Happy New Year!

Best wishes to all for a happy and prosperous New Year.

And if you're celebrating with champagne, be careful...

Junius: Letter to President Obama

To His Excellency, Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States

Dear Mr. President:

One need not subscribe to the wilder flights of fancy ventured by the American philosopher Lysander Spooner to see in his observation on the subject of mendacity in public officials a well-grounded truth: “Those who are capable of tyranny are capable of perjury to sustain it”. Indeed, perjury is the blueprint for the construction of the edifice of tyranny, the ultimate political lie which posits the moral and intellectual superiority of one man over the accumulated experience and wisdom of untold millions of his erstwhile fellows, living and dead.

In an age of vigorous individualism, marked by a universal regard for liberty and a general expectation of the consistent exercise of personal responsibility, men have no need for a self-proclaimed demigod, trumpeting his possession of a utopian gnosis, and declaring his own unique suitability for serving as a guide to the promised land. It is Your Excellency’s great good fortune, and our bitter fate, that you came to what now passes for manhood in the present epoch, a singularly pusillanimous, complacent and ignorant stretch of history in which freedom has largely become synonymous with the baser sorts of self-indulgence, and all responsibility – for our education, for our livelihoods, for our security, for our health, for our very lives – is seen as the province of the State, its expenses to be funded through the expropriation of the wealth of faceless “others”, a class from which an ominous and increasingly large number of people blithely exclude themselves.

But even though the independent spirit of the populace has become so thoroughly numbed, and the cognitive spark so widely dampened, nonetheless there survives, almost in spite of itself, a latent, yet powerful, hunger for reason and for truth - or, at the very least, a repugnance for the more obvious and demeaning insignia of servitude; so much so, in fact, that Your Excellency has found it expedient to coat the bolus of peonage that you would cram down our gullets with a confection of falsehoods intended to disguise the repellant taste. Thus do we witness the president of the most powerful nation on earth repeatedly claiming to be surprised by the legal and ethical infractions committed by the organs of his own government, many of whose chiefs he has, himself, appointed. Thus do we encounter the most extravagant prevarications in defense of legislation and programs which, in the plain light of factuality, are clearly indefensible. And thus do we see Your Excellency, conspiring with your mamelukes in both government and the Press, to erect towering fabrications in order to screen the tragic results of your staggering incompetence in the field of foreign policy.

Sir, your career is founded on folie de grandeur, a fantasy that has been nurtured and propounded by your ideological apostles, and grasped in misplaced confidence by the willfully blind, perennially in search of secular saviors. I am too advanced in years, and too thoroughly schooled in human nature, to have any false hopes concerning either your desire or your ability to abjure the path of falsehood; however, I am also too devout a Christian to presume that you are irretrievably and necessarily lost to honor, so I will leave you with the thoughts of a man for whom you have displayed ample, albeit inexplicable, signs of disdain, but from whom you might learn much if, even at this late date, you would leave a political legacy that does not become a hiss and a byword for future generations. The man is Winston Churchill, and he wrote the following: “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”

In the end, there it is. And in the end, Your Excellency, where will you be? Attending, however belatedly, at the altar of truth? Or wallowing in the ashes of your reputation, attempting futilely to stay warm in a world that has grown cold to your hubristic cant? I pray that you should choose with unaccustomed wisdom.

Junius

Hey, it's Virginia

Get yourself a concealed carry permit - and start carryin'.

Bumped

I linked this over at Grandpa John's, but I like it so much I decided to just filch the picture and put it up here (royalty check in the mail, Steve).



Also check out Steve Burri's take on global warming.

Unique photobomb

A frightening photo of an unwelcome bystander.

Monday movie

Science and crime meet with unexpected results in The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse.

Wanted: Major newspaper organization to serve as chief propaganda organ for Hilary Clinton's presidential campaign

Oh, sorry. Looks like the position has already been filled.

Sunday funnies

Don't worry. They'll probably show up on Pawn Stars someday...



Now, that's what I call a lawn ornament.

Hey, dogs, you better keep a good thought.

Steve Burri has one of the best takes on ObamaCare, yet.

Mmmmm. Appetizing.

The great thing about wind turbines is that they pay for themselves

Of course, you have to be very, very patient.

The locality of Eastleigh, Hampshire spent nearly $50,000 installing a wind turbine in 2005, but the inefficient turbine only generates about $21 worth of power every month — meaning the payback period on this turbine is 190 years.

Hmmm. Sounds like the kind of return you get on Paco Financial's Intergenerational Bond Fund - which, incidentally, is a no-load investment vehicle with a low annual management fee that is perfect for people looking to lower their tax liability through the shrewd use of a micro income stream. Order a prospectus now. (Don't read Turkish? No problem; we'll throw in a free Turkish-English dictionary!)

Finally!

The “knock-out game” – an ugly exercise in which one or more thugs sucker punch an unsuspecting pedestrian – has been in the news for several months, and seems to represent a resurgence in black-on-non-black crime (since the vast majority of assailants have been black, and the victims typically white or Asian). The feds have, at long last, gotten around to charging somebody with a hate crime in connection with this act - guess it's just a coincidence that it happens to be a white guy.

Now, I’ve never been a fan of the “hate crime” designation, because (a) a crime’s a crime, regardless of the motive – which is not always easy to prove - and every violent crime is already punishable at the state level, and (b) the category can too easily be turned into a political weapon to favor the sensibilities of some groups at the expense of others. But if the government is going to enforce this thing, it ought to enforce it across the board - which isn't going to happen under Eric Holder's radicalized Department of Justice (oh, and by the way, Eric: turning white people into second-class citizens in a spiteful, “hooray-for-our-side” policy of revenge for the wrongs suffered in past days by blacks is the sort of strategy that makes the words “civil rights” an obscenity when they come out of your mouth).

Better yet, drop the whole hate crime thing, and just prosecute to the max on (in this, and similar, cases) the underlying assault and battery, which is always repugnant, whatever the motivation.

Out: Switzerland

In: South Dakota.

One of life’s simple, but most gratifying, pleasures…

…is to kick back and watch Jeff Goldstein set his high-capacity invective gun on full-auto, and spray some idiotic prog who’s attached his name to a deceptive left-wing fund-raising email. A sample:

You are not only an unfunny, miserable, sneering hypocrite whose schtick grew old somewhere around the end of the Clinton era; but you are also proving yourself to be a useful idiot for a “cause” you can’t possibly defend, nor in any way make palatable to any kind of truly sentient and logical organism.

Medic!

Happy Feet Friday

Some dreamy jazz from Duke Ellington and Willie Smith, in this early fifties version of Sophisticated Lady.

Investors wanted!

I wish Paco-Stupendo studios had thought of this one first!

I was going to ask for the same thing, too, but I was afraid we'd just get Biden

H/T: Moonbattery.

Totally unrelated update: Smitty at the Other McCain announces an exciting new television program.

Let's be frank

Riding to your wedding reception in a standard limousine: boring.

Riding to your wedding reception in the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile: awesome.

Merry Christmas!

Best wishes to everyone from the Paco Command Center for a happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

And just to set the proper mood, here is John Wharton's classic piece from 2012, an alternative take on It's a Wonderful Life (in a nutshell: Mr. Potter was slandered!)

They're here!

It's time for the 2013 Awards for the Worst Reporting, from the Media Research Center.

Here's a taste: "The Pantsuit Patrol Award for Boosting Hillary Clinton":

The idea of losing Hillary has seemed especially unbearable at this political moment. It’s as if she has become, literally, the ship of state. She stands for maturity, tenacity, and self-discipline at a time when everyone else in Washington seems to be, in more senses than one, going off a cliff — a parade of bickering, blustering, small-balled hacks bollixing up the nation’s business. She’s a caring executive too, and that takes its own emotional toll. What a disgrace that John Bolton and his goaty Republican ilk accused Her Magnificence of inventing a concussion to get out of testifying at the Benghazi hearings. Bolton is not fit to wipe her floor with his mustache.

— Newsweek/Daily Beast editor Tina Brown in a January 2 Web article.

(How about if John Bolton uses "Her Magnificence's" mustache?)

Mark Steyn vs. his own editor

When my older son was just a little fellow - perhaps two years, or a trifle younger - we lived in Miami, and numbered among our friends a man whose hobbies included cock-fighting. He brought one of his roosters into his living room one day when we were visiting, holding it tightly with his large, powerful hands. It was a gorgeous creature, with, as I recall, blueish feathers, feet that resembled eagle talons, and a ferocious expression. My boy was delighted, and toddled up to the bird, shouting, "Puppy!" Naturally, I hauled him out of harm's way.

I shiver to think what might have happened had Number One Son had an unsupervised encounter with that avian killer. I am reminded of the episode by this Mark Steyn piece, in which the author takes umbrage at criticism leveled at him by his own editor at NRO. Unfortunately, the editor had no loving hands to protect him from a (well-deserved) mauling.

Assortment

I was going to link a couple of posts at Small Dead Animals, but I got to scrolling and saw that it’s all good, so just go over and start browsing.

Welcome to Gotham and Gomorrah!

Michael Bloomberg wants you to downsize.

ObamaCare: the opiate of the masses?

Hey, maybe the whole U.S. government is an ATF sting operation.

Robert Avrech has some fine tributes to Joan Fontaine and Peter O’Toole (and some interesting tidbits about Ava Gardner).

Happy birthday, Federal Reserve! (So why don’t you die, already?)

Grassroots taking hold even in the tough streets of Chicago.

Yesterday, Mrs. Paco and I went to see The Desolation of Smaug, the second in Peter Jackson’s series based on Tolkien’s The Hobbit (we never saw the first installment). Now, we haven’t been to a movie in ages, but when did theaters start running 30 minutes worth of previews? Or has it always been that way, and maybe I just forgot? I mean, there have always been previews, of course, but I don’t recollect having to sit through a half hour of them. One thing I couldn’t help but notice was that the trailers were all from action films, and you could pretty much switch scenes from one movie to another with little or no break in the continuity of each film. Anyhow, we enjoyed Smaug, but here’s a tip for the producer: if the Orcs are supposed to be such fearsome creatures, the occasional elf or dwarf is going to have to, you know, die sometimes. The elves, particularly, are not entirely credible as almost invincible ninjas. Loved the dragon, though. Having him slither under, and gradually emerge from, those enormous mounds of gold coins was inspired. And the scenery (New Zealand?) is awesome.

Another notable departure

Mikhail Kalashnikov – yes, that one – has died at age 94.

Monday movie

Vincent Price is unmasked, in House of Wax.

Increasingly obvious

H/T: Moonbattery.

Sunday funnies

Read any good books lately?

Traffic cop busts some moves.

Somewhere on the country estate of J. Packington Paco III...

Reinventing the wheel.

Ain't love grand?

New boat owner...

Definitely prettier than your average Army officer

And probably more lethal. Hats off to Rachel Washburn, who went from cheerleader to Army intelligence officer, with two tours of duty in Afghanistan under her belt.

I guess the official candlestick telephone is on the fritz

North Korea sends a threatening message to South Korea…via fax.

Ducks vs. bucks

Here’s an interesting take on the Duck Dynasty controversy, which posits that the show “got away” from A&E.

This is what happened. The whole idea of the show was to parade these nouveau riche Christian hillbillies around so that we could laugh at them. "Look at them," we were supposed to say. "Look how backward they are! Look what they believe! Can you believe they really live this way and believe this stuff? See how they don't fit in? HAHAHA"

When the producers saw the way the show was shaping up, different than they envisioned it, they tried to change course. They tried to get the Robertson's to tone down their Christianity, but to their eternal credit they refused. They tried to add fake cussin' to the show by inserting bleeps where no cussword was uttered. At best, they wanted to make the Robertson's look like crass buffoons. At worst they wanted them to look like hypocrites.

They desperately wanted us to laugh at the Robertsons. Instead, we loved them.

In short, A&E was uncomfortable with the real Robertsons, and with the fact that the family values displayed on the show struck a responsive chord among millions of viewers. Nonetheless, all that money coming in sure was nice, so there was an uneasy truce, until Phil, the patriarch, said some things in an interview which, despite a certain coarseness of expression, represent a completely orthodox Christian outlook on human sexuality – and that’s when the political correctness hit the fan, and the bloodthirsty humanitarians of the Left started baying about “tolerance”, and bawling for Phil’s ouster from the show.

Unlike practically all bloggers out there writing on the topic, who invariably introduce their posts with the words, “I’ve never seen the show…”, I am a regular viewer, and I thoroughly enjoy it. It does not really follow the same pattern as other so-called “reality” programs; it is far more like a regular sit-com, and, although Duck Dynasty is obviously scripted, the cast members reveal an extraordinary amount of natural comedic talent which, blended with their sincere religious faith and unfeigned loyalty to family and friends, portrays a world that is simple, yet delightful, and infinitely to be preferred to the cynical, oh-so-sophisticated, post-modernist hell depicted in the brain poison that constitutes so much of our TV fare.

Happy Feet Friday

Ray Anthony and his orchestra swing out with a brassy boogie.

Chuck Norris wants you to have a Merry Christmas

So, you'd better have a merry Christmas.

Today's Chuck Norris fact: Chuck Norris can pass an eye exam...blindfolded.

What did we do before Photoshop?

Pajama Boy's new career as the face of Obamunism.

Take a walk with me now down memory lane...

Readers of Tim Blair's great independent blog will recollect Tim's many trenchant observations and witty comments concerning one Phillip Adams, a left-wing crackpot who looks a bit like Santa Claus's estranged ugly brother. Friend, commenter and blogger, Col. Milquetoast - who, I am reliably informed, resembles the dashing young Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. - rekindles memories of the old coot with this post, in which the colonel captures Adams' apoplectic rage over the NRA (or, as Adams curiously refers to it, the "NRMA").


Phillip Adams: Your Sherpa guide to American terrorists.

Is that supposed to be a blogger? (You know, pajamas and all)

The ObamaCare marketing campaign has fully embraced the Weird with its latest ad, featuring a geeky-looking fellow wearing a “onesie”, sipping hot chocolate.



The response in the dextrosphere has been…well, not exactly subdued.

P.S. This guy is being referred to all over the place as a "hipster". When did hipsters start looking like bookish Pee Wee Hermans? I remember when hipsters looked like this...



and like this...



and, especially, like this...



So, in the current cultural/aesthetic environment, is this now supposed to be a "babe"?



Update: For those who don't know, the woman in the picture is Rosie O'Donnell: former talk show host, terrible actress, and noted 9/11 truther.

American idolatry

"Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation." - Psalm 146, 3

How stupid do they think we are?

Perhaps a more pertinent question is how stupid are we? Guess we’ll find out when election time rolls around.

From the Department of People With Too Much Time On Their Hands

Another milestone on the road to the collapse of civilization: feminist programming languages.

H/T: Captain Heinrichs

When giants walked abroad

Aye, we do, Maggie, we do.

H/T: Col. Milquetoast

Joe Biden saves woman from choking to death

I mean, that's what this is about, right? The Heimlich maneuver?

Joan Fontaine, RIP

And another of Hollywood's notables has passed: Joan Fontaine died Sunday at the age of 96.

Update: Good lord! Eleanor Parker died last week, too.

Monday movie

Intense cop Robert Ryan gets carried away in On Dangerous Ground.

How long, O Lord?

It's all about Obama. Everywhere, 24/7.

They never seem to learn

Don't mess with Gunny.

Paco Enterprises turns down buy-out offer

You've probably heard about the ongoing consolidation of various conservative blogs under the corporate umbrella of Salem Communications. Paco Enterprises - proud of its independence, and scornful of Salem's offer of a dollar-fifty and two box tops - will continue with no change in ownership.

Peter O'Toole - RIP

Peter O'Toole has died, at age 81.

He is probably best known for his depiction of T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia, and he was certainly great in that role; however, I will always like him best as the washed-up Errol-Flynn-type character in My Favorite Year.

Sunday funnies

(Via Savage Chickens)

Looks like the pool guy missed something.

At the top of every liberal's Christmas list.

The internet: now with transistors!

Only the police should have guns.

Wronwright spotted?

Assortment

A fool Alan Grayson and his money are soon parted (it's like liberalism, Alan; if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is).

Oh, man, if only it didn't get so cold there in the winter.

You mean, like influenza? "Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio went down to Washington, D.C. today to meet with President Barack Obama, emerging emboldened that a 'progressive movement' was sweeping the nation."

Sheesh! Am I going to have to retire to Aruba?

What's wrong with wallet-sized photos (or, if available, mug shots)?

Yeah, like nobody could tell: "Susan Sarandon Admits She Gets Stoned Before Awards Shows".

Somehow, I missed Frank Sinatra's birthday; fortunately, Bob Belvedere didn't.

Fishersville Mike brings the cold, hard truth.

The motto of San Francisco liberals: Nancy Pelosi may be a moron, but she's our moron!

It's a little late for John Boehner to be worrying about his legacy, isn't it?

The FCC: another federal agency that's been weaponized by the Obama administration.

Are you one of those people who have trouble backing their car out of the driveway or a parking space? Paco Motors has a solution for you!

Hypocrisy

Scratch a liberal, find a totalitarian.

David Brooks and most other so-called liberals obviously wouldn’t want a dictator who looks like this…



But they’d be just fine with one who looks like this…



Or, to put it more precisely, many liberals would gladly shred the constitution today if they believed it would lead to the imposition of their ideology tomorrow. Democrats, and the Republicans who pimp for them , view the citizenry in almost the same way that the hog drover views his swine: as animate, but not particularly bright, creatures that must be herded and managed. Individual freedom, as a thing having value in and of itself, has no special place in the worldview of either Democrat or swineherd as each respectively contemplates his “charges”.

We don’t need a man on a white horse, and we don’t need a Prussian bureaucracy. We need an independent, free-spirited populace that is willing to assert its natural rights and send the government back to the servants’ hall. The liberal vision resembles nothing so much as a giant low-security prison, and the closer we get to the fruition of that vision, the more likely that the level of security will eventually rise to include razor wire and watch towers, at least for those who resist being treated like human livestock.

Happy Feet Friday

Ella Fitzgerald sings her version of a hugely popular 1940s tune, The Five O’Clock Whistle.

The TSA

Keeping the skies safe from the criminal exploits of Rooster Monkburn, the monkey sock puppet.

Things stumbled across while looking for something else

Quite by accident, I came across these clips about a Kiwi in the French Foreign Legion. Interesting stuff.

Part 1


Part 2

I can dream, can't I?

Love this headline over at Doug Ross: "Once the employer mandate kicks in they'll be hunting Democrats with dogs in this country".

Monday movie

Spencer Tracy’s not taking any guff off of Ernest Borgnine in this scene from Bad Day at Black Rock.

From the shelves of the Paco library

I am delighted to finally have the opportunity to write about a book published by someone I actually know. Marilyn Peck, an Australian artist and poet, and a long-time friend of Paco Enterprises, has written her first novel, The Dragon Bone Consortium. Part detective story, part international thriller and part treasure hunt, the book is a thumping good read, in which Marilyn picks up the threads of a real life mystery - the disappearance of the fossilized remains of Peking Man - and weaves a yarn about the ultimate recovery of the missing bones, and the price in human lives placed on their return to China by a violent and increasingly unbalanced emissary of the Chinese government.

In the 1920s, a series of excavations initiated at Dragon Bone Hill, near Beijing (f/k/a Peking), uncovered the 750,000-year-old remains of an early hominid, dubbed Peking Man. It was one of the most exciting paleontological finds in history; however, although casts were made of the bones, the original specimens vanished in 1941 during the Japanese invasion and occupation, and have never been recovered.

The novel opens 65 years later. An elderly Chinese couple, Harry and Jenny Han, own and operate a native plant nursery on the central coast of Queensland, Australia. One day, Harry stumbles across some strangers who are poking about a remote section of the property. He goes missing, and his wife suddenly makes a decision to sell the nursery at auction. Their grandchild, Suzy, who was raised by the Hans, is living in Sydney and is baffled by the news that her grandmother wants to sell the nursery. Her puzzlement turns to shock when she finds out that, after the auction has taken place (the property has mysteriously sold for much more than its appraised value), her grandmother has died. It is quickly discovered that she was murdered.

Thus begins a rapid-paced plot encompassing the search for Harry Han and his wife's murderer, the startling connection between Harry and Jenny and the Peking Man remains, and the fulfillment of a decades-old mission, all against the background of rival "treasure" hunters and their deadly machinations. There are several interesting sub-plots - the blossoming love affair between Suzy Han and Mike Kavafis, the manager of the nursery; the curious involvement of an American CIA operative; a corrupt local policeman's involvement in the illicit drug trade - that contribute to making this novel an enthralling page-turner. And ominously looming over all is the villainous Ho Ah-shek, an insanely ambitious agent of the Chinese government whose single-minded determination to acquire all the glory of returning the fossils to their original home places him at the epicenter of a storm of violence and murder.

The Dragon Bone Consortium is an auspicious beginning to Marilyn Peck's career as a novelist, and it has left me hungering for more. Highly recommended (and available through Amazon).

Sunday funnies

Loctite glue: nothing if not versatile.

Ten worst first times.

Happy Zak is looking for investors (H/T: Captain Heinrichs).

Great new ObamaCare ad.

You really can't judge a book by its cover.

If you're having trouble meeting new people, maybe you need to be more, er, creative.

Bear-proof.

ObamaCare: a game the whole family can (and will) play.

Caring for humans: a cat’s guide.

Just because

A 1937 LaSalle.

Mexicans take up arms in defense of their communities

When government can't protect people from the criminal element (or, worse, is in cahoots with it), you get vigilantism.

Happy Feet Friday

Freddie Slack dishes out Pig-Foot Pete.

"Why good people should be armed"

Josie the Outlaw makes an articulate case for the right to bear arms.



H/T: Moonbattery.

It's coming

How long before New York City starts to resemble a set from Blade Runner? (Or, for that matter, Escape From New York?)

Update: Not too long, apparently.

A little background on the Democrats and their support for civil rights

From Grouchy Old Cripple.

H/T: Captain Heinrichs

Well, that's different

2,000 dead mice, laced with acetaminophen and wearing little parachutes, have been airdropped on Guam in order to kill snakes.

So, let me make a mental note for the next time I go hiking: carry a bottle of Tylenol.

Cuba non-libre

Michael Totten has written a fine essay on his trip to Cuba. Well worth a read.

Liberal porn

Chris Matthews has interviewed President Obama. The thing airs Thursday, if you can stand it.

Of course, I could be wrong in my expectations. Matthews may have gone after the preshizzle with fangs bared and claws extended. But I'm thinking it's more likely that the session will resemble a commercial for KY jelly.

If nothing else, socialism sure produces a lot of hilarious, inadvertent symbolism

As President Maduro of Venezuela went on television to outline the latest steps he's preparing to take in order to consolidate socialism, the country was hit by major power outages.


"Sabotage!"

Obama likes to think he's cool...

...but does he have his own band, like Canada's PM, Stephen Harper?

H/T: Captain Heinrichs

A lean, mean idea machine

The Academy of Lagado Huffington Post has some right smart idears they'd like fer us to ponder.


A resident scholar at the Huffington Post attempts to extract a functioning government healthcare web site from cucumbers.

Next thing you know, they'll be getting the vote

“New York lawsuit seeks ‘legal personhood’ for chimpanzees”.

And if they do get the vote, stand by for Democrats to push for massive banana subsidies.

Monday movie

Henry Fonda mentors a young lawman in The Tin Star.

Sunday funnies

As an efficiency measure, all employees of Paco Enterprises are equipped with one of these.

Wild man TimT tries his hand at brewing Sumerian ale.

Swampy’s granddaughter appears to express skepticism over the efficacy of ObamaCare.

You probably won’t see this headline again any time soon: “Two men save shark from choking on moose”.

Highly entertaining, but, alas, not very convincing, alibi: "Man stole delivery truck because he was 'running from zombies'".

Crime-solving “selfies”.

One of the hallmarks of radio comedy in the 1940s was the mock antipathy that existed between comedians Jack Benny and Fred Allen. They also occasionally appeared on screen together. In the following clip from the 1944 movie, It’s in the Bag, Fred Allen poses as the president of the Nutley, New Jersey chapter of the Jack Benny fan club, in an effort to con Benny into giving him a particular chair that may contain a fortune hidden in the seat.

Presidential

Obama, on the implosion of his signature program: "We're evaluating why it is exactly that I didn't know soon enough that it wasn't going to work the way it needed to." (H/T: Hot Air)

Well, here's my evaluation, chief. I suspect it's because you had zero interest in the details. You got your legislation passed, and just assumed that the Health Care Fairy would take care of the actual work. Now, Valerie Jarrett will say that that kind of thing frequently happens to geniuses, for whom life, in spite of its variety and complexity, simply doesn't provide enough stimulation for their giant, but apparently numb, brains.

Me? I just think you're an arrogant, lazy dumbass.

State of the Union

H/T: Moonbattery.

Dear Pope Francis

Far be it from me, a devout Catholic, to teach you your job, but, before joining the conga line of pontiffs who have criticized capitalism, might it not have been advisable to have a chat with, say, Thomas Sowell? Capitalism – to be more precise, free enterprise – did not create poverty, but has lifted untold millions of people out of it. Where, in the whole wide world, are we seeing the emergence of a “new tyranny” of “unfettered capitalism”? Certainly not in the United States, where an enthusiastic booster of smiley-faced socialism presides over a government that has been trying to assert control over a huge sector of the economy (health care), with deplorable results for the distinctly non-wealthy. And what to make of the “Great Society” (American style), which has spent enormous sums of money on welfare programs that have wound up trapping generations of families in a vicious cycle of hopeless dependency, subjecting them to increasingly destructive social pathologies and making them easy prey for the parasites who play on their desperation in order to obtain power and wealth?

Is mass starvation in North Korea the result of capitalism? How about the grinding poverty among the vast majority of people who are not members of the ruling class in Cuba? In Argentina, where Your Holiness spent many years working selflessly to draw attention to the needs of the poor, is the problem free enterprise, or is it the collusion of economic oligarchs – crony capitalists, we call them in the United States – with a long series of corrupt governments in an attempt to unfairly divide up the nation’s wealth? And the teeming poor of the Middle East clearly are not providing foot soldiers for terrorist movements out of a fanatical allegiance to the principles of Adam Smith.

I do not doubt your pity and your love for the poor, and in this you are a living admonishment to all of us who, as individuals, can do more to assist those who are less fortunate than ourselves. However, with respect, I would posit that, to single out for condemnation the one form of economic organization that has done more than any other, not only to feed and clothe the poor, but to offer so many of them the opportunity for permanently raising themselves from poverty, is a pastoral error that grows increasingly tedious in its repetition.

While we're at it, why don't we just cut the constitution into little strips and roll a bunch of joints?

A history professor argues that Obama should be permitted to run for a third term.

Happy Feet Friday

Peggy Lee makes every day a good day.

One-half of America's most revolting couple opines

Kanye West, the wealthy (and, judging from the transcript at the link, semi-literate) rapper, thinks Obama's problems stem from the fact that he doesn't have the connections Jews and oil barons do.

There's really only one thing to say...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Special greetings from the Paco Command Center to Paquistas everywhere. It's a good day to take stock and reflect on our blessings, for we all have much to be grateful for (me, I'm grateful for, among other things, that delicious turkey I'm going to eat today).

"Son of Promise, Child of Hope"

Father of lies, left-wing dope.

So, does Kerry have a deal or not?

"Iranian officials say that the White House is misleading the public about the details of an interim nuclear agreement reached over the weekend in Geneva."

We all know the Gore Effect as it applies to the climate…

…you know: the Great Warm-monger visits, say, Miami, and it snows for the first time in 40 years. Well, Big Al has now converted to veganism, so don’t be surprised if we see plagues of insecticide-resistant locusts and nematodes, strains of ineradicable green bean rust, and epidemic tomato blight.

Oh, hold on a minute…

Hey, Al, your lunch is here!

Obama playing the “knockout game” with Israel

Robert Avrech is right on the money: “He’s far more concerned about where Jews build apartments than about Iran building nuclear bombs.”

More from Charles Krauthammer on the overall folly of the Iranian deal, and, via John Hinderacker at Power Line, some very inconvenient facts about the uranium enrichment process.

For what we're about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful

So, Obama wants us to talk up his health care program with family over Thanksgiving dinner.

No need to worry, chief! Every time my father or mother or brother gets on the phone, I get an earful about what a total fraud ObamaCare is, what a sickening example of government overreach, what a singular instance of hubris the whole thing represents. Believe me, I doubt we'll be talking about anything else (unless your deal with Iran comes up; that might excite some comment among my strongly pro-Israel kinfolk).

Update: More from Bryan Preston.

Celebrating the abolition of the carbon tax

An Australian family has set a Guinness World Record for most Christmas lights on a residential property.

Benny Hill tried to tell us about ObamaCare a long time ago

One level of care for the rich and the ruling class, another level for everybody else.

H/T: Captain Heinrichs

Governor-elect Lowlife off to a great start

Terry McAuliffe has appointed a fan of tire-slashing to be Secretary of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The McAuliffe administration promises to be one of the most corrupt in Virginia history. Stay tuned.

Why I wouldn't live in D.C. (reason # 397)

The city's gun owners - the city's legal gun owners - are about to become felons if they don't come in and get fingerprinted and have their weapons registered.

If for no other reason than to keep it safe, I think the U.S. constitution ought to be kept somewhere else. Maybe Texas.

I guess psychopaths are wherever you find them

Neuroscientist James Fallon's unnerving discovery.

H/T: Hot Air

Monday movie

Charles Bronson is a bare-knuckle fighter, and James Coburn is his promoter, in Hard Times.

Sunday funnies

I don't know much about art, but I know what stinks.

U.S./Canadian border incidents.

This item has wronwright written all over it.

An instance of taking things far too literally.

Confirmation: there's no need to reinvent the wheel.

Bizarre Coca-Cola advertisement at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Two elderly English actors reenact a YouTube comment fight between Justin Bieber fans (caution: language alert). H/T: The Laughing Squid.

Ok, zero tolerance policies at schools are now really getting out of hand.

Assortment

Obama: approaching a Caligula-like level of stupidity.

"Believe it".

Ed Driscoll discovers a sector of the work force that likes ObamaCare.

Looking in vain for AmTrack's Tea Party Tour (H/T: Captain Heinrichs).

Rudolph the red-nosed...Nazi?

I don't eat nuthin' that don't walk on dry land, but if you like fish, you might want to take a look at this list before ordering your next surf 'n turf.

Ten scary movies based on true stories.

Old, and still unsolved, riddle.

"Honest, officer, I didn't know it was weed!"

The cricket choir

One of the most amazing things I've come across recently.

H/T: Instapundit

Why, no, I don't eat cheese

And I'm certainly not going to start now.

Happy Feet Friday

Chuy Reyes and his orchestra mix some boogie and some rhumba in this old soundie.

Watering the tree of tyranny

Via Moonbattery.

Crazy Ben’s Auto Sales and Quantitative Ease-A-Rama

From Zero Hedge:

At one point during the evening, when pressed about whether his Quantitative Easing program was good for Wall Street at the expense of Main Street, [Fed chairman Ben Bernanke] flat out denied it, saying that such a premise is "simply not true".

He defended his printing $85 billion per month, suggesting that fixing interest rates at zero is beneficial for society because, among other things, it allows people to 'buy cars'.

”Beneficial for society”. Unless, I suppose, you’re retired and living on a fixed income and getting killed by artificially low returns on your interest-bearing investments, in which case you probably won’t be able to buy a car. Well, you retirees need to be walking more, anyhow. It’s good for you.

But if you really insist on getting some wheels, may I suggest the services of Premium Automotive Carriages Online? Check out this week’s special deal: a 1948 Packard sedan!



One legitimate owner - a little old lady who only drove the car on Sundays to take cigarettes to her son at the, um, license-plate factory. Interesting, er, two-tone paint job. Accelerates well going down hills. Will throw in new paper floor mats, cunningly designed to look just like sections of the Washington Post (Class!) Don’t miss out on this chance to own a piece of automotive history. Why, with a can of Turtle wax and a little elbow grease, she’ll look like this in no time at all…

Folie de grandeur

Valerie Jarrett, the power behind Obama’s shaky throne, has been described in official talking points as “an incredibly kind, caring and thoughtful person . . . the perfect combination of smart, savvy, and innovative,” with “an enormous capacity for both empathy and sympathy.”

So, how in the world did former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel ever come to think of her (and senior aid Peter Rouse) as bearing a resemblance to “Saddam Hussein’s maniacal sons, Uday and Qusay”?

Andrew Stiles at NRO paints a fascinating portrait of Jarrett in this post. She is a nasty piece of work, indeed, and one wonders if the preshizzle’s strange dependence on her isn’t the result of some unresolved “mommy issues”. On the other hand, maybe he’s simply being loyal to someone who has unstintingly shared his view of his own awesomeness (surely, the circle of such people is now contracting faster than a chiraptophobe’s sphincter encountering a cold endoscope).

Totally unrelated update: C’mon, Barry, say it. Say the two words, “under God”. You’re just quoting Abraham Lincoln, after all. It’s not as if anybody would ever think that that’s something you’d come up with. I mean, you took an oath to defend the constitution, and we know you don’t believe in that, so what’s the big deal? You’re not gonna go poof! in a cloud of smoke, or turn into a frog or anything. You could even make air quotes with your fingers when you say it. Just say the words.

Colorado health care exchange: success!

"Shane Smith, of Fort Collins, says his dog Baxter received a letter informing him that a health insurance account had been opened in his name through Connect for Health Colorado."

Yes, but can he keep his veterinarian?

Dumbass comment of the week

There’s no way I can make a regular series out of this category, because it’s such a target-rich environment that it’s difficult to choose from among the many potential entries. But sometimes a comment or other public utterance is such a perfect example of pristine, unadulterated, lab quality imbecility that it needs to be singled out, isolated and studied for the uniquely valuable insights it offers into the workings of the typical liberal “mind”. For instance, take Matt Yglesias. Please.

Rinardman, in the comments:

How many people have died using HealthCare.gov?

Ummm...they don't even know how many have tried using HealthCare.gov!

Karl Rove doesn’t want us voting for unelectable Tea Party candidates

He wants us to vote for unelectable establishment candidates.

John Kerry’s foreign policy world view

As imagined by friend and frequent commenter Captain Heinrichs.

Math is hard!

The White House: home of the whopper.

"[W]e’ve seen more than 100 million Americans already successfully enroll in the new insurance plans."

Update: Yeah, math is hard. But you can always fake it.

In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington.

The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated.

And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it.

ObamaCare

Not just a lie; a stupendously brazen, enormous lie, a lie that is positively criminal in its intent and in the extent of its deception. Andrew McCarthy at NRO:

So, while the president has been telling us that, under the vaunted grandfathering provision, all Americans who like their health-insurance plans will be able to keep them, “period,” his administration has been representing in federal court that most health plans would lose their “grandfather status” by the end of this year. Not just the “5 percent” of individual-market consumers, but close to all consumers — including well over 100 million American workers who get coverage through their jobs — have been expected by the president swiftly to “transition to the requirements under the [Obamacare] regulations.” That is, their health-insurance plans would be eliminated. They would be forced into Obamacare-compliant plans, with all the prohibitive price hikes and coercive mandates that “transition” portends.

This president and his administration (and the zombies who make up elected Democratic officialdom at the national level) have perpetuated more frauds against the American people than all other U.S. administrations, combined, in my lifetime – perhaps in our entire history. And we’ve got three more years of floundering liberal fascism? The only upside, I suppose, is the “floundering” part. It’s rather as if Mussolini had taken over and the trains not only began running slower than ever, but customers had to pay three times their previous fares, and the trains started jumping the tracks and plunging into gorges with tedious regularity. If there’s even the tiniest, residual particle of integrity left among Democratic senators and congressmen – and I’d not care to place a bet on those kind of odds – or, more realistically, if a few still have the will to self-preservation, then perhaps there may exist a remote, outside chance that they will initiate a process under which the siren song of an imperial presidency will be silenced, and truly bipartisan action can be taken to rescue America from Obama’s wet ideological dreams. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long, dreary three years.

And, no, I’m not holding my breath.

Update: The value of Obama's promises (lifted from Legal Insurrection)...

Monday movie

Cary Grant teases soon-to-be ex-wife Irene Dunne about her new beau.

Maybe Barry can get his money back

"Actor Was Hired to Make Obama Look Presidential – A Decade Before He Was Elected".

ObamaCare: another analogy

Jonah, in the comments of a previous post, says ObamaCare is more like this.

Sunday funnies

The candidates for this epithet are too numerous to mention here, but feel free to list your leading contenders in the comments section.

The newest sport? Competitive laughing.

Robots are becoming more human all the time: "Robot Reportedly Commits Suicide After Becoming Fed Up With Doing Housework".

"What are you doin' on my turf, punk?"

The Tea Party conspiracy!

People and Democrats; there's a difference.

Political blight

How is it that leftists manage to infest so many lovely places? An outright socialist has won election to Seattle's city council.

Update: All things considered, I guess she's sorta right-wing for Seattle (link courtesy of JeffS).

Happy Feet Friday

Composer, pianist and superlative entertainer Fats Waller performs Honeysuckle Rose in this old soundie.

Dumbass comment of the week

From that Toure clown at MSNBC.

The Walla Walla Tea Party Patriots are bringing it!

Here's a blog that's trying to make the letter-writing campaign happen (complete with valuable suggestions).

Ed Driscoll has a useful list of U.S. senators who voted for ObamaCare and who happen to be up for re-election next year.

So, this ObamaCare thing

It's kind of like this, right?

You got greedy, Charlie

"Florida Man Accused of Impersonating Cop for Discounted Doughnuts".

Let 'em know

A friend of mine at work has what I think is a good idea. How about if everyone in the country who's lost their health insurance due to ObamaCare mails a hard copy of the cancellation notice to President Barack Obama, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC? Maybe we could get some video of a convoy of U.S. Mail trucks delivering the things? Or some inside shots of the letters being dumped on the president's desk (reminiscent of that famous scene from Miracle on 34th St., where the bailiffs drag a dozen or so bags of letters to Santa Claus into the courtroom and dump them on the judges bench)?

I'd expand the idea in a way that I think might have more impact: every person who lost insurance coverage should mail a hard copy of the cancellation notice to his or her senator - especially if their senators are Democrats up for reelection next year. Hell, they should go ahead and send copies to their congressmen and governors, too.

If you like the ideas, spread 'em around.

Jeb, I suggest you lie down until the feeling goes away

“Jeb Bush is giving more serious consideration to getting in the race”.

Grassroots conservatives certainly have their work cut out for them. They have to fight against the Democrats, the Democrats’ propaganda arm (known as the “news media”), RINOs within the GOP, and the RINOs’ fat-cat donors, who are perfectly content with the government/big business combine.

But we do have numbers on our side – maybe not a majority, yet, but sufficient to make a revolution, I should think. Certainly a large enough number to stymie the presidential aspirations of Jeb Bush, who's basically just a lame-chop slathered with fail sauce* (or, for that matter, a careerist blowhard like Chris Christie).

*Not my own, but a line borrowed from the TV program, Psych. Can’t improve on perfection.

ObamaCareless

How…interesting. The project manager for the health care web site didn’t become aware of the ominous security threats to the system, and the estimated fix dates (“mid-2014 and early 2015”), until he was handed a memo at a congressional hearing written by one of his own subordinates.

Meanwhile, Bill Clinton gives wife Hillary a boost in her run for the presidency by helping to differentiate her from President Jug Head takes the high road and says that people should, indeed, be able to keep their insurance plans if they want to, even if the law has to be changed.

I cannot recall seeing, in my lifetime, a law that was so fundamentally idiotic in concept and so utterly bungled in implementation. This is yet another lesson in the inherent incompetence and destructiveness of big government (which I presume will go unheeded by vast numbers of the populace, the same as all the previous lessons).

Update: And the marketing? Class with a capital ‘K’.

Now he’s sorry

Andrew Huszar, the co-ordinator of the Fed’s initial plunge into “Quantitative Easing”, apologizes.

And the impact? Even by the Fed's sunniest calculations, aggressive QE over five years has generated only a few percentage points of U.S. growth. By contrast, experts outside the Fed, such as Mohammed El Erian at the Pimco investment firm, suggest that the Fed may have created and spent over $4 trillion for a total return of as little as 0.25% of GDP (i.e., a mere $40 billion bump in U.S. economic output). Both of those estimates indicate that QE isn't really working.

Unless you're Wall Street. Having racked up hundreds of billions of dollars in opaque Fed subsidies, U.S. banks have seen their collective stock price triple since March 2009. The biggest ones have only become more of a cartel: 0.2% of them now control more than 70% of the U.S. bank assets.

As for the rest of America, good luck. Because QE was relentlessly pumping money into the financial markets during the past five years, it killed the urgency for Washington to confront a real crisis: that of a structurally unsound U.S. economy.

Oh, so you mean, like, you can’t use monetary policy to fix what are really fiscal problems? I’ve thought that for a long time, and I’m not even a big shot Wall Street investment banker. And the notion that the big banks are the tail wagging the Fed dog is hardly a revelation to anyone who’s been paying attention.

Hey, I’m not surprised

One of the inevitable consequences of Terry McAuliffe’s victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race.

H/T: Mrs. Paco

The State Department still can't assess risk

Or is indifferent to it as long as it doesn't endanger their own Washington-based backsides.

Smitty reports on the shameful refusal of the State Department to grant visas to Afghan interpreters who have worked with the U.S. military in the war against the Taliban.

God bless our veterans

Monday movie

Humphrey Bogart has a conversation with James Stephenson about Napoleon in this scene from King of the Underworld.

Dangerous waters

Hot wheels

Spotted outside the supermarket today, a 1953 Lincoln Capri (click images to enlarge).





Suh-weet!

Sunday funnies

A moment of unwitting transparency from Terry McAuliffe. (H/T: Captain Heinrichs).

Japan's urban legends.

The old axiom is that ignorance of the law is no excuse. I dunno. Have you ever heard of these?

Electronic backpacks for cockroaches? Sure, why not.

There are certain things Ron Swanson won't do, even for love.

The science of seating priorities in Parisian restaurants.

The, er, eloquent Mel Blanc.

Yeah, that’s a good idea

Obama has apparently decided to “pivot” again. What better way to distract public attention from the ObamaCare disaster than to create another foreign policy crisis? A two-fer, actually, because he gets to piss off Israel for the umpteenth time.

Only cops should have guns (Part CCXL)

A sniper rifle and an M-16 were pinched from an FBI vehicle in Massachusetts.

Way to watch, guys!

Update: The guns were stolen by a 16-year-old boy. The $20,000 reward is being paid out to an unnamed resident of the town where the guns were stolen.

Obama apologizes

Sort of.

Well, I suppose we should take the high road and give him the benefit of the doubt, so....


"Apology accepted."

Happy Feet Friday

Even the Royal Navy was hep to the jive in 1945.

Rattlin’ the cage of the governor-elect

Well, well, looky here…


These appear to be two brand spanking new 30-round, Ruger factory magazines for a Mini-14 rifle!

And what’s that over yonder?


Wooooooee! Two more 30-round magazines for the Mini-14, also new, from the factory.

Now, let’s see, what have we here?


Four new, 20-round magazines (factory fresh!) for the same gun.

So, if I’m doin’ my arithmetic right, this looks like an awesome, easy-to-carry, 200 round aggregate capacity of pure .223 joy!

Can’t touch these, Terry! Oh, I know you think you can, or you think you’ll soon be able to, but it ain’t happenin’, so you just put that thought right out of what I’ll call, for lack of a better word, your “mind”. Forget all about it. That’s what he ought to do, ain’t it boys? Forget the whole thing?


“Damn straight, Cap’n Paco!”

The Proctology Squad

Looks like anal probing by cops is reaching epidemic proportions in New Mexico.

New Mexico’s finest: putting the “ass” back in harassment.

Old state motto: Land of enchantment.

New state motto: Bend over and grab your ankles, punk!

In the wake of the ObamaCare disaster…

…I think a lot of Democrats are feeling like this guy.

Order up!

H/T: Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley...

Slow Joe Strikes Again

"Biden calls wrong person to congratulate election victory".


"Ok, so, let me get this straight. You're not Marty Walsh, but another guy with the same name?"

H/T: Mrs. Paco

The song remains the same

George Neumayr at The American Spectator blows up the argument that “moderates” like Chris Christie are the key to Republican success at the national level. The short article is almost too good to excerpt, but I can’t resist nabbing this gem:

Like Schwarzenegger, Christie is a useful idiot for the Democrats—a needy, politically correct, ruling-class Republican who is trending liberal on everything from “climate change” to gay marriage to size-of-government issues. Christie loves the liberal limelight—a trait that will only intensify over time. The Democrats know a Trojan Horse when they see one.

Precisely. The successful defense of our constitutional liberties is not ensured simply by having a bunch of elected officials with an ‘R’ affixed to their names. Blue Republicans don’t do anything but enable constitutionalists to lose more slowly (if even that), and a GOP that merely competes with the Democratic Party in the herding and pillaging of the citizenry is worse than useless.

A thing of beauty

From Tim Blair.

Thank you for your patience

Via Moonbattery

Terry McLowlife has won in Virginia

Cuccinelli fought the Clintonian bagman to a close finish, but I reckon Virginia now has a preponderance of liberals and fools (there is considerable overlap), so, in the end, this proved to be just too much for the Republican (that, and the candidacy of a false Libertarian who drained away votes, the majority of which would probably have gone to Cuccinelli. By the way, does the Libertarian Party serve any function other than to ensure the victory of the most left-wing candidate in close elections? Just askin'...)

I predict that McLowlife has reached the peak of his popularity already, and I look forward to the coming death spiral of his political career - the final act of destruction possibly occurring in a federal courtroom. Meanwhile, the words emblazoned on the banner of this blog will be a light unto my path, as I deal out satire and sarcasm on all sides in what is now, truly, Occupied Virginia.

The myth of Hillary Clinton’s inevitability

Frank Bruni – in the pages of the New York Times, yet! – shows why Hillary is not the unstoppable Canklenaut everybody seems to assume she is. A sample:

And what would the argument for a Hillary presidency be? Something interesting happens when you ask Democrats why her in 2016. They say that it’s time for a woman, that she’ll raise oodles of dough, that other potentially strong candidates won’t dare take her on. The answers are about the process more than the person or any vision she has for the country. There’s no poetry in them. That’s not good.

Well, there’s really not much of anything poetic about an ageing government functionary whose pursuit of power resembles nothing so much as a junkie trying to score his next meth hit.

Elsewhere, the obnoxiousness of Democrats, as a class, just keeps getting worse. Behold Eric Schneiderman, New York’s Attorney General, and as vile a specimen of self-seeking, corrupt political ladder-climber as I’ve seen in a while. As the article at the link shows, however, he may well have jumped the shark in taking on Donald Trump.

Robert Sarvis, Judas goat

As Ace says, it’s probably too late for this news to make a difference now, but the so-called Libertarian candidate for governor in Virginia, Robert Sarvis, received his largest campaign contributions from a guy who was a big bundler for Obama.

A major Democratic Party benefactor and Obama campaign bundler helped pay for professional petition circulators responsible for getting Virginia Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Robert C. Sarvis on the ballot — a move that could split conservative votes in a tight race.

Campaign finance records show the Libertarian Booster PAC has made the largest independent contribution to Sarvis’ campaign, helping to pay for professional petition circulators who collected signatures necessary to get Sarvis’ name on Tuesday’s statewide ballot.

Austin, Texas, software billionaire Joe Liemandt is the Libertarian Booster PAC’s major benefactor. He’s also a top bundler for President Barack Obama. This revelation comes as Virginia voters head to the polls Tuesday in an election where some observers say the third-party gubernatorial candidate could be a spoiler for Republican Ken Cuccinelli.