Hither and thither — 2/27/09

This week's battered pickup has returned from the field. Here's what it brings us (I'm sneaking in unmarked UPDATES as I find them, so keep checking back):

• Obamolaters scoff and sneer when we call them, well, Obamolaters. But according new Harris interactive poll asked 2,634 Americans who they admire enough to call a hero. Who did they pick? Barack Obama, who has done nothing of substance, besides parlay a paint-thin resume into the highest office in the land. Which, I'll admit, is not nothing — but it's nothing to admire. Second place? Jesus Christ. Now, I pause to say that I am not making this up. I have to give that disclaimer, because it gets even more absurd, if that can be imagined. Among the "values" that moved Obama ahead of Christ, the walking brain-dead listed "Doing what's right regardless of personal consequences" with 89 percent, "Not giving up until the goal is accomplished" with 83 percent and "Doing more than what other people expect of them," with 82 percent. Also popular were "Overcoming adversity" and "Staying level-headed in a crisis."
• I thought that Bill Clinton was the most egregious textbook incarnation of David Wells' warnings about Americans worshiping style and image over substance and accomplishment and character. I was wrong. I'm forced to say that Obama has actually accomplished less of substance even than Bill Clinton... who tied for sixteenth place with George Washington and Colin Powell — which is bizarre enough, if you think about it. Which I don't recommend.

• Radical Presidency Update. Not two full months into his presidency, Obama is showing that he is what we already knew he was: a totalitarian radical. Somehow, he trades on his supporters' addiction to violating the Tenth Commandment and uses it effectively to codify violation of the Eighth. Well-educated though he was, Obama evidently never learned that the most portable resource in the world is money. As California's liberal legislators have driven business out for years, Obama means to do to America. So he has announced his intention further to punish the most productive, to reward the least-productive. In 2006, "the richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income." Even if he took 100% of those earning &500K or more, Obama wouldn't pay for his schemes. Yet, like every doctrinaire socialist, Obama thinks he can get more eggs by strangling the goose because he's, you know, special. Just like all his predecessors.
  
• The president's administration surely is well aware that crisis is a useful tool for gaining power. The procedure is simple and two-step: (1) convince everyone that there is a crisis; (2) tell them that only you can solve it. Obama certainly is worsening the crisis, and riding it for all he's worth. Every time he opens his mouth, the market crashes. I wish he'd stop. In fact, if Obama proposed a six-month moratorium on saying or doing anything, perhaps we could begin recovering.
• Safari sounds cool. Anyone using it?
  
• Why we hate Vista:

• Northern Peril Alert. Canadians: harmless and peculiar? Maybe. Maybe at one time. But now... they're learning to read our minds! "Harmless," they say. Yeah, right. I say: today, Shania Twain; tomorrow, the world!!!
• Well, imagine that. Kids who listen to songs with sexual lyrics are likelier to engage in sexual activities/intercourse. No proof cited to identify chicken/egg causality. Me, I'd say it cycles.
• Very cool. Some early risers got a view of the Moon, Jupiter, Mercury, and Mars. For a larger picture and more explanation, go here.
• Also cool: see a large model of Herod's temple that a man spent thirty years building here. (Herod himself took over forty-six years to build his rather larger version.)
  
• You can see a list of Britain's most bizarre names, which includes a few American ones as well. Maybe Libbie or Ian can explain "Teresa Green," though. I've tried to pronounce "Teresa" as Brit-ty as I can, and I still don't get it. Or is it... "Trees are green"?
  
• Warning-shot alert. You learn you are dying of a brain tumor. How do you prepare? Here's one sad product of our image-first age.
  
• Ear-mark alert. Remember The One promising that he'd be hot, molten death on ear-marks? Yeah, I didn't believe it either. But we'll get to see, really soon. The Porkulus package reportedly features "about 9,000 earmarks totaling $5 billion." Goodness, that's a bit of change, isn't it? But surely it's for truly vital and Constitutionally-required spending? Yes, it is — if you can expand that to include $200,000 for “Tattoo Removal Violence Prevention Outreach Program,” $5.8 million for the “Ted Kennedy Institute for the Senate…for the planning and design of a building & an endowment,” and $473,000 for National Council of La Raza. Which I can't.
• Reason #7109 why you DON'T want the government taking over health care: CPSIA. Hugh "Squish" Hewitt explains it here, and unfolds the implications here. Power + arrogance + incompetence = disaster.
  
• Tempted to hide in a cave until Obamanomics is over? Won't work.
• Another 1500 visits or so, and we'll be at a third of a million. Not bad for a no-name. Glory to God.