Blog Heap o'Links for July 2012

July 25, 2012 at 9:21 am

Don’t you just love how foolish moonbats reveal that they are daily?

Spoke with one yesterday – he was talking about some acquaintance of his who is so damn smart. This person bought a Volt and now gets 100+ miles per gallon… hardly spends anything on gas!

I asked him about the electric bill increase since buying the car… NO COMMENT!

But he saves a bunch on gas!

July 25, 2012 at 9:33 am

The food stamp program, part of the Department of Agriculture, is pleased to be distributing the greatest amount of food stamps ever.

Meanwhile, the Park Service, also part of the Department of Agriculture, asks us to “please do not feed the animals” because the animals may grow dependent and not learn to take care of themselves.

The Solar Super Storm of 1859 -- named the Carrington Event after the amateur English astronomer who first reported it -- began as a sunspot array spotted on the morning of September 1. As Carrington watched, the spots suddenly erupted into two brilliant flares, twice as bright as the sun itself, peaking within 5 minutes and subsiding.

The following morning, brilliant aurora displays became visible over much of the world as far south as the tropics. Suddenly, telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed as wires melted and sparks sprayed out over telegraph poles igniting widespread fires.

On June 27, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a statement saying it had "complete[d] the process of implementation of a set of recommendations issued in August 2010 by the InterAcademy Council (IAC), the group created by the world's science academies to provide advice to international bodies."

Hidden behind this seemingly routine update on bureaucratic processes is an astonishing and entirely unreported story. The IPCC is the world's most prominent source of alarmist predictions and claims about man-made global warming… cited by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. and by national academies of science around the world as "proof" that the global warming of the past five or so decades was both man-made and evidence of a mounting crisis.

The "recommendations" issued by the IAC were not minor adjustments to a fundamentally sound scientific procedure. Here are some of the findings of the IAC's 2010 report. … In plain English: the IPCC reports are not peer-reviewed. … authors are selected from a "club" of scientists and nonscientists who agree with the alarmist perspective favored by politicians.… The scientists they interviewed commonly found the Synthesis Report "too political" (p. 25).

Plenary sessions to approve a Summary for Policy Makers last for several days and commonly end with an all-night meeting. Thus, the individuals with the most endurance or the countries that have large delegations can end up having the most influence on the report (p. 25).

How can such a process possibly be said to capture or represent the "true consensus of scientists"?

Another problem documented by the IAC is the use of phony "confidence intervals" and estimates of "certainty" in the Summary for Policy Makers (pp. 27-34). Those of us who study the IPCC reports knew this was make-believe when we first saw it in 2007. Work by J. Scott Armstrong on the science of forecasting makes it clear that scientists cannot simply gather around a table and vote on how confident they are about some prediction, and then affix a number to it such as "80% confident." Yet that is how the IPCC proceeds.

The IAC authors say it is "not an appropriate way to characterize uncertainty" (p. 34), a huge understatement. Unfortunately, the IAC authors recommend an equally fraudulent substitute, called "level of understanding scale," which is more mush-mouth for "consensus."

… The news release means that the IAC report was right. That, in turn, means that the first four IPCC reports were, in fact, unreliable. Not just "possibly flawed" or "could have been improved," but likely to be wrong and even fraudulent.

It means that all of the "endorsements" of the climate consensus made by the world's national academies of science -- which invariably refer to the reports of the IPCC as their scientific basis -- were based on false or unreliable data and therefore should be disregarded or revised. It means that the EPA's "endangerment finding" -- its claim that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and threat to human health -- was wrong and should be overturned.

mayor of a sleepy Alaska town is… [a] part-Manx cat… Talkeetna, Alaska… 900 residents… a write-in campaign shortly after he was born 15 years ago. … The general store where Stubbs hangs out says it gets dozens of tourists a day asking for him.

1967 Austin-Healey… stolen from his Philadelphia home in 1970… recovered the vehicle in California after spotting it on eBay…

And when we finally get the question answered of, “Where are Obama’s girlfriends?” all they can come up with is two. Bill must have had a serious chuckle over this: “Two girls over a few years…Heck, that’s a typical night out for me!”

What books will be on the shelves in the Barack Obama Presidential Library? iOwnTheWorld.com recently asked its readers to suggest appropriate titles. Here are some of the responses:

Half Black Like Me
Tax Hiker’s Guide to the Economy
Go Tell It on the Prompter
Greed Expectations
(more at link)

In 2000, when the [Sacagawea dollar] coin was introduced, 5500 of them were given away in boxes of Cheerios as a promotion. Turns out that these Cheerios Dollars were slightly different than all the other Sacagawea Dollars. The tail feathers of the eagle on the reverse side of the coin had more details than the normal coin, and this made them more valuable. However, most of these Cheeries Dollars disappeared into circulation, and only around 70 of them have ever been found.

As a senior in college in 2001, I was coming out of a morning class when I passed a television and saw two planes crash into the Twin Towers. That was the day I decided to join the military. I look back on that sunny September day, after two deployments and eight years in the military, and realize how naïve I was. Things then were black and white. After deployment, you realize there is no such thing as black and white. Just various shades of gray you try to sort through and understand. … Raised by a mother who holds two master’s degrees, I found it hard to imagine a place where educating girls was considered a crime. So it took me a while to get used to Afghanistan.

In a bid to promote tourism in 2007, Israel's Foreign Ministry backed a public relations campaign showing former female soldiers in bikinis on its beaches [Need I add... pictures]

FAIL. Team Obama Invites Jews to Big Synagogue Campaign Stop – Misspells Israel

More than 20 people fainted at a hot Obama campaign rally tonight in Roanoke, Virginia.

Feeling their pain Barack Obama told his supporters to get medical assistance from the “paralegals” in the audience.

For years the Obama Administration told us that the billions they were spending on green projects was meant to create permanent clean jobs. This week they said that the projects were not meant to create jobs. … For the record… 80% of DOE dollars spent on the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program for clean energy companies went to Obama backers. Nineteen green companies went belly-up after receiving Obama dollars. [Video]

“So, just in case some of your friends or neighbors or, ya know, Uncle Jim who’s a little stubborn and been watching Fox News and, ya know, he thinks that somehow I raised taxes. Let’s just be clear. We’ve lowered taxes for middle class families since I came in office.”

Obama also claimed he lowered taxes… Even though he just signed into law the largest tax increase in history. There’s a four-letter word for people like Barack Obama – It starts with an “L” and ends with an “R”.

Tea Party activists didn’t appreciate Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ) telling them, “if all you do is stand for the Constitution you will lose.”
Watch the fireworks: YouTube

It is our conclusion that both the victim and the aggressor in this confrontation were Democrat actors putting on a sham conflict put on right in front of the TV cameras to distract from Governor Pawlenty’s message and to portray us in a bad light.

The Mexican electoral system is perhaps the most fraud-proof in the world. America's, by comparison, is a mess. … Mexico's system used to be a corrupt mess. The 1988 presidential election in Mexico was plagued with scandal and widespread corruption. Not wanting to put the country through another ordeal, the major parties agreed to create a non-partisan and non-governmental electoral commission that would conduct the voting process and ensure honest and fair elections. In 1990, the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) was created, and the first presidential election was held under the new rules in 2000. … Every eligible Mexican citizen has a tamper-proof photo-ID card with a thumbprint and an embossed hologram.

As we all know, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is totally about innovation. Just ask patent trolls like Patent Group LLC or Select Retrieval … or the company they sued, Build.com. Or American entrepreneurs who are redirecting $30 billion a year from research and development to patent defense.

Nathan Myrvold would probably agree.

That’s why it makes perfect sense that the first satellite office in the USPTO’s entire 220 years of existence is opening in Detroit, Michigan.

[Photos from the con]

Did you know that "small unmanned undersea vehicles were considered the main workhorses of the mine clearing effort during Operation Iraqi Freedom," or that submarine drones were "used in support of Hurricane Katrina recovery operations in 2005"? Debate on unmanned vehicles is focused on airplanes. But they're already operating on land and beneath the surface of the ocean.

The Pentagon intends for the trend to continue.

88 Wow. No one here seems to remember how awful Rice was. She was behind Bush's disastrous move leftwards in his second term. She was a failure as SecState. She was a pali supporter who compared their "plight" to that of blacks during Jim Crow. She made that laughable Road-Kill Map - which Israel only accepted with 14 reservations and the palis totally rejected and violated from the first day - which she pulled out every single time she said anything (usually stupid) about the mid-east. She pushed Israel to allow Hamas in the Gaza elections. She screwed up with Russia - allegedly her forte. She practically endorsed Barky while she was SecState and almost surely voted for the America-hating Retard.

Rice is an idiot. She was a total failure. She would be horrible for Mitt to pick, or even to muse about picking. Rice is a lefty who would be more at home running on the dem ticket. I am amazed that people forget all of these things (and more). She was an absolute disaster as SecState and is not conservative in any way, shape, or form.

“four characteristics that make her the perfect choice for Romney’s running mate…” Foreign Policy Background… Executive Branch Experience… Likeability [heh, poor Mitt]… and Argument/Rhetoric… “Rice knows how to make her point clearly, in a concise and professional manner, and with passion.” [I guess I just bought into the conventional wisdom that she meant it when she said she wasn’t interested. Silly me.]

I have followed the career of Mitt Romney since 1994. I have read every book about and by him, and I have studied every move he made in the land of my birth. This is why I am convinced Romney will choose Condi Rice for the vice presidency: Massachusetts history, inside baseball, tactics, and temperament.

Former Democratic Representative Artur Davis addressed the Northern Virginia Tea Party on Monday. The tea party conservatives embraced the former Alabama Democrat after he gave a fiery defense of conservative Republican policies and rallied the crowd to defeat his one-time political ally, President Barack Obama. Davis invoked both the 1980 Reagan revolution and Rosa Parks, earning him a standing ovation and chants of “U.S.A.” from more than 100 gathered at a restaurant in a suburb just outside Washington, D.C. [Video]

The same SEC form from February 2001 that lists Mitt Romney as “sole shareholder, sole director, Chief Executive Officer and President of Bain Capital … the controlling person of Bain Capital” also lists over a dozen other managing directors of Bain Capital, Inc. -- all of whom were undoubtedly more active than Romney was during this period. And President Obama took money from many of them.

The Boston Globe has broken the story that Mitt Romney remained CEO of Bain Capital until 2001, even though he has said he was not involved in deals after 1999… Obama campaign officials are treating this as huge breaking news, even suggesting criminality… Whatever else it was… it’s old news repackaged by the same newspaper which first published it a decade ago… Update: The Globe has taken down the story temporarily and will give partial credit to TPM and Mother Jones for a story The Globe originated a decade ago!

“I’ve had great fun, in a Sisyphean kind of way, but the time has come to let Binky and Sheba and Bongo and Akbar and Jeff take some time off,” Groening, 58, said by email.

“It’s hard to imagine how the business model that sustained alternative social-commentary and political cartooning for two decades (and is now all but dead) would have evolved had papers not discovered the power of Groening’s strip and its ability to attract readers,” said syndicated cartoonist Ted Rall by phone.

[Meh. It had its moments. Led the way on badly-drawn Leftie spew. Sad, really.]

On your phone or tablet… move your phone around in space… It’s like augmented reality, except it’s even more augmented because your phone is showing you things that aren’t there… phone becomes a moving window to the place and time in which the panorama was created… 360-degree panorama tool… when we played with these in the newsroom at VentureBeat we were soon moving our phones through the air like complete idiots … and enjoying every second of it.

Homeland Security buys 'big brother' laser scanner that can tell if you are high, what you are carrying and even what you had for breakfast... will be able detect the most minute traces of molecular discrepancies in both individuals' bloodstream and carry on luggage from 50 meters away… will likely be deployed throughout airports and other high-risk areas… said to be ten million times faster and one million times more sensitive than the scanners used in airports and border patrols currently… The size and portability of the Picosecond Programmable Laser scanner means that in addition to airports and border points- which are expected to be the main areas of use- there is the possibility that the scanners may be put in police cars and subway stations. [Emphasis added]

118 106 Men are bad in this way: you're telling a story--a funny or impactful one--and in the middle of it, they interrupt and comment, thinking that the place in which they interrupted is the point. Their interruption ruins the punchline or the impact. Yes, we are. I am. I try not to do that, but sometimes I still do. But being guilty of this, I know why I do it to women especially. Men seem to know when to leave a rising inflection, or some other vocal signal that the story is not over. Women often seem to drop something that sounds final, and then the listener finds out it was just a way station.

Now, Governor Lingle falsely claimed that the October 31, 2008 statement said “that the president was, in fact, born at Kapi’olani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii.” That is patently false. Regardless of whether Lingle is being intentionally dishonest or just clueless, it doesn’t matter… she is speaking lies, and cannot be trusted. If that weren’t bad enough, CNN is now selectively editing Governor Lingle’s words in order to conceal her lie and create their own lie… the lie that Lingle “certified Obama’s birth certificate as legitimate”.

Even if doctors do not quit their jobs over the ruling, America will face a shortage of at least 90,000 doctors by 2020. The new health care law increases demand for physicians by expanding insurance coverage. This change will exacerbate the current shortage as more Americans live past 65. By 2025 the shortage will balloon to over 130,000, Len Marquez, the director of government relations at the American Association of Medical Colleges, told The Daily Caller.

Iran is ramping up its production of mini-submarines, which are 'a huge problem' for US naval power. The US has countered by sending minesweepers to the region. [WNU editor wonders, "who will fire the first shot"?]

George Lakoff, Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at U.C. Berkeley — and highly regarded Democratic tactician — has just released his playbook for the 2012 election. Titled The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic, it purports to be the ultimate insiders’ guide to liberal messaging and left-wing ideology. … You know how whenever Democrats lose an election, they invariably blame their “poor messaging” and never ever the content of their policies? Lakoff came up with that. Liberals find it very reassuring: We don’t need to rethink our ideas — we just need to express ourselves more clearly.

[Graphic by Chrissy. Unbelievable ignorance.]

The Department of Homeland Security is continuing to target patriotic Americans and conservatives who “believe that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack” as terrorists. They even have this listed in their latest report.

Liverpool Care Pathway, a method of looking after terminally ill patients that is used in hospitals across the country. It is designed to come into force when doctors believe it is impossible for a patient to recover and death is imminent. It can include withdrawal of treatment – including the provision of water and nourishment by tube – and on average brings a patient to death in 33 hours. … This determination in the LCP leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The personal views of the physician or other medical team members of perceived quality of life or low likelihood of a good outcome are probably central in putting a patient on the LCP.’

According to several reports in the Arabic media, prominent Muslim clerics have begun to call for the demolition of Egypt's Great Pyramids… those "symbols of paganism…" Bahrain's "Sheikh of Sunni Sheikhs" and President of National Unity, Abd al-Latif al-Mahmoud, called on Egypt's new president, Muhammad Morsi, to "destroy the Pyramids and accomplish what the Sahabi Amr bin al-As could not…" a reference to the Muslim Prophet Muhammad's companion, Amr bin al-As and his Arabian tribesmen, who invaded and conquered Egypt circa 641. Under al-As and subsequent Muslim rule, many Egyptian antiquities were destroyed as relics of infidelity….

“We call it ‘living design’ because the key thing that’s going to happen next…is undoubtedly the Internet of things,” Curtis said at our MobileBeat conference in San Francisco, referring to the idea that soon everything will be connected to the Internet. “The digital world is going to be louder than the real world, and it’s going to surround you, pretty tightly wrapped up,” he said. The API culture will drive the living design movement, Curtis said, which is already picking up steam. After all, once just about everything is online, companies will want to make their services easily available on a variety of devices.

The chemical was designed by dentists in Chile, and wipes out all the bacteria that cause cavities in just 60 seconds in tests. The chemical could be added to any current dental care product, turning toothpaste, mouthwash and chewing gum into 'super cleansers' that could get rid of the underlying cause of tooth decay. The chemical targets 'streptococcus mutans', the bacteria that turns the sugar in your mouth into lactic acid which erodes tooth enamel.

So when Berners-Lee and his team cooked up a new edition of their still-primitive World Wide Web system, one that could support photo files, he went a few steps from his workstation to ask de Gennaro for a Cernettes-related image. The Web had already used a few small vector image files to show off schematics, but Berners-Lee and his team needed a guinea pig for the leap into photos.

I’m going to be writing a 3-part series on battling Internet discussion trolls. Together, these make a toolkit you can use any time you come across a troll, to make your life easier. [Blog Troll image source]

equipped with a desk, a built-in LCD TV, WiFi, wall-sockets for laptops and recharging cell phones, etc, ventilation and has storage space for luggage. There’s even a drink dispenser for re-hydration. And don’t worry about dirty sheets and pillows. The room automatically changes the bed when the occupant exits. Visitors can sleep on a flexible strip of foamed polymer with a surface of pulp tissue that is rewound from one shaft to another, like hand towels in a bathroom. Proper bed linen costs you more. Clients could purchase time inside the Sleepbox from 15 minutes to several hours. [What could possibly go wrong? On the other hand, if this could be made truly automatedly mobile, you might have the camper home of the future!]

The Obama administration is moving to shut down nine Border Patrol stations across four states, triggering a backlash from local law enforcement, members of Congress and Border Patrol agents themselves. Critics of the move warn the closures will undercut efforts to intercept drug and human traffickers in well-traveled corridors north of the U.S.-Mexico border. Though the affected stations are scattered throughout northern and central Texas, and three other states, the coverage areas still see plenty of illegal immigrant activity… "It could impact us tremendously since we've only got two agents up here now for 26 counties," Potter County Sheriff Brian Thomas told FoxNews.com. [Emphasis added]

His name was Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, and he was 16 years old when he died — when he was killed by a drone strike in Yemen, by the light of the moon. He was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, who was also born in America, who was also an American citizen, and who was killed by drone two weeks before his son was, along with another American citizen named Samir Khan.

The head of the National Security Agency on Monday denied reports that NSA’s new data center in Utah would collect and store data about Americans, including their e-mails and web-browsing habits. [What nonsense! How could you even think of such a thing. Especially with all those redundant technical and legal guards in place, right? Right? Helloooo?]

[It'd be nice to think the fellow who's trying to explode the grenade is faking it and all those egging him on are in on the gag. What are the odds?] Once the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend. — Posted by: Grover's Improved No. 5 on Ace of Spades

A new government study says Muslim terrorists are widely misunderstood and don’t wish to impose Islam around world as is commonly believed in the west, they simply murder innocent people to defend against foreign attacks by enemies of Islam. At least that’s what the experts at a public university in Arizona have determined. [We are all so relieved.]

"A quote from an 1899 book by Winston Churchill, "The River War", in which he describes Muslims he apparently observed during Kitchener's campaign in the Sudan" "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient" Rome.

Q: Could somebody be imprisoned for not purchasing health insurance under the House health care bill?
A: Both House and Senate bills would levy a tax on persons who refuse to obtain coverage. Willfully evading that tax could result in jail time under the bill passed by the House – but not the bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee.

For the first time, federal officials also revealed that Terry and the elite squad of federal agents initially fired bean bags -- not bullets -- at the heavily armed drug cartel crew in the mountains south of Tucson in December 2010. During the exchange, Terry was shot and killed.

HUNTSVILLE, Utah — A parade entry portraying President Barack Obama and using the term “Obamanation” has made some angry, and others upset at the negative attention. It happened in the city’s annual Fourth of July parade. … Weber County Sheriff Chief Deputy Klint Anderson told Fox 13 News his department contacted the Secret Service after some residents expressed concern the float was a threat to the President. [video]

While most teens have a violent, angry outburst at some point during their adolescence, nearly 8 percent have regular violent outbursts that would fall into the category of a mental health disorder. [Many parents would say this is probably low.]

On Christmas Eve in 1965, a World War II-vintage "Gooney Bird" rattled and rolled to takeoff from the Da Nang airfield in Vietnam on a secret mission to a war in Laos that the U.S. officially denied was being fought. Nearly 47 years later, the Air Force crew of six aboard came home to the military's "Last Bivouac" in Arlington National Cemetery. Today they were lowered into the ground as a group in a single casket that was, in a sense, a time capsule from generations-ago conflicts whose politics and diplomacy were possibly even more muddled and maddening than those the nation has faced since 9/11.

Simply put, the conservatives' message inhibits their messaging. Liberals love to preach because preaching is all about control. And like munching on comfort food rather than nutritious high fiber, it is so much easier to listen to sweet nothings about fairness and equality from the left than to swallow the hard-edged but apologetic admonitions about individual responsibility from the right. Yes, it is slipping away. The final resting place for this most disagreeable journey will be the fate of all collectivist societies -- poverty and squalor.

Former Obama donor Ronald Perelman, the chairman of Revlon, is not supporting Barack Obama this year… And he just held a high dollar fundraiser for Mitt Romney in the Hamptons. Mondoweiss reported: The New York Times reports that Romney had a big fundraiser at Revlon chairman Ron Perelman’s house in the Hamptons over the weekend. But just four years ago, Perelman maxed out for Barack Obama. according to federal records. Why the change? Well, Perelman has also given a lot to Orthodox Jewish causes, and the Times says one of the people coming to Perelman’s house for the fundraiser had Israel on her mind

the latest Executive Orders of President Obama are downright scary. The Executive Order signed on June 25 is titled “Russian Highly Enriched Uranium” and offers as its justification the fact that “the accumulation of a large volume of weapons-usable fissile material in the territory of the Russian Federal continues to constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.” A national emergency? Over Russian nuclear material? … A previous Executive Order issued on March 16th … “President Obama has given himself the powers to declare martial law—especially in the event of a war with Iran. It is a sweeping power grab that should worry every American. …a flagrant violation of the Constitution. …in the case of a war or national emergency, the federal government has the authority to take over almost every aspect of American society. Food, livestock, farming equipment, manufacturing, industry, energy, transportation, hospitals, health care facilities, water resources, defense and construction—all of it could fall under the full control of Mr. Obama. He now possesses the potential powers of a dictator. The order is a direct assault on individual liberties, private property rights and the rule of law. It is blatantly unconstitutional.”
A study, “Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism”, commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security identified the following characteristics of potential “terrorists.”
•Americans who believe their “way of life” is under attack;
•Americans who are “fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”;
•People who consider themselves “anti-global” (presumably those who are wary of the loss of American sovereignty, opposed to the United Nations, etc.);
•Americans who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority”;
•Americans who are “reverent of individual liberty”;
•People who “believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.”
This is a President who called for a “Civilian National Security Force” on July 2, 2008, one that would be “just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded as the U.S. military.” Obama is putting in force everything a tyranny requires to replace the Republic.

Like the IRS Private Army coming after you? Like the threat of total communications takeover? That's just pieces of the total planned takeover of the Republic. One may expect this to happen, regardless of the election. “President Obama has given himself the powers to declare martial law—especially in the event of a war with Iran. It is a sweeping power grab that should worry every American. …a flagrant violation of the Constitution. …in the case of a war or national emergency, the federal government has the authority to take over almost every aspect of American society. Food, livestock, farming equipment, manufacturing, industry, energy, transportation, hospitals, health care facilities, water resources, defense and construction—all of it could fall under the full control of Mr. Obama. He now possesses the potential powers of a dictator. The order is a direct assault on individual liberties, private property rights and the rule of law. It is blatantly unconstitutional.” —Alan Caruba at Canada Free Press [as blogheaped at my place]

The alleged al-Qaeda militant was caught crossing through the Olympic Park five times, breaking a ban imposed by the Home Secretary, The Sunday Telegraph has learned. The 24 year-old has previously tried to get to Afghanistan, allegedly for terrorist training, and is suspected of fighting for the Somali Islamist group al Shabaab, which has been responsible for thousands of deaths, including those of Western aid workers. He is accused of trying to recruit other Britons to its cause. … His detention is the most serious security alert yet to hit the Olympic Park. …after a week which saw 14 terror-related arrests across Britain, including a white Muslim convert detained over an alleged plan to carry out a major terrorist attack.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former top commander of international forces in Afghanistan, said this week that the United States should bring back the draft if it ever goes to war again. [Um, no. Well, only if it's (a) universal with (b) no deferments and (c) we start with relatives of Congresscritters.]

A: You know it’s interesting you bring up the virus. That is actually a question I had for you. Are you familiar with Urantia?
C: Yes.
A: OK. It also talks about that there had come a virus on the outer seventh sphere of the Universe. It equated the virus with fear, war, and amnesia. Do you agree with that?
C: Yes I would actually describe the way the virus was created was like a virus spreading around the galaxy. A mutation, an anomaly, an error, something that was also described in very old Gnostic texts from the last 2000 years and even earlier. So that this anomaly, this error needs to be corrected now. That is what we are doing. And this correction mechanism has reached its (?) right now.
[Like many references to the revelation, nothing of this sounds much like what I think the Urantia Papers say, but then again, I've said something similar myself.]

A coalition of African-American pastors is calling on blacks to boycott President Barack Obama and sign a petition demanding that the administration withdraw support for gay marriage. The group, the 1,300-member Coalition of African-American Pastors, says it was snubbed by Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder when it demanded a meeting to discuss same-sex unions. The group had requested the meeting last month.

A tiny amendment buried in the federal transportation bill to be signed today by President Barack Obama will put operators of roll-your-own cigarette operations in Las Vegas and nationwide out of business at midnight. Robert Weissen, with his brothers and other partners, own nine Sin City Cigarette Factory locations in Southern Nevada, including six in Las Vegas, and one in Hawaii. He said when the bill is signed their only choice is to turn off their 20 RYO Filling Station machines and lay off more than 40 employees.

Within weeks of swearing his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, Obama began his campaign to amass his army of IRS agents, and he continued that campaign with his landmark ObamaCare legislation. Even while the right hand was vociferously professing that the individual mandate in his ObamaCare leviathan was not a tax, the left hand was building up the IRS by another 16,500 agents. But, the slight of hand came to a halt last week when the Supreme Court rejected the individual mandate as a gross violation of our Constitution under the Commerce Clause, then relabeled the same violation a tax and gave it a free pass. Thus, the Supreme Court has given the Federal government unrestrained power to force its citizens to do anything it capriciously commands under the guise of a tax, and Obama has gloriously found his way to circumvent the Constitution. His army is the IRS and his ammunition is money.

Frustrated with his military commanders for consistently offering only options that required significantly more troops, Obama finally crafted his own strategy, dictating a classified six-page "terms sheet" that sought to limit U.S. involvement, Woodward reports in "Obama's Wars," to be released on Monday. According to Woodward's meeting-by-meeting, memo-by-memo account of the 2009 Afghan strategy review, the president avoided talk of victory as he described his objectives. [Emphasis added]

Finally, two Columbus officers were seen slowly walking toward the scene of this violence. At this point, the black youths crossed the street to the opposite side of the officers and started randomly attacking more white people on the north side of Broad Street. I know; I was assaulted by five different youths. At this time, the police meandered to our side of the street. Some of us went to the officers and said, “Do something, innocent people are getting assaulted right here on Broad Street.” One officer replied, “We don’t have enough officers.” After seeing the dozens of officers near the riverfront, I went home feeling this officer’s answer was a poor one.

Astonishing letter reveals how Führer ordered Gestapo to leave his WW1 commander alone

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., called the recent slew of national-security leaks “probably the most damaging” in this country’s history, warning that people’s lives are in danger and families have already had to be relocated as a result of the public speculation about highly classified operational activities. …first tangible signs of operational fallout from the explosive leaks to the media, which have so far sparked accusations that Obama administration officials released the information for political gain ahead of an election.

The FBI is investigating more than 100 Muslim soldiers and military contractors with the potential to carry out Fort Hood-style attacks. The administration has kept a lid on the growing threat. It's covering up the truth about an alarmingly widespread Islamist penetration of the military. The dangerous fifth column was discovered more than two years after Army Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 and wounding 29. The administration whitewashed the jihadist massacre as a run-of-the-mill case of "workplace violence." Now it's trying to postpone Hasan's trial until after the election to keep Islamic terrorism out of the headlines.

A new study funded by the Department of Homeland Security characterizes Americans who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority,” and “reverent of individual liberty” as “extreme right-wing” terrorists.

After seven years using the Wacom Cintiq 21ux, MAD Magazine cartoonist Tom Richmond upgrades to the Cintiq 24HD. If you’ve read any of Tom’s reviews, he’s very detailed oriented and provides a lot of information. This is his first review delivered as a video and it’s up to Tom’s usual review standards. If you’ve thought of going to the 24HD, this is a must watch.

Imagine a cheap, tiny, hovering aerial drone capable of being launched with the flick of a person’s wrist and able to provide manipulable 360-degree surveillance views. It’s real, it’s inspired by maple seeds [Video]

Madeleine L’Engle called them tesseracts. The Syfy channel calls them wormholes. Gamers call them portals. …according to a Science@NASA post: Hidden Portals in Earth’s Magnetic Field… they are real, sort of. A NASA-funded researcher has discovered them surrounding the Earth at distances from 10,000 to 30,000 miles. [VIDEO!]

In 1954, 23-year-old Jack Fletcher showed off his new home to the media. Reporters called it the "house of the future" because of all the unique features he had designed into it. The windows closed by themselves when sensors felt rain. Lights came on automatically when someone entered a room. The phone had a speed-dial feature. The lamps didn't need cords. Instead you just placed them over induction coils installed in the floor. And strangest of all, electromagnets caused pots and pans to float over the stove (which also used induction coils to heat the food).