Ted Kennedy: One Year Sober

Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.

Looks Like We're In For Nasty Weather

h/t rose

Bad Moon Rising
(John C. Fogerty)

I see the bad moon a'risin'.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightnin'.
I see bad times today.

CHORUS:
Don't go around tonight,
Well, it's bound to take your life,
There's a bad moon on the rise.

I hear hurricanes a'blowin'.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

CHORUS
All right!

Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die.
Looks like we're in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye.

CHORUS

CHORUS

***

Bad moon risin'? Trouble on the way?
Here are 5 items of news from the last 24 hours:

1) h/t to Holger on an article by Mark Tapscott about American Thinker's Randall Hoven summary of straw being piled unto the camel's back:
(read each link)

So the following are facts, based on the government's own figures.

• Obama's stimulus, passed in his first month in office, will cost more than the entire Iraq War -- more than $100 billion (15%) more.
• Just the first two years of Obama's stimulus cost more than the entire cost of the Iraq War under President Bush, or six years of that war.
• Iraq War spending accounted for just 3.2% of all federal spending while it lasted.
• Iraq War spending was not even one quarter of what we spent on Medicare in the same time frame.
• Iraq War spending was not even 15% of the total deficit spending in that time frame. The cumulative deficit, 2003-2010, would have been four-point-something trillion dollars with or without the Iraq War.
• The Iraq War accounts for less than 8% of the federal debt held by the public at the end of 2010 ($9.031 trillion).
• During Bush's Iraq years, 2003-2008, the federal government spent more on education that it did on the Iraq War. (State and local governments spent about ten times more.)

2) Pre-Crime Technology To Be Used In Washington D.C.

If you’ve got nothing to hide then what is the problem with being scanned for pre-crime?

3) Without probable cause, new roving vans use backscatter x-rays to peer beneath your clothes, inside your car, and inside your home.

From a privacy standpoint, I’m hard-pressed to see what the concern or objection could be.

4) Citizens have become inmates.

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn't violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway - and no reasonable expectation that the government isn't tracking your movements.

5) Talk of Dow 5,000

If people had confidence, they wouldn't be pouring money into Treasury securities yielding nothing, and paying more than $1,200 for an ounce of gold.

Our communist masters are tightening the chains upon us, as they suck out the last few sheckles of wealth.

Our 'oath keepers' participate in trampling on the Constitution.

***

Our American founders must have had similar days, that steeled their nerve.
We see it in their clear statement of the problem, and the remedy:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

***

What did Sarah Conner say about 7 Nov 2010?


Creedance Clearwater Revival put it succinctly:

Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die.
Looks like we're in for nasty weather.

Sanity Returns!

Dr. Sanity is back from an extended hiatus!

The first few posts are HERE.
(I have not figured out how to link to individual blog posts there, so please bear with me.)

First post back is a video:


The post titled "Between Brains" on August 8th is a fine example of reasoned Sanity,. Please read it all.
(Apologies for not being able to linke directly again. Go to the August posts, and please scroll down...)

There is no doubt in my mind that the key "boundary conditions" that have enabled the incredible advances in human progress around the world which have decreased both human misery and poverty everywhere is due to the adherence to a rational ethical system that allowed individuals to interact in a socially productive and mutually beneficial manner--"between brains" so to speak; without the use of brute force and government coercion.

Those boundary conditions are being systematically and deliberately dismantled and replaced by a medieval, irrational and unethical system, that depends primarily on force, involuntary servitude, and the submission of the individual to the will of the State.

We need more Sanity in this world! Welcome Back!