Obama’d out and he has yet to ascend the throne

Back when Clinton was elected, I don’t think I had grown weary of him before he even took office. It took at least a month before I discovered that he wasn’t to be believed under any circumstances. Shortly thereafter, I grew to truly loathe him and that power hungry harridan he married.
With Obama it’s somewhat different. I don’t particularly dislike him. I’m simply convinced that he doesn’t know the first thing about running the country and very little about the country outside of Cook County Illinois. We know too little about him, which I think is intentional and the majority of the people don’t seem to care. They may rue the day, but maybe not. Some of them still think Clinton was the best president in history. As a blogger said yesterday, “One thing we’ve learned about Obama is that he is good at spending money to make himself look good…He’ll surely rue the day he tried to equate himself with these statesmen. Now the con-man is parading around pretending to be Abraham Lincoln. Is there no limit to his debauchery?”
I’m sick of hearing his name and looking at him on TV. Even the Fox News Channel, which the liberal Left claim is biased and tell nothing but lies, are spending all their time building up to Tuesday. My favorite program, Fox News Watch, was pre-empted Saturday in order to show the preparations for the inauguration and a discussion of Obama’s train trip from Chicago to DC just like Abe Lincoln did before there were cars, buses or airplanes. I expect I’ll be even sicker of this guy before it’s all over.

How cold is it? Flint Michigan's 95-year-old record low falls as 19 below zero hits city
by David Harris The Flint Journal


Bone-chilling temperatures settle over East
By JOHN CURRAN
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Bone-chilling cold settled in Thursday from the Midwest to the Northeast Thursday, bringing teeth-chattering misery with temperatures that sank as low as 47 below zero.

Record snowfall, plunging temperatures hit the area
La Grange, IL -
A new record was set Wednesday when Chicago had its ninth consecutive day of measurable snowfall, according to the National Weather Service. The previous record was eight consecutive days set from Dec. 13 to 20, 1973.Snowfall records in Chicago date back to 1884.

Waxman promises quick action on climate
WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of a key House committee said Thursday he will move "quickly and decisively" to push legislation curbing greenhouse gases with a goal of passing climate legislation out of his committee before Memorial Day.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., opening the new Congress' first hearing on the threats from global warming, said inaction on the climate issue is causing uncertainties that make it more difficult to emerge from the recession.
_____________

If it gets any hotter, we may freeze to death.

How much longer are people going to swallow this stuff? Even more to the point, how much is this global warming nonsense going to cost us before everyone catches on that it’s a scam? It’s clear that the Democrats want to institute a “cap and trade” system by which industry will be charged a “fee” for the CO2 emitted by their manufacturing processes, payable of course to the US treasury. It’s just another tax that they will attempt to justify in the name of saving the planet.

A more satisfying control on CO2 would be to limit Democrat politicians to exhaling once an hour. Of course we couldn’t rely on merely their word that they would control their breathing. A better solution would be a device placed over their nose and mouth that only opened on the hour for a period of perhaps ten seconds.

The “Stimulus” Plan

This economic stimulus plan that the “Sitter in the Office of the President Elect” is talking about requires the immediate approval of up to a trillion dollars of taxpayer’s money to stimulate the economy. He says there’s no time to waste. He wants the money right now. The country, we’re assured, depends upon it. The thinking, if in fact any thinking has been actually gone into this scheme, is that giving out all this money is going to get the economy going again and everything will once more be peachy. I have serious doubts.

Among the targets of this stimulus money are schools. This is being called “investing in education.” Investing is a Democrat word for Spending that Bill Clinton invented. Another way the economy is to be stimulated is the modernization of government buildings. Schools can always use more money—indeed, I’ve never seen a school administration that ever has as much money as it wants, but even if the schools were turning out a young Einstein in every third graduate, it would do nothing toward fixing the economy. The same goes for adding insulation and hanging solar panels atop government edifices.

Another part of his plan is to double U.S. production of alternative energy in three years, but with no details. This is vague enough to mean almost anything, but so far it is not possible to see how this spending is going to revive the economy.

He has pledged to go to work on the nation’s infrastructure, specifically roads and bridges. Well, to get someone else to perform any actual work. He talks about creating three or four million new jobs. Everyone is in favor of new roads and bridges, but I can’t see that as doing anything for the economy either. Who is he going to get to do the work? He will have to open the southern border to get the workers to handle the shovels and wheelbarrows. The next time you pass a highway construction crew, take note of who is doing the manual labor. Is he talking about re-establishing the CCC and WPA from the FDR era? He hasn’t said.

And what he talks most about is 300 billion dollars in tax cuts. From what he’s said so far, he’s promised to send government checks to the middle class. If you remember, President Bush sent out checks to the public in a “stimulus package” back in the spring of last year. Did that get the economy going? Did that solve the problem with the economy? If you’re like me, you probably spent the money and can’t remember what you bought with it. I think I spent most of it at the gas station. A large part of the Obama plan is to also send tax rebate checks to people who don’t pay taxes. Some rightly call this welfare. Whatever it’s called, the fact remains that it isn’t going to stimulate the economy, though it might have a positive effect on the economy down at the liquor store.

The main problem with the economy is that there is a lack of confidence in the financial markets. Investment Banks aren’t lending money even to businesses that can pay it back. This country runs on credit and without it, the whole system ceases to function. Eventually, as it always has, the market will sort itself out and the economy will turn around without the government saddling the next couple of generations with trillions in crippling debt.

With all this money on offer, there is no shortage of city and state officials around the country rushing to Washington, like pigs heading to the feed trough, making their claims for a share of the slop. In addition, other industries are also begging for a piece of the action. Porn King Larry Flynt and "Girls Gone Wild" creator Joe Francis are asking for a $5 billion federal bailout of adult entertainment because "the economy has made America's appetite for sex go limp."
This economic stimulus plan is nothing more than political payback for Obama’s supporters and will have no lasting effect on the economy, apart from increasing the national debt. The best thing the government could do to help the economy is to cut the capital gains tax. That would encourage investment and without new investment, the economy is going to languish.

Malaysia to boycott Coca-Cola et al

“Gaza prompts boycott in Malaysia,” read the BBC Online headline. The Malaysian government, given to emotional but useless actions, wants a boycott of American goods because if US support for Israel. “More than 2,000 Muslim restaurants in Malaysia have said they would remove Coca-Cola from their menus from Friday.” It added that “the beverage company employs some 1,700 Malaysians, 60% of whom are Malay Muslims.” It would make good business sense to lay off those employees and shut down production for a while.
Former Malaysian prime minister and a certifiable idiot, Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Monday, “If you stop accepting US currency, the US can't trade and can't make any money, it will become very poor and it will have to stop the production of more and more weapons in order to kill people." But it isn’t the US that is defending itself by retaliating against terrorist rocket attacks. That would be Israel. Perhaps Malaysia should boycott them and leave the US out of it.
A large portion of Malaysia’s revenue comes from US electronic manufacturing in Kuala Lumpur and Penang. These outfits might also benefit by a temporary shutdown during this boycott.

Siren Check

This morning, the first Wednesday of the month, I went to Sherman to perform my bit of volunteer work or community service. The City of Sherman has 19 emergency sirens to be used in case of a tornado. Like most cities, the sirens are tested regularly to ensure they are in working order. Sherman doesn’t have the manpower to assign city employees to monitor all sirens at the same time, so the Amateur Radio Operators (hams), of which I am one, volunteer their time for this function. It gives us something to do as most of us are retired.

Today was the first time in several months we have actually taken part in the test. The city has some software that allows them to do a simulated test. I think it essentially checks the circuits to see if they are functional. That was the way it was done last month. They don’t test unless the weather is anything but bright and clear. The theory being that people might think a tornado was bearing down if there are clouds or rain present. It sounds silly, but some folks are pretty edgy where bad storms are concerned.

I arrived at my siren, No. 5, at 0815. After a quick check to make sure my radio was working OK, I settled down with the morning paper to wait until the volunteers are checked into the net at 0840. Drat, I forgot my pen! I had to work the crossword puzzle in my head. It’s a bit more challenging that way, but the puzzle isn’t all that difficult. At 0840, the Net Control operator down in the basement of the police station at the Emergency Operations Center called the roster and I checked in. My call sign is N5COP. He calls the siren a Si-reen.

At 0900, the sirens all over town were activated. The sirens are mounted on utility poles at a height of about 60 feet. They rotate as they wail and run for about a minute. I can also hear another siren that’s located a couple of miles away. Net Control called each of us and we made our report—either it works or it doesn’t. All reported that their sirens were working. By 0903 we were through for the month. With that, I was off to the donut shop to meet with some of my ham buddies.

New hard drive

I went over to Gainesville today and bought a new external hard drive. I have 2 internal and 3 externals. One of the externals, 150gb, has given me a lot of trouble and had to be reformatted once. It got to where it couldn't find any of the files so I tossed it and bought a Western Digital 500 gb external drive for $100 at Wal-Mart.

My backup drive, another 150gb was down to 7gb of free space, so I've spent the afternoon moving files to the new drive and setting up the backup program.

I noticed that the parking lot was full of cars and the store was full of people. Apparently the economic downturn hasn't reached Gainesville yet--at least Wal-Mart.