Bart has turned over the keys to the blog to yours truly.  He'll still stay on staff as a contributor and a most trusted advisor.  



More to come regarding changes...

The era of the Mick has begun.

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Unemployment tops 20% in eight California counties

For many California areas, unemployment rates moved persistently higher in January, indicating that the national economic recovery hasn't yet translated into jobs for the Golden State.

New county-by-county figures released by the state Wednesday showed that in eight counties, more than 1 in 5 people were out of work. Moreover, revised numbers for last year show that fewer people were employed than was previously believed.

"The real mystery now is why we aren't getting job growth when the GDP has been positive," said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

Hey Steve, here are a few clues; high taxes, high regulatory burdens, environmentalism gone wild, billions wasted on Green initiatives (and stem cell research), a welfare mentality and powerful government unions.

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Here's an easy way to cut through the clutter of news today, anyone that labels themselves an "Environmentalist' is most likely a lying Piece of Shit. From MMGW to renewable energy, environmentalist have to use lies and deception to get at our money. Here is an example of how federal employees helped environmentalists spread more lies.

The Energy Department worked closely with the wind industry lobby to discredit a Spanish report that criticized wind power as a job killer, internal DOE e-mails reveal.

The e-mails obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request show how, starting last April, lobbyists at the American Wind Energy Association became alarmed that lawmakers were citing a study by Spain's King Juan Carlos University. The study found that Spain's massive investments in wind power cost 2.2 jobs for every "green" job created.

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A top priority of the Obama presidency has been to restore the image of the United States in the world; in image allegedly left in tatters by the Bush administration. Unfortunately for the president, however, Americans by a wide margin now believe that that the United States standing in the world has not improved, but actually declined since President Obama took office.

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Just a wild guess. Since I'm not exactly the president's biggest fan, what are the odds that he actually read something little old me wrote? Do you think I'd be on his fecal list? I don't know about that, I'm not that influential, but I do know Barack Obama himself read some of my posts at 4:52 PM. Here, let me show you.

I have to admit, I was kind of awed, I mean its not everyday the President of the United States reads your blog, particularly when you're not exactly nice to him. That was cool, I have to admit. I just wonder how much longer my reputation is going to remain intact.

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It's not playing well with the American people.  The latest Rasmussen daily tracking poll
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
shows Great Leader is losing support faster than Nancy Pelosi is losing her caucus.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 22% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21. That matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President.

Now while I don't put a lot of stock in polling, this is a trend that has been steadily developing through multiple polling sources and shows quite plainly that Americans are pissed as Hell at what is happening in Washington.  They are focusing on the Top Dog, and for good reason.  The ability to read a pretty speech does not necessarily translate into the ability to lead.

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Statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on the Citizens United Supreme Court Decision
January 21, 2010

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Geert Wilders is possibly the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands, yet is trial for speaking the truth about Islam. For making the movie Fitna. Making that movie got him banned for hate speech in Britain. The Brit's finally figured out the idiocy of banning the future PM.

Mr. Wilders spoke before the British parliament, and laid out for all How Islam Sucks. Thank you sir. I reproduce the whole thing below the fold. Please read.

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Obama poured $5 billion into weatherization as part of last year's stimulus and wanted to spend billions more in a second stimulus. The Department of Energy managed to get the money to the states, where it has swelled the coffers for weatherization and done little else.

According to a Department of Energy inspector general report last month, "only 2 of the 10 highest funded recipients completed more than 2 percent of planned units." New York had completed 280 out of 45,400 planned units as of December, Texas had completed 0 of 33,908, and California 12 out of 43,400. That's 292 homes in three states with a total population of roughly 80 million.

So much for the 87,000 jobs the administration promised "right away." The inspector general report is unsparing: "The job creation impact of what was considered to be one of the Department's most ‘shovel ready' projects has not materialized," and neither have "the significant reductions in energy consumption."

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On the campaign trail Obama said he would bring 2 million new jobs to America. Since Obama’s policies took effect and this became his economy (from the stimulus bill forward), we have lost 4 million jobs. Now he only has to create the conditions for 6 million jobs within the next 2 and a half years. Good luck. Oh wait! I forgot about those 35 or 40 million jobs he “saved or created,” or is it more than that? Never mind about the unemployment rate or the record numbers that are unemployed (15 million plus), you gotta look at all those “saved and created” jobs, that’s really what counts. Just ask Barack, he’ll tell you!

Most people have been focused on the economy and job creation over the past year while Obama has been using that as cover to trample the constitution and socialize as much of the country as possible with no interest in the economy or jobs, just expanding big government. Extending unemployment benefits with the stroke of a pen, is hardly focusing on jobs. Sorry, that doesn’t count.

What was it? A couple of short weeks ago with Scott Brown’s election all of a sudden the usual suspects (Obama, Reid & Pelosi) decided that the economy and jobs really were the most important issues the country faced. How long did that last? 2, maybe 3 days, then its right back to ramming socialized medicine down our throats, and the economy has been put on the back burner. All I can say is, you get what you vote for.

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(Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday called the September 11 attacks on the United States a "big fabrication" that was used to justify the U.S. war on terrorism, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West and Israel, made the comment in a meeting with Intelligence Ministry personnel.

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There are rules of thumb for housing but I don't know of one for transportation. I'm thinking of getting a new ride so this has been on my mind.  Almost every new vehicle has been the most expensive car I had ever purchased at the point in time. and this next one will be the same.

Sometimes I step back and look at the numbers and just think "Wow, that is a lot of money".

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To add to Bart's point in the post below, Australia's ABC published this bit of inconvenient truth:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2835581.htm

Somehow the tables have turned. For all the smears of big money funding the "deniers", the numbers reveal that the sceptics are actually the true grassroots campaigners, while Greenpeace defends Wall St. How times have changed. Sceptics are fighting a billion dollar industry aligned with a trillion dollar trading scheme. Big Oil's supposed evil influence has been vastly outdone by Big Government, and even those taxpayer billions are trumped by Big-Banking.
 
Oh, say it ain't so!  Big Oil!!!  Big Oil!!!

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My trusty Gateway with a Centrino 2.0 GHz Duo Core with 4GB of RAM running Vista just can keep up anymore. I tried to upgrade to Windows 7 but the upgrade didn't work and I have too much stuff on the laptop to keep risking it.

I looked at the i5 machines at Best Buy that are around $900. Best Buy has a Blue Label program that seems to be what I need. Then there is a Sony laptop with an i7 chip set. It's the second fastest laptop in the store (After a Mac of course) and I'm thinking maybe I should go for it and get the fastest machine possible and hope to get 2 years out of it. The new 64-bit machines can handle 8 GB of RAM and have Windows 7 which should help speed things up.

Anyway, you guys are all geeks, so what do you think? I'll probably buy one next week.

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The blood discussion reminded me of another issue where the scientists lied to the public.

AIDS is primarily a disease that affects homosexuals and drug users. This is a fact. Doctors knew this very early on. The odds of two healthy heterosexuals transmitting AIDS is very low.

In order to develop sympathy for AIDS victims and get millions in grant money for research, doctors lied to the public about the likelihood of heterosexual transmission of the disease. There isn't much debate about this as the heterosexual epidemic predicted never occurred.

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Sen. John Kerry called on the government Thursday to abolish a "discriminatory" law that bars homosexual men in the U.S. from donating blood, saying "not a single piece of scientific evidence supports the ban."

"The three largest blood donation organizations in our country -- the American Red Cross, America's Blood Centers, and AABB (formerly the American Association of Blood Banks) -- all agree calling the ban 'medically and scientifically unwarranted,'" wrote Kerry.

Gay rights group have also decried the practice both in the United Kingdom and the United States. The Gay Men's Health Center reported last month that the ban was created at a time when the transmission of HIV was unknown and creates a stigma that is inconsistent because straight people who have sex with "commercial sex workers" only have to wait a year before donating blood.

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The amount of lying I see on the left never ceases ot amaze me. I have long ago concluded not only they have no shame, but that assume that the American public is astindingly stupid.

Check out this article where Nancy Pelosi's lies are so blatant that the author is unable to hide them.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday she was confident of satisfying Democratic concerns about a Senate-approved healthcare bill and passing the measure.

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One of our "liberal" commentors suggested these two solutions for ways to reduce government debt.  These two "solutions" preceded the Final Solution in Nazi Germany.  They were employed by Mao in China.  The USSR had the Gulag Archipelago.  Pol Pot had camps.

The first instinct of a totalitarian progressive is to strip away basic rights.  Progressives seem to hate free speech, so they use everything from mocking (Bill Maher) to criminal courts (Mark Steyn in Canada) to silence opinions they don't approve of.

Who on Earth would give government the power to decide who gets sterilized and who does not?  A totalitarian progressive.  Who on Earth would give government the right to set up forced labor camps? A totalitarian progressive.  They have done it before, and they may do it again.

 When you think about it, Obama's $12 trillion national debt has pretty much turned America into one big forced labor camp, with the illusion of freedom.  Now if he could just do something about the 10% unemployment in the People's Republic.

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This is what you get when you run your mouth and can't back it up.  Something tells me this youngster will think twice before he steps up and tries to start a fight with another vet. 

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Yielding to actual bipartisan pressure, Democrat crook Charlie Rangel is leaving his chairmanship of the House Ways & Means committee.  Isn't that nice?  The guy who stewards tax legislation being investigated by the House Ethics committee for, well, avoiding paying taxes.

It was the corporate funded Carribean vacations that finally got him.  But his shady practices like using rent-controlled housing for dubious purpose, and soliciting contributions for a university center named for him have all raised eyebrows in the Capitol.

But  is anyone surprised?  The "most ethical Congress ever" is hardly that.  There has been a whole lot of backdoor dealing and political payoffs from the "Transparent" administration and Congressional leadership.  Is it any wonder that their approval ratings are the lowest in American history?

Rangel isn't an aberration, he's a poster child.  Hopefully the people of Harlem will help the 79 year old thief transform that "temporary" to permanent, but since he's a Democrat, I won't hold my breath.

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