Stand with Arizona!

Next Saturday, June 5th, show your support for our 'Zonie neighbors by attending a rally downtown.

Temple of Mut has the details, here.

Memorial Day 2010

Memorial Day is an occasion of special importance to all Americans, because it is a day sacred to the memory of all those Americans who made the supreme sacrifice for the liberties we enjoy. We will never forget or fail to honor these heroes to whom we owe so much. We honor them best when we resolve to cherish and defend the liberties for which they gave their lives. Let us resolve to do all in our power to assure the survival and the success of liberty so that our children and their children for generations to come can live in an America in which freedom’s light continues to shine.
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The defense of peace, like the defense of liberty, requires more than lip service. It requires vigilance, military strength, and the willingness to take risks and to make sacrifices. The surest guarantor of both peace and liberty is our unflinching resolve to defend that which has been purchased for us by our fallen heroes.
On Memorial Day, let us pray for peace — not only for ourselves, but for all those who seek freedom and justice.

- Ronald Reagan, 1986

Acta non verba*

So, just what is the job of the President of the United States? Ask him.

My job right now is just to make sure that everybody in the Gulf understands this is what I wake up to in the morning and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about: the spill.

Terrific. He's thinking. And that is precisely the answer one would expect from a person who has spent nearly his entire adult life in the thinking realm of academia and in that same time span was never required to lead or accomplish anything of merit.

His job is to make sure everyone knows he is thinking about the oil spill? It should be completely obvious by now and in that single statement, that Barack Obama is completely in over his head and is no way, shape or form prepared for this job.





* The title of the post was the motto of our Seminary.

Order of the day (UPDATED)

We squeezed in some yard work but its time to get down to the heavy-lifting of getting ready for college football and seeing how badly Rolling Stone screwed-up this list.

First blush: We won't give anything away but Rolling Stone being Rolling Stone, they put the Beatles nihilistic/socialist piece of garbage, "Imagine" at #3.





(UPDATE #1): Liberated from the comments, KT shares this about the worst song ever written:

How John Lennon should have sung the song, if he had possessed even the tiniest shred of self-awareness:

Imagine there's no profits, it's easy if you try

No screaming fans to adore us, we're just some ignored guys

Imagine all the people, living without me - ee - ee

You may say I'm a dreamer, or who is this weird, little guy

I hope someday you'll turn me off

And then just go outside

The radicalization continues

On a day he was thrust back on center stage nationally, former President Bill Clinton also stumped for Senator Blanche Lincoln’s re-election, casting the Democratic incumbent as the choice of a calmer electorate at a rally on Friday.

According to The Associated Press, Mr. Clinton also took on the unions that are going all in for Bill Halter, Ms. Lincoln’s opponent in a June 8 runoff, indicating organized labor was trying to use voters to scare
lawmakers.

“If you want somebody to channel your anger, don’t vote for her,” said Mr. Clinton, back in the state where he was governor for a dozen years. “If you want somebody to get up and go to work and change your life for the better, you should vote for her.”

The winner of the Democratic nomination will face Representative John Boozman, a Republican, in November.
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Meanwhile, Mr. Halter’s supporters in organized labor have signaled they will continue to pour resources into Arkansas. In a recent release, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. targeted both Mr. Clinton and Ms. Lincoln for their support of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Meanwhile, we'll be standing by to see when Big Media picks up on and starts their hand-wringing with respect to the purging of the moderate elements of the Democratic Party and their calling-out of shameless thug tactics of union groups such as SEIU.

Radio KBwD is on the air

Coincidental to some research on the background music for ESPN's World Cup commercials, we ran across this wholly underrated gem at a buddy's Memorial Day weekend BBQ.

Ladies and Gentlemen, from Dublin, Ireland, it's U2 performing "Surrender".
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Video clip of the day

Cochlear implants for infants. Jonathan hears for the first time.



It is entirely appropriate to question whether this sort of medical technology/innovation sees the light of day under ObamaCare considering its obsession with controlling medical costs.

The thinning blue line

The miserable hack that runs the Justice Department gets some cover.

Arizona's new crackdown on illegal immigration will increase crime in U.S. cities, not reduce it, by driving a wedge between police and immigrant communities, police chiefs from several of the state's and the nation's largest cities said Wednesday.

Arizona's law will intimidate crime victims and witnesses who are illegal immigrants and divert police from investigating more serious crimes, chiefs from Los Angeles, Houston and Philadelphia said before meeting with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to discuss the measure. Counterparts from Phoenix, Tucson, San Jose and Montgomery County, among others, joined them.

"This is not a law that increases public safety. This is a bill that makes it much harder for us to do our jobs," Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said. "Crime will go up if this becomes law in Arizona or in any other state."

A very political animal, big city police chiefs are. Besides, are we to believe that illegal immigrants cooperated with the police in the first place? And what part of Phoenix is now the kidnapping capital of America and Arizona is a narco-violence/drug-running corridor do not these nit-wits understand?

Memo to big city police chiefs: Depending upon your jurisdiction, you may already have laws similar to that of Arizona and California where cooperation between local, state and federal officials with respect to illegal immigrants is codified. If you are not interested in enforcing the law, find another line of work.


Addendum #1: Forget illegal immigrants. Those tea party types are a dangerous lot. KT has the details on what the police are doing to curb their unruly ways, here.

The vibe we're getting here is that crimes are not actually committed if no one is interested in enforcing the law.

Radio KBwD is on the air

The live versions of the following song were all kind of spotty, including one where the audience was attempting to make a compost heap of Morrissey so we'll go with the more sterile but audio-pleasing studio version.



Ladies and Gentlemen, from Manchester, England, it's The Smiths performing "This Charming Man".

Leaking away

Peggy Noonan writing in today's Wall St. Journal:

The disaster in the Gulf may well spell the political end of the president and his administration, and that is no cause for joy. It's not good to have a president in this position—weakened, polarizing and lacking broad public support—less than halfway through his term. That it is his fault is no comfort. It is not good for the stability of the world, or its safety, that the leader of "the indispensable nation" be so weakened. I never until the past 10 years understood the almost moral imperative that an American president maintain a high standing in the eyes of his countrymen.
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But Republicans should beware, and even mute their mischief. We're in the middle of an actual disaster. When they win back the presidency, they'll probably get the big California earthquake. And they'll probably blow it. Because, ironically enough, of a hard core of truth within their own philosophy: when you ask a government far away in Washington to handle everything, it will handle nothing well.

Yep.

Believe it. We take no pleasure in a weakened American Presidency. It's bad for us, not good for our allies and only incentivizes the ill behavior of the globe's bad actors.

Here's what we are trying to wrap our brain around, however: The hyper-power he has exerted here domestically is in stark contrast to the apologetic and submissive weakness he has exhibited abroad. But when we really did need it here domestically - when we needed the laser-like focus his administration displayed in the Chrysler and General Motors bankruptcy cramdowns and the brute "by any means necessary" force employed by his people with respect to healthcare legislation no one wanted, the President in most respects voted "present".

The one cause everyone could get behind, the one thing everyone knew we had to do something about and where sins of commission would certainly be forgiven over those of omission, our federal government, headed by the Commander-in-Chief, phoned it in.

After just yesterday, where we weren't willing to go "Katrina" on the President are we changing our minds? We certainly did not want to jump on the bandwagon initially and were willing to give the President and the administration the benefit of the doubt. More facts are coming out, however, and they are leaving many, as yet, unanswered questions and none of them seem to be favoring the President.


The problem with a "recovery" of the Obama presidency, as Noonan alludes, is his standing legislative legacy. Should the top kill prove to be 100% effective, we will wake up tomorrow and we will still be stuck with ObamaCare which has actually been growing in unpopularity since its passage. And should a biblical miracle occur tomorrow where the spill simply evaporates into thin air sparing the Gulf Coast from an ecological disaster, we will still be facing a 10% unemployment rate and a still-struggling economy because his administration chose to expend political capital and precious time on unpopular legislation rather than figuring out how best to just stay the hell out of the way to allow the economy to unwind and then rev back up as quickly as possible.

These are issues that have counted most heavily against his polling numbers and they aren't going away.

The reality of the situation now is, we will wake up tomorrow with a 10% unemployment rate, a crappy economy, pending nanny-state legislation with higher taxes and anti-growth consequences and still the very real possibility of an evolving, years-long ecological and economic meltdown in the Gulf.

Condescension spill in aisle MA...

... clean-up required.

John Kerry at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor on voter anger:

"I think there's a comprehension gap," said Kerry. His point: While people may not be feeling the benefits of the bailouts and healthcare reform yet, Congress has been working with Obama to right the economic ship. Still, he sounded sympathetic to those kicked around by the economy. "There's a sense of some things unraveling" to them, said Kerry.

But he said that the D.C.-directed attacks are hypocritical, since many of those attacking Washington spending presumably want to keep their Social Security and Medicare and want Washington to play a big role in the Gulf Oil cleanup. "There's a huge contradiction on a daily basis," he said.

Maybe, he concluded, the Democrats should change their communications strategy "to better sell what we've done."

Translation: you bunch of worthless fly-over rubes aren't showing the proper amount of appreciation for the stellar and upstanding work you're benevolent overseers in D.C. are performing on your behalf.

And that last sentence from the pull quote is priceless. You're right, Senator. It's not that your ideas really, really suck or anything like that. It's just that you all haven't done a good enough job explaining the positive merits of porkulus, a hostile take-over of the domestic auto industry and a health care reform law no one wants.

Simply unreal.

Blame game

Because of the fact that most criticism of this nature tends to be cheap political grandstanding, we are no more apt to blame the Katrina aftermath on Bush than we are to blame Obama for the Gulf/BP oil spill response.

Karl Rove, writing for the Wall St. Journal believes otherwise. He raises some very good points with respect to state and local vs. federal jurisdiction. However, we still can't shake the overarching notion that what this all speaks to is the cumbersome and unwieldy nature of federal government, it's agencies and bureaucracies rather than who is in the Oval Office at the time.

So, in a sense, Rove is right: This oil spill is Obama's Katrina and he will have to face the music for some suspect PR and visuals rather than anything substantive his administration did or did not do.

Not so random thought(s) of the day

Between work and personal matters, we're kind of pressed for time but we have been chewing on a couple of things...



All you really need to know about the illegal immigration debate Pt. II:

In Mexico, they're trying to stop the raping of 6 in 10 migrant females. In America, we argue whether putting lifelines in the All-American Canal is merely humane treatment of illegal immigrants or aiding and abetting an illegal activity.



The inherent flaw of socialism is no longer a theoretical exercise: when you run out of other people's money, Greece (fire) happens.

What we want to know, however, is that when the great architects of European Social Democracy were gaming out this whole thing, what in god's name were they thinking?

How delusional does one need to be to not see this as the logical conclusion to socialism.

Check out our blog-buddy Harrison's fine piece on the death of Euro-socialism, here.

Your terminology lesson for the day

“I believe in American exceptionalism — just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

That was from President Obama last year in an interview and given the situation right now across the pond, we believe the President is even more convinced of Greece's exceptionalism because he has no clue of what "exceptionalism" means given the context. So, does that quote expose his leftist roots or merely demonstrate his ignorance of the concept? Probably both.

As understandable as the left's instinctive aversion to nationalism might be, it is misplaced in the case of America. The notion of American nationalism is an ideal worth defending. We are a nation of nations, ironically enough, bound together not by the traditional fascist symbols of nationalism, race, ethnicity, or empire; but by ideals embodied in the greatest political documents ever written, the Declaration and the Constitution.

Spread the word. That's what it's all about. B-Daddy has more to say about the matter, here.


P.S. Blogger spell-check doesn't believe in "exceptionalism" either. Sigh.

Farla parla il "ricevimento pomeridiano"?

If it's gone viral, it most certainly can go international.

News on Italy's Tea Party and an interview with a Dutch Tea Party organizer, courtesy Temple of Mut, here.

Narrative FAIL

"Migrants in (....) are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses," said Rupert Knox, Researcher at Amnesty International.

"Persistent failure by the authorities to tackle abuses carried out against irregular migrants has made their journey through (....) one of the most dangerous in the world."

Kidnappings of migrants, mainly for ransom, reached new heights in 2009, with the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) reporting that nearly 10,000 were abducted over six months and almost half of interviewed victims saying that public officials were involved in their kidnapping.

An estimated six out of 10 migrant women and girls experience sexual violence, allegedly prompting some people smugglers to demand that women receive contraceptive injections ahead of the journey, to avoid them falling pregnant as a result of rape.

The (....) government has often stated its commitment to protect the rights of migrants, whatever their legal status and is a leading promoter of migrants' rights on the international stage.

Despite some welcome measures in recent years, for example better protection of the rights of unaccompanied children and criminalization of people trafficking, this has often in reality failed to prevent and punish abuses against migrants.

Ahem. We're glad the racist and corrupt nature of Arizona is being addressed in the proper manner.

What's that? This Amnesty International report was levied at Mexico? Well, that's certainly pie in the face of the narrative, now isn't it?




Before signing off, let's not forget who it was that was lecturing us on the treatment of (illegal) migrants here within our own borders.



cajones.

Cartoon of the Day

Being the sticklers for detail that we are, the Prez is actually 0-5 as we are counting his failed campaign trip to Copenhagen to bring the 2016 Summer Olympics home to Chicago.


Follower update: DooDoo Economics (tea party gear and apparel must-haves) and Snarky Basterd of the fine blog Feed Your ADHD are now in the house.

All that and they get paid for it, too?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Quote of the day

Just sayin'...

“I don’t know why the question isn’t asked by the mainstream media and by others if there’s any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration.”

She continued: “If there’s any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to get in there, to dive in there, and grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico — now, if this was President Bush or if this were a Republican in office who hadn’t received as much support even as President Obama has from BP and other oil companies, you know the mainstream media would be all over his case in terms of asking questions why the administration didn’t get in there, didn’t get in there and make sure that the regulatory agencies were doing what they were doing with the oversight to make sure that things like this don’t happen.”

More here from Left Coast Rebel and the slow-motion disaster that is ongoing in the Gulf of Mexico and the media's reaction to it.



Addendum #1: Uh-oh. The narrative turns.

For some, reading is like, hard

Warning: some heavy reading ahead:

(a) Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully
cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization
Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is
suspected of being present in the United States in violation of
federal immigration laws.
(b) With respect to any such person who is arrested, and suspected
of being present in the United States in violation of federal
immigration laws, every law enforcement agency shall do the
following:
(1) Attempt to verify the legal status of such person as a citizen
of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted as a permanent
resident, an alien lawfully admitted for a temporary period of time
or as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of
immigration laws. The verification process may include, but shall not
be limited to, questioning the person regarding his or her date and
place of birth, and entry into the United States, and demanding
documentation to indicate his or her legal status.
(2) Notify the person of his or her apparent status as an alien
who is present in the United States in violation of federal
immigration laws and inform him or her that, apart from any criminal
justice proceedings, he or she must either obtain legal status or
leave the United States.
(3) Notify the Attorney General of California and the United
States Immigration and Naturalization Service of the apparent illegal
status and provide any additional information that may be requested
by any other public entity.
(c) Any legislative, administrative, or other action by a city,
county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with
jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent
or limit the cooperation required by subdivision (a) is expressly
prohibited.

(italics, ours)

As a public service, we've provided the pertinent language of Arizona's illegal immigration law, SB 1070. Well, it's a public service except that what you just read was not the Arizona law but rather Section 834(b) of the California state penal code.

So, are we going to boycott ourselves or because of the fact that seemingly the entire state can be rightly accused of dereliction of duty with respect to enforcing federal immigration laws, we'll just call it a wash and carry on with business as usual?

And speaking of reading, we're going to get some help from our nation's leaders.



Are people like the miserable hack that runs the Justice Department and Janet Napolitano so void of shame that they do not feel the slightest amount of embarrassment when they are called out for opposing legislation they have not yet read? How exactly does that work?

H/T: KT and Hot Air

SB 1070: A bounty of goodness!

Much like ObamaCare has resulted in unintended consequences before the law has even been implemented, so to has Arizona's SB 1070 resulted in unintended consequences before it has been implemented, though with much more favorable outcomes than the slow-motion disaster that is ObamaCare.

The law has already been a boon to family values, better neighborhoods, public safety, and, yes, a boon even to the environment. The L.A. Times reports:

The day Arizona's governor signed the strictest immigration law in the country — tasking police with checking the immigration status of those they stop and suspect to be in the country illegally — Maria thought it might be the last straw for her family.

For six years Maria, a U.S. citizen, and her husband, Salvador, who is in the country illegally, have tried to make sure he isn't caught up in a raid or sweep or traffic enforcement operation. To avoid his deportation, the couple takes precautions that, when synthesized, go something like this:

Avoid driving at night. Avoid unnecessary trips — grocery shopping once a week is best.

Stay home. Stay and care for the garden. Enjoy the blueberry bushes and the apricot trees, and mow the lawn. Keep it nice. Try to deflect, as much as possible, their 4-year-old daughter's questions about going to Disneyland.

As you can see, Maria's fears are completely unfounded as the alterations to her family's lifestyle has been an overwhelming net positive.

We've all been told that this recession has actually forced many families to forego lavish expenditures and get back to the basics of spending quality time at home with the family and that is what we're seeing because of SB 1070, as well.

Because of SB 1070, families with illegal immigrants are not only strengthening those family bonds at home but are also doing their part for the environment by reducing their carbon footprint: fewer trips to the store, keeping up with the yardwork and planting self-styled Jardins de Victoria are just a few ways SB 1070 is making life better for illegal immigrants, their families and shoot, for all of us for a better America!

Surely, once the benefits of SB 1070 become more widely known, we can get some of our lefty friends onboard as we know them to be big fans of social engineering and we don't think anyone can deny from reading the paragraphs above how much better citizens, woops... immigrants they all can become because of wisdom and correctness inherent to SB 1070.

Anonymous in New York

Roughly 3,700 retired public workers in New York are getting pensions of more than $100,000 a year. The New York Times collected this public information from the state’s two pension funds and four of the five city funds. The pension plan for the city's firefighters has yet to provide information, as required under public information laws. Some pension funds said they could not provide figures like job title or final salary; the N.Y.P.D. Pension Fund would not disclose names.

One would think that since the taxpayers of New York are footing the bill for the golden years of the public safety pensioners, they might want to know who they are. It is the law, afterall.

And perhaps not coincidentally, New York state is ranked #4 in states most likely to default.

H/T: Carpe Diem

Another one?

As we blogged about on Saturday with regard to a main stream media participant starting to "get" the tea party, David Brooks of the New York Times shows evidence of the fog lifting but only partially.

Brooks has captured the essence of the Tea Party with those paragraphs. But he can't bring himself to endorse the Tea Party itself after so eloquently portraying the dismay and disgust of average Americans for the current political mess. He somehow believes that sending Tea Party endorsed candidates to Washington will only exacerbate the current mess and that somehow, "centrists" who are passionate will solve the problem. What? In fact, only those who are passionate about the issues of debt and spending will make a dent and centrists, as well as liberals, have shown a deafness to those concerns over the years.

This isn't a theoretical exercise, either, with regard to centrists being able to tackle our spending problems. A large segment of that centrist population on Capitol Hill was known as Blue Dog Democrats and they ably demonstrated just how "passionate" they were towards debt and spending with the passage of ObamaCare.

Brooks has always seemed to have had an aversion to some of the populist characteristics of conservatism but the fact that he has at least correctly acknowledged the source of the frustration means he's about half-way there.

Read more, here, from B-Daddy.

Break time is over.

The slow-motion death spiral of the Euro-zone has become so self-evident that the root causes can no longer be denied, even from the major dailies of this country.

This is what arrived on our door step this morning in the form of a San Diego Union Tribune front page story from the New York Times News Service.

Across Western Europe, the “lifestyle superpower,” the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt. The deficit crisis that threatens the euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare, built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II.

Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism.

Europeans have benefited from low military spending, protected by NATO and the American nuclear umbrella. They have also translated higher taxes into a cradle-to-grave safety net. “The Europe that protects” is a slogan of the European Union.

But all over Europe governments with big budgets, falling tax revenues and aging populations are experiencing rising deficits, with more bad news ahead.

With low growth, low birthrates and longer life expectancies, Europe can no longer afford its comfortable lifestyle, at least not without a period of austerity and significant changes. The countries are trying to reassure investors by cutting salaries, raising legal retirement ages, increasing work hours and reducing health benefits and pensions.

In case you were having problems reading between the lines, here is what the article was saying: Socialism is dead. Dead, dead, dead.

Margaret Thatcher's observation that the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money is no longer a theoretical exercise. We're seeing it played out, real time, in Europe as we will over here if we do not radically alter our profligate spending and reform our entitlement programs.

Decades and decades of lavishing themselves generous pensions, universal health care and what not as we were doing the heavy lifting with respect to military spending has come to an end.

It was a nice "end of history" run, Europe. Now it's time to get off your ass and get back to work.

Hidden anti-Harvard bias exposed

Just when you think he might be slowing down a tad, he strikes back with a vengeance.

Despite her underprivileged background Professor Kagan rose to the challenge and graduated magna cum laude, an honor reserved for the top 89% of Harvard Law alumni. Although her diploma fully qualified her for any conceivable position in the known Asshole universe, she took her first paying job in the charitable sector -- teaching at the University of Chicago Law School, a lonely academic legal bullshit outpost in the harsh intellectual wilderness of the American Midwest. Her Asshole missionary work and softball skills quickly drew the attention of then-President Bill Clinton who, despite his Yale degree, was wise enough to see that she had 'the right stuff' to serve as his Assistant Deputy White House Under-Under Subsecretary for Minority Elderly Women's Domestic Pet Policy. Her leadership in that critical office was nothing short of revolutionary, increasing its bullshit report output by 15% while introducing colorful pie charts. From there she made a triumphant return to Harvard Law as a fully tenured faculty Asshole, eventually rising to Dean of Assholes where she introduced important reforms such as free student lounge coffee and banning the U.S. military war machine from campus. It thus came as little surprise that she was tapped by fellow Harvard Asshole Barack Obama to serve as his Solicitor General and Supreme Court nominee.

We rest easier at night knowing Iowahawk is on the job.

Funeral Pyre

After weeks and weeks of waiting for the seemingly inevitable "The Big Fat Greek Meltdown", "The Big Fat Greek Bailout" or some similar byline, we finally get Mark Steyn's "Not just their Big Fat Greek Funeral"

From the Times of London: “The President of Greece warned last night that his country stood on the brink of the abyss after three people were killed when an anti-government mob set fire to the Athens bank where they worked.”

Almost right. They were not an “anti-government” mob, but a government mob, a mob comprised largely of civil servants. That they are highly uncivil and disinclined to serve should come as no surprise: they’re paid more and they retire earlier, and that’s how they want to keep it. So they’re objecting to austerity measures that would end, for example, the tradition of 14 monthly paycheques per annum. You read that right: the Greek public sector cannot be bound by anything so humdrum as temporal reality. So, when it was mooted that the “workers” might henceforth receive a mere 12 monthly paycheques per annum, they rioted. Their hapless victims—a man and two women—were a trio of clerks trapped in a bank when the mob set it alight and then obstructed emergency crews attempting to rescue them.

Unlovely as they are, the Greek rioters are the logical end point of the advanced social democratic state: not an oppressed underclass, but a pampered overclass, rioting in defence of its privileges and insisting on more subsidy, more benefits, more featherbedding, more government.

Forget the current unsustainable public pension debt facing Greece, with one of Europe's lowest birth rates, what we are witnessing there is an irreversible slow-motion death spiral.

Over here, we talk of "generational theft" or "kicking the can down the road" when it comes to dealing with our own entitlement programs. In Greece there are no future generations and the road is rapidly approaching an abysmal drop-off.

Has the Obama economic model only hastened our explicit understanding of this?

To wit, would we actually be worse off under a McCain Presidency who would've, presumably, presided over a scaled-back Bailout Nation, but a Bailout Nation none the less? A more electorally palatable Bailout Nation where we would be lulled into a sense of complacency because McCain, as Bush, would pay lip service to fiscal responsibility while doing nothing substantive with regard to it.

Just something to ponder on an unseasonably cool, blustery and overcast spring day here in America's finest city.

At long last...

... an establishment liberal columnist who's starting to get it.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, perhaps the most powerful Republican in Washington and certainly the party's kingpin in Kentucky, put his considerable clout behind Grayson. But Paul's candidacy became a cause celebre for the national tea party movement, and he whipped Grayson in Tuesday's primary by 24 points.

The stunning result should telegraph two warnings to Republicans. The first is a reminder that while voters' ardor toward the Democratic Party might have cooled, this has not led to a passionate embrace of the GOP. There's a splash-back effect from unceasing attacks against the evil empire known as Washington: Voters notice that Republicans live there, too.

The second warning is that the tea party movement does not intend to become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party. Strategists who hoped to use the movement's energy and passion as weapons against the Democrats in the fall should realize that many tea party types see the GOP as fundamentally no different.

After nearly a year and a half of 2x4 upside-the-head obviousness of what the tea party movement stands for, the memo arrived at WaPo's Eugene Robinson's desk this week. Congrats, Gene!

Also note the lack of crocodile tears and faux hand-wringing with respect to any "purges" of moderate elements of the Republican Party if it now means electoral gains for the Democratic Party.

Radio KBwD is on the air

It's been a long work week and we are truly looking forward to the weekend so to get things jump-started howz-a-bout an oldie but a goodie.

Ladies and Gentlemen, from Cleveland, Ohio, it's the James Gang performing "Funk #49".

If it's unseemly to be a birther, can we at least be a booker?

So is this decades-long plagiarism phenomena at Harvard indeed a real case of plagiarism or is it a case of regimented statist group-think? No one seems to be addressing that aspect of it. That group-think thing, that is.

All you really need to know about the illegal immigration debate in about 2-1/2 minutes (UPDATED)

(OK, in about 7-1/2 minutes. Please scroll down for update)


Clip below is from Mexican President, Felipe Calderon's, address to a joint session of Congress yesterday.

Polite applause for airy and feel-good platitudes regarding U.S.-Mexico cooperation but check out what gets Congress out of their seats and rocking the aisles: slamming the Arizona illegal immigration law, natch (2:00).





Since the clip just shows Calderon standing at the podium, we can only imagine how funny it must've been for Congress to see dude waddle up to there to speak because of the basketball-sized stones he carries around. (Note the miserable hack who runs the Justice Department and Janet Napolitano, two people who admitted to not reading the bill, joining the pander-fest down in front).

And as long as we have merely an "immigration problem", you can count on any legislation generated by Congress will bare scant resemblance to actually enforcing our borders and enhancing our national sovreignty.

All the talk about paying a fine, getting in the back of the line, learning English, taking citizenship classes is just that. Talk. Congress has destroyed any credibility they may once have possessed. They are an utter failure as a legislative body and they are not to be trusted. If their lips are moving, they are lying.


(UPDATE #1): liberated from the comment section, courtesy W.C. Varones

Tom McClintock to Calderon: "Allow me to retort."



Quoting Teddy Roosevelt is now racist.

Everybody draw Mohammed Day

We totally forgot... we're playing catch up.


Relax, jihadists. You all and you're bass-ackwards and intolerant 8th century anti-liberal, anti-semetic, sexist and homophobic ways aren't in our cross-hairs today, it's so-called champions of free speech of the West like Comedy Central and now Apple that fold like a cheap lawn chair when it comes to "the religion of peace".

In what is sure to raise a ruckus, comedian / filmmaker / app developer Emery Emery recorded a phone call with an Apple App Store rep when his iSlam Muhammad app was pulled from the App Store after one day. The highly entertaining conversation in its entirety can be heard by watching the "video" above.

iSlam Muhammad apparently depicted images of the prophet Muhammad (forbidden by Islam) and outlined disturbing passages from the Qur'an. It's surprisingly similar to BibleThumper, a Christian-bashing app that remains in the App Store.

Just a couple of days ago, we blogged about Apple denying an app for a Congressional candidate that simply stated Henry Waxman's voting record. And now this. Pathetic.

If, in the name of equality, Apple also pulls BibleThumper that's only exacerbating the problem as Apple will give tacit approval to the notion that any criticism of any religion is off limits. Of course, Apple is certainly free to do what it wants just as are the consumers.

The older we get, the more stridently free speech we become. We're not sure whether this is a reaction to what we see as increasing restrictions on speech or, to borrow a favorable phrase used for pols in D.C. who drift leftward over time, "growing in office". Probably a little of both.


H/T: Hot Air

Should we be nervous?

You know something is seriously out of whack when it takes a passed House resolution in support of American Craft Beer Week for us to come around to heralding its arrival.

While most of Washington was focused on Tuesday's election results, the House was busy doing something else: Passing a resolution about beer.


House Resolution 1297, sponsored by Rep. Betsy Markey, supports "the goals and ideals of American Craft Beer Week."


"We've got quite a number of microbreweries and entrepreneurs that are creating jobs, and we wanted to celebrate that this is a craft," Markey told POLITICO.


"I think beer has been a tradition since this country was founded," said Markey. "We wanted to celebrate entrepreneurship — and good beer!"

Given Congress' penchant for bunging-up things of late, we give pause to this legislative body getting within sipping distance of our beloved American craft beer industry. However, we suppose this is just Congress' way of relaxing after the heavy-lifting of destroying the American health care system and prior to decimating the energy sector.

Well done, ladies and gentlemen.

Define broken

We wanted to break down some of the President's remarks he made yesterday to the press while he was alongside Mexican President, Felipe Calderon but first check out one of his opening lines from yesterday:

When our neighbors are in need, whether in Honduras or in Haiti, we respond together. And when we expand partnerships between our people, it forges connections that leads to greater prosperity and opportunity for decades to come.

That's what we call a backdoor curve ball. Everyone got the Haiti reference because we did indeed do the heavy-lifting with the relief effort down there but people were probably scratching their heads wondering what tragic natural disaster struck Honduras.

Check out our blog archives here on Honduras and get yourself up to speed on the man-made disaster that befell Honduras. Suffice to say that if "we respond together" means siding with Hugo Chavez in bullying the legitimate government of Honduras, threatening to cut aid to the country and revoking the visas of Honduran diplomats and officials then by damn we bent over backwards and took the shirt off our backs in "responding" to the Honduran people.

Mr. President, some of us out here are paying attention.



OK, here's what we really want to sink our teeth into because it represents a meme' that we have heard in the past and which we will hear with increasing frequency as we approach the fashioning of immigration reform legislation. Roll the tape:

We also discussed the new law in Arizona, which is a misdirected effort -- a misdirected expression of frustration over our broken immigration system, and which has raised concerns in both our countries. Today, I want every American to know my administration has devoted unprecedented resources in personnel and technology to securing our border. Illegal immigration is down, not up, and we will continue to do what's necessary to secure our shared border.

(italics ours)

First, we're not completely convinced that illegal immigration is down. At least the Associated Press doesn't think so. Our economy is still a mess right now but the situation down in Mexico is do dire, more people are coming even still.

Now about this "broken immigration system" thing. This is the rhetorical device the Amnesty crowd has used in the past and will continue to use. It's the old, We understand your frustration, that's why we have to do something to fix the system. And then, just like health care, they go and pass legislation that will only make things much worse.

And is the system really broken? We do have a guest worker program. We do issue visas and green cards for people who want to enter this country legally for a variety of reasons. We even have a pathway to naturalized citizenship that is run by the State Department. We don't necessarily hear people complaining about these things. If they are, then its a matter of efficiency rather than an inherent or fundamental wrongness of these programs.

Don't be fooled. "The system is broken" is merely code for "We lack the political will to enforce the laws and to work on improving the existing immigration system."

Challenge people on this point if they bring it up: "Precisely what is it about our immigration system that is broken?" Or, perhaps better, write your Congressman asking the same question.

The Great Amnesty Push of 2010/2011 is inevitable and we need to be ready.

Talk show call and quote of the day

Caller: "I've done the unthinkable and now I must go into hiding."

Hedgecock: "What was that?"

Caller: "I've read the Arizona illegal immigration law."




The President's remarks during his meeting with Mexican President Calderon on Wednesday.



"In the 21st Century we are defined not by our borders but by our bonds."



Exit question #1: Does the man have any clue as to the significance of national sovereignty?

Exit question #2: Does that sound like a man who is serious about securing our borders?

The never-ending apology tour makes a stop in China (UPDATED)

(please scroll down for update)

So, what happens when a free representative republic like America attempts to sit down and discuss "human rights" with a top-down authoritarian, communist regime like that which exists in China?

If you are a member of the Obama administration, you start making ridiculous implied moral equivalencies between Arizona'a illegal immigration law and China's one child/forced abortion policy.

Read more at Left Coast Rebel, here.


P.S. We imagine Arizonans aren't taking kindly to the ugly red-headed step-child treatment they are getting from officials of their own country. In fact, we don't ever recall anyone ever getting called out in this manner. This has been an administration of firsts, however.


(UPDATE #1): KT was kind enough to link to this post and his intro got us to pondering even more.

Just what in the hell were we thinking in the first place engaging in human rights "dialog" with the Chi-comms? In order to dialog with someone, do you not need some commanality? Do you not need some sort of mutually-agreed upon baseline from which you can begin discussion? Where in god's name does that baseline exist between us and the Chi-comms. It doesn't. That's fact.

But since we did decide to enter into dialog we're forced to simultaneously pander in the most shameless manner to the Chi-comms while hanging the citizens of a state of our Union out to dry.

It's bad enough that the miserable hack that runs the Justice Department and who has criticized the law admitted that he hadn't even read the law (ditto: Napolitano), it has now been revealed that the Justice Department has not even seen fit to rescind a Bush-era memo that acknowleges the states' powers to enforce federal law.

In the legal battle over Arizona's new immigration law, an ironic subtext has emerged: whether a Bush-era legal opinion complicates a potential Obama administration lawsuit against Arizona.

The document, written in 2002 by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, concluded that state police officers have "inherent power" to arrest undocumented immigrants for violating federal law. It was issued by Jay S. Bybee, who also helped write controversial memos from the same era that sanctioned harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects.

The author of the Arizona law -- which has drawn strong opposition from top Obama administration officials -- has cited the authority granted in the 2002 memo as a basis for the legislation. The Obama administration has not withdrawn the memo, and some backers of the Arizona law said Monday that because it remains in place, a Justice Department lawsuit against Arizona would be awkward at best.

(italics, ours)

You think?

The Justice Department is currently working feverishly to bring suit against a law that is current Justice Department policy. The geniuses at Team-O never saw fit to rummage through the files of the despised Bush administration to see if there might be some inconvenient directives or memos that might gum up their politicization of the illegal immigration debate. Unbelievable.

So, if you are scoring at home, we have:

1. Shameless pandering to historic human rights abusers who in terms of both quality and quantity in human rights abuses probably lead the planet.

2. Throwing the citizens of Arizona under the bus.

3. The nation's top cop and director of Homeland Security freely admit they haven't read the law which they apparently oppose.

4. Justice Department is currently charting a course which directly countermands their own policy.

You know what all this represents? Amateur hour. Amateur hour, plain and simple.



Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to open mic night at the Copa Americana. Please give it up for Team Obama - they'll be here for, eh, 2-1/2 more years.

A Bear Flag revolt?

Back during the California gubernatorial recall election of 2003, a debate was held between the top 8 or 9 top candidates. Among the balance of activist/kooks that had thrown their hats into the ring was Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arianna Huffington, Cruz Bustamante and Tom McClintock. We listened to the debate on KOGO 600 for about an hour and it was every much the three ring circus one would imagine given the cast.

A day after the debate, Pew or Field conducted a poll among likely California voters and found that 60%.... 60% thought that Tom McClintock, the biggest conservative in the field, was the most qualified for the position of governor. 60% of Californians can't decide from which direction the sun rises yet 60% thought this extreme right-winger was the best man for the job.

So given that electoral improbability, why didn't McClintock win? Because people like us lacked the fortitude and courage to vote for "the most qualified" person and opted instead for "electability".

Now, in hindsight and not be too harsh on ourselves, Arnie was Arnie the reform conservative and not yet Arnie the whatever.

7 years on, we have a similar situation on our hands with the California Senate Republican primary with the principals being Carly Fiorina and Chuck Devore cast roughly in the roles of Arnie and McClintock, respectively.

The recent G.O.P. establishment push for Fiorina has not set well with the grass roots. Please swing by Temple of Mut for Leslie's take on the matter.

Also, please see The Liberator Today for B-Daddy's two cents.

Love is a highly suspect thing

Courtesy W.C. Varones...

President Barack Obama says he loves Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) — just not quite enough to hazard an 11th-hour political trip to Pennsylvania for an ally of convenience increasingly viewed as unlikely to win.

The President loves Arlen Specter, just not in an electoral sort of way.

Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course.


Happy trails, Arlen.

Free Speech...

... although your results may vary.

Generally speaking, we're down with the notion that the internet and wireless communication in general is a boon to decentralized information dissemination and, as such, a boon to democracy. But every so often we are also reminded that the internet/wireless technologies are still subject to the whims of those that own the infrastructure.

A few weeks ago I hired a company to create an I Phone application for my congressional campaign. My designers told me when we started that Apple would take about two weeks to approve the app after they finished the design and coding.

They submitted the app and then we waited and waited and waited.

Recently the designers contacted Apple to find out what was taking so long.

A couple of days ago Apple responded and told us that they were rejecting the submission, and that they were doing so on the grounds that content in the app is defamatory of my opponent, incumbent Henry Waxman.

Here are the statements that Apple found defamatory.

Follow the link for what can only be described as an accurate description of Henry Waxman's voting record as attempted to be brought to light by Congressional candidate Ari David. Scandalous.




Apple... hmmm... Now where did we first here about the folks at Apple?

Ah, now we remember.





H/T: Instapundit

We'll trust the eye candy, thank you.

In less than a year, General Motors Co. has roared back from bankruptcy to a quarterly profit. Now comes the hard part: Sustaining the income and repaying billions of dollars in government aid.

There are signs that GM is on track to do just that. Revenue is up 40 percent over the first quarter of last year. U.S. sales rose 17 percent for the quarter, and the automaker made an operating profit in North America, which had been a cash incinerator. Units in Asia and Latin America posted strong numbers, too.

As a result, the automaker announced Monday, its net income rose to $865 million, a dramatic reversal from the $6 billion the company lost in the same period last year.

"Today's news was wonderful, and even better than we ever expected to be this far in the post-restructuring period," said Steven Rattner, former head of the Obama administration's Auto Task Force.

And we should believe all this because..? GM had no problems last month trotting out their CEO and flat-out lying to the American public regarding the true nature of Government Motor's claim they had repaid, in full, their share of the TARP bailout loan (they simply used another line of TARP credit to do so).

We note that an earlier version of this story from yesterday morning failed to point this out so we give credit to this version for broaching it... sort of.

Some experts were skeptical. James Schrager, professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, said GM has a history of making boastful claims, only to disappoint. A recent television ad in which CEO Ed Whitacre declared that the company had repaid its government loans in full, with interest, was misleading, he said.

(italics, ours)

It was not misleading in any way. It was a flat-out lie.

To a larger point, though, when the government owns 61% of GM stock and was caught red-handed cooking the books, what exactly does turning a profit of $865 million mean? And probably more germane to this exercise, when that same government that owns GM can print money to its heart's content, of what real significance and meaning are balance sheet losses?


P.S. Stever Rattner, who wrote one of the most self-serving articles we've ever read, will be penning a book on how Team Obama rescued General Motors. To say his book will lack credibility is to understate things a tad.

Charm.... Offensive?

The woman pictured at left was crowned Miss USA on Sunday night. Rima Fakih, happens to be Muslim and of Lebanese descent. She is believed to be the first immigrant and Muslim to win this award.

She apparently butchered a few of the questions during the Please convince us you are not a complete nit-wit portion of the pageant and tripped in her evening gown so does this represent a sop to political correctness or a blow for cultural assimilation?

We're leaning towards the latter because is a little license in order to win the hearts and minds of young moderate Muslim males (and females?) a bad thing?







It sure as hell wasn't FDR, Chester Nimitz or Omar Bradley our troops, sailors and Marines had posted in their quarters.





Rita! They were fighting for you!


P.S. For whatever it's worth, Fakih is from Dearborn, Michigan which represents one of the largest concentrations of Arabs in the country. From what we understand, these folks are pretty assimilated as it is. Because nothing says assimilation like partying for a weekend with a Dearborn strip club owner named "Billy" Said as we did many years ago here in San Diego. And that's all we're going to say about that.

Take off that blood-stained jacket and stay a while

More good news on the health care front that we are finding out now... after ObamaCare has become the law of the land.

The new healthcare law will pack 32 million newly insured people into emergency rooms already crammed beyond capacity, according to experts on healthcare facilities.

A chief aim of the new healthcare law was to take the pressure off emergency rooms by mandating that people either have insurance coverage. The idea was that if people have insurance, they will go to a doctor rather than putting off care until they faced an emergency.

People who build hospitals, however, say newly insured people will still go to emergency rooms for primary care because they don’t have a doctor.

“Everybody expected that one of the initial impacts of reform would be less pressure on emergency departments; it’s going to be exactly the opposite over the next four to eight years,” said Rich Dallam, a healthcare partner at the architectural firm NBBJ, which designs healthcare facilities.

“We don’t have the primary care infrastructure in place in America to cover the need. Our clients are looking at and preparing for more emergency department volume, not less,” he said.


Some Democrats agree with this assessment.

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) suspects the fallout that occurred in Massachusetts’ emergency rooms could happen nationwide after health reform kicks in.

Massachusetts in 2006 created near-universal coverage for residents, which was supposed to ease the traffic in hospital emergency rooms.

But a recent poll by the American College of Emergency Physicians found that nearly two-thirds of the state’s residents say emergency department wait times have either increased or remained the same.

A February 2010 report by The Council of State Governments found that wait times had not abated since the law took effect.

Just because you now have mandated health insurance, especially for the young and healthy, doesn't mean you are going to go to your primary care physician on a regular basis or take better care of yourself (one could make the perfectly sane argument that extending the social safety net may incur exactly the opposite response. Remember, these are people in their 20s we are talking about).

This represents the fallacy and short-sightedness of social engineering. The government could also mandate the purchase of dental floss, but does that mean people are going to go to the dentist more often or take better care of their teeth? And the mandatory carrying of auto insurance sure as hell doesn't make Californians better drivers, now does it?

We believe the anticipated stress on emergency rooms as put forth in this article is actually understated. In a poll conducted back in March by a national physician search firm, found that 46% of primary care physicians said they would leave or try to leave the profession as a result of ObamaCare.

We have shortfall of physicians as it is which will only be compounded by current primary care docs fearing lower reimbursement rates and general meddling by federal bureaucracies interfering in the doctor/patient relationship, saying, "screw it" and getting out of the profession all together.

The more we study ObamaCare, the more we come to the conclusion that you could not develop a piece of legislation more injurious to our healthcare system if you tried.

Turnabout?

Headline from front page story in San Diego's Union-Tribune on Friday:

Some in Arizona Canceling Trips to S.D.
Outrage over local censure votes may be a misunderstanding

Opening paragraphs:

San Diego tourism leaders and hoteliers fear they could lose a sizable chunk of business this summer from valued “Zonies” who are so angered by elected leaders’ recent censure of Arizona for its illegal-immigration law that they’re mounting an informal boycott of their own.

The San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau and several hotels report receiving e-mails and letters from Arizona visitors saying they intend to change their plans to travel here in light of local outcry over their home state’s anti-illegal-immigration stance.

Tourism officials are striking back. In an open letter, they urge Arizona residents to overlook local politics and come to San Diego just as they always have for its mild climate, beaches and attractions. The visitors bureau, in conjunction with the San Diego County Hotel-Motel Association, plans to circulate the letter to media outlets and in advertising this weekend in The Arizona Republic.

Well, well, well...

While it's true that the city council and the city school board did not vote to boycott Arizona, this only proves that words do indeed have meaning and these resolutions, though symbolic only, carry import with the people being censured.

The citizens and businesses of Arizona have every right to feel like they're being ganged up on from around the nation for a law they may not even agree with.

And here's a couple of the nitwits at the center of San Diego's resolutions:

San Diego Councilwoman Donna Frye said she believes some Arizona residents are acting out of a misunderstanding.

“The City Council did not pass a resolution boycotting Arizona, and I would hope that the good citizens of Arizona understand that and will continue to visit San Diego,” Frye said.

School board President Shelia Jackson said that while she was disappointed to hear of people opting to stay away from San Diego, she doesn’t regret her vote.

“It’s sad that people would cancel their plans to come here in reaction to that, but I still think we did the right thing,” Jackson said. “Certainly, we know how important tourism is to San Diego, and it wasn’t my intent to impact the tourism trade.”

Jackson, a union tool, is especially pathetic in this regard. What great sacrifice did she make in casting her vote? How is a resolution, boycott and counter-boycott going to adversely affect her? Her and Frye's and every other yea vote was pure grandstanding and it's completely disgusting.

And though we do feel a degree of sympathy towards the business community here in San Diego, they should've anticipated this in the wake of the council and school board's resolutions and actively campaigned against the resolutions.



We've have some biker buddies that do an annual Yuma Territorial Prison run. Temple of Mut is planning a similar event in making a run for the border to shower some cash on Yuma and possibly parts deeper in to show support for the businesses and citizens of Arizona who are being hurt by the Arizona boycott.

We'll keep you posted.



http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/may/14/some-in-arizona-canceling-trips-to-sd/

Beer Summit

The first quarterly SLOBs (San Diego Local Order of Bloggers) beer summit went down Saturday evening at K & B Wine Cellars in Del Cerro.

Representing were Temple of Mut, Left Coast Rebel, W.C. Varones, Doo Doo Economics and the SoCal Tax Revolt Coalition.

We hoisted a pint glass on behalf of B-Daddy of The Liberator Today who could not attend.



It was a tremedous time of catching up with friends and meeting new ones. Lots of ideas were kicked around which we will be sharing with you all in the by and by.

Not so random thought of the day

This post should be taken as a companion piece to B-Daddy's post on Attractive Nuisance. Read his first or second - they are hopelessly intertwined so it matters not.


Years back and not remembering some of the details, there was a case involving an individual who owned beach property up Mailbu way. His property extended out to the surf and which also encompassed a rock outcropping that became very dangerous at high tide and/or rough weather. A suit was brought against this man by another person who had injured himself on the rocks. The property owner thought he was in the clear as he had festooned the rocks with all manner of signage from Danger: Rocks and Caution:High Tide to Warning: Slow Children. Dude thought he was covered.

Not so, the judge.

A ha!, the judge exclaimed. Since you had the appropriate signage, you knew of the obvious hazards that existed on your property and you still did not take the appropriate measures to protect the public from those hazards that existed on your property.

And it is against this backdrop that we witness again the insanity that swirls around the illegal immigration debate. The All-American canal in the Imperial County east of San Diego and which for 23 miles flows alongside the border with Mexico was the subject of an editorial from the normally cogent San Diego Union Tribune. It is linked, of course, but just to let you know we're not gaming the system or being anything but above board we'll let you have the money paragraph from the horse's mouth:

It is along that stretch in particular that Escondido activists John and Laura Hunter and others have demanded that public agencies install safety devices to assist people who struggle with the frigid waters, swirling currents and surprising depths. While a number of measures have been discussed, the one studied most closely is the installation of rope lines attached to buoys.

It should be noted that the referenced "people" are not campers, off-roaders or bird-watchers. At least, we don't think so.



It's bad enough that we have created an economy on this side of the border that is so disparate from that of Mexico's that people will break the law in order to participate, we have now painted ourselves into a moral corner of insisting the very government that is charged with enforcing the border to aid and abet this lawlessness in the name of humanity.

It's gone beyond that beach house owner in Malibu who warned against crossing his property in dangerous conditions and even that of making sufficient effort to prevent people from doing so - it has now come to the point where we are urged by the humane among us to hand out floaties and life jackets at the All-American canal in order to better facilitate safe passage for illegal immigrants poised to violate our sovereignty.


Follower update: Southern Man and B@manMadeira are in the house.

Losing it

We'll just chalk this up to a case of spring-time allergies because on the heels of an L.A. Times editorial last week calling for an end to state (California) and federal out-of-control spending and a reforming of unsustainable public employee pensions, the N.Y. Times gets into tea party mode by implicitly cheerleading the austerity measures being pursued by the Greeks as they scramble to avoid a complete financial meltdown.

Among the most significant features of the plan, a Greek government official said, would be a measure making it easier for the government to lay off some of the many thousands of public sector workers, whose low levels of productivity and high wages are a big contributor to Greece’s debt problem. Until now, the government has not been able to lay off civil servants, whose employment rights are in effect constitutionally guaranteed.

Another reform high on the list is removing the state from the marketplace in crucial sectors like health care, transportation and energy and allowing private investment. Economists say that the liberalization of trucking routes — where a trucking license can cost up to $90,000 — and the health care industry would help bring down prices in these areas, which are among the highest in Europe.

Goodness, we just don't know what's going on around here because when you lose the L.A. Times and New York Times, there might just be hope for us yet.