Lumberjack

h/t: oops!

Andy Drinks the Kool-Aide

Judas Goat
-A Judas goat is a trained goat used at a slaughterhouse and in general animal herding. The Judas goat is trained to associate with sheep or cattle, leading them to a specific destination. In stockyards, a Judas goat will lead sheep to slaughter, while its own life is spared. Judas goats are also used to lead other animals to specific pens and on to trucks.

Andy, Andy, Andy. Do you think they're going to fund Obamacare with "savings" taken out of Medicare and Medicare won't suffer? You can't possibly think that spending much less on Medicare will make it better. If Don Knotts were still with us I suspect he would have nipped this in the bud. That's what it is Andy; You've had insufficient bud-nipping.

Operating System

Oil Spill

"Thanks, BP!"

So what's the deal with this worst-catastrophe-ever/no-big-deal oil spill?

I have to admit, I was waiting for bad news: the shrimp industry devastated, porpoises extinct, Padre Island bars canceling the wet t-shirt contests. But also, in the back of my mind, I was wondering if this wasn't just another H1N1 flu panic. A big hype because, well it might be true, and anyway, we aren't selling enough newspapers dammit. (or whatever the cable news equivalent is for not selling enough newspapers, dammit: nobody being able to pick Rachel Maddow or Anderson Cooper out of a line-up of random shoplifters, maybe)

So, now we've got a flotilla of converted shrimp boats looking for oil that doesn't seem to be there. My question is: is that really the case, or is the MSM now covering for a president who is going down in the textbooks as the example of why you don't want to elect a president with absolutely no executive experience?

Or maybe we're in the best of all possible worlds: we've got a spill that was no big deal; and we've been disabused of the notion that the incredible wondrous glowing One can walk on water.

Was there ever a day when you could hear something on the news and accept it as fact? These days, all CNN is good for is alerting you to things you need to research on the web.

I Paid a Cub Scout to Follow Him All Day

"I don't hear anything. Did you hear anything?
Go on with the next question, please."

From Fox:

President Obama will make history as the first sitting president on a daytime talk show when he visits with the ladies of "The View." But he'll be missing out on another historic occasion -- the Boy Scouts' Jamboree marking the group's 100th anniversary, right in the president's backyard.

The Jamboree kicked off this week at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, where organizers had invited the president to speak to the 45,000 scouts in attendance. All three of Obama's predecessors have made it to one Jamboree while in office.

***Update: I can't stop myself.


(you've got to clickabiggen it to see the sorrow on the child's face)

Ha-ha

I just love it when they have to pay their taxes too:

Sen. John Kerry will voluntarily pay $500,000 in taxes to the state of Massachusetts - a move that forestalls a potential investigation into whether the Bay State's senior senator attempted to evade the hefty levy by docking his $7 million yacht in Rhode Island.

Geithner, Rangle, Dodd, Kerry: when you get caught, you just pay. No huge fines, no punishment. Just pay the tax and pretend to be miffed at your CPA. Well, at least he'll have to pay the tax. That's something.

Uncomfortable Position

Usually, I feel a little guilty when I behitler someone in photoshop. With Oliver Stone though, not so much. I just hope he doesn't contact me with a "well done."

(btw, I downsized these ones so that he couldn't use them for wallpaper)

And while we're on the subject:

A Walk in the Garden

Good times for Oliver Stone and Hitler.

Rewind

Burial at Sea

Bubbles and Barbie, two blonde sisters had promised their Uncle, who had been a seafaring gentleman all his life, to bury him at sea when he died. Of course, in due time, he did pass away and the two blondes kept their promise. They set off from Clearwater Beach with their uncle all stitched up in a burial bag and loaded onto their rowboat.


After a while Bubbles says, ‘Do you think we’re out far enough, Barbie?” Barbie slipped over the side and finding the water only knee deep said, “Nope, not yet Bubbles.”

So they row a little farther…. Again Bubbles asks Barbie, “Do you think we’re out far enough now?”

Once again Barbie slips over the side and almost immediately says, “No, this will never do. The water is only up to my chest.”

So on they row and row and row, and finally Barbie slips over the side and disappears. Quite a bit of time goes by and poor Bubbles is really getting worried when suddenly Barbie breaks the surface, gasping for breath she says, “OK, it’s finally deep enough. Hand me the shovel.

via

Vegan Derangement Syndrome

The class held up their pelts in victory as the PETA representative
was being restrained and sedated in the auditorium.

Then and Now

both via

Exerpts From the JournOlist

It's Just How I Roll

h/t: Jonah Goldberg

The List Grows

The list of White House paintings that don't want to be seen with the president just grows and grows. I understand that the Cross Hall looks like a Founding Fathers perp-walk these days.

Living the Dream

"Darn, I wish I had my camera with me."

Sarah Spitz's dream: to one day come upon Rush Limbaugh having a heart attack so she could “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed in torment.

“I never knew I had this much hate in me, but he deserves it.”

Saint Sherrod

I didn't post Breitbart's video because Sherrod said (in it) that she came to understand that it wasn't about black and white, but about rich and poor. Which indicated to me that she had seen the error in her attitude and corrected it. (even if it wasn't elaborated on in the clip) So really, I didn't see the clip signifying much. We all make mistakes along the way; and as we live our lives, we make corrections. No news there.

But this new sainthood doesn't fit her either. She would like to see Breitbart's site shut down. Fine. Then we shut down any news source that selectively edits right? Like all the cable networks that selectively edited Rush Limbaugh to make him look like a racist. Shut them down, right?

No. Kiran Chetry asked Sherrod about one site. This isn't about accuracy in media. It's about shutting down the opposition. As the recent JournoList e-mails show, there is a concerted effort to silence conservative voices.

No doubt Kiran Chetry (if that is her name) would like to shut down Fox News and Breitbart. But that's Chavez stuff. That's Dictator league. And I don't see America going for it. But if she ever gets her wish, she better be prepared for CNN to go blue-screen too.

Just Ignore Them, Mam

Pretend like they're not there. They're only looking for attention.

Telling It Like It Is

via

***Update:

Quick Duck Attack

via

Not Funny... but kinda funny

A sad story, but the reporter tried to lighten it up by making it impossible:

Fire officials initially suspected that the fire was caused by arson, but it wasn't until officials examined the victims' bodies that they were able to determine murder-suicide - two of the victims' throats were slashed.

They believe that the oldest child, a 14-year-old boy, killed himself and then set the fire that killed the others.

Reminds me a little of the old Foster Brooks joke about the man who catches his wife in bed with his business partner. The man pulls a gun and puts it to his head. And when his wife nervously giggles he says, "Don't laugh, you're next!"

Gadget Thursday

Pics

via

Recovery Summer

Funny, and only medium long.

Al Gore's Tribulations

"Bye-bye, Al."

National Enquirer is on to Al Gore.

BP's Altered Photo of the Command Center

Obviously it was a lapse in judgment, they weren't trying to hide anything.

Here it is from another angle:



thanks: brudi

Fiddling Around

This one happened because I was sitting around wondering about the origin of the name Kitty Hawk. I could have googled an answer but I'm happy just making up my own.

And this one followed from the first one. I was going to rename it Cow Hawk, North Carolina, but I forgot to put on the bird part.



Just as well. I'm pretty sure there's a Cow Stretch, Indiana, anyway. If there's not; there should be.

Body Mass Insects

By now you've heard: the government is interested in your BMI. (no not that bicycle on the back porch -- your BMI is your body mass index) Via CNS News:

New federal regulations issued this week stipulate that the electronic health records–that all Americans are supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year–must record not only the traditional measures of height and weight, but also the Body Mass Index: a measure of obesity.

The obesity-rating regulation states that every American’s electronic health record must: “Calculate body mass index. Automatically calculate and display body mass index (BMI) based on a patient’s height and weight.”

The law also requires that these electronic health records be available–with appropriate security measures–on a national exchange.

Will they use it to ration health care? Will chubby people (some of my favorite people) and smokers be made to jump through hoops because they're double-plus unfit?

Whatever the reason for wanting the individual number, I reject it. Government health advisers don't need to be calling on the phone, doctors don't need to be forced into counseling sessions, hoops shouldn't need to be jumped through.

And whose idea was it to put the First Lady in charge of childhood obesity? Not to put too fine a point on it, well, you can't put too fine a point on it, it's round from whatever angle you approach it, but Mrs. Obama is... she's... well, put it this way: she's not in danger of floating away. She can't help it, it's genetics. And she'll never, nor should she, look like a fashion model walking away from you. It's the same genetics that dictate that her husband will always be a skinny rail.

Sadly, there is an area in the liberal brain that wants to believe there is a perfect condition, and that we all must be striving towards it. It's bad enough that the constantly air-conditioned elite are trying to decide what temperature the earth should be; we can't afford a skinny president telling us how much we should weigh.

Out of my pantry, you.

Everything's Coming Up Roses

OG passed this along from Sippican Cottage

Technocows

You may have to turn the sound down a little, unless your name is Dieter and you wear black leotards. Impressive though; it seems the youtube has opened a port to my nightmares. Even more impressive; they found a way to edit Rosie O'Donnell out.

thanks Steve

Sometimes It's Like That

xkcd

How They Get That Look

A chipmunk inserts his prosthetic cheeks -- after losing his jowls in the Squirrel Wars.

from

On the Good Ship

Did anyone else notice that Obama called the Republican party the party of the rich in the midst of his seventh vacation as president? I understand it; he's looking for something with traction, something to divert attention away from the fact that all he's done since taking office is spend our money. VDH weighs in on the party of the rich thing.

Green Stimulus

Just over a year ago, June 27, 2009, I wrote:

Hands on Stimulus News:
A government installation I do work for got one of these today:


Look at that price tag. It's a little steep for a flimsy plastic box that goes 25 mph tops. It's cute, but it shouldn't be counted as an electric vehicle. It's not a car; it's a golf cart. (made by Chrysler, btw) This option is the giveaway:

Now, don't get me wrong, golf carts are fine for some things. And this installation can use a few of these in places they already have golf carts. But that's the thing - they already have golf carts. They didn't need another one just to increment a government electric vehicle fleet number up by one.

Guess how much use it's gotten since I wrote that? Just about none. What happened was that a few brave souls drove it around for the novelty the first week it was here and it's been mainly parked since then.

I say "mainly parked" because I get on them to charge it every month or two, because its batteries will sulfate and die if it sits too long without a charge.

Your tax dollars at work. Phase one.

Phase two is what our technonovice president has been doing this past week:



He's been out telling the battery story:

Standing at a podium in a muddy construction site, Obama celebrated the groundbreaking of an advanced car battery factory that the White House predicts will produce 300 permanent jobs. It was his fourth battery-related trip as president, and it came as the White House makes an aggressive push to tell what one senior official called "the battery story" — the tale of a small piece of technology that could affect daily life and spur employment if properly nurtured.

But the administration's $2.4 billion investment in the development of batteries and other electric-car technology in the United States is an enormous bet on a product that has yet to gain broad commercial success. Major manufacturers have yet to sell electric cars in the United States. Hybrids, though they have been around for a decade, represent less than 1 percent of the nation's roughly 250 million-vehicle fleet.

"The battery story is highly questionable," said Menahem Anderman, the founder and chief executive of Total Battery Consulting. "Basically, there's really no proven market, neither electric vehicle nor plug-in hybrid electric vehicle -- and there's really no battery company in the United States that has a verified product."

Although U.S. battery makers could export their products, the global market is glutted, according to analysts. Anderman said global capacity to build car batteries in 2014 will be three times greater than demand that year.

Sadly for me, I know batteries. (I say sadly, because I spent this afternoon in the hot sun installing $18,000 worth of batteries I sold the government for a total profit of possibly $300. Why couldn't I have gotten into $900 toilet seats?)

And though I mainly work with lead acid batteries, I've followed the other battery technologies closely. And all current technologies have serious drawbacks. Obama was in a truck manufacturer earlier this week promoting Lithium Iron Phosphate battery technology. (and it is cool) But go on a google shopping trip for Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries: they're hugely expensive. And you know you're going to need to replace them. How many of you would buy a car that you were guaranteed would need many thousands in repairs at the end of five years?

It is worthwhile to put money into R&D. I have faith that one day there will be a way to make cheap, lightweight, and powerful batteries; and even cheap solar panels, maybe. But it is a waste to pour billions into building factories to produce batteries that don't make the grade and aren't needed.

Can You Hear It?

"mwahahaha!"

Then There's This

Do you do Farmville? I got started because lumberkid needed a neighbor. It got old though, so I filled the farm with pigs and abandoned it.

Cue the Twilight Zone Music

It was strange enough:

In an interview earlier today with the South African Broadcasting Corporation to air in a few hours, President Obama disparaged al Qaeda and affiliated groups' willingness to kill Africans in a manner that White House aides say was an argument that the terrorist groups are racist.

Speaking about the Uganda bombings, the president said, "What you've seen in some of the statements that have been made by these terrorist organizations is that they do not regard African life as valuable in and of itself. They see it as a potential place where you can carry out ideological battles that kill innocents without regard to long-term consequences for their short-term tactical gains."

What? Now he sees that? Would Al Qaeda be any better if they held African lives as valuable as Arab lives? Would they be better if they had more respect for the environment? They live to kill innocents for gosh sake.

But then it got even weirder. In the same article, an unnamed administration official tried to make it better by explaining:

"Al Qaeda recruits have said that al Qaeda is racist against black members from West Africa because they are only used in lower level operations."


"In short," the official said, "al Qaeda is a racist organization that treats black Africans like cannon fodder and does not value human life."

Ah-ha! so it's about jobs! Ya-hoo! Finally we've got the man focused on jobs. Step two: get him interested in jobs on our continent. Step three: expand outside of the terror industry.

If a man joins al Qaeda to do terror, I don't much care that he's paid less than other terrorists. I don't care if they make him work weekends. And I certainly don't care if he's kept from a management position due to discrimination.

Cat Inches Away From Bliss

Dogs could easily solve this problem. Knock it to the ground and let the humans handle the cleanup.

Real Men Cut Down Giant Oaks

Or pretend they do on the internet.

Google USA vs. Google India

via

Monocle Smile

You're doing it wrong.

Just Another Monocle

Just Us

John Stossel writes about how congress creates, on average, one new crime a week. This one jumped out at me:

The National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) received an anonymous fax that a seafood shipment to Alabama from David McNab contained "undersized lobster tails" and was improperly packed in clear plastic bags, rather than the cardboard boxes allegedly required under Honduran law. When the $4 million shipment arrived, NMFS agents seized it. McNab served eight years in prison, even though the Honduran government informed the court that the regulation requiring cardboard boxes had been repealed.

Imagine that, eight years for lobster tails; and not one day in jail for standing in front of a polling place, glowering and intimidating voters as if we were some third world wild-wild west African country in which some guy named Goodluck Jonathan was the front runner for president.

Also - say you were thinking about starting your own business: importing seafood, or auto parts, or flowers. What would you identify as the biggest obstacle to your success? Transportation, financing, currency exchange? Or US government regulations?

Just So You Know

I commend James Taranto for condemning the NAACP for condemning the Tea Party for condemning the NAACP for condemning the Tea Party as racist.

Whew.

We Are Amused

Yes, we are amused. But only just.

I knew what I was doing as soon as I saw that monocle-smile. This is kind of slap dash, taken from the video, but I thought it needed to get out there.

It's About Like That

via

Monocle Smile

I too accept compliments with a monocle smile. It's civilized.

Cat Fight!

Megyn Kelly rocks.

Just Very Hungry That Day

Medvedev feigned indifference as the president salted his Kitten Platter.

Welsh Secret Weapon

Going Postal

found (forgot where)

Finding Friends

Drat! Decoys again.

NAACP Deems the N-word

Daniel Foster at NRO:

The NAACP will today vote on, and is expected to pass, a resolution condemning the “explicitly racist behavior” of the Tea Parties as a “threat to progress” for minorities. It calls on “all people of good will to repudiate the racism of the Tea Parties, and to stand in opposition to its drive to push our country back to the pre-civil rights era.”

Among the charges listed in the resolution, submitted by the group's Kansas City chapter, is that the movement “displayed signs and posters intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically.” It references the Capitol Hill incident in March, in which several black members of Congress alleged they were called racial epithets by passing Tea Party protesters.

“We need to realize it's really not about limited government,” said Anita Russell, head of the Kansas City NAACP, of the resolution.

Maybe Anita can explain how this band of bigots all got together by way of a call to limit the expansion of government? I mean, you look at publicity for Tea Party events and it references the expansion of government, the bailout(s), the deficit, etc, with no "oh, by the way, also show up if you hate minorities" -- not even in small print.

Could a call to protest restrictions on bicycling laws in DC turn into an anti-gay rally? Could you bring together anti-Semites by way of a call to lower property taxes?

It's just childish to "deem" the racial epithets (that weren't there) at the Capitol Hill tea party. Videos of the event picked up all the yelling and commotion -- if a single n-word flew it would have been repeated endlessly on the network news. It would have been the Zapruder film of year, with endless CSI-like audio analysis: "Note how the 'r' sound rolls on, Katie, stretching out the last syllable...."

That's what concerned me about the call for "progressive" infiltration of the tea parties a few weeks later: Just one convincing mole could get the whole gathering condemned by yelling the right word at the right time. Thankfully the infiltrators weren't convincing.

But what if there had been a bigot in the crowd? Should the crowd be judged by the utterances of one guy? Or should the crowd be judged on its reaction to that one guy. I believe the Tea Party on Capitol Hill would have turned on anyone yelling out the n-word at legislators; but we'll never know because the word was never hurled. And wishing won't make it so.

But feel free to prattle on about it endlessly. When you're done doing the victim dance, maybe we could discuss the issue of whether the government should own car companies, run health care, or offer unemployment benefits in perpetuity.

***Update:
Apparently NAACP President Ben Jealous dialed down the rhetoric on Thursday. Politico reports:

"We aren't saying that the tea party is racist," Jealous said. "What we're saying is that with their increasing power comes an increasing responsibility to act responsibly . . . and to call out when they see those things on those signs."

Good. I hope that interested Americans of all races will feel free to attend tea-party events. Then they can judge for themselves.

Nanny State

Truck Accident That Killed Rafters in Canyon Sparks Truck-Canyon-Rafter Reform Debate



har via NRO

Better Wake Up Music

h/t: Foxifer

Giraffe Unicorn

See what advances we've made now that Obama has freed up stem cell research? Speaking of the President, I understand he rides one of these at all the White House polo games. There are very few polo ponies that won't give way to a galloping 16 foot tall giraffe with a spear coming out of its head.

***Update: Uniaffe was already taken (it's a UN agency, in charge of making sure that money disappears), so the administration is going with Giranicorn.

The Woman Inside

Not particularly inspired, or well executed, but it had been so long since I did a photoshop that I figured I'd throw it out there. (plus, I just like putting lipstick on Al Franken) BTW, the original guy in the t-shirt looked just as out of place as Franken does.

Wake Up Music

That's Baseball

Coffee Party

This is another long clip but only the first 45 seconds matter. In it, South Korean born Annabel Park explains how her country was divided, and over what? "an ideology, an economic system of government." Her long-story-short is that it was that "you're either with us or against us" ideology that has lead to years of suffering. This, if you're a shallow thinking liberal, is why all those unreasonable tea-partyers need to mellow out and go along with the Change. You don't want to end up like Korea, do you?

You could excuse the civil war analogy if you accept her liberal fantasy that the tea parties are stockpiling guns. (which is silly, but hey, Annabel Park is silly) But for her civil war analogy she picks....... North and South Korea?

Is she aware that the only reason she's able to sit in America expressing her opinion is because her elders resisted the Chinese purveyors of "an economic system of government"? Would she rather South Korea joined the starving wretches in the dark North?:



As an analogy, the Korean conflict argues for vigorous opposition to some "economic systems of government". In Korea's case it saved half a country. And it gave her the freedom to live here and entertain herself with coffee and shallow political dabbling.

Then and Now

Just a by-the-way: they were both American products.