The Hunting of the Snark – An Agony

In 1876 Lewis Carroll penned a delightful poem entitled The Hunting of the Snark – An Agony in Eight Fits about an absurd ship manned by a rather bizarre captain & crew.  With a slight liberty, the beginning of “Fit the Second” begins thus. I could not help noting the strong resemblance to our present POTUS and his  addled adherents.

The [One] himself they all praised to the skies —

Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!

Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,

The moment one looked in his face!

He had bought a large map representing the sea,

Without the least vestige of land:

And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be

A map they could all understand.

Indeed. Full speed astern.

Hollywood Opinions: Real Important Stuff

Attention fellow Tea Party folks: This woman thinks we are “f-ing crazy”.

I don’t know about you. I can live with that. Carry on.

The End of the Planet – And Other Pablum

According to some anthropologist egghead types, the Mayan calendar predicts the planet will cease to exist this year. Others seem to attribute the imminent demise of good ol’ Terra Firma to the effects of President Obama’s potential reelection. I’ll go with none of the above. Firstly, I’m thinking if the Mayans had it together they probably wouldn’t have vanished without a trace for no apparent reason. But they did leave some cool stony pics and architecture.

As for The One, he is naught but a fart in the American wind. The USA has survived and thrived through far worse than this dope and his band of merry cretin – and will be around long after their malodorous vapor has blown away. The myth that this miscreant is something more will blow away with him – but unlike our Mayan friends - he’ll leave nothing of note for future generations to enjoy. Just an extensive tab. Sigh.

 

Next.

 

The State of Confusion Address

Best take IMO Tweeted by Randall Hoven: Kinda like the Doors, but without music or Jim Morrison.

That was, I believe the weakest State of the Union speech I have ever seen – save possibly the Jimmy Peanuthead malaise phase. Applause, even from the democretin. was tenuous and anemic - perhaps they didn’t want their picture in the papers applauding this train wreck. Can’t blame them for that. Something seemed to overshadow the feigned bravado and confidence. Something is changing…transforming - tangible, yet mysterious. Can’t seem to put my finger on it…

No matter. While that was painful to witness and listen to, I find it encouraging. The swagger, cockiness and messianic ego are withered and weak. Even the Obamabots can see where this is headed. I’ll be interested to see if there is any poll spike, but doubt we’ll see it – and I hope and pray we just saw the beginning of the last chapter of this horror novel.

 

Fasten your seatbelts please. We may be landing sooner than expected. Thank God.

Transportation Silliness Authority

Haven’t posted in many moons, but something happened today that triggered my snark.

 Senator Paul detained by the TSA.

 Moira Bagley, the senator’s spokeswoman, told Fox News that Paul (R-Ky.) called her after he went through a “full body screener,” described to her as a body-imaging machine, and was stopped for an anomaly around his leg. The senator lifted his pants leg to show nothing was there and offered to go back through the machine, but the TSA official said no, only a full-body pat down would suffice.

Bagley said Paul refused, resisting on the grounds that it infringes on his rights. Paul maintaintains he was “detained”, and White House Carney Caller was swift to respond: Video here.

Let’s just be clear, the passenger  was not detained. The passenger triggered an airport alarm during routine screening, but refused to complete the screening process in order to resolve the issue. Passengers, as in this case, who refuse to comply with security procedures are denied access to the secure gate area.

As usual with Wonkey-Whitehouse-Whitewash, this prepared piece of partisan poofta prompts parsing:

• Protocol, respect and courtesy strongly suggest “the Senator” would be more appropriate in addressing the incident than “the passenger”. The reason “Senator” was not used gets to the heart of the problem.
• He certainly was “detained” meaning he was taken to a cubicle, not allowed to procede and missed his flight. He was not arrested (Senators are immune from arrest) but neither was he permitted to leave.  That is being “detained” by any definition.
• “…refused to complete the screening process in order to resolve the issue.” The fact that he is indeed a United States Senator should have resolved the issue immediately.  He carries government security clearance, full credentials and travels with an entourage.

After the incident, Paul said:

I think if you’ve been to Yemen three times, and you’re chatting with people in Pakistan they may need to talk to you… Target the approach to people who are a potential risk. By spending an hour with me this morning, there’s a chance someone went by they should have spent more time with.

Ah, therein lies problemo uno. TSA security procedure treats everyone  exactly the same (Old lady, Boy Scout, Senator, Priest, Imam,  Arabic student from Yemen, Undie Bomber)- so no particular group is offended, or…(oh the humanity!)…profiled. These TSA policies infringe on our Constitutional rights to privacy, assumption of innocence and protection from illegal search - ironically to prevent discrimination.  Because, of course, it would be preferable to spiral into terra firma in a flaming aircraft than to hurt anyone’s feelings.

Israel is arguably the most preferred terrorist target in the world, yet there have been no security breaches at Ben Gurion International Airport security since 1972 - and this is accomplished without body scanners or intrusive searches. They use two rather obvious and very effective techniques: PROFILING and behavioral analysis. Passengers are thouroughly background checked before even arriving, using very advanced and secret databases, and risk levels assigned to each passenger. All passengers are asked a series of questions by trained agents before getting to the gates.  They are carefully monitored for inconsistant answers, nervousness, voice pitch, eye movement, physiological reactions etc. Combining these two techniques, only about 2% are singled out for further screening.  This system has been 100% effective for forty years.

Janet Nappytime actually traveled to Israel last year to observe first hand how it’s done, and apparently learned nothing. Apparently, in Senator Paul’s case, “the system worked”. It harrassed, embarrassed and delayed a Republican senator from returning to Washingtoon. Mission accomplished!

When we willingly forfeit our rights and fredoms for security - we ultimately have neither.

If in response to 9-11 we accept a state where government may remove fundamental rights at will, then the terrorists have won.

Great News! Libyan Rebels Linked to Al Qaeda

The Telegraph: Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links

Could this be the man we can look forward to as our new “friend” in Libya?

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

Obama: “That’s why building this international coalition has been so important… It is our military that is being volunteered by others to carry out missions that are important not only to us, but are important internationally.”

That’s great news. Who doesn’t enjoy volunteering other people?… Libya, in that sense, is a classic post-nationalist, post-modern military intervention: As in Kosovo, we’re do-gooders in a land with no good guys. But, unlike Kosovo, not only is there no strategic national interest in what we’re doing, the intended result is likely to be explicitly at odds with U.S. interests. – Mark Steyn in OCR

Lovely. Again, Obamisitic leadership by decisive cluelessness.

• Let’s insult and belittle England. Who needs our oldest, staunchest ally?
• Let’s back Manuel Zalaya – Chavez’s good buddy who usurped the Honduran constitution.
• Let’s be non-committal in the Iranian struggle against the Mullahs over-ruling the elections.
• Let’s trash Mubarak – the Muslim Brotherhood seem like such nice folks.
• Let’s join our UN brotherhood in their support of the democracy loving rebels in Libya.

God protect, preserve and prosper our troops. Their Commander in Chief has no idea who we are fighting or why.

Reason and Reality – We Hardly Knew Ye

It is admirable that a functional illiterate with severe cognitive disfunction can have a rich and happy life as a columnist at the New York Times. Paul Krugman’s ignorance on economics could easily fill several books he’s already written.

It’s Up to the Right
“Yglesias says, correctly, that the only way we’ll get any budget deal now — or, I’d say, any time in the next several years — will be if conservatives come up with an offer. And they won’t.”

In other words, unless conservatives cave to Obama’s obscene spending orgy, tax the socks off the job producers and be the ones to publicly threaten the entitlement Social Security and Medicare monsters – we’re all in big trouble. Krugman is among the economic eggheads who believe spending the country into oblivion is the way to recover.

Via Doug at Michelle Malkin,  Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich says, “You don’t want government to hold back, you want government right now, yes, the deficit’s a long-term problem, but right now you don’t want to cut government spending, yet Eric Cantor and the Republicans are indulging, you hear it over and over and over”  RCP video here.

You want that if you are the one the government is dumping all its money on, no doubt. Here’s another fun fact I picked up today.  The Amtrak Sunset Limited from New Orleans to LA is subsidized by the government at $462/passenger.  For that subsidy, we could fly two passengers there and back in 1/6 the time.  So we borrow money from China so people can ride a train for two days instead of flying.  This is why the Government should not run anything, leave alone our healthcare.

 I’m not sure, but I think the national dialogue has…er, entered another dimention: