Some of the most entertaining days of my life

I owe a big thank you to Weiner for giving me the comic relief I’ve needed. Times are hard for so many of us and the daily (almost hourly) news is not good so, a little Weiner levity has been great. Everyone from Andrew Klavan to Andrew Breitbart provided some great laughs and one liners. I mean seriously, how can you pair any adjective with the name Wiener and it not be funny?

I also owe a thanks to the White House (and Drudge) for publishing the German state dinner menu:

STATE DINNER MENU DONE ON BUDGET:
White House Honey Gastrique
Tuna Tartare with Rye Crisps
Pickled Young Carrots and Mustard Oil
Spring Pea Salad
Shaved Ham and Ginger Snaps
Petite Filet
With Maryland Crab Ravioli
Wild Ramp Puree
Apple Strudel
Golden Raisins and Topfen

The One's state dinner place setting. Photo from CNN

I had to Wiki half this menu (or ask Jane who’s a food network fan) because I’m just not a cuisine expert. (She knew what Gastrique is. I thought it might be cow or sheep stomach. HA! Martha Stewart would be slapping me with her rubber spatula for that!)

Crock pot roast beef and baked potatoes is a fancy meal at our house. I have to wonder who’s budget this WH menu was based on. Petite filet (one thing on the menu I know about) is kinda pricey and a once a year treat for me. In fact, as a family tradition, we vote every year about our Christmas dinner and more times than not, we vote for steak (Porterhouse, T-bone or filet) because it’s such a rarity for us. And as a person with an Italian heritage, I can tell you crab ravioli is not something I’m familiar with. But it does sound good.

What is Wild Ramp Puree? It a “bed” of something from West Virginia, I do know that much.

All in all, this is not a menu that is friendly to MY budget. But it was semi-entertaining to discuss and research the menu items.

And again, all this frivolity in the news distracted me from some of the more unpleasant (1/3 of all employees will lose their employer-based health care) and scary (reports that Iran could have nukes in less than 6 months – what’s more scary than that?) news reports. Not that Weiner’s sexy (insert surprised emoticon here) online chat, isn’t news worthy – it is. But it was also the more fun times I’ve had reading online.

The surreal press conference that Weiner called on Monday when Brietbart upstaged him, was the BEST television since the debut of the trampoline bear on the Fox Report. It was stunningly hilarious and at the same time, made me feel proud of being a Breitbart fan. Seeing him at Weiner’s podium calling out the so-called “journalists” for being duplicitous and disingenuous (fancy words for being jerkweeds) was absolutely priceless!

I’ve been online for a long time and one thing I have learned is that there is only one type of man who posts penis pictures of himself: the kind of nerdy, inadequate, trying-to0-hard man that Weiner is. Don’t ask me how I know this because I’m not telling (insert red-faced emoticon here) and I’ve used no tax dollars in this research so I owe no one an explanation.

But in that regard, Weiner and his weiner are pathetic. I almost feel bad about laughing at his online sexcapades because I knew men (boys) like him in high school and college. He has some serious feelings of inadequacy that only his online braggadocio can seem to quash.

Sad.

But on the upside for me at least, we’ve not heard the last of Anthony’s Weinergate.

And okay, I admit it, my life is pretty dull.

I’ll leave you with Andrew Klavan’s description of Weiner – “Physically, he’s a dead ringer for a turtle that’s been pulled out of its shell.”

Anti-Semetism: San Francisco’s circumcision ballot question

Now there’s proof positive that the circumcision ban in San Fransisco it anti-Semetic.

If the measure passes, circumcision would be prohibited among males under the age of 18. The practice would become a misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or up to one year in jail. There would be no religious exemptions.  (emphasis mine) YahooNews.com

For a city that has bragged on it’s tolerance and progressive ideology, this is nothing short of being anit-Semetic, as well as anti-Muslim and unConstitutional.

This is blatant anti-Semetism and to make it worse (or more obvious) take a look at the cartoon from Zombie at PajamasMedia.com.  (H/t Ace of Spades, who also has a great blog about this, complete with a Beck radio clip.) This is appalling and amazing at the same time.

Who’s in charge of PR for this anti-circ drive?

To add insult to injury (if that’s possible) according to Zombie, the cartoonists name is Hess.  Shades of Nazi Germany.

If that isn’t Jew hatred, I’m a Chinese astronaut.

And everyone seems to have forgotten that Muslims require circumcision at age 12.

Female genital cutting, a controversial practice that usually involves the removal of the clitoris, is illegal in the United States. A circumcision ban would simply extend the same protections to males, [Lloyd] Schofield [spearheading this ballot initiative] said.

Here, we are talking about 2 separate things. A circumcision does not prevent male pleasure during sex. It does not prevent a man from experiencing an orgasm.  A clitorectomy all but eliminates that pleasure for a female.  Therefore there’s no comparison between the 2 proceedures. One is mutilation, (not controversial) to any thinking person. The other is a CHOICE, usually by parents, or it’s a religious requirement.  Which brings us back full circle to anti-Semetism and Constitutional rights.

This is going to be tied up in the courts for a long time and in the end, the whole thing will be a waste of time and lots of money. This is unConstitutional on several levels. Not to mention it’s Jew hatred at it’s most obvious.

Shame on all of the people who are supporting this.

 

 

 

 

How we arrived here – a 25 minute lesson

The left needs a cause and if that cause disappears (as the Viet Nam war did or as women’s rights mostly have) they have to find a filler.

Remember that famous quote by Bill Ayers at the end of the Viet Nam war?

“Is there life after war?” he lamented.

Yes, Bill, there’s life and a professorship, a home in the best part of Chicago and a good job at a top rated law firm for your wife, all after war and all in the capitalist nation that you hate.

And there’s always a new cause for you to glom onto.

Listen carefully. You will hear the roots of the current marxist cause – the green movement – in the next video:

And some added points of interest:

The Frankfurt School was funded by, among others, the Rockefeller Foundation, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), the American Jewish Committee, International Labor Organization, several different American intelligence agencies and a very high brow Beverly Hills psychotherapy clinic – the Hacker Institute.

It’s also interesting to note that Herbert Marcuse worked for the OSS during WWII and was a Soviet policy analyst during the McCarthy era.  At the end of his days he returned to West Germany and helped found the environmental extremist Green Party.

GM wants more taxpayer money, but this time this time it’s not ours

According to Der Spiegel Online, GM is now in Europe with their thieving hands open.

In what is a “we’ve seen this movie before” routine, they want the EU to cough up nearly $5 billion dollars to keep its factories open. But unlucky for GM, in this age of instant news and globally shared economic understanding, the Germans are onto what it means to “bail out” the car company. They’ve seen how this has played out (and is still playing out) in America and are wisely not jumping in to see a repeat in Europe.

Closures and downsizing would hit Germany the hardest with 4 factories in the nation and nearly half of the European workers living in Germany.

While the factory doors may stay open, thousands of jobs will most certainly be lost, and Germany will take the brunt of the cuts. Speaking to reporters, Nick Reilly, temporary head of GM’s European operations, said that 9,000 jobs would be axed across Europe, with up to 60 percent of the cuts coming in Germany. That amounts to a 20 percent reduction in capacity, which is to be accomplished through downsizing plants rather than closing them entirely.

Certainly Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German government will be pleased to hear the news that the local plants will remain in operation. Of GM’s 50,000 workers in Europe, roughly half work in Germany. On Wednesday, Reilly said that Germany’s plants in Bochum, Eisenach, Kaiserslautern and Antwerp play a critical role in GM’s future.

Newspapers in Germany are saying exactly the same things American financial gurus have been saying since the U.S. take-over of GM last year: it will hinder or eventually kill off competitive corporations, GM is poorly managed and financially unhealthy and GM hasn’t done anything to guarantee its word in the past.

In a deja vu moment for Americans, German commentators are echoing exactly what we’ve have been hearing about GM and our government bail-out:

The Financial Times Deutschland writes: “The German government would do well to stay out of the Opel rescue. It should neither intervene on the behalf of individual factories nor should it send any money to GM. Opel is not a good candidate for assistance from the German Economic Fund (eds. note: a €115 billion fund to assist German companies ailing as a result of the financial crisis) because it doesn’t meet the fund’s stringent criteria. The car maker was not healthy before the financial crisis nor does GM currently have difficulties finding financing help. Even a tough restructuring problem would only lessen doubts about the survival prospects of Opel. It would not eliminate them.”

The conservative daily Die Welt writes: “Such announcements regarding job cuts are not worth much. They can be quickly changed should business not develop as expected…. They are primarily suitable for softening up government leaders. The message is: Give a few billion and things won’t turn out quite so badly.”

“Perhaps even worse would be the distortion of competition. Even now, one can imagine how the competition from the government-subsidized Opel models Astra and Insignia would make life difficult for Volkswagen, Daimler and others. When will politicians realize that their interventions produce far more costs than just the loss of billions in guarantees? If one looks at Opel’s history, there is only one possible answer to the question: obviously never.”

The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes: “What will happen next? General Motors has sent Nick Reilly to Europe to guide Opel into the future, as part of the parent company. He has no solid plans, but he has a long list of requests — for the German government, for the states where Opel plants are located and for the Opel employees. He wants them all to assist him with the restructuring of the car company — with taxpayer money or by withholding demands for pay increases. And signals that some aid may actually be forthcoming are already being sent by the politicians, who only days ago were the victims of General Motor’s deceit.”

“‘General Motors could also contribute,’ Reilly has said. How very kind. Opel — and the British subsidiary, Vauxhall — belong to General Motors. They do not belong to the German or British taxpayers. One can wish the company luck — but tax money should remain off-limits to Opel.”

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes: “For decades, GM lacked a clear plan and has had no clear strategy.… In June, for example, the company planned to close the Opel plants in Bochum and Eisenach. Today both of those plants have been guaranteed a future. This sort of back and forth doesn’t exactly encourage trust. State governors need to be careful in dealing with these sorts of managers — and they should refuse to support them financially. Otherwise they will simply trigger a cycle of subsidies that won’t guarantee jobs anyway.”

“No car manufacturer is in a position to guarantee jobs right now. The outlook for the auto industry, which continues to suffer from over supply, is simply too grim. In order to improve the industry’s outlook, factories must close. As such, there is absolutely no reason to assist a company by giving them billions of euros, just so they can keep those excess factories working.”

A true Crisis of Confidence

We have lost our clout and our credibility in the world, especially among our allies. I try to read international papers online, at least once a week to get a feel for what they are doing and how they are viewing us. It’s getting damned depressing.

On the 70th anniversary of the Russian invasion of Poland, we dropped a big bomb of our own on the Poles when it was announced that we were taking the missile defense system off the table. Could we have picked a worse day to do this to an ally? The Poles revere Ronald Reagan, love America and they have sent thousands of soldiers to Afghanistan to fight beside ours. So… we just dumped on the Poles and the Czechs and took the promised missiles away.

The Poles were so incensed, their president refused a call from Hillary Clinton.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Zbigniew Brezezinski (former adviser to that other impotent president, Jimmy Carter and an anti-Semite just like the president he served) said that we should make sure that Israel knows that if they attempt to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites, we will shoot down their planes.

“We are not exactly impotent little babies,” Brzezinski said. “They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?… We have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not…”

I’m sure the Israeli’s have all kinds of confidence in their ‘friendship’ with us. Obama and Hillary Clinton have demanded that they make concessions in the occupied West Bank but have asked nothing of Hamas. Hamas, who hides inside homes and schools, behind women and children, to launch missiles at the Israelis. Hamas – who go to war like cowards.

I wish someone could explain to me why Jewish Americans supported Obama. If this guy was going to allow Austria to threaten to blow up Vatican City, how many American Catholic votes would he have gotten? Seriously, this Jewish support just totally baffles me.

It’s being rumored that General McChrystal is prepared to resign if his requests for more troops is nixed. His request has been held up for nearly 3 weeks. American, and allied soldiers are waiting… It would take 60-90 days for those troops, if they are approved tomorrow, to be ready for deployment.

In March, Obama announced a “comprehensive, new strategy” in Afghanistan. What’s happened to that? On Meet the Press this last Sunday, he said he’s not ready to do anything until he’s sure it’s the right thing. And our soldiers are waiting…

How does all this effect morale?

This last weekend we had a friend from Germany visit us. When he was 17, he lived with us as an exchange student. He told us that the Europeans blame us for the worldwide financial meltdown. I’m not an economist, but I think he’s correct.

Almost daily, I can feel America declining. I read it, I hear it, I see it. Frank Luntz, in his new book “What Americans Really Want… Really” said that a depressing 33% of Americans feel that America will be a better place for their children and 57% believe that their children will have a worse quality of life.

We are polarized by a president who will not pull us together because it might jeopardize what he thinks is his place in history, i.e. passing his entire socialist agenda. He knows that it’s division that will win him his causes so he ignores the majority and pays back (with our tax dollars) his fringe supporters, i.e. unions and leftist politicians.

Obama has traveled the world apologizing and shaming us, shouldering the blame for everything from global warming to arrogance. He’s embarrassed the nation and weakened us in the eyes of friend and foe.

I believe we, and in a larger sense, the world is suffering from a real crisis of confidence.

And I don’t believe that this president is capable of fixing that.