Anxiety in Canada Over Near Parity with US Dollar
All the world prefers a strong dollar, except American leadership - how else to pay off our massive debts?

Related
Weak Dollar, Oblivious Treasury?
The dollar is down an average of 15 percent in just over seven months. If it falls about 5 percent more, the dollar will hit an all-time low.

What's Inside the Deficit?
As you know now, the deficit for FY2009 has reached $1.4 trillion, or 9.9 percent of the GDP. It's the biggest deficit since the end of World War II.

Whistling Past the Graveyard
The so-called “stimulus bill” is nothing but a reorientation and massive increase in long-term spending. The real stimulus is current spending on all parts of government grossly in excess of current tax receipts. This can go on for a while, but even the balance sheet of the United States is finite.

Oil tops $80, highest since Oct 14, 2008

Labels: economics, end times, obama

Bobby Cox to Retire After One More Year as Braves’ Manager
Bobby Cox will manage the Atlanta Braves for one more season and then retire, ending a 20-year run in which he helped turn one of baseball’s doormats into a World Series champion and perennial contender.

Cox, 68, signed a one-year contract extension through 2010, the Braves said in a news release. He then will become an adviser to the Major League Baseball club under a five-year agreement.

◊ More on Bobby Cox (Ctrl F = Bobby Cox).

Other
Cox to retire as skipper after '10 season (MLB)

Labels: baseball, end times

I saw this on the back of a Toyota Camry tonight.

Related
Obama Is a Colossus

Labels: end times, obama

Three related articles...

How Nations Rot + Our Chrysalis Stage +
Shocked by MP's e-mail 'arrogance' = X

Related
Hard to Believe the Lovable Uighurs Could Be Involved in Terrorism...
Unrest on the western front

Labels: bermuda, end times

This quote from Jerry Pournelle has been posted in other places and echoes what Russell Kirk wrote about the dissolution of civilization. This notion that the Vapid One will throttle back spending after this reckless binge is complete bunk.

The sad truth is that democracy itself is often unstable. Intellectuals lose faith. Democracy is not flashy. It falls out of fashion. The intelligentsia feel scorned, unappreciated, and turn to new theories.

There are other pressures. Republics stand until the citizens begin to vote themselves largess from the public treasury. When the plunder begins, those plundered feel no loyalty to the nation—and the beneficiaries demand ever more, until few are left unplundered. Eventually everyone plunders everyone, the state serving as little more than an agency for collecting and dispensing largess. The economy falters. Inflation begins. Deficits mount. Something must be done. Strong measures are demanded, but nothing can be agreed to.

In Weimar Germany the price of a postage stamp went to 8 billion marks. In China, Latin America, many of the new African nations, inflation has exceeded 1000%. The middle class is destroyed. The economy collapses. Democratic institutions cannot cope.

Labels: end times

Is the President's PR Barrage Working?
From '60 Minutes' to Leno, Obama Has Been Inescapable as He Pitches His Economic Agenda

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Have you seen or heard President Barack Obama pitching his stimulus plan lately? If you say no, you are clearly either lying or actually living under a rock.

In the past few weeks the president, along with his wife, Michelle, have easily been on more magazine covers and done more TV and newspaper interviews than Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears combined.

Related
Thoughts About Depressed Americans

Labels: end times, obama

The Coming Depression

Update

>>> Holy Grue! <<< (in convenient chart form)

Additional background is available at Financial Armageddon and BobKrumm.com.

If you need a little palette cleanser take a look at Christopher Countrywide Dodd's nice Irish cottage. He lives like one of those greedy job-creating entrepreneurs he's always demonizing.

Related
Mean Street: Obama’s Dow 5000
$25,573.48 - what Barack Obama's budget will cost each taxpayer
The Coming Blue State Collapse

Labels: dodd, economics, end times, obama, pelosi, rangel, reid

The Anchoress refers to 1984 in her latest post. I'm countering with a quote more chilling and prophetic from the same book. Draw your own conclusions:

"One day a chocolate-ration was issued. There had been no such issue for weeks or months past. He remembered quite clearly that precious little morsel of chocolate. It was a two-ounce slab (they still talked about ounces in those days) between the three of them. It was obvious that it ought to be divided into three equal parts. Suddenly, as though he were listening to somebody else, Winston heard himself demanding in a loud booming voice that he should be given the whole piece. His mother told him not to be greedy. There was a long, nagging argument that went round and round, with shouts, whines, tears, remonstrances, bargainings. His tiny sister, clinging to her mother with both hands, exactly like a baby monkey, sat looking over her shoulder at him with large, mournful eyes. In the end his mother broke off three-quarters of the chocolate and gave it to Winston, giving the other quarter to his sister. The little girl took hold of it and looked at it dully, perhaps not knowing what it was. Winston stood watching her for a moment. Then with a sudden swift spring he had snatched the piece of chocolate out of his sister's hand and was fleeing for the door.

'Winston, Winston!' his mother called after him. 'Come back! Give your sister back her chocolate!'"

Labels: end times

Reagan Smash

Labels: end times, the good guys

Barack Obama inauguration: this Emperor has no clothes, it will all end in tears

The Obama hysteria is not merely embarrassing to witness, it is itself contributory to the scale of the disaster that is coming. What we are experiencing, in the deepening days of a global depression, is the desperate suspension of disbelief by people of intelligence - la trahison des clercs - in a pathetic effort to hypnotise themselves into the delusion that it will be all right on the night. It will not be all right.

Related
What An Odd Post
Obama to Lift Ban on Funding for Groups Providing Abortions Overseas
First Act: Bow to Culture of Death
Video: New Catholic Vote ad welcomes the era of Hopenchange

Labels: end times, obama

Ace concedes TARP is fertilizer for Obama's socialist agenda.

The Coming $1.7 Trillion Deficit, and How It Will Buy Us All Unicorns and Handjobs

Labels: education, end times, obama

Bright Flash in Heavens Has No Earthly Explanation

Labels: end times

The blogger with many visions™ is very close to publishing his predictions for 2009. The photo is a teaser of things to come. The there for 2009:

"...and now the people who caused the problem(s) have been put in charge of solving it."

(1) Christopher "Countrywide" Dodd will escape any MSM scrutiny regarding his role in the banking collapse.

Dodd is just playing against the clock until Obama is sworn in. He will also avoid, like his ethically challenged colleague Charlie "Tax Skat" Rangel, any formal congressional censure. Glenn Reynolds continues to follow this story at Instapundit. Dodd is up for re-election in 2010 and the people of Connecticut will send this rotund, obtuse and ethically challenged mooncalf back to the Senate with 60% of the vote.

(2) The people of New Jersey, Michigan, and California will continue to elect the same DEM leadership that has successfully engineered higher-than-national unemployment rates, taxes, and poverty. California will declare bankruptcy in 2009.

(3) General Motors and Chrysler, under the auspices of the Car Czar and using our hard-earned tax dollars, will build "The Pelosi" and it will be the equivalent of "The Homer". Obama, under pressure from the unions, will enact Hoover like tariffs and all Americans will be forced to purchase "The Pelosi".

(4) The unemployment rate will hit 20% by the end of Q4 and it will be accompanied by rampant inflation.

(5) The FDA will approve a drug to treat the "tingle and thrill" in the leg of Chris Matthews.

(6) Obama will determine that newspapers like the NY TIMES are too big to fail.

(7) The Fairness Doctrine will pass and it will extend to the INTERNET.

(8) Melissa Etheridge will pay her taxes but Charlie "Tax Skat" Rangel will write a new loophole to circumvent his.

(9) Liberals, despite BIG gains in 2009, will still be miserable and their assault on values (religion) will reach a fever pitch.

(10) Iran will strike Israel and it will cause an international conflagration involving Russia.

(11) GOOGLE will help draft policy in the B. Hussein Obama administration and it will be influenced by Al Gore and Jimmy Carter.

(12) The US will look more like Soviet Russia of the 1950's but Pelosi, Clinton, Reid, and Obama will still live fabulously.

Labels: dodd, economics, end times, obama, pelosi, rangel, reid

Exhibit 1
Protesters beaten as anger grows at Russian car import tax
"The severity used to silence the demonstration highlighted Kremlin nervousness that the protests could turn into a nationwide campaign of dissent, with dissatisfaction growing over rocketing unemployment figures and high inflation.

Many Russians are already upset that controversial oligarchs have received billions of dollars in rescue packages for their businesses, while little cash seems to have trickled down."

Exhibit 2
TARP accountability? None, apparently.
"According to this morning’s news, banks are refusing to reveal what’s being done with the money that was provided under the $350B (so far) TARP bailout money."

Labels: economics, end times, russia

Deflation Is Here
Deflation: A Dangerous Specter Appears
The deflation index (From Economist.com)

Related
Twenty Reasons Why We're Not Consuming╪
Twelve Steps To Economic Recovery

╪What a silly article. Isn't our national lack of fiscal restraint part of the problem? Maybe this androgynous looking chap can save the economy with his iPhone purchase. He can certainly use it to post on Daily Kos or Burnt Orange.

Labels: economics, end times

(1) MARCIA BRADY TRADED SEX FOR COKE

(2) Timberlake and Biel: Profiles in Moral Seriousness

(3) "Young Voices" tell their parents how to vote (WARNING: This is cringeworthy)

Related
Racine schools hand out textbook with 15 page Obama love-fest...

Labels: end times

This Op-Ed by Thomas Sowell reminds me of this equally complementary quote by Abraham Lincoln:

"If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

Sowell's Op-Ed received a title change in the Connecticut Post from, "Do Facts Matter" to "Don't believe everyone else; this is all the fault of liberals".

Either way, Sowell provides a strong and factual indictment of the high-ranking Democrats (including Obama) involved in the housing crisis as well as the complicity of the media to investigate.

Fact Number One: It was liberal Democrats, led by Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, who for years— including the present year— denied that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taking big risks that could lead to a financial crisis.

It was Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank and other liberal Democrats who for years refused requests from the Bush administration to set up an agency to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It was liberal Democrats, again led by Dodd and Frank, who for years pushed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans, which are at the heart of today's financial crisis.

Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury, five years ago.

The root causes of this crisis are being ignored by the media and obscured a cult of personality (Seattle hosts an Obama Youth Parade). Obama and his slippery cohorts have been the beneficiaries. As Sowell writes

The current financial bailout crisis has propelled Barack Obama back into a substantial lead over John McCain— which is astonishing in view of which man and which party has had the most to do with bringing on this crisis.

It raises the question: Do facts matter? Or is Obama's rhetoric and the media's spin enough to make facts irrelevant?

But the country does not deserve to be put in the hands of a glib and cocky know-it-all, who has accomplished absolutely nothing beyond the advancement of his own career with rhetoric, and who has for years allied himself with a succession of people who have openly expressed their hatred of America.

Labels: end times, left-wing media, liberals, obama, weekend

The attempt to centralize all power in the one capital city and, indeed, in its administrative quarter, means the assimilation of all possible rival institutions from monasteries to television stations, from harbour authorities to charitable foundations. All these can be eliminated in the name of democracy or efficiency, and the result is the creation of the one government machine into which all problems are fed and from which all wisdom is to emerge. All that is initially lost is the likelihood of the government's having to listen to informed criticism from outside its inner circle of officials. Thereafter the problems centre upon the growing size and complexity of the central administration. As the civil servants multiply there is an ever-increasing distance between the citizen and the nameless people who will ultimately decide upon his application, protest, or appeal.

- C. Northcote Parkinson

The Fourth Estate has already been absorbed (see below).

A Gallup survey says 52 percent of Americans do not trust news media, up from 30 percent in 1972. Are the two tied? Of course, they are. Who’s responsible for that?

Labels: end times, left-wing media, liberals, quotes

The blogger with many visions™ is a genius but that won't save him from the breadlines or the rubber truncheon.

Time Is Up Congress - And America (HT: Instapundit)

I must caution everyone - if you are not prepared for six months to two years of unemployment, you need to be. If you are dependent on credit to survive (that is, if you couldn't make it without your credit cards) you need to fix that now.

...because history shows that when government mismanages things to this degree and refuses to respond to the will of the people, a "messiah" generally appears with a "solution" - but there will be "compromises."

Labels: economics, end times, obama

The kit ships with 1 miniaturized Mary and 1 set of rosary beads. It's sold by the Sisters of Our Lady of the Frequent and Persistent Holy Ruminations.

Just add three-drops of holy water to expand and unleash the awesome power of this big time blessed set. Holy water sold separately.

Labels: end times

I don't like Pat Buchanan but I agree with some of what he's written here.

For years, we Americans have spent more than we earned. We save nothing. Credit card debt, consumer debt, auto debt, mortgage debt, corporate debt -- all are at record levels. And with pensions and savings being wiped out, much of that debt will never be repaid.

Our standard of living is inevitably going to fall. For foreigners will not forever buy our bonds or lend us more money if they rightly fear that they will be paid back, if at all, in cheaper dollars.

We are going to have to learn to live again without our means.

The party's over

Where he loses me is when he condemns globalization. He complains that manufacturing jobs are moving overseas without addressing the reasons why (unions, burdensome taxes, etc.). He also, at least implicitly, dismisses competition. I think Buchanan would kick von Mises and Hayak to the curb and build some big walls around the United State.

Buchanan redeems himself by mentioning Kirk (not the Captain Kirk of the Enterprise) and saves his best words for our political class:

What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.

Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.

His words come too late. The real prophet is probably Peggy Noonan who knew something was in the air as early as 2005:

I mean I believe there's a general and amorphous sense that things are broken and tough history is coming...I suspect that history, including great historical novelists of the future, will look back and see that many of our elites simply decided to enjoy their lives while they waited for the next chapter of trouble. And that they consciously, or unconsciously, took grim comfort in this thought: I got mine. Which is what the separate peace comes down to, "I got mine, you get yours."

Labels: end times

This is from Jay Nordlinger:

I consider myself a very patriotic person, and I have been teased or damned all my life for my pro-American views — particularly in academic settings. But, I’m sorry, this is, in many ways, a sick country...

I see a connection between the raw hatred Nordlinger writes about the words of Obama's mentor Saul Alinsky:

"The Radical may resort to the sword but when he does he is not filled with hatred against those individuals whom he attacks. He hates these individuals not as persons but as symbols representing ideas or interests which he believes to be inimical to the welfare of the people."

Obama channels Alinsky in an email to his devoted flock:

"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face...You are my ambassadors."

Apparently, the son of a Democratic Tennessee State Legislator took the communique a little too far.

Related

Obama mobilizes rapid response on Web (Chicago Tribune)

Now Obama's presidential campaign is increasingly using the list to beat back media messages it does not like, calling on supporters to flood radio and television stations when those opposed to him run anti-Obama ads or appear on talk shows.

Labels: end times

This time from The Anchoress:

Sometimes you just have to step back and be a little frivolous, in the face of all the madness, and it is both mean and crazy out there. Can you imagine the press not talking about the invasion of Sarah Palin’s privacy, and the press’ own unwillingness to co-operate with the FBI, because a) they’re Obama-enthralled and b) they don’t want to create “sympathy” for a candidate who - like unlike Hillary Clinton back in 2000 - has SERIOUSLY had her “space” invaded. And just imagine the way they’d be screaming if one of them found their email hacked into. They forget that the people they cover are people just like them. It’s just sad to see what the press has become...

Labels: end times, left-wing media

This news is being released on Friday night to minimize panic in the financial markets. This could also evolve into a scandal for the DEMS. I'm sure the spin artists in the war rooms are working overtime.

U.S. Nears Rescue Plan For Fannie And Freddie

Financial Tsunami, Updated

GROSS!

Congress and the Countrywide Scandal

A $40 billion scandal

To top it off, the Fannie Mae leadership was quite well-connected in D.C., especially to the Democratic Party. The Washington Post on May 23 made this all clear in black and white. The front page of that day's Business section showed how James A. Johnson, a former campaign manager for Walter Mondale's presidential run, had created "a political powerhouse."

Related

NY Times Sugar Coats Charlie Rangel's Latest Tax Mess

Limestone Roof Commentary
There's a reason congressional approval ratings are 9%. Pelosi promised to drain the "swamp of corruption" but what has changed?

McCain is starting to look like the tough shepherd necessary to get us through what's coming. He's not really a Republican...If you check my own blog I'm on record calling him a RINO.

I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party. We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger.

The financial system could very well collapse and the self-serving brokenness of elected government officials from BOTH parties are in large part responsible. The question now before the American people is whether or not the fix is MORE government or less. What good will come if Obama/Pelosi/Reid just add to the largesse by tripling the bureaucratic headcount in Washington (using our money and more of it of course)? As far as I'm concerned, that just represents 3x more bureaucrats who will eventually "give in to the temptations of corruption".

Like others before him [Obama], he seems to think government is the answer to every problem; that government should take our resources and make our decisions for us. That type of change doesn't trust Americans to know what is right or what is in their own best interests. It's the attitude of politicians who are sure of themselves but have little faith in the wisdom, decency and common sense of free people. That attitude created the unresponsive bureaucracies of big government in the first place. And that's not change we can believe in...

Labels: economics, end times

I have a quote, a couple of links and one photo from the archives before I sign-off. As for deconstructing this post, it's above my pay-grade.

This is a picture of some graffiti I took near an underpass. Lovely.

Some links...

Microsoft's New Spot From Crispin Is an Ad About Nothing (So Far)

The Real Google Agenda

"First, a little background. Google sits at the confluence of two historic Silicon Valley philosophical streams. One, which comes from Sergey Brinn and Larry Page, the two founders, reaches back all of the way to the early days of computing and continues forward through the world of gamers, hackers, Apple, and the Web 2.0 generation. It is essentially Utopian in its belief that technology – especially the Web – will bring about a better world (hence, Google’s ‘Do No Evil’ motto). It also has absolutist (some would even say totalitarian) tendencies, in that it also believes that the empiricism of science and technology supersedes messy human institutions. It is proudly amoral, which is why it can celebrate hackers – or for that matter, Steve Jobs – as heroes, as long as they remain innovators."

A quote...

Britain controls today the destinies of some 350,000,000 alien people, unable as yet to govern themselves, and easy victims to rapine and injustice, unless a strong arm guides them. She is giving them a rule that has its faults, no doubt, but such, I would make bold to affirm, as no conquering state ever before gave to a dependent people.
- Professor George M. Wrong, 1909

Labels: end times, microsoft, weekend

Like Barack Obama said yeah it's time for a change
Pull over on the roll on the back seat (back seat)
Pop that body now you got me (got me)
You a fine chick kinda classy (classy)
Said her name was Ten now I'm grabbin (grabbin)
Cuz she got grip on the whip
With her big round booty with the silicone tits
Shit she bouncin on my lap and she tryin to own six
I whispered in her ear "Yeah (It's Hard For a Pimp)"

- Three 6 Mafia

Labels: end times, hollywood, obama

John Derbyshire, in his typical curmudgeonly way, extols the very first principle of conservatism.

As individual human beings, of course, all but a small minority of us routinely devote ourselves to “causes greater than our self-interest.” We gladly yield up our time, our money, and occasionally our very lives, on behalf of such causes — family, union, professional association, church, political party, neighborhood softball league, nation. Those of us who have deep religious convictions often go way beyond the norm, helping strangers in foreign lands. All good acts, all noble acts … by individual human beings.

A government, however, is not a human being. This rather elementary point of ontology seems to have escaped all three principals in Saturday’s gathering. Governments don’t go to the bathroom; governments don’t date; governments don’t catch cold. As a human being, John McCain is free to give up time and money to causes above his personal self-interest, and would be right to feel pleased with himself for having done so. As chief executive of our federal government, however, during his working hours he should attend to America’s national self-interest, AND TO NOTHING ELSE AT ALL.

Source

I think I have the same tingling feeling in my leg Chris Matthews gets when he listens to Hussein Obama.

Related

Here's the not-secret formula to success in America: study and learn, work hard, make your own luck, don't get addicted, accept help from friends and draw your strength and purpose from faith and family. Works every time and at every level, especially for the poor.

Worked for Obama, despite being abandoned by his father.

Gerson babbles about Slavery, Katrina, Unity and Justice? Gosh, Gerson, sit down and STFU.

Source

Labels: end times

There's enough marketing savvy/sizzle in Obama™ the brand to make AdvertisingAge® - The Need for Partnership at a Time of Fragmentation. Obama™ the brand, with it's shiny doubleplusgood newspeak and iPod aesthetics, has many intelligent people fooled.

Related
The Brand Called Obama

Old Glory in Berlin
The television feed of Obama's internationalist speech in Berlin frequently cut to Germans waving American flags. Perhaps it's just the cynic in me, but I noticed that they all appeared to be the exact same size and make. It was almost as if some outside entity (a presidential campaign, perhaps?) handed them out in order to deliver the best possible visual images during the speech. Video of anti-American Europeans once again embracing the stars and stripes in an organic display of hope and unity would certainly be powerful stuff. The question is whether the Obama campaign manufactured this image for political gain. If they did, the press bought it hook, line and sinker.

The digital divide
The gap between technologists supporting Republicans and Democrats continues to widen. In addition to financial support, influential technologists like Chris Hughes are now providing strategic support to Obama.

"In a great collaborative effort, Barack Obama partnered with Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook, to develop a web presence and better employ the social networking that helped engage younger voters and clinch the Democratic nomination. The campaign also had a very well-organized grassroots effort with first-hand knowledge of the political climate and voting protocol in each state and the expertise to resonate with local communities. The collective skills of these local partners helped the "Obama brand" connect with its audience and raise capital in record proportions."

The left was quick to embrace the tools built by the technologists. A quick survey of reddit on Friday showed mostly anti-conservative, anti-Semitic or general BDS articles. The "what's hot" of reddit included; Send Rove to jail petition passes 100,000, John McCain Covered Up $4 Billion Theft For Friend, and Lev Leviev, Israel's richest man, buying blood diamonds, funding illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, undermining the prospects for Middle East peace.

I'm not sure the technologists are enough to be the margin of victory for Obama in 2008. What is evident is the technologists represent yet another lever in the arsenal of mind-molding establishments that Democrats can depend on in the general election. And what's most frightening about Al Gore's relationship with Steve Jobs (and Sergey Brin's with Obama) is the technology available today assuages the liberal need for a sense of order (more aptly defined as Fascism).

Labels: democrats, end times, left-wing media, liberals, obama

(1) Thefts of manhole covers increase as metals prices soar
Three weeks ago 12-year-old Shamira Fingers from South Philadelphia was walking down a city street near her home when she suddenly fell into an open sewer hole.

Source

(2) Obama on Patriotism
Well, here's what Obama should have said, given his world view: "The true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is embarrassment about the Nation much of the time, and loyalty to Big Government all of the time."

Source

Limestone Commentary
Obama giving a speech on patriotism would be like Ted Kennedy mounting a vigorous defense of capitalism and free markets.

(3) Paterson Is Cheered At NYC's Gay Pride Parade
NEW YORK — Gay residents cheered Gov. David Paterson on Sunday as he joined the city's annual gay pride march a month after he directed state agencies to provide full marriage benefits to same-sex couples who were legally married elsewhere.

Source

Limestone Commentary
Super!

Labels: end times, obama

Everything seemingly is spinning out of control
By ALAN FRAM and EILEEN PUTMAN, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON - Is everything spinning out of control?

Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.

Why the vulnerability? After all, this is the 21st century, not a more primitive past when little in life was assured. Surely people know how to fix problems now.

Maybe. And maybe this is what the 21st century will be about — a great unraveling of some things long taken for granted.

Source

Limestone Commentary
The blogger with many visions™ implores you to head for the hills.

Related
Obama Debuts (for Real) His Own Very Special Pre-Presidential Seal - I like the unicorn.

"Now I could stand up here and say, let’s get everybody together, let’s get unified the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing,” she said, to a smattering of giggles. “And everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect."

- HRC

*Unless we vote for Obama the Messiah!

AP Confirms: We're all gonna die (the visual)

Labels: end times

(1) Sarah Jessica Parker Looks Like A Horse - A site comparing photos of the actress with those of horses is #7 on the list of Alexa Web Search Movers and Shakers.

(2) I Kissed A Girl is sung by Katy Perry. She's the lyrical genius who also gave us the song Ur So Gay and the Ur So Gay (Remix).

I got so brave, drink in hand
Lost my discretion
It's not what, I'm used to
Just wanna try you on
I'm curious for you
Caught my attention

I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chapstick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don't mind it
It felt so wrong
It felt so right
Don't mean I'm in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it
I liked it

(3) End Times Bonus: Actress has a crush on Obama - The messiah even exchanges emails with Scarlett.

Labels: end times

(1) Rethinking Churchill and the Allied warmongers

(2) $12 for a gallon of gas (not if, when)

(3) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the worst Steven Spielberg popcorn flick since 1941.

Limestone Commentary
I think 1941 is a great movie.

Labels: end times

President Bush Addresses Members of the Knesset
There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of the enemies of peace, and America utterly rejects it. Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because the United States of America stands with you.

Source

Limestone Roof Translation
Liberals don't believe in absolutes, ergo evil is a value judgment which was invented by man (like fantasy or sci-fi). This fantasy extends to foreign policy- from Carter to Kennedy (Teddy) to Clinton to Pelosi to Barack Hussein Obama.

Additionally, the liberal mind, short on historical perspective (history was also invented by man) and poisoned by subjectivism, concludes that the U.S. would leave the Middle East if we didn't need oil and that we would look the other way while Ahmadinejad lobbed nuclear missiles at Israel. It's OKAY if Jerusalem is vaporized, as long as we can have domestic partnerships, universal health care and consumption taxes.

The other fantasy involves us becoming unstuck from our religion and substituting it for the State (but that's the subject of another post).

**UPDATE**

Seattle Times Editor: 'Hitler's Demands Were Not Unreasonable' (Hat Tip: Ace)

Labels: democrats, end times, iran

Miley Cyrus descending into a slut spiral in 5-4-3-2-1. What did you expect? Annie Leibovitz is involved.

Here's Michelle Malkin:

The adults surrounding Miley Cyrus shamelessly abdicated their responsibility to protect her best interests. Mom and Dad got caught up in the Vanity Fair glam. Vanity Fair didn’t see a 15-year-old girl. They saw magazine sale dollar signs. And Annie Leibovitz saw skin, skin, skin and another notch in her belt.

The parents, grandmother, and teacher are not alone in shouldering blame. Shame on Liebovitz and the pretentious left-wing editor of Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter.

“Artists” and “literary magazine editors?” Nonsense. They’re the elitist version of Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis and his video camera operators, coaxing girls to take it all off–just with more refined tones and high-minded pretentiousness.

Source

Labels: end times

EU wipes England off map
England has been wiped off a map of Europe drawn up by Brussels bureaucrats as part of a scheme that the Tories claim threatens to undermine the country's national identity...

Will there always be an England? The Anchoress says it's starting to look a little doubtful.

Labels: end times, england

Read this:

"In a world where some see freedom as simply the right to do as they wish, we need your message that true liberty requires us to live our freedom not just for ourselves, but "in a spirit of mutual support..."

Now watch and listen to this moron:

Background on the "artist" seeking an "authentic community" here and here.

Labels: end times

Robert Ferrigno takes a dystopic look at the U.S. (post November) and finally answers the question about William Clinton everyone wants to know.

More on this short story from Peter Robinson:

It's 2012, the Fairness Doctrine has forced Rush Limbaugh off the air, President Obama is running for a second term, and Bill Clinton—didn't he used to be an ambassador or something?—has found himself in...reduced circumstances.

In "Missing Rush Limbaugh," novelist Robert Ferrigno has produced a strangely wonderful thing: A tale of the near future that's both utterly hilarious and really pretty scary. My favorite detail? The "I'm Sorry" button. I mean, it's perfect.

My favorite quote from Ferrigno's short story:

No problemo for that hombre. George W.’s biggest concern was that Dan Rather was going to go off his meds again, coming ashore in a wetsuit and flippers, holding a conch shell aloft and screaming he had finally found the evidence. If the facts don’t fit, you must acquit, Danno.

Labels: clintons, end times

Let's do this!
This is a mini-tribute to Kurt Vonnegut and Douglas Coupland.

See the breakfast of tomorrow (smokey* cheese sauce) today.

It's an actual word, although dictionary.com says it should be capitalized.

Here's what some other blogger says about the real combos. I found this post while I was searching for a Warhol-like painting of 1 solitary combo.

Labels: end times, weekend

Some randomly selected links from a plethora of sources...

(1) 10 Of My Biggest Pet Peeves

(2) "I took the plunge, and have decided I will be voting for Hillary Clinton. Here’s why."

(3) Hillary Supporters Attempt to Get Jiggy With It; Six Dead, Forty Wounded, Hundreds Without Power or Shelter (Don't WATCH this video).

(4) A bastardized cover of Rolling Stone Magazine more disturbing than the one which exposed Al Gore's codpiece.

(5) The Bank Job is a great movie which once again begs the question- What happened to the British?

(6) Anderson Cooper: Romney’s church clearly relevant, Obama’s church not so much

(7) Former Clinton Loyalist: Don't Believe Hillary's Claims - Must have been pillow talk (wink wink) because Hillary didn't even have security clearance for National Security Council meetings.

(8) AFP: 'Eliot Spitzer (R)' - We have enough of our own...The DEMS can keep this one.

(8a) AFP Admits Mistake with Spitzer (R) Caption

(9) It looks like the big winner in the Eliot Spitzer scandal isn’t David Paterson—it’s “Kristen,” aka Ashley Alexandra Dupre, whose song has been downloaded more than a million times...

I heard the song on Z100 (100.3) in the car with my brother. I was going to do a separate post about that surreal event but adding the "end times" label to this one should suffice. After we heard her song on Z100 we flipped to 99.1 (WPLR) and heard "Brain Damage" by Pink Floyd. How painfully apropos (and a nice palate cleanser).

And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.

(10) Pews, Press, Prostitutes...whatever - My favorite blogger quotes Fr. Martin who spoke on NPR about all this "new sins from the Vatican" nonsense. Gabriel Malor over at Ace read the original article and started flinging profanity at the church before the reportage had been verified and/or clarified. You think a blogger would know better?

(11) The Top 10 Reasons Bloggers Don't Succeed - I miss the mark on all these but I don't really care. I'm blogging because I still enjoy this and can post pictures like this.


Special agent GAY BOWERS reads case file material while GUYDAN demonstrates water boarding alternatives.

Labels: end times, weekend

Some political, some business, some economics and some education. It doesn't always need to make sense.

10 cautionary tales to remember before we settle for Obama

Starbucks all closing today: Where will customers go?

The money quote:

Baristas, customers, stockholders and analysts all seem to agree that, much though retraining may be necessary for some individuals, it's not bad foam that has prompted the dip in Starbucks' (NASDAQ: SBUX) stock price; no, it's the uneven and quixotic management initiatives. Now, we're a coffee shop... now we're the "third place" with comfortable chairs... now we're a movie studio... now we're an Apple store... now we're a book publisher/record company/toy store/candy store/cookbook... now we're a fast food joint. It's enough for stakeholders to all rise up with a single voice and ask plaintively:

What about the coffee?

Wheat Prices Hit Record Highs*

*Rudimentary understanding of economics required.

Teens losing touch with common cultural and historical references - I expect the youths to miss the history questions but only 52% could identify the theme of 1984.

Labels: democrats, economics, education, end times

Kids,

Please live above the influence.

Thank you,

Limestone Roof

Labels: end times, weekend

The eyes of T.J. Eckelburg may be the o's in Google™.

Journalist Who Exposes U.N. Corruption Disappears From Google

Related

Barack Obama's Global Tax Proposal Up for Senate Vote

A nice-sounding bill called the "Global Poverty Act," sponsored by Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama, is up for a Senate vote on Thursday and could result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States. The bill, which has the support of many liberal religious groups, makes levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations.

Source

Maybe if the bill passes Michelle will be proud of her country for the second time.

Labels: democrats, end times

I was critical of Peggy Noonan when I first read this op-ed but now I owe her an apology. Her insights were just far-sighted.

I have a nagging sense, and think I have accurately observed, that many of these people have made a separate peace. That they're living their lives and taking their pleasures and pursuing their agendas; that they're going forward each day with the knowledge, which they hold more securely and with greater reason than nonelites, that the wheels are off the trolley and the trolley's off the tracks, and with a conviction, a certainty, that there is nothing they can do about it.

I suspect that history, including great historical novelists of the future, will look back and see that many of our elites simply decided to enjoy their lives while they waited for the next chapter of trouble. And that they consciously, or unconsciously, took grim comfort in this thought: I got mine. Which is what the separate peace comes down to, "I got mine, you get yours."

Labels: end times

Before you finance that new furniture, book a trip to the Caribbean, or lease a new car you may want to read this collection of articles on the looming economic catastrophe. It's time to pay the piper.

While Congress investigates steroids in baseball
GAO’s David Walker resigns
The Clinton/Obama Tax Plans
Security and the Falling Dollar

Labels: economics, end times

The Anchoress is the steward of one mighty blog. While many of us would like to forget 9-11 the Islamification of Britain (and Europe) continues its unrelenting advance. While the left dismisses our reportage as sabre rattling (or a planned effort to perpetuate fear to arrest personal freedom) the advance continues and is abetted by a complicit (nay, clueless left).

Whether it's protesting images of Mohammed in Wikipedia or the Archbishop of Canterbury's remarks about Sharia law in Britain being "unavoidable" the advancement, purposes and plans of radical Islam are real.

The best book of 2006 is America Alone by Mark Steyn and coupled with the rise of democratic/liberal fascism as presented by Jonah Goldberg (and further advanced by middle/third way Mead in God and Gold) the emerging reality for Western Civilization is grim.

The country should take notice when the Denmark equivalent of the New York Times contemplates whether or not George W. Bush was a great president.

Related
The Captain weighs in:

The Archbishop forgot that Britain operates under a representative government, not a theocracy. The adoption of shari'a would obliterate that system and place the UK under the thumb of imams -- a prospect that even British Muslims find distasteful. Khalid Mahmood, a Muslim MP for Labour, noted that Muslims around the world fight to free themselves from such systems, and wondered aloud whether Williams knows what shari'a actually entails.

It's not the first time a member of the clergy has suggested appeasement and surrender for a strategy against expansion of radical Islam. The endorsement of these strategies by the leader of the Anglican Church is especially disheartening, however. That the leader of a worldwide sect of Christianity thinks of shari'a as "inevitable" should prompt questions about his fitness for that office.

Labels: democrats, end times, islamofascism, the good guys

I found this on No Left Turns:

The difference between Republicans and Democrats that our division demonstrates is the degree to which Republicans (and especially, perhaps, conservatives) are inclined to deliberate (and, yes, fight) about our principles. Hillary and Obama spar . . . but about what? Who’s the most authentic candidate for female voters? Who deserves the Hispanic vote? Who can get the biggest payoff for the labor unions or the old folks? There’s never any talk about the purposes and the ends of government. That’s all assumed. The only time you’ll hear the word "should" is when they’re leveling some insult at a Neanderthal Republican who is not yet on board with their program. To be a Democrat today is to acknowledge that you believe in the "End of Political Thought"--or, to be less generous, that you don’t believe in thought at all. The only thought is that given to the means to achieve pre-determined ends. That’s why their politics is almost always more wonkish and less interesting and fascinating only when it is more Machiavellian and internal.

Source

Related
(1) CPAC starts tomorrow.

(2) Some humor from one of the poster(s) at Ace:

"I for one welcome our new McCain/Huckabee overlords. I'd like to remind them as a trusted blog commenter, I can be helpful in rounding up the others to toil in the weight-loss and border crossing camps."

Labels: democrats, end times, quotes, the good guys

"Demography is poised to destroy conservatism in a devastating triple threat. The baby boomers will start retiring, and will probably shift a little to the left in the process. Second, Mexican immigrants will most likely end up being pretty leftist. Finally, years of liberals running their own private indoctrination camps through the American education system have finally taken their toll and are churning out reliably liberal kids who will inevitably come of age. Not enough of them are conservatives and not enough of them will be mugged by reality to convert to conservatism. It is ultimately these three factors that threaten to sink conservatism for at least a couple decades."

Source: NRO

Labels: democrats, education, end times, generational conflict, the good guys

Make sure you take your OxyClinton before watching.

This is from Hot Air:

My jaw dropped when I watched this one the first time. Hillary’s Christmas ad says nothing at all about Christmas. The gifts make the connection, of course, but check out what the gifts are: universal health care, bring the troops home, etc. All of the gifts are funded in one way or another with your money. And she’s portraying herself as a thoughtful gift-giver by taking your money and giving it back to you in the form of expensive government programs, some or all of which you might not actually want or need. If that doesn’t typify liberal thinking, I don’t know what does.

I love the Hot Air headline.

A gift.

Labels: clintons, end times

A couple of articles about the recent economic turbulence:

The Dollar is Now the World's Most Hated Currency

We're now in the early stages of a secular transformation that, in its scale and impact, will match the Industrial Revolution and the late-19th Century exodus from farms to cities.

Housing's Loss Is Nobody's Gain

The pressing macro issue today is whether the economy yields to spiking oil prices, weakening home values and an oppressive debt burden for tens of millions of wage earners.

The End is Nigh!

The charade cannot go on forever. And it won't. Rate cuts do not address the underlying problem which is bad investments. The debts must be accounted for and written off. Nothing else will do.

Who Supports Ron Paul?

With luck, this process will occur without a recession. The pace of domestic economic activity will continue brisk, dollar-denominated incomes will remain stable or even rise, unemployment may even decline as exports accelerate. This is what happened in 1985-86, the last time we saw a big drop in the value of the dollar.

All holders of dollar assets lose some of their wealth - but the burden falls most heavily on those with the most wealth to lose, who also happen to be the people who enjoyed the biggest gains during the previous increase in the value of the dollar. The burden falls least heavily on those with nothing to sell but their labor. This approach is not only equitable, but also surprisingly painless. Since permanently abandoning gold convertibility in 1933, the US economy has experienced far less economic volatility. Recessions are fewer and shallower (if sometimes longer).

Labels: economics, end times

No problem though because the fear is for their own good.

Senator James Inhofe does his best to offset the Hollywood global warming scaremongers but it's difficult to compete with Leonardo "Heart of the Ocean" DiCaprio.

"I want the public to be very scared by what they see. I want them to see a very bleak future."

- Leonardo DiCaprio

Labels: democrats, end times, global warming

The same liberal group responsible for outing Mark Foley (R, FL) right before the 2006 midterm elections is leading the investigation. Sources close to the story say that Gandalf (I, N/A) may have been involved in a tryst with Strider. This story follows recent revelations from J.K. Rowling that Albus Dumbledore is gay.

As this article indicates, if accusations about Gandalf's orientation are true, it brings much needed representation to one of the few groups not represented in great fiction like LOTR and mediocre fiction like Harry Potter.

Related - "It's called the puppet master."



It seems like all under-represented groups are primed to get some representation. This December Nicole Kidman will star in The Golden Compass which is based on a series of books with anti-religious themes.

Labels: end times

I would tell you to run for the hills but they're on fire.

Albert Einstein once said, "I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will." I'm pretty sure that would be one f****** deserted island.

Now a quote from God and Gold: Britain, America and the making of the modern world by Walter Russell Meed:

"Has America left a place in our lives that it did not corrupt for us Muslims?" writes the Egyptian Tareq Hilmi. In the U.N., the World Bank, and the IMF and in the GATT, the United States uses the international system to divide, weaken, and exploit the hapless Muslim world. Yet there is hope. The bigger they are, they harder they fall. Quoting the well known economist, Lyndon LaRouche," Hilmi looks forward to an imminent financial crisis and collapse. The ordination of "Sodomite" bishops in the Anglican Communion is additional grounds to believe that the Anglo-American catastrophe, so long and unaccountably delayed, may now be at hand.

Tareq either took a trip to the Episcopal Church in Northampton OR he went on a picnic with Jimmy Carter. And this leads me to my next quote (the money quote) explaining why the modern left in the US is so hostile to "we" and "us" (see Couric):

"Heidegger's vision remains central to much European and Latin American anti-Americanism today on both the left and the right; thinkers in the Muslim world have reached similar conclusions by slightly different thought processes. It appears today that some elements among the remnants of the Marxist left, radical Greens, miscellaneous postmodern radicals of various hue, and radicalized Muslims are searching for a way to unite around the only issues that connect them: hatred of liberal capitalist modernity, Israel, and the United States of America."

Related Quote
Christianity and Patriotism are synonymous terms, and hell and traitors are synonymous.
- Billy Sunday

Labels: end times

A quote on the mind of every New York Yankees fan:

"The Planet drifts to random insect doom."
- William S. Burroughs

From my inbox...

Q: What is the status of your doomsday clock now that the New York Metropolitans have suffered that record-breaking collapse?

A: I need to run some calculations.

Labels: baseball, end times, weekend

This is from the Media Blog on National Review Online:

Addressing the U.N. General Assembly yesterday in a speech again televised live by major news networks the world over (as was his speech at Columbia on Monday), Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the "the people of America and Europe will be free of the pressures exerted by Zionists."

The "era of darkness will end," he announced, and the world would soon have a "bright future" ushered in by the "return" of the 12th imam, a messianic figure in Shia Islam.

"Without any doubt, the Promised One who is the ultimate Savior will come. The pleasing aroma of justice will permeate the world," he said.

On many times in the past when speaking in Farsi in Iran, Ahmadinejad has said he needs to "hasten the imam’s return" through a "great thunder."

Part 2. A visual guide to the pleasing aroma of justice

This poor fellow was impaled, speared and clubbed (and I suppose eventually lit on fire for good measure).

Part 3. The Narrative

"For those unacquainted with the more obscure tenets of Islamic theology, the 12th Imam is held by devout Shi'ite Muslims to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed who went into "occlusion" in the ninth century at the age of five and hasn't been seen since.

The Hidden Imam, as he is also known by his followers, will only return after a period of cosmic chaos, war and bloodshed – what Christians call the Apocalypse – and then lead the world into an era of universal peace."

Source

Labels: end times, iran

A disbarred lawyer convicted of aiding terrorists will be teaching at an upcoming law school ethics conference.

Lynne Stewart, who was found guilty of conspiring with terrorist Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, will be speaking October 16 at Hofstra Law School’s "Legal Ethics: Lawyering on the Edge," in Hempstead, New York.

The speaking engagement comes only a year after Stewart was sentenced to twenty-eight months in prison on charges of conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists.

Source

Labels: end times

It's time for my list of best (and worst) baseball stories of 2007. The title, by the way, is a reference to the inevitable end times certain to follow a second consecutive NL EAST title by the N.Y. Metropolitans. These are grim days if you root for the Atlanta Braves.

1. The Milwaukee Brewers - My feel good story of the season was Rick Ankiel UNTIL the HGH revelations this afternoon. The Brewers are a great story and their skipper is a former coach under Bobby Cox. They may have the league's MVP (Fielder) and Rookie of the Year (Braun). It doesn't matter if they make the playoffs or not, this is a young team with a bright future in a section of the country ravaged by the haves in the east and west. I pity the fans in Kansas City, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.

2. Rick Ankiel - Once a highly touted pitching prospect, he made the major leagues and was in the playoffs before completely losing his ability to throw a pitch in the strike zone. He was sent back to minors and became a position player. While in the minors he battled injuries (some severe) before being promoted this summer to the big club as an outfielder. Since being added to the active roster Ankiel was batting .358 with 29 RBI and 9 HR. This was going to be an ABC (ESPN) made for television movie before the HGH revelations.

3. Bonds 755/Thomas 500/A-Rod 500/Glavine 300 - Tom Glavine is Mr. Union and left Atlanta for a little extra money. Bonds is a travesty and he's 1/1000 of the player Aaron was. Kudos to the Big Hurt and A-Rod for hitting 500.

4. Biggio - A season after losing Bagwell, the Astros will enter 2008 without the other B. Biggio has 3,000 hits, 660+ doubles (5th all time), and has played for 1 club his entire career. If you had to invent the perfect baseball player for a sequel to Field Of Dreams you may as well use Biggio.

5. Dustin Pedroia/Ryan Braun - What do these two players share in common? They may each win Rookie of the Year honors in their respective leagues. Also, they are each connected to Boston's rich baseball history.

6. Ichiro Suzuki - Super terrific happy baseball player. He's been playing in the majors since 2001 and he still doesn't speak English? He has over 200 (200!!!) hits every season since joining MLB. He's never batted below .300 in both the NPB and MLB. He also this year's All-Star MVP and has just signed a five year extension with the Seattle Mariners.

Tsuyoshi Shinjo he's not
Ghidorah are these Kaz and Hideki Matsui
The real Godzilla lives West

Baseball's Worst Moment of 2007

1. Susan Waldman - It's important you listen to Susan Waldman announce the return of Roger Clemens from the Del Ray Retirement Home in Texas to the New York Yankees. There's only one woman in America with a screech worse than this and she may sit in an office much more important than a broadcast booth.

About the Rocket...I hear some lines from that old Bruce song...

Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the glory of, well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days

And I'll leave it up to the reader to make the connection between Roger and Bruce (my apologies Mr. Gammons).

2. Andruw Jones - In this last year of his contract Andruw is batting a paltry .223. His outfield skills have greatly diminished and that break-out year that's supposed to happen hasn't (and certainly won't ever in Atlanta). During the off season Andruw will benefit from a free agency market thin on available talent, and with Boras as an agent he'll get paid enough to keep that supply of donuts arriving to his crib.

3. TBS - The Braves have been airing nationally on TBS since the 70s. The relationship between the Atlanta Braves and TBS will conclude on September 30th. I wouldn't be a Braves fan if it weren't for TBS; they introduced me to Dale Murphy. They coined the Braves America's Team, broadcast during those dark days with Ted Simmons and Jim Acker, and were there for that decade-plus run with a cast of heroes named Smoltz, Jones, Galarraga and McGriff.

Labels: baseball, end times

500 Swedish Muslims demonstrate to protest against prophet drawing in Swedish paper

STOCKHOLM, Sweden: About 500 Swedish Muslims demonstrated in the city of Uppsala on Friday to protest against a drawing of the Prophet Muhammad in the local newspaper, police said.

"It was a very peaceful demonstration," police officer Per-Erik Eriksson said.

Upsala Nya Tidning published one of a series of drawings by Swedish artist Lars Vilks last month, depicting Muhammad's head on a dog's body. Islamic law is interpreted to forbid any depiction of the prophet for fear it could lead to idolatry.

Several Swedish art galleries have refused to exhibit Vilks' drawings.

Source

Limestone Commentary
If it were a painting of Jesus Christ, funded by the NEA, in dung, urine and vomit US galleries would be clamoring for the privilege of exhibiting and papers would decry any inkling of protest by radical Christian fundamentalists.

Labels: end times

***UPDATE***

Fed's Focus on 'Core' Inflation Raises Concerns

U.S. inflation running at 10%? If you do not believe me, visit www.shadowstats.com. John Williams has made a career out of telling people the truth about inflation and other government statistics. He reckons that if you were to apply the same calculation methodology as in 1980, current U.S. consumer inflation is running close to 10% per annum--very similar to the levels reached around 1980 with the only difference being that the bond market was on high alert then whereas now it appears more relaxed.

Unknown to many people, basic food prices have exploded recently. Rice, wheat and corn, three critical food stables, are all up between 45% and 65% over the past two years. Most people in our part of the world haven't really noticed yet because it takes time for price increases in basic food prices to filter through to the end products. But it is starting to happen. As recently as last week, Nestlé (other-otc: NSRGY - news - people ) warned that they could no longer absorb the underlying price inflation and would have to raise prices--in some cases significantly so.

Source

Related
Nuns mug disabled orphan for bag of crisps
Soon we'll all be fighting for food

Labels: economics, end times

(Los Angeles, California) For the first time the leading candidates for the presidency will hold a televised debate devoted solely to LGBT issues.

The one-hour event will be held on August 9 and broadcast on gay network LOGO at 9:00 pm ET (6:00 pm ET) and through live streaming video at LOGOonline.com.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have confirmed they will participate. Several other Democratic candidates also may join the debate.
The debate will be conducted with a live audience in Los Angeles. On the panel questioning the two [?sic] Democrats will be Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese and singer Melissa Etheridge.

John Podhoretz from NRO opines:

What, pray tell, are the public policy aspects of bisexuality that require a debate at the presidential level? Oh, man, I hope there are some bisexual questions from the audience.

Alternate Post Title: Don't ask, don't tell.

Labels: end times

Will 07.07.07 be the day Al announces his candidacy? Can he save us from the shrew? A Gore/Obama ticket is UN-beatable and will keep the carpetbagger (wink, wink) in New York.

The Washington concert will feature a rare performance by country-music power couple Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, along with remarks by the former vice president and 2000 Democratic White House nominee.Their appearances — to be televised internationally, with the U.S. Capitol in the backdrop — will be high-wattage add-ons to the museum's previously scheduled Live Earth spinoff, "Mother Earth," a daylong program of performances and speeches by members of the Native American community.The concert is free and will begin at 10:30 a.m. on the outdoor plaza of the museum, at 4th St. and Independence Ave. SW.

Source

***UPDATE***
There was NO announcement (maybe because attendance was too low?).

Labels: clintons, end times, global warming

Gordon Brown has banned ministers from using the word ‘Muslim’ in connection with the terrorism crisis... The shake-up is part of a fresh attempt to improve community relations and avoid offending Muslims, adopting a more ‘consensual’ tone than existed under Tony Blair.

Hat Tip: NRO

Labels: democrats, end times

Barbara Streisand honoured in France

Barbra Streisand performed her first concert in France this week and was rewarded with a medal of the Legion of Honour.

President Nicolas Sarkozy awarded the singer at a ceremony in Paris, the first time the new President had bestowed the honour on anyone since he took over last month from Jacques Chirac.

"You are the America that we love," said Mr Sarkozy, seen as more US-friendly than his predecessor. "Women like you ... do a lot to bring our two peoples together."

Source

I just threw up a little.

Barbara as big time DEM donor

Labels: end times

Caption contest over at Wizbang. Ace has his own take.

My own alternate post title: Sheepishly nice consumerism!

Labels: end times

Winston, sitting in a blissful dream, paid no attention as his glass was filled up. He was not running or cheering any longer. He was back in the Ministry of Love, with everything forgiven, his soul white as snow. He was in the public dock, confessing everything, implicating everybody. He was walking down the white-tiled corridor, with the feeling of walking in sunlight, and an armed guard at his back. The long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain.

He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of this nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.

Bear and I went for a walk and stopped in the local Border's. Here's a brief snapshot of what I saw:

11" plush doll of Ernesto "Che" Guevara made by Little Thinker(s).

Children's version of An Inconvenient Truth.

Gore's bestselling book is now adapted for perhaps the most important audience of all: today's youth, who have no choice but to confront the planetary emergency head-on. Bursting with color photos, this book clearly explains global warming. (Environmental Studies)

I flipped through several children's history books and the summary of President Bush was horrid. In the first book he was "selected" by the Supreme Court and in the other the high-point of his presidency was a narrow victory against John Kerry. I'm going to find a copy of the second book so I can post some excerpts (lest I'm accused of bias).

Labels: democrats, end times

...why our enemies sense opportunity because of our greasy corpulence. It isn't (as John Edwards and Ron Paul would have you believe) because of our arrogance as a world power. Rather, it is our obsession with complete non-sense (and gross hypocrisy) that makes us weak and ripe for extinction.

Three illustrations:

1. The Sopranos

The brilliance of the scene was how it illuminated the perils and frustrations of Tony Soprano’s life. Every customer at every restaurant may be a hitman. And his family? As my people would say, oy gevalt! I know more than a few parents who have tried to buy off their ne’er do well offspring with BMWs. Hint to Tony and Carmella – it never works.

That final scene tortured the viewer. At the end of the series and seven years, we didn’t want to see Tony Soprano die. And suddenly, for the first time in seven years, we felt his true vulnerability. A guy in a diner going into a restroom portends dread. So does another guy sitting with a boy scout troop. No wonder Tony needs a shrink. And no wonder he has panic attacks.

So what’s it all mean? Tony goes on, maybe three seconds beyond last night’s final frame, maybe three decades. In his line of work he’ll forever be hunted, and he’s already under indictment. He may die soon like in last night’s diner, or he may wind up like Uncle Junior, incarcerated and senile, not even aware of the fact that he used to run North Jersey. Possibly he’ll go the route of Carmine Lupertazzi and die of old age; Tony has always been the smartest of the mobsters. Then again, Johnny Sack was pretty smart, and look how he ended up.

At the end of the day and the end of the series, Tony Soprano was just another working stiff, taking his family out for onion rings and ice cream. You may want to know what happens next, but there’s no way of knowing. As Sinatra sang, "That’s life."

Really? Why is Dean Barnett treating this show like priceless art? Why are we praising an HBO show about the mafia? These people are filthy scumbags and "hits", drugs, prostitution, gambling and money laundering are all real.

2. NYTIMES MAGAZINE on poverty and income inequality

Did anyone else read the NYT magazine this weekend? It was all about poverty and income inequality. Some articles were better than others, and I didn't read them all, but the hilarious part wasn't in the articles. It was in the ads. On page after page, the magazine hawked luxury condos starting in the 8 figures. Pictures of these glorious $10 million-plus pied-à-terres with 24-hour doormen, room service and Master of the Universe views of Manhattan were punctuated with ads for financial advisers and garish jewelry — and, oh yeah, essays on what to do about the poor. There was an almost Edwardian irony to the whole thing; a magazine for the New Aristocrats discussing the poor and how they live with a mixture of dispassionate, almost academic, bemusement and charity ball passion.

Source

I've written about the New Class/New Aristocrats before. How limousine liberals (Starbucks, Saabs and Summer Homes) cope with such cognitive dissonance will require cultural anthropologists on NPR to explain.

3. Paris Hilton
If "we" weren't watching it wouldn't be on FOX NEWS, MSNBC, and CNN.

Labels: end times

Is the Sky Falling on America?
By Victor Davis Hanson

Books by liberals assure us that our "empire" is kaput. Brace for the inevitable fate of Rome. Conservatives are just as glum. For them, we are also Romans - but the more decadent variety, eaten away from the inside.

Yet American Cassandras are old stuff. Grim Charles Lindberg in the late 1930s lectured a Depression-era America that Hitler's new order in Germany could only be appeased, never opposed.

In the last 60 years, we have been warned in succession that new paradigms in racially pure Germany, the Soviet workers' paradise, Japan Inc. and now 24/7 China all were about to displace the United States. None did. All have had relative moments of amazing success - but in the end none proved as resilient, flexible and adaptable as America.

That brings us to the United States' greatest strength: radical self-critique. We Americans are worrywarts, always believing we're on the verge of extinction. And so, to "renew," "reinvent" or "save" America, we whip ourselves up about "wars" on poverty, drugs and cancer; space "races;" missile "gaps;" literacy "crusades;" and "campaigns" against litter, waste and smoking.

In other words, we nail-biters have always been paranoid that we must change and improve in order to survive. And thus we usually do - just in time.

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Labels: end times

"...Otherwise, they just sit around talking till everyone’s dead – see Darfur, Rwanda, etc – and it’s too late to do anything even if you wanted to."
- Mark Steyn


Mark Steyn predicted the future of Western Civilization in America Alone. DEM appeasement may [emphasis on may] extend our existence but everything (and I mean everything) the DEMS fight for is illegal under sharia law. What I find so sinisterly humorous about the situation is that by abetting the terrorists they're actually accelerating the demise of their own progressive UTOPIA. The old manufactured fear that the oppressors (Christians and Republicans) would "round up" lefties in the middle of the night will soon be relaced by the real threat of burqas.


Smart and insightful Americans who can pull themselves away from American Idol or the latest breaking news segment on Anna Nicole know that "youths rioting in Paris" is code for Muslim insurgents in Western Europe. They also know what's going on in places like Minneapolis and Detroit. Unfortunately, all we can do is watch as lefties in Oregon defecate on the flag, Al hyperventilates over lightbulbs and carbon footprints and Rosie blames 911 on the government.

Labels: end times

***UPDATED***

Michelle has posted a video of a lefty defecating on the American flag.


Protesters in Portland, Oregon burn US soldier in effigy.



Here are some still images. There is a poster in the first still that reads, "STOP FUNDING ISRAELI APARTHEID".

What's the relationship between lefty anti-americanism in the US and the United Nations? This next video shows UN Watch director Hillel Neuer chastising the blatantly corrupt UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva and may shed some light on the question.



Gulf of Tonkin. Google it.

Here's the VP of Moonbattery talking about the British hostage situation with Iran.

Why should fate smile so kindly on this big bag of wind? She should be working at Borders with her "life partner" Janet.

Michelle Malkin has an entry on the despicable anti-war fable enablers at the New York Times.

It's been a banner week for the NUTROOTS.

Labels: end times

**UPDATE**

According to LGF, the Urban Outfitters has removed the terrorist head scarf.

This always happens just as I think we've maybe hit rock bottom.

Marketing "Peace" to the Clueless

The Palestinian kaffiyeh, symbol of the intifada and decades of violence and terrorism, is being marketed by Urban Outfitters as an “Anti-War Woven Scarf.” (Hat tip: LGF readers.)

Limestone Commentary
Dean says we must carry on:

For the rest of us, we can ring the alarm bells and let our country know what’s coming. Hugh conducted an important interview on Friday with a “liberal” Iranian blogger, a guy who hates Ahmadenijad and who therefore seemed like he might be friendly to our interests. Instead, he pronounced the Iranian people at war with America as they have been for the past generation.

That’s the state of things, and the president won’t be able to convince a single American of that reality who doesn’t already know it. Which means the rest of us will have to do it for him.

I'm not giving up...but what the hell are we fighting for? Our right to watch MTV's My Super Sweet 16?

Labels: end times

It’s interesting: if the Holocaust “conference” decides that the Holocaust didn’t happen, well, then the justification for Israel is specious and founded on lies, and the mullahs are justified in redressing a mistake. I have the awful feeling that terms, conditions and justifications are being set right before our eyes, and the putative leaders seem unwilling to acknowledge what most canny observers infer.

It’ll all make horrible sense. In retrospect.

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Labels: end times, islamofascism