Obama Carries the Torch

"You know, I think some stuff was smoldering before I got here."

Go Pinkie, No, I Mean It, Go Honey, It's Your Break

Ooowie, just ooowie.

h/t: LB

War on Women

Mulligan Man

not mine, found on the intertubes

Monkey Cute

more monkeys

h/t: lumberbrudi

Memorial Day

A local radio station did a thing on how we should also remember the sacrifices of the families of those who serve. That's true, and we should recognize and be grateful for all veterans. But that's not what today is about. Today is about those who died in service to their country.

Join me in a moment of silence to pray for, or just remember, our fallen heroes at 3:00. God bless them all.

Our President

He's strong, I'll give him that.

Is This Thing On?

Ha. The President talks to corn.

Dogma

Ever wonder why it's dogma and not catma? Because dogs are awesome.

h/t: LB

The Vulcan's Dog Nose Grip of Death

They do it once and you're unconscious for 5 or 10 minutes. They do it twice and you disapparate. Just like the Stargate SG1 stun guns. This dog is doing it to celebrate the fact that Lumberkid got! nothing! less! than! a! B-! on her report card!! Yay!

(no, not me, not my dog. I know, that makes it all the more amazing that he's celebrating Lumberkid's grades)

OK Now We're in Trouble

Not since the bears got laser cannons have I been so reluctant to go camping.

via

Obamao

Hope I haven't posted this one already. I found it sitting on my desktop, waiting to be deployed, I think.

Duckface

Not mine. Wish it was mine, not mine.

More War on Women

K-Lo reports on Notre Dame's lawsuit against the HHS mandate.

Notre Dame's president, Father John Jenkins:

Today the University of Notre Dame filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana regarding a recent mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). That mandate requires Notre Dame and similar religious organizations to provide in their insurance plans abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives and sterilization procedures, which are contrary to Catholic teaching. The decision to file this lawsuit came after much deliberation, discussion and efforts to find a solution acceptable to the various parties.

Let me say very clearly what this lawsuit is not about: it is not about preventing women from having access to contraception, nor even about preventing the Government from providing such services. Many of our faculty, staff and students — both Catholic and non-Catholic — have made conscientious decisions to use contraceptives. As we assert the right to follow our conscience, we respect their right to follow theirs...

So there you have it: "respect their right to follow their [conscience]" That's what Chris Matthews would call Notre Dame joining the war on women.


I'm a Catholic convert, and I was a little bit amazed at how many Catholics are OK with birth control and even abortion. I was under the impression that it was a pretty much an absolute rule.

But hey, that is their business. I really have no desire to force the birth control pills from their hands; in much the same way I don't think it's my business what gay Catholics do outside of the pews. (I draw the line in the pews, especially if they're in the same row as me) It's just not my business.

So the father and I are on the same page. I respect your right to take the pill, but you have to respect my right not to buy it for you. That some people can call that a War on Women says a lot about human imagination.

They're Not Cats, and They're Not Mere

They're meerkats.

h/t

Did You Know?

From Fox:

The Obama White House is drawing ridicule for appending the official online biographies of nearly every president over the last century in order to link President Obama's accomplishments to the former commanders in chief.

The Obama team went into the pages of U.S. presidents dating back to Calvin Coolidge to add friendly looking "Did you know?" fact boxes to the end of their bios. Those additions were used to plug a host of Obama administration initiatives, ranging from the health care overhaul to the so-called "Buffett Rule" to his green-energy policies.

For instance, the following line was added to the official bio of the late President Ronald Reagan: "In a June 28, 1985, speech, Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multimillionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule."

I'd Like to See Cats Do This

Cats don't have enough stamina. I keep rooting for the Pug? What's your favorite? Oh, the Pug too? I know, everyone loves a Pug.

h/t: Lumberbrudi

Joey Ramone

Ya Know?

For Your Right to Party

Who Are these Guys?

One is a foreign born socialist, and the other is
the new French President, Francois Hollande.

photo via

Oh, also, it's a good time for this one:

ha-ha

Please Don't Let this be True

From Mentalfloss concerning the use of Battle Elephants back before there were Hummers:

If elephants were the world’s first tanks, flaming pigs—slathered in tar, lit on fire, and set loose to wreak havoc—were the world’s first anti-tank missiles. According to Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, the weapon worked because “elephants are scared by the smallest squeal of the hog.”

When flaming pigs succeeded, they were brilliant. In 266 BCE, the Greek city of Megara fended off the Macedonian conqueror Antigonus II Gonatas using pigs doused in resin. Antigonus’s elephants fled in terror from the bacon brigade. Most battles, however, highlighted the serious drawbacks of tactical barbecue. Since the lifespan of flaming pigs is short, their range was well under 400 feet. That meant the enemy pretty much had to be on top of you before the hogs would have any effect. The porcine missiles also lacked a guidance system, which made them woefully inaccurate. Even when directed toward enemy lines, they often ran wherever they pleased, starting fires on their own side.

They often ran wherever they pleased? Wherever they pleased? They may have run wherever, but I'll bet you anything it wasn't where they pleased. Can you imagine? The guy who usually feeds you sets you on fire and opens the cage? What must have been going through those poor little pigs minds? Then, out of the gate, they look and see all the other guys from the pen, also on fire and running in circles. What to do? Do you try to find the wisest old pig through the smoke and ask him the purpose of this new game?

Sure, I know pigs aren't as smart as dolphins, but you'd think they'd be smart enough to go for the guy who set them alight.

American Crossroads: "Great II"

via NRO

You can jump to the 45 second mark if you like. Wait, how would you know "if you like"? You haven't done it yet. You can't know that you'd like to jump to 0:45 sec. until you've done it at least once. OK, so let's do it like this: Jump to the 45 second mark. Then watch it through from the beginning. Then, if you liked watching it from the 45 second mark, feel free to do it again.

Please don't write saying, "You wasted my time. I watched it all the way through from the beginning like you asked, but clearly I could have skipped the first 45 seconds." Well, yes. But you didn't know that until you tried it, did you? It's just like Brussels sprouts, you can't say you don't like them if you haven't tried them. Exactly the same thing.

Here try this; boil frozen Brussels sprouts per the directions, then drain them and put them in a skillet with a cup of minced onions and 3 or 4 slices of bacon cut into 1/2 inch or smaller squares. You probably want the onion translucent and the bacon starting to brown before you add the sprouts. Salt and pepper it like crazy. OK? Try that. See? You did like Brussels sprouts. (oh also, there might be a naked woman in the first 45 seconds of the video)

Study: 96% of restaurant entrees exceed USDA limits

I would have rewritten the headline: Overzealous USDA limits exclude 96% of what we eat.

If you plan to chow down tonight at a big chain restaurant, there's a better than nine-in-10 chance that your entree will fail to meet federal nutrition recommendations for both adults and kids, according to a provocative new study.

Watch out, the busy-bodies use studies like this to justify the next round of meddling in our pantries and on our tables.

I made a mistake on my trip to pick up Lumberkid. I got a fast food cheeseburger and large fries for my lonely-guy meal back at the motel. And my excuse is that I just about never get fast food, but I forgot my Number One Rule for fast food: always ask for packets of salt. I can forgive a lot, but I can't abide saltless french fries. The cheeseburger was alright but the french fries were like taking medicine.

It's food Nazis from ten years ago that caused my salt deficient fries. They scared my burger joint into serving the sorry spuds. And insult added to injury - we pay these government busy bodies. If they want to eat organic raw broccoli all day, fine! If they want big platters piled high with green leafy vegetables, great! If they like carrots, good, let them have ALL the carrots. Just so long as they keep their sweaty little government fingers off of my food.

You can have my salt shaker when you pry it from my cold dead condiment caddy.

Get a Cat to Do This

What most people don't notice is the talent of the girl in all this. It must have taken the dog many months to train her.

Chris Matthews Does Jeopardy

Next Jeopardy they're going to pit Chris Matthews against a drunk Sean Connery times two. I probably wouldn't love Mathews' failure so much if I hadn't heard him once start a sentence with "The first thing they taught us in graduate school was..." The sentence was in support of stimulus spending or some such.

Chris should have listened to the other things they taught him in graduate school.

They Just Want to be Friends

Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been picking lumberkid up from college.

h/t:Lumberbrudi

Campaign Gets Weirder

President Obama went after the doll head on a bottle rocket voter today at
the Barnard College commencement ceremony. Experts say this confirms
that the Obama campaign is going after niche voters one block at a time.

It's true, doll head on a bottle rocket voters were pretty much ignored in the last election.

Beer Substitute

This so would have worked with a dog. In fact, I'll bet the script called for a dog and this scab cat only got the job because he was willing to work for nonunion wages.

via

Because We've Had it Up to Here With the Halos

See Newsweek's latest cover? It's like they said to Time, "we'll see your breast feeding mom and raise you a gay halo."

Really? Another halo? Well, not here. He's got a record now; no halo awarded.

I've said before, the gay marriage issue isn't a big thing for me. Possibly because I think marriage's sanctity comes from God and the Church, not government. There are issues that should be addressed, such as gay partners having the right to be treated as relatives when it comes to death bed visitation, inheritance, taking out a loan etc. My marriage isn't threatened by government somehow finding a way to treat everyone fairly.

So I suppose I'm a little off the reservation on some conservative social issues. Maybe I should step up my war on women in order to compensate for it.

No Good Combination

I tried photoshopping President Obama's head onto the mom in the Time cover and the result was horrible beyond belief. So I left the mom and tried shopping his head onto the child; that was only horrible beyond all telling. But strangely, doing them both at the same time hit some sort of freaky resonance and, I think, has sort of a Norman Rockwell feel.

Happy Mother's Day to All You Moms

Funny enough to keep it on this side of the ideological cut-off line.

Ready

"I've asked Barney here to help me list all the legislation we expect to
pass now that I have evolved on gay marriage. OK, well we're done."

Actual truth: if these guys showed up wanting to go out on the town, and I could get my hands on the same outfit -- I'd go. Look, it'd be fun, it'd be a chance to teach them economics, and those ruffles? I could make that stuff look good. I don't recommend anyone else trying the look though; you need a massive amount of chest hair to counteract tropical colored ruffles. Massive.

Uncommon Knowledge

Who better to explain economics than a former Marxist? Thomas Sowell evolved. (if you're pressed for time, today's installment is the best, but all five are great)

History

The President was speaking about being on the right side of history today. Wouldn't the right side of history be the side we're all on at the moment? I mean, to be on the other side of history, you have to be past tense, like Monty Python's Norwegian Blue parrot - rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is the side where things still happen; on the other side of history everything is already over with.

We're all on the right side of history. Knock wood. It's so easy; even the Portuguese can do it.

Anyway, I'm thinking about history because of this latest news: that President Obama found the underwear bomb and saved an airplane. It reminded me of Obama's great grandfather, Charles Hussein Obama, who shot Bonnie and Clyde all those many years ago. And Dag Hussein Obama, who chased down John Wilkes Booth and wrestled him to the ground.

Those guys are on the "formerly" side of history now, but they're not forgotten. When the tough decisions had to be made, they wrote a memo to escape responsibility, delegated the decision to a fall guy, and went in with guns blazing.

When Barack spotted a airline passenger with a suspicious lump, I'm told he jumped over the security barricade and subdued the would-be terrorist. "Memos be damned," he said, "We'll write post-dated memos if it all goes wrong."

A truly historic President.

XKCD

xkcd

My Support for the President

My support for the President is still evolving.

In his favor though: Most other Presidents who were unlucky enough to have a recession only managed to recover from it once. Barack Obama is coming up on his third Recovery Summer. Heck, if he's reelected we could be looking at 7 Recovery Summers in a row.


photo via DayLife

I See What You Did There

found

Puppy Parrot Rivalry

Try and do this with a cat. You could never get a puppy and bird to fight over a cat like this.

The Unicorn Will be Out Shortly

Oh What a Tangled Web

From a Breitbart article concerning Elizabeth Warren's claim to Indian ancestry:

But the most stunning discovery about the life of O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford is that her husband, Ms. Warren's great-great-great grandfather, was apparently a member of the Tennessee Militia who rounded up Cherokees from their family homes in the Southeastern United States and herded them into government-built stockades in what was then called Ross’s Landing (now Chattanooga), Tennessee—the point of origin for the horrific Trail of Tears, which began in January, 1837.

So, I suppose she could claim Native American involvement in her ancestry. And anyway, I'm sure that the people who actually went out and rounded up Cherokees were something of a minority.

See what a tangled web we weave, Ms Warren?

BTW - This gives me a chance to write about a suspicion I've had for awhile now. Course I have no particular evidence, but I've been wondering why Obama won't release his college transcripts. He was a most favored up and comer, and even in the 60's the anointed could count on the benefit of the doubt when it came down to grades.

I'm not a conspiracy kind of guy so I'll put it like this: I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the reason Obama won't release the transcripts is because he claimed foreign student status. (falsely, in order to get diversity bonus points) Again, I have no reason to believe this except for my conviction that these are dishonest people. Elizabeth Warren got caught.

In France They Dance in Their Underpants

What to make of Hollande's win in France?

I look to the Dissident Frogman and ¡No Passaran!.

Dissident:

Looking at the French Left these days, you can almost feel a North Korean-lite level of insanity at work: no matter that the money is running out, that the standards of living are falling steadily and will continue to do so, these guys want to carry on, nay, extend the very policies and practices that brought us in this sorry state of affairs in the first place.

The horrible truth about the party that is now at the helm in France is that they are, and I weight my words carefully, completely mental (though in truth, the previous one was only ever so slightly less bonkers), while the added horror stems from the fact that they’ve just been chosen by a slight majority of the voters....

No Pas:

Bend Over, France

Golf Forward

Sorry boys, I'm pretty sure my ball is thataway.

Notice Anything?

Some reports said that this woman was wearing a burka.

She was ejected from the candidate in chief's latest hoop-a-doo for some reason, and it might have been her dress. The first thing I noticed was her arms. How often do you see a veil with bare arms? Not only that, look at the size of those arms. I know I wouldn't want to arm wrestle her.

There, I've boldly said it. I wouldn't want to arm wrestle a woman in a veil.

And they say we've got a war on women. Not me.

photo credit

Cop Fishing

I was happy to find this image. I was hoping it was going to be from the Occupy protests in the US, because it would have been a sign of creativity and humor. But sadly, these were Canadians fishing for cops with doughnuts. Our Occupy Idiots haven't yet evolved past the point of pooping on things in public. Sadly, in the US we're still waiting for the first creative, humorous, or coherent thought.

One I Did, One I Didn't, and another one I did

OK, I did this one, just updated the Obama as Batman at the dacha picture:



But this one, from DayLife, I swear I didn't touch:



OK, Now I've modified it, but only to compensate for the lighting, plus not being goofy enough:

Let's Pretend There's a Mirror

And so they did.



h/t:unique

Buy the Book

By the way, Jonah Goldberg's new book is out (see left) and if you don't buy it, he's threatened to "drink a liter of gin, handcuff a Cartagena hooker to a motel-bathroom towel rack, and start screaming at the framed clown portrait on the wall, "Why won't you ungrateful bastards buy it! Why!?!" "

So, better just buy it.

Tyranny of Cliches blog

Awkward Wedding Toast

h/t: IOTW

For the Prius

Alphamail sends, for those of you who still have bumpers to stick it to:

Cautionary Tail

Seen the Life of Julia Yet? It's the President makin it simple for those of you still too stupid to understand that he just wants to take care of you, from cradle to grave. It's free stuff people!



So I thought I'd help the President out. It gets a little complicated when you consider that we're borrowing money in order to get the free stuff, so, like the President, I won't bother you with numbers. ("math is hard!") Just understand: we'll borrow from the Chinese and pay them back with money we take from the rich people.




I might do more panels, we'll see. Frankly though, if you don't understand free stuff by now, I can't explain it to you. Just try going out there and working for the stuff you need. See how far that gets you. Will it get you free stuff? I don't think so.

(might have to clickabiggen)

Good Read

First sleepwalking defense; would it fly? It'd have to, this was long before Twinkies became available as an excuse for bad behavior:

Tirrell retained the services of Rufus Choate, legal wunderkind and erstwhile United States senator from Massachusetts, an antebellum Johnnie Cochran renowned for his velocity of speech. He once spoke “the longest sentence known to man” (1,219 words) and made his mentor, Daniel Webster, weep during a talk titled “The Age of the Pilgrims, the Heroic Period of Our History.” Choate derived much of his courtroom strategy from Webster, drawing particular inspiration from his performance at the criminal trial of a client charged with robbery. Webster’s defense was based on offense; he impugned the character of the alleged victim, suggesting that he’d staged an elaborate sham robbery in order to avoid paying debts. Webster’s alternative narrative persuaded the jurors, who found his client not guilty.

Choate kept that case in mind while plotting his defense of Tirrell, and considered an even more daring tactic: contending that Tirrell was a chronic sleepwalker. If he killed Mary Bickford, he did so in a somnambulistic trance and could not be held responsible....

h/t: wetdry

Should Have Done It Long Ago

The Weekly Standard reports on the trend I started:

In the 39 months that President Obama has held office, party affiliation has swung 10 points against his party.

According to Rasmussen’s polling, at the end of the month in which Obama took the oath of office (January 2009), Democrats enjoyed an 8-point advantage in party affiliation — as 41 percent of Americans then said they were Democrats, while only 33 percent said they were Republicans. Eleven months later, a few days after the Democratic Senate’s passage of Obamacare on Christmas Eve, the Democrats’ lead had dropped from 8 points to just 1.5 (35.5 percent Democratic, 34 percent Republican). By the end of the month in which the midterm elections took place — 7 months after Obama had signed Obamacare into law — the Democrats had lost their advantage altogether and actually trailed the Republicans by a point (36 percent Republican, 35 percent Democratic). Seventeen months later, not much has changed — Republicans now enjoy a 2-point lead, with 35 percent of Americans identifying themselves as Republicans and 33 percent identifying themselves as Democrats.

I may have mentioned that I finally got around to switching from D to R. I don't blame President Obama for the switch, it was a long time coming. And as most of you know, I gave Obama a chance; often doing flattering photoshops of him and praising him in my own way. I swear, sometimes I felt like they should be paying me for all the good, or possibly neutral PR I did for the man. Like this one:



Right? I was comparing him to a firefighter. Sure, one who didn't know how to fight fires, and yes, one who only made things worse with his efforts; but someone who was trying to make things better.

Or how about this one:



In that one I was trying to make the point that Obama didn't know he was strangling Uncle Sam and ruining everything. See how the President is caught up in the party moment? He doesn't know he's dashing the hopes and dreams of America. He just wanted a piggy-back ride to the golf course.

So in summation I think we can agree that I've been exceedingly fair with the President and that he had no part in my decision to change from Democrat to Republican.

And lest anyone accuse me of not giving credit where it's due:

Tan and Lovely

I saw that story about some mom who was arrested for taking her daughter to a tanning booth and thought reflexively, "government overreach, obvious nanny-state nit picking."

But, um, well just say that having her picture up on this MSN story didn't advance her cause. According to the story, she's 44 years old. Yikes. I've got tennis shoes that the years have been kinder to.

Still, she adamantly denies taking her daughter into the booth. OK, maybe... Just don't do it again. And maybe you should step away from the booth as well.