Month: August 2009

Sunday morning linkstorm

It’s raining cats and dogs here at the Palatial Abode–a sleepy, easy Sunday morning.

So, in celebration, here’s a sleepy, easy bunch of links to stories that I think might be interesting but am frankly too lazy to read in depth.

I deeply resent the Americans sneering at our health service – but perhaps that’s because the truth hurts[*1] at the UK’s Daily Mail;

Why The Public Isn’t Buying It–Liberals Overplayed Their Hand[*2] at the NY Post;

54% Say Passing No Healthcare Reform Better Than Passing Congressional Plan[*3] at Rasmussen Reports;

Preexisting Conditions[*4] at Powerline;

2010 Summit League Basketball Tournament Tickets On Sale Aug. 31 [*5] at the Summit League;

A Fundamental Disconnect[*6] by Ron Lipman at American Thinker;

What to Do About Pre-existing Conditions[*7] at Cato;

Real Health Care Reform[*8] by Arnold Kling at Library of Economics and Liberty;

Facial Expressions Show Language Barriers, Too[*9] at Science Daily;

Manufactured Healthcare Crisis[*10] by James Simpson at American Thinker;

Obama, Ayers and the Knowledge ‘Too Big’ To Handle[*11] by Jack Cashill at American Thinker;

Beware the Counterrevolution[*12] by Andrew Thomas at American Thinker;

Lies, lies and more lies[*13] by David Haas at American Thinker;

Elite Meltdown[*14] by Nancy Morgan at American Thinker;

Keynes and Penn Spread Teller’s Wealth Around![*15] by Justin Ptak at Mises Economic Blog;

Macomb Township Tries To Repeal 2nd Amendment, Fails Epically UPDATED with first-hand pics[*16] at TheBlogProf;

Gun Rights Don’t Apply In Domestic Violence Cases, Appeals Court Rules[*17] at CBS News;

Town halls not resulting in more presidential threats [*18] at The Hill;

ROBIN GIVHAN sneers at the dress of Town Hall protesters[*19] at Instapundit;

The Pirate Party![*20] Arrrrr, matie!!!!!

Hard Questions Stagger Legislators[*21] at the Hartford Courant;

You don’t Trust Me?[*22] by Paul Jacob at Townhall–about my very own clueless Senator, Claire McCaskell.

The “stimulus” was never about the economy

It was about stimulating the careers of Democrat politicians.

Washington Times:

Stimulus bill spending has slowed to a trickle, despite President Obama’s June order to his Cabinet to speed it up.The average stimulus spending per week has dropped severely, to just $4.2 billion over the past month from $9.7 billion during the prior four months. The government spent $2.9 billion in the week ending Aug. 7.

Taxpayer groups say the numbers show spending decisions are random and prove that the $787 billion stimulus program has had no effect on the economy.

“This is a typical bureaucracy. They don’t operate in an efficient way. They can’t operate in an efficient way and make an impact,” said Leslie Paige, media director for Citizens Against Government Waste.

The spending has slowed despite Mr. Obama’s declaration in June that he was “not satisfied” with its pace, and his demand that his Cabinet secretaries accelerate the distribution of stimulus funds.

The White House said the rate doesn’t matter, and that the key is whether Mr. Obama’s overall targets will be met.

Absolutely, the targets will be met. Those targets are set not to promote economic growth, but to promote Democrat special interests and the politicians which have been bought and paid for by those special interests.

You might as well settle in right now and wait for the blizzard of news stories in the runup to the 2010 elections about the great, grand, glorious stimulus projects and the wonderful, fantastic politicians and their cronies who brought it to you. And pay no attention to the greatest deficit in human history that it’s taken to pay for it all–we’ll make it up by taxing the rich people later.

And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything but, as P.T. Barnum said, “there’s a sucker born every minute.”

I’ll see your “astroturf” and raise you a “sockpuppet”

Protein Wisdom[*1] :

… tell me it ain’t so![*2] .

Turns out Obama delegate[*3] and Organizing for America[*4] activist Roxana Mayer, who lied about being a pediatrician, was invited to the forum by that nutball Obama campaigner who sported a Che Guevara poster in her office.[*5]

Remember her?[*6]

In case you’re not up with the hip, with-it on-line lingo:

Astroturf[*7]

Astroturfing is a word in English describing formal political, advertising, or public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous “grassroots” behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf.

The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt (“outreach”, “awareness”, etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by an individual pushing a personal agenda or highly organized professional groups with financial backing from large corporations, non-profits, or activist organizations. Very often the efforts are conducted by political consultants who also specialize in opposition research.

Usage: David Axelrod is a well-known architect of astroturfing political campaigns.

Sockpuppet[*8] :

A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception within an online community. In its earliest usage, a sockpuppet was a false identity through which a member of an Internet community speaks with or about himself or herself, pretending to be a different person, like a ventriloquist manipulating a hand puppet.

In current usage, the perception of the term has been extended beyond second identities of people who already post in a forum to include other uses of misleading online identities. For example, a NY Times article claims that “sock-puppeting” is defined as “the act of creating a fake online identity to praise, defend or create the illusion of support for one’s self, allies or company.”

Usage: Obama’s “town hall” meetings are filled with his donors and campaign workers acting as sockpuppets.

It’s a wild world out there. Y’all be careful.

Heard on Fox News’ “RedEye”

At 2 am weeknights (Central time), Fox News Channel airs a show hosted by Greg Gutfield, called RedEye. It’s probably an acquired taste for many, because it’s unremittingly irreverent.

I find it hilarious, possibly because it’s probably the single biggest concentration of libertarian thought on American TV this side of South Park.

Anyway, they have a segment called “Halftime Report” where Andy Levy comments on and critiques the first half of the show. On Thursday night’s show, he commented “So, Greg, the White House is looking for some better PR on the whole health care reform thing, so as a patriotic American, I have a couple of quick suggestions for them, number one, refer to the so-called “death panels” as “inheritance expediters” . . . it plays very with the young people, I’m told . . . also, a good slogan for Obamacare could be: “Making Grandma Shovel-Ready.”

Ah, humor.

The LA Weekly probably thinks it’s RAAAAACIST, though.

There are sick people in the world

Fox News: Black man pleads guilty to posing as Obama-hating white supremacist on Facebook[*1] .

It happens. Frankly, I expect it to become more common as Obama’s overall approval ratings continue to drop, as I’m sure they will, as more and more people figure out who he really is.

When you have it all in your grasp, and it begins to slip away, the result can be panic.

This Is Not Astroturfing

Los Angeles Times:

It seems that, despite all the media attention lavished on e-mail appeals to his supporters, not everyone pushing for President Obama’s embattled healthcare reform plan these warm August days is an idealistic volunteer in it for the sake of helping move the country forward and gaining medical attention for millions of uninsured Americans.

The website’s large-type headline announces: “Work to Pass Obama’s Healthcare Plan and Get Paid to Do it! $10-15 hr!”

It’s a web ad on Craigslist: “You can work for change. Join motivated staff around the country working to make change happen. You can make great friends and money along the way. Earn $400-$600 a week.”

So both sides appear to have paid lobbyists in this colossal summertime struggle for public opinion and control of the multi-billions flowing into the nation’s burdened healthcare system.

Except, of course, that there has been no evidence–plenty of accusations, mainly from paid leftist web sites, but no evidence–that the anti-Obama, free-market health care movement is using paid rent-a-mobs. This is just in the fevered, biased imagination of the Los Angeles Times. On the other hand, Obama’s allies are shameless in their own astroturfing, while vociferously accusing their opponents of doing what they themselves do every single day.