Quote of the Day...

By James Taranto, in Best of the Web Today:

We'd say anyone who thinks that John Kerry's passion is the answer is asking the wrong question.

Oh, yes. Yes, they are.

Your Chance to Grade Obama...

CBS is currently running a poll to see what Americans think of Obama's performance.  Surprisingly they're allowing people to see the results (after taking the poll), and they ain't purty  Have your say, and see what your fellow Americans are thinking...

Dolphins...

My mom forwarded a video of a “dolphin stampede” in the Sea of Cortez.  I've seen such things myself, while in the U.S. Navy cruising in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.  A little searching on YouTube turned up this video taken off the coast of San Diego.  Wherever these “stampedes occur,” they're really something to watch...

Thank You, Mr. President...

My mom forwarded this letter to me (by email).  I did some poking around the inter-tubes, trying to locate its origin – this is the closest thing I could find, and I won't call it authoritative by any means.  But whatever the letter's provenance, it raises some interesting points (some of which I've raised myself on this blog).  The general point is that Obama's incompetence and socialist tilt have roused the ire of many Americans – which has already played out to the Democrat's sorrow (think Scott Brown), and looks like it will do even more so come this November...

Written by a 82 year old very wise lady. She gives us a whole new slant on the amazing job Obama is doing:

That is right - I will say it "(THANK GOD FOR THE PRESIDENT)."

1. He destroyed the Clinton Political Machine - Driving a stake thru the heart of Hillary's Presidential aspirations - something that no Republican was ever able to do. Remember when a Hillary Presidency scared the daylights out of you!

2. He killed off the Kennedy Dynasty - No more Kennedy's trolling Washington looking for booze and women wanting rides home. American women and Freedom are safer tonight!

3. He is destroying the Democratic Party before our eyes!

Dennis Moore had never lost a race - quit
Evan Bayh had never lost a race - quit
Byron Dorgan had never lost a race - quit
Harry Reid - soon to be GONE

These are just a handful of the Democrats whose political careers Obama has destroyed! By the end of 2010 dozens more will be gone.

In December of 2008 the Democrats were on the rise. In the last two election cycles they had picked up 14 senate seats and 52 house seats. The press was touting the death of the Conservative Movement and the Republican Party. In just one year, Obama put a stop to all of this and will probably give the house, if not the senate back to the Republicans.

4. He has completely exposed liberals and progressives for what they are. Every Generation seems to need to relearn the lesson on why they should never actually put liberals in charge. He is bringing home the lesson very well.

Liberals tax, borrow and spend - check
Liberals won't bring themselves to protect America - check
Liberals want to take over the economy - check
Liberals think they know what is best for everyone - check
Liberals aren't happy till they are running YOUR life - check

5. He has brought more Americans back to conservatism than anyone since Reagan. In one year he has rejuvenated the Conservative movement and brought out to the streets millions of Freedom Loving Americans. Name me one other time in your life that you saw your friends and neighbors this interested in taking back America !

6. His amazing leadership has sparked the greatest period of sales of firearms and ammunition this country has seen. Law abiding citizens have rallied and have provided a "stimulus" to the sporting goods field while other industries have failed, faded or moved off-shore.

7. In all honesty one year ago I was more afraid than I have been in my life. Not of the economy but of the direction our country was going. I thought Americans had forgotten what this country was all about. My neighbors, friends and strangers proved to me that my lack of confidence of the Greatness and Wisdom of the American people was flat wrong.

8. When the American People wake up no smooth talking teleprompter reader can fool them!

Barack Obama woke up these Great Americans! Again I want to say Thank You Barack Obama! This is exactly the kind of hope and change we desperately needed.

You can say what you want about the South,
but you never hear of anyone retiring and moving north.

Pelosi and the Voters...

Here's serial idiot Pelosi with another outrageously stupid pronouncement (this time, that unemployment benefits are the fastest way to create new jobs). 

But she's downright brilliant compared to the voters who have returned her to office every two years for the past 24 years. 

Laugh, and Cry...

Pretty much at the same time...

Scary Charts...

Calculated Risk puts these charts together each month when the government releases its employment reports.  The first chart (at right) is the scariest one.  It's comparing percentage job losses occurring during each of the post-WWII recessions.  The current recession's job losses are far deeper than any of them, and it appears likely that the deep losses are going to last much longer than any of them.  Not good, not good at all.

The dotted line at the end of the current recession's line shows something interesting – the job situation with the effects of the census-taker jobs removed. For the 2010 census the federal government hired almost 400,000 temporary workers – more than ten times the hiring in any previous census.  (Side note: the administration tried to justify this hiring as a stimulus measure – ludicrous given the temporary nature of the jobs – but almost certainly the real motivation was to distort the census numbers in a way that would favor Democratic-leaning regions.  According to some estimates, nearly 80% of the census-takers worked in districts that voted for Obama.)

The second graph (at left) is nearly as frightening as the first.  The red line shows the unemployment rate since 1960.  The only previous time we had more than a year of above-9% unemployment was in 1982-1983, for a year and a half.  I remember this period well; I was trying to get a little business started and times were very tough indeed.  We're clearly going to go over one year of above-9% unemployment again, and probably then some. 

But to some extent the books have been cooked: these days the official unemployment number is (in my opinion) artificially lowered by removing those people deemed to have stopped looking for work.  This month a half million people were removed from the unemployment number for that reason; without this ”adjustment” the number would have gone up.  I am very suspicious of arbitrary adjustments like this – it's something that cannot be directly measured, is therefore estimated, and is therefore subject to political pressure.  If these adjustments are removed from the current number (as they are for pre-2000 numbers), the current unemployment would be approximately 11.9% – and we would have been over 9% for 19 months right now.

My conclusion is that this recession is far deeper and broader than the government announcements would have us believe.  For political reasons the Obama administration is hiding the truth from us – at least until after the mid-term elections in November...