So, how did it go?But the event, which attracted so much interest that cable TV networks ran countdown clocks, had the taint of political theatre from the start.It is worth repeating -the "beer summit" was not to help race-relations, but to help Obama politically to get out a jam of his own making.A cynical move, as any. He would do well in Indian politics.He would shine in Bihar.
Obama was the main intended beneficiary, sitting in full public view at a picnic table under a magnolia tree with professor Henry Louis Gates, police sergeant James Crowley and Vice-President Joe Biden as a surprise late addition.
It was Obama who injected himself into the incident last week by accusing police of "stupidity" for arresting Gates after the academic broke into his own home because he had lost his keys.
It was Obama who escalated public debate to national proportions by linking the incident to a pattern of racial profiling by police.
And it was Obama, in an unusual lapse of judgment, who allowed public attention across the US to be distracted from his preferred topic of promoting a new healthcare system, to which he had devoted the previous fortnight in an attempt to force a deal on the US congress.
The US President inflamed tensions over race and reignited the culture wars at the very time he least wanted it. Now he needed a circuit-breaker to stem the damage and make the issue disappear.
An opinion poll released yesterday by Pew Research found 41per cent of Americans disapproved of Obama's action in coming out strongly in favour of the Harvard academic last week, despite admitting he was not aware of all the facts. Only 29 per cent approved.
Disturbingly for the White House, Obama's overall approval rating has fallen to 54 per cent, down from 61 per cent last month.
Charles Krauthammer on “beer summit:”
Well, I know all of us are supposed to get into the spirit of levity and good humor, but I'm afraid I can't.
This is a typical Obama. He commits an offense against the public good—he imputes racism where there was none—and then he declares it a teachable moment in which he will instruct us on tolerance, understanding, and brotherhood.
Now, he did this before. He does it over and over again. He's found in bed last year after 20 years with a raving racist. (We had known he had been in the church of Jeremiah Wright, but we didn't know about his racism until the middle of the campaign.) And what is Obama's response? He gives a speech on race, another teachable moment, in which he ascribes racism to everyone—white working class, African-Americans, Jeremiah Wright, his own grandmother—except himself. And he stands there hovering above it all, teaching us the ways of tolerance and brotherhood.
Look, he may be a great president or a lousy one, but when he acts in this way, when he stands above the fray in a patronizing and condescending way, instructing us on the ways of the world, I find him insufferable.
Otherwise, I'm sure he's a nice guy.
the official White House Blog published this picture and that it is in the public domain. The body language is most revealing.
Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?
Michelle Malkins’s Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies is currently no.1 on the Amazon best seller list.
A refreshing change from the Obama-poodle media(I call it embedded media –embedded too deep in their messiah’s ass to see daylight), she pulls no punches. Soundbites from her appearance on the "Today" show-
MALKIN: Well I think he is a racial opportunist and I think that he has learned that he shouldn't shoot his mouth off when he explicitly admits that he didn't know what happened.
LAUER: A racial opportunist?
MALKIN: Yes.
LAUER: He hasn't gotten to where he is today by being a racial opportunist, has he?
MALKIN: I think that he took that moment, used a health care conference that was a debacle, basically and took this story, which is really just a local parochial law enforcement story, to try and ensure some sort moment of his racial authenticity. And it backfired because he was wrong and he should have admitted it. And I think for a president that has offered up hope and change and a new politics is just another example. I wouldn't say that there is another example of corruption, but I think it is, I think it, it, it plays into this idea that a man who has hyped himself as something different and something new is nothing but that.
LAUER: You, you, you conclude all of that based on one mistake he made, in terms of a comment he made?
MALKIN: One mistake? Oh!
LAUER: I'm talking this comment. This particular comment-
MALKIN: It, it, no-
LAUER: -sets that entire scenario up for you?
MALKIN: No, I, I think it's clear that, that was a calculated move. Everything that this president does is Kabuki theater. Every townhall-
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MATT LAUER: Let me ask you about your book. In it -- I mean clearly we know by the co-, we know by the title where it goes – you take on Michelle Obama-
MICHELLE MALKIN: I certainly do.
LAUER: -in this book. You call her the "First Crony."
MALKIN: Yes I do.
LAUER: Why?
MALKIN: Because she was steeped in the politics of the Daley machine. Her father was a patronage appointee of Daley. She's beholden to the type of hardball politics that Barack Obama says he is against. Her entire professional career was based on nepotism. And now she has brought almost every-
Perhaps India’s softest, sweetest actress and with a voice that is aptly described by the lyrics of the song-
“Strumming my pain with her fingers,
singing my life with her words,
killing me softly with her song…”
Unlike many contemporary beauty queens like Aishwarya Rai and Sushmita Sen, she was a natural actor.
Heck, I will miss her!
Cross posted at What the Heck is Art?
Thomas Sowell on the myth of the post-racial president-Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the United States would mark our entering a “post-racial” era, when we could finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.
That was quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically, financially, and socially.
Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found it expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial candidate, just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular things — about campaign finance, about transparency in government, about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it first posted on the Internet long enough to be studied — all of which turned to be the direct opposite of what he has actually done after getting elected.
Those who were shocked at President Obama’s cheap shot at the Cambridge police for being “stupid” in arresting Henry Louis Gates must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the obvious implications of Obama’s 20 years of association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did not understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can believe anything.
(I'm thinking of the clueless lady of the Indian TV, Burkha Dutt -Ed.)
With race — as with campaign finance, transparency, and the rest — Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear, and that is what he has said. But his policies as president have been the opposite of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.
As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the “racial profiling” issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion that a policeman was engaging in racial profiling, when in fact the cop was investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed to be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in Cambridge.
For those who are interested in facts — and these obviously do not include President Obama — there has been a serious study of racial profiling in a book titled Are Cops Racist? by Heather Mac Donald. Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been distorted beyond recognition by politics.
The racial-profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it polarizes the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in order to get votes. Academics who run black-studies departments, as Prof. Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest in racial paranoia.
For “community organizers” as well, racial resentments are a stock in trade. President Obama’s background as a community organizer has received far too little attention, though it should have been a high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.
What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a community, directing those feelings against other communities, from whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.
To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a triumph of wishful thinking over reality.
Barack Obama’s past and his present tell the same story. His appointment of an attorney general who called America “a nation of cowards” for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to expect from Eric Holder.
The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young black thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in blatant violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks louder than any words from him or his president.
President Obama’s first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like Obama himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with an organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a sense of racial entitlement.
An 18th-century philosopher said, “When I speak I put on a mask. When I act I am forced to take it off.” Barack Obama’s mask slipped for a moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the media. But we should never forget what we saw.
Ok, the title is just a take off on the conspiracy minded article in The Guardian which has lefties all over the world somersaulting in frenzy. Finally, the proof that the global warming was cooked up to make world safe for domination by oil companies by that evilchimphalliburtnazimonster Boosh-
Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide
Photos from US spy satellites declassified by the Obama White House provide the first graphic images of how the polar ice sheets are retreating in the summer. The effects on the world's weather, environments and wildlife could be devastating
Satellite images of polar ice sheets taken in July 2006 and July 2007 showing the retreating ice during the summer. Photograph: Public Domain
Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.
The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
One particularly striking set of images - selected from the 1,000 photographs released - includes views of the Alaskan port of Barrow. One, taken in July 2006, shows sea ice still nestling close to the shore. A second image shows that by the following July the coastal waters were entirely ice-free.
The photographs demonstrate starkly how global warming is changing the Arctic. More than a million square kilometres of sea ice - a record loss - were missing in the summer of 2007 compared with the previous year.
But on the other hand -
The images The Guardian does not want you to see
Arctic ice comparison August 2007 and 2008.What happened to all that ice that had disappeared just a year before in the Guardian article above? Despite evil Boosh’s super-secret nefarious plots, how could ice come back?-
The world has cooled since 2001 despite rising levels of CO2(black line).Looks like Boosh’s secret ray to melt the world is not working-
Most of the Antarctica is cooling and the ice concentration is growing-
(watch out for the red line)
That ray has definitely gone bust.
Remember -Antarctica has 90 per cent of the Earth’s ice
In other news-
The snowstorm news is from July 22nd, 2009. So far there is no mention of it on the Guardian website(July 28).Doesn't fit the narrative.A major and historic winter storm is underway at this Wednesday morning in Argentina. Snow is falling in many parts of the country and in many areas not used to winter precipitation.
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In Bahia Blanca, a coastal city in the Southern part of the Buenos Aires, the snow storm is heavy and local authorities describe it as the worst snow event in 50 years.
An IBD editorial -
Sharp Americans are starting to understand H.L. Mencken's observation that "The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it." That pretty much sums up the modern environmentalist movement.
3,000 Low Temp Records Set This July!
Obama's pal, professor Henry Louis Gates Jr, a racist just like his friend-
"As always, whitey now sits in judgment of me, preparing to cast my fate."
Green imperialism-
Germany calls carbon tariffs "eco-imperialism"
Eco-imperialism..... that rings a bell.
(All the main links are from the Drudge Report)
Richard S. Lindzen,one of the top meteorologists in the world, in an excellent article-
…when data conflicts with models, a small coterie of scientists can be counted upon to modify the data.
A while back industrialist Adi Godrej was on UTVi spouting some green gibberish, the kind that most industrialists now mouth as a ritual. He believes he and his companies are taking steps that will do something about, among others, climate change.
That got my pea-brain in a ferment. Mr.Godrej is apparently an intelligent man –one must assume that since he is (apparently) efficiently running a huge business empire. Were he to put (tens or hundreds)millions in a venture, one presumes that he would thoroughly vet the project, deeply study the ins and outs, make sure that the his information is absolutely correct.
Yet, when it comes to climate change/global warming(take your pick), one wonders why such a thorough person does not ask –where is the evidence? Which study/studies prove man-made global warming?
If he has asked these question and has satisfied himself that the man-made climate change is a fact, then it is I who has some questions for him-
1) If the CO2 emitted by the humans is causing global warming, then why has the globe not warmed since 2001(in fact it has been cooling) despite skyrocketing amounts of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere?
Explain this,Mr.Godrej-
2) There is no study that proves man-made global warming.That IPCC says it is not a proof –that is an argument from authority(And IPCC doesn’t do any research of it’s own). If you know of one, please let us humble folks know.
3)The computer models the IPCC relies on to come up with frightening future scenarios cannot even explain the past temperatures, neither did they predict the cooling of this decade –but you depend upon them to accurately reflect the future ones.
It is fair to say that “the only place where CO2 is causing temperature increase is in the IPCC computer models”, models which are deeply flawed and not subject to open review.
These are just a few questions –there are many, many others. I wish you and other super-rich dudes who like feeling good by taking up “green” causes would read, for a start, Joanna Nova’s The Skeptics Handbook. We look up to people like you and it disappoints us when you join in the cause of the greenies who do not have the good of humanity in their hearts. If you don’t believe me ask the millions who have died of malaria since the banning of DDT by the environmentalists. Oh, wait, you cannot do that – they are dead(the people, not the environmentalists,I’m afraid).
The greenies are among capitalism’s deadliest enemies and it pains me to see that you consider yourself on their side. We are still a poor people while you, sir, are fabulously rich, like a caliph in a fairy tale. It is saddening to see you help the people and causes that will keep us impoverished.
Here is my appeal to you, sir -
do study the facts about climate change as efficiently and thoroughly as you would if you were setting up a new industry,factory or a venture.And then, and only then, tell us what you believe about climate change.
I have hope that you will see reason.
On the "Deadliest Catch" home page is this link: SEA ICE SCIENCE...New! Is global warming changing the Bering Sea? Get the answers now. Curious for the answers, I clicked the link which brought me to Bering Sea Ice: Science Q&A by Helen Fields. The Q&A presents overwhelming evidence that the Bering Sea has been getting colder lately. The conclusion: global warming. Amazing.It makes you wonder -has the notion of "global warming" made idiots out of many or is it that being idiots they sincerely believe in the anthropogenic global warming? Reminds one of the tale about Ghalib and mangoes-
“One day, as Ghalib was feasting on mangoes, a nobleman with his donkey came to meet him. The donkey walked towards the mango skin lying on the ground, smelt it and just walked away. The nobleman taunted, ‘Gadhe bhi aam nahin khaate (Even donkeys don’t eat mangoes).’ Ghalib retorted, ‘Gadhe hi aam nahin khaate (Only donkeys don’t eat mangoes).’”(Note- there are also other versions of this story floating around)
Jairam Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, accused the developed world of needlessly raising alarm over melting Himalayan glaciers.
He dismissed scientists’ predictions that Himalayan glaciers might disappear within 40 years as a result of global warming.
“We have to get out of the preconceived notion, which is based on western media, and invest our scientific research and other capacities to study Himalayan atmosphere,” he said.
“Science has its limitation. You cannot substitute the knowledge that has been gained by the people living in cold deserts through everyday experience.”
But he(Obama on the Gates controversy) added that with all that's going on in the country with health care and the economy and the wars abroad, "it doesn't make sense to arrest a guy in his own home if he's not causing a serious disturbance."
This is idiotic. Whether a person was justly arrested in connection based on a given incident has nothing to do with what's happening with health care or in foreign wars. Is Obama trying to say that the arrest would have been okay if everyone had health insurance, the economy was prosperous, and we were out of Iraq and Afghanistan?
Thomas Friedman is a prominent global warming scaremonger.
He is also a first class hypocrite.
A few years ago, the Friedmans bought a seven-and-a-half-acre lot in Bethesda, Maryland. They tore down the existing house, and built an eleven-thousand-square-foot replacement11400-square-foot to be precise-
…along comes Thomas Friedman, porn-stached resident of a positively obscene114,00011,400 square foot suburban Maryland mega-monstro-mansion and husband to the heir of one of the largest shopping-mall chains in the world, reinventing himself as an oracle of anti-consumerist conservationism. Where does a man who needs his own offshore drilling platform just to keep the east wing of his house heated get the balls to write a book chiding America for driving energy inefficient automobiles? Where does a guy whose family bulldozed 2.1 million square feet of pristine Hawaiian wilderness to put a Gap, an Old Navy, a Sears, an Abercrombie and even a motherfucking Foot Locker in paradise get off preaching to the rest of us about the need for a “Green Revolution”? Well, he’ll explain it all to you in 438 crisply written pages for just $27.95, $30.95 if you have the misfortune to be Canadian.
(emphasis mine)
PS- do read Matt Taibibi’s takedown of Friedman. It is hilariously well –deserved.
Update- Mark Steyn:
Well, obviously, being a renowned expert, Thomas Friedman, like Al Gore and the Prince of Wales, needs a supersized carbon footprint. But you don't - you can get by beating your laundry on the rocks down by the river with the native women all day long.
"Environmentalism" is a government restraint on economic advance and, therefore, social mobility. In other words, it's a way to ensure you'll never live like Tom Friedman.
"She(U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) has made a spate of vulgar remarks unbecoming for her position everywhere she went since she was sworn in," North Korea's KCNA news agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.(emphasis mine)
It said her comments earlier in the week that North Korean behavior such as a recent spate of missile launches was like an unruly child demanding attention "suggests she is by no means intelligent."
"We cannot but regard Mrs. Clinton as a funny lady as she likes to utter such rhetoric, unaware of the elementary etiquette in the international community.
"Sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping," the report added.
"It is our view that she can make even a little contribution to the implementation of the U.S. administration's foreign policy as secretary of State only when she has understanding of the world, to begin with."
CNN interviewed the hosts of the show "Mythbusters" about the conspiracy theorists who believe the Apollo Moon landing was faked, and the their extensive efforts debunking the claims of the Moon landing deniers.
However, buried towards the end of the interview is a gem of video of Buzz Aldrin, famously one of the first astronauts to walk on the Moon, being confronted by one of these moon landing skeptics several years ago. The man angrily calls Aldrin a "coward" and a "liar." Aldrin tells the man to get away from him, and when he refuses, Aldrin promptly punches him in the face.
Does he really know enough about what happened to say that? Maybe it was Professor Gates who behaved stupidly, or at least arrogantly. He is, after all, a Harvard professor. I was once a Harvard professor, and my instinct is to side with the Cambridge cops. But if I were president of the United States, I might pause before casually accusing other Americans of acting stupidly unless I were confident I knew what I was talking about.
