Arrogance

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Obama Actions on Jobs

President Barack Obama is "focused like a laser" on job creation, according to his supporters. So what has this focus accoumplshed?


In other words, not much.

If these are the results of his focus on jobs, can we please get him to focus on something else? Anything else? Please?

The Age of the Internet Age

From American Digest

This is an absolute truth. I also own a MITS-Altair 8800B computer. And I still have some programs stored on IBM punch cards, which go back still further.

That means that either

1. I'm older than I feel, or
2. The computer age — much less the internet age — isn't all that old.

A Modern Christmas Parable

I heard Paul Harvey tell this story on the radio at Christmas time a few years ago. I liked it then, and it's only grown on me since. But my attempts to find a copy of the story were unsuccessful — until earlier this year, when I found a similar (but different) story. That enabled me to find the one I remembered, at last. It's still worth sharing.

Paul Harvey: A Modern Parable
As read on the radio

Unable to trace its proper parentage, I have designated this as my Christmas story of "The Man and the Birds." You know the Christmas story, the God born a man in a manger, and all that escapes some moderns — mostly, I think, because they seek complex answers to their questions, and this one's so utterly simple. So for the cynics and the skeptics and the unconvinced, I submit a modern parable:

Now, the man to whom I'm going to introduce you was not a Scrooge; he was a kind, descent, mostly good man, generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn't believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmastime. It just didn't make sense, and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn't swallow the Jesus story about God coming to earth as a man.

"I'm truly sorry to distress you," he told his wife, "but I'm not going with you to church this Christmas Eve." He said he'd feel like a hypocrite, that he'd much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed, and they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier, and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound, then another, and then another, sort of a thump or a thud. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window; but when he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They'd been caught in the storm, and in a desperate search for shelter had tried to fly through his large landscape window.

Well, he couldn't let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it.

Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in, so he hurried back to the house, fetched breadcrumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted, wide-opened doorway of the stable. But to his dismay the birds ignored the breadcrumbs and continued to flop around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them; he tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms. Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.

And then he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me, that I'm not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow; they would not be led or shooed, because they feared him.

If only I could be a bird, he thought to himself, and mingle with them and speak their language! Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to the safe, warm . . . to the safe warm barn . . . but I would have to be one of them, so they could see and hear and understand. At that moment, the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sound of the wind, and he stood there listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. . . . And he sank to his knees in the snow.

Wishing you all a blessed Christmas!



Image thanks to ZIP

An AT&T Phishing Expedition

A friend of mine once had his e-mail through a (now long-defunct) organization called flash.net (How many of you even knew such an outfit existed!?) He also had his web hosting through them. The e-mail address continued to be active even as flash.net was bought out by others including Prodigy and (most recently, even though that was years ago) AT&T.

This year, AT&T decided it didn't want to support these "legacy" accounts any more. They notified everyone their web hosting support was going to end. With plenty of warning, my friend moved his web hosting to another organization — after verifying that the e-mail account (which had long since been passed to yahoo) would be unaffected.

Then, this week, he received a very suspicious e-mail, reproduced here:

---LAST WARNING---
Tuesday, December 20, 2011 12:18 PM
From: "AT&T Mail Service" <bardgym@bellsouth.net>
This sender is DomainKeys verified
To: undisclosed-recipients

Due to the congestion in all flash users and removal
of all unused flash Accounts, flash .net would be
shutting down all unused Accounts, You will have to
confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login
Information below after clicking the reply button,
              
* User name:

* Password:
                 
* Date of Birth:
                             
* Country Or Territory:

After following the instructions in the sheet, your
account will not be interrupted and will continue as
normal. Thanks for your attention to this request.
We apologize for any inconveniences.

Warning!!!: Account owner that refuses to update
his/her account after three days of receiving this
warning stands the risk of losing his or her account
permanently.

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.449 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3768 -
Release Date: 07/16/11 06:56:00

Given the level of attention AT&T had previously given to former flash.net users, he figured they might not be aware of these messages. He figured he ought to tell them about what he'd received. He went to the att.com pages and found where a sub-page said to report security concerns. He forwarded the suspicious message to them at the e-mail address identified there. His message said:

Thought you should know about this.
(Just in case you didn't already.)

The message bounced. He checked some more and, figuring it was just a glitch, re-sent it like this:

Thought you should know about this.  (Just in case you didn't already.)

secure@att.com is the address identified to use for this purpose on the
web page http://www.att.com/gen/general?pid=19318

Once again, his message bounced. Once again, he got a message like this:

Failure Notice
Tuesday, December 20, 2011 4:55 PM
From: "MAILER-DAEMON@yahoo.com" 
This sender is DomainKeys verified

Sorry, we were unable to deliver your message to the
following address.

<secure@att.com>: Remote host said: 553 information.
(#5.7.1) [BODY]

--- Below this line is a copy of the message.

I'm not sure what this means. But if the e-mail address AT&T advertises for reporting security issues doesn't work, that seems to say AT&T doesn't really want to know about them.

Getting Older Sneaks Up On You

From American Digest

This would be funnier if it weren't so true.

The Day World War II Began for the U.S.

Seventy years ago today, the United States Pacific fleet was attacked by Japanese naval aircraft. Twenty ships were damaged or destroyed, including four battleships sunk or destroyed.

Seventy years later, the USS Arizona still weeps.

There is an interesting sidelight to the attack and the sinking of the Arizona. In battle, the Japanese navy used torpedoes and naval artillery to sink enemy ships. They apparently did not have penetrators — armor piercing bombs — available for use. In the Pearl Harbor attack, the primary objective was to sink all the U.S. battleships and aircraft carriers — or as many of them as they could. They would want to use their bombers in that effort as well as their torpedo planes. To do that, they made their own penetrating bombs, adapting 16" artillery shells for that purpose. It was one of these improvised bombs that destroyed the Arizona and turned it into a cemetery.

Bosque Farms Centenarian Passes

Just last month, we celebrated Erlinda Garley Moya's 100th birthday. Tomorrow we have her funeral Mass.

Bosque Farms and Peralta have lost a strong lady. No — lost isn't the right word. As Deacon Eddie said at Mrs. Moya's Rosary this evening, we haven't lost her because we know where she is.

But she has left us — after 100 years, 1 month, and 2 days of a very full life. She will be missed.

How to Save on Taxes

Become an illegal alien!

Obama Actions on Jobs

President Barack Obama is "focused like a laser" on job creation, according to his supporters. So what has this focus accoumplshed?

1. Obama decided to delay (at least) the Keystone XL pipeline that would have brought Canadian oil to the US and created at least 20,000 jobs.
2. Obama's Agriculture Department has decided to delay (at least) drilling in Ohio's Utica shale that would have created more than 200,000 jobs.
3. Obama's Interior Department continues to stall deepwater drilling for oil, despite supposedly having lifted the moratorium (ban) it imposed, thus blocking restoration of the Gulf region's jobs and oil production.
4. "The President’s plan is to simply say ‘no’ to new energy production," House Natural Resources Committee chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash, said to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar during a Congressional hearing.

If these are the results of his focus on jobs, can we please get him to focus on something else? Anything else? Please?

Both Sides of His Mouth

A prime example from the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto:

Two Former Enron Advisers in One!

• "There's obviously a relationship between tax rates and revenue. That relationship is not, however, one-for-one. In general, doubling the excise tax rate on a good or service won't double the amount of revenue collected, because the tax increase will reduce the quantity of the good or service transacted. And the relationship between the level of the tax and the amount of revenue collected may not even be positive: in some cases raising the tax rate actually reduces the amount of revenue the government collects."--from "Economics," by former Enron adviser Paul Krugman and Robin Wells (Mrs. Krugman), second edition, 2009

• "In Democrat-world, up is up and down is down. Raising taxes increases revenue. . . . But in Republican-world, down is up. The way to increase revenue is to cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy."--Krugman, New York Times, Nov. 18, 2011

Clearly, President Barack Obama and his supporters believe the second Paul Krugman, and not the first. But it was the first that won the economics prizes.

Veterans Day, 2011

In 2007, Kyle-Anne Shiver wrote an open letter of thanks to America's veterans that is a must read — especially today. Here's an excerpt:

And it is also true, that unless one has been in battle, one does not truly understand the depth of your passion for liberty. To families that have borne no soldiers, you are an enigma. To cowards, you are a shaming presence, a constant reminder of their weakness. To your parents, you represent both the mountaintop of pride, and the deepest valley of concern that mothers and fathers can ever know. And to most of us ordinary citizens, you are the unseen, under-appreciated protectors of all that we hold dear.

Military men and women really are different. Like their brothers and sisters in fields such as firefighting and law enforcement, they are the ones who run toward the fire and toward the firefight, not away. They are the sheepdogs, the ones who protect the sheep from the wolves — but whose presence makes the sheep uncomfortable. They're not all the same; they come in all types. But they share that difference. Sometimes you can see it in their eyes. Sometimes you can see the difference without being able to see who they are.

Even when you're not be able see the difference, the difference is still there. But whether you see the difference or not, whether you are aware of them or not, they are the ones who are there to be a deterrent — and, if necessary, a force for protection and rescue. They are the men and women who have secured and preserved our freedom. To them, along with Kyle-Anne Shiver, I say

You serve and fight for the greatest Nation in the history of civilization. There has never been a grievous wrong that good Americans have not sought to rectify. There has never been a just cause on which America has turned her back for long. You, our soldiers, have been and continue to be, the greatest force for freedom and human rights ever gathered. You have raised our flag around the world, not for domination, but to bring greater liberty and a better way of life. You are the reason America remains a beacon of hope to the entire world.

To all our veterans, and to all who serve, THANK YOU!

Supercommittee Democrats' Bait & Switch

There had supposedly been negotiations between the Democrats and the Republicans on the "supercommittee". The Republicans had made what appeared to be a good offer. The Democrats "had sounded amenable to the possible deal, but their position suddenly hardened after going back to their caucus." Translation: They got their orders, from whoever, and followed them.

A little more detail:

Sen. Pat Toomey had worked out a framework that he considered pro-growth and a reasonable first step toward fiscal restraint, while making a major concession to Democrats on revenue in the interests of getting a deal. Max Baucus especially had sounded open to it and a sub-group of the supercommittee had been discussing it seriously — but no more.

Apparently, the Democrats on the committee were ordered to "dump" the agreement.

Why do I say that? The Democrats claimed they wanted a "balanced" approach, one that included revenue increases as well as spending cuts. Their intransigence was there would be no deal at all without revenue increases. To get a deal, the Republicans gave the Democrats what they said they wanted. Revenue increases — half a trillion dollars over the ten year period. But, from the Democrats' perspective, there was one thing wrong: The Republican plan had revenue increases, but not tax rate increases, and what the Democrats really want is tax rate increases.

In short, the Republicans gave the Democrats what the Democrats said they wanted, but the Democrats lied.

I also saw on TV an analyst saying (approcimately)

The Democrats have always regarded the "supercommittee" as a scam — a means of conning the Republicans into accepting major tax increases.

We can only hope the Democrats don't get what they want.

UPDATE: Here's further confirmation. Once again, as in past years, their proposed "deal" is $1 in spending cuts for $1 in tax increases. Trouble is, the tax increases always take effect and the spending cuts always prove to be mirages.

All the supercommittee Democrats want is huge tax increases.

The "Christmas Tree Tax"

The Obama Administration announced the imposition of a new fee on the sale of every Christmas tree in the nation. The new levy was first announced in the Federal Register yesterday. It is being imposed to fund a public relations campaign to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States.”

Opponents popped up immediately. One opponent said “The economy is barely growing and nine percent of the American people have no jobs. Is a new tax on Christmas trees the best President Obama can do? And, by the way, the American Christmas tree has a great image that doesn’t need any help from the government.”

But the Administration is adamant that the new levy is not a tax — it is a fee. The White House has sent out its spokesmen to push this assertion. In one instance, White House spokesman Matt Lehrich told ABC News that “I can tell you unequivocally that the Obama Administration is not taxing Christmas trees. What’s being talked about here is an industry group deciding to impose fees on itself to fund a promotional campaign, similar to how the dairy producers have created the ‘Got Milk?’ campaign.”

I guess it can't be a tax since it's being done by an executive department and not by Congressional legislation. But this White House statement is quite dishonest. If it were true, there would be no need for government involvement. And there would be no government involvement. If it were true, the industry groupd would implement the fee, and Christmas tree sellers — at worst — would have to choose between paying the fee or withdrawing from the organization. But this fee is mandatory. It is implemented by the government, to be used for projects managed by the government. And you can bet the first costs paid from the fee will be for the government bureaucrats to manage the program — in this case, the new federal Christmas Tree Promotion Board. That's not "an industry group deciding to impose fees on itself." Especially since a significant number of Christmas tree sellers don't want it and are pretty vocal about saying so.

The only bright spot in this story is that the White House has apparently wised up just a little. It has announced that implementation of the new tax/fee will be delayed, and its existence will be revisited. Since I'm feeling a bit cynical today, I'll guess that means they'll put it through at a time they think people won't notice till it's too late.

How the O-2s Really Got to Viet Nam

It may not be new, but it's new to me.

Just a week or so ago, I was sent a link to a Thailand Aviation article on a Navy observation unit — VO-67 — that used P-2 Orion anti-submarine aircraft in Viet Nam for jungle surveillance. The aircraft were modified versions of the P2V-5F aircraft, redesigneted as OP-2E. The occasion for the article was the unit being awarded a Presidential Unit Citation forty years later.

In that article, it talked about the cooperation between the Navy surveillance aircraft and a unit of Air Force FACs (Forward Air Controllers) flying O-2A aircraft, a military version of the civilian Cessna Skymaster.

The FACs flew every day and night (mostly night) to identify the latest changes in anti-aircraft emplacements for use in the flight planning for the larger P2V-5F/OP-2E aircraft.

By happenstance, just a few days later, an old Air Force friend (and F-4 Phantom pilot) sent me a story about the O-2 and included his own observations on the aircraft. They make a good story, and it's good history.

Continue reading -->

The Scariest Thing I've Seen

In line with the scary holiday just past, here is the absolutely scariest chart I have seen in months. No, years. Maybe decades.

It was bad enough after 2001. But the leaps beginning with the first Pelosi-Reid budget (2008) are really bad! This cannot continue!

Happy Halloween

The above image shamelessly cribbed from Classical Values. I just couldn't resist.

[late, too ... penalty flag thrown]

The 1%-er

Look at this

Is this more readable?

I am the 1%
Enterred the Army at 17
Worked through college with 3 jobs
Minimal loans - paid off in 4 years
Started companies, worked to the top of the ladder

Now, only 1% has served
Only THIS 1% never whines - we work, raise families,
Contribute to society EVERY single day.
And we defend your rights, too
Even if we would never agree with them

I am, a 1%-er

Bosque Farms Centenarian

There was a big party in Bosque Farms, New Mexico, yesterday. It was a celebration of the 100^th birthday of Erlinda Garley Moya — born here in 1911, before New Mexico was a state. People came from all the surrounding towns, and then some, to help celebrate.

A program of family pictures showed pieces of Erlinda's life. And she was serenaded by an excellent guitar-playing singer.

There was a nice write-up about Mrs Moya in the La Vida section of the Valencia County News-Bulletin yesterday. Unfortunately, that article has not been made available online — so it's been replicated here.

Obama Endorses the "Occupy" Movement

President Barack Obama has endorsed the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. He says "We're on the same side." He says the Occupiers are really just like the Tea Partiers.

Obama makes these statements despite the HUGE difference in behavior — and goals — between the two groups. And despite the fact that he ignored the Tea Parties when he wasn't insulting them and lying about them, while he endorsed the Occupiers. The Tea Parties leave their demonstration areas clean, while the occupiers trash the places they infest. The Tea Parties want smaller, less intrusive government while the occupiers see government as the answer to all their wishes. (Can you say lying hypocrite?) And yet, no matter how Obama wants to camouflage it, the occupiers are extreme leftists, far outside the mainstream of American politics.

Even so, Obame still endorses the "Occupy Wall Street" movement. . . just like his close friends the union bosses and Chicago Communist organizers, as well as Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela's dictator Hugo Chavez. Plus, of course, the CAIR Islamist pressure group. And that doesn't even count the endorsements by the Nazis, Communists, fascists, socialists

. . . and all the other left-wing extremists.

And the media — still in thrall to Obama — "reported" on the occupiers and their message — after conspiring with them to help them craft it.

Given the folks that are have endorsed and supported them, I think I'd rather be in the opposition.