Blurts

The old 'no teleprompter' Freudian slip.

“ Obama, speaking with NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Sunday ... asked Obama why so many people were uncertain about something so fundamental as his faith. “I can’t spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead,” quipped Obama, who took a deep breath to gather his thoughts when asked if the poll reflected his inability to communicate with voters. [Obama blasts lies, disinformation] ” The question of whether Obama's  a Moslem, or not, has nothing to do with a birth certificate.  So, what's on your mind Mr. Hussein Obama? George Stephanopoulos, of course, would have bailed him out with, "You mean Baptismal certificate, right? Too bad,  Williams is without benefit of experience with the Clintons all those years, and was just not up to the job. That's my guess.

Ryan v RINOs

GOP flinching at budget spending cuts plan The enemy within

“T he fact that [Rep. Paul D. Ryan's 'Roadmap for America's Future' ] only has 13 co-sponsors is a big reason why our folks are agitated against the Republicans as well as the Democrats," he [Dick Armey] said Sunday on NBC's Meet The Press  The difference between being a co-sponsor with Ryan or not is a thing called courage. [read and roar] ” This simple reminder from a news account of the Beck rally jostled me out of a stupor. “ The tea party is essentially a loosely organized band of anti-tax, libertarian-leaning political newcomers who are fed up with Washington ” Fed up with Washington includes pissant GOP leadership, and RINO lickspittles who hope to ride this wave into the majority without any willingness to change themselves. If the number one pressing problem is the economy, and it certainly is, then this is a time for clearing the deck of all impediments to economic growth, and the slashing of budgets. And look! Democrats are dangling their own roadmap to success; their rebuttal to Ryan's 'Roadmap.'  “ Candidates backing this budget plan have shown themselves to be out of touch with struggling families in these tough economic times because they're backing a plan to dismantle Medicare as we know it and turn Social Security over to Wall Street banks," said Jesse Ferguson, southern regional press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. [Flinching] ” Either you respect the public's ability to spot this hollow "out of touch" prattle for what it is; and realize that the public is receptive to extreme life saving action, or you're just another problem.  If Republicans don't have the steel to trim existing entitlements, what chance is there that they will over-turn Obamacare?  My fervent hope is that we take the House with enough Tea-Party newcomers to deny Boehner Bob Dole  the Speakership, and elect someone like Ryan.

The Note

In-depth analysis

Mahometans Give Obama Highest Job Approval; Mormons, Lowest Jews and those with no religious affiliation also give Obama above-average ratings

No  real surprises here.  Moslems, atheists, Scientologists, Unitarians, and Gaians are pretty much happy with Ol' Blue-lips.  The most liberal plantation-bound groups in the nation are blacks and Jews, so the 61% Jewish number, a 16% fall from a year ago, is actually a spiritual moment for them.  If you're on the Catholic team, as I am, it's disturbing to see that 50% of us are not practicing Catholics at all, but self indulgent dilettantes.  But then, this is a Gallup Poll.  Chuck M

Book Notes: Bernard Lewis

What went wrong?  Let's start with what's his name.

“P rof. LEWIS: How shall I put it? Let me s--let me put it this way.  Here you have in the Middle East a very ancient and a very great civilization, which for 1,000 years or so was in the very forefront of human endeavor. It was the richest, strongest, most powerful, most wealthy of--of all living societies.  It was also on the cutting edge of science, technology, in virtually every field. And then suddenly, within a very short period, this society is  eclipsed by--is--is overshadowed, outperformed in almost every respect by what they had hitherto regarded as the ignorant, barbarous infidels  beyond the northwestern frontier, namely, Christian Europe. Suddenly, instead of winning every war, they lost every war. ” Interesting Book Notes interview with Bernard Lewis , author of What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response.    Transcript  -  Video

Dems Hiding from the Allies

There's an awful lot of this being reported

D emocrats in Washington don't want to talk about the bills they passed since Obama took office. "In an effort coordinated with the White House, congressional leaders are urging Democrats to focus less on bragging about what they have done -- a landmark health-care law, a sweeping overhaul of Wall Street regulation and other far-reaching policy changes -- and more on efforts to fix the economy and on the perils of Republican control of Congress," the Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month. "And in an effort to turn attention to their opponents, Democrats from Obama on down have taken to warning that giving Republicans control of Congress would be akin to reelecting George W. Bush." [Full] Reminds me of how the big Nazis tried to blend in with the crowd to escape being captured by the allies. I wonder how many of this lot have cyanide pills secreted away?

Mystery recipe

Mystery Recipe

I see a jar of pineapple preserves, and a glass

Now I need some pineapple juice

Blog Rolling

SWISH!

I've been doing blog housekeeping.  Updated the blog roll. Added a few folks, including I Hate the Media, which is, for me, the perfectly executed blog.  If you like it here, you'll love it there.  Top props.   Example: To paraphrase the Turtles, “Eleanor, gee, I think you’re swill” ASIDE-FWIW I get a few E-mails a month offering to swap links.  There's nothing wrong with that; it's how you enhance your blog presence, but I just don't see a reason to have dozens of links to sites I don't visit.  Only 13 blogs on my current blog roll have ever, to my knowledge, linked to me, so that's not how they got there. Plus, I'm not at all certain that any of them have benefited by being on my list.