Chutzpah

Hope and Change Redux

According to the new Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll only 39% of voters would vote to reelect President Obama and 50% would vote for someone else. Of those numbers 25% said they would definitely vote for him, while 37% would definitely vote for someone else. Numbers like this tend to encourage challengers. I wonder if Hillary has seen this poll?

Of course to many on the left, this just means Americans are racists (or at least the 50% who wouldn't vote for Obama are).

You can seem more on this subject at:

http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/06/now-playing-at-reasontv-is-the

Unemployment up

After peaking at 10% the unemployment figures decreased to 9.7%. They now have increased to 9.9% which isn't good news for the Democrats or the Obama Administration. On the positive side, employers added 290,000 jobs in April. But the unemployment rate went up because the number of workers in the work force increased.

Perhaps now is the time for the Democrats to focus like a laser beam on jobs! Or perhaps they should have done that 16 months ago.

Oregon Media Teacher misreports on Times Square Bomber

Jason Levin, a media teacher at Conestoga Middle School in Beaverton, who is currently on paid leave of absence for his advocacy of discrediting the TEA Party movement, may have shown that he doesn't act as a very good role model when it comes to reporting on his blog. Talking about the Time Square Bombing attempt Levin speculated:

"UPDATE MAY 03 Suspect currently being questioned by law enforcement.

"Anonymous sources have reported that a suspect is currently being questioned in the Bridgeport / New Haven CT area. The suspect is a middle age white male, has a history of strong political views, and considers himself a Sarah Palin Tea Party express activist. An arrest is expected within days.

...Anonymous sources at the scene have reported that the terrorist attack is likely related to the Sarah Palin Tea Party movement. "Much like the 911 attackers, Sarah Palin's Tea Party movement also has shown a strong dislike of the United States government." one source reported. "

Later when it was confirmed the bomber was not a "middle age white male" who considered himself a Sarah Palin Tea Party express activist, but a naturalized Muslim man who hated George Bush, Levin became more sympathetic blogging:

"But he appears to have fallen victim to the Republican created recession. Court records seen by Associated Press appear to show that the property, owned by Shahzad and a woman named Huma Mian, was being foreclosed on by banks following default on a $200,000 mortgage. The family moved out in July last year after a series of garage sales to offload furniture and property."

Now Jason may be looking for a job with MSNBC, but his logic is absolute appalling. Doesn't it strike any of these "reporters" odd that Faisal Shahzad quit his job, got an $80,000 loan, went to Pakistan multiple times for multiple months and came back and tried to blow up a car in Times Square? Now if I had $80,000 I think I could make the house payments (he did buy an SUV with cash as well as a one way airline ticket to the Middle East) and if I really was looking for the American Dream, I probably wouldn't quit my job until I had another one. Far from falling victim to the "Republican created recession" Shahzad appears to be a cold calculating terrorist who didn't want his 72 virgins, but did want revenge for all the Obama ordered "drone" strikes to the Taliban. I think Levin is falling victime to TEA Party derangement syndrome.

Death throes for Anthropogenic Global Warming?

When I was a kid playing CYO football, one of the boys on the team wasn't doing well. The coach at the end of practice made him run 5 laps around the field. The next day he brought a note from his mother exempting her son from doing laps. Needless to say the young man did not stay on the team long after that.

Yesterday it was announced that a group of 255 scientists from the National Academy of Science had written a letter that attacks critics driven by "special interests or dogma" and "McCarthy-like" threats against researchers. This is one of those incidents which demonstrates what real chutzpah is. After years of their supporters attacking skeptics (who many of them referred to as denialists), here are just a few of the "McCarthy-like" threats the skeptics endured.

Talking Points Memo pondered the question ‘at what point do we jail or execute global warming deniers?’

Greenpeace uttered a threat to skeptics, ‘we know where you live.’

David Suzuki called for politicians who questioned global warming science to be jailed.

Joe Romm wanted to strangle skeptics in their beds.

NASA’s James Hansen suggested skeptics be tried for high crimes against humanity

As with my teammate who brought a note from his mother, the supporters of AGW are feeling the proverbial heat and they don't like it. But like the boy so many years ago, their time on the playing field is numbered.