a knife fight” or “get in their face” or “tear up” a talk show host is to traffic in anti-black stereotypes


.

Foreign Policy
…………
Recall the much ballyhooed trip to Turkey — why then the present Turkish response? The outreach to Syria and the missiles to Hezbollah — why did Assad do that after we were so nice? And why is not Mr. Putin appreciative of our kind words? Why does he not help us with the Iranian problem? Maybe all those new hundreds of millions of borrowed dollars to the Palestinians will at least change their opinion of us?


Who is a friend, who an enemy? Rule of thumb: if you liked the U.S. between 2001-8 (e.g., Britain, Colombia, the Czech Republic, India, Israel, Poland, the former Soviet republics), something was wrong with your illiberal, pro-Bush stance. But if you pretty much despised America (e.g., Cuba, Iran, Russia, Syria, Venezuela), then we sort of sympathize with your former antipathy (we shared it too), and so now want to reach out and expand our common ground.
………………
Lounge Wisdom

OK — Washington seems to run now along the logic of the faculty lounge. But let me explain the rules of Lala-Land. Some of you were not academics for 21 years. No problem, you can easily imagine what the worldview is on campus — given that after six years on the job you cannot be fired except for felony conviction (and even that is problematic). After tenure a failure to publish and awful teaching evaluations mean nothing. “Post-tenure review” has the teeth of a U.N. investigation.
…………………
Status is predicated on university affiliations, the more Ivy League the better; an Ohio State professor with 10 successful books is always judged a failure in comparison to a brilliant Princeton professor with two “seminal” articles. The more one covets academic status, the more one deplores the unfair social divides in America.

Money is as despised in the abstract as it is pursued in the concrete. No one has run a business, worked much in dead-end, physical labor, or felt economic disaster when the economy went south. Tragedy instead for those who make it on the academic gravy train is the absence of an automatic pay increase, a refused sabbatical, or a hiring freeze. Academics damn Wal-Mart’s exploitation, but count on part-timers to work for a third of their own salaries for the same work — and thereby subsidize their own aristocratic perks. The PhD is felt the equivalent of an MD or MBA, and so leisured contemplation focuses on why less well spoken doctors and CEOs cruelly and so unfairly make so much more than far smarter professors.
…………
Foreigners were usually smarter than Americans, mostly because they took the train and were without a Ram pickup in their garages. Fright surrounded things like flipping back the circuit breaker or unplugging the sewer line under the house; more mysterious were the grubby folk who didn’t eat arugula and were called in to conjure up a fix to these bothersome distractions.

Ambiguity in speech, not clarity was preferred; the ability to adduce ten different points of view was always considered superior to deciding on one. Tantrums, the occasional obscenity, the knife-in-the-back memo always assumed a sort of rule that such rascality never earned a punch in the face; the art was to be as cruel as possible without resort to violence. Yet when gut-check time came to vote openly yes or no and take the consequences, most voted present by skipping out or abstaining.
…………
The white male Midwestern student without money or connections was to be pitied and ignored as a loser as much as was the discriminated black student of the 1940s and 1950s. The more constructed identities the better — I remember the female, gay, half-black administrator achieving a rare “threefer” and soaring through the state university system cursus honorum.

Comment of the Day

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Around here we call the SEIU the Purple People Beaters.
pseudonominus on June 17, 2010 at 1:30 PM



from Hot Air.com

Barges Skimming Oil out of Water in Gulf Inactivated by Coast Guard While They Confirm Presence of a Sufficient Number of Life Jackets

********************
***AMAZING BUT TRUE***FUN FACTS ABOUT THE OBAMA CIRCUS***IT'S EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF AS MR. CHICAGO POLITICS PARTIES ON, GOLFS AND LAUGHS AT THE RUBES***
************************************************************************
I came across this story at Hot Air.com.
First three short quotes from an ABC account and then a video from ABC.

Sixteen barges sat stationary today, although they were sucking up thousands of gallons of BP's oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk.
………………..
"The Coast Guard came and shut them down," Jindal said. "You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, 'Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil.'"
……………….
But the Coast Guard ordered the stoppage because of reasons that Jindal found frustrating. The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges.


I will finish with some good comments from Hot Air readers about the story.

Sometime in 2014….
Patient: I need a doctor fast, I’m bleeding to death.
Nurse: Not so fast. According to paragraph 478, subjection 28.a of ObamaCare, we need to first make sure you have had enough vitamin C and vitamin D this morning with your breakfast.
angryed on June 17, 2010 at 8:40 PM


The way BO is acting, it looks like he doesn’t care about 2012 which seems very suspicious…as if he/they have an agenda to take entire control before then.
Otherwise, he’s an idiot.
You decide.
JayJay123 on June 17, 2010 at 8:43 PM

COVERUP!
Oh crap, now I’m a bigot.
Ian on June 17, 2010 at 8:44 PM

Attention, anyone dumb enough to think they care about us…
THEY. DON’T.
Not only do they not care, they will actively work AGAINST you caring for yourself:
Exhibit 1: All Gulf States.
Exhibit 2: Arizona.
Exhibit 3: Tennessee
The “government” no longer represents us… How much more proof do you need?
UnderstandingisPower on June 17, 2010 at 8:46 PM

Bobby Jindal – the thinking person’s Obama.
Jealous much Barry?
RobCon on June 17, 2010 at 8:48 PM

I think we need to set up another commission to review the findings of a blue ribbon panel that is reviewing the current discussions and findings of the sixteen individual bureaucracies charged to review each federal, state, and local level of response that keeps the blame away from Obowma…
Seven Percent Solution on June 17, 2010 at 9:03 PM

Sheriff in AZ States that Obama Has Ceded an 80 Mile Strip of the Border to Armed Drug Gangs

I do not think this has been covered in the MSM. Certainly no member of the press has publicly questioned Obama or Napolitano about it. If the situation is as reported by this sheriff, it sounds like gross dereliction of duty. And it is such a bizarro world scene: it seems to be cool with Obama for foreigners here only to break the law to carry weapons but he is very uncomfortable with a law abiding American citizen having a weapon. I can't quite get my mind around the moral nuances involved in this little nightmare. I wonder if this is all a part of creating that future whose looks he cannot picture. I live in Southern California and I am beginning to wonder if Obama will give us ample warning before he gives us back to Mexico. Strangely the FEC did not look into the sources of the nearly billion dollars in campaign funds Obama received. I have to wonder how much of it was a down payment on our South West from Mexico.


h/t: Carol's Closet via Pundit and Pundette

Sen. Jeff Sessions Speaks about Kagan Attacking US Military while Taking Money from Saudi Arabia

There is not much to say about her legal or judicial experience since she has little of either.

h/t: Hot Air.com

World's Laziest Cat

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‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ by W.H. Auden

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crossposted at The Chinese Jar

STEWART TO OBAMA: YOU LIE!

So most liberals require 18 months of a war they never liked, continued assaults on basic civil rights and a few million barrels of oil to take their heads out of the sand.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Respect My Authoritah
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

h/t: Breitbart TV

Retro Promo for 1957 NBC Saturday Primetime Line-Up

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Blagojevich Corruption Trial Day 9

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h/t: Breitbart TV

New Republican Attack Ad

Has the RNC finally grown a pair? I don't know. Judging by past experience I would guess that they will soon get over this phase and return to selling out all principles on some baseless hope that Chris Matthews might slander them a little less.

h/t: Hot Air.com

Bing Crosby - 'Swinging on a Star'

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Runner Up Comment of the Day

Blah, blah, blah!

Wed, 06/16/2010 - 17:47 ET by Newsbubba
Talking heads can slice and dice this any way they want, and they still won't land on the truth.  BP just handed Obama $20 billion for him to dole out to ACORN and SEIU. They, in turn, can use the funds to buy all the votes he needs in the next couple of elections. 
Some people are going to get very rich on this latest "Chicago Way.”


from NewsBusted

Chris Christie Sees the Chickens Coming Home to Roost: Christie's American dream vs Obama's

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h/t: Pundit and Pundette

Comment of the Day

"No one questioned our ability to produce planes and tanks in World War II. We had already opened mass production lines as part of the Lend-Lease program, which had started nine months earlier. The US was already known as “the arsenal of democracy,” a status promised to the British and Soviets by FDR in a public speech from almost a year prior to Pearl Harbor."
Barack Obama Harvard Graduate – strong B+ giggle.
Dr Evil on June 16, 2010 at 8:10 AM

from Hot Air.com

VIDEO: Barnicle Says We Need Leadership on This; Mika Says You Can't Talk Like That On Morning TV

Tina Brown claims Mika has emasculated Mike.

h/t: The Other McCain

Edith Piaf - Autumn Leaves

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Muslims Stage Protest Against British Troops Returning from Afghanistan

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‘To My Valentine’ by Ogden Nash

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Comment of the Day

[This was written in reference to General Petraeus passing out while being questioned by a senate committee/]



RINO breath will have that effect on a patriot!
csdeven on June 15, 2010 at 11:50 AM


from Hot Air.com

Sports Writing in the New Yorker

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Barack did gyre and gimble in the wabe as, “he rose to power through political poetry.”

The line about political poetry is mostly a throw away line in this clip from Morning Joe. The main focus of the clip is the Gulf oil spill and our changing relations with Great Britain. Ten years from now the reference to 'political poetry' will only be laughed at.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

h/t: NewsBusters

Remember When the Press Encased Obama in Teflon?

This first aired May 11, 2009.

Ray Stevens - Throw the Bums Out

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‘About my Very Tortured Friend, Peter’ by Charles Bukowski

I think Bukowski is over rated. Though I cannot deny that I enjoy reading both his short stories and his poetry. His style is pleasant, simple and easy to take. Reading Bukowski is freeing, even therapeutic. To read him you must enter his world. He is someone who says, "I will live my way regardless of the consequences. If I feel like staying drunk for three weeks I will. If that means that I end up spending thirty days in jail for disorderly conduct, so be it." There is a part of me that wants to say and do what Bukowski did all his life. Reading his writing allows me to let off some of that negativity vicariously without suffering many of the consequences that Bukowski could not escape.
Bukowski is a sort of American cousin of François Villon, Arthur Rimbaud and Jean Genet.

VIDEO: HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE PROTEST AGAINST THE ISLAMIC SUPREMACIST MEGA MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO: "NOT NOT, NOT EVER"

I love Pamela Gellar because she is so passionate and energetic about what she believes. Her commitment to liberty, truth, reason and Israel expresses itself in endless activity.

‘Chi il bel sogno di Doretta’ Kiri Te Kanawa

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Chain of Command

This is paragraph from Thomas Macaulay's essay reviewing Hallam's history of England. They are remarks about the situation at the beginning of the complete between Charles I and the Long Parliament that ended in the Civil War. The painting by a William Shakespeare is titled, 'The Wounded Cavalier'.


But the great security, the security without which every other
would have been insufficient, was the power of the sword. This
both parties thoroughly understood. The Parliament insisted on
having the command of the militia and the direction of the Irish
war. "By God, not for an hour!" exclaimed the King. "Keep the
militia," said the Queen, after the defeat of the royal party.
"Keep the militia; that will bring back everything." That, by the
old constitution, no military authority was lodged in the
Parliament, Mr. Hallam has clearly shown. That it is a species of
authority which ought, not to be permanently lodged in large and
divided assemblies, must, we think in fairness be conceded.
Opposition, publicity, long discussion, frequent compromise;
these are the characteristics of the proceedings of such
assemblies. Unity, secrecy, decision, are the qualities which
military arrangements require. There were, therefore, serious
objections to the proposition of the Houses on this subject. But,
on the other hand, to trust such a King, at such a crisis, with
the very weapon which, in hands less dangerous, had destroyed so
many free constitutions, would have been the extreme of rashness.
The jealousy with which the oligarchy of Venice and the States of
Holland regarded their generals and armies induced them
perpetually to interfere in matters of which they were
incompetent to judge. This policy secured them against military
usurpation, but placed them, under great disadvantages in war.
The uncontrolled power which the King of France exercised over
his troops enabled him to conquer his enemies, but enabled him
also to oppress his people. Was there any intermediate course?
None, we confess altogether free from objection. But on the
whole, we conceive that the best measure would have been that
which the Parliament over and over proposed, namely, that for a
limited time the power of the sword should be left to the two
Houses, and that it should revert to the Crown when the
constitution should be firmly established, and when the new
securities of freedom should be so far strengthened by
prescription that it would be difficult to employ even a standing
army for the purpose of subverting them.

"My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning

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Cross posted at The Chinese Jar

Pelosi's New Office: It's One Third Larger but Inexplicably Costs Four Times As Much as the Old Office

From Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.com:
"Actually, all she got was a one-third increase in floor space.  Pelosi accepted a 300% increase in rent for 33% more space.  That certainly fits with a Democratic Congress that has increased annual federal spending by 33% in three years while providing worse service and running up massive amounts of debt.
"Her office also claims that the new building will save on energy costs.  In other words, because of the building’s “green” profile, it will use about half the amount of energy as the old building.  So taxpayers will pay four times as  much in rent in order to save half off the electrical bill.  That also sounds like the kind of economics that Democrats have used since assuming power in 2007."

Elton John - ‘Bennie and the Jets’

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Stranger in a Strange Land: RABBI WHO CAUGHT HELEN THOMAS ON VIDEO REEVALUATING HIS LIBERAL POLITICS

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h/t: Breitbart TV

Bipartisanship

Ed Morrissey wrote today at Hot Air:

"Here in Minnesota, we’re accustomed to the progressive definition of “bipartisanship.”  As my NARN radio partner Mitch Berg often points out, it usually means a Republican who supports higher taxes, spending increases, and criticizing everyone who opposes either or both.  We call those folks “Arne Carlson Republicans,” or “Democrats” for short.  Put another way, with apologies to Laura Ingraham, it’s the “shut up and spend” kind of bipartisanship."

Beethoven : Sonata N° 32, II

This completes this piano sonata. It was the only one that Beethoven composed that contained only two movements. Maurizio Pollini is playing.

Beethoven Piano Sonata No.32, 1st. Mov

Played by Maurizio  Pollini.

 

Conservative Women vs. Liberal Women

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GULF OIL SPILL FLYOVER: Takes You Up Close

Gives another view of exactly what is going on down there. Unfortunately it is narrated by a self-proclaimed conservationist who goes into a long holier-than-thou fit of sermonizing. Nowhere does he explain why I should pay any attention to him. And I have to wonder how strong a grasp he has on the issues when he plainly has no clue how to replace the energy gained from off shore drilling. Saying we need to find alternative sources of energy only prolongs the state of denial about the problem.

h/t: Breitbart TV

Chopin Etiude in E major Tristesse violin

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CLINTON LIBRARY WITHHOLDING KAGAN DOCUMENTS

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h/t: Breitbart TV

CHAVEZ ISSUES ARREST WARRANT FOR OWNER OF OPPOSITION TV STATION

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h/t: Breitbart TV

‘Fern Hill’ Read by Dylan Thomas

". . . the owls were bearing the farm away. . ."

cross posted at The Chinese Jar

Old Greg-alogue

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h/t: Ann Coulter.com

MORE LEFT-WING VIOLENCE AT PEACEFUL TEA PARTY PROTESTS

This took place at Greensboro, North Carolina last week.

h/t: Breitbart TV

Comment of the Day

ObamaCare is made from people!
The Ugly American on June 11, 2010 at 7:01 PM

from Hot Air

Mozart Symphony #40 in G Minor, 1. Molto Allegro

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Education Revolt in Watts narrated by Drew Carey.

This video is two years old but still worth watching.


h/t: Reason TV via baldilocks

Agenda Driven Diversity

from Diversity Lane

VIDEO: Gaza on YouTube

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h/t: Boudica BPI Weblog

Transparency Watch and Louisianans' Complicated Relationship with BP

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One can only hope that they will spend more time and energy on the clean up than on trying to manage the press coverage

Sarah Chang - Chopin Nocturne Violin

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Questions Remain about Rahm Emanuel and Blagojevich

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Rudyard Kipling Reads 'If'

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Of Mosques and Men-- Reflections on the Ground Zero Mosque

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h/t: JO-JOE POLITICO

Diana Krall 'Don't Go Changing'

******************************

Comment of the Day

Lets send buckets filled with sand to the White House, one for each Cabinet member and advisor.
Painted on the side of each bucket will be:
“In case of emergency, put head in here”
BobMbx on June 9, 2010 at 11:11 AM

from Hot Air

‘The Whiffenpoof Song’ Rudy Vallee, 1927

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VIDEO Jon Stewart launches ‘AssQuest 2010’

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The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Ass Quest 2010
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

h/t: Hot Air

Doublethink and Doubletalk

.


h/t: theblogprof A blog about politics, faith, science and technology, physical fitness, and life via Pundit and Pundette

Al Jolson - Brother can you spare a Dime

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Rudyard Kipling - ‘Tommy’

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Billie Holiday - ‘You Go To My Head’

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The Reductio Ad Absurdum of the the Open Borders Position

This caller might be a little extreme but her argument is basically what all advocates of open borders for the US rest upon: burying their heads in the sand and refusing to acknowledge or consider that there might be unpleasant or even unacceptable consequences to leaving the door wide open at all hours to anyone. As Condell says, "It's easy to be tolerant at someone else's expense." In Arizona there has been a bloody increase in murders and kidnappings because of the open border. It is difficult to take serious anyone who will look at the very unpleasant consequences of their approach and just smile and say, "So what. I just want to do things my way regardless of the consequences to anyone." Some political opinions are just too absurd for serious consideration. The open borders opinion is wide spread and patently absurd.

h/t: Fuzzy Logic

************************************
I think supporters of a traditional border are missing out by not making public safety the center of the discussion. I know that there are limits to how much control the safe border side has over what is reported by the MSM. And the safe borders faction has no one natural leader. But I do not see how discussion about the history of borders and the nation state move things forward very far.

Linda Ronstadt – ‘Long, Long Time’

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Relief Wells and Shrimpers, the All New Getty, Coffee with Jenny Z. and Illuminated Insights into the Infinite

I talked to my father yesterday. His whole working life after college he was a petroleum engineer. He has a degree in engineering from Cal Poly SLO. I had been wanting to ask him if there is something that I'm missing about that oil spill in the gulf. My impression is that the main difficulties are the great depth and the high pressure forcing the oil out of the well. It is not so easy and quick to work at five thousand feet.
I had been under the impressure that the relief well would just go into the under ground oil resevoir and that would relieve the pressure. But Dad said that the relief well goes directly into the existing pipe that runs from the resevoir to the surface. And once that is done properly they will probably be able to completely cap off the whole thing. At the bottom I am placing a video of Rachel Maddow explaining the situation since she has done a lot of research. She does not get wacky or over the top. But she does communicate the basics of the situation well.
Dad said that something was going wrong on the drilling platform for a while before the spill began. I took that to mean that there was some techinical and/or mechanical complication unraveling that was not being managed well. I'm pretty sure that is what he meant but I will to follow up with him to be sure,
My father has been living in northern Louisiana (almost up to Shreveport) for a few years now. My brother-in-law in that area, John, was born a few miles from where he and my father and my younger sister now live. John has a brother-in-law who is a Gulf shrimper. The shrimper guy has one employee but neither of them has had any income for a while and do not know when they will be able to set their nets out again. BP got all of the out of work shrimpers together and gave all the ship owners $5000 a piece and all of the hands $2500 each. But this is not even one tenth of a year's income from their work. This kind of thing will have a ripple effect on what has always been one of our poorer states.
My Dad has his own blog where he writes about his own little world in rural Lousiana. He puts lots of photos on the site. I like to read it because it gives me more context for the things he tells me about his life on the phone (I live in Southern California -- south Orange County, near the beach). Dad calls his blog The Prune Picker. Just click to see some of the South.

After talking to my father I was excited because we talked about him coming to visit me this summer. The excitement flows from the fact that we are planning a trip to the new Getty Museum in Los Angeles. I do not get out much so this has me excited. I am disabled from a spinal injury and can only walk short distanes and I need a cane to keep my balance. I cannot ride on a bus because my balance and coordination are poor. So I spend most of my time in my apartment with the internet and books and movies. Actually the solitary life is what I generally prefer so this is easier on me than it would be on some people. I sometimes have to force myself to keep in touch with others because I know that one slowly goes crazier and becomes even weirder than me if deprived of live real time human contact. There are a few people I talk to regularly on the phone. A couple of weeks ago I went out to coffee with a nurse I used to work with many years ago. I always enjoy talking to this girl. Her name is Jenny Z. and coffee with her is always a bright day for me just as I expect the trip to the museum to be.
I went to the old Getty in Santa Monica about fifteen years ago. It was an exciting experience for someone like me who would usually just stay home and read or watch movies. Walking right in the front door there was a monstrous twenty foot high Canaletto. It was there with many other paintings I had seen and enjoyed in books for decades. But I was not able to look in front of me because far off to the right was a big Van Gogh who vibrant colors commander and controled my eyes even in the midst of so much other beauty. I mainly made this trip all the way to Santa Monica from south Orange to see the exhibit of illuminated Medieval manuscripts that the Getty owns and had on display. Ever since I was a kid I had enjoyed the Medieval miniature decorative style that I had seen frequently in books. Since I read a lot of history and a fair amount about Christianity I ran across many of these instances of beauty that tend recommend themselves because they deal in insights into the Divine, the human soul and the infinite behind the finite. The reproductions in books do not even begin to do justice to the manuscripts themselves. The artists that created the manuscripts made their own paints from organic and other sources all around them. And these half a millenium old paints outshime anything that modern book publishers are able to do. I checked the Getty's schedule yesterday and saw that some of those manuspripts will be on display at the time of our intended visit. They will also have an exhibit of paintings by Jean Leon Gerome who did many, many paintings of the late 19th century Muslim world, especially Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. He also did many themes from the classical world and there are a few subjects from French history. The one painting by Gerome that I found most stirred my memory is his Duel after a Masquerade Ball which I've reproduced above.

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Keynesian economist Jeffrey Sachs Feels on the Obama Stimulus that Poor Planning Gets You A Poor Plan

And in our present case a poor plan gets you many more unemployed for longer. "The stimulus was not really well thought out to take us out of the mess. . . . . maybe we are going into that double dip." It is pointed out that the those in the White House don't really even understand Keynesianism.

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h/t: Hot Air

The Roaring Twenties

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Flappers


The Jazz Age 1920's


Roxie Dancing --- I think that in the 1920s this would have been considered sexy and risqué. Today it is of more interest as a sociological and historical record.