Some of us believe that granting a right to health care is the beginning of a slippery slope towards granting ‘rights’ to all sorts of things that will be subsidized and ‘regulated’ by the Feds.  Well, we have to look no further than Spain for some firsthand evidence.

Spanish citizens will have a legal right from 2011 to be able to buy broadband internet of at least one megabyte per second at a regulated price wherever they live, the country’s industry minister said on Tuesday.

I wonder how long it will be before this slippery slope flows in the direction of ‘a right to an internet capable device?’  Government subsidized computers for everyone!

New study out on bias on the nightly news.

What if I told you that Fox gave Obama his worst press and John McCain his best press of any network during last year’s presidential election? If you work for the White House, you’d probably take this as proof that Fox is just a mouthpiece for the opposition. Now what if I told you that Fox had the most balanced coverage of any network during the same campaign? If you work for Fox, you’d probably say we told you so.

But what if I told you that both scenarios are true?

Gasp!

(H)ow could Fox have both the most balanced and the most anti-Obama coverage? Simple. It’s because the other networks were all so pro-Obama.

…

In fact, Obama received the most favorable coverage CMPA has ever recorded for any presidential candidate since we began tracking election news coverage in 1988.

Nothing most of you didn’t already know, but it is nice to see it objectively defined and confirmed.

H/T Maggies Farm

Another interesting little bit of myth busting here, led me to look at PWs numbers.

How many of you are shocked to find this is a more diverse crowd than the KosTards?

Once again Mr. Friedman treats us to a wonderfully written example of Leftist thinking.  If you’re looking for a coherent argument or logical reasoning you might want to look elsewhere because you can’t find them in this article. They have been trampled into dust by a herd of elephants in the room that Mr. Friedman just can’t see.  Thankfully, that didn’t stop him from giving us this literary gem that we’ve come to expect from Time’s writers.

What you will find, instead, is Mr. Friedman once again arguing with the horde of tiny little retarded deniers that run around in his head shouting ‘PALIN PALIN PALIN!!1!  You know, the one’s that believe…

…the world is going to face a mass plague, like the Black Death, that will wipe out 2.5 billion people sometime between now and 2050. They believe it is much better for America that the world be dependent on oil for energy — a commodity largely controlled by countries that hate us and can only go up in price as demand increases — rather than on clean power technologies that are controlled by us and only go down in price as demand increases. And, finally, they believe that people in the developing world are very happy being poor — just give them a little running water and electricity and they’ll be fine. They’ll never want to live like us.

I have to tell you, Mr. Friedman, I’m right there with you.  If I had mob of vertically challenged crazies spouting this nonsense in my brain I’d feel compelled to exorcise them as well!  I mean, the Black Death as an alternative to Cap and Tax?  Oh the humanity!

Thankfully Mr. Friedman has answers for these voices he keeps hearing.  First he solves the inevitable population bomb…

The first is that the world is getting crowded. According to the 2006 U.N. population report, “The world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion … passing from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050. This increase is equivalent to the total size of the world population in 1950, and it will be absorbed mostly by the less developed regions, whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050.”

The energy, climate, water and pollution implications of adding another 2.5 billion mouths to feed, clothe, house and transport will be staggering. And this is coming, unless, as the deniers apparently believe, a global pandemic or a mass outbreak of abstinence will freeze world population — forever.

Now, moving on.  Oh wait, you didn’t see his solution in there?  You sure?  Either did I but I have no doubt that he told those wild men in his head what his solution was and that’s good enough for me!

Next he solves the inevitable ‘everyone wants to be an American’ bomb…

The world keeps getting flatter — more and more people can now see how we live, aspire to our lifestyle and even take our jobs so they can live how we live. So not only are we adding 2.5 billion people by 2050, but many more will live like “Americans” — with American-size homes, American-size cars, eating American-size Big Macs…

So either the opponents of a serious energy/climate bill with a price on carbon don’t care about our being addicted to oil and dependent on petro-dictators forever or they really believe that we will not be adding 2.5 billion more people who want to live like us, so the price of oil won’t go up very far and, therefore, we shouldn’t raise taxes to stimulate clean, renewable alternatives and energy efficiency.

It’s at this point you realize that the sound of thunder you keep hearing are the elephants in his head, with the words ‘Domestic Oil’ and ‘Nuclear Energy’ stamped on their sides, rampaging through his upstairs living room, whipped into a frenzy by the tiny terrorizers.  You can ask Mr. Friedman if he can hear it too, but he’s mesmerized by the flashy neon words scrolling across the back of his retinas: ‘confiscatory taxation solves all problems…’

I was filled with a sense of dread as I approached the end of his column fearing he would plunge a final, fatal stake into the heart of his mental demons that had thus far brought me so much entertainment.

Thankfully, my fears proved unfounded!

So, as I said, you don’t believe in global warming? You’re wrong, but I’ll let you enjoy it until your beach house gets washed away.

Thank you Thomas, your eternal mercies will not go unappreciated.

…my mother would be dead today.

But hey, think of all the money I’d be saving on birthday and Christmas presents. I guess it really WOULD be a cost savings!

(btw, I messed up my DarthRove account and had to make a new Darth_Rove one. It really is me. Honest.)

From The Corner

“As America’s first Pacific president,” said President Obama in Tokyo, “I promise you that this Pacific nation will strengthen and sustain our leadership in this vitally important part of the world.”

It is true that the president was born in Hawaii (sorry, birthers), lived from ages six to ten in Indonesia, and attended a Honolulu prep school. But he is not our first Pacific president. Richard Nixon was born in California in 1913, and spent much more of his life in the Pacific region than the current president has. Moreover, while Barack Obama made his career in Chicago and Springfield, Ronald Reagan made his in Los Angeles and Sacramento.

And the incumbent is hardly the first chief executive to have lived in another Pacific Rim country. William Howard Taft was governor-general of the Philippines. Dwight Eisenhower had military postings in the Philippines and the Panama Canal Zone. Herbert Hoover worked as a mining engineer in Australia and China; he even learned to speak Mandarin. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Bush 41 all served in the Pacific during the Second World War. What they did as adults was perhaps more consequential than what Obama did as a child.

Shorter Obama: I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.

But those that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength;   

They shall mount up with wings like eagles,

They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint

Isaiah 40:31

Back on October 28 I posted the following on Darleen’s President Present thread: 

“I will be on the road for a little while but it comes at a good time because I need a break from things (including blogs) right now.I will try to explain more in the pub later when I have access to my laptop.”

I hope that you will forgive the delay but my road trip turned out to be much longer than I expected and I did not have internet access with my laptop.  Things had been piling up for a while and the last thread I posted on was the thing that convinced me that I needed to disengage. 

First: I discovered that the day after I left on my four day pass, a rocket attack killed a soldier and injured three others not too far from where I live.   A month later another attack injured seven on a walkway that I use every day.  

Second:  My wife informed me that Nathan (my next door neighbor’s little boy) died as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident. Nathan would come over our house often and ask if my girls could play “just for a minute”

Third:  I learned that my dog, Scrappy had drowned in our swimming pool.  He was a wedding gift 18 years ago and due to his age he was losing his vision and balance.  He had fallen into the pool on other occasions but someone was always around to help him out until this time.  My girls were hysterical when I spoke with them on Skype and my wife was full of remorse because she had left the door to the pool area open while she took a nap.  My wife and girls buried Scrappy in the backyard and I wrote a poem for the occasion.  It is kind of rough but there is a little bit of PW in it.  I don’t think I had ever written a poem until being inspired by pdbuttons and the Burma Shave guys to try my hand at writing a few Haiku’s.  In appreciation, I thought I should share it: 

Goodbye Scrappy

You brought so much joy to me whenever I walked through the door.
and I’m trying not to cry right now cause I owe you so much more.
I remember you as a puppy, full of life and eager to please.
You certainly loved your cookies and did all your tricks with ease
 
Thank you for kisses and bringing me such joy
and I know I was so lucky to have you bring your toys
I wasn’t always kind to you and that I do regret.
But you never held it against me, you just seemed to forgive and forget
 
I know you are happy now and Lady is with you too
Tell her that I miss her and to take care of my Scrappy doo
So since you are in heaven please tell the Lord for me
That I am greatful for the time I had - The time as your Daddy

(h/t pd and the burma shave crew)

Finally:  Current political events (punctuated in Darleen’s post irt the delay in answering Gen McChrystal’s request) have been eating away at me like a tumor.  I find myself experiencing a combination of anger and sadness that I know I can’t sustain.  Posting my thoughts was providing no relief and actually becoming counter productive.

I strolled through some of the recent threads and read that many of you had missed me and expressed concern.  I even noted that my motto “Volleys down range” was brought up on one thread.  I am grateful for the folks that remember me and I am encouraged that something I wrote has had an impact.  I want you to know that your thoughts and prayers are more meaningful than I can describe. 

I was recently given a new job here with a more demanding schedule so while I hope to post again soon, it may not be at the frequency I would like.  (Perhaps that is God’s prescription for me). 

Meanwhile please carry on the fight.  Send your Prayers Up-chain and your Volleys Down Range.

God Bless, 

Danger

Oh and for those of you that are worried, I can assure you that I do not intend to go gently into that good night…  I go to the gym almost everyday regardless of my mood because I made a promise to three little girls; and no 107mm rocket (and certainly not my own 9 mil), is going to keep me from fulfilling that promise.

I’ve always subscribed to the belief that were I a defense attorney in this situation selected by the government to ensure it wouldn’t appear to be a show trial, that to provide the most vigorous defense possible is my patriotic duty.

So, my first motion in KSM’s defense would be to get his confession ruled inadmissible, as it came through coercion.  After that . . . well, hell, what if I get him acquitted due to reasonable doubt?  What happens then?

KSM and his buddies should be tried by a military tribunal, and if they’re convicted, they should be executed, live on al-Jazeera.

Comments are now open to Pub denizens. Have at it!

*****

I intercepted this tweet directed at Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin. Entire conversation spans a few days:

dpleasant —  @michellemalkin, @glennbeck This is precisely what you two create by spewing your hate. http://bit.ly/3hVQeA

dicentra63 — RT @dpleasant: @michellemalkin & @glennbeck support random beatings of Muslims? Moron is reacting to Hasan, not talk radio.

depleasant — I’m sorry, but you’ll never convince me that all the hate spewed by teabaggers doesn’t have a role in this.

dicentra63 — Please define “hate.” “Hasan shouldn’t have been drummed out of army” isn’t hateful.

depleasant — Do you really think that’s all Beck & *especially* Malkin have said about Muslims.

dicentra63 — You tell me what they’ve said, then.

(more…)

In the time it takes you to read this post, Michael Steele will have explained to his spouse that the reason their Pomeranian-Beagle mix, puppy Malcolm Jefferson, keeps pooping on their four-post bed (more…)

In the time it takes you to read this post, Barack Obama, having recieved the plans of his breakfast team for a Special Veteran’s Day Purple Hearts of Grapeness Waffle, and after due consideration, (more…)